Pain furrowed Allyn's lean face. "They are no longer my people," he whispered, "I'm an outcast."
His beautiful silver head drooped wearily. He had rebelled, flaunted the law of the logicians, even done the supreme crime....
"I have struck a logician," he said, filled with the horror of his own deed. "The Gyro-Gard are hunting me." Apprehensively the two glanced skyward. But there was no dreaded black craft to be seen.
The Olman was curious. "Why did you strike your Elder?"
"For my sister, Aleena."
The Olman spat a furious epithet. "No Numan has a sister! Do you think I'm a fool! It is told around our council fires that your women die at the birth of their first child. You cannot have a sister! You are lying!"
Allyn's head lifted proudly. "A Numan does not lie! Aleena and I are twin—a phenomenon among my people. It was decreed that we would mate to pass multiple births on through our progeny. But, when the day of union was set, I refused, knowing that within the year of conception Aleena would die."
His head bowed recalling his own heresy. "Metas, our Chief Logician himself came to syko me. He told me I was a throwback, capable of emotions like an Olman." He shuddered with distaste that brought an angry growl from the Olman's throat. Allyn did not notice. "Metas decreed hypno for me."
"Hypno?"
"Control of the mind, so I would have taken Aleena through no volition of my own."