They left Horng at the of the Flat and their steps through the Hirlaji ruins, still no notice from the aliens. Rynason had been in some of the small where settlements had been only to be by the main of traffic … those where with the parent was so that an local had developed, almost as different from that of the Terran as was this last of the Hirlaji civilization. And in some of those in Earth was so that the were ignored, as the Earthmen were here … but he had the total of attention that was here. It was not as though the Hirlaji had the Earthmen and used to them; Rynason had the that to the Hirlaji the Earthmen were no more than the or the their feet.
As they passed through the settled of the Rynason had to step around a Hirlaji who his path. He walked past, his not toward the Earthlings. Crazy hidepiles, Rynason thought, and he and Mara out across the Flat toward the Earth town.
On the of the town, where the packed-dirt into and garbage was already high, they were met by Rene Malhomme. He sat long-legged with his against a outcropping. He old already, though he was not yet fifty; his was almost the color of the and rock—perhaps it was with that dust, Rynason thought. He stopped and looked at the worn, man that weariness.
“And have you with God, Lee Rynason?” Malhomme asked with his rumbling, voice.
Rynason met his gaze, what he wanted. He the pack from his and set it in the dust. Mara sat on a low him.
“Will an god do?” Rynason said.
Malhomme’s rested on the for a moment. “You spoke with Kor?” he asked.
Rynason slowly. “I a with one of the Hirlaji, and the race-memory. I you say I spoke with Kor.”
“You have touched the godhead,” Malhomme mused. “Then it’s real? Their god is real?”
“No,” said Rynason. “Kor is a machine.”
Malhomme’s up. “A machine? Deus ex machina, to an curse. We make our own machines, and make gods of them.” The lines of his relaxed. “Well, that’s a better. The gods a myth, and it’s that way.”
Rynason over him on the Flat, still puzzled by his manner. He at Mara, but she too was Malhomme, waiting for him to speak again.
Suddenly, Malhomme laughed, a laugh which almost in his throat. “Lee Rynason, I have called men to God for so long that I almost to it myself. And when the men started talking about the god of these aliens….” He his head, the still his mouth into a grin. “Well, I’m it isn’t true. Religion wouldn’t be a if it were true.”
“How did the men out about Kor?” Rynason asked.
Malhomme spread his hands. “Manning has been talking, as usual. He the Hirlaji, and their god. And at the same time he says they are a menace.”
“Why? Is he still trying to work the up against them?”
“Of course. Manning wants all the power he can get. If it means the Hirlaji, he’ll do it.” Malhomme up, himself. “He says they may be the Outsiders, and he’s up all the he can. He’ll any excuse, no how impossible.”
“It’s not so impossible,” Rynason said. “Kor is an Outsiders machine.”
Malhomme at him. “You’re sure of that?”
He nodded. “There’s no of it—I saw it from three away.” He told Malhomme of his with Horng, the with the memories, the mind, Tebron, and of the with the machine that was Kor. Malhomme with fascination, his to one side, occasionally in a or a question.
As he finished, Rynason said, “That that Kor them about like us. A that would them if they left the planet. We haven’t any other life … just the Hirlaji, and us.”
“And the Outsiders,” said Malhomme.
“No. This was a which was still from barbarism, at about the same level as the Hirlaji themselves. Remember, the Outsiders had already spread through a thousand star-systems long this. No, we’re the they were against.”
“What about the weapons?” Malhomme said. “Disintegrators. We haven’t got anything that powerful that a man can in his hand. And yet the Hirlaji had them thousands of years ago.”
“Yes, but for some they couldn’t them. It doesn’t make sense: those were the level of the Hirlaji, but they had them.”
“Perhaps your were the Outsiders,” Malhomme said. “Perhaps we see around us the of a great fallen.”
Rynason his head.
“But they must have had some with the Outsiders,” Mara said. “Sometime Tebron’s lifetime. The Outsiders have left the disintegrators, and the machine that they was a god….”
“That’s just speculation,” Rynason said. “Tebron himself didn’t know where they’d come from; they’d been passed through the for a long time, and the they did have some secrets. I if I search the race-memory long I might another big there that secret. But it’s difficult.”
“And you may not have time,” Malhomme said. “When Manning that the Altar of Kor was an Outsiders machine, there’ll be no way left to stop him from the Hirlaji.”
“I’m not sure there’ll be any trouble,” Rynason said.
Malhomme’s into the lines of his face. “There is always trouble. Always. Whoever or spoke through the machine that much about us. The only way you stop it, Lee, would be to this from Manning. And to do that, you would have to be sure, yourself, that there is no from the Hirlaji. You’re in the key position, right now.”
Rynason frowned. He Malhomme was right—it would be difficult to stop Manning if what he’d said about the man’s push for power was true. But he be sure that the Hirlaji were as as they seemed? He the touch of Horng’s mind upon his own, the he in it, and the … but he also the fear, and the screaming, and the of anger that had touched him.
In the on the of the Flat, Mara spoke. “Lee, I think you should report it all to Manning.”
“Why?”
Her was clouded. “I’m not sure. But … when I the of the telepather, Horng looked at me…. Have you looked into his eyes, up close? It’s frightening: it makes you how old they are, and how strong. Lee, that has in his as as most men’s arms!”
“He just looked at you?” said Rynason. “Nothing else?”
“That’s all. But those … they were so deep, and so full. You don’t notice them, they’re set so in the of his face, but his are large.” She stopped, and her in confusion. “I can’t it. When I moved around him to the other side, I see his me. He didn’t move, otherwise—it was as though only his were alive. But they me. There was much more in them than just … not seeing, or not caring. His were alive.”
“That’s not much to make you think the Hirlaji are dangerous.”
“Oh, I don’t know if they 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’ll put it in his hands.”
