The leader put in urgently: "I sense many questions which I would happily answer if I had the time. But I have just received word that our forces are massing to attack the disk project to the east of that large city. I must therefore leave you until the job is done."
"They're attacking Project Star!" said Win sharply. "Good Lord, Alan, we've got a hundred friends there!"
"Yes, and just as innocent people as those who died in Manhattan. They can't do it." He stepped forward—it was significant that not one alien tried to stop him—and laid a hand on the leader's bare, brawny arm. The flesh was almost normal ... but not quite. Alan recalled Brave's suggestion of the feel of a rubber product. The arm was hairless and without pores, cool to the touch. He looked up into the leader's face. It was a good face, though the widened features gave it a somewhat aboriginal cast. It was a patriarchal face, more that of the ruler of a tribe than of the leader of a fleet of space disks who must also be an advanced scientist. The long yellow hair was turning slightly gray over the temples.
The man smiled. Yes, he said to Alan without words, I am over nine hundred years old.
"He comes from Shangri-la," said Bill Thihling. "He's the High Lama. Can't kid me."
Among his captors, the manacled McEldownie threw back his head and laughed. "That's what we needed," he said, "a good feeble jest. This meeting was getting dull as hell."
Alan ignored them. He tried to pierce into the leader's brain with his eyes, he thought fiercely and as hard as he ever had.
After three minutes the leader nodded. Alan turned to Brave. "Boy, we're going with them. We're going to lead the attack on Project Star."
"If you've got something up your sleeve—" began Rob.
"Nothing he doesn't know of. You think I'm able to keep my thoughts to myself? But we can save, or try to save, a lot of our people. Win stays here, of course. So does Rob, who has a bad leg." The leader started, gestured to another outlander, who opened one of the numerous cases on the ground and took out bandages and salves in tins, with which he began to repair the burn on Pope's leg. "Bill," said Alan, "you want to come?"