Manning threw a cold glance at him and poured a glass of Sector Three brandy 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 was a communication-link with the Outsiders. It could explain a lot of things—maybe even the similarities in architecture."

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

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

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

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

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

"There's a difference between taking chances and handing them information on a silver platter," Manning said angrily. "Did you make any 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 running through Tebron's memories I could feel Horng screaming somewhere; he must have been too upset to do any probing in my mind."

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

"They're still just a dying 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 contact with the Outsiders; you said so yourself. And just remember this: the Outsiders obviously considered it inevitable that there would be war between us. Now put those two facts together and tell me the horses aren't dangerous!"

Rynason said slowly, "It isn't as simple as that. The order given to Tebron was to stop all scientific progress and stifle any military development, and he seems to have done just that. The idea was that if the Hirlaji were harmless when we found them there might be no need for fighting."

"Perhaps. But we weren't supposed to know that they were in contact with the Outsiders, either—that was probably part of the purpose of the block in the race-memory. But we got through the block, and they know it, and presumably by now the Outsiders know it. That changes the picture, 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 the machine, 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 be usable any more, wherever 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 picking your brains, they know we're not as strong as they thought we were. It took us eight thousand years to get here instead of five thousand. Let's just hope they don't think about that too much."

He stopped, and paced to the window again. "Look around you, Lee—out on the 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 take weeks to get any more in here; there's practically no organization here yet. We could be wiped off this planet before we knew what hit us. We're sitting 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 keeping themselves away from us all this time. That's obviously why they pulled out 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 the last evidences we've had of them, and they've obviously been watching us.

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

Rynason thought about that. He tried to remember the minds he had touched during the linkage with Horng: Tebron, the ancient warrior-king, and the young Hirlaji staring at the buildings of one of the ancient cities, and the old, dying one who had decided not to plant again one year ... and Horng himself, tired and calm on the edge of the Flat, amid the ruins of a city. He remembered the others in that crumbling last home 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 thousand years 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 an enemy, a handy menace to crush. You argue too hard, Manning."

Manning raised an eyebrow. "I suppose I haven't even put a doubt in your mind 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 a seance with the horses." He set down his glass of brandy, which he had been turning in his hand as he spoke. "Lee, I want you to check back here with me in two hours ... by then I should have things straightened up and ready to go."

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

Rynason turned without a word and went to the door. He stopped there for a moment and watched Manning checking over the weapon. He was thinking of the disintegrators he had seen on the steps of the Temple of Kor, and of 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 windy streets and thinking about what Manning had said. He was right, in a way: this was no more than a foothold for the Earthmen, a touchdown point. It wasn't even a community yet; buildings were still going up, prices varied widely not only between landings of spacers but also according to who did the selling. A lot of the men here were trying some mining out on the west Flat; their findings had so far been small but they brought the only real income the planet had so far yielded. The rest of the town was rising on its own weight: bars, rooming houses, laundries, and diners—establishments which thrived only because there were men here to patronize them. Several weeks before a few of the men had tried killing and eating the small animals who darted through the alleys, but too many of those men had died and the practice had been quickly abandoned. And they had noticed that when those animals foraged in the refuse heaps outside the town, they died too.

A few of the big corporations had sent out field men to look around, but it was too soon for any industry to have established itself here; all the planet offered so far was room to expand. Despite the wide expansion of the Earthmen through the stars, a planet where conditions were at all favorable for living was not to be overlooked; the continuing population explosion, despite tight regulations on the inner worlds, had kept up with the colonization of these worlds, and new room was constantly needed.

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

At 600 Rynason walked out on the dirt-packed street to Manning's quarters. 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 Rynason entered and waved brusquely to him.

"Help me get this stuff unloaded, Lee."

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

"Because we may need it. Couple of the boys were just out at the horse-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 were going 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 after what 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 fliers to use in scouting for them."

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

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

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

So he was going ahead with the power-grab; Malhomme had been right. No danger had been proven yet, but that wouldn't stop Manning—nor the drifters he'd been buying in the town. Killing was an everyday thing to them.

