XII.
It was fifty years to a day since the Pedagogue had first gone into orbit about Rigel. Five decades have passed. Half a century.
Of the original crew of the Pedagogue, six now gathered in the lounge of the spaceship. All of them had changed physically. Some of them softer to the point of flabbiness; some harder both of body and soul.
Barry Watson, Natt Roberts, Dick Hawkins, of the Texcocan team.
Martin Gunther, Peter MacDonald, Fredric Buchwald, of the Genoese.
The gathering wasn't so large as the one before. Only Taller and the scientist Wiss attended from Texcoco; only Baron Leonar and the son of Honorable Russ from Genoa.
From the beginning they stared with hostility across the conference table. Even the pretense of amiability was gone.
Watson rapped finally, "I am not going to dwell upon the measures you have been taking that can only be construed as military ones aimed eventually at the Texcocan State."
Martin Gunther laughed nastily. "Is your implication that your own people have not taken the same measures, in fact, inaugurated them?"
Watson said, "As I say, I have no intention of even discussing this. Surely we can arrive at no agreement. There is one point, however that we should consider on this occasion."