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“Are there any more like you?” Lando asked.

“No, Captain, I am the only one. I am all there ever was, of my generation. The burden was to be passed on next year, but here I am.”

“Master, what are you talking about?”

“Quiet, Vuffi Raa. Watch the temperature in that reactor!”

“I assure you, Captain, everything is under control. You’d realize that, if you truly know our secrets.”

“I know your secrets, Mohs, believe me. There never were any pre-Republican colonists here, right?”

“That is correct, Captain.”

“But what are you saying, Master? If—”

“Nor were there really any Toka. Or would that be telling?”

“Master—”

“Quiet! You people are the Sharu. It’s written all over your walls inside the pyramid. You’re humanoid and very, very advanced. I don’t know what scared you into this masquerade—and I’m willing to bet you don’t either!”

“Master, will you please explain—”

“All right, all right. Mohs will correct me over the rough spots. I hardly understand contemporary Trammic, let alone an ancient—and thoroughly synthetic—version. But this is the gist: something pretty scary threatened the Sharu. Something that liked to eat hyperadvanced cultures but that wouldn’t bother with savages.

“So, a vast computer system was created. That’s all the so-called ruins in the system. The Sharu, before the threat, lived in cities not terribly different from our own, and they’re probably concealed beneath the monumental architecture too—along with the intelligence of the Sharu. Hand me that checklist a moment.”

“Very good, Captain, very good.”

“You bet it’s good. The life-orchards weren’t created to increase intelligence or longevity. They were created to suck it away from the population. I’ll bet three-quarters of everybody’s mind on the planet is stored inside that pyramid and other buildings like it. That’s so succeeding generations would be disguised as savages, too. But, when the crystals were separated from the trees by the colonists, the things absorbed small amounts of intelligence and life-force from the ambient environment, then fed them back to whoever wore the crystal—an accidental and unlooked-for effect.”

The old man nodded. “The colonists’ harvesting did no harm. What was of real value was stored in the buildings.”

“The buildings,” Lando continued, “may be the biggest computer system ever created. When this colony was founded, the computer searched our records, came up with a missing pre-Republican colony ship, and decided to use that as a cover story. The Sharu—reduced to mere Tokahood—were poor savage brutes, ‘broken’ by their experience with the mighty Sharu.

“I just couldn’t swallow it. What were the Sharu afraid of? How could they be so mighty, and yet—”

“I still don’t know the answer to that, Captain. It was expunged from the records, out of sheer terror, I think. It worries me”

“It ought to. Ready, Vuffi Raa?”

“I think so, Master. Yes, we’re ready.”

Another tremor rocked the ship.

“Mer’s trying to use the Harp again. Boy, will he be disappointed. It’s a trap, isn’t it, Mohs?”

“I’m afraid so,” the old man admitted gravely. “The legends were spread among my people in order to entice members of another intelligence species into finding and using the Harp. That way, we’d know that it was safe to come out of hiding.”

“Your giant computer system will regurgitate all those smarts it’s been storing for thousands of years, the covers will be stripped off your cities—there’s going to be a good deal of earth-moving around here, isn’t there?”

“All over the system.”

“And when the dust clears, the Sharu will be back in control. Well, considering the governor and the nature of the colony here, it can’t happen too soon for me. We’re leaving. Better jump off, Mohs. I’d say it’s been nice to know you, but I hate being used, by governors, sorcerers, or representatives of semilost civilizations.”

Rokur Gepta swept down upon the governor’s office building. As he’d expected, guards were posted all over the miniature landing field.

He cleared them away with