"Yes, I know." Lanny clenched his fist over his brother's arm. "But how do we know it, Gill? How can we run this machine, when we have never seen it before?"
Gill laughed uneasily. "Don't forget, before the invasion our people were pretty good at building machines, too."
"That doesn't answer the question, Gill. When I fired the energy gun, I felt as if it were a part of myself—as if I knew all the cells in the metal just as I know my own."
"That happened to me when I sat in the automobile in the showroom."
"It scares me, Gill. I keep thinking I should remember something but—"
"I was scared last night, too, because I thought I'd made the motor go by forcing it to move with my mind. And that's absurd. If we had that much control over machines, as we do over our hunting clubs, how could the enemy ever have defeated us?"
Tak Laleen opened her eyes, then, and sat up stiffly. The wind struck her face and swept her hair back. Shivering, she pulled her uniform tight around her throat.
"Where are you taking me?" she demanded.
"You're our prisoner," Lanny answered.
"The Sacred Triangle will not pay ransom. We volunteered to serve here on the earth; we knew the risks."