Transcriber's Note:

 A list of repaired typographical errors will be found at the end of this e-book. 

WARLORD OF KOR

by

TERRY CARR

GOD, MACHINE--OR LISTENING POST FOR OUTSIDERS?

Horng sat opposite the tiny, fragile creature who held amicrophone, its wires attached to an interpreting machine. Heblinked his huge eyes slowly, his stiff mouth fumblingly formingwords of a language his race had not used for thirty thousandyears. 

"Kor was . . . Is . . . God . . . Knowledge. " He had tried to conveythis to the small creatures who had invaded his world, but theydid not heed. Their ill-equipped brains were trying futilely tocomprehend the ancient race memory of his people. 

Now they would attempt further to discover the forbiddendirectives of Kor. Horng remembered, somewhere far back in thefossil layers of his thoughts, a warning. They must be stopped!If he had to, he would stamp out these creatures who were called"humans. "

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Rynason

His mental quest led him too close to a dangerous secret. 

Manning

His ideas for colonizing that world didn't include survival forits native beings. 

Malhomme

This ruffian-preacher could be the one man that everyone mighthave to trust. 

Mara

She wanted to save the aliens, but did they want to be saved?

Horng

In the recesses of his brain was the key to a deadcivilization--or a live menace. . . . 

Kor

Was it a legend, a king, a thing, or a trap from another galaxy?

WARLORD OF KOR

by

TERRY CARR

Ace Books, Inc. 1120 Avenue of the AmericasNew York 36, N. Y. Copyright ©, 1963, by Ace Books, Inc. 

ONE

Lee Rynason sat forward on the faded red-stone seat, watching the stylusof the interpreter as the massive grey being in front of him spoke, itsdry, leathery mouth slowly and stumblingly forming the words of a spokenlanguage its race had not used for over thirty thousand years. Thestylus made no sound in the thin air of Hirlaj as it passed over theplasticene notepaper; the only sounds in the ancient building were thoseof the alien's surprisingly high and thin voice coming at intervals andRynason's own slightly labored breathing. 

He did not listen to the alien's voice--by now he had heard it oftenenough so that it was merely irritating in its thin dryness, like oldparchments being rubbed together. He watched the stylus as it jumpedalong sporadically:

TEBRON MARL WAS OUR . . . PRIEST KING HERO. NOT PRIEST BUT ONE WHO KNEW. . . THAT IS PRIEST. 

Rynason was a slender, sandy-haired man in his late twenties. A sharpscar from a knife cut left a line across his forehead over his righteyebrow. His eyes, perhaps brown, perhaps green--the light on Hirlaj wassometimes deceptive--were soft, but narrowed with an intent alertness. He raised the interpreter's mike and said, "How long ago?"

The stylus recorded the Earthman's question too, but Rynason did notwatch it. He looked up at the bulk of the alien, watching for the slowclosing of its eyes, so slow that it could not be called a blink, thatwould show it had understood the question. The interpreter could feedthe question direct to the telepathic alien, but there was no guaranteethat it would be understood. 

The eyes, resting steadily on him, closed and opened and in a fewmoments came the Hirlaji's dry voice. 

THE GREAT AGE WAS IN THE EIGHTEENTH GENERATION PAST . . . SEVEN THOUSANDYEARS AGO. 

Rynason calculated quickly. Translating that to about 8200Earth-standard years and subtracting, that would make it about theseventeenth century. About the time of the Restoration in England, whenthe western hemisphere of Earth was still being colonized. Eighteengenerations ago on Hirlaj. He read the date into the mike for the stylusto record, and sat back and stretched. 

They were sitting amid the ruins of a vast hall, grey dust covering thestone floor all around them. Dry, hard vegetation had crept in throughcracks and breaks in the walls and fallen across the dusty interiorshadows of the building. Occasionally a small, quick animal would dartfrom a dark wall across the floor to another shadow, its feet soundlessin the dust. 

Above Rynason the enormous arch of the Hirlaji dome loomed darklyagainst the deep cerulean blue of the sky. The lines of all Hirlajiarchitecture were deceptively simple, but Rynason had already found thatif he tried to follow the curves and angles he would soon find his headswimming. There was a quality to these ancient buildings which was notquite understandable to a Terran mind, as though the old Hirlaji hadbuilt them on geometric principles just slightly at a tangent from thoseof Earth. The curve of the arch drew Rynason's eyes along its silhouettealmost hypnotically. He caught himself, and shook his head, and turnedagain to the alien before him. 

The creature's name, as well as it could be rendered in a Terran script, was Horng. The head of the alien was dark and hairless, leathery, weathered; the light wires of the interpreter trailed down and acrossthe floor from where they were clamped to the deep indentations of thetemples. Massive boney ridges circled the shadowed eyes set low on thehead, directly above the wide mouth which always hung open while theHirlaji breathed in long gulps of air. Two atrophied nostrils weresituated on either side and slightly below the eyes. The neck was sothick and massive that it was practically nonexistent, blending the headwith the shoulders and trunk, on which the dry skin stretched so thinthat Rynason could see the solid bone of the chest wall. Two squat armshung from the shoulders, terminating in four-digited hands on which twosets of blunt fingers were opposed; Horng kept moving them constantly, in what Rynason automatically interpreted as a nervous habit. The lowerbody was composed of two heavily-muscled legs jointed so that they couldmove either forward or backward, and the feet had four stubby butpowerful toes radiating from the center. The Hirlaji wore a dark garmentof something which looked like wood-fibre, hanging from the head andgathered together by a cord just below the chest-wall. 

Rynason, since arriving on the planet three weeks before as one of ateam of fifteen archaeological workers, had been interviewing Horngalmost every day, but still he often found himself remembering only withdifficulty that this was an intelligent being; Horng was so slow-movingand uncommunicative most of the time that he almost seemed like a moundof leather, like a pile of hides thrown together in a corner. But he wasintelligent, and in his mind he held perhaps the entire history of hisrace. 

Rynason lifted the interpreter-mike again. "Was Tebron Marl king of allHirlaj?"

Horng's eyes slowly closed and opened. TEBRON MARL WAS RULER LEADER INTHE REGION OF MINES. HE UNITED ALL OF HIRLAJ AND WAS PRIEST RULER. 

"How did he unite the planet?"

TEBRON LIVED AT THE END OF THE BARBARIC AGE. HE CONQUERED THE PLANET BYVIOLENCE AND DROVE THE ANCIENT PRIEST CASTE FROM THE TEMPLE. 

"But the reign of Tebron Marl is remembered as an era of peace. "

WHEN HE WAS PRIEST KING HE HELD THE PEACE. HE ENDED THE BARBARIC AGE. 

Rynason suddenly sat forward, watching the stylus record these words. "Then it was Tebron who abolished war on Hirlaj?"

YES. 

Rynason felt a thrill go through him. This was what they had all beensearching for--the point in the history of Hirlaj when wars had ceased, when the Hirlaji had given themselves over to completely peacefulliving. He knew already that the transition had been sharp and sudden. It was the last question mark in the sketchy history of Hirlaj which thesurvey team had compiled since its arrival--how had the Hirlaji managedso abruptly to establish and maintain an era of peace which had lastedunbroken to the present?

It was difficult even to think of these huge, slow-moving creatures aswarriors . . . But warriors they had been, for thousands of their years, gradually building their culture and science until, apparently almostovernight, the wars had ceased. Since then the Hirlaji moved in theirslow way through their world, growing more complacent with the passageof ancient generations, growing passive, and, eventually, decadent. Nowthere were only some two dozen of the race left alive. 

They were telepathic, these leathery aliens, and behind those shadowedeyes they held the entire memories of their race. Experiencescommunicated telepathically through the centuries had formed a memorypool which each of the remaining Hirlaji shared. They could not, ofcourse, integrate in their own minds all of that immense store ofmemories and understand it all clearly . . . But the memories were there. 

It was at the same time a boon and a trial for Rynason and the rest ofthe survey team. They were trained archaeologists . . . As well schooledas possible on the worlds of this far-flung sector near the constantlyoutward-moving Edge, the limit of Terran expansion. Rynason couldoperate and if necessary repair the portable carbondaters of the team, he knew the fine points of excavation and restoration of artifacts andhad studied so many types of alien anatomy that he could make at leastan educated guess at the reconstruction of beings from fragmentaryfossil-remains or incomplete skeletons . . . Or exoskeletons. 

But the situation on Hirlaj was one which had never before beenencountered; here he was not dealing with a dead race's remains, butdirectly with members of that race. It was not a matter of siftingfragmentary evidence of science, crafts and customs, finding out what hecould and piecing together a composite picture from the remains at hand, as they had done with the artifacts of the Outsiders, those unknownbeings who had left the ruins of their outposts and colonies in sixgalaxies already explored and settled by the Earthmen; all he had to dohere was ask the right questions and he would get his answers. 

Sitting there under that massive dome, with the quiet-eyed alien beforehim, Rynason couldn't completely suppress a feeling of ridiculousness. The problem was that the Hirlaji could not be depended upon to be ableto find a particular memory-series in their minds; the race memory wassuch a conglomeration that all they could do was strike randomly atmemories until the correct area was touched, and then follow up fromthere. The result was usually irrelevant and unrelated information. 

But he seemed to be getting somewhere now. Having spent three weeks withHorng, gradually learning a little about the ways of his alien mind, hehad at last run across what might be the important turning-point in thehistory of Hirlaj. 

Horng spoke, and Rynason turned to watch the stylus of the interpreteras it moved across the paper. TEBRON SPENT HIS YEARS BRINGING HIRLAJTOGETHER. FIRST BY CONQUEST THEN BY . . . LEADERSHIP LAW. HE FORBADE . . . SCIENCES QUESTINGS EXPLORATIONS WHICH DREW HIRLAJ APART. 

"What were these sciences?"

Horng closed and opened his eyes. MANY OF THEM ARE FORGOTTEN. 

Rynason looked up at the alien, who sat quietly on a rough stonebenchlike seat. "But your race doesn't forget. "

THE MEMORIES ARE VERY FAR BACK AND ARE HARD TO FIND. THERE HAS BEEN NOEFFORT TO RETAIN CERTAIN MEMORIES. 

"But you can remember these if you try?"

Horng's head dipped to one side, a characteristic movement which Rynasonhad not yet managed to interpret. The shadowed, wrinkled eyes closedslowly. THE MEMORIES ARE THERE. THEY ARE THE SCIENCES OF KOR. MANY OFTHEM ARE WARLIKE SCIENCES. 

"You've mentioned Kor before. Who was he?"

KOR WAS IS GOD KNOWLEDGE. 

Rynason frowned. The interpreter automatically translated terms whichhad no reliable parallel in Terran by giving two or three related words, and usually the concept was fairly clear. Not quite so with thissentence. 

"God and knowledge are two different words in our language, " he said. "Can you explain your term more fully?"

Horng shifted heavily on his seat, his blunt fingers tapping each other. KOR WAS IS EXISTENCE WHICH WE WORSHIP OBEY ADMIRE FOLLOW. ALSO ESSENCECONCEPT OF KNOWLEDGE SCIENCE QUESTING. 

Rynason, watching the stylus, pursed his lips. "Mm, " he said softly, andshrugged his shoulders. Kor was apparently some sort of god, but theinterpreter didn't seem capable of translating the term precisely. 

"What were the sciences of Kor?"

There was a silence as the stylus finished moving across the paper, andRynason looked up at Horng. The alien's eyes were closed and he hadstopped the constant motion of his leathery grey fingers; he satimmobile, like a giant statue, almost a part of the complex of the halland the crumbling domed building. Rynason waited. 

The silence remained for a long time in the dry air of the empty hall. Rynason saw from the corner of his eye one of the dark little scavengersdarting out of a gaping window. He could almost hear, it seemed, thenoise of the brawling, makeshift town the Earthmen had established alittle less than a mile away from the Hirlaji ruins, where already thenomads and adventurers and drifters had erected a cluster of prefabmetal buildings and were settling in. 

"What were the sciences of Kor?" Rynason asked again, not wanting tothink of the cheapness and dirt of the Earth outpost which huddled sonear to the Hirlaji domes. 

He felt Horng's quiet gaze, heavy with centuries, resting on him. THEYWERE ARE THOSE SCIENCES QUESTINGS WHICH KOR PROCLAIMED INFORMED WERESACRED PART OF THE ESSENCE. 

"Part of Kor?"

Horng's head dipped to one side. APPROXIMATELY. 

"How is this known? Tebron broke the power of the priesthood, didn'the?"

TEBRON REPLACED THE PRIESTS. THE KNOWLEDGE WAS GIVEN TO TEBRON. 

"Including the information that these sciences were prohibited?"

Horng shifted forward, like a massive block of stone wavering. Hisfingers moved briefly and then rested. THE MEMORIES ARE BURIED DEEPLY. TEBRON PROCLAIMED THIS PROHIBITION AFTER COMMUNICATING WITH KOR. 

Rynason's head jerked up from the interpreter. "Tebron spoke with Kor?"

After a pause, Horng's dry voice came. APPROXIMATELY. THERE WAS . . . COMMUNICATION RAPPORT. TEBRON WAS KING PRIEST. 

"Then Tebron made this prohibition in the name of Kor. When did thisoccur?"

THE KNOWLEDGE PROHIBITION WAS COMMUNICATED TO HIRLAJ WHEN TEBRON ASSUMEDPOWER RIGHT. 

"The same day?"

THE DAY AFTER. TEBRON COMMUNICATED WITH KOR IMMEDIATELY AFTER OUSTINGREPLACING THE PRIESTS. 

Rynason watched Horng's replies as they were recorded by theinterpreter; he was frowning. So this dawn-era king was supposed to havespoken, perhaps telepathically, with the god of the Hirlaji. Could hehave simply claimed to have done so in an effort to stabilize his ownpower? But the fact that this race was telepathic threw some doubt onthat supposition. 

"Are there memories of Tebron's conversation with Kor?" he asked. 

Horng's eyes closed and opened in acknowledgement, and then abruptly thealien rose to his feet. He moved slowly past Rynason to the base of along, sweeping flight of stairs which led upward toward the empty dome, trailing the wires of the interpreter. Rynason moved to unplug thewires, but Horng stopped at the base of the stairs, looking up along thecurving ramp to where it ended in a blunt, weathered break two-thirds ofthe way up. Rubble lay below the break. 

Rynason watched the grey being staring silently up those broken steps, and asked softly, "What are you doing?"

Horng, still gazing upward, dipped his head to one side. THERE IS NOPURPOSE. He turned and came slowly back to his stone seat. 

Rynason grinned wryly. He was beginning to get used to such things fromHorng, whose mind often seemed to run in non sequiturs. It was as thoughthe alien's perceptions of the present were as jumbled as the welter ofmemories he held. Crazy old mound of leather. 

But he was not crazy, of course; his mind simply ran in a way that wasalien to the Earthmen. Rynason was beginning to learn to respect thatalien way, if not to understand it. 

"Are there memories of Tebron's conversation with Kor?" Rynason askedagain. 

TEBRON COMMUNICATED WITH KOR IMMEDIATELY AFTER OUSTING THE PRIESTS. ITOCCURRED IN THE TEMPLE. 

"Are there memories of what was said?"

Horng sat silently, perhaps in thought. His reply didn't come forseveral minutes. 

THE MEMORIES ARE BURIED DEEPLY. 

"_Can you remember_ the actual communication?"

Horng's head tilted to one side in a peculiarly strained fashion;Rynason could see a muscle jumping where the alien's neck blended withhis torso. THE MEMORIES ARE BURIED SO DEEPLY. I CANNOT REACH THEM. 

Rynason gazed pensively at the interpreter as these words were recorded. What could have happened during that conversation that would have causedits memory to be so deeply buried?

"Can you find among any of the rest of Tebron's memories any thoughtsabout Kor?"

YES. TEBRON HAD MEMORIES THAT HE HAD COMMUNICATED WITH KOR, BUT THESEARE FLEETING. THERE IS NOTHING CLEAR. 

The Hirlaji was shaking, his entire body trembling with some sort oftension which even communicated itself through the interpreter, causingthe stylus to quaver and jump forward, dragging a jagged line across thepaper. Rynason stared up at the alien, feeling a chill down his backwhich seemed to penetrate through to his chest and lungs. This massivecreature was shaking like the rumbling warnings of an earthquake, hiseyes cast downward from the deep shadows of their sockets; Rynason couldalmost feel the weight of their gaze like a heavy, dark blanket. Helifted the interpreter's mike slowly. 

"Your race does not forget, " he said softly. "Why can't you rememberthis conversation?"

Horng's four-digited hands clasped tightly and the powerful tendonsstood out starkly on the heavy wrists as Horng drew in long breaths ofair, the sound of his breathing loud in the great space under the dome. 

THERE IS NOTHING CLEAR. THERE IS NOTHING CLEAR. 

TWO

The Earthman called the town Hirlaj too, because the spaceport wasthere. It was a new town, only a few months old, but the gleaming alloysof the buildings were already coated with dirt and pitted by thefrequent dust storms that swept through. Garbage littered the alleys;its odor was strange but still foul in the alien atmosphere. The small, darting creatures were here too, foraging in the alleys and theoutskirts of the town, where the streets ended in garbage heaps and newcemeteries or faded into the trackless flat where the spacers toucheddown. 

The Earthmen filled the streets . . . Drinking, fighting, laughing andcursing, arguing over money or power or, sometimes, women. The womenhere were hard and self-sufficient, following the path of Terranexpansion in the stars and taking what they felt was due them as womenor what they could get as men. Supply houses did a thriving business, their prices high between shipments on the spacers from the innerworlds; bars and gambling houses stayed open all night; rooming housesand restaurants and laundries displayed crude handlettered signs alongthe streets. 

Rynason pushed his way through a jostling crowd outside the door of abar. He was supposed to meet the head of his Survey team here--RiceManning, who had been pushing the survey as hard as he could since theday they'd set foot on Hirlaj. Manning was hard and ambitious--a leaderof men, Rynason thought sardonically as he surveyed the tables in thedim interior. The floor of the bar was a dirty plastic-metal alloy, already scuffed and in places bloodstained. The tables were of thecheap, light metals so common on the spacer-supplied worlds of the Edge, and they wobbled. 

The low-ceilinged room was crowded with men. Rynason didn't know many ofthem by name, but he recognized a lot of the faces. The men of the Edge, though they lacked money, education, often brains and usually ethics, atleast had the quality of distinctiveness: they didn't fit the half-dozenconvenient molds which the highly developed culture of the inner worldsfitted over the more civilized citizens of the Terran Federation. Thesemen were too self-interested to follow the group-thoughts whichcontrolled the centers of empire, and the seams and wrinkles of theirfaces stamped a rough kind of individuality even more visually uponthem. 

Of them all, the man who was instantly recognizable in any crowd likethis was Rene Malhomme; Rynason immediately saw the man in one corner ofthe room. He stood six and a half feet tall, heavily muscled and a bitwild-eyed; his greying hair fell in disorder over his dirty forehead andsprayed out over his ears. He was surrounded by laughing and shoutingmen; Rynason couldn't tell from this distance whether he was engaged inone of his usual heated arguments on religion or in his other avocationof recounting stories of the women he had "converted". He waved ablack-lettered sign saying REPENT! over his head--but then, he alwaysdid. 

