“You mean to sit there and try to make me believe that it just occurred to you, like that, to suggest Cave would have to kill himself if he encouraged suicide?”
“I mean that it occurred to me exactly like that.” I looked at Paul with vivid loathing. “Can’t you understand even the obvious relationship between cause and effect? With this plan of Stokharin’s you’ll make it impossible for Cave not to commit suicide and, when he does, you will have an international death cult which I shall do my best to combat.”
Paul’s hands began nervously to play with his tie, his lapels: I wondered if he’d come armed. I placed my finger lightly upon the buzzer. Implacably, we faced one another.
“You are not truly Cavesword” was all that he said.
“We won’t argue about that. I’m merely explaining to you why I said what I did and why I intend to keep Cave alive as long as possible. Alive and hostile to you, to your peculiar interpretation of his word.”
Paul looked suddenly disconsolate. “I’ve done what I thought best. I feel Cave should show us all the way. I feel it’s both logical and necessary to the Establishment that he give back his life publicly.”
“But he doesn’t want to.”
“That is the part I can’t understand. Cavesword is that death is not to be feared but embraced yet he, the man who has really changed the world, refuses to die.”
“Perhaps he feels he has more work to do. More places to see. Perhaps, Paul, he doesn’t trust you ... doesn’t want to leave you in control of the Establishment.”
“I’m willing to get out if that’s all that’s stopping him.” But the insincerity of this protestation was too apparent for either of us to contemplate for long.