"Nothing," said Lamont indignantly. "Let them do their worst. I'll rely on red tape. Every step of this thing will take weeks, months, and meanwhile you keep working. We'll hear from the para-men yet."
Bronowski looked miserable. "Pete, suppose we don't. Maybe it's time you think about this again."
Lamont looked up sharply. "What are you talking about?"
"Tell them you're wrong. Do penance. Beat your breast. Give up."
"Never! By God, Mike, we're playing a game in which the stakes are all the world and every living creature on it."
"Yes, but what's that to you? You're not married. You have no children. I know your father is dead. You never mention your mother or any siblings, I doubt if there is any human being on earth to whom you are emotionally attached as an individual. So go your way and the hell with it all."
"And you?"
"Ill do the same. I'm divorced and I have no children. I have a young lady with whom I'm close and that relationship will continue while it can. Live! Enjoy!"
"And tomorrow!"
"Will take care of itself. Death when it comes will be quick."
"I can't live with that philosophy . . . Mike. Mike! What is all this? Are you trying to tell me that we're not going to get through? Are you giving up on the para-men?"
Bronowski looked away. He said, "Pete, I did get an answer. Last night. I thought I'd wait for today and think about it, but why think? . . . Here it is."
Lamont's eyes were staring questions. He took the foil and looked at it. There was no punctuation:
PUMP NOT STOP NOT STOP WE NOT STOP PUMP WE NOT HEAR DANGER NOT HEAR NOT HEAR YOU STOP PLEASE STOP YOU STOP SO WE STOP PLEASE YOU STOP DANGER DANGER DANGER STOP STOP YOU STOP PUMP
Bronowski said, "I gather that somewhere on the other side is someone like you - a para-Lamont. And he can't get his para-Hallams to stop, either. And while we're begging them to save us, he's begging us to save them."
Lamont said, "But if we show this - "
"They'll say you're lying; that it's a hoax you've concocted to save your psychotically-conceived nightmare."
"They can say that of me, maybe; but they can't say it of you. You'll back me, Mike. You'll testify that you received this and how."
Bronowski reddened. "What good would that do? They'll say that somewhere in the para-Universe there is a nut like yourself and that two crackpots got together. They'll say that the message proves that the constituted authorities in the para-Universe are convinced there's no danger."
"Mike, fight this through with me."
"There's no use, Pete. You said yourself, stupidity! Those para-man may be more advanced than ourselves, even more intelligent, as you insist, but it's plain to see that they're just as stupid as we are and that ends it Schiller pointed that out and I believe him."
"Who?"
"Schiller. A German dramatist of three centuries ago. In a play about Joan of Arc, he said, 'Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain' I'm no god and I'll contend no longer. Let it go, Pete, and go your way. Maybe the world will last our time and, if not, there's nothing that can be done anyway. I'm sorry, Pete. You fought the good fight, but you lost, and I'm through."
He was gone and Lamont was alone. He sat in his chair, fingers aimlessly drumming, drumming. Somewhere in the Sun, protons were clinging together with just a trifling additional avidity and with each moment that avidity grew and at some moment the delicate balance would break down . . .
"And no one on Earth will live to know I was right," cried out Lamont, and blinked and blinked to keep back the tears.
2
. . . the gods themselves . . .
1a
Dua did not have much trouble leaving the others. She always expected trouble, but somehow it never came. Never real trouble.
But then why should it? Odeen objected in his lofty way. "Stay put," he would say. "You know you annoy Tritt." He never spoke of his own annoyance; Rationals didn't grow annoyed over trifles. Still, he hovered over Tritt almost as persistently as Tritt hovered over the children.
But then Odeen always let her have her way if she were persistent enough, and would even intercede with Tritt. Sometimes he even admitted he was proud of her