Rynason found Manning in the back, sitting under a cheap print of aPicasso nude with cold light trained on it in typically bad taste. Hehad a woman with him. Rynason recognized her--Mara Stephens, in chargeof communications and supplies for the survey team. She was a strangegirl, aloof but not hard, and she carried herself with a quiet dignity. What was she doing with Manning?

He passed a waiter on his way to the table and ordered a drink. Malhommesaw him as he passed: "Lee Rynason! Come and join me in repentance! Giveyour soul to God and your money to the barman, for as the prophetsayeth, lo, I am dry! Join us!"

Rynason grinned and shook his head, walking past. He grabbed one of thelight-metal chairs and sat down next to Mara. 

"You wanted to see me, " he said to Manning. 

Manning looked up at him to apparent surprise. "Lee! Yes, yes--sit down. Wait, we'll get you a drink. "

So he was in that kind of a mood. "I've got one coming, " Rynason said. "What's our problem today?"

Manning smiled broadly. "No problem, Lee; no problem at all. Not unlessyou want to make one. " He chuckled goodnaturedly, a tacit statement thathe was expecting no such thing. "I've got good news today, by god. Youtell him, Mara. "

Rynason turned to the girl, who smiled briefly. "It just came over thetelecom, " she said. "Manning has a good chance for the governorshiphere. The Council is supposed to announce its decision in two weeks. "

Rynason looked over at Manning, his face expressionless. "Congratulations. How did this happen?"

"I've got an inside track; friend of mine knows several of the big guys. Throws parties, things like that. He's been putting in a word for me, here and there. "

"Isn't this a bit out of your line?" Rynason said. 

Manning sat back, a large man with close-cropped dark hair and heavyfeatures. His beard was trimmed to a thin line along the ridge of hisjaw--a style that was popular on the inner worlds, but rarely seen hereon the Edge. "This _is_ my line, " he said. "God, this is what I wasafter when I took this damned job. Survey teams are a dime a dozen outhere, Lee; it's no job for a man. "

"We've got sort of a special case here, " Rynason said evenly, glancingat Mara. She smiled at him. "We haven't run into any alien races beforethat were intelligent. "

Manning laughed, and took a long swallow of his drink. "Twenty-six lousyhorsefaces--now there's an important discovery for you. No, Lee, this ispeanuts. For that matter, they may be running into intelligent aliensall over the Edge by now--communication isn't so reliable out here thatwe'd necessarily know about it. What we've found here isn't any moreimportant than all the rubble and trash the Outsiders left behind. "

"Still, it _is_ unique so far, " Mara said. 

"I'll tell you exactly how unique it is, " Manning said, leaning forwardand setting down his glass with a bang. "It's just unique enough that Ican make it sound important in my report to the Council. I can makemyself sound a little impressive. That's how important it is; no morethan that. "

Rynason pursed his lips, but didn't say anything. The waiter arrivedwith his drink; he threw a green coin onto the table which was scoopedup before it had finished ringing to a stop, and sat back with the glassin his hand. 

"Is that your pitch to the Council?" he asked. "You're telling them thatHirlaj is an important archaeological area and that's why you should getthe governorship?"

"Something like that, " Manning nodded. "That, and my friend atSeventeenth Cluster headquarters. Incidentally, he's an idiot and aslob--turns on quadsense telemuse instead of working, drinks hopsbraufrom his own sector. I can't stand him. But I did him a few favors, justin case, and they're paying off. "

"I think it's marvelous the way our frontier policy caters to thecolonists, " Mara said quietly. She was still smiling, but it was anironic smile which suddenly struck Rynason as characteristic of her. 

He knew exactly what she meant. Manning's little push for power wasnothing new or shocking in Terran frontier politics. With the rapidexpansion of the Edge through the centuries, the frontier policy of theConfederation had had to adapt itself to comparatively slipshod methodsof setting up governments in the newly-opened areas. Back in the earlydays they'd tried sending out trained men from each Clusterheadquarters, but that had been foredoomed to failure: travel betweenthe stars was slow, and too often the governors had arrived after localofficialdoms had already been established, and there had been clashes. The colonists had almost always backed the local governments, and therewere a few full-scale revolts when the system had been backed toomilitantly by Cluster headquarters. 

So the Local Autonomy System had been sanctioned. The colonists wouldalways support their own men, who at least knew conditions in the areasthey were to govern. But since this necessarily limited the choice ofEdge governorships to the roustabouts and drifters who wandered theoutworlds, the resulting administrations were probably even more corruptthan they had been under the old system of what had amounted tocentralized graft. The Cluster Councils retained the power of appointingthe local governors, but aside from that the newly-opened worlds of theEdge were completely under their own rule. Some of the more vocalcritics of the Local Autonomy System had dubbed it instead theIndigenous Corruption System; it was by now a fairly standard nicknamein the outworlds. 

The system made for a wide-open frontier--bustling, wild, hectic, andrich. For the worlds of the Edge were untamed worlds, raw andforbidding, and the policy of the Councils was calculated to attract thekind of men who not only could but would open these frontiers. Theroustabouts, the low drifters of the spaceways . . . Men who were hard andstrong from repeated knocks, who were looking for a way to work or fighttheir way up. The lean and hungry of the outworlds. 

Rynason glanced across the table at Manning. He was neither lean norhungry, but he had that look in his eyes. Rynason had been around theEdge for years--his father had travelled the spacers in the commerciallines--and he had seen that look on many men, in the fields and mines, in the spaceports, in the quickly-tarnished prefab towns that sprang upalmost overnight when a planetfall was made. He could recognize it onManning despite the man's casual, self-satisfied expression. 

"You don't have to worry about the colonists here, " Manning was sayingto the girl. "I'll treat 'em decently. There'll be money to be madehere, and I can make it without stepping on too many toes. "

Mara seemed amused. "And what would happen if you _had_ to step on themto make your money? What if Hirlaj doesn't turn out to have any naturalresources worth exploiting--a whole civilization has been here forthousands of years? What if the colony here starts to falter, and themen move on?"

Manning frowned at her for a moment, then gave a grunting laugh. "Nochance of that. It's like Lee was just saying--this planet is animportant discovery--we've got tame aliens here, intelligent horsefacesthat you can lead around with a rope on their necks. That alone willdraw tourists. Maybe well set up an official Restricted Ground, a sortof reservation. "

"A zoo, you mean, " Rynason interrupted. 

Manning raised an amused eyebrow at him. "A reservation, I said. Youknow what reservations are like, Lee. "

Rynason glared at the heavier man, then subsided. There was no point ingetting into a fight over if's and maybe's; in the outworlds you learnedquickly to confine your clashes to tangibles. "Why did you want to seeme?" he said. 

"I want your preliminary report completed, " Manning said. "I've got tohave my complete report collated and transmitted within the week, ifit's to have any effect on the Council. Most of the boys have got themin already; Breune and Larsborg have promised theirs within four days. But you're still holding me up. "

Rynason took a long swallow of his drink and put it down empty. Thenoise and smell of the bar seemed to grow around him, washing over him. It might have been the effects of the tarpaq in the drink, but he felthis stomach tighten and turn slightly when he thought of how Earth'sculture presented itself, warped itself, here on the frontier Edge. Wasthis land of mercenary, slipshod rush really what had carried Earthmento the stars?

"I don't know if I'll have much to report for at least a week, " he saidshortly. 

"Then give me a report on what you've got!" Manning snapped. "If nothingelse, turn in your transcripts and I'll do the report myself; I canhandle it. What the hell do you mean, you won't have much to report?"

"Larsborg said the same thing, " Mara interjected. 

"Larsborg said he'd have his report ready in a couple of days anyway!"

"I'll give you what I've got as soon as I can, " Rynason said. "Butthings are just beginning to break for me--did you see my note thisafternoon?"

"Yes, of course. The part about this Tedron or whatever his name was?"

"Tebron Marl. He's the link between their barbaric and civilizedperiods. I've only begun to get into it. "

Manning was waving for more drinks; he caught a waiter's eye and thenturned back to Rynason. "What's this nonsense about some damned blockyou ran into? Have you got a crazy horse on your hands?"

"There's something strange there, " Rynason said. "He tells me thisTebron was actually supposed to have communicated with their god, orwhatever he was. It sounds crazy, all right. But there's more to it thanthat, I'm sure of it. I wanted time to go into it further before I mademy report. "

"I think you've got a nut alien there, boy. Don't let him foul you up;you're one of my best men. "

Rynason almost sneered, but he managed to bring it out as a grin. Therole of protective father did not sit well on Manning's shoulders. "We're dealing here with a remarkably sane race, " he pointed out. "Thevery fact that they have total recall argues against any insanity inthem. There've been experiments on the inner worlds for over a centurynow, trying to bring out total recall in us, and not much luck so far. We're a sick, hung-up race. "

Manning slapped his hand down on the table. "What the hell are youtrying to do, Lee? Are you trying to measure these aliens by ourstandards? I thought you had better sense. Total recall doesn'tnecessarily mean a damn thing in them--but when they start telling youstraightforward and cold that they've talked with some god, and thenthey throw what sounds like an anxiety fit right in front of you. . . . Well, what does it sound like to you?"

Rynason accepted one of the drinks that the waiter banged down on thetable and took a sip. He felt lightheaded. "It would have been ananxiety fit if Horng had been human, " he said. "But you're right, I doknow better than to judge him by our standards. No, it was somethingelse. "

"What, then?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. That's the point--I can't give you adecent report until I find out. "

"Then, dammit, give me an _indecent_ report! Fill it out with some verylearned speculations, you know the type. . . . " Manning stopped, andgrinned. "Speaking of indecent reports, what have we turned up on theirsex lives?"

"Marc Stoworth covered that in his report yesterday, " Mara said. "They're unisexual, and their sex life is singularly boring, if you'llpardon the expression. At least, Stoworth says so. If it weren't I'msure he'd tell us all about it. "

Manning chuckled. "Yes, I imagine you're right; Marc is a good boy. Welllook, Lee, I've told you the position I'm in. Now I'm counting on you toget me out of this spot. I've _got to_ transmit my report to Councilwithin a week. I don't want to pressure you, but you know I'm in aposition to do it if I have to. Dammit, give me a report. "

"I'll turn something in in a few days, " Rynason said vaguely. His brainwas definitely fuzzy now from the tarpaq. 

Manning stood up. "All right, don't forget it. Trick it out with somehigh-sounding guesses if you have to, like I said. Right now I've got tosee a man about a woman. " He paused, glancing at Mara. "You're busy?"

"I'm busy, yes. " Her face was studiedly expressionless. 

He shrugged briefly and went out, pushing and weaving his way throughthe hubbub that filled the bar. It was dark outside; Rynason caught aglimpse of the dark street as Manning went through the door. Night fellquickly on Hirlaj, with the suddenness of age. 

Rynason turned back to the table, and Mara. He looked at her curiously. 

"What were you doing with him, anyway? You usually keep to yourself. "

The girl smiled wryly. She had deep black hair which fell to hershoulders in soft waves. Most of the women here grew their hair down totheir waists, in exaggerated imitation of inner-world styles, but Marahad more taste than that. Her eyes were a clear brown, and they met hisdirectly. "He was in a sharp mood, so I came along as peacemaker. Youdon't seem to have needed me. "

"You helped, at that; thanks. Was that true about the governorship?"

"Of course. Manning seldom brags, you should know that. He's a verycapable man, in some ways. "

Rynason frowned. "He could be a lot more useful on this survey if he'duse his talents on tightening up the survey itself. He's forcing apremature report, and it isn't going to be worth much. "

"Is that what's really bothering you?" she asked. 

He tried to focus on her through the haze of the noisy bar. "Of courseit is. That, and his whole attitude toward these people. "

"The Hirlaji? Are they people to you?"

He shrugged. "What are people? Humans? Or reasoning beings you can talkto, communicate with?"

"I should think people would be reasoning beings you could relate to, "she said softly. "Not just intellectually, but emotionally too. You haveto be able to understand them to communicate that way--that's what makespeople. "

Rynason was silent, trying to integrate that into the fog in his head. The raucous noise of the bar had faded into an underwater murmur aroundhim, lost somewhere where he could not see. 

Finally, he said, "That's the trouble with them, the Hirlaji. I can'treally understand them. It's like there's really no contact, not eventhrough the interpreter. " He stared into his drink. "I wish to hell wehad some straight telepathers here; they might work with the Hirlaji, since they're telepathic anyway. I'd like to make a direct link myself. "

After a moment he felt Mara's hand on his arm, and realized that he hadalmost fallen asleep on the table. 

"You'd better go on back to your quarters, " she said. 

He sat up, shaking his head to clear it. "No, but really--what do youthink of that idea? What if I had a telepather, and I could link mindswith Horng? Straight linkage, no interpreter in the middle. I could getright at that race memory myself!"

"I think you need some sleep, " she said. She seemed worried. "You'regetting too wrapped up in this thing. And forget about the telepathers. "

Rynason looked at her and grinned. "Why?" he said quietly. "There's noharm in wishing. "

"Because, " she said, "we've got three telepathers coming in the dayafter tomorrow. "

THREE

Rynason continued to smile at her for several seconds, until her wordspenetrated. Then he abruptly sat up and steadied himself with one handagainst the edge of the table. 

"Can you get one for me?"

She gave a reluctant shrug. "If you insist, and if Manning okays it. Butis it a good idea? Direct contact with a mind so alien?"

As a matter of fact, now that he was faced with the actual possibilityof it, he wasn't so sure. But he said, "We'll only know once we've triedit. "

Mara dropped her eyes and swirled her drink, watching the tiny red spotsform inside the glass and rise to the surface. There was a brief silencebetween them. 

"_Repent_, Lee Rynason!" The words burst upon his ears over the waves ofsound that filled the room. He turned, half-rising, to find ReneMalhomme hovering over him, his wide grin showing a tooth missing in thebottom row. 

Rynason settled back into his chair. "Don't shout. I'm going to have aheadache soon enough. "

Malhomme took the chair which Manning had vacated and sat in it heavily. He set his hand-lettered placard against the edge of the table andleaned forward, waving a thick finger. 

"You consort with men who would enslave the pure in heart!" he rumbled, but Rynason didn't miss the laughter in his eye. 

"Manning?" he nodded. "He'd enslave every pure heart on this planet, ifhe could find one. As a matter of fact, I think he's already working onMara here. "

Malhomme turned to her and sat back, appraising her boldly. Mara met hisgaze calmly, raising her eyebrows slightly as she waited for hisverdict. 

Malhomme shook his head. "If she's pure, then it's a sin, " he said. "Athrice-damned sin, Lee. Have I ever expostulated to you upon theJanus-coin that is good and evil?"

"Often, " Rynason said. 

Malhomme shrugged and turned again to the girl. "Nevertheless, " he said, "I greet you with pleasure. "

"Mara, this is Rene Malhomme, " Rynason said wearily. "He imagines thatwe're friends, and I'm afraid he's right. "

Malhomme dipped his shaggy head. "The name is from the Old French ofEarth--badman. I have a long and dishonorable family history, but theearliest of my ancestors whom I've been able to trace had the same name. Apparently there were too many Smiths, Carpenters, Bakers and Priests onthat world--the time was ripe for a Malhomme. My first name would havebeen pronounced Reh-_nay_ before the language reform dropped all accentmarks from Earth tongues. "

"Considering your background, " Mara smiled, "you're in good company outhere. "

"Good company!" Malhomme cried. "I'm not looking for good company! Mywork, my mission calls me to where men's hearts are the blackest, whererepentance and redemption are needed--and so I come to the Edge. "

"You're religious?" she asked. 

"Who _is_ religious in these days?" Malhomme asked, shrugging. "Religionis of the past; it is dead. It is nearly forgotten, and one hears God'sname spoken now in anger. God damn you, cry the masses! _That_ is ourmodern religion!"

"Rene wanders around shouting about sin, " Rynason explained, "so that hecan take up collections to buy himself more to drink. "

Malhomme chuckled. "Ah, Lee, you're shortsighted. I'm an unbeliever, anda black rogue, but at least I have a mission. Our scientific advance hasdestroyed religion; we've penetrated to the heavens, and found no God. But science has not _dis_proved Him, either, and people forget that. Ispeak with the voice of the forgotten; I remind people of God, to eventhe scales. " He stopped talking long enough to grab the arm of a passingwaiter and order a drink. Then he turned back to them. "Nothing says Ihave to _believe_ in religion. If that were necessary, no one wouldpreach it. "

"Have you been preaching to the Hirlaji?" Rynason asked. 

"An admirable idea!" Malhomme said. "Do they have souls?"

"They have a god, at least. Or used to, anyway. Fellow named Kor, whowas god, essence, knowledge, and several other things all rolled intoone. "

"Return to Kor!" Malhomme said. "Perhaps it will be my next mission. "

"What's your mission now?" Mara asked, smiling in spite of herself. "Besides your apparently lifelong study and participation in sin, Imean. "

Malhomme sighed and sat back as his drink arrived. He dug into the pouchstrung from his waist and flipped a coin to the waiter. "Believe it ornot, I have one, " he said, and his voice was now low and serious. "I'mnot just a lounger, a drifter. "

"What are you?"

"I am a spy, " he said, and raised his glass to drain half of it with oneswallow. 

Mara smiled again, but he didn't return it. He sat forward and turned toRynason. "Manning has been busily wrapping up the appointment for thegovernorship here, " he said. "You probably know that. "

Rynason nodded. The headache he had been expecting was already starting. 

"Did you also know that he's been buying men here to stand with him incase someone else is appointed?" He glanced at Mara. "I go among the menevery day, talking, and I hear a lot. Manning will end up in controlhere, one way or another, unless he's stopped. "

"Buying men is nothing new, " Rynason said. "In any case, is there abetter man on the planet?"

Malhomme shook his head. "I don't know; sometimes I give up on the humanrace. Manning at least has a little culture in him--but he's morevicious than he seems, nevertheless. If he gets control here. . . . "

"It will be no worse than any of the other planets out here, " Rynasonconcluded for him. 

"Except for one thing, perhaps--the Hirlaji. I don't have much againstmen killing each other . . . That's their own business. But unless we getsomebody better than Manning governing here, the Hirlaji will be wipedout. The men here are already talking . . . They're afraid of them. "

"Why? The Hirlaji are harmless. "

"Because of their size, and because we don't know anything about them. Because they're intelligent--any uneducated man is afraid ofintelligence, and when it's an alien. . . . " He shook his head. "Manningisn't helping the situation. "

"What do you mean by that?" Mara asked. 

Malhomme's frown deepened, creasing the dark lines of his forehead intofurrows. "He's using the Hirlaji as bogey-men. Says he's the only man onthe planet who knows how to deal with them safely. Oh, you should hearhim when he moves among his people. . . . I envy his ability to controlthem with words. A little backslapping, a joke or two--most of them Iwas telling last year--and he talks to them man to man, very friendly. "He shook his head again. "Manning is so friendly with this scum that hisattitude is nothing short of patronizing. "

Rynason smiled wearily at Malhomme; for all the man's wildness, hecouldn't help liking him. It had been like this every time he had runinto him, on a dozen of the Edge-worlds. Malhomme, dirty and cynical, moved among the dregs of the stars preaching religion and fighting thecorporations, the opportunists, the phony rebels who wanted nothing foranyone but themselves. He had been known to break heads together withhis huge fists, and he had no qualms about stealing or even killing whenhis anger was aroused. Yet there was a peculiar honesty about him. 

