"If you knew what I'd do, why did you release me?" Harris asked.
Beth said, "Call it a test. I hoped you might change your beliefs if we let you go. You didn't."
"No. I came here to kill you."
"We knew that the moment you stepped through the door. But the seed of rebellion was in you. We hoped you might be swayed. You failed us."
Harris bowed his head. The signal in his body rasped again, but he ignored it. Let Carver sweat out there. This thing is bigger than anything Carver ever dreamed of.
"Tell me," he said. "Don't you know what will happen to Medlin—and Darruu as well—once there are enough of these beings?"
"Nothing will happen. Do you think they're petty power-seekers, intent on establishing a galactic dominion?" The girl laughed derisively. "That sort of thinking belongs to the obsolete non-telepathic species. Us. The lower animals. These new people have different goals."
"But they wouldn't have come into existence if you Medlins hadn't aided them!" Harris protested. "Obsolete? Of course. And you've done it!"
Beth smiled oddly. "At least we were capable of seeing the new race without envy. We helped them as much as we could because we knew they would prevail anyway, given time. Perhaps it would be another century, or another millennium. But our day is done, and so is the day of Darruu, and the day of the non-telepathic Earthmen."
"And our day too," Wrynn said mildly. "We are the intermediates—the links between the old species and the new one that is emerging."