No human on Erb, this one had said, and yet were there not her own
people, the ones who had built Memphir? And what of the barbarians, who,
ruthless and cruel as they seemed by the standards of Memphir, were
indeed men? Whence had they come then, the men of Memphir and the
ancestors of the barbarian hordes? Her hands touched the scaled skin of
the suit she still wore and then rubbed across her own smooth flesh.
Could one have come from the other, was she of the blood and heritage of
Lur?
"Not so!" Lur's mind, as quick as his flickering tongue, had caught that
panic-born thought. "You are of the blood of this space wanderer. Men
from the riven colonies must have escaped to safety. Look at this man,
is he not like the men of Memphir--as they were in the olden days of the
city's greatness?"
The stranger was tall, taller than the men of Memphir and there was a
certain hardness about him which those city dwellers in ease had never
displayed. But Lur must be right, this was a man of her race. She smiled
in sudden relief and he answered that smile. Lur's soft laughter rang in
both their heads.
"Asti in His Infinite Wisdom can see through Centuries. Memphir has
fallen because of its softness and the evildoing of its people and the
barbarians will now have their way with the lands of the north. But to
me it appears that Asti is not yet done with the pattern He was weaving
there. To each of you He granted a second life.
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