se mind meets with ours. With you, younger
brother, it is a thought here, a thought there, and only our intuition
to connect them into a pattern. But now, there is serious planning to be
done. And, knowing this enemy, you believe they will come to search for
what they can not find. So you would set a trap. But they have weapons
beyond your weapons, have they not, younger brother? Brave as are these
Rover kind, they can not use swords against flame, their hands against a
killer who may stand apart and slay. What remains, Gordoon? What remains
in our favor?"

"You have your weapons, too," Ashe answered.

"Yes, we have our weapons, but long have they been used only in one
pattern, and they are atuned to another race. Did our defenses hold
against you, Gordoon, when you strove to prove that you were as you
claimed to be? And did another repulse younger brother when he dared the
sea gate? So can we trust them in turn against these other strangers
with different brains? Only at the testing shall we know, and in such
learning perhaps we shall also be forced to eat the sourness of defeat.
To risk all may be to lose all."

"That may be true," Ashe assented.

"You mean the sight you have had into our future says that this happens?
Yes, to stake all and to lose--not only for ourselves, but for all
others here--that is a weighty decision to make, Gordoon. But the trap
promises. Let us think on it for a space. Do you also consult with the
Rovers if they wish to take part in what may be desperate folly."

Torgul paced the afterdeck, well away from the tent which sheltered the
Foanna, but with his eyes turning to it as Ross explained what might be
a good attack.

"Those women-killers would have no fear of Foanna magic, rather would
they come to seek it out? It would be a chance to catch leaders in a
trap?"

"You have heard what the prisoners said or thought. Yes, they would seek
out such knowledge and we would have this chance to capture them--"

"With what?" Torgul demanded. "I am not Ongal to argue that it is better
to die in pursuit of blood payment than to take an enemy or enemies with
me! What chance have we against their powers?"

"Ask that of them!" Ross nodded toward the still silent tent.

Even as he spoke the three cloaked Foanna emerged, pacing down to
mid-ship where Torgul and his lieutenants, Ross and Ashe came to meet
them.

"We have thought on this." The lilting half chant which the Foanna used
for ordinar