Critical Threshold Read Online Free

happily work away in our respective spheres without conflict. We both suspected, however, that the potential for more conflict was still implicit in our attitudes.
    â€œI hear,” he said, coming straight to the point, “that you have your doubts about what we might find on Dendra.”
    â€œHaven’t we all?” I replied, stalling. “We’ll be there soon. Then we can all find out.”
    â€œI wanted to talk to you first,” he said.
    I sighed, and moved along the bunk. “Sit down,” I invited.
    He sat.
    â€œDo you think we need a referee?” I asked.
    He refused to be amused. “We land tomorrow,” he said. “All being well. I think it might be wiser if we didn’t take down too many preconceived notions about what we might find there.”
    I saw the point of the eleventh hour approach. He wanted to undermine the ideas that my nasty mind had come up with—or the attitude born of them—at the right strategic moment.
    â€œIt’s okay,” I assured him. “I’m not going down there with a bee in my bonnet about uncovering evidence to crucify a bunch of long-dead political cowboys. I have my priorities in order.”
    â€œI know that. What I want to try to avoid, before it crops up, is the kind of communication-breakdown we suffered on Floria. I’d like to agree, if we can, on the principles we work on.”
    I folded up the reports and stacked them neatly on my knee.
    â€œState your principles,” I invited, “and I’ll tell you which ones I agree with.”
    â€œYou’re not being very helpful.”
    â€œTrue,” I admitted.
    â€œIt seems to me,” he said, “that you’re anticipating a conflict of opinions before there’s any need for it. You seem to be assuming that my approach to this world—whatever the situation we find there—is going to be radically different from yours.”
    I shook my head. “If you think that’s because of the things I’ve deduced about the way the Dendra colony was set up, you’re wrong. It’s not just Dendra, it’s everywhere. Our approaches are different. You’re here to write propaganda. I’m here to help. Well, okay, it’s not for me to reason why. I’m not going to interfere with your work, and you won’t interfere with mine. But you can’t expect me to declare solemnly that I’ll agree with what you have to say and do. If we find Dendra—or any other colony—in grave difficulties, then I’m not going to misrepresent the fact in my reports.”
    â€œI’m not talking about misrepresentation,” he said. “And you’re jumping way ahead of me. This assumption of implicit hostility is a handicap to the whole mission, and that’s what I want to talk about. We’re on the same side. We ought to be able to work together.”
    I had to admit, even to myself, that the prejudice I felt against Nathan was really an emotional one. I didn’t even dislike him personally—I just disliked the kind of man I thought he was. I ought to have been able to put the prejudice aside, but it wasn’t easy. It didn’t make it any easier, either, that he could come to me and ask me to put it aside.
    â€œI came out here,” I said, “to do a job. To recontact the colonies and give them whatever help I could. I believe that we should reinstitute a space program, if not to colonize new worlds, at least to give proper support to the ones already colonized. But you’re here to make what we do into a big story—something to be used for propaganda purposes, to make a new space program acceptable to the world. So we want the same thing, but not the same way. I don’t want a new space program simply because someone managed to sell the idea in the political marketplace, with the corollary assumption that someone at some future date might sell the idea of abandoning