They stayed where they were and waited to be contacted.
Eventually the communications equipment spoke: 'I am pleased that we were successful. There is no point in waiting until the Throns have expended their rage. The force-shield will hold off their most ferocious attacks. We are sending out a vehicle for your assistance. Please take it to the city when you are ready to do so.'
A few moments later a small air-carriage, open-topped and made of thin, golden metal, floated up to the ship and hovered by its airlock.
'Well, let's see if these Shaarn are friendly or not,' said Renark.
They descended to the airlock, passed through it and entered the little airboat which turned on its axis and returned to the city at a more leisurely speed.
Renark felt fairly confident, from what Mary the Maze had said, that these people would be friendly.
They entered the city proper and the airboat cruised downwards, landing gently outside the entrance to a small, un-ornamented, unpretentious building.
Two figures came out. They were dog-like, having six appendages. Asquiol gasped and instinctively reached for his pistol in an unthinking response. Then he saw that these creatures, so like the Thron, were unarmed and he calmed himself.
The Shaarn, like the Thron, were extremely pleasing to the human eye - perhaps because they looked so alike to friendly dogs.
The two figures, with peaceful gestures, beckoned Renark and Asquiol to leave the airboat. They did so. They passed through a series of simply furnished rooms containing no recognisable equipment, and out into a courtyard which, like the city, was covered with an iridescent force-dome.
Here was a laser transceiver not unlike their own. One of the Shaarn went up to it and spoke into the transmitter. It took them several moments, to tune into the humans' suit wavelengths and, for an instant, before they adjusted their own controls, they were blasted with the high-pitched noises they had heard before.
Then the Shaarn spokesman said: 'We regret, sincerely, that our welcome could not have extended to the whole planet, but as you will have realised, we control little of it. I am Naro Nuis and this is my wife Zeni Ouis. You are Renark Jon and Asquiol of Pompeii, I believe.'
'That's so, but how did you know?' Renark replied.
'We were forced - and you must forgive us - to intrude on your minds in order to discover the means to build the communications equipment. We are telepaths, I am afraid…'
'Then why the need for the laser?'
'We had no idea how you would take telepathic interference in your minds, and it is against our code to intrude except in the direst emergencies.'
'I should have thought that's just what we were in,' Asquiol said somewhat rudely.
'I see,' said Renark. 'Well, as far as I am concerned, telepathic communication would be preferable. We have telepaths among our own race.'
'So be it,' Naro Nuis said.
'You have obviously some important reason for braving the dangers of Thron,' said a voice in Renark's skull, 'but' we avoided investigating it. Perhaps we can help?'
'Thank you,' Renark said. 'Firstly, I am curious to learn why the Throns are so belligerent; secondly, whether it is true that your race was the first to come to this system. Much hangs on what I learn from you.' He told the Shaarn how his race faced annihilation.
The alien appeared to deliberate. At length he 'pathed:
'Would you object if we intruded still further on your minds for a while by means of a telepathic link? By this method you will see something of the history of the Shaarn and will discover how this system originally took this somewhat unusual orbit through the multi-dimensional universe.'
'What do you say, Renark?' Asquiol's voice came over the suit-phone.
'I think the suggestion is excellent.'
They were led into a semi-darkened room where food and drink were served to them. They felt relaxed for the first time in ages.
This place is simply to aid your receptivity to what we are about to do.'
'And what is that?'
'We are going to reconstruct for you the history of the war between the Shaarn and the Thron. The history began many millennia ago, when our ancestors were completing their explorations of our own space-time galaxy…'
At Naro Nuis' request they blanked their minds, and the history began…
SIX
They were the golden children of the galaxy. The Shaarn - the searchers, the wanderers, the enquirers. They were the magnificent bringers of gifts, bestowers of wisdom, dealers of justice. In their great star-travelling ships they brought the concept of mercy and law to the planets of their galaxy and formed order out of chaos, cut justice from the stuff of chance.
The Shaarn hurled their ships inwards to the Hub, outwards towards the Rim.
Proud, wise and merciful, self-confident and self-critical, they spread their sons to inhabit planets in many different systems. The laughing darlings of an ancient culture, they poured outwards, always searching.
The Shaarn ships sang and hurtled through the bewildering regions of hyperspace, avoiding war, recognising privacy, but bringing their wisdom and knowledge to anyone requesting it. They had come, also to accept that all intelligent races took the same form as themselves.
The mighty Shaarn were cynics and idealists, innocent and ancient - and their ships coursed further towards the worlds of the Rim.
The starship Vondel, captained by Roas Rui, burst into normal space half a light-year from a binary star the Shaarn called Yito. Around Yito circled eleven worlds, each following a wider orbit than the next - eleven mysteries which Roas Rui and his crew of scientists' and sorcerers regarded with excitement and curiosity. Eleven balls of chemicals and vegetation, organic and inorganic life. Would they find intelligence? New concepts, new knowledge? Roas Rui hoped that they would.
The Shaarn, in their early days of space-travel, had known fear when encountering foreign cultures, but those times were gone. In their power and their confidence, they were unable to conceive of a race greater than their own, a technology more highly developed. On some worlds near the Rim they had come across traces of a star-roving people, but the traces were incredibly ancient and pointed to a long-dead race - their ancestors, perhaps - who had travelled the stars and then degenerated. Thus, it was not with fear that Roas Rui regarded the fourth world nearest Yito when his ship, its reactor idling, went into orbit around it.
Roas Rui reared himself effortlessly on to his four bind limbs in order to see better the purple-clouded world which now filled the viewing-screen. His shaggy, dog-like head craned towards the screen and his mouth curved downwards in an expression of pure pleasure. He turned his head and showed his long, slim teeth to emphasise his delight.
'It's a huge planet, Medwov Dei,' he released to his lieutenant who stood by the screen control board, manoeuvring dials in order to bring the world into closed perspective.
Medwov Dei thought, without moving his head, 'The gravity is almost identical to that of Shaarn.'
Rui thought. 'Noui Nas was right in his hunch again. He always picks the planet which most closely approximates Shaarn in gravity and atmosphere. He's one of the best sorcerers we have in the Division.'
Medwov made a clicking sound with his mouth to indicate agreement. He was very big, the largest member of the crew and every inch of five feet high. He was dedicated to the Exploratory Division, even more than the other members. With regard to his work, he was a fanatic, probably due to the fact that, because of his immense size, he had little success with the female Shaarn. At least he, personally, blamed his height, but it was well known that, as a young cadet, he had once killed a domestic beast in anger. Naturally, this had led to his near-ostracism and had precluded his ever rising above the rank of Lieutenant. Medwov inhaled wetly and continued to work at the control panel, deliberately blocking his mind to any but the most urgent thoughts which might emanate from his commander.