And at least one among them was distrustful of _those_ and wished to
be free to return to his own place. He walked by the rocks near my
hiding place, and I read his thoughts. No, they were with _them_, but
they are not _them_!"
"And now they have gone on to the city?" Sssuri probed.
"It was the way their ship flew."
"Like me," Dalgard repeated, and then the truth which might lie behind
that exploded within his brain. "Terrans!" he breathed the word. Men
of Pax perhaps who had come to hunt down the outlaws who had
successfully eluded their rule on earth? But how had the colonists
been traced? And why? Or were they other fugitives like themselves? So
much, so very much of what the colonists should know of their past
had been erased during the time of the Great Sickness twenty years
after their landing. Then three fourths of the original immigrants had
died. Only the children of the second generation and a handful of
weakened Elders had remained. Knowledge was lost and some distorted by
failing memories, old skills were gone. But if the new Terrans were in
that city.... He had to know--to know and be able to warn his people.
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