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

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

"All right, it's a break for me," Manning shrugged. "What did you expect? There's precious little opportunity on this desert rock for leadership in any sense that you might approve of." He paused. "I don't know if it will be necessary to kill any of them. Take it easy and we'll see."

Rynason's eyes were cold. "All right, we'll see. But just remember, I'll be watching just as closely as you. If you start any violence that isn't necessary...."

"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 a nobody 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 of them. That's what everybody out here on the Edge is ... unless he does something about it.

"I hold the reins right now. If I decide to do something that you don't like, you won't be able to stop me ... neither you, nor your female friend."

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

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

Rynason looked at the man through narrowed eyes for a moment, then strapped on a gunbelt and loaded one of the stunners. He snapped it into the holster carefully, wondering just what Manning had meant by his last remark. Was it a threat in any real sense, or was Manning just letting off steam? Well, they'd see about that too ... and Rynason would be watching.

* * * * *

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

The drifters were men who had been all over the worlds of the Edge, who had spent years watching the new planets opened for colonization and exploitation, but had never got their own piece. They knew the feel of these planetfall towns on the Edge, and could talk for hours about the worlds they had seen. But they were city men, all of them; they had seen the untamed worlds, but only from the streets. They hadn't taken part in the exploring or the building, only in the initial touchdowns. When the building was done, they signed on to the spacers again and drifted to the 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 and sometimes vicious. Nameless faces, all of them, having no place in the more developed areas of the Terran civilization. And maybe that was their own fault. But Rynason knew that they were running, not to anything, but from the civilization itself. Running ... because when an area was settled and started to become respectable, they began to see what they did not have. The temporary quarters would come down, to be replaced by permanent buildings that were meant to be lived in, not just as places for sleeping. Closets, and shelters for landcars; quadsense receivers and food integrators. They didn't want to see that ... because they hated it, or because they wanted it? It didn't matter, Rynason decided. They ran, and now they were here on the Edge with all their anger and frustration, and Manning was ready to give them a way to let it out.

At the side of the mob he saw a familiar grey shock of hair—Rene Malhomme. Was he with them, then? Rynason craned his neck for a better view, and for a moment the crowd parted enough to let him see Malhomme's face. He was looking directly toward Rynason, holding a dully gleaming knife flat against his thick chest ... and his lips were drawn back into the 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; we won't have room for bickering.

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

Manning paused, looking appraisingly at the faces before him. "Most of you are armed already, I see. We have some extra stunners here; if you need them, come on up. But remember, the men who carry the shockers will be in front; and their business will be simply to down the horses—any killing 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 forward for weapons; Rynason saw others drawing knives and hatchets, and a few of them had heavy guns, projectile type. Rynason watched with narrowed eyes; it had been a filthy maneuver on Manning's part to organize this mob, and his open acceptance of their temper was dangerous. Once they were turned loose, what could stop them?

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

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

"Get the hell out of the way!" he shouted, stepping quickly through the men. They grumbled and fell back to let him by, but Rynason heard the men still fighting in the rear, and then he saw them. There were three of them, two men and what looked like a boy still in his teens. The boy had 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 the artificial light of spacers and sealed survival quarters on the less hospitable worlds.

The larger of the two men had a knife, a heavy blade of a type that was common 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 open just below the shoulder, and hanging uselessly. He stood swaying in the dust, hurling a string of curses at the man with the knife, while the boy stood slightly behind him, staring with both fear and hatred in his eyes. He had a smaller knife, but he held it loosely and uncertainly at his side.

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

Manning raised the stunner coldly and let him have it. The blast caught the man in the shoulder and spun him around, throwing him into the crowd; 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, "We won't have time for fighting among ourselves. The next man who starts anything will be killed outright. Now get these men out of here." He turned and strode back through the mob while the boy and a couple of the other 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 all with goodnatured ease. But now he stood watching the men around him with a frown creasing his heavily lined face. Malhomme was worried, and Rynason, seeing that, felt his stomach tighten.

