She sat on the bench and looked closely at him. "Anything else?"
"Yes--Horng. At the end, the second time I went in, I could feel him,
not only fighting me, but ... hating me." He looked up at her. "Can you
imagine actually feeling him, right next to you in your mind like you
were one person, hating you?"
Across from them, the huge figure of the alien slowly stood up and
looked at them for several long seconds, then turned and left the
building.
FOUR
Manning's quarters were larger than most of the prefab structures in the
new Earth town; the building was out near the end of one of the streets,
a single-storied plastic-and-metal box on a quick-concrete slab base.
Well, it was as well constructed as any of the buildings in the Edge
planetfalls, Rynason reflected as he knocked on the door. And there was
room for all of the survey team workers.
Manning himself let him in, grabbing his hand in a firm grip that
nevertheless lacked the man's usual heavy joviality. "Come on in; the
others are already here," Manning said, and walked ahead of him into the
larger of the two rooms inside.
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