"But I am!" He smiled again, and this time the sadness was lessened. "I want to see a world dominated by law. By justice. By cooperation among peoples. Not by force and terror, as it is now."
De Paolo spread his hands expressively. "We know how to build an effective world government, a government in which each nation would participate and no nation would be held as a pawn or a slave. We can substitute the rule of sanity 537 and law for the present rule of power and armaments."
"The nations of the world can't solve the problem of nationalism," Kinsman mused. "They need an outside force . . ."
"And together we can be that outside force," De Paolo answered. "I know that it sounds dangerous. I know how tempting it would be to strike for a world dictatorship and force the recalcitrant nations to do as we wish. It would have been easy for your George Washington to have himself proclaimed king, also."
"But he didn't."
"And neither will we."
Kinsman closed his eyes. "That's a lot to swallow in one sitting."
"I understand. But I intend to give you even more to chew on. This afternoon you are scheduled to address the General Assembly. However, the American delegation has requested that your address be put off until Monday—after the weekend and the holiday."
"I can't!" Kinsman snapped. "I can't stay here that long."
De Paolo nodded. "Yes, of course. This is a move by the Americans to prevent you from getting your message across to the peoples of the world. Unfortunately, the Russians are in agreement with the Americans on this, and between them and their blocs in the General Assembly they have enough votes to force a postponement of our special session. Actual- ly, most of the delegates are away at home for this week, and a postponement suits them very agreeably."
"But . . ."
"Fear not," De Paolo said, with an upraised hand. "You can address the General Assembly next week from the Moon or one of your satellite stations. Your public address was not the real reason I wanted you here. There are a few dozen key people that you must meet, and we will take every advantage of your time here to bring them to you. They are officials from many different nation-states. Most of them are from very small and weak nations, but a few might surprise you."
"If they think you're okay," Marrett broke in, "then they'll get their governments to go along with us—to revamp the UN and move toward a real world government." 538
"Wait a minute," said Kinsman. "I'm not sure that / want to go that far!"
De Paolo smiled, and once again there were generations of human suffering on his face. "Your discussions with these men and women will help you to make up your mind, in that case. Obviously, none of us can move in any direction until we are all agreed."
"Fair enough," Kinsman said.
De Paolo got to his feet. "I must get back to my other duties. You may hear thumping along the walls and ceiling from time to time. Do not be alarmed; it is merely our security team sniffing for electronic bugs."
He walked to the door, alone. Stopping there, he looked back at Kinsman. "You believed you were acting to save your world—your Selene—from being destroyed by decisions made here on Earth. Then you found that perhaps you could save the people of Earth from destroying themselves. Now we offer you something much grander, and much more difficult to achieve: a chance to rid the Earth of the curse of nationalism. A chance to move human society to its next evolutionary phase. A world government is the only chance we have to avoid global catastrophe."
Through the long day they came, and well into the evening. One by one, very rarely two together, and only once did three visit Kinsman at the same time. Diplomats, repre- sentatives of many nations. Some of them had enough technical background to converse freely about missile trajec- tories and the logistics of orbital operations. A few of them had been on the Moon for brief periods, although Kinsman remembered only one of them: a striking olive-skinned, black-haired Italian geologist. She was now part of the UNESCO team studying global natural resources, and appar- ently reported directly to the Italian minister of finance.
"A father in high office," she murmured, with the trace of an accent laid over her British-style English. She smiled as if she thought her father's position was being aided by her work, rather than vice versa.
Marrett stayed with Kinsman and Harriman until the last visitor had departed. He spoke to the visitors of weather control, of optimizing their climate, of allowing them to plan 539 their harvests years in advance and then see the predictions come true. Kinsman spoke about international stability, about peace based on the protection of the orbital ABM network, about substantial disarmament and the chance for the smaller nations to depend on world law rather than spending half their gross national product on armies that often turned on their own governments and ousted them in bloody coups.
The visitors to the plush, quiet room with the special air supply came from Africa, from Asia, from the scattered islands of the Pacific, from the overpopulated nations of Latin America. Kinsman was surprised to receive a three-man delegation from Japan, all smiles and polite bows and sincere wishes for good fortune, who knew a disturbing amount about the ABM satellite lasers and were quite familiar with Marrett's work in weather modification.
Beleg Jamsuren brought his uncle, the Mongol ambassa- dor to the United Nations. The Italian woman was not the only European: the Scandinavian nations, Hungary, Czecho- slovakia, Yugoslavia, Holland, and Denmark all sent repre- sentatives.
All very unofficial. Completely social. No agreements were made or even hinted at. No commitments. But they got the information they had come for and they left with new light in their eyes.
By 10 P.M. Kinsman was exhausted. He had the back of his contour chair cranked all the way down as Landau ran through the medical checks. Marrett and Harriman were wolfing hot sandwiches and beer.
