" said Manning. "There's still too much
that 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're
not as strong as they thought we were. It took us eight thousand years
to get here instead of five thousand. Let's just hope they don't think
about that too much."

He stopped, and paced to the window again. "Look around you, Lee--out on
the 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 take
weeks to get any more in here; there's practically no organization here
yet. We could be wiped off this planet before we knew what hit us. We're
sitting 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 keeping
themselves away from us all this time. That's obviously why they pulled
out 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 the
last evidences we've had of them, and they've obviously been watching
us.

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

Rynason thought about that. He tried to remember the minds he had
touched during the linkage with Horng: Tebron, the ancient warrior-king,
and the young Hirlaji staring at the buildings of one of the ancient
cities, and the old, dying one who had decided not to plant again one
year ... and Horng himself, tired and calm on the edge of the Flat, amid
the ruins of a city. He remembered the others in that crumbling last
home 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 thousand
years 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 an
enemy, a handy menace to crush. You argue too hard, Manning."

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

Rynason turned away and didn't answer.