"I'm glad you--decided what you did," she whispered. "It's what a
Mentorian would have done. I know that other races call us slaves of
the Lhari. We aren't. We're working in our own way to show the Lhari
that human beings can be trusted. The other peoples--they hold away from
the Lhari, fighting them with words even though they're afraid to fight
them with weapons, carrying on the war that they're afraid to fight!
"Did it ever occur to you--all the peoples of all the planets keep
saying, We're as good as the Lhari, but only the Mentorians are
willing to prove it? Bart, a Lhari ship can't get along in our galaxy
without Mentorians any more! It may be slower than trying to take the
warp-drive by force, or stealing it by spying, but when we learn to
endure it, I have faith that we'll get it!"
Bart, although moved by Meta's philosophy, couldn't quite share it. It
still seemed to him that the Mentorians were lacking in
something--independence, maybe, or drive.
"I wasn't thinking about anything like that," he said honestly. "It was
simply that I couldn't let them die. After all--" he was speaking more
to himself than to the girl--"it's their star-drive. They found it.
And they've given us star-trade, and star-travel, cheaply and with
profit to both sides. I hope we'll get the star-drive someday. But if we
got it by mass murder, it would sow the seeds of a hatred between men
and Lhari that would never end. It wouldn't be worth it, Meta. Nothing
would be worth that. We've got enough hate already."
* * * * * Bart was still in his bunk, but beginning to fret at staying there, when
the familiar trembling of Acceleration Two started to run through the
ship. It was, by now, so familiar to him that he hardly gave it a second
thought, but Meta panicked.
"What's happening? Bart, what is it? Why are we under acceleration
again?"
"Shift to warp," he said without thinking, and her face went deathly
white. "So that's it," she whispered. "Vorongil--no wonder he wasn't
worried about what I would find out from you or what you knew." She drew
herself together in her chair, a miserable, shrunken, terrified little
figure, bravely trying to control her terror.
Then she held out her hands to Bart. "I'm--I'm ashamed," she whispered.
"When you've been so brave, I shouldn't be afraid to die."
"Meta, what's the matter? What are you afraid of?" It suddenly swept
over Bart what she meant and what she feared. "But don't you understand,
Meta?" he exclaimed, "Humans can live through the warp-drive! No
drugs, no cold-sleep--Meta, I've done it dozens of times!"