“Probably before the Dark Ages,” Rynason said.  “Maybe they didn’t see that thousand-year setback coming....”  He stopped, and stood up in the low passageway among the ancient circuitry.  “So here we are, second-guessing the Outsiders.  And outside, their proteges have disintegrators probably left by the Outsiders, and they’re just waiting for us to try to get out.”

“Our new-found knowledge isn’t doing us much good, is it?” she said.

He shook his head slowly.  “When I was still on the secondary senseteach units I met Rene Malhomme for the first time.  My father worked the spacers, so I don’t even remember what planet this was on.  But I remember the night I first saw Rene—­he was speaking from the top of a blue-lumber pile, shouting about the corporations that were moving in.  He was getting all worked up about something, and several people in the crowd were shouting back at him; I stopped to watch.  All of a sudden six or seven men moved in from somewhere and dragged him down from where he was standing.  There was a fight—­people were thrown all around.  I hid till it was over.

“When the crowd finally cleared, there was Rene.  His clothes were torn, but he wasn’t hurt.  Every one of the men who had attacked him had to be carried away; I think one of them was dead.  Rene stood there laughing; then he saw me hidden in the darkness and he took me home.  He told me that when he’d been younger he’d worked his way all the way in to Earth, and studied some of the cultures there.  He’d learned karate, which was an ancient Japanese way of fighting.”

Rynason took a deep breath.  “He said everything a person learns will be useful someday.  And I believed him.”

“A nice parable,” Mara said.  “We could use him against the Hirlaji, though.”

Rynason was silent, thinking.  If they could only catch the aliens off guard ... but of course they couldn’t, now.  He let his eyes wander aimlessly along the circuitry surrounding them.  Tell me, old Kor, what do we do now?

After a moment his eyes narrowed; he reached up and traced a connection with his fingers, back to the front, toward the altar.  It led directly to ... the speaker!

The voice of Kor.

And if he could interrupt that connection, put his own voice through the speaker, out through the altar....

“Mara, we’re going out.  I’ve found my own brand of karate for our friends out there.”

He helped her to her feet.  She moved somewhat painfully, her broken left arm hanging stiffly at her side, but she made no protest.

“We’ve got to be fast,” he said.  “I don’t know how well this will work—­it depends on how much they trust their clay-footed god today.”  Quickly, he outlined his plan.  Mara listened silently and nodded.

Then he set to work.  It was largely guesswork, following those intricate alien connections, but Rynason had seen this part of such machines before.  He found the penultimate point at which the impulses from the brain were translated into sound and broadcast through the speaker.  He disconnected this, his torn fingers working awkwardly on the delicate linkages.