“Lee?”

“I hear you. Are you hurt?”

“Not badly. Lee, what are you doing? I saw the flyers land.”

“Manning wants to attack the city as soon as the land party gets here. What’s going on there?”

“I’m … in the temple. I’ve been trying to communicate with them. I’ve got an interpreter, but they don’t listen to what I say. Lee, this is incredible here! They’ve brought out a lot of weapons … some of them don’t work. The hall is half-filled with dust and sand, and they move so clumsily! They’re trying to hurry, because they saw you too, but it’s like … like they’ve forgotten how. They think they can get rid of us all, but they…. It’s pitiful—they’re so slow.”

“Those disintegrators aren’t slow,” Rynason said. Manning was standing beside him; he dropped a hand on his shoulder, but Rynason shook it off. “Are they using the machine … the altar?”

“They were using it when they brought me in. I think it is the Outsiders. But they don’t seem to know it’s just a machine—they kneel in front of it, and chant. It’s so strange, in that language of theirs … those thin, high voices, and the echoes….”

“They’re holding you prisoner?”

“Yes. I think they want to hold you off till they can get ready for their own attack.”

“For their what?” Rynason stood up, and looked toward the city; he could see no movement there.

“I know … it’s incredible. Lee, they don’t know what they’re doing. Horng said on the interpreter that they were going to drive us off the planet, and then rebuild their cities, and re-arm. It’s something to do with Kor, or the Outsiders. The orders have changed. They think that if they can drive us away for awhile they can build themselves up to where they can repel any further touchdowns here.”

“This order came from the machine?”

“Yes. There was a mistake, and Horng realized it after you linked with him this morning. The Outsiders, or Kor or whatever it is, had overestimated us.”

“Maybe then, but not now. They’re committing suicide!” Rynason said.

“I know, and I tried to tell them that. But the machine says differently. Lee, do you think that’s really the Outsiders?”

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