Chapter 17

“It is not your fault, Bart,” said George Yoritomo softly. “You had a perfect right to go.”

Bart Stanton clenched his fists and turned suddenly to face the Japanese psychologist. “Sure! Hell, yes! We’re not discussing my rights, George! We’re discussing my criminal stupidity! I had the right to leave here any time I wanted to, sure. But I didn’t have the right to exercise that right--if that makes any sense to you.”

“It makes sense,” Yoritomo agreed, “but it is not the way to look at it. You could not have been with the colonel every minute of every day. There was no way of knowing--”

“Of course not!” Stanton cut in angrily. “But I should have been there this time. He wanted me there, and I was gone. If I’d been there, he’d be alive at this moment.”

“Possibly,” Yoritomo said, “and then again, possibly not. Sit down over there on your bed, my young friend, and listen to me. Sit! That’s it. Take a deep breath, hold it, and relax. I want your ears functioning when I talk to you. That’s better.

“Now. I do not know where you went. That is your business. All you--”

“I went to Denver,” Stanton said.

“And you found?”

“Nothing,” Stanton said. “Absolutely nothing.”

“What were you looking for?”

“I don’t know. Something about my past. Something about myself. I don’t know.”

“Ah. You went to look up your family. You were trying to fill the holes in your memory. Eh?”

“Yes.”

“And you did not succeed.”

“No. No. There wasn’t anything there that I didn’t remember. In general, I mean. I found the files in the Bureau of Statistics. I know how my father died now, and how my mother died. And what happened to my brother. But all that didn’t tell me anything. I’m still looking for something, and I don’t know what it is. I was stupid to have gone. I suppose I should have asked you or Dr. Farnsworth or the colonel.”

“But you thought we wouldn’t answer,” Yoritomo said.

“I guess that’s about it. I should have asked you.”

Yoritomo shook his head. “Not necessarily. It was actually better that you looked for yourself. Besides, we could not have given you any answer if you yourself do not know the question. We still can’t.”

“I have a feeling,” Stanton said, “that you know the question as well as the answer.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. But there are some things that every man must find out for himself. You were right to do as you did. If you had asked Colonel Mannheim for permission, he would have let you go. He would not have asked you to go to Government City with him. We--”

“That’s the whole damned trouble!” Stanton snapped. “I’m the star boarder around here, the indispensable man. So I’m babied and I’m coddled, and when I goof off I’m patted on the back.”

“And just how did you goof off?” Yoritomo asked.

“I should have been here, ready to go with the colonel.”

“Very well. Suppose you had gone. Do you think you could have saved his life? He could have saved his own life if he’d wanted to. Instead, he specifically ordered the guard not to shoot under any circumstances. If you had been there, the results would have been the same. He would have forbidden you to do anything at all. The time is not yet ripe for you to face the Nipe. You would not have been able to protect him without disobeying his orders.”

“I might have done just that,” said Stanton.

Yoritomo was suddenly angry. “Then it is better that you were in Denver, young fool! Colonel Walther Mannheim believed that no single human life is worth the loss of the knowledge in that alien’s mind! He proved that by sacrificing his own life when that became necessary. I like to think that I would have done the same thing myself. I am certain Dr. Farnsworth would. We would rather all be dead than allow that fund of data to be lost to the rest of humanity!”

“But--but who will carry on, with him dead?” Stanton asked. “He was the one who co-ordinated everything. You and Farnsworth aren’t cut out for that sort of thing. Nor am I.”

“No,” Yoritomo said. “But that has already been taken care of. Mannheim had a replacement ready. A message is being sent out in Mannheim’s name, since we are keeping the colonel’s death secret for the time being. You are the only indispensable man, Stanton. The rest of us can easily be replaced. The lives of dozens of human beings have been sacrificed--five years of your own life have been sacrificed--to put you in the right place at the right time. And the job you are to do does not and never has included acting as bodyguard for Colonel Mannheim or anyone else. Understand?”

Stanton nodded slowly. “I understand, George. I understand.”