Manning faced the men from the front of the crowd. He stared at them shrewdly, 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 the others. 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 quickly and decisively enough, keeping the men in line, but it had been only a temporary measure. They would be expecting some real action soon, and Manning was already offering them the Hirlaji. If the alarm turned out to 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. Les Harcourt met them at the radio office on the edge of the field; he was the communications man out here. He led them into the low, quick-concrete construction office and shoved some forms at Manning to be signed.

"If there's any trouble, you'll be responsible for it," he said to Manning. "The men can look out for themselves, but the flyers are Company 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 ten minutes ago. We've got her screen in the next room." He waved a hand toward the door in the rear of the room.

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

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

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

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

He refitted the mike in its stand and rose. But as he turned to the door her 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 Flat stretching before her on the screen. Rynason could see the pass through which she had been flying, but there was no movement there; it took him several seconds to see the low ruins off to the right, and the figures moving 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 a moment. "I've counted almost twenty of them so far; they must all be here."

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

She didn't reply, but on the screen he saw the crumbling buildings grow larger and nearer. He could make out individual structures now: a wall had fallen and was half-buried in the dust and sand; an entire roof had caved in on another building, leaving only rubble in the interior. It was difficult to tell sometimes when the original lines of the buildings had fallen: they had all been smoothed by the wind-blown sand, so that broken 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 one of the largest of the buildings and passing into the shadows of the interior. This building was not as deteriorated as most of the others; as Mara's flyer dipped low over it Rynason could see its characteristic lines unbroken and clear.

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

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

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

"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 was another jolt on the screen and he heard her gasp. The picture spun and righted itself, seemed to hang motionless for a moment, and then the stone wall of one of the buildings was directly ahead and growing larger.

"Mara!"

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



EIGHT

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

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

Manning and the others were right behind him as he dashed out onto the field. Rynason headed for the nearest flyer, a small runabout which had been discarded as obsolete on the inner worlds and consigned to use out here on the Edge, where equipment was scarce. He leaped through the port and 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 his right eye stood out sharply in his anger. "She crashed—may be badly hurt. She didn't have too much altitude, though. The hell with where she is—follow me!"

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

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

Manning's voice came coldly through the radioset: "Are you giving orders now, 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's get going—Lee, you're first."

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

The mountain range was ten miles to the south; they should be able to make it in five or six minutes, he figured. Below him on the dry Flat he saw the pale shadow of his flyer skimming across the dust. The drone of the 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 overhanging rocks—no wonder we hadn't seen it before. Doesn't seem to have been used for centuries or more. But that's where the Temple of Kor is—and the 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 have many 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 your horses now, Lee?"

Rynason didn't answer.

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

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

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

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

Rynason made a dubious sound deep in his throat, looking out at the city. 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 could get in."

"We can come around from the pass," Manning said. "There's plenty of cover 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 said slowly. "Damn it, we can't just stand here and wait for them to come out at 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 the Outsiders. That's where the machine is, remember."

"Then the sooner we attack, the better," Manning said. "Marc, get the main party on the hand-radio—tell them to get here as fast as they can." 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 lifted the 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've got an interpreter, but they don't listen to what I say. Lee, this is incredible here! They've brought out a lot of weapons ... some of them don't work. The hall is half-filled with dust and sand, and they move so clumsily! They're trying to hurry, because they saw you too, but it's like ... like they've forgotten how. They think they can get rid of us all, but they.... It's pitiful—they're so slow."

"Those disintegrators aren't slow," Rynason said. Manning was standing beside 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 the Outsiders. But they don't seem to know it's just a machine—they kneel in 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 for their own attack."

"For their what?" Rynason stood up, and looked toward the city; he could 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 the planet, and then rebuild their cities, and re-arm. It's something to do with Kor, or the Outsiders. The orders have changed. They think that if they can drive us away for awhile they can build themselves up to where they can repel any further touchdowns here."

