"I will not be landing on Eden, Linda," E McGinnis said firmly. "An E has forbidden it. That is enough for any other E in the universe. No other E will land. Your husband is all right. He is in good health, and apparently mentally sound. At least sound enough to warn us against landing. He must have a reason. We don't know, yet, what it is.
"Now he has stopped communicating, we don't know why. He must have a reason for that, too. It is probably a sound reason. E science has been drilled into him until it is a part of his every mind cell, perhaps even every body cell.
"I assume he is not communicating because we can't help him, because communicating with us distracts him from solving the problem. If E.H.Q. decides to send out a ship on its own, and risk landing in an unknown co-ordinate system, against the orders of two E's, which will become the combined orders of all E's in the universe, that is their decision. If you wish to be on it, that is your decision.
"I am cutting off now. It will be no accident that E.H.Q. cannot connect with me. I'm cutting out because I don't want to be distracted any further. I'm trying to think."
The acid rebuff of the old E left the administrative board hanging in a vacuum of indecision, frustration. Angry determination to do something, anything.
They were caught between the intransigence of the E fraternity it was their duty to serve and from whom they should be able to expect help, and the obvious determination of Gunderson to use this incident as his means of regaining control over the E's and E.H.Q. for civil authority. Didn't the stupid E see the danger? Wasn't it the same danger that men of science had always faced, the same mistake they had always made—leaving out the human element in a problem?
The eternal blind spot in men of science! The average man doesn't give a tinker's damn for progress or knowledge, not really. He wants only that he and his shall be ascendant at the center of things, the inevitable, the only possible goal of the non-science mind. Surely the history of science versus non-science should have made this evident long ago! Surely there had been enough incidents in history....
Very well, it was up to them to help the E in spite of himself. If he refused the see the clear danger to his whole structure—and their own ascendant position at the center of it—it was their clear duty to protect him nonetheless.
They would send out another ship, a large one, a floating laboratory, a miniature E.H.Q., at least to be there on the scene; to help in any way they could, perhaps to counter the moves Gunderson's police might make, at least to stand by.
At least, in the face of all this public clamor about Eden, to show their concern. The chairman of the board rationalized it masterfully, without once mentioning that their real concern was to remain ascendant at the center of things at all costs, and thereby maintained the tradition of all non-science endeavors.