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Updated: May 11, 2025
Returning to the cockpit, he dug out the survival kit and slung it on his back, then detached the compass, which fortunately was undamaged, from the control panel and consulted his flight map. Kranath saw with dismay that St'nar's clanhome was almost directly south, but taking that route directly was just asking for trouble. He'd have to go around. He headed southeast and began his trek.
Kranath smiled, accepting his destiny. "I think I know now what joining you means. You want my mind to become part of you." "Yes, Lord Kranath." Godhome's mental voice seemed to Kranath both solemn and joyous. "Although it is I who will become part of you. This galaxy is the heritage of organic intelligences, not machines." It paused.
Not only would it be dishonorable, it would be unwise; those who hold great power, those to whom we usually need to appear when Speakers' words are insufficient, have enough psionic ability to tell us apart." Kranath projected mild amusement. "Humans included, though they have not as yet developed that ability consciously." "Which means I'll have to go back to my body.
The only chance he had to regain honor now was to kill himself before the continuing knowledge of captivity exhausted his will to act and, within a few days, his will to live. Grimly determined to at least die in what honor he could, Kranath reached for his weapons. Either gun or dagger would be fast and clean. He touched them, got his hands firmly on the grips and was unable to draw either.
The Lords welcomed me to my heritage; let me welcome you to yours." He paused again, extending his arms as if to embrace them all, and, as Kranath had shown it to him, showed them their true homeworld. He explained their origins and their rescue from Terra. "So," he finished, "you are our relatives, by ancestry as Terran as I am.
"And I think I know why you need a human Lord, too. We're going to have to work on both sides to end the war. The Imperials would hardly listen to one of you in your own form, anyway where they will listen to a Ranger." Kranath smiled. "Exactly. And as you have correctly surmised, we do not take on each other's forms.
The pressure at his back became constant, gentle but irresistible, and it forced him toward the hill at a steady walk. It was over, Kranath thought. Captive, with no hope of escape from whatever was wielding enough power to compel him this way, he would die.
Godhome would reverse the process later, if Kranath refused the joining. Shortly after the computer finished its work, Kranath awoke feeling odd. Good, but abnormally . . . what? Strong, yes, and eagerly alert . . . plus something he couldn't quite define.
But Hovan's words roused Tarlac from his exhausted depression and made him think, with all a Ranger's problem-solving acuteness. Start with one thing: Hovan had told him the Lords didn't ask the impossible, and his experience as Kranath confirmed that. They might ask things just short of impossible, but anything they asked could be done. All right.
"Intelligence is rare in this galaxy, Kranath. Yet that world has given birth to three intelligent races, two of which sprang from a common ancestor and needed the same land to live. Those who went before cherished intelligence, so when they realized that the two land-based races were destroying each other, they decided to move the numerically lesser race to another world.
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