rack stood up—tall, muscular, lean, with deep hollows under his cheekbones, red-grey hair falling over his forehead under the visor of his cap. his short leather jacket was thrown over his shoulders like a cloak. his narrow features were grey and cold, the mouth a straight, hard line. he said, "that's what you want us to tell the vermin, isn't it, mr. harkway?"
harkway seemed to settle himself like a boxer. he said clearly, "the intelligent races of the galaxy are not devils and do not want our souls, mr. rack."
rack ignored the "mr." he said, "but they'd want certain assurances from us, in return for their help, wouldn't they, mr. harkway?"
"certainly," said harkway. "assurances that no sane man would refuse them. assurances, for example, that there would be no repetition of the altair incident—when a handful of maniacs in two ships murdered thousands of peaceful galactic citizens without the slightest provocation. perhaps you remember that, mr. rack; perhaps you were there."
"i was there," said rack casually. "about five hundred thousand vermin were squashed. we would have done a better job, but we ran out of supplies. some day we'll exterminate them all, and then there'll be a universe fit for men to live in. meanwhile—" he glanced at the audience—"we're going to build. we're building now. not with the vermin's permission, under the vermin's eye. in secret. on a planet they'll never find until our ships spurt out from it like milt from a fish. and when that day comes, we'll squash them down to the last tentacle and the last claw."
"are you finished?" asked harkway. he was quivering with controlled rage.
"yes, i'm finished," said rack wearily. "so are you. you're a traitor, harkway, the most miserable kind of a crawling, dirt-eating traitor the human race ever produced. get down off the platform."
harkway said to the audience, "i came here to try to persuade you to my way of thinking—to ask you to consider the arguments and decide for yourselves. this man wants to settle the question by prejudice and force. which of us is best entitled to the name 'human?' if you listen to him, can you blame the niori if they decide to end even this tiny foothold they've given you on their planet? would you live in a universe drenched with blood?"
rack said quietly, "monk."
the squat man stood up, smiling. he took a clasp knife out of his pocket, opened it, and started up the side of the room.
in the dead stillness, another voice said, "no!"
it was, cudyk saw with shock, tom de grasse. the youngster was up, moving past rack—who made no move to stop him, did not even change expression—past the squat man, turning a yard beyond, almost at the front of the room. his square, almost childish face was tight with strain. there was a pistol in one big hand.
cudyk felt something awaken in him which blossomed only at moments like this, when one of his fellow men did something particularly puzzling: the root, slain but still quasi-living, of the thing that had once been his central drive and his trademark in the world—his insatiable, probing, warmly intelligent curiosity about the motives of men.
on the surface, this action of de grasse's was baldly impossible. he was committed to rack's cause twice over, by conviction and by the shearing away of every other tie; and still more important, he worshipped rack himself with the devotion that only fanatics can inspire. it was as if peter had defied christ.
the three men stood motionless for what seemed a long time. monk, halted with his weight on one foot, faced de grasse with his knife hand slightly extended, thumb on the blade. he was visibly tense, waiting for a word from rack. but rack stood as if he had forgotten time and space, staring bemused over monk's shoulder at de grasse. the fourth man, spider—bones and gristle, with a corpse-growth of grey-white hair—stood up slowly. rack put a hand on his shoulder and pressed him down again.
cudyk thought: kathy burgess.
it was the only answer. de grasse knew, of course, everything that had passed between harkway and the girl. there was no privacy worth mentioning in the quarter. pressed in this narrow ghetto, every man swam in the effluvium of every other man's emotions. and de grasse was willing, apparently, to give up everything that mattered to him, to save kathy burgess pain.
it said something for the breed, cudyk thought—not enough, never enough, for you saw it only in pinpoint flashes, the noble individual who was a part of the bestial mob—but a light in the darkness, nevertheless.
finally rack spoke. "you, tom?"
the youngster's eyes showed sudden pain. but he said, "i mean it, captain."
there was a slow movement out from that side of the room, men inching away, crowding against their neighbors.
rack was still looking past monk's shoulder, into de grasse's face. he said:
"all right."
he turned, still wearing the same frozen expression, and walked down the side of the room, toward the exit. monk threw a glance of pure incredulity over his shoulder, glanced back at de grasse, and then followed. spider scrambled after.
de grasse relaxed slowly, as if by conscious effort. he put away his gun, hesitated a moment, and walked slowly out after the others. his wide shoulders were slumped.
then there was the scraping of chairs and boot-soles and a rising bee-hive hum as the audience stood up and began to move out. harkway made no effort to call them back.
cudyk, moving toward the exit with the rest, had much to think about. he had seen not only de grasse's will, but rack's, part against the knife of human sympathy. and that was a thing he had never expected to see.
