THREE

Rynason continued to smile at her for several seconds, until her words

penetrated. Then he abruptly sat up and steadied himself with one hand

against the edge of the table.

"Can you get one for me?"

She gave a reluctant shrug. "If you insist, and if Manning okays it. But

is it a good idea? Direct contact with a mind so alien?"

As a matter of fact, now that he was faced with the actual possibility

of it, he wasn't so sure. But he said, "We'll only know once we've tried

it."

Mara dropped her eyes and swirled her drink, watching the tiny red spots

form inside the glass and rise to the surface. There was a brief silence

between them.

"_Repent_, Lee Rynason!" The words burst upon his ears over the waves of

sound that filled the room. He turned, half-rising, to find Rene

Malhomme hovering over him, his wide grin showing a tooth missing in the

bottom row.

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

headache soon enough."

Malhomme took the chair which Manning had vacated and sat in it heavily.

He set his hand-lettered placard against the edge of the table and

leaned forward, waving a thick finger.

"You consort with men who would enslave the pure in heart!" he rumbled,

but Rynason didn't miss the laughter in his eye.

"Manning?" he nodded. "He'd enslave every pure heart on this planet, if

he could find one. As a matter of fact, I think he's already working on

Mara here."

Malhomme turned to her and sat back, appraising her boldly. Mara met his

gaze calmly, raising her eyebrows slightly as she waited for his

verdict.

Malhomme shook his head. "If she's pure, then it's a sin," he said. "A

thrice-damned sin, Lee. Have I ever expostulated to you upon the

Janus-coin that is good and evil?"

"Often," Rynason said.

Malhomme shrugged and turned again to the girl. "Nevertheless," he said,

"I greet you with pleasure."

"Mara, this is Rene Malhomme," Rynason said wearily. "He imagines that

we're friends, and I'm afraid he's right."

Malhomme dipped his shaggy head. "The name is from the Old French of

Earth--badman. I have a long and dishonorable family history, but the

earliest of my ancestors whom I've been able to trace had the same name.

Apparently there were too many Smiths, Carpenters, Bakers and Priests on

that world--the time was ripe for a Malhomme. My first name would have

been pronounced Reh-_nay_ before the language reform dropped all accent

marks from Earth tongues."

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

here."

"Good company!" Malhomme cried. "I'm not looking for good company! My

work, my mission calls me to where men's hearts are the blackest, where

repentance and redemption are needed--and so I come to the Edge."

"You're religious?" she asked.

"Who _is_ religious in these days?" Malhomme asked, shrugging. "Religion

is of the past; it is dead. It is nearly forgotten, and one hears God's

name spoken now in anger. God damn you, cry the masses! _That_ is our

modern religion!"

"Rene wanders around shouting about sin," Rynason explained, "so that he

can take up collections to buy himself more to drink."

Malhomme chuckled. "Ah, Lee, you're shortsighted. I'm an unbeliever, and

a black rogue, but at least I have a mission. Our scientific advance has

destroyed religion; we've penetrated to the heavens, and found no God.

But science has not _dis_proved Him, either, and people forget that. I

speak with the voice of the forgotten; I remind people of God, to even

the scales." He stopped talking long enough to grab the arm of a passing

waiter and order a drink. Then he turned back to them. "Nothing says I

have to _believe_ in religion. If that were necessary, no one would

preach it."

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

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

"They have a god, at least. Or used to, anyway. Fellow named Kor, who

was god, essence, knowledge, and several other things all rolled into

one."

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

"What's your mission now?" Mara asked, smiling in spite of herself.

"Besides your apparently lifelong study and participation in sin, I

mean."

Malhomme sighed and sat back as his drink arrived. He dug into the pouch

strung from his waist and flipped a coin to the waiter. "Believe it or

not, I have one," he said, and his voice was now low and serious. "I'm

not just a lounger, a drifter."

"What are you?"

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

swallow.

