He was getting all worked up about something, and several people in the
crowd were shouting back at him; I stopped to watch. All of a sudden six
or seven men moved in from somewhere and dragged him down from where he
was standing. There was a fight--people were thrown all around. I hid
till it was over.
"When the crowd finally cleared, there was Rene. His clothes were torn,
but he wasn't hurt. Every one of the men who had attacked him had to be
carried away; I think one of them was dead. Rene stood there laughing;
then he saw me hidden in the darkness and he took me home. He told me
that when he'd been younger he'd worked his way all the way in to Earth,
and studied some of the cultures there. He'd learned karate, which was
an ancient Japanese way of fighting."
Rynason took a deep breath. "He said everything a person learns will be
useful someday. And I believed him."
"A nice parable," Mara said. "We could use him against the Hirlaji,
though."
Rynason was silent, thinking. If they could only catch the aliens off
guard .
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