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punched almost exactly into the center of the bright blue bullseye. The
target, concentric rings of color on a soft plastic disk, hung from the stump
of a branch on a tree at the edge of a clearing. The clearing was no more than
about a hundred meters from Adam's cabin.
"I have no doubt about one point," said Ray, as he drew a second arrow from
the new, fancifully decorated quiver on his back. "What you heard from the
medicine man was genuinely intended as a message for me. I take the message
seriously. And I'd prefer that you tell no one else about it."
The two men were completely alone in the woods at the moment, there being
probably no other human beings within a kilometer in any direction. Merit was
at the hospital, where she was spending most of her time these days. The
medical reports were good, and Vito was due soon to be released.
"I won't tell anyone else about it if you say so," Adam said. "But why not?"
"Humor me."
"All right. But the Space Force is going to hear about your message anyway,
through the Tenoka."
"I suppose they will. But let's not confirm it." Ray nocked his second arrow
on the bowstring and took quick aim. A moment later another shaft sank into
the bullseye, close beside .the first. At archery, as at everything else, he
was superb.
"And the communication was from Alexander Golden," Adam said, meditatively.
"Pierced Arms said that name very plainly. And I don't understand it at all."
"I don't believe the message really came from Alexander Golden, but through
him," Ray answered calmly. "Or through what's left of him, more likely."
Adam paused in the act of reaching for one of his own arrows. "What?"
Ray was looking at him soberly. "Even before I left Sol System I was vaguely,
distantly aware of very strong parapsych activity, here on this planet and
around it. Yes, I know, the enormous distance. But the mind, the Jovian mind
at least, is not entirely constrained to obey the laws of physics. and since I
arrived on Golden I've been able to confirm the parapsych activity. There's
more of it here than there is on Earth, or anywhere else I've been. It may be
that there's something natural about the planet, that induces or promotes it.
You never had a precognitive experience before you came here, did you?"
"No. but what is all this activity that you detect here? What's the source?"
"Some of it emanates from these native people. The Tenoka here and around the
Stem area, and others of their species around the planet. But the preponderate
amount of parapsych action on Golden comes from the beings you have called the
Field-builders." Ray studied Adam's reaction, and added: "Oh yes, they're
still around. Very much so."
It was Adam's turn to shoot, but he still stood with his bow forgotten in his
hand, staring at Ray. "If that's so. then you're the first person from Earth
to ever make contact with them."
Ray smiled faintly. "Except for the unfortunate Alex Golden, of course. but
they don't want such contact, Adam. They prefer to hide from us, from both
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Jovian and Earth-descended humanity, and study us at their leisure. And more
and more." Ray came to a halt, gazing at Adam in an abstracted and unhappy
way.
Adam had a premonition of fear. "What?"
"Just that they hate us, Adam." Ray's voice had fallen almost to a whisper. "I
can see the sickness in them. I become gradually more and more aware of what
they are capable of doing. I admit it's a touch frightening. more than a
touch,I must confess. They try to bury the sickness and hatred deep in their
minds but there it is. I don't think Merit is able to make contact with them
at all, which is perhaps just as well."
"Frightening, yes," Adam muttered. He remembered Merit's scream in the
medicine man's lodge. "And the Field-builders are still right here, on this
planet? You're really sure of that? I mean if you can contact them at the
distance of Earth."
Ray nodded. "They're here, all right."
"But where?"
"That question was not so easy to answer." Ray had another arrow drawn now, as
if automatically getting ready to shoot again, but once drawn the shaft rested
in his hand ignored. "By the end of my first day on Golden I had determined
that they were somewhere in the other hemisphere. And I was also sure that
Alexander Golden does not exist any longer. Not as a human being, anyway."
"What?"
"No, he's not human any longer. I can sense what they're like, Adam, the
Field-builders, I can tell it by the things they do. To people here and
elsewhere. And by what they'd like to do to us. But they're a little cautious.
We're quite strong."
"Ray. Gods of all space, Ray."
"I know, I know. Most likely all that's left of Golden by now is a sort of
telepathic frequency converter, a bridge over which messages can be forced
from their minds to those of ordinary Earth-descended humans, or to the
Tenoka."
Adam was listening in horror.
It was as if Ray were reluctant to speak, to reveal the horrifying things, but
was able to see no other choice. "I've seen. sensed. the Field-builders'
dungeons, Adam. The torture chambers, where Alexander Golden still exists-I
can't really say that he still lives-along with other prisoners. By now I've
determined more precisely where they are, over on the other side of the world
from here. Not stone walls with chains hanging from them, no. And not physical
torture, or not that particularly. They-the ones you call the Field-builders-
have solved somehow the old problem. How does a being, determinedly evil, use
parapsych talents to inflict pain? And how can one maim and kill. with the
mind alone."
Ray's voice had grown grim, and now it almost quivered. His expression had
darkened. Adam had never seen or heard him this way before. Now the huge man
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