Mara smiled again, but he didn't return it. He sat forward and turned to

Rynason. "Manning has been busily wrapping up the appointment for the

governorship here," he said. "You probably know that."

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

"Did you also know that he's been buying men here to stand with him in

case someone else is appointed?" He glanced at Mara. "I go among the men

every day, talking, and I hear a lot. Manning will end up in control

here, one way or another, unless he's stopped."

"Buying men is nothing new," Rynason said. "In any case, is there a

better man on the planet?"

Malhomme shook his head. "I don't know; sometimes I give up on the human

race. Manning at least has a little culture in him--but he's more

vicious than he seems, nevertheless. If he gets control here...."

"It will be no worse than any of the other planets out here," Rynason

concluded for him.

"Except for one thing, perhaps--the Hirlaji. I don't have much against

men killing each other ... that's their own business. But unless we get

somebody better than Manning governing here, the Hirlaji will be wiped

out. The men here are already talking ... they're afraid of them."

"Why? The Hirlaji are harmless."

"Because of their size, and because we don't know anything about them.

Because they're intelligent--any uneducated man is afraid of

intelligence, and when it's an alien...." He shook his head. "Manning

isn't helping the situation."

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

Malhomme's frown deepened, creasing the dark lines of his forehead into

furrows. "He's using the Hirlaji as bogey-men. Says he's the only man on

the planet who knows how to deal with them safely. Oh, you should hear

him when he moves among his people.... I envy his ability to control

them with words. A little backslapping, a joke or two--most of them I

was telling last year--and he talks to them man to man, very friendly."

He shook his head again. "Manning is so friendly with this scum that his

attitude is nothing short of patronizing."

Rynason smiled wearily at Malhomme; for all the man's wildness, he

couldn't help liking him. It had been like this every time he had run

into him, on a dozen of the Edge-worlds. Malhomme, dirty and cynical,

moved among the dregs of the stars preaching religion and fighting the

corporations, the opportunists, the phony rebels who wanted nothing for

anyone but themselves. He had been known to break heads together with

his huge fists, and he had no qualms about stealing or even killing when

his anger was aroused. Yet there was a peculiar honesty about him.

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

The greying giant shrugged. "It makes life interesting, and it makes me

feel good sometimes. But I don't overestimate myself: I'm scum, like the

rest of them. The only difference is that I know it; I'm just one man,

with no more rights than anyone else, except those I can take." He held

up his large knuckled hands and turned them in front of his face. "I've

got broken bones in both of them. I wonder if the Buddha or the Christ

ever hit a man. The books on religion that are left in the repositories

don't say."

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

"Hell, no! I'm just curious." Malhomme stood up, hefting his repentance

sign in the crook of one big arm. His face again took on its arched look

as he said, "My duty calls me elsewhere. But I leave you with a message

from the scriptures, and it has been my guiding light. 'Resist not

evil,' my children. Resist not evil."

"Who said that?" Rynason asked.

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

After a moment Rynason turned back to the girl; she was still watching

Malhomme thread his way through the men on his way to the door.

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

Her deep brown eyes flickered back to his. "I wish I could use a

telepather on him. I'd like to know how he really thinks."

"He thinks exactly as he speaks," Rynason said. "At least, at the moment

he says something, he believes in it."

She smiled. "I suppose that's the only possible explanation for him."

She was silent for a moment, her face thoughtful. Then she said, "He

didn't finish his drink."

* * * * *

"You're all hooked up," the girl said. "Nod or something when you're

ready." She was bent over the telepather, double checking the

connectives and the blinking meters. Rynason and Horng sat opposite each

other, the huge dark mound of the alien looming silently over the

Earthman.

