“Then you propose telling them about the use of Redax—what it does to a man’s mind?” countered Ashe.
“Certainly. They will receive all necessary instructions.”
Ashe was not satisfied and he would have spoken again, but Kelgarries interrupted:
“If it comes to that, none of us here has any right to make final decisions. Waldour has already sent in his report about the snoop. We’ll have to await orders from the council.”
Ruthven levered himself out of his chair, his solid bulk stretching his uniform coveralls. “That is correct, Colonel. In the meantime I would suggest we all check to see what can be done to speed up each one’s portion of labor.” Without another word, he tramped to the door.
Waldour eyed the other two with mounting impatience. It was plain he had work to do and wanted them to leave. But Ashe was reluctant. He had a feeling that matters were slipping out of his control, that he was about to face a crisis which was somehow worse than just a major security leak. Was the enemy always on the other side of the world? Or could he wear the same uniform, even share the same goals?
In the outer corridor he still hesitated, and Kelgarries, a step or so in advance, looked back over his shoulder impatiently.
“There’s no use fighting—our hands are tied.” His words were slurred, almost as if he wanted to disown them.
“Then you’ll agree to use the Redax?” For the second time within the hour Ashe felt as if he had taken a step only to have firm earth turn into slippery, shifting sand underfoot.
“It isn’t a matter of my agreeing. It may be a matter of getting through or not getting through—now. If they’ve had eighteen months, or even twelve … !” The colonel’s fingers balled into a fist. “And they won’t be delayed by any humanitarian reasoning—”
“Then you believe Ruthven will win the council’s approval?”
“When you are dealing with frightened men, you’re talking to ears closed to anything but what they want to hear. After all, we can’t prove that the Redax will be harmful.”
“But we’ve only used it under rigidly controlled conditions. To speed up the process would mean a total disregard of those controls. Snapping a party of men and women back into their racial past and holding them there for too long a period …” Ashe shook his head.
“You have been in Operation Retrograde from the start, and we’ve been remarkably successful—”
“Operating in a different way, educating picked men to return to certain points in history where their particular temperaments and characteristics fitted the roles they were selected to play, yes. And even then we had our percentage of failures. But to try this—returning people not physically into time, but mentally and emotionally into prototypes of their ancestors—that’s something else again. The Apaches have volunteered, and they’ve been passed by the psychologists and the testers. But they’re Americans of today, not tribal nomads of two or three hundred years ago. If you break down some barriers, you might just end up breaking them all.”
Kelgarries was scowling. “You mean—they might revert utterly, have no contact with the present at all?”
“That’s just what I do mean. Education and training, yes, but full awakening of racial memories, no. The two branches of conditioning should go slowly and hand in hand, otherwise—real trouble!”
“Only we no longer have the time to go slow. I’m certain Ruthven will be able to push this through—with Waldour’s report to back him.”
“Then we’ll have to warn Fox and the rest. They must be given a choice in the matter.”
“Ruthven said that would be done.” The colonel did not sound convinced of that.
Ashe snorted. “If I hear him telling them, I’ll believe it!”
“I wonder whether we can …”
Ashe half turned and frowned at the colonel. “What do you mean?”
“You said yourself that we had our failures in time travel. We expected those, accepted them, even when they hurt. When we asked for volunteers for this project we had to make them understand that there was a heavy element of risk involved. Three teams of recruits—the Eskimos from Point Barren, the Apaches, and the Islanders—all picked because their people had a high survival rating in the past, to be colonists on widely different types of planets. Well, the Eskimos and the Islanders aren’t matched to any of the worlds on those snooped tapes, but Topaz is waiting for the Apaches. And we may have to move them in there in a hurry. It’s a rotten gamble any way you see it!”
“I’ll appeal directly to the council.”
Kelgarries shrugged. “All right. You have my backing.”
“But you believe such an effort hopeless?”
“You know the red-tape merchants. You’ll have to move fast if you want to beat Ruthven. He’s probably on a straight line now to Stanton, Reese, and Margate. This is what he has been waiting for!”
“There are the news syndicates; public opinion would back us—”
“You don’t mean that, of course.” Kelgarries was suddenly coldly remote.
Ashe flushed under the heavy brown which overlay his regular features. To threaten a silence break was near blasphemy here. He ran both hands down the fabric covering his thighs as if to rub away some soil on his palms.
“No,” he replied heavily, his voice dull. “I guess I don’t. I’ll contact Hough and hope for the best.”
“Meanwhile,” Kelgarries spoke briskly, “we’ll do what we can to speed up the program as it now stands. I suggest you take off for New York within the hour—”
“Me? Why?” Ashe asked with a trace of suspicion.
“Because I can’t leave without acting directly against orders, and that would put us wrong immediately. You see Hough and talk
