The chairman and several other Councilors nodded slowly. «I don't think you've done the right thing. Consider. The Targans are a proud people who have suffered much. Many of those who follow Loyun Chard do so because they honestly believe in his promises to put an end to that suffering.
«In spite of this the underground holds out against Chard. They hope to defeat him and give Targa a better government. How can they promise anything better without some of your science and technology already in their hands?» Blade slapped both hands down on the table with pistol-shot cracks. Several of the Councilors started. «Yes! Suppose they have to go to their fellow Targans and say-help us overthrow Loyun Chard, because the Kananites have promised us some of their knowledge after we win? Promises!» Blade made the word sound like an obscenity.
He went on more softly. «Even the underground may not believe you. They've been fighting Chard since before they ever heard of Kanan, losing friends, starving in the forest, always on the run, never sleeping soundly. If anybody in the whole galaxy has been fighting your battles, it's them. I think they have a right to more than promises.»
He smiled. «I'm not asking you to give them the secrets of the hurd-ray or the Zin Field. But what about the solar collectors, the power cells, the anti-gravity generators, the Teacher Globes? I think they deserve some of that.» He rose. «I won't ask you to answer me now. I won't even ask to listen to the discussion. This is a matter for you and the Menel, not for me. I must have an answer soon, though, and if that answer is 'No,' I don't know how much you can expect from the Targans.»
He turned to Riyannah and offered her his arm. Together they swept out of the Council room, like a king and queen leaving an unruly court behind them. A buzz of conversation was rising as the door slid shut.
«Blade,» said Riyannah softly, «I sincerely hope your people are in some other Dimension a long way off and stay there. You frighten even me, and as for those poor Councilors-«She shook her head.
«Do you think I've frightened them too much?»
«No. Just enough.» She slid her arm through his and they walked off down the corridor.
Riyannah was right. The War Council called them back the next day to listen to the chairman propose a bargain.
«We admit that it is just to give the Targans certain items of our technology at once. It is quite likely this will help win their trust and cooperation.»
It will also help them become independent more quickly, thought Blade. Trying to make the Targans clients like the Menel won't work, and there will be a bloody shambles if you even try. Much better of you don't have the chance to try. His attention returned to the chairman.
«-a warrior people,» the man was saying. «There is no way we can send our knowledge to the Targans without also giving it to you, and to your people if you return to them. We do not know how your people will use such knowledge. You may end your wars and live in peace forever, as we have done. You may also become as great a menace to the universe as the Targans under Loyun Chard. We cannot afford to leave ourselves defenseless, so we must ask you to help us.
«You have traveled across an aspect of reality that is neither time nor space. We have learned much about how you did this. We need to know more. We believe that other knowledge lies buried in your brain, at levels we cannot reach without your cooperation unless we are willing to endanger your sanity. We wish you no harm, so we ask your cooperation. Let us probe your brain again for all the knowledge you have of how to travel into Dimension X.
«Then we will give you all the information that is necessary to build the solar collectors and power cells. We will implant the information in your body so that only you will know it is there and only you can remove it. We will ask only that you get some agreement from the Targans before you give it to them.»
The chairman rambled on for a while after that. Blade only listened with half an ear. He'd heard the important thing: the Kananites were asking him to give up the Dimension X secret, in return for their scientific knowledge to give to the Targans and then take Home if he could.
Blade's first reaction was a mental shout of: Not until your sun goes nova! Behind that shout were years of living with the Official Secrets Act and the knowledge of what leaking the Dimension X secret could do. He also remembered the sensations of the Zin Field transition across the light-years. Something in that Transition was too close to the trip into Dimension X for comfort. The Kananites might be halfway to the Dimension X secret without even knowing it. If they picked his brains and learned everything there, how much farther could they go? Certainly they had computers far beyond Lord Leighton's. The risks were enormous.
On the other hand, what about the certainties? If he didn't go along with the Council's proposal, Loyun Chard's war would become inevitable. Whatever else happened, millions of beings, Kananite, Targan, and Menel, would die. If Loyun Chard won, a Targan empire would spread across this Dimension, perhaps discovering the Dimension X secret on its own and then spreading blood and ruin even farther.
Even if Loyun Chard was defeated, the Menel and the Kananites would bear the scars for generations. The Targans might be completely destroyed, and they would certainly end up confined to their own impoverished planet, bitter and vengeful.
Either way this Dimension would pay a grim price for Blade's refusal.
And the risks of revealing the Dimension X secret-were they really so great? Blade began to wonder. They could not get out of his brain more knowledge than was already there: All he knew was what the Project had done so far-randomly shooting a single naked man off into Dimension X. Even if the Kananites learned how to do that much at once, it would hardly make them a greater inter-Dimensional menace.
If they did learn more eventually, that might be serious. It would take a while, though. The Menel would not appreciate being left out, and that meant taking time to develop Dimension X travel techniques suited to Menel brains. Then there would be a host of political problems to be solved, and Blade knew far too well how long it took the Kananites to deal with these.
It might be generations before the Kananites could become any sort of menace, even if they wanted to. By that time Home Dimension Earth would either be in such bad shape it needed Kananite help or advance so far the Kananites would be no danger to it.
No. He could not condemn millions of people to death by refusing this proposal. Not when there was so little chance that anything really dangerous would come of accepting it. He had to live with the Official Secrets Act, but he also had to live with himself.
Blade straightened up, and felt as if all the millions of prospective war dead were joining in his sigh of relief. The chairman was looking at him.
«Mr. Chairman, Kananites and Menel of this War Council, I agree to the proposal.»
This time everybody was applauding, Riyannah was embracing him, and the Menel ambassador was practically dancing around the room, waving all four arms over his head.