Tragor sat down and waited for the Coordinator to question him. The chair he was sitting in was narrow and straight. His own face was in light, but the Coordinator's face was partially shadowed. He could see enough to know that the Coordinator's jaw was very firmly set. Coordinator Kraii had the rose-tinted complexion of a quite young Martian, but his eyes were bleak with half a century of hard living. An irreverent, almost outrageous thought flashed across Tragor's mind as he returned Kraii's noncommittal stare. How many Martian women had Kraii known, and what had they done to the iron assurance he was supposed to possess?
If he had been very successful with women a little of the edge might have been taken off his rumored ruthlessness. But if he had not fared too well in his amorous conquests frustration might have made him potentially malignant. It was not a possibility which could be lightly dismissed.
Kraii was speaking now and his voice had a harsh edge to it.
"As you know, Tragor, a leader in an undertaking as momentous as this must do his duty as he sees it. He must not spare the guilty if he is to be faithful to his trust. I like you, Tragor. I have always liked you. But that is not the point at issue. You were the chief architect of our Great Plan for the conquest of Earth and you have failed."
"But surely—"
"No, wait. Do not interrupt me, Tragor. You have failed tragically. Now I am going to ask you to be very frank. I want you to tell me in your own words just why you were so sure the Plan would succeed, and why I had to discover for myself, indirectly, that you had made a serious, perhaps fatal, blunder."
Tragor's mouth had gone very dry. He tried to swallow, but there was a tight constriction in his throat.
"I may have made a few mistakes," he heard himself saying. "But everyone makes mistakes. There is still hope...."
"I could enter into a long discussion with you, Tragor," Kraii said. "I could take the tragedy of your failure from the beginning and carry it forward step by step. But nothing would be gained by that. I want you to summarize, very briefly, the whole intent and purpose of the plan. I want you to hear you explain it. I am familiar with it, of course, or I would not be where I am. But I want to hear about it again from its chief architect."
The full, ghastly truth dawned on Tragor then—the awful certainty that he was on trial for his life. He might never leave the compartment with the blood warm in his veins. He might never see another sunrise, on Mars or on Earth, never experience again all the joys of the flesh; never feast and dine and dance and hold a beautiful woman in a fierce and ardent embrace. He saw himself crying out in agony, his flesh blackened by the fiery blast of a hand-gun, blood streaming from a horrible, gaping wound in his chest. He knew that he must talk fast and talk convincingly, if he hoped to go on living. And he knew that he had to keep it brief.