"You always have to have a cause, don't you, Rene?"

The greying giant shrugged. "It makes life interesting, and it makes mefeel good sometimes. But I don't overestimate myself: I'm scum, like therest of them. The only difference is that I know it; I'm just one man, with no more rights than anyone else, except those I can take. " He heldup his large knuckled hands and turned them in front of his face. "I'vegot broken bones in both of them. I wonder if the Buddha or the Christever hit a man. The books on religion that are left in the repositoriesdon't say. "

"Would it make any difference if they hadn't?" Rynason asked. 

"Hell, no! I'm just curious. " Malhomme stood up, hefting his repentancesign in the crook of one big arm. His face again took on its arched lookas he said, "My duty calls me elsewhere. But I leave you with a messagefrom the scriptures, and it has been my guiding light. 'Resist notevil, ' my children. Resist not evil. "

"Who said that?" Rynason asked. 

Malhomme shook his head. "Damned if I know, " he muttered, and went away. 

After a moment Rynason turned back to the girl; she was still watchingMalhomme thread his way through the men on his way to the door. 

"So now you've met my spiritual father, " he said. 

Her deep brown eyes flickered back to his. "I wish I could use atelepather on him. I'd like to know how he really thinks. "

"He thinks exactly as he speaks, " Rynason said. "At least, at the momenthe says something, he believes in it. "

She smiled. "I suppose that's the only possible explanation for him. "She was silent for a moment, her face thoughtful. Then she said, "Hedidn't finish his drink. "

 * * * * *

"You're all hooked up, " the girl said. "Nod or something when you'reready. " She was bent over the telepather, double checking theconnectives and the blinking meters. Rynason and Horng sat opposite eachother, the huge dark mound of the alien looming silently over theEarthman. 

He never seemed upset, Rynason thought, looking up at him. Except forthat one time when they'd run into the stone wall of the block onTebron, Horng had displayed a completely even temperament--unruffled, calm, almost disinterested. But of course if the aliens had beencompletely uninterested in the Earthmen's probings at their history theywould never have cooperated so readily; the Hirlaji were not animals tobe ordered about by the Earthmen. Probably the codification of theirhistory would prove useful to the aliens too; they had never arrangedthe race memory into a very coherent order themselves. 

Not that that was surprising, Rynason decided. The Hirlaji had nowritten language--their telepathic abilities had made thatunnecessary--and organization of material into neatly outlined form wasa characteristic as much of the Earth languages as of Terran mentality. Such organization was not a Hirlaji trait apparently, at least not nowin the twilight of their civilization. The huge aliens lived dimlythrough these centuries, dreaming in their own way of the past . . . Andtheir way was not the Earthmen's. 

So if they cooperated with the survey team on codifying and recordingtheir history, who was the servant?

Well, with the direct linkage of minds the work should go faster. Rynason looked up at Mara and nodded, and she flicked the connection onthe telepather. 

Suddenly, like being overwhelmed by a breaking wave of seawater, Rynasonfelt Horng's mind envelope him. A torrent of thoughts, memories, pictures and concepts poured over him in a jumble; the sensorysensations of the alien came to him sharply, and memories that werestrange, ideas that were incomprehensible, all in a sudden rush upon hismind. He fought down the fear that had leapt in him, gritted his teethand waited for the wave to subside. 

It did not subside; it settled. As the two minds, Earthman and Hirlaji, met in direct linkage they became almost one. Gradually Rynason couldbegin to see some pattern to the impressions of the alien. The pictureof himself came first: he was small and angular, sitting several feetbelow Horng's--or his own--eyes; but more than that, he was not merelylight, but pallid, not merely small, but fragile. The alien's view ofreality, even through his direct sensations, was not merely visual ortactile but interpreted automatically in his own terms. 

The odor of the hall in which they sat was different, the verytemperature warmer. Rynason could see himself reeling on the stone benchwhere he sat, and Mara, strangely distorted, put out a hand to steadyhim. At the same time he was seeing through his own eyes, feeling herhand on his shoulder. But the alien sensations were stronger; their verystrangeness commanded the attention of his mind. 

He righted himself, physically and mentally, and began to probetentatively in this new part of his mind. He could feel Horng tooreaching slowly for contact; his presence was comfortable, mild, confused but unworried. As his thoughts blended with Horng's the presentfaded perceptibly; this confusion was merely a moment in centuries, andsoon too it would pass. Rynason could feel himself relaxing. 

Now he could reach out and touch the strange areas of this mind: theconcepts and attitudes of an alien race and culture and experience. Everything became dim and dream-like: the Earthmen possibly didn'texist, the dry wastes of Hirlaj had always been here or perhaps oncethey had been green but through four generations the Large Hall hadstood thus and the animals changed by the day too fast to distinguishthem even under Kor if he should be reached . . . Why? there was noreason. There was no purpose, no goal, no necessity, no wishing, questing, hoping . . . No curiosity. All would pass. All was passing evennow; perhaps already it was gone. 

Rynason shifted where he sat, reaching for the feeling of the stonebench beneath him for equilibrium, pulling out of Horng's thoughts andgoing back in almost immediately. 

A chaos of mind enveloped him, but he was beginning to familiarizehimself with it now. He probed slowly for the memories, down throughHorng's own personal memories of three centuries, dry feet on the dustand low winds, down to the racial pool. And he found it. 

Even knowing the outlines of the race's history did not help Rynason toplace and correlate those impressions which came to him one on top ofanother, overlapping, merging, blending. He saw buildings which toweredover him, masses of his people moving quietly around him, and thoughtscame to him from their minds. He was Norhib, artisan, working slowly dayby . . . He was Rashanah, approaching the Gate of the Wall and looking . . . He was Lohreen discussing the site where . . . He was digging the ground, pushing the heavy cart, lying on the pelt of animals, demolishing thebuilding which would soon fall, instructing a child in balance. 

A dirt-caked street stretched before him by night, the stonesindividually cut and smooth with the passage of heavy feet. "Tomorrow wewill set out for the Region of Chalk while there is still time. " Amind-voice from a Hirlaji hundreds, perhaps thousands of years old, deadbut alive in the race-memory. Rynason could feel the whole personalitythere, in the memories, but he passed on. 

"Murba has said that the priests will take him. "

"There is no need for planting this year . . . The soil is dry. There isno purpose. "

"The child's mind is ready for war. "

He felt Horng himself watching him, beside him or behind him . . . Nearby, anyway. The alien heard and saw with him, and stayed with him like aprotector. Rynason felt his presence warmly: the calm of the aliencontinued to relax him. Old leather mother-hen, he thought, and Horngbeside him seemed almost amused. 

Suddenly he was Tebron. 

Tebron Marl, prince in the Region of Mines, young and strong andambitious. Rynason caught and held those impressions; he felt themuscles ripple strangely through his body as Tebron stretched, felt thecold wind of the flat cut through his loose garment. It was night, andhe stood on the parapet of a heavy stone structure looking down acrossthe immense stretch of the Flat, spotted here and there by lights. Hecontrolled all this land, and would control more. . . . 

He was Tebron again, marching across the Flat at the head of an army. Metal weapons hung at the sides of his men, crudely fashioned bludgeonsand jagged-edged swords, all quickly forged in the workshops of theRegion of Mines. The babble of mind voices swelled around him, fear andanger and boredom, dull resentment, and other emotions Rynason could notidentify. They were marching on the City of the Temple. . . . 

He slipped sideways in Tebron's mind, and suddenly he was in the middleof the battle. There was dust all around, kicked up by the scufflingfeet of the huge warriors, and his breath came in gasps. Mind-voicesshouted and screamed but he paid no attention; he swung his bludgeonover his head with a ferocity that made it whistle with a low sound inthe wind. One of the defenders broke through the line around him, and hebrought the bludgeon smashing down at him before he could thrust withhis sword; the warrior fell to one side at the last moment and took theblow along one arm. He could feel the pain in his own mind, but heignored it. Before the warrior could bring up his sword again Tebroncrushed his head with the bludgeon, and the scream of pain in his ownhead disappeared. He heard the grunting and gasps of his own warriorsand the clash of bodies and weapons around him. . . . 

The Hirlaji could not really be moving so quickly, Rynason thought; itmust be that to Tebron it seemed so. They were quiet, slow-movingcreatures. Or had they degenerated physically through the centuries?Still smelling the sweat of battle, he found Tebron's mind again. 

There was still fighting in the city, but it was far away now; he heardit with the back of his mind as he mounted the steps of the Temple. Those were mop-up operations, clearing the streets of the last of thepriest-king forces; he was not needed there. He had, to all intents, controlled the city since the night before, and had slept in the palaceitself. Now it was time for the Temple. 

He mounted the heavy, steep steps slowly, three guards at his back andthree in front of him. The priests would be gone from the Temple, butthere might be one or two last-ditch defenders remaining, and they wouldbe armed with the Weapons of Kor . . . Hand-weapons which shot dark beamsthat could disintegrate anything in their path. They would be dangerous. Well, there would be no temple-guards in the inner court; his own mencould remain outside to take care of them while he went in. 

He stopped halfway up the steps and lifted his head to gaze up at theTemple walls rising above him. They were solid stone, built in thefashion of the Old Ones . . . Smooth-faced except for the carvings abovethe entrance itself. They too were in the traditional style, copiedexactly from the older buildings which had been built thousands of yearsago, before the Hirlaji had even developed telepathy. The symbols of Kor. . . So now at last he saw them. 

Tomorrow he would effect a mass-linkage of minds and broadcast hisorders for reconstruction. That would mean staying up all nightpreparing the communication, for it was impossible to maintain completeplanet-wide linkage for too long and Tebron had many plans. Perhaps itwould be possible to find a way to extend the duration of mass-linkagesif the science quest could be pushed forward fast enough. 

But that was tomorrow's problem--today, right now, it was right that heenter the Temple. It was not only symbolic of his assumption of power, but necessary religiously: every new ruler leader within the memory ofthe race had received sanction from Kor first. 

A momentary echo-whisper of another mind touched his, and he whirled tohis right to see one of the temple-guards in the shadows; he had beenunable to successfully shield his thoughts. Tebron dropped to the groundand sent a quick, cool order to his own guards: "Kill him. " The heavy, dark warriors stepped forward as the guard tried to shrink back furtherinto the shadows. He was trapped. 

But not unarmed. As he dropped to the steps and rolled quickly to oneside Tebron heard the low vibration of a disintegrator beam pass overhis shoulder and the crack of the wall behind him as it struck. And thenthe guards were on the warrior in the shadows. 

They had brought down several of the temple-guards the night before, andcommandeered their weapons. In a matter of moments this one fell too, his head and most of his trunk gone. One of the warriors shoved thehalf-carcass down the stairs, and bent forward at the knees to pick uphis fallen weapon. 

So now they had all fourteen of them; if any more of the temple-guardsremained they could be dealt with easily. Tebron rose from the steps andwished momentarily that those weapons could be duplicated; if his wholearmy could be equipped with them. . . . But after today that would probablybe unnecessary; the entire planet was his now. 

He walked up the last few steps and stepped into the shadows of theTemple of Kor. . . . 

The walls melted around him and Rynason felt his mind wrenchedpainfully. There was a screaming all through him, thin and high, blotting out the contact he had held with Tebron's mind. It was Horng'sscream, beside him, overpowering. Terror washed over him; he tried tofight it but he couldn't. The shadows of the walls twisted and faded, Tebron's thoughts disappeared, and all that remained was the screamingand the fear, like a mouth open wide against his ear and hot breathshouting into him. He felt his stomach turn and nausea and vertigo threwhim panting out of Tebron's mind. 

Yet Horng was still beside him in the darkness, and as the echoes fadedhe felt him there . . . Alien, but calm. There had been fear in this hugealien mind, but it had disappeared almost immediately with the breakingof the connection with Tebron. All that remained in Horng's mind now wasa dull quietness. 

Rynason felt a rueful grin on his face, and he said, perhaps aloud andperhaps not, "You haven't forgotten what happened here, old leather. Thememories are there, all right. "

From Horng's mind came a slow rebuilding of the fear that he had justexperienced, but it subsided. And as it did Rynason probed again intohis mind, searching quickly for that contact he had just lost. He couldalmost feel Tebron's mind, began to see the darkness forming thewall-shadows, when again there was a blast of the terror and he felt hismind reeling back from those memories. The screaming filled his mind andbody and this time he felt Horng himself blocking him, pushing him back. 

But there was no need for that; the fear was not Horng's alone. Rynasonfelt it too, and he retreated before its onslaught with an overpoweringneed to preserve his own sanity. 

When the darkness subsided Rynason became aware of himself still sittingon the stone bench, sweat drenching his body. Horng sat before him inthe same position he had been in when they had started; it was as ifnothing had happened at all. Rynason wearily raised one hand andmotioned to Mara to break the linkage. 

She switched off the telepather and gingerly removed the wires from hishead, frowning worriedly at him. But she waited for him to speak. 

He grinned at her after a moment and said, "It was a bit rough in there. We couldn't break through. "

She was removing the wires from Horng, who sat unmoving, staring dullyover Rynason's shoulder at the wall behind him. "You should have seenyourself when you were under, " she said. "I wanted to break theconnection before, but I wasn't sure. . . . "

Rynason sat forward and flexed the muscles of his shoulders and back. They ached as though they had been tense for an hour, and his stomachwas still knotted tight. 

"There's a real block there, " he said. "It's like a thousand screamingbirds flapping in your face. When you get that far into his mind, youfeel it too. " He sat staring down at his feet, exhausted mentally andphysically. 

She sat on the bench and looked closely at him. "Anything else?"

"Yes--Horng. At the end, the second time I went in, I could feel him, not only fighting me, but . . . Hating me. " He looked up at her. "Can youimagine actually feeling him, right next to you in your mind like youwere one person, hating you?"

Across from them, the huge figure of the alien slowly stood up andlooked at them for several long seconds, then turned and left thebuilding. 

FOUR

Manning's quarters were larger than most of the prefab structures in thenew Earth town; the building was out near the end of one of the streets, a single-storied plastic-and-metal box on a quick-concrete slab base. Well, it was as well constructed as any of the buildings in the Edgeplanetfalls, Rynason reflected as he knocked on the door. And there wasroom for all of the survey team workers. 

Manning himself let him in, grabbing his hand in a firm grip thatnevertheless lacked the man's usual heavy joviality. "Come on in; theothers are already here, " Manning said, and walked ahead of him into thelarger of the two rooms inside. His step was brisk as always, but therewas a touch of real hurry in it which Rynason noticed immediately. Manning was worried about something. 

"All right; we're all set, " Manning said, leaning against a wall at thefront of the room. Rynason found a seat on the arm of a chair next toMara and Marc Stoworth, a slightly heavy, blond-haired man in histhirties who wore his hair cut short on the sides but long in back. Helooked like every one of the young corporation executives Rynason hadseen in the outworlds, and probably would have gone into that kind ofposition if he'd had the connections. He certainly seemed out of placeeven among the varied assortment of types who worked the archaeologicaland geological surveys . . . But these surveys were conducted by the bigcorporations who were interested in developing the outworlds; probablyStoworth hoped eventually to move up into the lower management officeswhen the corporations moved in. 

"Gentlemen, there's something very wrong about these dumb horses we'vebeen dealing with, " Manning said. "I'm going to throw out a few facts atyou and see if you don't come to the same conclusions that Larsborg andI did. "

Rynason leaned over to Mara and murmured, "What's his problem today?"

But she was frowning. "He's got a real one. Listen. "

Manning had picked up a sheaf of typescript from the table next to himand was flipping through it, his lips pursed grimly. "This is the reportI got yesterday from Larsborg here--architecture and various otherartifacts. It's very interesting. Herb, throw that first photo onto thescreen. "

The lights went off and the screen in the wall beside Manning lit upwith a reproduction of one of the Hirlaji structures out on the Flat. Itstood in the shadow of an overhanging rock-cliff, protected from theplanet's heavy winds on three sides. Larsborg had apparently set uplights for a clearer picture; the whole building stood out sharplyagainst the shadows of the background. 

"This look familiar to any of you?" Manning said quietly. 

For a moment Rynason continued to stare uncomprehending at the picture. He had seen a lot of the Hirlaji buildings since they'd landed; this onewas better preserved but not essentially different in design. Larsborghad cleared away most of the dirt and sand which had been packed upagainst its sides, exposing the full height of the structure, and he'dapparently sand-blasted the carved designs over the entrance, but. . . . 

Then he realized what he was seeing. The angle of the photo was a bitdifferent than that from which he'd seen the other structure back onTentar XI, but the similarity was unmistakable. This was a reproductionin stone of that same building, the one they'd reconstructed two yearsbefore. 

He heard a wave of voices growing around the room, and Manning's voicecut-through it with: "That's right, gentlemen: it's an Outsidersbuilding. It's not in that crazy, damned metal or alloy or whatever itwas that they used, but it's the same design. Take a good long look atit before we go on to the next photo. "

Rynason looked . . . Closely. Yes, it was the same design a bit cruder, and the carvings weren't the same, but the lines of the doorway and thecornice. . . . 

The next picture flashed onto the screen. It was a closeup of thedesigns over the entrance, shot in sharp relief so that they stood outstarkly. The room was so quiet that Rynason could hear the hum behindthe screen in the wall. 

"That's Outsiders stuff too, " said Breune. "It's not quite the same, though . . . Distorted. "

"It's carved in stone, not stamped in metal, " Manning said. "It's thesame thing, all right. Anybody disagree?"

No one did. 

"All right, then; let's have the lights back up again. "

The lights came on and once more there was a murmur of talking aroundthe room. Rynason shifted his position on the seat and tried to catchthe thought that had slipped through his mind just before the screen hadfaded. There was another similarity. . . . Well, he'd seen a lot of theOutsider buildings in the past few years; it wasn't necessary to traceall the evidences right now. 

"What I want to know is, why didn't any of the rest of you see this?"said Manning angrily. "Have you all got plastic for brains? Over a dozenmen spend weeks researching these damn horsefaces, and only one of youhas the sense to see the evidence of his own eyes!"

"Maybe we should turn in our spades, " said Stoworth. 

Manning glared at him. "Maybe you should, if you think this isn'tserious. Let's get this clear: these old horsefaces that so many of youthink are just as quaint as can be have been building in exactly thesame style as the Outsiders. Quaint, are they? Harmless too, I suppose!"

He stood with his hands on his hips, dropped his head and took a long, deep breath. When he looked up again his forehead was furrowed into anintense frown. "Gentlemen . . . As I call you from force of habit . . . We've been finding dead cities of the Outsiders for centuries. They wereall over God knows how many galaxies before your ancestors or mine hadstopped playing with their tails; as far as we can tell they had acivilization as tightly-knit as our own, and probably stronger. Andsometime about forty thousand years ago they started pulling out. Theyleft absolutely nothing behind but empty buildings and a few crumblingbits of machinery. And we've been following those remains ever since wegot out of our own star-system. 

"Well, we just may have found them at last. Right here, on Hirlaj. Nowwhat do you think of that?"

No one said anything for a minute. Rynason looked down at Mara, caughther smile, and stood up. 

"I don't think the Hirlaji are the Outsiders, " he said calmly. 

