That same afternoon, Wi'son-gil made a mistake. He called a mass meeting, declaring that he knew a way to stop what had caused growing panic on the Ark. If Flam-harol hadn't become frightened, the panic never would have arisen—Ker-jon knew that. But when you stroll through the now-silent 'ponics room and see brown-edged, stiffening vegetation where once the place had been warm and richly green, you worry. Especially when you've been led to believe, along with everyone else, that everything within the Ark depended on the 'ponics room.
The crowd gathered, noisily at first, but the old albino quieted them. Ker-jon realized with some surprise that the man could be an impressive figure. Small and thin, he yet maintained an air of confidence. His fine white hair framed a gaunt, thin-featured face, and from a distance the pink eyes almost seemed alive with fires.
But mostly it was the voice—calm, soothing, sure of itself, a father talking to his children, telling them of the wonders of a lost science, of the role it once had played in the construction of the Ark, of a time when their ancestors had lived elsewhere, not on the Ark at all, of a time in the indeterminable future when they would leave the confines of a tight little world for one where a man could spend his whole lifetime walking and never quite reach the other side. Telling them, too, of the role that lost science must now play again, to repair the Ark. Telling them that they must strive together to master this tool of their past in order to build their future, to learn what they were, and where and why and how, to use this knowledge for the tasks that lay ahead.
He had them spellbound, weaving fanciful legends of the past and a place called Urth, explaining their greatness to them and their destiny to conquer a far place in the name of mankind which was all of them and infinitely more. And telling them, above all, that ridge-head must be brother to scaled mutant, and both to albino, and all to non-mutants. They half-wanted that, anyway; they'd had enough of fighting all their lifetimes, and what had been lacking was a common cause for all of them.
Almost, it worked. But Flam-harol appeared in the meeting room, stalking in with his armed guards—not albinos, not now when he expected troubles. But with ridge-heads, big, powerful, naked to their waists and ready for trouble, the huge muscles bulging....
"Stop that man!" he cried.
Murmurs in the crowd, but no one moved.
Wi'son-gil kept right on speaking.
Ker-jon realized the ridge-head's intention too late. He stood just below the dais, eyes intent upon the old albino. But something made him turn, and he bellowed a warning.