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Dying is a very unpleasant experience, even if I do come to life again." "Oh, Dark," said Maya, remembering. "I'd like for Qril to see you, and maybe he'll give us some more information. They came back here three days ago and, for some reason, have just been hanging around outside, under the walls. Let me get on a marsuit, and I'll take you to him."
"I don't know. Maybe Qril does." Maya asked the Martian, and relayed his answer to Dark: "Qril says that you store excess energy in the tissues, very much as the Martians store oxygen. In a sense, direct sunlight's your generator, and it charges your batteries for power when it isn't operating.
"But tell me, it is true that this man tried to do evil things, by human standards, but were Goat Hennessey's genetic experiments also evil by Martian standards?" "You do not read what I have said quite correctly," replied Qril. "The evil atmosphere is left by the man, because what he did was evil by his own standards. I said only that he attempted to do things wrongly."
So she talked instead with the Martian who had acted as spokesman for the group. Its name, she learned, was Qril. "The place to which you go lies under an evil atmosphere," said Qril. "The human who abode there many years attempted to do things wrongly." "We were there in the season before this one," answered Maya. "This was just before that human left."
Does he know anything about how I got there?" Maya talked with Qril and translated: "Qril is one of the Martians I saw come by here and pick up your body the morning after Goat killed you and threw your body out in the desert.
"Why, no, I don't believe I am," she replied, just as calmly. "How can you ...? Wait a minute!" Dark sent his mind into the invisible. His probing thoughts fled over desert and lowland, seeking. They found the Martian, Qril, and he recognized that Qril responded immediately. Qril, how is it that Maya is able to live in the Martian atmosphere without breathing? asked Dark telepathically.
"That is true," said Qril. "We had completed the change on only one of the two, therefore only that one would develop into an adult who could live in complete independence of air and food, if necessary. The other one would never be able to do it for more than a short period without returning to terrestrial conditions."
"I already had read this in you," said Qril. "I also read in you that, as a child, you lived among us who are children of the past. Therefore, perhaps you knew before I spoke that an evil atmosphere remains at this place and has not yet been washed away by time." "No, I was not taught such matters as a child," answered Maya.
Dark turned his head back to look into Qril's huge eyes, and at once he was in mental contact with the Martian. Qril was laughing at him. There was no change of expression on Qril's face, but in his mind was the atmosphere of high humor. Qril's thoughts came to him without words, in no language, silently but clearly: You have not practised your power.
"I'm not surprised if you did," said Maya. "From what Qril tells me, Dark, this prenatal alteration they performed on you gave you even more extensive powers than we realized. He says that you have extraordinary extrasensory ability, if you would only make an effort to use it." "Oh, I do, do I?" murmured Dark thoughtfully.
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