“Is anyone picking this up? Is anyone there?”
It was Mara’s voice.
Rynason knelt beside the set and took the mike from Stoworth’s hand. “This is Lee. Are you hurt?”
“Lee?”
“I hear you. Are you hurt?”
“Not badly. Lee, what are you doing? I saw the flyers land.”
“Manning wants to attack the city as soon as the land party gets here. What’s going on there?”
“I’m … in the temple. I’ve been trying to communicate with them. I’ve got an interpreter, but they don’t listen to what I say. Lee, this is incredible here! They’ve brought out a lot of weapons … some of them don’t work. The hall is half-filled with dust and sand, and they move so clumsily! They’re trying to hurry, because they saw you too, but it’s like … like they’ve forgotten how. They think they can get rid of us all, but they…. It’s pitiful—they’re so slow.”
“Those disintegrators aren’t slow,” Rynason said. Manning was standing beside him; he dropped a hand on his shoulder, but Rynason shook it off. “Are they using the machine … the altar?”
“They were using it when they brought me in. I think it is the Outsiders. But they don’t seem to know it’s just a machine—they kneel in front of it, and chant. It’s so strange, in that language of theirs … those thin, high voices, and the echoes….”