Manning shot a sharp glance at him. "You saw the photos. "

"Yes, I saw them. That's Outsiders work, all right, or something a lotlike it. But it doesn't necessarily prove that these . . . How many ofthem are there? Twenty-five? I don't think these creatures are theOutsiders. We've traced their history back practically to the point ofcomplete barbarism. Their culture was never once high enough to get themoff this planet, let alone to let them spread all over among the stars. "

Manning waited for him to finish, then he turned back to the rest of themen in the room and spread his hands. "Now that, gentlemen, just showshow much we've found out so far. " He looked over at Rynason again. "Hasit occurred to you, Lee, that if these horses _are_ the Outsiders, thatmaybe they know a little more than we do? I suppose you're going to sayyou had a telepathic hookup with one of them and you didn't see a thingto make you suspicious . . . But just remember that they've been usingtelepathy for several thousand years and that you hardly know whatyou're doing when you try it. 

"Look, I don't trust them--if they're the Outsiders they've got maybe ahundred thousand years head-start on us scientifically. There may beonly a couple dozen of them, but we don't know how strong they are. "

"That's if they're really the Outsiders, " said Rynason. 

Manning nodded his head impatiently. "Yes, that's what I'm saying. Ifthey're the Outsiders, which looks like a sensible conclusion. Or do youhave a better one?"

"Well, I don't know if it's better, " said Rynason. "It may not even beas attractive, for that matter. But have you considered that maybe whenthe Outsiders pulled out of our area they simply moved on elsewhere?We're so used to seeing dead cities that we think automatically that theOutsiders must be dead too, which I suppose is what's bothering youabout finding the Hirlaji here alive. But it might be worse. That wholeempire could simply have moved on to this area; we could be on the edgeof it right now, ready to run head-on into a hundred star systems justcrowded with the Outsiders. "

Manning stared at him, and the expression on his face was not quiteanger. Something like it, but not anger. 

"The ruins we've found here were built by the Hirlaji, " Rynason said. "Isaw them building when I was linked with Horng, and these are the samestructures. But the design was copied from older buildings, and I don'tknow how far back I'd have to search the memories before I found wherethey originally got that kind of approach to design. Maybe back beforethey developed telepathy. But this race simply isn't as old as theOutsiders; they came out of barbarism thousands of years after theOutsiders had left those dead cities we've been finding. The chances arethat if the Hirlaji were influenced by the Outsiders it was sometimearound thirty thousand years ago . . . Which means the Outsiders came thisway when they left those cities. That would mean that we're followingthem . . . And we might catch up at any time. "

He stopped for a moment, then said, "We're moving faster than they were, and we have no idea where they may have settled again. One more starfallfurther beyond the Edge, and we may run into one of their presentoutposts. But this isn't it. Not yet. "

Manning was still staring at Rynason, but it was a curious stare. "You're pretty sure that what you've been getting out of thathorseface's head is real?" he asked levelly. "You trust them?"

Rynason nodded. "Horng was really afraid; that was real. I felt itmyself. And the rest of it was real, too--I could see the whole racialmemory there, and nobody could have been making that up. If you'dexperienced that. . . "

"Well, I didn't, " Manning said shortly. "And I don't think I trustthem. " He paused, and after a moment frowned. "But this direct linkagebusiness does seem to be the best way we have of checking on them. Iwant you to get busy, Lee, and go after that horse's thoughts for us. Don't let him drive you out again; if he's hiding something, get inthere and see what it is. Above all, don't trust him. 

"If these things are the Outsiders, they could be bluffing us. "

Manning stopped talking, and thought a minute. He looked up under raisedeyebrows at Rynason. "And be careful, Lee. I'm counting on you. "

Rynason ignored his paternal gaze, and turned instead to Mara. "We'lltry it again tomorrow, " he said. "Get in a requisition for a telepatherthis afternoon; make sure we'll have one ready to go first thing in themorning. I'll check back with you about an hour after we leave heretoday. "

She looked up at him, surprised. "Check back? Why?"

"I put in a requisition myself, yesterday. Wine from Cluster II, vintage'86. I was hoping for some company. "

She smiled. "All right. "

Manning was ending the session. ". . . Carl, be sure to get those studiesof the Outsiders artifacts together for me by tonight. And I'm going tohand back your reports to each of the rest of you; go through them andwatch for those inconsistencies you skipped over the first time. We maybe able to turn up something else that doesn't check out. Go over them_carefully_--all the reports were sloppy jobs. You're all trying to worktoo fast. "

Rynason rose with the rest of them, grinning as he remembered howManning had rushed those reports. Well, that was one of the privilegesof authority: delegating fault. He started for the door. 

"Lee! Hold it a minute; I want to talk to you, alone. "

Rynason sat, and when all the others had gone Manning came back and satdown opposite him. He slowly took out a cigaret and lit it. 

"My last pack till the next spacer makes touchdown, " he said. "Sorry Ican't offer you one, but I'm a fiend for the things. I know they'resupposed to be non-habit-forming these days, but I'm a man of manyvices. "

Rynason shrugged, waiting for him to come to the point. 

"I guess it makes me a bit more open-minded about what the members of mystaff do, " Manning went on. "You know--why should I crack down ondrinking or smoking, for instance, when I do it myself?"

"I'm glad you see it that way, " Rynason said drily. "Why did you want meto stay?"

Manning exhaled a long plume of smoke slowly, watching it throughnarrowed eyes. "Well, even though I'm pretty easy going about things, Ido try to keep an eye on you. When you come right down to it, I'mresponsible for every man who's with me out here. " He stopped, andlaughed shortly. "Not that I'm as altruistic as that sounds, ofcourse--you know me, Lee. But when you're in a position of authority youhave to face the responsibilities. You understand me?"

"You have to protect your own reputation back at Cluster headquarters, "Rynason said. 

"Well, yes. Of course, you get into a pattern of thinking eventually . . . Sort of a fatherly feeling, I suppose, though I've never even been onthe parentage rolls back on the in-worlds. But I mean it--it happens, Iget that feeling. And I'm getting a bit worried about you, Lee. "

Rynason could see what was coming now. He sat further back into thechair and said, "Why?"

Manning frowned with concern. "I've been noticing you with Mara lately. You seem pretty interested in her. "

"Is she one of those vices you were telling me about, Manning?" saidRynason quietly. "You want to warn me to stay away from her?"

Manning shook his head, a quick gesture dismissing the idea. "No, Lee, not at all. She's not that kind of a woman. And that's my point. I cansee how you look at her, and you're on the wrong track. When you're outhere on the Edge, you don't want a wife. "

"What I need is some good healthy vice, is that what you mean?"

Manning sat forward. "That puts it pretty clearly. Yeah, that's aboutit. Lee, you're building up some strong tensions on this job, and don'tthink I'm not aware of it. Telepathing with that horseface is gettingrough, judging from what you've told me. I think you should go get goodand drunk and kick up hell tonight. And take one of the town women;they're always available. Do you good, I mean it. "

Rynason stood up. "Maybe tomorrow night, " he said. "Tonight I'm busy. With Mara. " He turned and walked toward the door. 

"I'd suggest you get busy with someone else, " Manning said quietlybehind him. "I'm really telling you this for your own good, believe itor not. "

Rynason turned at the door and regarded the man coldly. "She's notinterested in you, Manning, " he said. He went out and shut the doorcalmly behind him. 

Manning could be irritating with his conceited posing, but his veiledthreats didn't bother Rynason. In any case, he had something else on hismind just now. He had finally remembered what it had been about thecarvings over the Hirlaji building in the photo that had touched amemory within him: there was a strong similarity to the carvings that hehad seen, through Tebron's eyes, outside the Temple of Kor. The symbolsof Kor, Tebron had called them . . . Copied from the works of the OldOnes. 

The Outsiders?

FIVE

They had some trouble getting cooperation from Horng on any furthermind-probing. The Hirlaji lived among some of the ruins out on the Flat, where the winds threw dust and sand against the weathered stone walls, leaving them worn smooth and rounded. The aliens kept these buildings insome state of repair, and there was a communal garden of the planet'sdark, fungoid plant life. As Rynason and Mara strode between the massivebuildings they passed several of the huge creatures; one or two of themturned and regarded the couple with dull eyes, and went on slowlythrough the grey shadows. 

They found Horng sitting motionlessly at the edge of the cluster ofbuildings, gazing out over the Flat toward the low hills which stoodblack against the deep blue of the horizon sky. Rynason lowered thetelepather from his shoulder and approached him. 

The alien made no motion of protest when Rynason hooked up theinterpreter, but when the Earthman raised the mike to speak, Horng's dryvoice spoke in the silence of the thin air and the machine's stylustraced out, THERE IS NO PURPOSE. 

Rynason paused a moment, then said, "We're almost finished with ourreports. We should finish today. "

THERE IS NO PURPOSE MEANING QUEST. 

"No purpose to the report?" Rynason said after a moment. "It's importantto us, and we're almost finished. There would be even less purpose instopping now, when so much has been done. "

Horng's large, leathery head turned toward him and Rynason felt theancient creature's heavy gaze on him like a shadow. 

WE ARE ACCUSTOMED TO THAT. 

"We don't think alike, " Rynason said to him. "To me there is a purpose. Will you help me once more?"

There was no answer from the alien, only a slow nodding of his head toone side, which Rynason took for assent. He motioned Mara to set up thetelepather. 

After their last experience Rynason could understand the creature'sreluctance to continue. Perhaps even his statement that there was nopurpose to the Earthmen's researches made sense--for could thecodification of the history of a dying race mean much to its lastmembers? Probably they didn't care; they walked slowly through the ruinsof their world and felt all around them fading, and the jumbled past intheir minds must be only one more thing that was to disappear. 

And Rynason had not forgotten the terrified waves of hatred which hadblasted at him in Horng's mind--nor had Horng, he was sure. 

Mara connected the leads of the telepather while the alien satmotionlessly, his dark eyes only occasionally watching either of them. When she was finished Rynason nodded for her to activate the linkage. 

Then there was the rush of Horng's mind upon his, the dimthought-streams growing closer, the greyed images becoming sharper andwashing over him, and in a moment he felt his own thoughts merge withthem, felt the totality of his own consciousness blend with that ofHorng. They were together; they were almost one mind. 

And in Horng he heard the whisper of distrust, of fear, and the echoesof that hatred which had struck at him once before. But they were in thebackground; all around him here on the surface was a pervading feelingof . . . Uselessness, resignation, almost of unreality. The calm which hehad noted before in Horng had been shaken and turned, and in its placewas this fog of hopelessness. 

Tentatively, Rynason reached for the racial memories in that grey mind, feeling Horng's own consciousness heavy beside him. He found them, layers of thoughts of unknown aliens still alive here, the pictures andsounds of thousands of years past. He probed among them, looking againfor the memories of Tebron . . . And found what he was searching for. 

He was Tebron, marching across that vast Flat which he had seen before, the winds alive around him among the shuffling feet of his army. He feltthe muscles of his massive legs tight with weariness, and tasted thedryness of the air as he drew in long gasps. He was still hours from theCity, but they would rest before dawn. . . . 

Rynason turned among those memories, moving forward in them, and wasaware of Horng watching him. There was still the wariness in his mind, and a stir of anxiety, but it was blanketed by the tired hopelessness hehad seen. He reached further in the memories, and. . . . 

The temple-guard fell in the shadows, and one of his own warriorsstepped forward to retrieve his weapon. The remains of the guard's bodyrolled down three, four, five of the steps of the Temple, and stopped. His eyes lingered on that body for only a moment, and then he turned andwent up to the entrance. 

There was a moaning of pain, or of fright, rising somewhere in his head;he was only partly aware of it. He walked into the shadows of thedoorway and paused. But only for a moment: there was no movement inside, and he stepped forward, down one step into the interior. 

Screams echoed through the halls and corridors of the Temple--high andpiercing, growing in volume as they echoed, buffeting him almost intounconsciousness. He knew they were from Horng, but he fought them, watching his own steps across the dark inner room. He was Tebron Marl, king priest ruler of all Hirlaj, in the Temple of Kor, and he could feelthe stone solid beneath his feet. Sweat broke out on his back--his own, or Tebron's? But he _was_ Tebron, and he fought the blast of fear in hismind as though it were a battle for his very identity. He _was_ Tebron. 

The screaming faded, and he stood in silence before the Altar of Kor. 

So this is the source, he thought. For how many days had he foughttoward this? It was useless to remember; the muscles of his body wereremembrance enough, and the scar-tissue that hindered the movement ofone shoulder. If he remembered those battles he would again hear thefading echoes of enemy minds dying within his, and he had had enough ofthat. This was the goal, and it was his; perhaps there need be no moresuch killing. 

He opened his mouth and spoke the words which he had learned so manyyears before, during his apprenticeship in the Region of Mines. Therituals of the Temple were always conducted in the ancient spokenlanguage; Kor demanded it, and only the priest-caste knew these words, for they were so old that their form had changed almost completely evenby the time his people had developed telepathy and discarded speech;they were not communicated to the rest of the people. 

"I am Tebron Marl, king priest leader of all Hirlaj. I await your ordersguidance. "

He knelt, according to ritual, and gazed up at the altar. The Eye of Korblinked there, a small circle of light in the dark room. The altar wassimple but massive; its heavy columns, built upon the traditional lines, supported the weight of the Eye. He watched its slow waxing and waning, and waited; within him, Rynason's mind stirred. 

And Kor spoke. 

_Remain motionless. Do not go forward. _

He felt a child as a wave of sensitivity spread through all of his skinand his organs sped for a moment. Then it was true: in the Temple ofKor, the god leader really did speak. 

"I await further words. "

The Eye held his gaze almost hypnotically in the dimness. The voicesounded in the huge arched room. _The sciences quests of your race leadyou to extinction. The knowledge words offered to me by your priestsmake it clear that within a hundred years your race will leave itsplanet. You must not go forward, for that way lies the extermination ofall your race. _

His mind swam; this was not what he had expected. The god leader Kor hadalways aided his people in their sciences; in the knowledge wordofferings they reported to the Eye the results of their studies, andoften, if asked properly, the god leader would clarify uncertaintieswhich they faced. But now he ordered an ending to research quests. Thiswas unthinkable! Knowledge was godhood; godhood was knowledge, of theessence; the essence was knowing understanding. To him, to his people, it was a unity--and now that unity repudiated itself. Faintly in thedarkness somewhere he again heard screaming. 

"Are we to abandon all progress? Are the stars so dangerous?"

_The concept wish of progress must die within your people. There must beno purpose in any field of knowledge. You must remain motionless, consolidate what you have, and live in peace. _ The Eye in the dimnessseemed larger and brighter the longer he looked at it; all else in theechoing room was darkness. _The stars are not dangerous, but there is arace which rises with you, and it rises more rapidly. Should you expandinto the stars you will only meet that race sooner, and they will bestronger. They are more warlike than your people; already you arecapable of peace, and that must be your aim. Remain on your world;consolidate; cultivate the fruits of your civilization as it is, but donot go forward. In that way, you will have five thousand years beforethat race finds you, and if you are no threat to them they will notdestroy you. _

He felt a rising anger in him as the god leader's words came to him inthe dark room, and a fear that lay deeper. He was a warrior, and aquester . . . How could he give up all such pursuits, and how could he beexpected to force all his people to do the same? There would be no hopewish of advance, no curiosity . . . No purpose. 

"Is this other race so much more advanced than we are?" he asked. 

He heard a low humming from the altar and the Eye grew brighter again. _They are not so much ahead of you now . . . But they are more warlike, and will therefore develop more quickly. In both your races, war is aquest which you use as a release for what is in you. Your sciencesquestings and your wars are the same thing . . . You must suppress both. They are discontentment, and you will find that only in peace, if atall. _

He dipped his head to one side, a gesture of acquiescence or agreement. He couldn't argue with the god leader Kor, and he had been wrong even tothink of it. 

"How am I to suppress the race? Is it possible to convince each of themof the necessity for abandoning forgetting all questing?"

The Eye hummed, and grew brighter against the darkness of the carvedwall behind it, but it was some time before Kor spoke again. _It wouldbe impossible to convince every one. The reasons must be kept from them, and kept from the shared memories; you must not communicate my knowledgewords in any way. Consolidate your power, force peace upon them and leadthem into acceptance. The knowledge questing can be made to die withinthem. Remember that there will be no purpose . . . In that they must findcontentment. _

The king priest leader of all Hirlaj waited a moment, and was ready torise and leave when the Eye spoke again. 

_You must abolish the priesthood. The knowledge which I have given toyou must die when you die. _

He waited for a long time in the dim, suddenly cold hall for the godleader to speak again, then slowly rose and walked to the door, theimage of the Eye of Kor still bright in his vision. He stopped outsidethe doorway, hearing the soft wind of the city flowing slowly past thestone archway above him. One of his guards reached out and touched hismind tentatively, but he blocked his thoughts and strode heavily downthe steps past them. 

The sound of the wind above him rose to a screaming, and suddenly it wasas though he were tumbling down the entire length of the stairway, fragments of sky and stone and faces flashing past in a kaleidoscope, and the screaming all around him. He almost reached for his bludgeon, but then he realized that he was not Tebron Marl . . . He was Lee Rynason, and the screaming was Horng and he was being driven out of thosethoughts, tumbling through a thousand memories so fast he could notgrasp any one of them. 

He withdrew from Horng's mind as though from a nightmare; he becameaware of his own body, lying in the dust of Hirlaj, and he opened hiseyes and motioned weakly to Mara to break the connection. 

When she had done so he slowly sat up and shook his head, waiting for itto clear. For awhile he had been an ancient king of Hirlaj, and it tooksome time to return to the present, to his own consciousness. He wasdimly aware of Mara kneeling beside him, but he couldn't make out herwords at first. 

"Are you all right? Are you sure? Look up at me, Lee, please. "

He found himself nodding to reassure her, and then he saw the expressionon her face and felt the last wisps of alien fog clearing from his mind. There were tears in her eyes, and he touched the side of her face withhis hand and said, "I'm all right. But why don't you kiss me orsomething?"

She did, but before Rynason could really immerse himself in it she brokeaway and said, "You must have had a bad time with him! It was as thoughyou were dead. "

He grinned a trifle sheepishly and said, "Well, it was engrossing. You'dbetter unhook the beast; he had a bad time of it too. "

Mara rose and removed the wires from Horng gingerly. Rynason remainedsitting; some of the meaning of what he had just experienced was comingto him now. It certainly explained why the Hirlaji had suddenly passedfrom their war era into lasting peace, and why the memories had beenblocked. But could he credit those memories of a voice of an alien god?

And sitting in the dust at the edge of the vast Hirlaj plain the fullrealization came to him, as it could not when he had been Tebron. Notonly the Temple, but the Altar of Kor itself had been unmistakably theworkmanship of the Outsiders. 

SIX

They left Horng sitting dully at the edge of the Flat and retraced theirsteps through the Hirlaji ruins, still drawing no notice from thealiens. Rynason had been in some of the small planetfall towns wheresettlements had been established only to be abandoned by the main flowof interstellar traffic . . . Those backwater areas where contact with theparent civilization was so slight that an entirely local culture haddeveloped, almost as different from that of the mainstream Terrancolonies as was this last vestige of the Hirlaji civilization. And insome of those areas interest in Earth was so slight that the offworlderswere ignored, as the Earthmen were here . . . But he had never felt thetotal lack of attention that was here. It was not as though the Hirlajihad seen the Earthmen and grown used to them; Rynason had the feelingthat to the Hirlaji the Earthmen were no more important than the windsor the dust beneath their feet. 

