"No. No hoax. And we knew you'd try to trick us when we let you go. At least, Wrynn said you would. He's telepathic too, though he can only receive impressions. He can't transmit telepathically to others the way his son can." "If you knew what I'd do, why did you release me?" Harris asked. Beth said, "Call it a test. I hoped you might change your beliefs if we let you go. You didn't." "No. I came here to kill you." "We knew that the moment you stepped through the door. But the seed of rebellion was in you. We hoped you might be swayed. You failed us." Harris bowed his head. The signal in his body rasped again, but he ignored it. _Let Carver sweat out there. This thing is bigger than anything Carver ever dreamed of._ "Tell me," he said. "Don't you know what will happen to Medlin--and Darruu as well--once there are enough of these beings?" "Nothing will happen. Do you think they're petty power-seekers, intent on establishing a galactic dominion?" The girl laughed derisively. "That sort of thinking belongs to the obsolete non-telepathic species. Us. The lower animals. These new people have different goals." "But they wouldn't have come into existence if you Medlins hadn't aided them!" Harris protested. "Obsolete? Of course. And you've done it!" Beth smiled oddly. "At least we were capable of seeing the new race without envy. We helped them as much as we could because we knew they would prevail anyway, given time. Perhaps it would be another century, or another millennium. But our day is done, and so is the day of Darruu, and the day of the non-telepathic Earthmen." "And our day too," Wrynn said mildly. "We are the intermediates--the links between the old species and the new one that is emerging." Harris stared at his hands--the hands of an Earthman, with Darruui flesh within. He thought: _All our striving is for nothing._ A new race, a glorious race, nurtured by the Medlins, brought into being on Earth. The galaxy waited for them. They were demigods. He had regarded the Earthers as primitives, creatures with a mere few thousand years of history behind them, mere pale humanoids of no importance. But he was wrong. Long after Darruu had become a hollow world, these Earthers would roam the galaxies. Looking up, he said, "I guess we made a mistake, we of Darruu. I was sent here to help sway the Earthers to the side of Darruu. But it's the other way around; it's Darruu that will have to swear loyalty to Earth, some day." "Not soon," Wrynn said. "The true race is not yet out of childhood. Twenty years more must pass. And we have enemies on Earth." "The old Earthmen," Coburn said. "How do you think they'll like being replaced? _They're_ the real enemy. And that's why we're here. To help the mutants until they can stand fully alone. You Darruui are just nuisances getting in our way." That would have been cause for anger, once. Harris merely shrugged. His whole mission had been without purpose.