and began to probe
tentatively in this new part of his mind. He could feel Horng too
reaching slowly for contact; his presence was comfortable, mild,
confused but unworried. As his thoughts blended with Horng's the present
faded perceptibly; this confusion was merely a moment in centuries, and
soon too it would pass. Rynason could feel himself relaxing.

Now he could reach out and touch the strange areas of this mind: the
concepts and attitudes of an alien race and culture and experience.
Everything became dim and dream-like: the Earthmen possibly didn't
exist, the dry wastes of Hirlaj had always been here or perhaps once
they had been green but through four generations the Large Hall had
stood thus and the animals changed by the day too fast to distinguish
them even under Kor if he should be reached ... why? there was no
reason. There was no purpose, no goal, no necessity, no wishing,
questing, hoping ... no curiosity. All would pass. All was passing even
now; perhaps already it was gone.

Rynason shifted where he sat, reaching for the feeling of the stone
bench beneath him for equilibrium, pulling out of Horng's thoughts and
going back in almost immediately.

A chaos of mind enveloped him, but he was beginning to familiarize
himself with it now. He probed slowly for the memories, down through
Horng's own personal memories of three centuries, dry feet on the dust
and low winds, down to the racial pool. And he found it.

Even knowing the outlines of the race's history did not help Rynason to
place and correlate those impressions which came to him one on top of
another, overlapping, merging, blending. He saw buildings which towered
over him, masses of his people moving quietly around him, and thoughts
came to him from their minds. He was Norhib, artisan, working slowly day
by ... he was Rashanah, approaching the Gate of the Wall and looking ...
he was Lohreen discussing the site where ... he was digging the ground,
pushing the heavy cart, lying on the pelt of animals, demolishing the
building which would soon fall, instructing a child in balance.

A dirt-caked street stretched before him by night, the stones
individually cut and smooth with the passage of heavy feet. "Tomorrow we
will set out for the Region of Chalk while there is still time." A
mind-voice from a Hirlaji hundreds, perhaps thousands of years old, dead
but alive in the race-memory. Rynason could feel the whole personality
there, in the memories, but