“No purpose to the report?” Rynason said after a moment. “It’s important to us, and we’re almost finished. There would be even less purpose in stopping now, when so much has been done.”
Horng’s large, leathery head turned toward him and Rynason felt the ancient creature’s heavy gaze on him like a shadow.
WE ARE ACCUSTOMED TO THAT.
“We don’t think alike,” Rynason said to him. “To me there is a purpose. Will you help me once more?”
There was no answer from the alien, only a slow nodding of his head to one side, which Rynason took for assent. He motioned Mara to set up the telepather.
After their last experience Rynason could understand the creature’s reluctance to continue. Perhaps even his statement that there was no purpose to the Earthmen’s researches made sense—for could the codification of the history of a dying race mean much to its last members? Probably they didn’t care; they walked slowly through the ruins of their world and felt all around them fading, and the jumbled past in their minds must be only one more thing that was to disappear.
And Rynason had not forgotten the terrified waves of hatred which had blasted at him in Horng’s mind—nor had Horng, he was sure.
Mara connected the leads of the telepather while the alien sat motionlessly, his dark eyes only occasionally watching either of them. When she was finished Rynason nodded for her to activate the linkage.
Then there was the rush of Horng’s mind upon his, the dim thought-streams growing closer, the greyed images becoming sharper and washing over him, and in a moment he felt his own thoughts merge with them, felt the totality of his own consciousness blend with that of Horng. They were together; they were almost one mind.
And in Horng he heard the whisper of distrust, of fear, and the echoes of that hatred which had struck at him once before. But they were in the background; all around him here on the surface was a pervading feeling of … uselessness, resignation, almost of unreality. The calm which he had noted before in Horng had been shaken and turned, and in its place was this fog of hopelessness.