Kerk nodded agreement and Jason went on. “To continue the analogy further, I landed from an airship, and at first all I could see was the forest. To me certain facts are obvious. I think that you people know them too, only you keep your thoughts carefully repressed. They are hidden thoughts that are completely taboo. I’m going to tell you the biggest one of these secret thoughts and hope you can control yourself well enough not to kill me.”

Kerk’s great hands tightened on the arms of the chair, the only sign he had heard. Jason spoke quietly, but his words penetrated as smoothly and easily as a lancet probing into a brain.

“I think human beings are losing the war on Pyrrus. After hundreds of years of occupation this is the only city on the planet-and it is half in ruins. As if it once had a larger population. That stunt we pulled off to get the shipload of war materials was a stunt. It might not have worked. And if it hadn’t, what would have happened to the city? You people are walking on the crumbling rim of a volcano and you won’t admit it.”

Every muscle in Kerk’s body was rigid as he sat stiffly in the chair, his face dotted with tiny beads of sweat. The slightest push too far and he would explode. Jason searched for a way to lessen some of the tension.

“I don’t enjoy telling you these things. I’m doing it because I’m sure you know them already. You can’t face these facts because you would then have to admit that all this fighting and killing is for absolutely no purpose. If your population is dropping steadily, then your fight is nothing but a particularly bloody form of racial suicide. You could leave this planet, but that would be admitting defeat. And I’m sure Pyrrans prefer death to defeat.”

When Kerk half-rose from his chair Jason stood too, shouting his words through the other man’s fog of anger.

“I’m trying to help you-do you understand that? Wipe the hypocrisy out of your mind, it’s destroying you. Right now you would rather kill me than admit consciously that you are fighting an already lost battle. This isn’t a real war, just a disastrous treating of symptoms. Like cutting off cancerous fingers one by one. The only result must be ultimate defeat. You won’t allow yourself to realize that. That’s why you would rather kill me than hear me speak the unspeakable.”

Kerk was out of his seat now, hanging over Jason like a tower of death, about to fall. Held up only by the force of Jason’s words.

“You must begin to face reality. All you can see is everlasting war. You must begin to realize that you can treat the causes of this war and end it forever!”