Warlord of Kor

  SIX

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

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

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

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

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

  "Will an alien god do?" Rynason said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "And the Outsiders," said Malhomme.

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

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

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

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

  Rynason shook his head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Why?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  * * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "What makes you so sure of that?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Rynason turned away and didn't answer.

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

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

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

  "I'll see you at 600," he said.