"They said that themselves," Jennifer said. "They didn't explain it, though—they haven't explained much of anything. So what exactly are you talking about?"
"They've found an artifact they cannot try to use and stay sane. If they're within ten or twelve kilometers of it, they can't help trying to use it, either, whatever the hell it is. I've seen dozens of the poor bastards who tried. They aren't pretty. The ones on the fringes of the effect around the thing can fight the compulsion, but if they get too close, they're doomed. Finally they lost enough people to make them fortify the whole area. But they were still curious, so they hired a non-Foitan—me—to see what he could find out."
"And you went crazy, too," Jennifer said, "or you never would have given them my name."
Pawasar Pawasar Ras's eyes swung sharply toward Greenberg when Thegun Thegun Nug's translator turned that into the local language. "Does the other human speak accurately, human Bernard? Has the Great Unknown"—even with the translator, Jennifer could hear the capital letters—"affected your psychological integrity?"
"I do not think so, honored kin-group leader Pawasar Pawasar Ras," Greenberg answered. Jennifer had finally managed to get his goat; he gave her a dirty look as he went on, "You may have noticed that humans use irony more than Foitani do."
"This practice of saying one thing while meaning another is rank, manifest foolishness," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said.
"As may be," Greenberg answered mildly; he sounded used to soothing Pawasar Pawasar Ras every so often. He turned back to Jennifer: "I couldn't find anything about this artifact that would make anybody go insane, human or Foitan. If it's not a physical effect, what's left? Best bet, I figured, was something cultural. I've been a trader a long time; I know something about that sort of thing. But you know more. Not only do you have your trader background, you've got a working knowledge of all the hypothetical cases your old-time writers invented. And the more I dealt with this thing, the more hypothetical everything about it looked, if you know what I mean. So I mentioned your name to the Foitani."
The worst part was, it made sense. Jennifer tried to stay angry, but failed. She let out a long sigh. "And they took the ball and shot it toward the far goal," she said. "That does seem to be the way they do things."
"It certainly does." Greenberg cocked his head at her. "Shot the ball toward the far goal? I didn't know you followed battleball."
"An acquired taste. It's wearing off, believe me. Now that I'm here, there isn't any good way back without going along, is there?" She turned to Pawasar Pawasar Ras. "All right, where next?"
"To the world Gilver," he answered with almost robotic literality. "This is the world upon which the Great Unknown is situated."
"Any chance for research first?" she asked: she was an academic before anything else. "You've been studying your ancestors ever since the, ah, Suicide Wars. Did they leave behind any records that might help you understand this thing?"
"That is an intelligent question." Pawasar Pawasar Ras's ears twitched, so he was genuinely pleased. "We have not found any data related to the world Gilver that pertain to it. Dargnil Dargnil Lin here can assist you in examining our data bases, if you think that would be valuable. He is expert in the ancient archives."
"I would like to see them, yes," Jennifer said. She wondered if Dargnil Dargnil Lin was an exception, or if steady, solid, serious types among the Foitani gravitated toward jobs like archivist as they did with humans.
"See to it, Dargnil Dargnil Lin," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said.
"It shall be done, honored kin-group leader," Dargnil Dargnil Lin replied.
Striking while the iron was hot and the big boss in a cooperative frame of mind, Jennifer said, "I saw Bernard Greenberg's ship here at this spaceport, honored kin-group leader." If she was going to butter up Pawasar Pawasar Ras, might as well get him good and greasy. "May I stay aboard it? A human ship truly would be a more proper base for me." And thanks to you, I'll never, ever keep a dog.
"If the human Bernard does not object, you may do this," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said.
"I don't object," Greenberg said at once.
"Then you may make those arrangements, human," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said to Jennifer—he still didn't have her name. Though Foitani eyes were next to impossible to read, she felt his gaze intensify as he went on, "Do not think this will permit you two humans to plan a joint escape. Aside from the dangers inherent for non-Foitani flying through space once in the Great Ones' sphere, we have our own tracker and explosive device secured in the—the—what is the name of your ship, human Bernard?"
