"What else can we do? Should we wait for them to attack, we should never break their power. They swoop on us in few numbers at many points. If we are too strong at one point, they flee. But one or two of their bands always makes a killing." Flane patted the violet-gun in his hands. "With this we can make a killing ourselves!" Over a _zeethis_-wood table, Harth planned his strategy. They would go over Moornal, displaying banners to tell the people below that they were visiting Darkside to raise an army. High in the air, the last of the magniships could survey an endless countryside. At the signs of the gathered Darksider host, the ship could swing into position, and Flane could sweep their ranks with his weapon. Then the army would attack. Flane protested, as a thought came to him, "But must we kill these Darksiders, if they are as ourselves? Perhaps we could reason with them, teach them our culture, make them as we are." Harth was horrified, and said so. But Flane felt a sneaking liking for the nomads; he himself had been one for uncounted months, on the desert. Besides, he was not a Klarnvan, and neither were the Darksiders. Without a race, Flane thought momentarily of adopting the outsiders as his own. "We could teach them our knowledge," Flane continued stubbornly. "Their lances and arrows would make good trading material for them. We need good arrows and spears for hunting. Our ceramics and cities would be good bartering stuff. If we could instill in them a love for beauty, art to decorate their homes--" "Tents!" sniffed Harth. "Those rumored cities of theirs," said Flane, "will need ornament. Besides, were we to unite Klarnva and Darksiders, we might build a race that would develop its own science, so that the Machine would not be such a necessity." Aevlyn let her red-brown eyes survey him tenderly. Her ripe mouth curved into a smile. She said to Flane, "You want to be the giant of the prophecy, who comes to unite all on Klarn beneath one banner!" "I am no giant who carries stars in his hands," said Flane soberly, "but I try to think of the Darksiders. This was their planet. The Klarnva took it from them, ages ago. The Darksiders have rights." Harth growled, "The Darksiders are barbarians. They raid our flocks. Now they are gathering to destroy all Moornal. Is that just?" "No," sighed Flane. "We will have to fight them, of course. Still--" He sighed again, and Aevlyn put her warm hand in his and squeezed it. Her laughter cheered him, and he grinned at her. * * * * * Moornal lay on a great wide plain where tall grasses swayed in the breeze. Far beyond it, a low-lying range of mountains girdled the plains like a belt. This was the first trip Flane had ever made in the air; every magniship in Klarn was long since rusted into uselessness, for lack of the power to repair the ravages of time. It was an eerie sensation, looking down on rooftops and streets, and domed temples.