As they passed through the settled portion of the ruins Rynason had tostep around a Hirlaji who crossed his path. He walked silently past, hiseyes not even flickering toward the Earthlings. Crazy grey hidepiles, Rynason thought, and he and Mara hurried out across the Flat toward thenearby Earth town. 

On the outskirts of the town, where the packed-dirt streets faded intoloose dust and garbage was already piled several feet high, they weremet by Rene Malhomme. He sat long-legged with his back leaning against aweathered stone outcropping. He seemed old already, though he was notyet fifty; his windblown hair was almost the color of the surroundinggrey dust and rock--perhaps because it was filled with that dust, Rynason thought. He stopped and looked down at the worn, tired man whoseeyes belied that weariness. 

"And have you communicated with God, Lee Rynason?" Malhomme asked withhis rumbling, sardonic voice. 

Rynason met his gaze, wondering what he wanted. He lowered thetelepather pack from his shoulder and set it in the dust. Mara sat on alow rock beside him. 

"Will an alien god do?" Rynason said. 

Malhomme's eyes rested on the telepather for a moment. "You spoke withKor?" he asked. 

Rynason nodded slowly. "I made a linkage with one of the Hirlaji, andtapped the race-memory. I suppose you could say I spoke with Kor. "

"You have touched the alien godhead, " Malhomme mused. "Then it's real?Their god is real?"

"No, " said Rynason. "Kor is a machine. "

Malhomme's head jerked up. "A machine? _Deus ex machina_, to quote anancient curse. We make our own machines, and make gods of them. " Thetired lines of his face relaxed. "Well, that's a bit better. The godsremain a myth, and it's better that way. "

Rynason stood over him on the windy Flat, still puzzled by his manner. He glanced at Mara, but she too was watching Malhomme, waiting for himto speak again. 

Suddenly, Malhomme laughed, a dry laugh which almost rasped in histhroat. "Lee Rynason, I have called men to God for so long that I almostbegan to believe it myself. And when the men started talking about thegod of these aliens. . . . " He shook his head, the spent laughter stilldrawing his mouth back into a grin. "Well, I'm glad it isn't true. Religion wouldn't be worth a damn if it were true. "

"How did the men find out about Kor?" Rynason asked. 

Malhomme spread his hands. "Manning has been talking, as usual. Heridicules the Hirlaji, and their god. And at the same time he says theyare a menace. "

"Why? Is he still trying to work the townsmen up against them?"

"Of course. Manning wants all the power he can get. If it meanssacrificing the Hirlaji, he'll do it. " Malhomme stood up, stretchinghimself. "He says they may be the Outsiders, and he's stirring up allthe fear he can. He'll grab any excuse, no matter how impossible. "

"It's not so impossible, " Rynason said. "Kor is an Outsiders machine. "

Malhomme stared at him. "You're sure of that?"

He nodded. "There's no doubt of it--I saw it from three feet away. " Hetold Malhomme of his linkage with Horng, the contact with the memories, the mind, Tebron, and of the interview with the machine that was Kor. Malhomme listened with fascination, his shaggy head tilted to one side, occasionally throwing in a comment or a question. 

As he finished, Rynason said, "That race that Kor warned them aboutsounds remarkably like us. A warlike race that would crush them if theyleft the planet. We haven't found any other intelligent life . . . Justthe Hirlaji, and us. "

"And the Outsiders, " said Malhomme. 

"No. This was a race which was still growing from barbarism, at aboutthe same level as the Hirlaji themselves. Remember, the Outsiders hadalready spread through a thousand star-systems long before this. No, we're the race they were warned against. "

"What about the weapons?" Malhomme said. "Disintegrators. We haven't gotanything that powerful that a man can carry in his hand. And yet theHirlaji had them thousands of years ago. "

"Yes, but for some reason they couldn't duplicate them. It doesn't makesense: those weapons were apparently beyond the technological level ofthe Hirlaji, but they had them. "

"Perhaps your aliens _were_ the Outsiders, " Malhomme said. "Perhaps wesee around us the remnants of a great race fallen. "

Rynason shook his head. 

"But they must have had some contact with the Outsiders, " Mara said. "Sometime even before Tebron's lifetime. The Outsiders could have leftthe disintegrators, and the machine that they thought was a god. . . . "

"That's just speculation, " Rynason said. "Tebron himself didn't reallyknow where they'd come from; they'd been passed down through thepriesthood for a long time, and within the priesthood they did have somesecrets. I suppose if I could search the race-memory long enough I mightfind another nice big block there hiding that secret. But it'sdifficult. "

"And you may not have time, " Malhomme said. "When Manning hears that theAltar of Kor was an Outsiders machine, there'll be no way left to stophim from slaughtering the Hirlaji. "

"I'm not sure there'll be any real trouble, " Rynason said. 

Malhomme's lips drew back into the deep lines of his face. "There isalways trouble. Always. Whoever or whatever spoke through the machineknew that much about us. The only way you could stop it, Lee, would beto hold back this information from Manning. And to do that, you wouldhave to be sure, yourself, that there is no danger from the Hirlaji. You're in the key position, right now. "

Rynason frowned. He knew Malhomme was right--it would be difficult tostop Manning if what he'd said about the man's push for power was true. But could he be sure that the Hirlaji were as harmless as they seemed?He remembered the reassuring touch of Horng's mind upon his own, thecalmness he found in it, and the resignation . . . But he also rememberedthe fear, and the screaming, and the hot rush of anger that had touchedhim. 

In the silence on the edge of the Flat, Mara spoke. "Lee, I think youshould report it all to Manning. "

"Why?"

Her face was clouded. "I'm not sure. But . . . When I disconnected thewires of the telepather, Horng looked at me. . . . Have you ever lookedinto his eyes, up close? It's frightening: it makes you remember how oldthey are, and how strong. Lee, that creature has muscles in his face asstrong as most men's arms!"

"He just looked at you?" said Rynason. "Nothing else?"

"That's all. But those eyes . . . They were so deep, and so full. Youdon't usually notice them, because they're set so deeply in the shadowsof his face, but his eyes are _large_. " She stopped, and shook her headin confusion. "I can't really explain it. When I moved around him to theother side, I could see his eyes following me. He didn't move, otherwise--it was as though only his eyes were alive. But theyfrightened me. There was much more in them than just . . . Not seeing, ornot caring. His eyes were alive. "

"That's not much evidence to make you think the Hirlaji are dangerous. "

"Oh, I don't _know_ if they could be dangerous. But they're not just . . . Passive. They're not vegetables. Not with those eyes. "

"All right, " Rynason said. "I'll give Manning a full report, and we'llput it in his hands. "

He picked up the telepather pack and slung it over his shoulder. Marastood up, shaking away the dust which had blown against her feet. 

"What will you do, " Malhomme asked, "if Manning decides that's enoughcause to kill the Hirlaji?"

"I'll stop him, " Rynason said. "He's not in control here, yet. "

Malhomme flashed his sardonic smile again. "Perhaps not . . . But if youneed help, call to God. The books say nothing about alien races, butsurely these must be God's creatures too. And I'm always ready to breaka few heads, if it will help. " He turned and spat into the dust. "Oreven just for the hell of it, " he said. 

 * * * * *

Rynason found Manning that same afternoon, going over reports in hisquarters. As soon as he began his description of the orders given toTebron he found that Malhomme's warnings had been correct. 

"What did this machine say about us?" Manning asked sharply. "Why werethe Hirlaji supposed to stay away from us?"

"Because we're a warlike race. The idea was that if the Hirlaji stayedout of space they'd have about five thousand years before we foundthem. "

"How long ago was all this? I had your report here. . . . "

"At least eight thousand years, " Rynason said. "They overestimated us. "

Manning stood up, scowling. There were heavy lines around his eyes andhe hadn't trimmed his thin beard. Whatever he was working on, Rynasonthought, he was putting a lot of effort into it. 

"This doesn't make sense, Lee. Damn it, since when do machines makeguesses? Wrong ones, at that?"

Rynason shrugged. "Well, you've got to remember that this was an alienmachine; maybe that's the way they built them. "

Manning threw a cold glance at him and poured a glass of Sector Threebrandy for himself. "You're not being amusing, " he said shortly. "Now, go on, and make some sense. "

"I'd like to, " Rynason said. "Frankly, my theory is that the machine wasa communication-link with the Outsiders. It could explain a lot ofthings--maybe even the similarities in architecture. "

Manning scowled and turned away from him. He paced heavily across theroom and looked out through the plasticene window at the nearly empty, dust-strewn street for a few moments; when he returned the frown wasstill on his face. 

"Damn it, Lee, you're not keeping your mind on the problems here. Whileyou were looking into Horng's mind, how do you know he wasn't spying inyours? You had an equal hookup, right?"

Rynason nodded. "I couldn't have prevented him in any case. Why? Are wesupposed to be hiding anything?"

"I told you not to trust them!" Manning snapped. "Now if you can't evenmatch wits with a senile horsehead. . . . "

"You were the one who said they might be more adept at telepathy than weare, " Rynason said. "It was a chance we had to take. "

"There's a difference between taking chances and handing theminformation on a silver platter, " Manning said angrily. "Did you makeany effort at all to keep him from finding out too much about us?"

Rynason shrugged. "I kept him pretty busy. All of the time I was runningthrough Tebron's memories I could feel Horng screaming somewhere; hemust have been too upset to do any probing in my mind. "

Manning was silent for a moment. "Let's hope so, " he said shortly. "Ifthey find out how weak we are, how long it would take us to getreinforcements out here. . . . "

"They're still just a dying race, remember, " Rynason said. "They're notthe Outsiders. What makes you so sure that they're dangerous?"

"Oh, come _on_, Lee! Think! They're in contact with the Outsiders; yousaid so yourself. And just remember this: _the Outsiders obviouslyconsidered it inevitable that there would be war between us_. Now putthose two facts together and tell me the horses aren't dangerous!"

Rynason said slowly, "It isn't as simple as that. The order given toTebron was to stop all scientific progress and stifle any militarydevelopment, and he seems to have done just that. The idea was that ifthe Hirlaji were harmless when we found them there might be no need forfighting. "

"Perhaps. But we weren't supposed to know that they were in contact withthe Outsiders, either--that was probably part of the purpose of theblock in the race-memory. But we got through the block, and they knowit, and presumably by now the Outsiders know it. That changes thepicture, and I'd like to know just how much it changes it. "

"They're not in contact with the Outsiders any longer, " said Rynason. 

"What makes you so sure of that?"

"Tebron broke the contact--that was in the orders too. The priesthood, which had been the connecting link with the Outsiders through themachine, was disbanded. When Tebron died he didn't appoint a successor;the machine hasn't been used since. "

Manning thought about that, still frowning. "Where is the machine?"

"I don't know. If it hasn't been kept in repair it might not even beusable any more, wherever it is. "

"I'll tell you something, Lee, " said Manning. "There's still too muchthat we don't know--and too much that the Hirlaji _do_ know, now. Whether or not your horse-buddy was picking your brains, they know we'renot as strong as they thought we were. It took us eight thousand yearsto get here instead of five thousand. Let's just hope they don't thinkabout that too much. "

He stopped, and paced to the window again. "Look around you, Lee--out onthe street, in the town. We've hardly put our feet down on this planet;we've got very little in the way of weapons with us and it will takeweeks to get any more in here; there's practically no organization hereyet. We could be wiped off this planet before we knew what hit us. We'resitting ducks. "

He came back to stand before Rynason. "And what about the Outsiders?They think of us strictly in terms of war, and they've been keepingthemselves away from us all this time. That's obviously why they pulledout of this sector of space. Up until now we'd thought they were dead. But now we find they've been in contact with this planet . . . All right, it was eight thousand years ago. But that's a lot more recent than thelast evidences we've had of them, and they've obviously been watchingus. 

"Now, you've been in direct contact with the horses' minds; you'vepractically been one of them yourself, for awhile. All right, what'stheir reaction going to be when they realize that the Outsiders, theirgod, overestimated us? What will they do?"

Rynason thought about that. He tried to remember the minds he hadtouched during the linkage with Horng: Tebron, the ancient warrior-king, and the young Hirlaji staring at the buildings of one of the ancientcities, and the old, dying one who had decided not to plant again oneyear . . . And Horng himself, tired and calm on the edge of the Flat, amidthe ruins of a city. He remembered the others in that crumbling lasthome of an entire race . . . Slow, quiet, uncaring. 

"I don't think they'll do anything. They wouldn't see any point to it. "He paused, remembering. "They lost all their purpose eight thousandyears ago, " he said quietly. 

Manning grunted. "Somehow I lack your touching faith in them. "

"And somehow, " Rynason said, "I lack your burning ambition to find anenemy, a handy menace to crush. You argue too hard, Manning. "

Manning raised an eyebrow. "I suppose I haven't even put a doubt in yourmind about them? Not one doubt?"

Rynason turned away and didn't answer. 

Manning sighed. "Maybe it's time I went out there myself and had aseance with the horses. " He set down his glass of brandy, which he hadbeen turning in his hand as he spoke. "Lee, I want you to check backhere with me in two hours . . . By then I should have things straightenedup and ready to go. "

He strode to the supply closet at one end of the room and took from it abelt and holster, from which he removed a recent-model regulationstunner. "This is as powerful a weapon as we have here so far, exceptfor the heavy stuff. I hope we never have to use any of that--clearingit for use is a lot of red tape. " He looked up and saw the coldexpression on Rynason's face. "Of course, I hope we don't have to usethe stunners, either, " he said calmly. 

Rynason turned without a word and went to the door. He stopped there fora moment and watched Manning checking over the weapon. He was thinkingof the disintegrators he had seen on the steps of the Temple of Kor, andof the shell of a body tumbling out of the shadows. 

"I'll see you at 600, " he said. 

SEVEN

Rynason spent the next two hours in town, moving through the windystreets and thinking about what Manning had said. He was right, in away: this was no more than a foothold for the Earthmen, a touchdownpoint. It wasn't even a community yet; buildings were still going up, prices varied widely not only between landings of spacers but alsoaccording to who did the selling. A lot of the men here were trying somemining out on the west Flat; their findings had so far been small butthey brought the only real income the planet had so far yielded. Therest of the town was rising on its own weight: bars, rooming houses, laundries, and diners--establishments which thrived only because therewere men here to patronize them. Several weeks before a few of the menhad tried killing and eating the small animals who darted through thealleys, but too many of those men had died and the practice had beenquickly abandoned. And they had noticed that when those animals foragedin the refuse heaps outside the town, they died too. 

A few of the big corporations had sent out field men to look around, butit was too soon for any industry to have established itself here; allthe planet offered so far was room to expand. Despite the wide expansionof the Earthmen through the stars, a planet where conditions were at allfavorable for living was not to be overlooked; the continuing populationexplosion, despite tight regulations on the inner worlds, had kept upwith the colonization of these worlds, and new room was constantlyneeded. 

But the planetfall on Hirlaj was still new. A handful of Earthmen hadcome, but they had not yet brought their civilization with them. Theystood precariously on the Flat, waiting for more settlers to come in andbuild with them. If there should be trouble before more men arrived. . . . 

At 600 Rynason walked out on the dirt-packed street to Manning'squarters. He met Marc Stoworth and Jules Lessingham coming out the door. They looked worried. 

"What's wrong?" he said. 

They didn't stop as they went by. "Ask the old man, " said Stoworth, going past with an uncharacteristically hurried step. 

Rynason went on in through the open door. Manning was in the front room, amid several crates of stunner-units. He looked up quickly as Rynasonentered and waved brusquely to him. 

"Help me get this stuff unloaded, Lee. "

Rynason fished for his sheath-knife and started cutting open one of thecrates. "Why are you unloading the arsenal?"

"Because we may need it. Couple of the boys were just out at thehorse-pasture, and they say the friendly natives have disappeared. "

"Jules and Stoworth? I met them on the way in. "

"They were doing some follow-up work out there . . . Or at least they weregoing to. There's not a single one of them there, not a trace of them. "

Rynason frowned. "They were all there this morning. "

"They're not there now!" Manning snapped. "I don't like it, not afterwhat you've told me. We're going to look for them. "

"With stunners?"

"Yes. Right now Mara is out at the field clearing several of the fliersto use in scouting for them. "

Rynason stacked the boxes of weapons and power-packs on the floor whereManning indicated. There were about forty of them--blunt-barrelled gunswith thick casing around the powerpacks, weighing about ten pounds each. They looked as statically blunt as anvils, but they could stun anyanimal at two hundred yards; within a two-foot range, they could shake arock wall down. 

"How many men are we taking with us?" Rynason asked, eying the stacks onthe floor. 

Manning looked up at him briefly. "As many as we can get. I'm calling amilitia; Stoworth and Lessingham went into town to round up some men. "

So he was going ahead with the power-grab; Malhomme had been right. Nodanger had been proven yet, but that wouldn't stop Manning--nor thedrifters he'd been buying in the town. Killing was an everyday thing tothem. 

"How many of the Hirlaji do you think we'll have to kill to make it lookimportant to the Council?" Rynason asked after a moment, his voicedeliberately inflectionless. 

Manning looked up at him with a calculating eye. Rynason met his gazedirectly, daring the man to take offense. He didn't. 

"All right, it's a break for me, " Manning shrugged. "What did youexpect? There's precious little opportunity on this desert rock forleadership in any sense that you might approve of. " He paused. "I don'tknow if it will be necessary to kill any of them. Take it easy and we'llsee. "

Rynason's eyes were cold. "All right, we'll see. But just remember, I'llbe watching just as closely as you. If you start any violence that isn'tnecessary. . . . "

"What will you do, Lee?" said Manning. "Report me to the Council?They'll listen to me before they'd pay attention to complaints from anobody who's been drifting around the outworlds for most of his life. That's all you are, you know, Lee--a drifter, a bum, like the rest ofthem. That's what everybody out here on the Edge is . . . Unless he doessomething about it. 

"I hold the reins right now. If I decide to do something that you don'tlike, you won't be able to stop me . . . Neither you, nor your femalefriend. "

"So Mara's against you too?" Rynason said. 

"She made a few remarks earlier, " Manning said calmly. "She may regretit soon enough. "

Rynason looked at the man through narrowed eyes for a moment, thenstrapped on a gunbelt and loaded one of the stunners. He snapped it intothe holster carefully, wondering just what Manning had meant by his lastremark. Was it a threat in any real sense, or was Manning just lettingoff steam? Well, they'd see about that too . . . And Rynason would bewatching. 

 * * * * *

Within half an hour close to sixty men had collected outside Manning'sdoor. They were dirty and unshaven; some of them were working in thetown, a few were miners, but most of them were drifters who had followedthe advance of the star frontier, who drank and brawled in the streetsof the town, sleeping by day and raising hell at night. They stole whenthey could, killed when they wanted. 

The drifters were men who had been all over the worlds of the Edge, whohad spent years watching the new planets opened for colonization andexploitation, but had never got their own piece. They knew the feel ofthese planetfall towns on the Edge, and could talk for hours about theworlds they had seen. But they were city men, all of them; they had seenthe untamed worlds, but only from the streets. They hadn't taken part inthe exploring or the building, only in the initial touchdowns. When thebuilding was done, they signed on to the spacers again and drifted tothe next world, farther out. 