"This order came from the machine?"

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

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

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

"If it is," he said slowly, "they wouldn't send the Hirlaji against us without some help." He thought a minute, while the wind of the Flat blew sand against his leg and static came from the radio. "They could be making another mistake!" Mara said. "I'm sure what they told the Outsiders 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 think I carry my portable altar with me." Her voice had taken on a frantic note. "It's a ... a simple case of freedom of religion, Lee! Freedom of religion!"

"Mara! Calm down! Calm down!" He waited for a few seconds, until her voice 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." He switched off.

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

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

"What if they capture you too?" Manning said. "I can't hold off an attack 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 have any 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 not waiting more than half an hour for you to get out."

Rynason met his gaze steadily for a moment, then nodded brusquely. "All right." He turned and moved into the over-hanging shadows of the mountains, 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 and powerful, physical battle with them was of course out of the question. But he had some things on his side: he was small, and therefore less likely to be seen; he was faster than the quiet, aged aliens. And he knew the city, the fortress and the temple, almost as well as they did.

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

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

The wall here had been built higher than the portions which faced the Flat, and it was stronger. No one had tried to storm the city from this position, because it was too well protected. But the walls had been built against the heavy, clumsy bodies of the grey aliens; with luck, a man could scale this wall. The footholds in the weathered stones would be precarious, but perhaps it could be done. And the Hirlaji, who regarded 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 fingers into narrow niches and pulled himself slowly upward, bracing himself with footholds whenever he could. It was laborious, painful work; twice he lost handholds and hung precariously until his straining fingers again found some indentation. Sweat covered him; the wind from the Flat whipped around the wall and touched the moisture on his back coldly. But his face was set in a frozen grimness and though his breath came in gasps he made no other sound.

When he had neared the top he suddenly seemed to reach a dead-end; the stones were smooth above him. His arms ached, his shoulders seemed deadened; 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 right before he could re-ascend; as he retraced his route down the wall he noticed blood where his torn fingers had left their mark. But he could not feel the pain in his fingers.

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

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

Wearily, he pulled himself over the last barrier and fell numbly to the floor, where he lay for long minutes fighting for breath. His lungs were raw; the thin air of the planet caught and rasped in his throat. His hands were torn and bleeding, and the knife-scar over his right eye had begun 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 him he saw the city, broken and dim, empty streets winding between fallen walls and pillars. Mara's flyer lay shattered against one of those broken walls; seeing it, he wondered how badly she had been hurt.

He moved toward the stairs, and descended them slowly. The stairs of the city were as he had remembered them from Tebron's memories, and yet not the same. To the Earthman they were steep: the steps were like separate levels, three feet across and almost four feet deep. His legs ached at each 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 his bearings. 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 it had been large and majestic, a place of power and knowledge. But Rynason, moving wearily through the dust of the ages which had fallen upon the city since the ancient king, found it not merely large, but huge; not majestic, but futile. And the power and knowledge which it once had held was but a dusty shadow now. Somewhere ahead, in the Temple, the survivors of that ages-old culture were trying to bring the city to life again. With or without the Outsiders, he felt, they must fail. They really wanted to bring themselves back to life, to reawaken their minds, their dreams, their own power. But they tried to do it with memories, and that was not the way.

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

At the top of the stairs he darted into the shadows of the colonnade which surrounded the interior. Doorways opened at intervals of fifty feet around the building; he would have to circle to the side and enter there if at all. He slipped quickly between the columns and paused at the third doorway. He dropped to the floor, lay flat on his chest and looked inside.

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

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

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

She had not seen him, but she was waiting. When he made his move she would follow him. Rynason slipped back from the doorway and circled the building again until he had reached the entrance nearest the girl. He drew out his stunner from its holster and looked at it for a moment. He would have to be fast; his weapon would give him no advantage against the 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 he went. Two of the Hirlaji fell before they could even turn; they crumpled to the floor heavily. Then he screamed—a high scream, like Horng's, and as loud as he could make it, a wail, a cry of anguish and terror and pain. They felt it, and it touched a response in them; the Hirlaji who surrounded Mara twisted to look at him, but they instinctively shrank away. He continued to fire, bringing down three more of them while the confusion lasted. He broke through to Mara, who was already on her feet; without breaking his stride he grasped her by her good shoulder and pulled her along with him as he ran through.

