"General Shanlee, would you describe General Foxx Travis as a man of honor and integrity? And would you so describe yourself?" Shanlee said nothing. "Yet both of you have lied, deliberately and repeatedly, to conceal the existence of Merlin. And we found that bomb in your room. You were willing to blow up this headquarters and everybody, yourself included, in it, to keep us from getting at Merlin. Well, you know that we can make you tell us the truth, maybe when it's too late, and you know that we are going to get Merlin. We're cutting the collapsium off that thing above now."
Shanlee laughed. "You're supposed to be a computerman. You think that little thing could be Merlin?"
"The controls and programming machine for Merlin." He turned to Kurt Fawzi. "You always claimed that Merlin was here in Force Command. You had it backward. Force Command is inside Merlin."
"What do you mean, Conn?"
"The walls; the fifty-foot walls, shielded inside and out. Merlin—the circuitry, the memory-bank, the relays, everything—was installed inside them. What's up above is only what was needed to operate the computer. Isn't that true, General?"
Shanlee had stopped his derisive laughter. He sat on the edge of the cot, tensing as though for a leap at Conn's throat.
"That won't help, either. If you try it, we won't shoot you. We'll just overpower you and start mind-probing right away. Now; you feel that suppressing Merlin was worth any sacrifice. We're not unreasonable. If you can convince us that Merlin ought not to be brought to light.... Well, you can't do any harm by talking, and you may do some good. You may even accomplish your mission."
"He can't talk us out of it," Kurt Fawzi seemed determined to spoil things by saying. "Conn, I'm coming around to Klem's way of thinking. They just don't want anybody else to have it."
"No, we don't," Shanlee said. "We don't want the whole Federation breaking up into bloody anarchy, and that's what'll happen if you dig that thing up and put it into operation."
Nobody said anything except Fawzi, who began an indignant contradiction and then subsided. Tom Brangwyn lit a cigarette.