"Wait; let me finish. We have a tremendous external challenge, only we fail to see it. What is the Ark, Ker-jon? An artificial world, a manufactured environment. A vessel taking us from someplace to someplace else. Do you know where we came from?"
"Urth—"
"Yes, but what is Urth? We don't know. It's in the old books, but no one reads them. And where are we going? Even I don't know that, and I have tried to find out. The books are not indexed, and it might take one man years to find out. Working together, a group of men could shorten that time to months.
"Further, what is the void of space outside? Mere blackness, or—I don't know. And the stars, the little pin-points of light we see, what about them? Are they worlds? Was Urth a star; do we now travel towards another one? Again, I don't know. But we can find out. There is our challenge, Ker-jon. There is the stimulus which can unite the Ark and put a permanent stop to internal squabbles. Are you blind to that?"
"I'm not blind to anything, old man! All I know is this: the revolutionaries are confined. Maybe they await death—thanks to you. I also know that more men and women each day are exposed forcibly in the Chamber of Change—which means that a new generation of mutants will be born. Any challenge on a purely abstract level sounds awful silly, ridiculously unimportant, pedantically trivial.... Umm-mm, never mind. You just don't understand."
"Wait," said the albino. "A compromise, Ker-jon. If you can rescue your fellows, what then?"
"You want an honest answer? I think I'd still hate you and what you stand for, a tired old man with old, meaningless ideas—"
"Can you rescue your friends alone?"
"I don't know; I can try."