something?"

She did, but before Rynason could really immerse himself in it she broke
away and said, "You must have had a bad time with him! It was as though
you were dead."

He grinned a trifle sheepishly and said, "Well, it was engrossing. You'd
better unhook the beast; he had a bad time of it too."

Mara rose and removed the wires from Horng gingerly. Rynason remained
sitting; some of the meaning of what he had just experienced was coming
to him now. It certainly explained why the Hirlaji had suddenly passed
from their war era into lasting peace, and why the memories had been
blocked. But could he credit those memories of a voice of an alien god?

And sitting in the dust at the edge of the vast Hirlaj plain the full
realization came to him, as it could not when he had been Tebron. Not
only the Temple, but the Altar of Kor itself had been unmistakably the
workmanship of the Outsiders.




SIX


They left Horng sitting dully at the edge of the Flat and retraced their
steps through the Hirlaji ruins, still drawing no notice from the
aliens. Rynason had been in some of the small planetfall towns where
settlements had been established only to be abandoned by the main flow