He never seemed upset, Rynason thought, looking up at him. Except for

that one time when they'd run into the stone wall of the block on

Tebron, Horng had displayed a completely even temperament--unruffled,

calm, almost disinterested. But of course if the aliens had been

completely uninterested in the Earthmen's probings at their history they

would never have cooperated so readily; the Hirlaji were not animals to

be ordered about by the Earthmen. Probably the codification of their

history would prove useful to the aliens too; they had never arranged

the race memory into a very coherent order themselves.

Not that that was surprising, Rynason decided. The Hirlaji had no

written language--their telepathic abilities had made that

unnecessary--and organization of material into neatly outlined form was

a characteristic as much of the Earth languages as of Terran mentality.

Such organization was not a Hirlaji trait apparently, at least not now

in the twilight of their civilization. The huge aliens lived dimly

through these centuries, dreaming in their own way of the past ... and

their way was not the Earthmen's.

So if they cooperated with the survey team on codifying and recording

their history, who was the servant?

Well, with the direct linkage of minds the work should go faster.

Rynason looked up at Mara and nodded, and she flicked the connection on

the telepather.

Suddenly, like being overwhelmed by a breaking wave of seawater, Rynason

felt Horng's mind envelope him. A torrent of thoughts, memories,

pictures and concepts poured over him in a jumble; the sensory

sensations of the alien came to him sharply, and memories that were

strange, ideas that were incomprehensible, all in a sudden rush upon his

mind. He fought down the fear that had leapt in him, gritted his teeth

and waited for the wave to subside.

It did not subside; it settled. As the two minds, Earthman and Hirlaji,

met in direct linkage they became almost one. Gradually Rynason could

begin to see some pattern to the impressions of the alien. The picture

of himself came first: he was small and angular, sitting several feet

below Horng's--or his own--eyes; but more than that, he was not merely

light, but pallid, not merely small, but fragile. The alien's view of

reality, even through his direct sensations, was not merely visual or

tactile but interpreted automatically in his own terms.

The odor of the hall in which they sat was different, the very

temperature warmer. Rynason could see himself reeling on the stone bench

where he sat, and Mara, strangely distorted, put out a hand to steady

him. At the same time he was seeing through his own eyes, feeling her

hand on his shoulder. But the alien sensations were stronger; their very

strangeness commanded the attention of his mind.

He righted himself, physically and mentally, and began to probe

tentatively in this new part of his mind. He could feel Horng too

reaching slowly for contact; his presence was comfortable, mild,

confused but unworried. As his thoughts blended with Horng's the present

faded perceptibly; this confusion was merely a moment in centuries, and

soon too it would pass. Rynason could feel himself relaxing.

Now he could reach out and touch the strange areas of this mind: the

concepts and attitudes of an alien race and culture and experience.

Everything became dim and dream-like: the Earthmen possibly didn't

exist, the dry wastes of Hirlaj had always been here or perhaps once

they had been green but through four generations the Large Hall had

stood thus and the animals changed by the day too fast to distinguish

them even under Kor if he should be reached ... why? there was no

reason. There was no purpose, no goal, no necessity, no wishing,

questing, hoping ... no curiosity. All would pass. All was passing even

now; perhaps already it was gone.

Rynason shifted where he sat, reaching for the feeling of the stone

bench beneath him for equilibrium, pulling out of Horng's thoughts and

going back in almost immediately.

A chaos of mind enveloped him, but he was beginning to familiarize

himself with it now. He probed slowly for the memories, down through

Horng's own personal memories of three centuries, dry feet on the dust

and low winds, down to the racial pool. And he found it.

Even knowing the outlines of the race's history did not help Rynason to

place and correlate those impressions which came to him one on top of

another, overlapping, merging, blending. He saw buildings which towered

over him, masses of his people moving quietly around him, and thoughts

came to him from their minds. He was Norhib, artisan, working slowly day

by ... he was Rashanah, approaching the Gate of the Wall and looking ...

he was Lohreen discussing the site where ... he was digging the ground,

pushing the heavy cart, lying on the pelt of animals, demolishing the

building which would soon fall, instructing a child in balance.

