“They’re not, uh, uh, super-Didonans, though . . . galaxy-unifyin’ intellects… as Jaan believes?”
“No. Nor do they wage a philosophical conflict among themselves over the ultimate destiny of creation. Those stories merely fit Aycharaych’s purpose.” Erannath hunched on the claws of his wings. His head thrust forward against nacre and shadow. “Listen,” he said. “We have no more than a sliver of time at best. Don’t interrupt, unless I grow unclear. Listen. Remember.”
The words blew harshly forth, like an autumn gale: “They preserve remnants of technology on Chereion which they have not shared with their masters the Merseians— if the Merseians are really their masters and not their tools. I wonder about that. Well, we must not stop to speculate. As one would await, the technology relates to the mind. For they are extraordinary telepaths, more gifted than the science we know has imagined is possible.
“There is some ultimate quality of the mind which goes deeper than language. At close range, Aycharaych can read the thoughts of any being—any speech, any species, he claims—without needing to know that being’s symbolism. I suspect what he does is almost instantly to analyze the pattern, identify universals of logic and conation, go on from there to reconstruct the whole mental configuration—as if his nervous system included not only sensitivity to the radiation of others, but an organic semantic computer fantastically beyond anything that Technic civilization has built.
“No matter! Their abilities naturally led Chereionite scientists to concentrate on psychology and neurology. It’s been ossified for millions of years, that science, like their whole civilization: ossified, receding, dying. . . . Perhaps Aycharaych alone is trying to act on reality, trying to stop the extinction of his people. I don’t know. I do know that he serves the Roidhunate as an Intelligence officer with a roving commission. This involves brewing trouble for the Terran Empire wherever he can.
“During the Snelund regime, he looked through Sector Alpha Crucis. It wasn’t hard, when misgovernment had already produced widespread laxity and confusion. The conflict over Jihannath was building toward a crisis, and Merseia needed difficulties on this frontier of Terra’s.
“Aycharaych landed secretly on Aeneas and prowled. He found more than a planet growing rebellious. He found the potential of something that might break the Empire apart. For all the peoples here, in all their different ways, are profoundly religious. Give them a common faith, a missionary cause, and they can turn fanatic.”
“No,” Ivar couldn’t help protesting.
“Aycharaych thinks so. He has spent a great deal of his time and energy on your world, however valuable bis gift would make him elsewhere.”
“But—one planet, a few millions, against the—”
“The cult would spread. He speaks of militant new religions in your past—Islam, is that the name of one?—religions which brought obscure tribes to world power, and shook older dominions to their roots, in a single generation.
“I must hurry. He found the likeliest place for the first spark was here, where the Ancients brood at the center of every awareness. In Jaan the dreamer, whose life and circumstances chanced to be a veritable human archetype, he found the likeliest tinder.
“He cannot by himself project a thought into a brain which is not born to receive it. But he has a machine which can. That is nothing fantastic; human, Ythrian, or Merseian engineers could develop the same device, had they enough incentive. We don’t, because for us the utility would be marginal; electronic communications suit our kind of life better.
“Aycharaych, though— Telepathy of several kinds belongs to evolution on his planet. Do you remember the slinkers that the tinerans keep? I inquired, and he admitted they came originally from Chereion. No doubt their effect on men suggested his plan to him.
“He called Jaan down to where he laired in these labyrinths. He drugged him and . . . thought at him … in some way he knows, using that machine—until he had imprinted a set of false memories and an idiom to go with them. Then he released his victim.”
“Artificial schizophrenia. Split personality. A man who was sane, made to hear ‘voices.’ ” Ivar shuddered.
Erannath was harder-souled; or had he simply lived with the fact longer, in his prison? He went on: “Aycharaych departed, having other mischief to wreak. What he had done on Aeneas might or might not bear fruit; if not, he had lost nothing except his time.