"Please, Manuel. Keeping you temporarily in the dark greatly enhanced our chances; you can check this with Adam. May I add that Stuart accepted his summons to Luna blithely without asking why? Comrade, that committee was too small, its chairman too intelligent; there was always the hazard that they might offer an acceptable compromise—that first day there was grave danger of it. Had we been able to force our case before the Grand Assembly there would have been no danger of intelligent action. But we were balked. The best I could do was to antagonize the committee, even stooping to personal insult to make certain of at least one holdout against common sense."