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One of the options Heisenberg suggested, was a rather crude one. He proposed that he transpose the entire planet 'O' into a different galaxy, or transpose the marauding fleet to some distant space.
Olaf shook his head. He wasn't sure if the planet would stay together in one piece. Also, transposing the fleet was out of a question. We couldn't be certain that we would be able to find an environment for them in which they would survive. Since killing them wasn't an option, that door was closed. Nor was it needed, so it seemed. It turned out that Olaf had a better idea with a simpler solution. His suggestion was that we could temporarily evacuate every man woman and child off the planet, to a suitable new planet, to let the war pass by them, and then bring them back. Olaf liked the idea, because as he reminded me, Natalia and I had successfully proven this principle in our war with the captain. He reminded us that we had simply pulled ourselves out of this war and let the captain fight this war by himself, which was largely against himself anyway, against his own humanity.
Olaf's suggestion and explanation caused a great uproar among the 'O' people. Many liked the idea. Some could understand the principle involved. Nevertheless, Olaf's offer was eventually rejected. They told us that it had taken thousands of years of hard labor to build their civilization, and to create an environment that made life tolerable on this wet planet, even easy and comfortable. They wanted to know by what reasoning we could possibly propose that they surrender all this to a bunch of thieves? The 'O' people suggested that there should to be a better solution possible that causes no harm to anyone, or any loss.
I watched Olaf with great interest, to see how he would take such a rejection. I had never seen him take a rejection before.
He listened intently. His eyes sparkled even then, as they always sparkled when he was defining the leading edge, thinking in an arena of complex problems. At one point he was about to grin, I could see it, but he suppressed it. Obviously he knew he was right.
"Your life isn't located in houses and factories, and in machines," he told the 'O' people. "Your life is bound up in building your civilization, not in dead things. It is bound up in using your intelligence, in extending yourselves beyond the point where you merely live. You would in no wise die, should you ever loose your cities and machines, even if the fleet would totally destroy them. But I can promise you this: You will most certainly die as a people if you ever stopped building them!"
They looked at him as though he was either totally stupid or inexplicably, totally on the mark. Since they couldn't figure out which it was, his suggestion was dropped once more from the agenda. However, it wasn't dropped from Olaf's consciousness. I have long ago realized that it is quite impossible to exile a genie back into its bottle, especially not one that Olaf had let escape.
Since they had stated their standpoint, Olaf promptly retired to his planet. On planet 'O' not another word was spoken, to my knowledge, on the subject, as if an idea of this magnitude needed to ferment in the mind before it could ripen into something digestible. Maybe Olaf needed a breather himself. Or maybe he hadn't thought the thing through to its final solution. How does one move seven billion people, and turn one of the most industrious planets in the universe, into a ghost town? This must have posed quite a challenge, even for Olaf, though he never spoke of it.
It was Mahesh who gave him the answer that he needed for a breakthrough, though Olaf never actually said so. It isn't that he is too proud to ever admit that he needs to be helped at times. He just doesn't seem to worry about insignificant details like that. The important thing for him was that a breakthrough was made.
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