But some of the Hirlaji recovered in time to block their escape. Rynason wheeled, looking frantically around the room for an unguarded exit. None of those within reach were clear. He fired again, and ran for the altar.

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

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

Behind the altar, there was a space just large enough for them to squeeze through. Rynason's heart leaped; he pointed quickly to it and turned to fire again as Mara pushed her way into the narrow aperture. A disintegrator beam hissed over his head; another tore into the wall two feet away from him. The Hirlaji were trying to keep their fire away from the 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 they found more room in the darkness. They could hear noise outside as the Hirlaji moved toward the altar, but it sounded far away and dim. Mara moved back into the darkness, and he followed.

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

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

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

She was silent. He felt her lean against his shoulder wearily, her hair soft 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 see yourself. You were so tattered and bloody when you came in that I hardly knew 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 becoming adjusted to the darkness, and they could see rising around them a complexity of machine relays, connectives, and pieces which did not seem to make sense.

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

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

"This is Kor," he said. "It's not a communicator—it's a computer. An Outsiders computer."



NINE

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

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

"I've seen fragments of them before," Rynason said. "This is a big one—no telling how much area the total complex takes up. One thing's certain, though: it's no ordinary computer of theirs. Not for plain math-work, nor even for specialized computations, like the one on Rigel II—that was apparently used for astrogation, but it wasn't half the size of this. And navigation between stars, even with the kind of drive they 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 were going ... if they ever left the planet. But the Hirlaji use it, and they communicate with it verbally. The Hirlaji are apparently responsible for keeping it protected since then. But why should the Hirlaji be able to use it?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"And that order to Tebron ... about the other race that they would meet someday. That was based on Outsiders observations."

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

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

"Probably before the Dark Ages," Rynason said. "Maybe they didn't see that thousand-year setback coming...." He stopped, and stood up in the low passageway among the ancient circuitry. "So here we are, second-guessing the Outsiders. And outside, their proteges have disintegrators probably left by the Outsiders, and they're just waiting for 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 senseteach units I met Rene Malhomme for the first time. My father worked the spacers, so I don't even remember what planet this was on. But I remember the night I first saw Rene—he was speaking from the top of a blue-lumber pile, shouting about the corporations that were moving in. He was getting all worked up about something, and several people in the crowd were shouting back at him; I stopped to watch. All of a sudden six or seven men moved in from somewhere and dragged him down from where he was standing. There was a fight—people were thrown all around. I hid till 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 be carried 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 me that 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 was an ancient Japanese way of fighting."

Rynason took a deep breath. "He said everything a person learns will be useful 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 off guard ... but of course they couldn't, now. He let his eyes wander aimlessly along the circuitry surrounding them. Tell me, old Kor, what do we do now?

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

The voice of Kor.

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

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

He helped her to her feet. She moved somewhat painfully, her broken left arm 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 will work—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 intricate alien connections, but Rynason had seen this part of such machines before. He found the penultimate point at which the impulses from the brain were translated into sound and broadcast through the speaker. He disconnected this, his torn fingers working awkwardly on the delicate linkages.

"Ready?"

Mara was just inside the narrow passage behind the altar. She nodded quickly.

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

Remain motionless. Remain motionless. Remain motionless.

The command burst out upon the altar room of the Temple, shattering the silence. 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, king priest leader of all Hirlaj. It had meant something else then, but the proto-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 from behind the altar. The Hirlaji stood completely still; several of those that Rynason had dropped with his stunner had recovered consciousness, but they made no move either. Rynason and the girl ran right through the quiet aliens; only a few of them turned shadowed eyes to look at them as they passed. They made the outside colonnade in safety, and paused there.

