‘Yes, Director?’

‘In your stay on Rotor, have you been aware of anything that would lead you to believe that the Rotorian leadership hated Earth?’

Fisher's eyebrows climbed. ‘Hate? It was clear to me that the people on Rotor, as on all Settlements, I think, looked down on Earth, despised it as decadent, brutal and violent. But hatred? I don't think they thought enough of us, frankly, to feel hatred.’

‘I talk of the leadership, not of the multitude.’

‘So do I, Director. No hatred.’

‘There's no other way of accounting for it.’

‘Accounting for what, Director? If that is a question I may ask?’

Tanayama looked up at him sharply (the force of his personality made one rarely aware of just how short he was). ‘Do you know that this new star is moving in our direction? Quite in our direction?’

Fisher, startled, looked quickly toward Wyler, but Wyler sat in comparative shadow, well out of range of the sunlight from the window, and was not, in appearance, looking at anything.

Tanayama, who was standing, said, ‘Well, sit down, Fisher, if it will help you think. I will sit down, too.’ He sat down on the edge of his desk, his short legs dangling.

‘Did you know about the motion of the star?’

‘No, Director. I didn't know of the existence of the star at all till Agent Wyler told me.’

‘You didn't? Surely it was known on Rotor.’

‘If so, no-one told me.’

‘Your wife was excited and happy in the last period before Rotor left. So you told Agent Wyler. What was the reason?’

‘Agent Wyler had thought it might be because she had discovered the star.’

‘And perhaps she knew of the star's motion and was pleased at the thought of what would happen to us.’

‘I can't see why that thought should make her happy, Director. I must tell you that I do not actually know that she knew of the star's motion or even that it existed. I do not, of my own knowledge, know that anyone on Rotor knew that the star existed.’

Tanayama looked at him thoughtfully, rubbing one side of his chin lightly, as though relieving a slight itch.

He said, ‘The people on Rotor were all Euros, I believe, weren't they?’

Fisher's eyes widened. He hadn't heard that vulgarism in a long time - never from a government functionary. He remembered Wyler's comment soon after he had returned to Earth about Rotor being ‘Snow White’. He had dismissed it as a piece of lighthearted sarcasm, and had given no heed to it.

He said resentfully, ‘I don't know, Director. I didn't study them all. I don't know what their ancestries may be.’

‘Come, Fisher. You don't have to study them. Judge by their appearances. In all your stay on Rotor, did you encounter one face that was Afro, or Mongo, or Hindo? Did you encounter a dark complexion? An epicanthic fold?’

Fisher exploded. ‘Director, you're being twentieth-century.’ (If he had known a stronger way of putting it, he would have.) ‘I don't give these things thought, and no-one on Earth should. I'm surprised you do, and I don't think it would help your position if it were known that you do.’

‘Don't indulge in fairy tales, Agent Fisher,’ said the Director, moving one gnarled finger from side to side in admonition. ‘I am talking about what is. I know that on Earth we ignore all variation among ourselves, at least outwardly.’

‘Just outwardly?’ said Fisher in indignation.

‘Just outwardly,’ said Tanayama coldly. ‘When Earth's people go out to the Settlements, they sort themselves out by variation. Why should they do that, if they ignored all variation? On any Settlement, all are alike, or, if there is some admixture to begin with, those who are well outnumbered feel ill-at-ease, or are made to feel ill-at-ease, and shift to another Settlement where they are not outnumbered. Isn't that so?’

Fisher found he could not deny this. It was so, and he had somehow taken it for granted without questioning it. He said, ‘Human nature. Like clings to like. It set up a - neighborhood.’

‘Human nature, of course. Like clings to like, because like hates and despises unlike.’

‘There are M - Mongo Settlements, too.’ Fisher stumbled over the word, and realized full well that he might be mortally offending the Director - an easy and dangerous man to offend.

Tanayama did not blink. ‘I know that well, but it's the Euros who most recently dominated the planet, and they cannot forget it, can they?’

‘The others, perhaps, cannot forget that either, and they have more cause to hate.’

‘But it's Rotor that went flying off to escape from the Solar System.’

‘It happened to be they who had discovered hyper-assistance.’

‘And they went to a nearby star that only they knew of, one which is heading toward our Solar System and may pass closely enough to disrupt it.’

‘We don't know they know that, or that they even know the star.’

‘Of course they know it,’ said Tanayama with what was almost a snarl. ‘And they left without warning us.’

‘Director - with respect - this is illogical. If they are going to establish themselves on a star that will, on its approach, disrupt our Solar System, the star's own system will also be disrupted.’

‘They can easily escape, even if they build more Settlements. We have an entire world of eight billion people to evacuate - a much more difficult task.’

‘How much time do we have?’

Tanayama shrugged. ‘Several thousand years, they tell me.’

‘That's a great deal of time. It might not have occurred to them, just conceivably, that it was necessary to warn us. As the star approaches, it will surely be discovered without warning.’

‘And by that time, we will have less time to evacuate. Their discovery of the star was accidental. We should not have discovered it for a long time, but for your wife's indiscreet remark to you, and but for your suggestion - a good one - that we look closely at the part of the sky that had been omitted. Rotor was counting on our discovery being as belated as possible.’

‘But, Director, why should they want such a thing? Sheer motiveless hate?’

‘Not motiveless. So that the Solar System, with its heavy load of non-Euros, might be destroyed. So that humanity can make a new start on a homogeneous basis of Euros only. Eh? What do you think of that?’

Fisher shook his head helplessly. ‘Impossible. Unthinkable.’

‘Why else should they have failed to warn us?’

‘Might it not be that they did not themselves know of the star's motion?’

‘Impossible,’ said Tanayama ironically. ‘Unthinkable. There is no other reason for what they have done but their willingness to see us destroyed. But we will discover hyperspatial travel for ourselves, and we will move out to this new star and find them. And we will even the score.’