ason. "Manning has been busily wrapping up the appointment for the
governorship here," he said. "You probably know that."

Rynason nodded. The headache he had been expecting was already starting.

"Did you also know that he's been buying men here to stand with him in
case someone else is appointed?" He glanced at Mara. "I go among the men
every day, talking, and I hear a lot. Manning will end up in control
here, one way or another, unless he's stopped."

"Buying men is nothing new," Rynason said. "In any case, is there a
better man on the planet?"

Malhomme shook his head. "I don't know; sometimes I give up on the human
race. Manning at least has a little culture in him--but he's more
vicious than he seems, nevertheless. If he gets control here...."

"It will be no worse than any of the other planets out here," Rynason
concluded for him.

"Except for one thing, perhaps--the Hirlaji. I don't have much against
men killing each other ... that's their own business. But unless we get
somebody better than Manning governing here, the Hirlaji will be wiped
out. The men here are already talking ... they're afraid of them."

"Why? The Hirlaji are harmless."

"Because of their size, and because we don't know anything about them.
Because they're intelligent--any uneducated man is afraid of
intelligence, and when it's an alien...." He shook his head. "Manning
isn't helping the situation."

"What do you mean by that?" Mara asked.

Malhomme's frown deepened, creasing the dark lines of his forehead into
furrows. "He's using the Hirlaji as bogey-men. Says he's the only man on
the planet who knows how to deal with them safely. Oh, you should hear
him when he moves among his people.... I envy his ability to control
them with words. A little backslapping, a joke or two--most of them I
was telling last year--and he talks to them man to man, very friendly."
He shook his head again. "Manning is so friendly with this scum that his
attitude is nothing short of patronizing."

Rynason smiled wearily at Malhomme; for all the man's wildness, he
couldn't help liking him. It had been like this every time he had run
into him, on a dozen of the Edge-worlds. Malhomme, dirty and cynical,
moved among the dregs of the stars preaching religion and fighting the
corporations, the opportunists, the phony rebels who wanted nothing for
anyone but themselves. He had been known to break heads together with
his huge fists, and he had no qualms about ste