cting as a loudspeaker.

Though the voice was thin and scratchy, the words were clearly
audible. It was an appeal for the Disan people not to listen to the
magter. It explained that the magter had started a war that could
have only one ending--the destruction of Dis. Only if the magter
were thrown down and their weapons discovered could there be any
hope.

"Are these words true?" Ulv asked.

"Yes," Brion said.

"They are perhaps true," Gebk said, "but there is nothing that we
can do. I was with my brother when these word-things fell out of the
sky and he listened to one and took it to the magter to ask them.
They killed him, as he should have known they would do. The magter
kill us if they know we listen to the words."

"And the words tell us we will die if we listen to the magter!" Ulv
shouted, his voice cracking. Not with fear, but with frustration at
the attempt to reconcile two opposite points of view. Up until this
time his world had consisted of black and white values, with very
few shadings of difference in between.

"There are things you can do that will stop the war without hurting
yourself or the magter," Brion said, searching for a way to enlist
their aid.

"Tell us," Ulv grunted.

"There would be no war if the magter could be contacted, made to
listen to reason. They are killing you all. You could tell me how
to talk to the magter, how I could understand them--"

"No one can talk to the magter," the woman broke in. "If you say
something different they will kill you as they killed Gebk's
brother. So they are easy to understand. That is the way they are.
They do not change." She put the length of plant she had been
softening for the child back into her mouth. Her lips were deeply
grooved and scarred from a lifetime of this work, her teeth at the
sides worn almost to the bone.

"Mor is right," Ulv said. "You do not talk to magter. What else is
there to do?"

Brion looked at the two men before he spoke, and shifted his weight.
The motion brought his fingertips just a few inches from his gun.
"The magter have bombs that will destroy Nyjord--this is the next
planet, a star in your sky. If I can find where the bombs are, I
will have them taken away and there will be no war."

"You want to aid the devils in the sky against our own people!"
Gebk shouted, half rising. Ulv pulled him back to the ground,
but there was no more warmth in his voice as he spoke.

"You are asking too much. You will leave n