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 of interstellar traffic ... those backwater areas where contact with the parent civilization was so slight that an entirely local culture had developed, almost as different from that of the mainstream Terran colonies as was this last vestige of the Hirlaji civilization.  And in some of those areas interest in Earth was so slight that the offworlders were ignored, as the Earthmen were here ... but he had never felt the total lack of attention that was here.  It was not as though the Hirlaji had seen the Earthmen and grown used to them; Rynason had the feeling that to the Hirlaji the Earthmen were no more important than the winds or the dust beneath their feet.

As they passed through the settled portion of the ruins Rynason had to step around a Hirlaji who crossed his path.  He walked silently past, his eyes not even flickering toward the Earthlings.  Crazy grey hidepiles, Rynason thought, and he and Mara hurried out across the Flat toward the nearby Earth town.

On the outskirts of the town, where the packed-dirt streets faded into loose dust and garbage was already piled several feet high, they were met by Rene Malhomme.  He sat long-legged with his back leaning against a weathered stone outcropping.  He seemed old already, though he was not yet fifty; his windblown hair was almost the color of the surrounding grey dust and rock—­perhaps because it was filled with that dust, Rynason thought.  He stopped and looked down at the worn, tired man whose eyes belied that weariness.

“And have you communicated with God, Lee Rynason?” Malhomme asked with his rumbling, sardonic voice.

Rynason met his gaze, wondering what he wanted.  He lowered the telepather pack from his shoulder and set it in the dust.  Mara sat on a low rock beside him.

“Will an alien god do?” Rynason said.

Malhomme’s eyes rested on the telepather for a moment.  “You spoke with Kor?” he asked.

Rynason nodded slowly.  “I made a linkage with one of the Hirlaji, and tapped the race-memory.  I suppose you could say I spoke with Kor.”

“You have touched the alien godhead,” Malhomme mused.  “Then it’s real?  Their god is real?”

“No,” said Rynason.  “Kor is a machine.”

Malhomme’s head jerked up.  “A machine? Deus ex machina, to quote an ancient curse.  We make our own machines, and make gods of them.”  The tired lines of his face relaxed.  “Well, that’s a bit better.  The gods remain a myth, and it’s better that way.”

Rynason stood over him on the windy Flat, still puzzled by his manner.  He glanced at Mara, but she too was watching Malhomme, waiting for him to speak again.