Because they're intelligent--any uneducated man is afraid of
intelligence, and when it's an alien...." He shook his head. "Manning
isn't helping the situation."
"What do you mean by that?" Mara asked.
Malhomme's frown deepened, creasing the dark lines of his forehead into
furrows. "He's using the Hirlaji as bogey-men. Says he's the only man on
the planet who knows how to deal with them safely. Oh, you should hear
him when he moves among his people.... I envy his ability to control
them with words. A little backslapping, a joke or two--most of them I
was telling last year--and he talks to them man to man, very friendly."
He shook his head again. "Manning is so friendly with this scum that his
attitude is nothing short of patronizing."
Rynason smiled wearily at Malhomme; for all the man's wildness, he
couldn't help liking him. It had been like this every time he had run
into him, on a dozen of the Edge-worlds. Malhomme, dirty and cynical,
moved among the dregs of the stars preaching religion and fighting the
corporations, the opportunists, the phony rebels who wanted nothing for
anyone but themselves.
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