This silenced them all, Alagn-born that they were; they were tied now to Horag, and lifted their faces to him, respectfully expecting enlightenment.
"I shall share my knowledge," he promised them, "as it becomes needful. Alagn erred. Bai Hulagh Alagn-ni of Kesrith failed to ask into the experience of his predecessors. Therefore Alagn does not remember. I do not make that error of omission. If any of you has pertinent information or acquires it, I order you to give it to me at once.”
One after the other they solemnly confessed ignorance of mri.
"Attend," said Suth with a pleased hiss. "It is necessary to touch that mri characteristic I named."
"This is not Kesrith," Nagn said. "Bai-”
"Does a question occur to you?”
"There are cities. Machines. Do mri construct such things? Have mri ever constructed such elaborate things themselves? This is not consonant with observation.”
"Mri have always worked… among themselves, or for their own benefit. They would not lift a pebble at our bidding; but to house themselves, yes, they have built their own edunei, and they handle complex machinery expertly. Does Alagn estimate the mri edun on Kesrith was built by regul? Does Alagn not know that kel'ein have handled regul ships with controls designed for regul minds and memory, which humans have greatest difficulty grasping, Alagn has failed to observe, until now. I congratulate you, bai Nagn, at least on an appropriate question.”
The three Alagn-ni fretted in visible discomfiture.
"Further question," Suth pursued. "As this is the mri home-world we accept human reckoning this is so do associational structures here operate as they did in mri for hire far from the authorities of this world? It will not be wise to make simplistic conclusions based on data from Kesrith. Facts too soon recorded are sometimes imperfect.”
"But," Tiag said, her nostrils fluttering still under the sting of sarcasm, "this is an armed world, reverence. Facts not swiftly enough recorded are not available for our defense, reverence bai.”
Suth swelled in pique, not overmuch. Logical that Tiag had sexed as she had; she had always had a brusqueness that disturbed. "Physically, bai Tiag, we could launch further fire into those sites. But humans are onworld; humans must perceive the origin of the threat clearly as mri. We are within range of human ships as well as mri cities." In exaggerated lack of haste he reached for the sled-console, sipped at his cooling cup from one hand while he keyed in library functions with the other. He obtained memory-films, meant to chronicle the mri wars for any youngling which might be born on board; and he smiled, having obtained what he sought. Editing them on the spot was a simple matter, ordering the machine to duplicate, beginning and ending at certain points, and to arrange scenes into desirable sequence. Human faces showed on the screen; Duncan's face. The mri slaughter at Elag lay tangled hi smoking ruin; the towers of Nisren's edun fell in fire and human troops rushed across a field strewn with mri dead; human warships hovered above mri ruins.
He composed, sent the result to the others, watched their faces conceive excitement
"We do not speak the mri tongue," he said, "but these powered sites surely have the facilities to receive simple transmissions. And demonstration speaks all tongues.”
"Bai," Nagn murmured.
"We have ten shuttles. Several can be dropped; we reserve four for maneuverings where humans can keep them in sight. The ones sent down are at very high risk. But I tell you this for your information, honored mates; these mri ... all the laughter regul have indulged in over species whose memory is lost without their paper… and these humans too.… Does it occur to you that in the Alagn debacle at Kesrith, these aforesaid humans gathered up a great deal of regul paper and tapes. The library was lost. Your great Alagn bai Hulagh salvaged machines and ships and lives of younglings and let the library fall into human hands; a minor loss, so long as the minds which contained that doubtless trivial information were packed onto ships and sent back to home space and safety, true? Or perhaps Hulagh would have fired the library before leaving ... if he had had time. Observe this youngling Duncan, observe how exactly he imitates mri. A minor loss, a poor colonial library on a mining colony? Regul lost nothing but humans gained. Did humans much fret for the loss of the machines Hulagh lifted off? No. But humans swarmed over that library in the first days of Kesrith's occupation like insects over corruption. Does no conclusion yet occur to you?”
"We erred," Nagn said after a moment, her nostril edges showing pallor. "Reverence, why have we failed to note such things?”
"Because, Nagn Alagn-ni, the bai of your doch lacked experience, for all his years; so did Sharn. I have realized it. This question has occurred to me; but even as a youngling I possessed something great Alagn did not have experience of non-regul. You were insulated, safe, in home space. Horag is colonial. We dealt with mri, with humans, with mri beasts. We gained models against which to compare actions. You have lacked such models. Your comprehensions are wise within your limitations, but there are other species in the universe… and Horag has been dealing with them for two thousand years.”
"Mri and dusei and humans," Tiag exclaimed in disgust "What can they discover that some regul has not already discovered and remembered the first time?”
"Lackwit, observe what Nagn has correctly observed and think! What would humans do with the records of our own homeworld? And what world is this before us?”
"The mri homeworld," Morkhug said. "Cities, storehouses of data-”
"To which this Duncan has already gained access," said Suth. "Mri. . . value revenge. The revenge they owe Alagn is considerable, and I do not want that inheritance. But that is not the only cause for which we should fear. Of how many years might be the experience logged in cities which were built to surround seas which are no longer there?”
"Mri," said Tiag, attempting scorn, but her nostrils kept dilating-
"Mri with ships," said Nagn, "who made the desert of stars as far as our own space, and turned back only when they ran out of lives. And humans, who keep their memories only on paper, gather the memories of this place. Millions of years, Tiag.”
"But we cannot destroy it," Tiag moaned.
"Mri," Suth said, "and incomprehensible to us. Valueless to us, in a language we cannot read. But do you observe, mates-of-mine, that the mri mind and the human… are compatible?”
"What shall we do, then, bai?”
"What do we do with irrationalities? We remove them from the present Alien minds are able to bridge these irrationalities. The reflexes of forgetting are not all detriment, to my observation. We cannot operate by such absorptions. Already we are troubled by impossible combinations of concepts. We talk in paradoxes when we carry on any lengthy discourse with humans. We have walked into a morass. We do not extricate ourselves by swallowing mud. Remove it; that is what has to be done. It is not the weapons which are the danger; it is not the feud with mri; it is the combination, mates-of-mine, the combination, this absorptive tendency in our allies… with what we have seen in coming here. How did we first involve ourselves with humans at first hand? A human named Stavros imitated our ways. How did mri involve themselves with humans? A human named Duncan imitated theirs so successfully he has been transformed. This is beyond courtesy. This is a mechanism. This is a biological mechanism by which this species survives. There is one human, in each instance, there is one human who walks from among them, who allows himself to become Impressed, who becomes the enemy… who then bridges the gap, and gains knowledge. One sacrifice. One transformation. Who of us, who of the mri, is able to become human? Can you, Tiag? Can you define, having observed Stavros and Duncan and Koch, even what is human?”
Tiag shuddered visibly, eyes rolling aside.
"We shall never be quit of humans," Suth said bitterly. "By Alagn's grievous error, we let them inside. But we can see to it that what belongs to this world… stays here. Ends here. And we can go back to home space and give our information and observations to regulkmd, without mri in the equation. We can cut off this branch, so that there is no hazard at least from this source; we can focus human attention here, where it can no longer profit them, and buy us time.”
"We have one ship," Morkhug protested. "One to their three. How can we deal with them?”
"More of Alagn's negotiation. We should initiate a new negotiation. My presence gives us that option, being of different doch. We should see to the rearrangement of advantages, maneuver as best we can." He set his cup aside, empty, stared grimly at the three of them. Carrying, all three; the young could not come to term in any reasonable time to be of assistance; they had not the time of years, but time as humans reckoned it, and actions had to be undertaken… quickly.