Rynason looked at their faces from where he stood in the doorway, listening to Manning talking to them. They were hard men, mean andsometimes vicious. Nameless faces, all of them, having no place in themore developed areas of the Terran civilization. And maybe that wastheir own fault. But Rynason knew that they were running, not toanything, but from the civilization itself. Running . . . Because when anarea was settled and started to become respectable, they began to seewhat they did not have. The temporary quarters would come down, to bereplaced by permanent buildings that were meant to be lived in, not justas places for sleeping. Closets, and shelters for landcars; quadsensereceivers and food integrators. They didn't want to see that . . . Becausethey hated it, or because they wanted it? It didn't matter, Rynasondecided. They ran, and now they were here on the Edge with all theiranger and frustration, and Manning was ready to give them a way to letit out. 

At the side of the mob he saw a familiar grey shock of hair--ReneMalhomme. Was he with them, then? Rynason craned his neck for a betterview, and for a moment the crowd parted enough to let him see Malhomme'sface. He was looking directly toward Rynason, holding a dully gleamingknife flat against his thick chest . . . And his lips were drawn back intothe crooked, sardonic smile which Rynason had seen many times. No, Malhomme at least was not part of this mob. 

"We already know which direction they went, " Manning was saying. "Lessingham will be in charge of the main body, and you'll follow him. If he gives you an order, _take it_. This is a serious business; wewon't have room for bickering. 

"Some of us will be scouting with the flyers. Well be in radio contactwith you. When we find out where they are we'll reconnoiter and make ourplans from there. "

Manning paused, looking appraisingly at the faces before him. "Most ofyou are armed already, I see. We have some extra stunners here; if youneed them, come on up. But remember, the men who carry the shockers willbe in front; and their business will be simply to down the horses--anykilling that's to be done will be left to those of you who have knives, or anything lethal. "

There was a rising wave of voices from the crowd. Some men came forwardfor weapons; Rynason saw others drawing knives and hatchets, and a fewof them had heavy guns, projectile type. Rynason watched with narrowedeyes; it had been a filthy maneuver on Manning's part to organize thismob, and his open acceptance of their temper was dangerous. Once theywere turned loose, what could stop them?

There was a sudden shouting in the back of the mob; men surged and fellaway, cursing. Rynason heard scuffing back there, and sounds of bonemeeting flesh. The men at the front of the mob turned to look back, andsome tried to shove their way through to the fight. 

A scream came from the midst of the crowd, and was answered by anexcited, angry swelling of voices around the fighting men. SuddenlyManning was among them, smashing his way through with a stunner in hishand, swinging it like a club. 

"Get the hell out of the way!" he shouted, stepping quickly through themen. They grumbled and fell back to let him by, but Rynason heard themen still fighting in the rear, and then he saw them. There were threeof them, two men and what looked like a boy still in his teens. The boyhad red hair and a dark, ruddy complexion: he was new to the outworlds. The two older men had the pallor of the Edge drifters, nurtured in theartificial light of spacers and sealed survival quarters on the lesshospitable worlds. 

The larger of the two men had a knife, a heavy blade of a type that wascommon out here; many of the men used them as hatchets when necessary. This one dripped with blood; the smaller man's left arm was torn openjust below the shoulder, and hanging uselessly. He stood swaying in thedust, hurling a string of curses at the man with the knife, while theboy stood slightly behind him, staring with both fear and hatred in hiseyes. He had a smaller knife, but he held it loosely and uncertainly athis side. 

Manning stepped between them. He had sized up the situation already, andhe paused now only long enough to bite out three short, clipped wordswhich told these men exactly what he thought of them. The man with theknife stopped back and muttered something which Rynason didn't hear. 

Manning raised the stunner coldly and let him have it. The blast caughtthe man in the shoulder and spun him around, throwing him into thecrowd; several of them went down. The long knife fell to the ground, where dirt mixed with the blood on it. There was silence. 

Manning looked around him, swinging the stunner loosely in his hand. After a moment he said calmly, but loud enough for all to hear, "Wewon't have time for fighting among ourselves. The next man who startsanything will be killed outright. Now get these men out of here. " Heturned and strode back through the mob while the boy and a couple of theother men took the wounded away. 

Malhomme had moved further into the crowd. He was strangely silent;usually he went among these men roughly and jovially, cursing them allwith goodnatured ease. But now he stood watching the men around him witha frown creasing his heavily lined face. Malhomme was worried, andRynason, seeing that, felt his stomach tighten. 

Manning faced the men from the front of the crowd. He stared at themshrewdly, holding each man's gaze for a few seconds. Then he grinned, and said, "Save it for the horses, boys. Save it for them. "

 * * * * *

Rynason rode out to the field with Manning, Stoworth, and a few of theothers. It was a short trip in the landcar, and none of them spoke much. Even Stoworth rode silently, his usual easy flow of trivia forgotten. Rynason was thinking about Manning: he had handled the outbreak quicklyand decisively enough, keeping the men in line, but it had been only atemporary measure. They would be expecting some real action soon, andManning was already offering them the Hirlaji. If the alarm turned outto be a false one, would he be as easily able to stop them then?

Or would he even try?

The flyers were ready when they got to the field, but Mara was gone. LesHarcourt met them at the radio office on the edge of the field; he wasthe communications man out here. He led them into the low, quick-concrete construction office and shoved some forms at Manning tobe signed. 

"If there's any trouble, you'll be responsible for it, " he said toManning. "The men can look out for themselves, but the flyers areCompany property. "

Manning scowled impatiently and bent to sign the papers. 

"Where's Mara?" Rynason asked. 

"She's already taken one of the flyers out, " Harcourt said. "Left tenminutes ago. We've got her screen in the next room. " He waved a handtoward the door in the rear of the room. 

Rynason went on back and found the live set. The screen, monitored froma camera on the flyer, showed the foothills of the southern mountainsover which Mara was flying. They were bare and blunt; the rockoutcroppings which thrust up from the Flat had been weathered smooth inthe passage of years. Mara was passing over a low range and on to thedesert beyond. 

Rynason picked up the mike. "Mara, this is Lee; we just got here. Haveyou found them yet?"

Her voice came thinly over the speaker. "Not yet. I thought I saw somemovement in one of the passes, but the light wasn't too good. I'mlooking for that pass again. "

"All right. We'll be going up ourselves in a few minutes; if you findthem, be careful. Wait for us. "

He refitted the mike in its stand and rose. But as he turned to the doorher voice came again: "There they are!"

He looked at the screen, but for the moment he couldn't see anything. Mara's flyer was coming down out of the rocky hills now, the Flatstretching before her on the screen. Rynason could see the pass throughwhich she had been flying, but there was no movement there; it took himseveral seconds to see the low ruins off to the right, and the figuresmoving through them. 

The screen banked and turned toward them; she was lowering her altitude. 

"I see them, " he said into the mike. "Can't make out what they're doing, on the screen. Can you see them any more clearly?"

"They're entering one of the buildings down there, " she said after amoment. "I've counted almost twenty of them so far; they must all behere. "

"Can you go down and see what they're doing? The sooner we find out, thebetter: Manning's got a pretty ugly bunch of so-called vigilantes on theway out there. "

She didn't reply, but on the screen he saw the crumbling buildings growlarger and nearer. He could make out individual structures now: a wallhad fallen and was half-buried in the dust and sand; an entire roof hadcaved in on another building, leaving only rubble in the interior. Itwas difficult to tell sometimes when the original lines of the buildingshad fallen: they had all been smoothed by the wind-blown sand, so thatbroken pillars looked almost as though they had been built that way, smooth and upright, solitary. 

At last, he saw the Hirlaji. They were slowly mounting the steps of oneof the largest of the buildings and passing into the shadows of theinterior. This building was not as deteriorated as most of the others;as Mara's flyer dipped low over it Rynason could see its characteristiclines unbroken and clear. 

With a start, he sat up and said hurriedly, "Mara, take another closepass over that building, the one they're entering. "

In a moment she came in again over the smooth stone structure, andRynason looked closely at the screen. There was no mistaking it now: thehigh steep steps leading up to a colonnade which almost circled thebuilding, the large carvings over the main entrance. 

"You'd better set down away from them!" he said. "That's the Temple ofKor!" But even as he finished speaking the image on the screen joltedand rocked, and the flyer dipped even closer toward the jumbled ruinsbelow. 

"They're firing something!"

He saw that she was trying to gain altitude, but something was wrong;the buildings on the screen dipped and wavered, up and down, spinning. 

"Mara! Pull up--get out of there!"

"One of the wings is damaged, " she said quickly, and suddenly there wasanother jolt on the screen and he heard her gasp. The picture spun andrighted itself, seemed to hang motionless for a moment, and then thestone wall of one of the buildings was directly ahead and growinglarger. 

"Mara!"

The image spun wildly, the building filled the screen, and then it wentblack; he heard a crash from the speaker, cut off almost before it hadsounded. The room was silent. 

EIGHT

Rynason stared at the dead screen for only a moment; he wheeled and ranback to the outer room. 

"Let's get those flyers up! Mara's found them, but they've brought herdown. " He was already going out the door as he spoke. 

Manning and the others were right behind him as he dashed out onto thefield. Rynason headed for the nearest flyer, a small runabout which hadbeen discarded as obsolete on the inner worlds and consigned to use outhere on the Edge, where equipment was scarce. He leaped through the portand was shutting the door when Manning caught it. 

"Where are they? What's happened to the woman?"

"They were shooting something!" Rynason snapped. The knife-scar over hisright eye stood out sharply in his anger. "She crashed--may be badlyhurt. She didn't have too much altitude, though. The hell with where sheis--_follow_ me!"

He slammed the door and squeezed into the flying seat. While he warmedthe engines he saw the others scattering across the field to the otherflyers. In a moment the hum of the radioset told him that theircommunications were open. He saw the props of the other flyers startingto turn, and flicked on his mike. 

"They're on the other side of the south range, " he said quickly. "Shedidn't give me coördinates, but I should be able to find the spot. Whenwe get there, we land away from the city and go in on foot. "

Manning's voice came coldly through the radioset: "Are you giving ordersnow, Lee?"

"Right now I am, yes! If you want to try going in before reconnoitering, that's your funeral. They have weapons. "

"When we touch ground again I'll take over, " Manning said. "Now let'sget going--Lee, you're first. "

But Rynason was already starting his run across the field. When he hadsome speed he kicked in the rocket booster and fought the little flyerskyward. When he had caught the air he banked southward and fed themotors all he had. He didn't look around for the others; he was settinghis own pace. 

The mountain range was ten miles to the south; they should be able tomake it in five or six minutes, he figured. Below him on the dry Flat hesaw the pale shadow of his flyer skimming across the dust. The drone ofthe motors filled the compartment. 

The radio cut in again. It was Manning. "What's this about a city, Lee?Is that where they are?"

"The City of the Temple, " Rynason said. "It's down among overhangingrocks--no wonder we hadn't seen it before. Doesn't seem to have beenused for centuries or more. But that's where the Temple of Kor is--andthe Hirlaji are all in the Temple. "

Static hissed at him for a moment. "How did they bring her down?"someone asked. It sounded like Stoworth. 

"Probably the disintegrators, " Rynason said. "The Hirlaji don't havemany of them, but they've got enough power to give us a lot of trouble. "

"And they're using them, eh?" Manning said. "What do you think of yourhorses now, Lee?"

Rynason didn't answer. 

In a few minutes they were over the range. Rynason had to scout forawhile before he found the pass he had seen on Mara's screen, but oncehe saw it below him he followed it out to the other side. The city wasthere, lying darkly amid the shadows of the mountains. Rynason bankedoff and set down half a mile away. 

He waited for the others to land before he left the flyer. He took apair of binocs from the supply kit and trained them on the city acrossthe Flat, but he couldn't find Mara's fallen flyer. 

When they were all down he clambered out of the compartment and alightedheavily in the dust. Manning strode quickly to him, wearing twinstunners. He took one from its holster and fingered it thoughtfully ashe spoke. 

"The main party was back in the pass. They should be here inside half anhour. We'll storm the temple immediately--we've got them outnumbered. "

Rynason made a dubious sound deep in his throat, looking out at thecity. He was remembering that he had seen it before from this Flat . . . And had stormed it before. The defensive walls were high. 

"They can fire down on us from the walls, " he said in a low voice. "There's no cover out there--they'd wipe half of us out before we couldget in. "

"We can come around from the pass, " Manning said. "There's plenty ofcover from that direction. "

"And more fortification, too!" Rynason snapped. "Just remember, Manning, that city was built as a fortress. We'd _have_ to come from the Flat. "

Manning paused, frowning. "We've got to take them anyway, " he saidslowly. "Damn it, we can't just stand here and wait for them to come outat us. What are they doing, anyway?"

Rynason regarded the older man for several moments, almost amused. "Right now, " he said, "they're probably having a conference--with theOutsiders. That's where the machine is, remember. "

"Then the sooner we attack, the better, " Manning said. "Marc, get themain party on the hand-radio--tell them to get here as fast as theycan. " He turned for a moment to look out across the Flat at the city. "And you can promise them some action, " he said. 

Stoworth dropped the radio from his shoulder and threw back the cover. He switched on the power, and static sounded in the dry air. He liftedthe mike . . . And a voice cut through the static. 

"Is anyone picking this up? Is anyone there?"

It was Mara's voice. 

Rynason knelt beside the set and took the mike from Stoworth's hand. "This is Lee. Are you hurt?"

"Lee?"

"I hear you. Are you hurt?"

"Not badly. Lee, what are you doing? I saw the flyers land. "

"Manning wants to attack the city as soon as the land party gets here. What's going on there?"

"I'm . . . In the temple. I've been trying to communicate with them. I'vegot an interpreter, but they don't listen to what I say. Lee, this isincredible here! They've brought out a lot of weapons . . . Some of themdon't work. The hall is half-filled with dust and sand, and they move soclumsily! They're trying to hurry, because they saw you too, but it'slike . . . Like they've forgotten how. They think they can get rid of usall, but they. . . . It's pitiful--they're so slow. "

"Those disintegrators aren't slow, " Rynason said. Manning was standingbeside him; he dropped a hand on his shoulder, but Rynason shook it off. "Are they using the machine . . . The altar?"

"They were using it when they brought me in. I think it _is_ theOutsiders. But they don't seem to know it's just a machine--they kneelin front of it, and chant. It's so strange, in that language of theirs. . . Those thin, high voices, and the echoes. . . . "

"They're holding you prisoner?"

"Yes. I think they want to hold you off till they can get ready fortheir own attack. "

"_For their what?_" Rynason stood up, and looked toward the city; hecould see no movement there. 

"I know . . . It's incredible. Lee, they don't know what they're doing. Horng said on the interpreter that they were going to drive us off theplanet, and then rebuild their cities, and re-arm. It's something to dowith Kor, or the Outsiders. The orders have changed. They think that ifthey can drive us away for awhile they can build themselves up to wherethey can repel any further touchdowns here. "

"This order came from the machine?"

"Yes. There was a mistake, and Horng realized it after you linked withhim this morning. The Outsiders, or Kor or whatever it is, hadoverestimated us. "

"Maybe then, but not now. They're committing suicide!" Rynason said. 

"I know, and I tried to tell them that. But the machine saysdifferently. Lee, do you think that's really the Outsiders?"

"If it is, " he said slowly, "they wouldn't send the Hirlaji against uswithout some help. " He thought a minute, while the wind of the Flat blewsand against his leg and static came from the radio. "They could bemaking another mistake!" Mara said. "I'm sure what they told theOutsiders wasn't true--they think they're as strong as they were before. But their eyes . . . Their eyes are afraid. I know it. "

"Do they know what you're saying to me?"

"No. Lee, I'm not even sure they know what a radio is. Maybe they thinkI carry my portable altar with me. " Her voice had taken on a franticnote. "It's a . . . A simple case of freedom of religion, Lee! Freedom ofreligion!"

"Mara! Calm down! Calm down!" He waited for a few seconds, until hervoice came again, more quietly:

"I'm sorry . . . It's just that they're so. . . . "

"Forget it. Sit tight there. I think I know how to slip in--alone. " Heswitched off. 

He stood up and shrugged his shoulders heavily, loosening his tensedmuscles. Then he turned purposefully to Manning. 

"The rest of the party won't be here for awhile yet, so you can'tpossibly go in now. I'm going to try to get Mara out before any fightingstarts. "

"What if they capture you too?" Manning said. "I can't hold off anattack too long--you could be right about the Outsiders helping them. The sooner we finish them off, the better. "

Rynason looked coldly at him. "You heard what Mara said. We won't haveany trouble taking them. You can't attack them while she's in there, though. Or can you?"

"Lee. I've told you--I can't take chances. If the Outsiders are in this, it's a dangerous business. You can go in if you want, but we're notwaiting more than half an hour for you to get out. "

Rynason met his gaze steadily for a moment, then nodded brusquely. "Allright. " He turned and moved into the over-hanging shadows of themountains, toward the ancient, alien city. 

 * * * * *

He stayed in the shadows as he approached the walls of the fortress, darting quickly across exposed ground. The Hirlaji were large andpowerful, physical battle with them was of course out of the question. But he had some things on his side: he was small, and therefore lesslikely to be seen; he was faster than the quiet, aged aliens. And heknew the city, the fortress and the temple, almost as well as they did. 

Perhaps better, in fact, for his purposes. For while he had sharedTebron's mind he had been . . . Not only Tebron, but also Rynason, Earthman. A corner of his mind had been alert and aware . . . Hearing thedistant screams of Horng, wondering about the design of the Altar ofKor. And he had seen other things when he looked through Tebron's eyes:when the ancient warlord had stormed the city-fortress, there had beenan observer in him who had said: An Earthman could go in this way, unobserved. A smaller attacker could slip through _here_, could concealhimself where no Hirlaji could reach. 

He arrived, at last, at the base of the wall where the blunt rocks ofthe mountains tumbled to a dead-end against flat, weathered stone. Sofar he must not have been seen; there had been no disintegrator beamsfired at him, no leathery Hirlaji heads watching from the walls. Heflattened against the stone and raised his eyes to the barriers. 

The wall here had been built higher than the portions which faced theFlat, and it was stronger. No one had tried to storm the city from thisposition, because it was too well protected. But the walls had beenbuilt against the heavy, clumsy bodies of the grey aliens; with luck, aman could scale this wall. The footholds in the weathered stones wouldbe precarious, but perhaps it could be done. And the Hirlaji, whoregarded this wall as impregnable, would not be guarding it. 

Sighting upward from flat against the wall, he chose his path quickly, and began to climb. The stone was smooth but grainy; he dug his fingersinto narrow niches and pulled himself slowly upward, bracing himselfwith footholds whenever he could. It was laborious, painful work; twicehe lost handholds and hung precariously until his straining fingersagain found some indentation. Sweat covered him; the wind from the Flatwhipped around the wall and touched the moisture on his back coldly. Buthis face was set in a frozen grimness and though his breath came ingasps he made no other sound. 

When he had neared the top he suddenly seemed to reach a dead-end; thestones were smooth above him. His arms ached, his shoulders seemeddeadened; he clung numbly to the wall and searched for another path. When he found it, he had to descend ten feet and move to the rightbefore he could re-ascend; as he retraced his route down the wall henoticed blood where his torn fingers had left their mark. But he couldnot feel the pain in his fingers. 