"They may see through this in a minute," Rynason said. "Don't wait for me—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 the Temple steps. Rynason watched her to the bottom, then turned and re-entered the altar room.

Rynason went quickly among them, taking their weapons. Most of them made no effort to stop him, but a few tightened their grips on the disintegrators 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; he couldn't hold them all at once. He dumped five of them outside the altar room and returned to disarm the rest of the aliens. Sweat formed beads on his forehead, but he moved without hesitation.

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

As he started to move on to the next, Horng silently dipped his massive head 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 three disintegrators on the stone floor of the colonnade—and a movement in the distance caught his eye. It was on the south wall of the city; two men stood for a moment silhouetted against the Flat, then disappeared into the shadows. In a moment, another man appeared, and he too dropped inside 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 into the altar room. Mara's radio was there; he lifted it by its strap and took it with him out to the colonnade.

He could see the Earthmen moving through the streets now, darting from wall to wall in the gathering darkness of evening. In a short time it would be full night—and Rynason knew that these men would like nothing better 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 his signal 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 the hand-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 broke in."

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

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

The radio carried the faint sound of Manning's chuckle. "So now they're people 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. You linked minds with them, and you say you were practically a Hirlaji yourself when you went into that linkage. Well, I'm not so sure you ever came out of it. You're still one of them!"

"Is that the only reason you can think of that I might have for wanting to 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 only intelligent race we've found?"

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

Rynason stared at the microphone for a moment. "Are you sure you aren't afraid 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 this one!"

"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 the disintegrators, and I'll use them."

There was silence from the radio, save for the static. It lasted for long 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 lying at the top of the steps and went back inside. The Hirlaji stood motionlessly in dimness; it took awhile for Rynason's eyes to adjust to it. He found the interpreter that Mara had left and quickly hooked it up to Horng. The alien's eyes, moving heavily in their sockets, watched him as he connected the wires.

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

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

"Can you still believe that Kor is a god? That's only a machine—I spoke through 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 INTO KOR. 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, but Rynason knew what was in his thoughts now.

THERE IS NO PURPOSE.



TEN

Wearily, Rynason switched off the interpreter, leaving the wires still connected to the alien. He walked through the faintly echoing, dust-filled temple and stepped out onto the colonnade around it. It was almost dark now; the deep blue of the Hirlaj sky had turned almost black and the pinpoint lights of the stars broke through. The wind was rising from the Flat; it caught his hair and whipped it roughly around his head. He looked up at the emerging stars, remembering the day when Horng had suddenly, inexplicably stood and walked to the base of a broken staircase. He had looked up those stairs, past where they had broken and fallen, past the shattered roof, to the sky. The Hirlaji had never reached the stars, but they might have. It had taken a god, or a jumbled legacy from an older, greater race, to forestall them. And now all they had was the dust and the wind.

Rynason could hear the rising moan of that wind gathering itself around him, building to a wailing planet-dirge among the columns of the Temple. And inside, the Hirlaji were dying. The knives and bludgeons of the Earth mob outside would only complete the job; the Hirlaji were too tired 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 glowed and clicked and pulsated ... slowly; seemingly at random, but steadily. The brain must be self-perpetuating to have lasted this long ... feeding its energy cells from some power-source Rynason could only guess at, and repairing its time-worn linkages when necessary. In its memory banks was stored the science of the race which had preceded even the ancient Hirlaji. The Outsiders had sprung up when this planet was young, had fought their way to the stars and galaxies, and eventually, when aeons of time pressed down, had pulled in their outposts and fallen back to this world. And they had died here, on this world, falling to dust which was ground under by the grey race which had followed them to dominance. "Before time," Horng had said; that must have meant before the Hirlaji had 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 had conquered the stars while men still wondered about the magic of lightning and fire. A science was encapsuled here which could speak of war and curiosity as discontent, but could say nothing definite of contentment. An incomplete science? A merely alien science? Rynason didn't know.

