by Terry Carr
“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.
