"It doesn't fit," I said. "If what you say about Zorvash Pedrik is right, he would come to us under his own name and denounce someone else as a bomb carrier. That's the psychological pattern of these paranoids."
Jedon Onomondo just looked at me, frowning.
"I have a hunch that Holdreth Khain is telling the truth; Zorvash Pedrik is a looney, all right, but now he's going to be a big hero in the proper way. If he sets off a theta bomb in the Grand Capitol Building, two-thirds of the people of Damak will hail him as a hero. They'll forget about the silly things he's done before. Doesn't that follow the paranoid pattern better?"
The Damakoi nodded slowly. "You may be right. The trouble is that it doesn't jibe with the information I've received from pretty reliable sources."
"Have you ever seen Holdreth Khain?" I asked.
"No," Jedon Onomondo admitted, "but I've seen Zorvash Pedrik."
"What does that prove?"
Jedon Onomondo leaned forward earnestly. "Listen, Mr. Cameron; I'll admit that we Damakoi are—well, as you Earthmen say, fanatic. We know what we believe in, and we fight for it. If that's stupid, well, it's stupid. But that's the way we are."
He stopped and took a deep breath.
"I believe in the cause of the Galactic Government. I know that very few of my people do, but I do.