And the Hirlaji.... Twenty-six of their race remained, dreaming under heavy domes through which the stars shone at night and silhouetted the worn edges of broken stone. Twenty-six grey, hopeless beings who had not even been waiting. And the Earthmen had come.

For a moment Rynason wondered if the Hirlaji did not perhaps carry a message for the Earthmen too: that decadence was the price of peace, death the inevitable end of contentment. The Hirlaji had stilled themselves, back in the grey past ... had taken their measure of quiet and contentment for thousands of years, the searching drives of their race 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 the disintegrators and brought them with him to the head of the massive stairs up which the attackers must come. He crouched beside those stairs, watching for movement below. But he couldn't see anything.

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

They had not chosen peace; it had been thrust upon them. The Hirlaji had been 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: it had not been what they would have chosen. And, having had peace forced upon them before they had been ready for it, they had been unable to enjoy it; and the stifling of scientific curiosity that had been necessary to complete the suppression of the war-instinct had left the Hirlaji with nothing.

But it had all been so unnecessary, Rynason thought. The ancient Outsiders brain, computing from insufficient evidence probably gathered during a brief touchdown on Earth, had undoubtedly been able to give only a tentative appraisal of the situation. But the proto-Hirlaji language was not constructed to accommodate if's and maybe's, and the judgments of the brain were taken as law by the Hirlaji.

Now the Earthmen for whom this race had deadened itself into near-extinction would complete the job ... because the Hirlaji had learned their mistake far too late.

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

Suddenly there were sounds on the stairs below him. Rynason's head jerked up and he saw five of the Earthmen climbing the stairs, moving as quickly as they could from level to level, crouching momentarily at each beneath 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 stunners passed 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 found him: a small, lean man slipped almost silently over the edge of one of the step-levels and rolled quickly to cover beneath the next. He had got further than Rynason had realized; only three levels separated them now. He could see, from this distance in the near-dark, the cruel lines of the 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 like that here on the Edge; this was a man with a bitter hatred, looking for the chance to unleash it upon anyone who got in his way. And the enjoyment which Rynason saw gleaming in the man's eyes chilled him momentarily.

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

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

Further down the stairs, Rynason saw the others moving up behind the smaller man. Still more were moving out from the other buildings and darting 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 in the left wrist and spun him off-balance for a moment. But he was already firing in return, rolling to one side. His third shot took the man's right shoulder off, and bit into his neck. The man staggered forward two steps, trying to raise his stunner again, but suddenly it clattered to the floor and he crumpled on top of it. A pool of blood spread around him.

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

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

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

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

Another of the men slipped over the edge of the massive stairs, hugging the deeper darkness at the side of the stair-wall, and slowly inched his way up the newly-flattened ramp. Rynason watched him coldly, through a grey haze of fury which was yet tinged with despair. What use was all this, the killing, the blood and sweat and pain? It disgusted him—yet by its perverse senselessness it angered him too.

He cut a swathe through the crawling man, through head and neck and back. 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 and stumbled 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; they all broke and ran. Rynason sent one beam after them, biting a depression into the rock wall beside them. Then they were gone.

Rynason moved back from the head of the stairs and leaned wearily against the stone. His left arm was beginning to tingle with returning circulation now; he rubbed it absently with his good hand and wondered if they would try the sheer walls on the other side of the Temple. He had scaled one of these ancient walls, but would they try it? Certainly they stood little chance coming up the stairs, unless they gathered for a concerted rush. And who would lead such a suicidal attack? These men were vicious, but they valued their lives too.

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

In a few minutes the hand-radio, forgotten on the stone floor behind him, 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 on there, 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 a fallen wall across the dusty street. Mara walked in front of Manning; her head was high, her face almost expressionless. The cold wind threw dust against their legs as they crossed the open space to the base of the steps.

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

On the colonnade Manning gripped the girl by her undamaged arm. He nodded to one of the doorways into the temple, and Rynason preceded him inside.