"The Harold Meeker, honored kin-group leader," Greenberg said.
"Yes, the Harold Meeker. Very well, then, human, ah—"
"Jennifer." Took him long enough to ask, Jennifer thought.
"Yes, Jennifer. You may proceed, then, human Jennifer, with your researches for a period not to exceed, ah, twenty Odern days, Dargnil Dargnil Lin to assist you as necessary. Then you and human Bernard shall travel to Gilver to continue in the attempt to analyze the Great Unknown. Thegun Thegun Nug, Aissur Aissur Rus, Dargnil Dargnil Lin, and I shall accompany you there."
Jennifer had expected the other three Foitani to go offworld with her if she left Odern. They were plainly her keepers. But Pawasar Pawasar Ras surprised her by including himself. From what she knew of big-wheel executives, they didn't often inflict themselves on actual research sites. "Why you?" she asked him.
"The Great Unknown is my project," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said, as if that explained everything. To him, it seemed to. To Jennifer, it showed the Foitani definitely were not human—not that she hadn't noticed that already.
* * *
Jennifer finished a salami sandwich. The meat was greasy, the bread bland. The mustard was tangier than she cared for. She washed down the sandwich with a glass of vin extremely ordinaire. After Foitani rations, it all tasted wonderful. "Thank you, Bernard," she said. "I just may live. I may even decide I want to."
"Sorry there isn't more and better," Greenberg answered. "I've been in Foitani space long enough that I'm starting to run low myself."
"And I'll make you run out all the faster. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You always did apologize too much; do you know that? If I hadn't opened my big mouth, you'd still be happily back on Saugus. Sharing real food with you is the least I can do to pay you back. We won't starve on what the Foitani eat—"
"However much we wish we would," Jennifer finished for him.
He studied her, one eyebrow raised. After Ali Bakhtiar's virtuoso displays of superciliosity, this was amateur night. The master trader said, "You've changed a bit since we flew together a few years ago. Then you wouldn't have interrupted or made sour jokes."
She shrugged. "I've finished growing up. I find I can manage all right for myself. Now to business, if you don't mind, because I don't want to spend one more second here than I have to. First off, is your ship bugged?"
"I assume so. Pity we don't know some arcane foreign languages we could use to talk privately," Greenberg said. Jennifer gave a rueful nod. Nobody bothered to learn to speak foreign languages these days, not with oral translator programs so widely available. She supposed she could make a stab at speaking Middle English, but the Foitani were more likely to understand her than Greenberg was.
"What is this Great Unknown thing, anyway?" she asked.
"If I knew, I would tell you," he answered. "If I knew, we could go home, come to that. But I don't know. I just hope we'll be able to find out. I keep worrying about what the Foitani may do if we can't—and we may not be able to. Nobody who isn't a Foitan has any real notion of what their ancestors were capable of, back before the Suicide Wars. I told you, though, it's pretty clear they were technologically ahead of where we are now."
"That won't help us understand them." Jennifer slowly shook her head. "They may have been ahead of us technically, but socially! Think of spending however many thousands of years they took to build up their empire, and then to blow it to
bits, and themselves with it." She shook her head again, this time in horror. The Foitani seemed to have lived out every human's darkest nightmares.
Greenberg said, "To this day, they don't know why they started to fight. But once they got going, they did a good, thorough job, which is typical of the species. Pawasar Pawasar Ras says they undoubtedly intended to kill themselves off altogether; in a crazy sort of way, he thinks less of them for failing."
"The worst part of it is, now that I've been around Foitani a while, I can almost see the logic in that." Jennifer started to say something more, but found herself yawning instead.
"You may have more privacy aboard one of their ships, or in the spaceport," Greenberg said. "You'd certainly have more room. This isn't a big ship at all."
"If you want me to leave, I will. Otherwise I'd sooner stay here," Jennifer said. "I don't need a whole lot of privacy from you, do I? After all, we've flown together before."
"I'll set you up with a foam pad in the storeroom." Greenberg spread his hands. "I'm sorry, but that's the best I can do if you want any room to yourself."