A dirt-caked street stretched before him by night, the stones

individually cut and smooth with the passage of heavy feet. "Tomorrow we

will set out for the Region of Chalk while there is still time." A

mind-voice from a Hirlaji hundreds, perhaps thousands of years old, dead

but alive in the race-memory. Rynason could feel the whole personality

there, in the memories, but he passed on.

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

"There is no need for planting this year ... the soil is dry. There is

no purpose."

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

He felt Horng himself watching him, beside him or behind him ... nearby,

anyway. The alien heard and saw with him, and stayed with him like a

protector. Rynason felt his presence warmly: the calm of the alien

continued to relax him. Old leather mother-hen, he thought, and Horng

beside him seemed almost amused.

Suddenly he was Tebron.

Tebron Marl, prince in the Region of Mines, young and strong and

ambitious. Rynason caught and held those impressions; he felt the

muscles ripple strangely through his body as Tebron stretched, felt the

cold wind of the flat cut through his loose garment. It was night, and

he stood on the parapet of a heavy stone structure looking down across

the immense stretch of the Flat, spotted here and there by lights. He

controlled all this land, and would control more....

He was Tebron again, marching across the Flat at the head of an army.

Metal weapons hung at the sides of his men, crudely fashioned bludgeons

and jagged-edged swords, all quickly forged in the workshops of the

Region of Mines. The babble of mind voices swelled around him, fear and

anger and boredom, dull resentment, and other emotions Rynason could not

identify. They were marching on the City of the Temple....

He slipped sideways in Tebron's mind, and suddenly he was in the middle

of the battle. There was dust all around, kicked up by the scuffling

feet of the huge warriors, and his breath came in gasps. Mind-voices

shouted and screamed but he paid no attention; he swung his bludgeon

over his head with a ferocity that made it whistle with a low sound in

the wind. One of the defenders broke through the line around him, and he

brought the bludgeon smashing down at him before he could thrust with

his sword; the warrior fell to one side at the last moment and took the

blow along one arm. He could feel the pain in his own mind, but he

ignored it. Before the warrior could bring up his sword again Tebron

crushed his head with the bludgeon, and the scream of pain in his own

head disappeared. He heard the grunting and gasps of his own warriors

and the clash of bodies and weapons around him....

The Hirlaji could not really be moving so quickly, Rynason thought; it

must be that to Tebron it seemed so. They were quiet, slow-moving

creatures. Or had they degenerated physically through the centuries?

Still smelling the sweat of battle, he found Tebron's mind again.

There was still fighting in the city, but it was far away now; he heard

it with the back of his mind as he mounted the steps of the Temple.

Those were mop-up operations, clearing the streets of the last of the

priest-king forces; he was not needed there. He had, to all intents,

controlled the city since the night before, and had slept in the palace

itself. Now it was time for the Temple.

He mounted the heavy, steep steps slowly, three guards at his back and

three in front of him. The priests would be gone from the Temple, but

there might be one or two last-ditch defenders remaining, and they would

be armed with the Weapons of Kor ... hand-weapons which shot dark beams

that could disintegrate anything in their path. They would be dangerous.

Well, there would be no temple-guards in the inner court; his own men

could remain outside to take care of them while he went in.

He stopped halfway up the steps and lifted his head to gaze up at the

Temple walls rising above him. They were solid stone, built in the

fashion of the Old Ones ... smooth-faced except for the carvings above

the entrance itself. They too were in the traditional style, copied

exactly from the older buildings which had been built thousands of years

ago, before the Hirlaji had even developed telepathy. The symbols of Kor

... so now at last he saw them.

Tomorrow he would effect a mass-linkage of minds and broadcast his

orders for reconstruction. That would mean staying up all night

preparing the communication, for it was impossible to maintain complete

planet-wide linkage for too long and Tebron had many plans. Perhaps it

would be possible to find a way to extend the duration of mass-linkages

if the science quest could be pushed forward fast enough.