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

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

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

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

Rynason couldn't risk a shot at the man, with Mara in front of him. He carefully 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 always like peaceful settlements, haven't you?"

Rynason glared at him, but didn't say anything. He walked slowly into the 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 which Manning had set on the floor across the room was trained upwards, and the interpreter was still in the darkness. He lowered his head as if in thought and switched on the machine with his foot.

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

"I can't trust them," Manning said, his voice automatically growing louder in response to Rynason's own. He stepped forward, pushing Mara in front of him. "They're not human, Lee—you keep forgetting that, for some reason. Think of it as clearing the area of hostile native animal life—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 they kill. There's going to be fighting here whether it's against the Hirlaji or between the townsmen. As governor, I'd rather they took it all out on the horses here. Domestic tranquillity, shall we say?" He was smiling now; 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. "Is butchery your only goal in life, Manning?"

Manning stepped toward him again, his eyes narrowing. "Butchery? It's better than no purpose at all, Lee! It'll get me off of these damned outworlds 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 to the base of the ancient altar. He looked up at the Eye of Kor, dim now when not in use. He turned.

"Is it better, Manning?" he shouted. "Does it give you a right to live, 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 the alien, Horng; in his anger he had loosened his grip on Mara. He raised the 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 the disintegrator was gone Horng had him. One heavy hand circled his throat; the other gripped his shoulder. The alien lifted him viciously and broke him like a stick; Rynason could almost hear the man's neck break, so final was that twist of the alien's hands.

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

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

Rynason walked slowly to the mike lying beside the interpreter. He raised it.

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

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 to the top of the steps leading down from the temple. Mara went with him, carrying the handlight; it fell harshly on Manning's crushed features as Rynason waited atop the huge, steep stairway. The wind tore at his hair, whipping it wildly around his head ... but Manning's head was caked with blood. In a moment, the men from the town came out from cover; they stood at the base of the steps, indecisive.

They too were waiting for something.

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

When he had neared the bottom the circle of men fell back. They were uneasy 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 at the 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 from the crowd, snarling, with a heavy knife in his hand. He stopped just outside the white circle of the handlight, the knife extended before him. Rynason raised the disintegrator and trained it on him, his face frozen into a cold mask.

The man stood in indecision.

And from the crowd behind him another figure stepped forward. It was Malhomme, and his lips were drawn back in disgust. He struck with an open 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 behind him. "That's enough!" he shouted. "Enough!" Angrily, he looked down at the crumpled form of Manning's body. "Bury him!" he said.

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

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

Malhomme turned to Rynason and Mara, his face relaxing at last. The hard lines around his mouth softened into a rueful smile as he put his arm around Rynason's shoulder. "We can all take shelter in the buildings here for the night. You could use some rest, Lee Rynason—you look like hell. 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, but the walls were still standing. While Malhomme ministered to Mara he did not stop talking for a moment; Rynason couldn't tell whether he was trying to keep the girl's mind off the pain or whether he was simply unwinding his emotions.

"You know, I've preached at these men for so many years I've got callouses in my throat. And one of these days maybe they'll know what I'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 did they get out of choosing peace?"

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

Malhomme grimaced. "I wonder if anybody, anywhere, ever will. Maybe the Outsiders did, but they're not around to tell us about it. It's an intriguing 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 even for?"

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

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

Malhomme's face broke into a wide grin. "That was a suicidal rush on you, Lee. A damned stupid tactic ... a rush like that is only as strong as 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, the tension that had gripped him for the past several hours found release in a full, stomach-shaking laugh.

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

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

"Don't be ridiculous," said Malhomme.



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40c

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F-161 TIMES WITHOUT NUMBER by John Brunner and DESTINY'S ORBIT by David Grinnell

F-162 BEST FROM FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION: 7th Series

F-167 CATSEYE by Andre Norton

F-173 SECOND ENDING by James White and THE JEWELS OF APTOR by Samuel Delany

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F-178 MORE ADVENTURES ON OTHER PLANETS Edited by Donald A. Wollheim

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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

THE END