"Drag the pad in here tonight, would you? After getting lifted the way I did, just being close to somebody human will feel good. I don't think you're going to molest me."
Greenberg grinned lopsidedly. "Tempting as the notion is—no." He rummaged in a compartment, pulled out the promised foam pad. Except for being smaller, it was identical to the one on which she had awakened inside the Foitani ship. Greenberg rummaged some more, let out a grunt of triumph. "I thought I had a spare pillow in here. And here's a blanket, too."
Jennifer took them. "Thanks. But do you know what the biggest pleasure being aboard your ship will be for me?" Without waiting for Greenberg to reply, she went on, "Having a toilet that fits my behind."
He laughed at that. "Yes, I've seen what the Foitani use. They'd be especially bad for you, wouldn't they?" He waved toward the refresher cubicle. "Help yourself."
"I don't mind if I do." She hesitated, then asked, "You wouldn't by any chance have tampons or anything like that?"
"I don't know if there are any in the sanitary supplies or not. I never needed to find out until now."
"Well, if you don't, I suppose I can improvise something or other. I did it once; I can do it again."
When she got out, Greenberg went in. She stripped down to her underpants, gave her grimy outfit an unhappy look, and then brightened—the Harold Meeker would be able to get clothes clean, not just stir the dirt around as she had been doing. She slid under the blanket.
Greenberg surprised her by stooping next to the foam pad and reaching out to touch her shoulder. She stiffened. Was he going to make advances now? She'd made love with him a few times on their first trip together, on the way home from L'Rau. But this was not the right time, not for her. She tried to figure out how to tell him that without hurting him or making him angry.
But all he wanted was to apologize again. "Jennifer, I'm so sorry. You should be back on your campus, doing what you wanted to do."
"It can't be helped," she said. Her dreams of elaborate revenge had collapsed when she found out how the Foitani learned of her, and from whom. While they lasted, though, they'd helped sustain her. With nothing in their place, she felt very tired. "Just let me sleep."
"Fair enough." Greenberg rose; Jennifer's eyes closed even as he did so. She heard cloth whisper when he pulled off his coveralls, then the muffled sound his body made pressing against the sofa bed. He must have touched the light switch, for the darkness behind her eyelids got blacker. "Good night," he said.
She thought she answered him, but she was never sure afterward.
* * *
Dargnil Dargnil Lin stood in front of a workstation. It had all the elements of the ones with which Jennifer was familiar—holoscreen, mike, keyboard, and printer—yet was in aggregate nothing like them. The Foitani had their own engineering traditions, which owed nothing to those of mankind.
"I suppose you will want to begin with our records pertaining to the Great Unknown," Dargnil Dargnil Lin said.
"I'd rather have more background first, if I could," Jennifer answered. "Can you show me something basic and general about your race as it was before the Suicide Wars?"
"Your time for research is limited." The translator was expressionless as always, but Jennifer thought she heard a sniff in the Foitan's voice. She looked up at him without saying anything. He bared his teeth at her. She kept waiting. At last he said, "Let it be as you wish, then." He spoke to the workstation. The screen lit. Dargnil Dargnil Lin said, "This is a history such as our adolescents use."
"Good." The video had more text to it than a comparable human one would have used, and Jennifer could not read the Foitani written language. But there were still plenty of pictures, and Dargnil Dargnil Lin's translator turned the soundtrack into Spanglish for her. She watched and listened and spoke low-voiced notes into her computer.
On a historical star atlas, she watched the empire of the Great Ones spread. The sound track attributed their unbroken run of success to their inherent superiority over all the races they encountered. She wondered whether the species was biologically programmed to think that way, the Foitani of Odern were imitating their ancestors, or if they were projecting their own attitudes back onto the Great Ones.
A few minutes of watching made her toss out that last possibility. The Foitani of long ago had definitely been in the habit of killing off races that proved obstreperous. They did not bother to hide or even to go out of the way to justify genocide; they simply went about it, with second thoughts as few and far between as if they were swatting flies.
"Can you stop the tape for a moment?" Jennifer said. Dargnil Dargnil Lin could. Jennifer asked him, "Would your people act that way again if you were strong enough?"
