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They knew bombs were going to fall. They would scream until the explosions overtook them. They already perceived the fire and the fierce light and the utter darkness.

And he, the stranger, the dreamer, knew there was nothing he could have done, that he had had no chance to warn them. He had not even had time to tell them of their end before they saw it with their inward sight. He was not to see the city die, but he was hearing it scream.

The long hand had nearly reached the fine red line, but it seemed to the stranger, the dreamer, that this final instant was lasting dreadfully long. A frightful thought jolted his mind: suppose the device on his chest was not a time machine? Suppose he was merely one of the inhabitants of the city, doomed like all of them to disappear?

He opened his mouth. The time machine operated. He was saved. Alone. Completely alone.

He was somewhere else and the cry was no longer audible. He tried to recall it. He knew he was dreaming and that he had had this dream before. On his wrists the two infallible chronometers marked an inexorable and identical time. He was the master of time. Before him lay a low and level city furrowed with canals, stretching along the shore of a violet sea.

He began to moan, alone, in silence which was barely disturbed by the song of birds. Someone very far off turned toward him, not understanding.

Chapter 23

Darkness and six metal walls that scarcely left him room to move his hands. He was lying on his back. His weight felt about Earth-normal, plus or minus ten percent. He was no longer afraid.

He pushed hard against the lid of the box, but in vain. Then someone or something grazed the metal and a bright line appeared along one of its edges. A moment later the box opened out and Corson, blinded by a strong light, tried to sit up.

The air stank of chlorine. He had fallen into the clutches of the Urians. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he managed to make out three silhouettes leaning over him, vaguely humanoid, but with horny beaks, too-small heads each topped by a crest, long thin necks, scrawny arms, short stocky bodies with prominent sterna.

So he had gone clear around the universe only to wind up as a guinea pig under a Urian scalpel.

He expected it to hurt.

“Do not be afraid, man Corson,” whistled one of the Urians.

Wooden-limbed, Corson managed to force his body into a sitting position and looked about him. The room was vast, hung with silken draperies, windowless and with no visible means of egress. It reminded him pretty much of how Urian interiors had been pictured at the time of the war, back on Earth.

Do the overlords of war make a habit of delivering war criminals into the power of their enemies?

A Urian who seemed to be older than the others was perched on a sort of throne which, to Corson, resembled a hen roost. Urians had evolved along a line very similar to that of Earthly birds. Their appearance suggested the fact, and it had been confirmed by dissection of dead bodies—at least that was the official story—which the humans had got hold of. In their brains the cortex was relatively underdeveloped, but by contrast the cerebellum was very large. Among Earthmen a lot of jokes had circulated about “bird-brained Urians.” But Corson had never fallen for that line. He knew that even on Earth certain birds, even including the common crow, displayed surprising intelligence, and he was only too well aware of the mental acuity of the Princes of Uria. Much of a human brain is devoted to decoding and interpreting sensory data, and a relatively small part to abstract reasoning. In the case of Urians, sensory powers were limited by human standards. Although their sight was generally keener than a man’s, their color perception was far inferior, while their hearing was so poor they had never invented any music apart from simple rhythm. Their sense of touch was handicapped by the structure of their prehensile organs—claws rather than hands—and by the vestigial down covering their bodies. But they displayed a remarkable gift for abstract reasoning and philosophical argument.

“So they have sent us a human,” the old Urian said with obvious distrust.

Corson cautiously tried setting a foot on the floor.

“Before you attempt anything rash,” the old Urian went on, “it would be best for me to advise you of certain facts. Not that we have anything to fear from you”—he pointed, and Corson realized the other three Urians were training weapons on him—“but we paid rather a lot for you, and I should be sorry to see you come to any harm.”

He rose and poured for himself a large mug of some cloudy liquid. Corson knew what it must be: a solution akin to domestic bleach on Earth. The Urians’ taste for ammonia had, in his day, been another popular subject for jokes.

“You’re a war criminal. You cannot leave this world without running the risk of I know not what punishment at the hands of your own kind. On this world, if you were free, you would very quickly learn that this drawback markedly reduces the range of options open to you. Therefore you are obliged to deal with us, and even rely on us. You have no choice.”

He preened himself for a moment, long enough to let what he had said register in Corson’s mind. Then he continued, “For our part, we have need of a specialist in the art of warfare. We purchased you, at a high price as I mentioned, from a go-between you have no need to know about.”

He approached Corson with that waddling gait which made Urians so much resemble giant ducks, gorgeously clad in sumptuous fabrics, but mortally dangerous.

“I am Ngal R’nda. Remember that name, man Corson, for I have no intention of failing in what I plan to accomplish, nor of having to live with the knowledge of defeat, no matter how unlikely that may be. Moreover you are the only human to be acquainted with me in this guise. For the rest of your kind I am a peace-loving old fellow, rather cynical, toying with the arts after the human style, and a part-time historian. As far as those who stand before you are concerned”—he made a grand gesture—“I am the true Ngal R’nda, sole descendant of a long line of Urian Princes, hatched from a blue egg. You can have no idea, man Corson, what a blue shell used to mean in ancient times… or what it still does mean today to a clawful of loyal initiates. More than six thousand years ago Princes of the Blue Shell ruled Uria. Alas, men came to us bringing lies by the shipload, and soon there was a war. A long and dreadful war, during which more than once Earth came close to perishing beneath the beak of Uria. But nobody won. Only the Princes of Uria lost. Slaughter and exhaustion spawned a bastard peace. Humans and Urians granted one another concessions on their respective planets as a gage of good will. But it turned out that Urians could not live on Earth without wasting away, so they gave up their so-called privileges. In contrast, here on Uria humans flourished, and in a little while those who had been hostages turned into masters. Their offspring outnumbered ours. Above all they showed that they were able to apply their coarse wits, with unbelievable doggedness, to problems beneath the dignity of the Princes of Uria, who were more concerned with higher meditation. Thus it came about that the Princes of Uria lost a war which the Earth people had not won and during which Uria had not tasted defeat Oh, the treachery, the foul treachery of peace!

“And worse was to follow. Shaken by war and undermined by the debasing contact of humans, Urian culture abandoned the tradition of respect for the Blue Egg. False egalitarian myths were sown among us. The Urians lost their pride, vegetated, yielded their world inch by inch to humans without even fighting for it.

“Days turned into centuries, then millennia. But the purest down of Uria—let me call it the finest flower, to make it clear for you—has not forgotten. Perhaps the time has come to shake off our yoke. According to what we hear, the Galactic Security Office is in trouble, and will need to give up its meddling for a century or two. That’s more time than we need to rebuild a fleet and take the road of conquest again. But before that we must seize back our own world and cleanse it of humans.”