Tayne turned his head.
"Easy does it! I imagine you must think I've gone mad. Don't blame you. I don't act at all like the Blair you know. Of course if I am mad, you'd better be careful. And if I am from another universe, you'd better be even more careful. As a matter of fact, at the moment, Quadrate, your life may not be worth very much."
Doug rubbed his fingernails on his tunic, inspected their new sheen. Then he looked up at Tayne.
Tayne stood, face mottled, an uneasy little thread of uncertainty deep under the surface of his eyes.
"Very well, just to make it easy for you, Mr. Tayne, we shall say I am mad, because that's easy to believe, and I can see you're quite sure of it already. Yet just the same I can outwit you, Quadrate. That is, I think that in the twenty hours of our flight together I can reduce you to a gibbering idiot, far worse off than myself! Why, I may even have you mumbling that you're Saint Napoleon himself! Now wouldn't that be a picture!" Blair slapped his right hand to his tunic-front.
And Tayne drew his sword.
"If you killed me, Quadrate, you would have no proof of my madness for the others—and I'm sure that our standing enmity would be reasoned as the far more credible motive. Reasonable people, yours. Very. So much so that they're all above making a rather ridiculous harangue like this. Face the S-Council rather stoically, I should imagine. Quietly, as befits their dignity. Right?"
Tayne almost jumped clear of the deck.
"By jingo, you're nervous, man! Sweating, too. And twenty more hours. Let's see—what'll we talk about?"
Tayne was tense, immobile, undisguisedly confused.