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Je

"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 ever 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. Je

"That's?" Je

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, Je

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 colo

"Why didn't this thing get bombed along with the rest of the planet?" Je

"Something else we do not know," Dargnil Dargnil Lin said. "For your knowledge base, though, you should also observe some of the first of our people to come close enough to the artifact to feel its effect." He spoke into the microphone again.

After a few seconds of viewing, Je

"This happened to all your people who got too close?" Je

"All. The precise radius at which the Great Unknown began to grip them varied with the individual, but within it no one was safe."

"Hmm." Je

"We do not know," Dargnil Dargnil Lin said. "We do not want to find out. To an alien such as yourself, all who still inhabit the Great Ones' sphere may rightly be known as Foitani. Well and good. But those who spring from other worlds are untrustworthy at best and outright abomination at the worst. Only we of Odern are the true descendants of the original race."

"Oh, my aching head," Je

"Your head still distresses you? Perhaps it is an aftereffect of the ray Thegun Thegun Nug used to stun you. I hope you have an analgesic available."

"Never mind," Je

"That of the Great Ones, so far as we understand it. It is the only speech we have in common, after all. Some worlds, among which Odern takes the lead, also use this tongue in everyday life in place of our former degenerate jargons. Others barbarously insist on maintaining the primitive languages they employed before coming into contact with more civilized Foitani."

"All right; thanks. I think I've seen enough for today, if that's all right with you." What with the spectacle of completely deranged Foitani and the realization that the Foitani of Odern were just one small part of a much bigger puzzle, Je

Bernard Greenberg clapped a rueful hand to his forehead when she told him what she'd learned. He said, "I should have thought of that. It's too easy to forget how long they spent isolated on their own planets."

"With luck, it won't matter," Je

"I suppose so," Greenberg said. "But if they learned of the place from records they dug up, there's always the chance some other bunch will, too."

Je

The more she researched the Great Unknown, the more she concluded that was a good name for it. Fusion bombs had all but sterilized Gilver. They'd fallen all around the mysterious artifact, but not a single one had landed inside what she'd taken to calling the radius of insanity. The planet's ecosystem was still struggling to repair itself; parts of that continent had become almost lush with greenery. Within the radius of insanity, nothing grew. Mere life, apparently, was not allowed to disturb the Great Unknown.

"I can imagine achieving that effect for a limited time, with periodic maintenance," Dargnil Dargnil Lin said when Je

Je

"More power to you, if you can do that on Gilver," Greenberg answered. "If you think Odern is boring, you haven't seen anything yet."

"I haven't seen anything of Odern, except the spaceport and the library. Neither one of them is likely to drive Earth or Redford's Star off the tourist itineraries."