Sutton sat quietly, slumped in his chair.
"You're the only man," said Trevor, "who is standing in the way. You're the man who is blocking the project for a million years."
"You need destiny," said Sutton, "and destiny is not mine to give away."
"You are a human being, Sutton," Trevor told him, talking evenly. "You are a man. It is the people of your own race that I'm talking to you about."
"Destiny," said Sutton, "belongs to everything that lives. Not to Man alone, but to every form of life."
"It needn't," Trevor told him. "You are the only man who knows. You are the man who can tell the facts. You can make it a manifest destiny for the human race instead of a personal destiny for every crawling, cackling, sniveling thing that has the gift of life."
Sutton didn't answer.
"One word from you," said Trevor, "and the thing is done."
"It can't be done," said Sutton, "this scheme of yours. Think of the sheer time, the thousands of years, even at the rate of speed of the starships of today, to cross intergalactic space. Only from this galaxy to the next…not from this galaxy to the ultimate galaxy."
Trevor sighed. "You forget what I said about the compounding of knowledge. Two and two won't make four, my friend. It will make much more than four. In some instances thousands of times more than four."