Warlord of Kor

  NINE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  The voice of Kor.

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

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

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

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

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

  "Ready?"

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

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

  _Remain motionless. Remain motionless. Remain motionless._

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

  _Remain motionless. Remain motionless._

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

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

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

  "You're not coming?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  He warmed the radio and opened the transmitter.

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

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

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

  "Manning!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Manning!"

  "I'm switching off."

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

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

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

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

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

  * * * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  THERE IS NO PURPOSE.