"Probably," he said. "We have not reached the heights the Great Ones achieved, however, and races such as your own appear more potent than any they faced. Thus we have had to begin to learn to treat with other species rather than simply rolling over them. It is not easy for us."
Jennifer bit back the sardonic retort that automatically came to mind. The Foitani could not help being what they were. Expecting aliens to act like humans was the easiest way for a trader to get into trouble. Moreover, mankind could not boast a spotless record among the stars, though humans had perpetrated their worst acts of savagery on themselves.
The same seemed true of the Foitani. The screen Jennifer was watching suddenly turned a dazzling white. She staggered back, hands to her eyes, as if caught by the blast of a real explosion. When she looked again, a phrase in the Foitani written language filled the screen. "The Suicide Wars," Dargnil Dargnil Lin read for her.
"I'd suspected that, yes," Jennifer murmured. Far more rapidly than it had grown, the Foitani empire crumbled. Most of the stars that had filled the holovid map went dark. A handful, scattered at random across two or three thousand light-years, kept glowing red. An even smaller handful burned with a yellow light.
"Those yellow dots are the worlds of our species that have relearned starflight," Dargnil Dargnil Lin said. "On the red, Foitani also survive, but in a state of savagery."
"But why did it happen?" Jennifer asked. "What made you fight like that?" The tape hadn't offered a clue; its narration merely recorded the event without analyzing what had brought it on.
"I cannot answer for certain, nor could anyone else on Odern," Dargnil Dargnil Lin said. "There are speculations, but who can truly hope to see into the minds of the Great Ones? Only when we can match their deeds will we be worthy to comprehend their thoughts."
Jennifer's mouth twisted in discontent. The Foitani were too busy venerating their past to try seriously to understand it. "May I speak without causing offense through ignorance of your customs?" she asked, one of the standard questions every trader learned.
"Speak," Dargnil Dargnil Lin said.
"If the Great Ones were as magnificent in every way as you make them out to be, why did they ev
er go and fight the Suicide Wars in the first place?"
"For reasons of their own, reasons which surely reflected their greatness," Dargnil Dargnil Lin answered. Jennifer filled her lungs to shout at him; that was less than no answer, for it shunted aside thought rather than inspiring it. But the Foitan was not through. "Some among us have speculated that the Great Unknown contains the full and proper response to your question, and that our failure to grasp merely reflects our degeneracy in comparison to our ancestors."
"That's—" Jennifer stopped. How did she know it was nonsense? She was no Foitan—thank God, she added to herself. She tried again. "That's interesting. What evidence do your scholars apply in support of it?" The idea of the Foitani of Odern as decadent descendants of the true race had a nasty appeal to her, not least because it made their behavior in snatching her the product of debased minds.
Dargnil Dargnil Lin said, "I will show you a tape and let you draw your own conclusions."
"Show me several tapes, ones with differing points of view. How can I decide what is true on the basis of a single report?"
"You are a scholar," Dargnil Dargnil Lin said, as if reminding himself. "Very well, let it be as you wish." For the next several hours, Jennifer viewed records of the Foitani discovery of the Great Unknown, and of speculations about it. When she was through for the day, she mentally apologized to the big, blue aliens. She'd thought them too staid to produce much in the way of crackpottery. Now she knew better. Given the proper stimulus, they could be as bizarre as any human ever born.
The Great Unknown was proper enough. She studied orbital views of it, then pictures taken at long range from the ground, and finally close-ups. "Those were obtained by remote-controlled cameras," Dargnil Dargnil Lin said of the last batch. "We have a great store of data, as you see. They do not lead us toward understanding, however."
The old Foitani seemed to have gone in for monumental architecture in a big way. Massive colonnades led toward an enormous column that leaped most of a kilometer into Gilver's sky. No weeds, no undergrowth marred the Great Unknown or its precinct, even after twenty-eight thousand years. Nor had Gilver's tectonic forces damaged either tower or colonnades. They might have been raised yesterday rather than in the late Pleistocene.
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