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have a valid reason for using communion.”
    “Talloth is convinced of his need. Else we would not use our special roads to carry your pedestrian thoughts.”
    “Then let’s make the contact and find out what Talloth is so convinced about.”
    “Breathe,” said Coul.
    The actual period of communion was an experienceWildheit hated. Of all the paranormal things associated with the symbiotic deities, he regarded this one as a true invasion of his body. He had learned to come to terms with the ache in his shoulder, but to hear himself speak with another man’s voice was something to which he never became accustomed.
    “Jym!” The voice that came from his own mouth was recognizably Hover’s, but the pitch and timbre were altered by the differences in his own vocal cords.
    “What’s on your mind, Cass?”
    “I’m using communion because I don’t know who might be monitoring the FTL bands. Subject: our dark friend Saraya.”
    “What of him?”
    “Some little pieces that don’t fit. When you asked at the meeting who built the weapon, he merely countered with another question.”
    “I remember. He asked me how many alien races might be in the universe.”
    “Then consider this. As you know, I saw the Chaos Weapon operating on Edel. But the target character which triggered the disaster wasn’t one of our rarer intellects. He came from far outspace in an unidentifiable spacecraft. The planet he gave as his place of origin doesn’t even exist. Somehow he seemed to know the disaster was coming, and he even managed to delay it until the snow-cat was out of range of the effect. Saraya called him one of a kind and said that wherever he went, was where
they
pointed the Chaos Weapon.”
    “Where you leading, Cass?”
    “Simply that I’m damn sure Saraya knows a lot more about all this than he’s admitting. The men who came in the snow-cat managed to get someone else out of Edel. I think this was the individual who jumped me and then ran the cat over my legs. He gave me a message for Saraya by name. Said to tell him Kasdeya sent it.”
    “The devil he did! What was Saraya’s reaction?”
    “He denied either recognizing the name or that themessage meant anything to him. Then, get this, he implied I’d probably imagined the whole thing. He probably doesn’t know that every space-marshal makes a permanent recording of every second of his day. I checked out the suit recorder later, and the message was there loud and clear.”
    “What was the message?”
    “Quote:
Don’t try to join the game until you can give it a name and understand the rules.”
    “What do you make of that?”
    “Nothing so far. But I have personal doubts that we are looking for an alien device as such. I suspect Saraya’s playing some sort of double game, and since you’re at the operating end of the mission, I thought you ought to know.”
    “Thanks a lot, Cass. I’ll keep what you say in mind. By the way, how are your legs?”
    “Coming along well. I went to see them yesterday. In the culture medium they’re now about eighteen years in equivalent age. I remember when my own were like that. Clean, firm—beautiful. It’s a pity they have to age them to match the ones I lost.”
    “I wonder if they could furnish me with a new set of brains,” said Wildheit ruefully. “This set is getting all clogged up with questions that don’t have any answers.”
    The communion finished, Wildheit returned to his navigation. Because of the turbulent flow and eddies formed where the gravitational field of the Milky Way was lapped by the great tides of deep-space, there was no dead reckoning he could use to chart the absolute position of Mayo. So there was an element of luck in the final jump which terminated to leave him no more than a one week sub-light trip to the planet of the Sensitives.
    Finally emerging from the darkness of a desert strip where he had landed, Wildheit came to the edge of the capital city. A broad river stood between him and his