They hunt. They intrigue, and they whittle down their last few remnants with fighting among themselves, and they prey on the fringe stars, and they capture living humans to hunt down for sport. They haven't done anything new for ten thousand years, creativeness has withered from them, and all they will do if they escape the Nebula is carry ruin between the stars. They're mad.
Yes—a whole society of psychopaths, gone crazy with the long racial dying. That's the real reason they can't handle machines, that's why they don't think of friendship but only of war, that's why they carry doom within them.
But I love you, I love you, I love you, O Valduma the fair.
He drew her to him, kissed her with a terrible intensity, and she laughed in the dark. Looking up, he faced the blaze that was Morzach.
"All right," he said. "I understand. Tomorrow."
"Aye—good, good, well done!"
"Oh, Basil, Basil!" whispered Valduma. "Come, come away with me, now."
"No. They'd suspect. I have to go down to them or they'll come looking for me."
"Good night, Basil, my darling, my vorza. Until tomorrow!"
He went slowly down the hillside, drawing his shoulders together against the cold, not looking back. Helena rose when he approached her campfire, and the flimmering light made her seem pale and unreal.