Dowland stared at her, somewhat astounded. It was as cold-blooded an attempt at bargaining as he'd run into, considering the circumstances. And—considering an I.Q. of 181—it seemed rather unrealistic. "Miss Trelawney," he said, "the only thing silence might get me is a twenty-year stretch in an IPA pen. I'm not quite that foolish."
"You're also not aware of the true situation."
"All right," Dowland said, "what is it?"
"Miguel and Paul have earned the right to carry out the first of these tests. They may not complete it. But duplicates of their machine in the laboratory are concealed about the planet, waiting to be put into action by other teams of Freeholder scientists. You see? The tests will be continued until any problems connected with shifting back through time are recognized and overcome."
Dowland said, "Then why is the entire haul of YM stacked away in the laboratory here?"
"Because that's where it's to be used at present. You still don't understand the extent of this operation, Dowland. If we need more of the Overgovernment's YM, we'll simply take it. It can be done at any time. The only way the Overgovernment could really prevent future raids would be by destroying its supplies of YM-400. And it isn't going to do that—at least not before we've obtained as much as we can use."
As far as his own information went, she could be right, Dowland thought. He said, "So supposing some Freeholder scientists do succeed eventually in traveling back in time. What will that accomplish?"
"Everything we want, of course," Jill said. "There'll be no more reason to conceal our activities—and we'll have time. As much time as we need. Thirty or fifty years perhaps. Scientific centers and automatic factories will be set up in the past, and eventually the factories will be turning out weapons superior to anything the Overgovernment has. And then the weapons will come to the present—to this present, Dowland. Within a year from now, Terra will have become a heavily armed world—overnight. There'll be no more talk then of forcing us to remain under Overgovernment rule. Or of making Terra another Open Planet...."
Theoretically, Dowland could see that such a plan might work. With the time to do it in, and the resources of a world at the Freeholders' disposal ... and there would be nothing to keep them from taking back spaceships and mining the asteroids. For a moment, while Jill Trelawney was talking, she had made it sound almost plausible.