An older Vardda man rose in the tiers and said quietly, "Before I advance my suggestion I should admit that I have always had secret Orthist sympathies. I don't think that I am the only one here who can say that. You must allow for that." He went on. "I would have liked long ago to see this unnatural monopoly ended. Now our hand has been forced. I suggest that our best and wisest course is to act at once--to declare publicly that we Vardda are going to _give_ the secret to the whole Galaxy." He paused, to emphasize his point. "The secret is out anyway. But by acting quickly we can take credit for that. We can aver that the broadcast was made with our consent. Remember, whether we like it or not, in a few generations other worlds will be flying the stars--and we do not want them cherishing a legacy of hatred for us then." Trehearne, listening, smiled grimly. "Politics don't change much across the Galaxy." "But it's all we hoped for," Edri whispered. "It would work, too!" Discussion, angry debate, had sprung up. It went on and on, passionate voices accusing and denying, Ristin sternly maintaining order, bringing back the argument to the main issue time after time. Finally, in a lull of the disputing voices, Joris swung around and faced the Council. "Now listen to me," the old man roared. "You'd think the way some of you talk that this meant the end of the Vardda, the end of Llyrdis, the end of everything. That's utter asininity. In the first place, mutations don't take place overnight. It will be a generation or two before the other races start going out between the stars in any numbers." Trehearne saw that sink home. The Vardda Council, being human, could not worry too deeply for long about a future they wouldn't see. "And furthermore," Joris bellowed, "when every half-baked folk in the Galaxy does take to starflight, does that mean the great Vardda trade is ruined forever? Listen! We Vardda were the first to go out to the stars. _The first!_ Do you think all the lubberly races of the Galaxy can compete with us out there? Do you think so?" He caught them with that, with the Vardda pride, the Vardda glory. Trehearne saw the strained faces changing. Not all of them, but many. Joris paused before he said his final word. "Do you think there will ever be a time when we Vardda can't hold our own?" There was not much talk after that. There were questions, protests, doubts, but little more argument. All the arguments had been spoken. "We have to decide this now or never," Ristin told them. "If we delay longer, there will not be a choice." Trehearne heard the resolution read, and the voting and the result. Not easily could the Vardda yield! Forty-three voted against the resolution. But seventy-nine for it. Ristin said, "It will be announced by general broadcast tonight that, in view of the advance of civilization on many star-worlds, the Vardda deem the time ripe to share the secret of mutation with other selected races."