At last, when the wall had come to seem a separate world of existencewhich was all that he would ever know, a vertical plane to which heclung with dim determination, hardly knowing why any longer . . . At last, he reached the top. His groping hand reached up and found the edge ofthe wall; his fingers grasped it gratefully and he pulled himself up tohang by both hands and survey the interior of the fortress. 

A deserted floor stretched before him, shadowed by the late-afternoondarkness which crept down from the mountains to rest on the aged remainsof the city. Forty feet down the walkway he saw stairs descending, buthis head swam and all he could focus on clearly was the light film ofdust and sand which covered even this topmost level of the city, blownin shallow drifts against the walls which rose a few feet above thefloor here. There were no footprints in that dust; no one had walkedhere for thousands of years. 

Wearily, he pulled himself over the last barrier and fell numbly to thefloor, where he lay for long minutes fighting for breath. His lungs wereraw; the thin air of the planet caught and rasped in his throat. Hishands were torn and bleeding, and the knife-scar over his right eye hadbegun to throb, but he ignored the pain. He had to clear his head. . . . 

Eventually he was able to stand, swaying beneath the dark sky. Below himhe saw the city, broken and dim, empty streets winding between fallenwalls and pillars. Mara's flyer lay shattered against one of thosebroken walls; seeing it, he wondered how badly she had been hurt. 

He moved toward the stairs, and descended them slowly. The stairs of thecity were as he had remembered them from Tebron's memories, and yet notthe same. To the Earthman they were steep: the steps were like separatelevels, three feet across and almost four feet deep. His legs ached ateach step as the shock of his weight fell on them. 

He reached the bottom level and paused in the doorway onto the street. It was empty, but he had to think a moment before he could remember hisbearings. Yes, the Temple was that way, somewhere down the dusty street. He moved through the deeper shadows at the base of the buildings, remembering. 

Tebron had taken this city at the head of a force of warriors. To him ithad been large and majestic, a place of power and knowledge. ButRynason, moving wearily through the dust of the ages which had fallenupon the city since the ancient king, found it not merely large, buthuge; not majestic, but futile. And the power and knowledge which itonce had held was but a dusty shadow now. Somewhere ahead, in theTemple, the survivors of that ages-old culture were trying to bring thecity to life again. With or without the Outsiders, he felt, they mustfail. They really wanted to bring themselves back to life, to reawakentheir minds, their dreams, their own power. But they tried to do it withmemories, and that was not the way. 

No one was guarding the Temple. Rynason went up the steps as quickly ashe could, vaulting from level to level, trying to stay in the shadows, listening for movement. But sounds did not carry far in the air ofHirlaj; the aliens would not hear him approaching, but he might not hearany of them either until he stumbled upon them. 

At the top of the stairs he darted into the shadows of the colonnadewhich surrounded the interior. Doorways opened at intervals of fiftyfeet around the building; he would have to circle to the side and enterthere if at all. He slipped quickly between the columns and paused atthe third doorway. He dropped to the floor, lay flat on his chest andlooked inside. 

They were all there--two dozen heavy grey aliens, sitting, standing, staring quietly at the floor. There was little movement among them, butnevertheless he could feel the excitement which pervaded the Temple. No, not excitement--anxiety. Fear. Watching those huge bodies huddling intothemselves, he heard an echo of Horng's screams in his mind. Thesecreatures were afraid of battle, of conflict, and yet they had thrustthemselves into a fight which they must lose. Did they know that? Couldthey believe what the machine of the Outsiders told them, after it hadbeen proven fallible?

The Eye of Kor glowed dully in the dark inner room; two of the Hirlajistood silently before it, watching, waiting. But the religion of Kor hadplayed no part in the lives of the Hirlaji for generations. Now that theancient, muddled religion had been brought to life again, could it havethe same hold on them that it had once had?

Mara was on the floor of the Temple, leaning with her back against thewall. One of the doorways from the outer colonnade was nearby, but fiveof the Hirlaji surrounded her. And with a start Rynason noticed that herleft arm hung limp and twisted at her side, and blood showed on herforehead. Her face showed no emotion, but as he watched she raised herright hand to run fingers through her long dark hair, nervously. 

She had not seen him, but she was waiting. When he made his move shewould follow him. Rynason slipped back from the doorway and circled thebuilding again until he had reached the entrance nearest the girl. Hedrew out his stunner from its holster and looked at it for a moment. Hewould have to be fast; his weapon would give him no advantage againstthe disintegrators of the Hirlaji, but surprise and speed might. And, perhaps . . . Fear. 

He broke around the corner of the doorway at a dead run, firing as hewent. Two of the Hirlaji fell before they could even turn; they crumpledto the floor heavily. Then he screamed--a high scream, like Horng's, andas loud as he could make it, a wail, a cry of anguish and terror andpain. They felt it, and it touched a response in them; the Hirlaji whosurrounded Mara twisted to look at him, but they instinctively shrankaway. He continued to fire, bringing down three more of them while theconfusion lasted. He broke through to Mara, who was already on her feet;without breaking his stride he grasped her by her good shoulder andpulled her along with him as he ran through. 

But some of the Hirlaji recovered in time to block their escape. Rynasonwheeled, looking frantically around the room for an unguarded exit. Noneof those within reach were clear. He fired again, and ran for the altar. 

One of the Hirlaji had raised a disintegrator; Rynason caught him withthe stunner as he fired, and the beam of the alien's weapon shot pasthis leg, digging a pit into the floor beyond him. Other weapons wereraised now; they had only seconds left. 

But they had reached the altar; the two Hirlaji there moved to blockthem, but they were unarmed and Rynason dropped them with the stunner. He pushed Mara past them and around to the side of the altar, seekingcover from the disintegrators. 

Behind the altar, there was a space just large enough for them tosqueeze through. Rynason's heart leaped; he pointed quickly to it andturned to fire again as Mara pushed her way into the narrow aperture. Adisintegrator beam hissed over his head; another tore into the wall twofeet away from him. The Hirlaji were trying to keep their fire away fromthe altar itself. 

Rynason turned and squeezed behind the altar as soon as Mara was clear. It was tight, but he made it, and once through the narrow opening theyfound more room in the darkness. They could hear noise outside as theHirlaji moved toward the altar, but it sounded far away and dim. Maramoved back into the darkness, and he followed. 

They moved perhaps twenty feet into the wall behind the altar beforethey were brought to a halt. The passage ended. Well, no matter; if itwas not an escape route, at least it would afford cover from the weaponsof the Hirlaji. Rynason dropped to the floor and rested. 

Mara sat beside him. "Lee, you shouldn't have tried it, " she saidanxiously. "Now we're trapped. " He felt her hand touch his face in thedarkness. 

"Maybe, " he said. "But we may be able to catch them off their guardagain, and if so we may be able to get out. "

She was silent. He felt her lean against his shoulder wearily, her hairsoft against his neck. Then he remembered that she had been hurt. 

"What happened to your arm? And you were bleeding. "

"I think it's broken. The bleeding was nothing, though: you should seeyourself. You were so tattered and bloody when you came in that I hardlyknew you. Knights should come in more properly shining armor. "

He grinned wearily. "Wait till next time. "

"Lee, where are we?" she said abruptly. Their eyes were becomingadjusted to the darkness, and they could see rising around them acomplexity of machine relays, connectives, and pieces which did not seemto make sense. 

Rynason looked more closely at the complex. It was definitely Outsiderswork, but what was it? Part of the Altar of Kor, obviously, but theOutsiders telecommunicators had never used such extensive machinery. Yetit did look familiar. He tried to remember the different types ofOutsiders machinery which had been found and partially reconstructed bythe advancing Earthmen in the centuries past. There weren't many. . . . 

Then, suddenly, he had it, and it was so simple that he was surprised hehadn't thought of it before. 

"This is Kor, " he said. "It's not a communicator--it's a computer. AnOutsiders computer. "

NINE

Mara's frown deepened; she looked around them in the dimness, her eyestaking in the complexity and extent of the circuitry. It faded into thedarkness behind them; lines ran into the walls and floor. 

"They built their computers in the grand manner, didn't they?" she saidsoftly. 

"I've seen fragments of them before, " Rynason said. "This is a bigone--no telling how much area the total complex takes up. One thing'scertain, though: it's no ordinary computer of theirs. Not for plainmath-work, nor even for specialized computations, like the one on RigelII--that was apparently used for astrogation, but it wasn't half thesize of this. And navigation between stars, even with the kind of drivethey must have had, is no simple problem. "

"The Hirlaji think it's a god, " she said. 

"That raised another problem, " Rynason mused. "The Outsiders built it, and must have left it here when they pulled back to wherever they weregoing . . . If they ever left the planet. But the Hirlaji use it, and theycommunicate with it verbally. The Hirlaji are apparently responsible forkeeping it protected since then. But why should the Hirlaji be able touse it?"

"Unless they're the Outsiders after all?" said Mara. 

Rynason frowned. "No, I'm still not convinced of that. The clue seems tobe that they communicate verbally with it--they must have been using itsince before they developed telepathy. "

"Couldn't there have been direct contact between the Hirlaji and theOutsiders back when the Hirlaji were just evolving out of the beaststage?"

"There must have been, " said Rynason. "The Temple rituals are conductedin an even older form of their language than most remembered--aproto-language that was kept alive only by the priest caste, because themachine had been set to respond to that language. "

"But aren't primitive languages usually composed of simple, basic wordsand concepts? How well could they communicate in such a language?"

"Not very well, " Rynason said. "Which would explain why the machineseemed to make mistakes--clumsiness of language. So the Outsiders, maybe, left the machine when they pulled out, but they set it to respondto the Hirlaji language because our horsefaced friends were beginning tobuild a civilization of their own and the Outsiders thought they'd leavethem some guidance. . . . " He stopped for a moment, remembering that firstlinkage with Horng, and Tebron's memories. "The Hirlaji called them theOld Ones, " he said. 

"And that order to Tebron . . . About the other race that they would meetsomeday. That was based on Outsiders observations. "

"I wonder when the Outsiders were on Earth, " Rynason said. "Sometimeafter we'd started our own rise, certainly. Maybe in ancientMesopotamia, or India. Or later, during the Renaissance?"

"The time doesn't matter, does it?" Mara said. "They touched down onEarth, took note of us, and left. Somehow they thought we were going todevelop more rapidly than we did. "

"Probably before the Dark Ages, " Rynason said. "Maybe they didn't seethat thousand-year setback coming. . . . " He stopped, and stood up in thelow passageway among the ancient circuitry. "So here we are, second-guessing the Outsiders. And outside, their proteges havedisintegrators probably left by the Outsiders, and they're just waitingfor us to try to get out. "

"Our new-found knowledge isn't doing us much good, is it?" she said. 

He shook his head slowly. "When I was still on the secondary senseteachunits I met Rene Malhomme for the first time. My father worked thespacers, so I don't even remember what planet this was on. But Iremember the night I first saw Rene--he was speaking from the top of ablue-lumber pile, shouting about the corporations that were moving in. He was getting all worked up about something, and several people in thecrowd were shouting back at him; I stopped to watch. All of a sudden sixor seven men moved in from somewhere and dragged him down from where hewas standing. There was a fight--people were thrown all around. I hidtill it was over. 

"When the crowd finally cleared, there was Rene. His clothes were torn, but he wasn't hurt. Every one of the men who had attacked him had to becarried away; I think one of them was dead. Rene stood there laughing;then he saw me hidden in the darkness and he took me home. He told methat when he'd been younger he'd worked his way all the way in to Earth, and studied some of the cultures there. He'd learned karate, which wasan ancient Japanese way of fighting. "

Rynason took a deep breath. "He said everything a person learns will beuseful someday. And I believed him. "

"A nice parable, " Mara said. "We could use him against the Hirlaji, though. "

Rynason was silent, thinking. If they could only catch the aliens offguard . . . But of course they couldn't, now. He let his eyes wanderaimlessly along the circuitry surrounding them. Tell me, old Kor, whatdo we do now?

After a moment his eyes narrowed; he reached up and traced a connectionwith his fingers, back to the front, toward the altar. It led directlyto . . . The speaker!

The voice of Kor. 

And if he could interrupt that connection, put his own voice through thespeaker, out through the altar. . . . 

"Mara, we're going out. I've found my own brand of karate for ourfriends out there. "

He helped her to her feet. She moved somewhat painfully, her broken leftarm hanging stiffly at her side, but she made no protest. 

"We've got to be fast, " he said. "I don't know how well this willwork--it depends on how much they trust their clay-footed god today. "Quickly, he outlined his plan. Mara listened silently and nodded. 

Then he set to work. It was largely guesswork, following those intricatealien connections, but Rynason had seen this part of such machinesbefore. He found the penultimate point at which the impulses from thebrain were translated into sound and broadcast through the speaker. Hedisconnected this, his torn fingers working awkwardly on the delicatelinkages. 

"Ready?"

Mara was just inside the narrow passage behind the altar. She noddedquickly. 

Rynason twisted himself so that he could speak directly into the inputof the speaker. He raised his voice to approximate the thin, high soundsof the Hirlaji language. 

_Remain motionless. Remain motionless. Remain motionless. _

The command burst out upon the altar room of the Temple, shattering thesilence. The Hirlaji turned in surprise to the altar--and stood still. 

_Remain motionless. Remain motionless. _

It was the phrase he had heard the machine use so often to Tebron, kingpriest leader of all Hirlaj. It had meant something else then, but theproto-language of the Hirlaji had no precise meanings; given by itself, it seemed to mean precisely what it said. 

"All right, let's go out!" Rynason said, and the two of them broke frombehind the altar. The Hirlaji stood completely still; several of thosethat Rynason had dropped with his stunner had recovered consciousness, but they made no move either. Rynason and the girl ran right through thequiet aliens; only a few of them turned shadowed eyes to look at them asthey passed. They made the outside colonnade in safety, and pausedthere. 

"They may see through this in a minute, " Rynason said. "Don't wait forme--get out of the city!"

"You're not coming?"

"I won't be too far behind. Get going!"

She hesitated only a moment, then hurried down the broad levels of theTemple steps. Rynason watched her to the bottom, then turned andre-entered the altar room. 

Rynason went quickly among them, taking their weapons. Most of them madeno effort to stop him, but a few tightened their grips on thedisintegrators and he had to pry those thick fingers from the weapons, cursing to himself. How long would they wait?

There were fourteen of the disintegrators. They were large and heavy; hecouldn't hold them all at once. He dumped five of them outside the altarroom and returned to disarm the rest of the aliens. Sweat formed beadson his forehead, but he moved without hesitation. 

Another of the Hirlaji tightened his grip when Rynason began to take theweapon from him. He looked up, and saw the quiet eyes of Horng restingon him. The leathery grey wrinkles which surrounded those eyes quiveredslightly, but otherwise he made no movement. Rynason dropped his gazefrom that contact and wrested the weapon away. 

As he started to move on to the next, Horng silently dipped his massivehead to one side. Rynason felt a chill go down his back. 

In a few more minutes he had disarmed them all. He set the last threedisintegrators on the stone floor of the colonnade--and a movement inthe distance caught his eye. It was on the south wall of the city; twomen stood for a moment silhouetted against the Flat, then disappearedinto the shadows. In a moment, another man appeared, and he too droppedinside the wall. 

So Manning had already sent the men in. The mob was unleashed. 

Rynason hesitated for a moment, then turned and went quickly back intothe altar room. Mara's radio was there; he lifted it by its strap andtook it with him out to the colonnade. 

He could see the Earthmen moving through the streets now, darting fromwall to wall in the gathering darkness of evening. In a short time itwould be full night--and Rynason knew that these men would like nothingbetter than to attack in the dark. 

He warmed the radio and opened the transmitter. 

"Manning, call off your dogs. I've disarmed the Hirlaji. "

The radio spat static at him, and for several seconds he thought hissignal hadn't even been picked up. But at last there was a reply:

"Then get out of the Temple. It's too late to stop this. "

"Manning!"

"I said get clear. You've done all you can there. "

"Damn it, there's no need for any fighting!"

Manning's voice sounded cold even in the faint reception of thehand-radio. "That's for me to decide. I'm running this show, remember. "

"You're running a massacre!" Rynason shouted. 

"Call it what you like. Mara says they weren't so docile when you brokein. "

Rynason's mind raced; he had to stall for time. If he could get Manningto stop those men until they cooled down. . . . 

"Manning, there's no need for this! Didn't she tell you that the altaris just a computer? These people haven't had anything to do with theOutsiders since before they can remember!"

The radio carried the faint sound of Manning's chuckle. "So now they'repeople to you, Lee? Or are you one of them now?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Lee, my boy, you're sounding like an old horsefaced nursemaid. Youlinked minds with them, and you say you were practically a Hirlajiyourself when you went into that linkage. Well, I'm not so sure you evercame out of it. You're _still_ one of them!"

"Is that the only reason you can think of that I might have for wantingto prevent a massacre?" Rynason said icily. 

"If they tried to revolt once, they'll try it again, " Manning said. "Well crush them _now_. "

"You think that will impress the Council? Slaughtering the onlyintelligent race we've found?"

"I'm not playing to the Council!" Manning snapped. "I've got these menfollowing me, and I'll listen to what _they_ want!"

Rynason stared at the microphone for a moment. "Are you sure you aren'tafraid of your own mob?" he said. 

"We're coming in, Lee. Get out of there or we'll cut you down too. "

"Manning!"

"I'm switching off. "

"_Not quite yet. _ There's one more thing, and you'd better hear thisone!"

"Make it fast, " Manning said. His voice sounded uninterested. 

"If any of your boys try to come in, I'll stop them myself. I've got thedisintegrators, and I'll use them. "

There was silence from the radio, save for the static. It lasted forlong seconds. Then:

"It's your funeral. " There was a faint click as Manning switched off. 

 * * * * *

Rynason stared angrily at the radioset for a moment, then left it lyingat the top of the steps and went back inside. The Hirlaji stoodmotionlessly in dimness; it took awhile for Rynason's eyes to adjust toit. He found the interpreter that Mara had left and quickly hooked it upto Horng. The alien's eyes, moving heavily in their sockets, watched himas he connected the wires. 

When everything was ready Rynason lifted the interpreter's mike. "TheEarthmen are going to attack you, " he said. "I want to help you fightthem off. "

There was no reaction from the alien; only those quiet eyes resting onhim like the shadows of the entire past. 

"Can you still believe that Kor is a god? That's only a machine--I spokethrough it myself, minutes ago! Don't you realize that?"

After a moment Horng's eyes slowly closed and opened in acknowledgement. KOR WAS GOD KNOWLEDGE. THE OLD ONES DIED BEFORE TIME, AND PASSED INTOKOR. NOW KOR IS DEAD. 

"And all of you will be dead too!" Rynason said. 

The huge alien sat unmoving. His eyes turned away from Rynason. 

"You've got to fight them!" Rynason said. 

But he could see that it was useless. Horng had made no reply, butRynason knew what was in his thoughts now. 

THERE IS NO PURPOSE. 

TEN

Wearily, Rynason switched off the interpreter, leaving the wires stillconnected to the alien. He walked through the faintly echoing, dust-filled temple and stepped out onto the colonnade around it. It wasalmost dark now; the deep blue of the Hirlaj sky had turned almost blackand the pinpoint lights of the stars broke through. The wind was risingfrom the Flat; it caught his hair and whipped it roughly around hishead. He looked up at the emerging stars, remembering the day when Hornghad suddenly, inexplicably stood and walked to the base of a brokenstaircase. He had looked up those stairs, past where they had broken andfallen, past the shattered roof, to the sky. The Hirlaji had neverreached the stars, but they might have. It had taken a god, or a jumbledlegacy from an older, greater race, to forestall them. And now all theyhad was the dust and the wind. 