But that was tomorrow's problem--today, right now, it was right that he

enter the Temple. It was not only symbolic of his assumption of power,

but necessary religiously: every new ruler leader within the memory of

the race had received sanction from Kor first.

A momentary echo-whisper of another mind touched his, and he whirled to

his right to see one of the temple-guards in the shadows; he had been

unable to successfully shield his thoughts. Tebron dropped to the ground

and sent a quick, cool order to his own guards: "Kill him." The heavy,

dark warriors stepped forward as the guard tried to shrink back further

into the shadows. He was trapped.

But not unarmed. As he dropped to the steps and rolled quickly to one

side Tebron heard the low vibration of a disintegrator beam pass over

his shoulder and the crack of the wall behind him as it struck. And then

the guards were on the warrior in the shadows.

They had brought down several of the temple-guards the night before, and

commandeered their weapons. In a matter of moments this one fell too,

his head and most of his trunk gone. One of the warriors shoved the

half-carcass down the stairs, and bent forward at the knees to pick up

his fallen weapon.

So now they had all fourteen of them; if any more of the temple-guards

remained they could be dealt with easily. Tebron rose from the steps and

wished momentarily that those weapons could be duplicated; if his whole

army could be equipped with them.... But after today that would probably

be unnecessary; the entire planet was his now.

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

Temple of Kor....

The walls melted around him and Rynason felt his mind wrenched

painfully. There was a screaming all through him, thin and high,

blotting out the contact he had held with Tebron's mind. It was Horng's

scream, beside him, overpowering. Terror washed over him; he tried to

fight it but he couldn't. The shadows of the walls twisted and faded,

Tebron's thoughts disappeared, and all that remained was the screaming

and the fear, like a mouth open wide against his ear and hot breath

shouting into him. He felt his stomach turn and nausea and vertigo threw

him panting out of Tebron's mind.

Yet Horng was still beside him in the darkness, and as the echoes faded

he felt him there ... alien, but calm. There had been fear in this huge

alien mind, but it had disappeared almost immediately with the breaking

of the connection with Tebron. All that remained in Horng's mind now was

a dull quietness.

Rynason felt a rueful grin on his face, and he said, perhaps aloud and

perhaps not, "You haven't forgotten what happened here, old leather. The

memories are there, all right."

From Horng's mind came a slow rebuilding of the fear that he had just

experienced, but it subsided. And as it did Rynason probed again into

his mind, searching quickly for that contact he had just lost. He could

almost feel Tebron's mind, began to see the darkness forming the

wall-shadows, when again there was a blast of the terror and he felt his

mind reeling back from those memories. The screaming filled his mind and

body and this time he felt Horng himself blocking him, pushing him back.

But there was no need for that; the fear was not Horng's alone. Rynason

felt it too, and he retreated before its onslaught with an overpowering

need to preserve his own sanity.

When the darkness subsided Rynason became aware of himself still sitting

on the stone bench, sweat drenching his body. Horng sat before him in

the same position he had been in when they had started; it was as if

nothing had happened at all. Rynason wearily raised one hand and

motioned to Mara to break the linkage.

She switched off the telepather and gingerly removed the wires from his

head, frowning worriedly at him. But she waited for him to speak.

He grinned at her after a moment and said, "It was a bit rough in there.

We couldn't break through."

She was removing the wires from Horng, who sat unmoving, staring dully

over Rynason's shoulder at the wall behind him. "You should have seen

yourself when you were under," she said. "I wanted to break the

connection before, but I wasn't sure...."

Rynason sat forward and flexed the muscles of his shoulders and back.

They ached as though they had been tense for an hour, and his stomach

was still knotted tight.

"There's a real block there," he said. "It's like a thousand screaming

birds flapping in your face. When you get that far into his mind, you

feel it too." He sat staring down at his feet, exhausted mentally and

physically.