"Sssh. Yes," she said, and he looked round to see the Lanzerottis smiling at him across the cabin of the helio. He struggled upright on the transom. "That was a narrow one," he said. "I think they must have passed the law of suicide against me. But I can't figure out how it would affect me so. They said I was a resistant."
Lanzerotti said, "Thought can operate without physical presence. The Christian Scientists and Theosophists on earth knew that years ago. And this was a rather massive impact."
Heidekopfer shook his head. "Give me a little more of that stuff, will you? I'm still a little groggy. What I can't figure out is how you two got away and came along."
"We were talking about that," said Lanzerotti. "Rosa and I were just getting ready for bed, when it suddenly struck us that everything you had said was true, and the Tolstoians had us under control and were showing us, in effect, a Potemkin village. When you knocked Samsonov out, even for only a moment, the control snapped on us as it did on Ann. Then he got so interested in passing the law of suicide against you that he didn't have time to rebuild his fences. So we got away, but we had to leave most of the records."
Heidekopfer drank again. "I don't suppose it makes much difference, though," he said. "Our verbal report ought to be enough to keep the Council from giving them the Wrightley Islands. My God, if that thing got loose! With what they've developed they'd be able to take over every inch of the three worlds, little by little, and turn them into more Tolstoias."
"No," said Lanzerotti emphatically.
"No what?"
"My recommendation will be that we grant them the Wrightley Islands and any other bits of uninhabited territory they happen to want—but only for so long as Samsonov remains Patriarch."
Heidekopfer's mouth fell open. "What!" he exclaimed aghast, "Has he still got you under?"
Lanzerotti's smile was bland. "Not at all. They've attained the goal of the totalitarian state. They've got everybody thinking alike. Remember, Dubrassov couldn't warn us, even when he wanted to, although he couldn't bring himself to go along with Samsonov's expansionist policy. Samsonov showed us Potemkin villages, all right. But don't you see what all this crazy set-up adds up to? These people can't change. They've lost their adaptability.