"Break the ITA?" Jon asked. He felt a peculiar note of discord. These men were not hiding. Not just hiding.
"Why of course." The big man shifted in his seat, again glanced around at the others. Their eyes were still fastened on Jon as though they had never seen a Tinkerman before. "They may not be dictators in the true sense of the word, but they wield a tremendous political power over more than a hundred planets, Kane. You know that. They have only to refuse a planet its scheduled service visits, and the economy and civilization of that planet is suddenly faced with collapse. Ultimately, such a set-up is going to mean ruin anyway. Someday, there is bound to be rebellion, and not on any single planet, but on many. It will free men from the ITA perhaps, but it will also mean quick retrogression; civilization will, because of its complexity, backslide faster than men can regain what the Wars destroyed, or re-learn what the Tinkers have kept from them.
"It might have worked if the ITA had not become sloppy. But it can no longer even do a decent Project AA! It imperils the lives of two galaxies, yet refuses to give men the knowledge to protect themselves! Therefore, we are going to destroy the Tinkers, Kane. Our propaganda machinery is gaining momentum daily, and this most recent Geejay breakdown in Sol system is grist for our mill. Our technical achievements are improving daily despite the fact that they have been carried out under the handicap of utmost secrecy over a long period of extremely difficult years.
"When I learned of your captivity by warp-beam from Titan and was told about you and the woman and was asked if I wanted you, I said yes. I spared you, Kane, and went to great trouble to obtain you, because you know the Tinkers as we could never hope to know them. And, more importantly, you can handle technology far better than either we or they. Is that true?"
Jon hesitated, looked at the faces up-turned to him, saw the cold bitterness in their eyes.
"I can make a double-A good for five hundred years."
"Just as we thought. You're dangerous to them, Kane, because for some reason you know more than they do. People would start looking to you, rather than to them, for their needs, and they're scared stiff you'll go around blabbing all you know, ruining their hold. Well, that is just the chance we want to give you. Help us, and later, you'll be able to name your own price. Go back to the Tinkers, and you're a dead man."
The room was silent again, but their eyes were still upon him. He tried to think, tried to evaluate what the big man had said. It all seemed so logical, yet—yet there was something wrong. There was something they did not understand. Or, perhaps, understood too well.
"I—I agree with you about the tremendous power they wield," Jon said slowly, "but you're wrong about destroying them. It's true they're not the technicians they once were. They have polluted logic with belief and historical fact with legend; they do know how, but they don't know why, and that's affecting their know-how, if you see what I mean. They use belief more and more and reason less and less—"
Stine nodded. "Precisely. If knowledge is not given room to grow, it deteriorates, and finally is nothing more than half understood pseudo truths. Therefore I fail to see—"