Uncounted millions in rare minerals were scattered among the tumbling rocks of the Belt, but nobody dared to mine them. He'd given refuge to the stragglers from Mars' broken navies, and built a kingdom on blood and loot.
"I know what I'm called on Earth," he said. "I'm a butcher, a brigand—all the names there are. Even another fighting man, like you, Holcomb, thinks I'm a renegade and a traitor to humanity for throwing in with the Marties. Well, they're blind, Holcomb!"
His open palm came cracking down on the table. "They can't see that Earth is rotten to the very marrow in its mis-shapen bones, that any system that would do to a man what it did to me is based on stupid bungling! The war—Holcomb, you were in that, you know it was the most useless piece of imperialism the System has ever seen."
He was staring intently into my face. I did him the favor of keeping my expression blank, but if he expected me to nod, he was going to wait a long time. I couldn't help thinking of Mort Weidmann. Mort left an arm on Mars; he wasn't bitter about that, and he didn't think it had been a useless war. It had been the Marties for System bosses or us, and they wouldn't have been gentle overlords.
But Thorsten was going on, and now he'd gotten to the part I wanted to know.
"There's got to be a change, Holcomb. Humanity isn't fit to go out to the stars the way it is. It's not ready for the hyperspatial drive.
"It's not going to get it."
I was beginning to understand. Most important, I could finally understand what was wrong with Thorsten. I could see the Messiah complex building up in front of my eyes. The laugh—the easy, chuckling, self-assured laugh—the laugh of a man who was never wrong, and knew it.
"I've got the drive, Holcomb, and I'm going to use it. I'll be the standard-bearer of the human race among the stars. There won't be any fumbling and bumbling—no bureaucrats, Holcomb, no splinter groups, no special interests, no lobbies."
The dream was like a banner in his eyes.