“Nonsense. I’m a Winner, and I left. What you really mean is you would like to enjoy a little of the ego-inflation you have worked so hard to get. Off Anvhar no one even knows what a Winner is—much less respects one. You will have to face a big universe out there, and I don’t blame you for being a little frightened.”

Someone was hammering loudly on the door.

“I haven’t the strength to get angry,” Brion said hoarsely. “And I can’t bring myself to admire your ideas when they permit you to insult a man too ill to defend himself.”

“I apologize,” Ihjel said, with no hint of apology or sympathy in his voice. “But there are more desperate issues involved than your hurt feelings. We don’t have much time now, so I want to impress you with an idea.”

“An idea that will convince me to go offplanet with you? That’s expecting a lot.”

“No, this idea won’t convince you—but thinking about it will. If you really consider it you will find a lot of your illusions shattered. Like everyone else on Anvhar, you’re a scientific humanist, with your faith firmly planted in the Twenties. You accept both of these noble institutions without an instant’s thought. All of you haven’t a single thought for the past, for the untold billions who led the bad life as mankind slowly built up the good life for you to lead. Do you ever think of all the people who suffered and died in misery and superstition while civilization was clicking forward one more slow notch?”

“Of course I don’t think about them,” Brion retorted. “Why should I? I can’t change the past.”

“But you can change the future!” Ihjel said. “You owe something to the suffering ancestors who got you where you are today. If Scientific Humanism means anything more than just words to you, you must possess a sense of responsibility. Don’t you want to try and pay off a bit of this debt by helping others who are just as backward and disease-ridden today as great-grandfather Troglodyte ever was?”

The hammering on the door was louder. This and the drug-induced buzzing in Brion’s ear made thinking difficult. “Abstractly, I of course agree with you,” he said haltingly. “But you know there is nothing I can do personally without being emotionally involved. A logical decision is valueless for action without personal meaning.”

“Then we have reached the crux of the matter,” Ihjel said gently. His back was braced against the door, absorbing the thudding blows of some heavy object on the outside. “They’re knocking, so I must be going soon. I have no time for details, but I can assure you upon my word of honor as a Winner that there is something you can do. Only you. If you help me we might save seven million human lives. That is a fact.”