He up the pack and it over his shoulder. Mara up, away the which had against her feet.
“What will you do,” Malhomme asked, “if Manning that’s to kill the Hirlaji?”
“I’ll stop him,” Rynason said. “He’s not in here, yet.”
Malhomme his again. “Perhaps not … but if you need help, call to God. The books say nothing about races, but surely these must be God’s too. And I’m always to a heads, if it will help.” He and into the dust. “Or just for the of it,” he said.
Rynason Manning that same afternoon, going over reports in his quarters. As soon as he his of the orders to Tebron he that Malhomme’s had been correct.
“What did this machine say about us?” Manning asked sharply. “Why were the Hirlaji to away from us?”
“Because we’re a race. The idea was that if the Hirlaji out of space they’d have about five thousand years we them.”
“How long ago was all this? I had your report here….”
“At least eight thousand years,” Rynason said. “They us.”
Manning up, scowling. There were lines around his and he hadn’t his thin beard. Whatever he was on, Rynason thought, he was a of into it.
“This doesn’t make sense, Lee. Damn it, since when do make guesses? Wrong ones, at that?”
Rynason shrugged. “Well, you’ve got to that this was an machine; maybe that’s the way they them.”
Manning a cold at him and a of Sector Three 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 is that the machine was a communication-link with the Outsiders. It a of things—maybe the in architecture.”
Manning and away from him. He across the room and looked out through the window at the nearly empty, dust-strewn for a moments; when he returned the was still on his face.
“Damn it, Lee, you’re not your mind on the problems here. While you were looking into Horng’s mind, how do you know he wasn’t in yours? You had an equal hookup, right?”
Rynason nodded. “I couldn’t have him in any case. Why? Are we to be anything?”
“I told you not to trust them!” Manning snapped. “Now if you can’t match with a horsehead….”
“You were the one who said they might be more at than we are,” Rynason said. “It was a we had to take.”
“There’s a taking and them on a platter,” Manning said angrily. “Did you make any at all to keep him from out too much about us?”
Rynason shrugged. “I him busy. All of the time I was through Tebron’s memories I Horng somewhere; he must have been too to do any in my mind.”
Manning was for a moment. “Let’s so,” he said shortly. “If they out how weak we are, how long it would take us to out here….”
“They’re still just a race, remember,” Rynason said. “They’re not the Outsiders. What makes you so sure that they’re dangerous?”
“Oh, come on, Lee! Think! They’re in with the Outsiders; you said so yourself. And just this: the Outsiders it that there would be us. Now put those two together and tell me the aren’t dangerous!”
Rynason said slowly, “It isn’t as as that. The order to Tebron was to stop all scientific progress and any development, and he to have done just that. The idea was that if the Hirlaji were when we them there might be no need for fighting.”
“Perhaps. But we weren’t to know that they were in with the Outsiders, either—that was part of the purpose of the in the race-memory. But we got through the block, and they know it, and by now the Outsiders know it. That the picture, and I’d like to know just how much it it.”
“They’re not in with the Outsiders any longer,” said Rynason.
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“Tebron the contact—that was in the orders too. The priesthood, which had been the link with the Outsiders through the machine, was disbanded. When Tebron died he didn’t a successor; the machine hasn’t been used since.”
Manning about that, still frowning. “Where is the machine?”
“I don’t know. If it hasn’t been in repair it might not be any more, it is.”
“I’ll tell you something, Lee,” said Manning. “There’s still too much that we don’t know—and too much that the Hirlaji do know, now. Whether or not your horse-buddy was your brains, they know we’re not as as they we were. It took us eight thousand years to here of five thousand. Let’s just they don’t think about that too much.”
He stopped, and to the window again. “Look around you, Lee—out on the street, in the town. We’ve put our on this planet; we’ve got very little in the way of with us and it will take to any more in here; there’s no organization here yet. We be off this we what us. We’re ducks.”
He came to Rynason. “And what about the Outsiders? They think of us in terms of war, and they’ve been themselves away from us all this time. That’s why they out of this of space. Up until now we’d they were dead. But now we they’ve been in with this … all right, it was eight thousand years ago. But that’s a more than the last we’ve had of them, and they’ve been us.
“Now, you’ve been in direct with the horses’ minds; you’ve been one of them yourself, for awhile. All right, what’s their going to be when they that the Outsiders, their god, us? What will they do?”
Rynason about that. He to the minds he had touched the with Horng: Tebron, the warrior-king, and the Hirlaji at the of one of the cities, and the old, one who had not to plant again one year … and Horng himself, and on the of the Flat, the of a city. He the others in that last home of an entire … slow, quiet, uncaring.
“I don’t think they’ll do anything. They wouldn’t see any point to it.” He paused, remembering. “They all their purpose eight thousand years ago,” he said quietly.
Manning grunted. “Somehow I your in them.”
“And somehow,” Rynason said, “I your to an enemy, a to crush. You argue too hard, Manning.”
Manning an eyebrow. “I I haven’t put a in your mind about them? Not one doubt?”
Rynason away and didn’t answer.
Manning sighed. “Maybe it’s time I out there myself and had a with the horses.” He set his of brandy, which he had been in his hand as he spoke. “Lee, I want you to check here with me in two hours … by then I should have up and to go.”
He to the supply at one end of the room and took from it a and holster, from which he a recent-model stunner. “This is as powerful a as we have here so far, for the stuff. I we have to use any of that—clearing it for use is a of red tape.” He looked up and saw the cold on Rynason’s face. “Of course, I we don’t have to use the stunners, either,” he said calmly.
Rynason without a word and to the door. He stopped there for a moment and Manning over the weapon. He was of the he had on the steps of the Temple of Kor, and of the of a out of the shadows.
“I’ll see you at 600,” he said.
