they developed telepathy."

"Couldn't there have been direct contact between the Hirlaji and the
Outsiders back when the Hirlaji were just evolving out of the beast
stage?"

"There must have been," said Rynason. "The Temple rituals are conducted
in an even older form of their language than most remembered--a
proto-language that was kept alive only by the priest caste, because the
machine had been set to respond to that language."

"But aren't primitive languages usually composed of simple, basic words
and concepts? How well could they communicate in such a language?"

"Not very well," Rynason said. "Which would explain why the machine
seemed to make mistakes--clumsiness of language. So the Outsiders,
maybe, left the machine when they pulled out, but they set it to respond
to the Hirlaji language because our horsefaced friends were beginning to
build a civilization of their own and the Outsiders thought they'd leave
them some guidance...." He stopped for a moment, remembering that first
linkage with Horng, and Tebron's memories. "The Hirlaji called them the
Old Ones," he said.

"And that order to Tebron ... about the other race that they would meet
someday. That was based on Outsiders observations."

"I wonder when the Outsiders were on Earth," Rynason said. "Sometime
after we'd started our own rise, certainly. Maybe in ancient
Mesopotamia, or India. Or later, during the Renaissance?"

"The time doesn't matter, does it?" Mara said. "They touched down on
Earth, took note of us, and left. Somehow they thought we were going to
develop more rapidly than we did."

"Probably before the Dark Ages," Rynason said. "Maybe they didn't see
that thousand-year setback coming...." He stopped, and stood up in the
low passageway among the ancient circuitry. "So here we are,
second-guessing the Outsiders. And outside, their proteges have
disintegrators probably left by the Outsiders, and they're just waiting
for us to try to get out."

"Our new-found knowledge isn't doing us much good, is it?" she said.

He shook his head slowly. "When I was still on the secondary senseteach
units I met Rene Malhomme for the first time. My father worked the
spacers, so I don't even remember what planet this was on. But I
remember the night I first saw Rene--he was speaking from the top of a
blue-lumber pile, shouting about the corporations that were moving in.
He was getting all worked up about something, and several people in the
crowd were