Rynason could hear the rising moan of that wind gathering itself aroundhim, building to a wailing planet-dirge among the columns of the Temple. And inside, the Hirlaji were dying. The knives and bludgeons of theEarth mob outside would only complete the job; the Hirlaji were tootired to live. They dreamed dimly under the shadowed foreheads . . . Dreamed of the past. And sometimes, perhaps, of the stars. 

Behind the altar, the huge and intricate mass of alien circuits glowedand clicked and pulsated . . . Slowly; seemingly at random, but steadily. The brain must be self-perpetuating to have lasted this long . . . Feedingits energy cells from some power-source Rynason could only guess at, andrepairing its time-worn linkages when necessary. In its memory banks wasstored the science of the race which had preceded even the ancientHirlaji. The Outsiders had sprung up when this planet was young, hadfought their way to the stars and galaxies, and eventually, when aeonsof time pressed down, had pulled in their outposts and fallen back tothis world. And they had died here, on this world, falling to dust whichwas ground under by the grey race which had followed them to dominance. "Before time, " Horng had said; that must have meant before the Hirlajihad developed telepathy, before the period covered by the race-memory. 

But the Outsiders were still here, alive in that huge alien brain . . . The science, the knowledge, the strange arts of a race which hadconquered the stars while men still wondered about the magic oflightning and fire. A science was encapsuled here which could speak ofwar and curiosity as discontent, but could say nothing definite ofcontentment. An incomplete science? A merely alien science? Rynasondidn't know. 

And the Hirlaji. . . . Twenty-six of their race remained, dreaming underheavy domes through which the stars shone at night and silhouetted theworn edges of broken stone. Twenty-six grey, hopeless beings who had noteven been waiting. And the Earthmen had come. 

For a moment Rynason wondered if the Hirlaji did not perhaps carry amessage for the Earthmen too: that decadence was the price of peace, death the inevitable end of contentment. The Hirlaji had stilledthemselves, back in the grey past . . . Had taken their measure of quietand contentment for thousands of years, the searching drives of theirrace dying within them. And this was their end. 

THERE IS NO PURPOSE. 

Rynason shook himself, and felt the cold wind cut through his clothing;it reawakened him. Stooping, he gathered up several of thedisintegrators and brought them with him to the head of the massivestairs up which the attackers must come. He crouched beside thosestairs, watching for movement below. But he couldn't see anything. 

Something about the Hirlaji still bothered him; kneeling in thegathering darkness he finally isolated it in his mind. It was theirhopelessness, the numbness that had crept over them through thecenturies. No purpose? But they had lived in peace for thousands ofyears. No, their death was not merely one of decadence . . . It wassuffocation. 

They had not chosen peace; it had been thrust upon them. The Hirlaji hadbeen at the height of their power, their growth still gathering momentum. . . And they had to stifle it. The end in view didn't really matter: ithad not been what they would have chosen. And, having had peace forcedupon them before they had been ready for it, they had been unable toenjoy it; and the stifling of scientific curiosity that had beennecessary to complete the suppression of the war-instinct had left theHirlaji with nothing. 

But it had all been so unnecessary, Rynason thought. The ancientOutsiders brain, computing from insufficient evidence probably gatheredduring a brief touchdown on Earth, had undoubtedly been able to giveonly a tentative appraisal of the situation. But the proto-Hirlajilanguage was not constructed to accommodate if's and maybe's, and thejudgments of the brain were taken as law by the Hirlaji. 

Now the Earthmen for whom this race had deadened itself intonear-extinction would complete the job . . . Because the Hirlaji hadlearned their mistake far too late. 

Rynason shook his head; there was a sickness in his stomach, a gnawinganger at the ways of history. It was capricious, cruel, senseless. Itplayed jokes spanning millennia. 

Suddenly there were sounds on the stairs below him. Rynason's headjerked up and he saw five of the Earthmen climbing the stairs, moving asquickly as they could from level to level, crouching momentarily at eachbeneath the cover of the steps. He raised one of the disintegrators, feeling the rage building up within him. 

There was a humming sound by his ear; the beam of one of the stunnerspassed by him, touching the rock wall. The wall vibrated at the touch, but the range was too great for the beam to have done it any damage. They were close enough, though to stun Rynason if they hit him. 

He dropped flat, looking for the man who had fired. In a moment he foundhim: a small, lean man slipped almost silently over the edge of one ofthe step-levels and rolled quickly to cover beneath the next. He had gotfurther than Rynason had realized; only three levels separated them now. He could see, from this distance in the near-dark, the cruel lines ofthe man's face. It was a harsh, dirty face, with wrinkles like seams;the man's eyes were harsh slits. Rynason had seen too many faces likethat here on the Edge; this was a man with a bitter hatred, looking forthe chance to unleash it upon anyone who got in his way. And theenjoyment which Rynason saw gleaming in the man's eyes chilled himmomentarily. 

In that moment the man leaped to the next level, sending off a beamwhich struck the wall two feet from Rynason; he felt the stingingvibration against his body as he lay flat. Slowly he sighted thedisintegrator at the top of the level under which the man had crouchedfor cover, and waited for his next leap. Within him he felt only abitter cold which matched the wind whipping above him. 

Again the man moved--but he had crept to the side of the stairs beforehe leaped, and Rynason's shot bit into the stone beside him as he rolledto safety. Now only one level separated them. 

Further down the stairs, Rynason saw the others moving up behind thesmaller man. Still more were moving out from the other buildings anddarting to the stairs. But he had no time to hold them back. 

There was silence, except for the wind. 

And the man leaped, firing once, twice. The second beam took Rynason inthe left wrist and spun him off-balance for a moment. But he was alreadyfiring in return, rolling to one side. His third shot took the man'sright shoulder off, and bit into his neck. The man staggered forward twosteps, trying to raise his stunner again, but suddenly it clattered tothe floor and he crumpled on top of it. A pool of blood spread aroundhim. 

Rynason moved back to the cover of the side wall, and watched for theother men. The first one had got too near; Rynason hadn't realized howeasily they could approach in this near-darkness. He felt the numbnessof the stunnerbeam spreading nearly to his shoulder; his left arm wasuseless. Cursing, he trained the disintegrator along the line of thesteps and fired. 

The disintegrator cut through the stone as though it were putty, for arange of twenty feet. Rynason played the beam back and forth along thesteps, cutting them down to a smooth ramp which the attackers would haveto climb before they could get to him. 

One of them tried to leap the last few levels before Rynason could cutthem, but he sliced the man in two through the chest. The separate partsof the man's body fell and rolled back to the untouched levels below. Hehad not had time to utter even a cry of pain. 

For a time, now, there was complete silence in the wind. Rynason couldsee the inert legs of the last attacker projecting out over the edge ofthe third level down, and undoubtedly the others saw them too. They werehesitating now, unsure of themselves. Rynason stayed pressed to thestone floor, waiting. The wind whipped in a rising moan through theupper reaches of the building. 

Another of the men slipped over the edge of the massive stairs, huggingthe deeper darkness at the side of the stair-wall, and slowly inched hisway up the newly-flattened ramp. Rynason watched him coldly, through agrey haze of fury which was yet tinged with despair. What use was allthis, the killing, the blood and sweat and pain? It disgusted him--yetby its perverse senselessness it angered him too. 

He cut a swathe through the crawling man, through head and neck andback. A gory shell-like hulk slid back to the foot of the ramp. 

And abruptly the remaining men broke and ran. One of them rose andstumbled down the steep levels of the stairs, heedless of his exposure;with a shock, Rynason saw that it was Rene Malhomme. Another followed. . . And another. There were almost a dozen of them on the stairs; theyall broke and ran. Rynason sent one beam after them, biting a depressioninto the rock wall beside them. Then they were gone. 

Rynason moved back from the head of the stairs and leaned wearilyagainst the stone. His left arm was beginning to tingle with returningcirculation now; he rubbed it absently with his good hand and wonderedif they would try the sheer walls on the other side of the Temple. Hehad scaled one of these ancient walls, but would they try it? Certainlythey stood little chance coming up the stairs, unless they gathered fora concerted rush. And who would lead such a suicidal attack? These menwere vicious, but they valued their lives too. 

Yet he couldn't watch the black walls. Leaving the stairway unguardedwould be the most dangerous course of all. 

In a few minutes the hand-radio, forgotten on the stone floor behindhim, flashed an intermittent light which caught his eye in the dusk. That would be Manning. 

Rynason slid the radio over to the head of the stairs and switched onthere, keeping an eye on the stairway. 

"Lee, do you hear me?"

"I hear you. " His voice was low and bitter. 

"I'm coming in to talk. Hold your God damned fire. "

"Why should I?" said Rynason, "Because I'm bringing Mara with me. It's too bad you don't trust me, Lee, but if that's the way you want it I won't trust you either. "

"That's a good idea, " he said, and switched off. 

Almost immediately he saw them come out from behind the cover of afallen wall across the dusty street. Mara walked in front of Manning;her head was high, her face almost expressionless. The cold wind threwdust against their legs as they crossed the open space to the base ofthe steps. 

Rynason stood motionless, watching them come up. Manning still had histwo stunners, but they were in their holsters. He kept behind the girlall the way, pausing before pushing her up the open ramp at the top, then moving even more closely behind her. Rynason stood with thedisintegrator hanging loosely in one hand at his side. 

On the colonnade Manning gripped the girl by her undamaged arm. Henodded to one of the doorways into the temple, and Rynason preceded himinside. 

As they entered Manning lit a handlight and set it on the floor. Theroom was thrown into stark relief, the shadows of the motionless aliensstriking the walls and ceiling with an almost physical harshness. Manning paused a moment to look at the Hirlaji, and at the altar acrossthe room. 

"We can hear each other in here, " he said at last. 

"What do you want?" said Rynason. There was cool hatred in his voice, and the knife-scar on his forehead was a dark snake-line in the hardglare of the handlight. 

Manning shrugged, a bit too quickly. He was nervous. "I want you out ofhere, Lee, and I'm not accepting any argument this time. "

Rynason looked at Mara, standing helplessly in the older man's grip. Heglanced down at the disintegrator in his hand. 

Manning drew one of his stunners quickly, and trained it at Rynason'sface. "I said no arguments. Put the weapon down, Lee. "

Rynason couldn't risk a shot at the man, with Mara in front of him. Hecarefully laid the disintegrator on the floor. 

"Slide it over here. "

Rynason kicked it across the floor. Manning bent and picked it up, returned the stunner to its holster and held the disintegrator on him. 

"That's better. Now we can avoid arguments--right, Lee? You've alwayslike peaceful settlements, haven't you?"

Rynason glared at him, but didn't say anything. He walked slowly intothe center of the room, among the Hirlaji. They paid no attention. 

"Lee, he's going to kill them!" Mara burst out. 

Rynason was standing now next to the interpreter. The handlight whichManning had set on the floor across the room was trained upwards, andthe interpreter was still in the darkness. He lowered his head as if inthought and switched on the machine with his foot. 

"Is that true, Manning? Are you going to kill them?" His voice was loudand it echoed from the walls. 

"I can't trust them, " Manning said, his voice automatically growinglouder in response to Rynason's own. He stepped forward, pushing Mara infront of him. "They're not human, Lee--you keep forgetting that, forsome reason. Think of it as clearing the area of hostile native animallife--that comes under the duties of a governor, now doesn't it?"

"And what about the men outside? Did you put it that way to them?"

"They do what I say!" Manning snapped. "They don't give a damn who theykill. There's going to be fighting here whether it's against the Hirlajior between the townsmen. As governor, I'd rather they took it all out onthe horses here. Domestic tranquillity, shall we say?" He was smilingnow; he had everything in control. 

"So that's your purpose?" Rynason said. There was anger in his voice, feigned or real--perhaps both. But his voice rose still higher. "Isbutchery your only goal in life, Manning?"

Manning stepped toward him again, his eyes narrowing. "Butchery? It'sbetter than no purpose at all, Lee! It'll get me off of these damnedoutworlds eventually, if I'm a good enough butcher. And I mean to be, Lee . . . I mean to be. "

Rynason turned his back on the man in contempt, and walked past Horng tothe base of the ancient altar. He looked up at the Eye of Kor, dim nowwhen not in use. He turned. 

"_Is_ it better, Manning?" he shouted. "Does it give you a right tolive, while you slaughter the Hirlaji?"

Manning cursed under his breath, and took a quick step toward Rynason;his hard, black shadow leaped up the wall. 

"_Yes!_ It gives me any right I can take!"

It happened quickly. Manning was now beside the massive figure of thealien, Horng; in his anger he had loosened his grip on Mara. He raisedthe disintegrator toward Rynason. 

And Horng's huge fist smashed it from his hand. 

Manning never knew what hit him. Before he had even realized that thedisintegrator was gone Horng had him. One heavy hand circled his throat;the other gripped his shoulder. The alien lifted him viciously and brokehim like a stick; Rynason could almost hear the man's neck break, sofinal was that twist of the alien's hands. 

Horng lifted the lifeless body above his head and hurled it to the floorwith such force that the man's head was stoved in and his body laytwisted and motionless where it fell. 

Afterwards there was silence in the room, save for the distant sound ofthe wind against the building outside. Horng stood looking down at thebroken body at his feet, his expression as unfathomable as it had everbeen. Mara stared in shocked silence at the alien. 

Rynason walked slowly to the mike lying beside the interpreter. Heraised it. 

"You can move quickly, old leather, when there's a reason for it, " hesaid. 

Horng turned his head to him and silently dipped it to one side. 

 * * * * *

Rynason lifted the broken form of Manning's body and carried it out tothe top of the steps leading down from the temple. Mara went with him, carrying the handlight; it fell harshly on Manning's crushed features asRynason waited atop the huge, steep stairway. The wind tore at his hair, whipping it wildly around his head . . . But Manning's head was caked withblood. In a moment, the men from the town came out from cover; theystood at the base of the steps, indecisive. 

They too were waiting for something. 

Rynason hefted the body up over one shoulder and drew a disintegratorwith the hand he had freed. Slowly, then, he descended the steps. 

When he had neared the bottom the circle of men fell back. They wereuneasy and sullen . . . But they had seen the power of the disintegrator, and now they saw Manning's crushed body. 

Rynason bent and dropped the body to the ground. He looked up coldly atthe ring of faces and said, "One of the Hirlaji did that with his hands. That's all--just his hands. "

For a moment everyone was still . . . And then one of the men broke fromthe crowd, snarling, with a heavy knife in his hand. He stopped justoutside the white circle of the handlight, the knife extended beforehim. Rynason raised the disintegrator and trained it on him, his facefrozen into a cold mask. 

The man stood in indecision. 

And from the crowd behind him another figure stepped forward. It wasMalhomme, and his lips were drawn back in disgust. He struck with anopen hand, the side of his palm catching the man's neck beneath his ear. The man fell sprawling to the ground, and lay still. 

Malhomme looked at him for a moment, then he turned to the men behindhim. "That's enough!" he shouted. "_Enough!_" Angrily, he looked down atthe crumpled form of Manning's body. "Bury him!" he said. 

There was still no movement from the men; Malhomme grabbed two of themroughly and shoved them out of the crowd. They hesitated, lookingquickly from Malhomme to the disintegrator in Rynason's hand, then bentto pick up the body. 

"It's a measure of man's eternal mercy, " said Malhomme acidly, "that atleast we bury each other. " He stared at the men in the mob, and the furyin his eyes broke them at last. Muttering, shrugging, shaking theirheads, they dispersed, going off in two and threes to take cover fromthe wind-driven sand. 

Malhomme turned to Rynason and Mara, his face relaxing at last. The hardlines around his mouth softened into a rueful smile as he put his armaround Rynason's shoulder. "We can all take shelter in the buildingshere for the night. You could use some rest, Lee Rynason--you look likehell. And maybe I can put a temporary splint on your arm, woman. "

They found a nearby building where the roof had long ago fallen in, butthe walls were still standing. While Malhomme ministered to Mara he didnot stop talking for a moment; Rynason couldn't tell whether he wastrying to keep the girl's mind off the pain or whether he was simplyunwinding his emotions. 

"You know, I've preached at these men for so many years I've gotcallouses in my throat. And one of these days maybe they'll know whatI'm talking about, so that I won't have to shout. " He shrugged. "Well, it would be a dull world, where I didn't have a good excuse to shout. Sometimes you might ask your alien friends up there, Lee . . . What didthey get out of choosing peace?"

"They didn't choose it, " said Rynason. 

Malhomme grimaced. "I wonder if anybody, anywhere, ever will. Maybe theOutsiders did, but they're not around to tell us about it. It's anintriguing question to think about, if you don't have anything to drink. . . What do you do, when there's nothing more to fight against, or evenfor?"

He straightened up; the splint on Mara's arm was set now. He settled herback in a drift of sand as comfortably as possible. 

"I've got another question, " Rynason said. "What were you doing amongthose men who came at me on the steps earlier?"

Malhomme's face broke into a wide grin. "That was a suicidal rush onyou, Lee. A damned stupid tactic . . . A rush like that is only as strongas the weakest coward in it. All it takes is one man to break and run, and everybody else will run too. So it was easy for me to break it up. "

Rynason couldn't help chuckling at that; and once he had started, thetension that had gripped him for the past several hours found release ina full, stomach-shaking laugh. 

"Rene Malhomme, " he gasped, "that's the kind of leadership this planetneeds!"

Mara smiled up from where she lay. "You know, " she said, "now thatManning is dead they'll have to find someone else to be governor. . . . "

"Don't be ridiculous, " said Malhomme. 

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Transcriber's Note: Typographical errors have been repaired in this text. 

 Spelling

 Old: cemetaries New: cemeteries

 Old: hefting his repentence sign New: hefting his repentance sign

 Old: what happenedt here, old leather New: what happened here, old leather

 Old: I suppose, thought I've never even been New: I suppose, though I've never even been

 Old: casing aound the powerpacks New: casing around the powerpacks

 Old: as staticly blunt as anvils New: as statically blunt as anvils

 Old: Rynason knelt beside the set and took the Mike New: Rynason knelt beside the set and took the mike

 Old: can repell any further touchdowns New: can repel any further touchdowns

 Old: over-hanging shadows of the mounains New: over-hanging shadows of the mountains

 Old: collonade New: colonnade

 Old: The brain must be eslf-perpetuating New: The brain must be self-perpetuating

 Old: their hoplessness, New: their hopelessness, Old: millenia New: millennia

 Punctuation

 Old: Manning's quarters, He met Marc Stoworth New: Manning's quarters. He met Marc Stoworth

 Old: daring the man to take offense. He didn't. " New: daring the man to take offense. He didn't. 

 Old: "Where's Mara? Rynason asked. New: "Where's Mara?" Rynason asked. 

 Old: echo of Horng's screams in his mind New: echo of Horng's screams in his mind. 

 Old: Manning said. I'm going to throw out New: Manning said. "I'm going to throw out

 Old: he said. Tonight I'm busy. New: he said. "Tonight I'm busy. 

 Missing word

 Old: Rynason that that it was Rene Malhomme New: Rynason saw that it was Rene Malhomme