“I know. I came to bargain with it.”

“Bargain—what? For what?”

Shevek’s face had taken on the cold, grave look it had worn when he left the Fort in Drio. “You know what I want, Chifoilisk. I want my people to come out of exile. I came here because I don’t think you want that, in Thu. You are afraid of us, there. You fear we might bring back the revolution, the old one, the real one, the revolution for justice which you began and then stopped halfway. Here in A-Io they fear me less because they have forgotten the revolution. They don’t believe in it anymore. They think if people can possess enough things they will be content to live in prison. But I will not believe that. I want the walls down. I want solidarity, human solidarity. I want free exchange between Urras and Anarres. I worked for it as I could on Anarres, now I work for it as I can on Urras. There, I acted. Here, I bargain.”

“With what?”

“Oh, you know, Chifoilisk,” Shevek said in a low voice, with diffidence. “You know what it is they want from me.”

“Yes, I know, but I didn’t know you did,” the Thuvian said, also speaking low; his harsh voice became a harsher murmur, all breath and fricatives. “You’ve got it, then—the General Temporal Theory?”

Shevek looked at him, perhaps with a touch of irony.

Chifoilisk insisted: “Does it exist in writing?”

Shevek continued to look at him for a minute, and then answered directly, “No.”

“Good!”

“Why?”

“Because if it did, they’d have it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. Listen, wasn’t it Odo who said that where there’s property there’s theft?”

“To make a thief, make an owner; to create crime, create laws. The Social Organism.”

“All right. Where there are papers in locked rooms, there are people with keys to the rooms!”

Shevek winced. “Yes,” he said presently, “this is very disagreeable.”

“To you. Not to me. I haven’t your individualistic moral scruples, you know. I knew you didn’t have the theory down in writing. If I’d thought you had, I would have made every effort to get it from you, by persuasion, by theft, by force if I thought we could abduct you without bringing on a war with A-Io. Anything, so that I could get it away from these fat Ioti capitalists and into the hands of the Central Presidium of my country. Because the highest cause I can ever serve is the strength and welfare of my country.”

“You are lying,” Shevek said peaceably. “I think you are a patriot, yes. But you set above patriotism your respect for the truth, scientific truth, and perhaps also your loyalty to individual persons. You would not betray me.”

“I would if I could,” Chifoilisk said savagely. He started to go on, stopped, and finally said with angry resignation, “Think as you please. I can’t open your eyes for you. But remember, we want you. If you finally see what’s going on here, then come to Thu. You picked the wrong people to try to make brothers of! And if—I have no business saying this. But it doesn’t matter. If you won’t come to us in Thu, at least don’t give your Theory to the Ioti. Don’t give the usurers anything! Get out. Go home. Give your own people what you have to give!”