3 x T

"That won't help us understand them." Je

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." Je

"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," Je

"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 gri

Je

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. "Je

"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; Je

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 Je

"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," Je

"Your time for research is limited." The translator was expressionless as always, but Je

"Good." The video had more text to it than a comparable human one would have used, and Je

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?" Je

"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."

Je

The same seemed true of the Foitani. The screen Je

"I'd suspected that, yes," Je

"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?" Je