3 x T

Radius of insanity was Je

Aissur Aissur Rus needed a moment to return to himself. Then he said, "Speak."

"Just?a feeling I had. Were you ever on the fringes of the radius of doom?"

His big, rather ursine head swung quickly toward her. "It is so. How could you have deduced it?"

"You used the comparison you made as if you understood exactly what it entailed."

Getting a Foitan from Odern to show alarm was not easy. Je

He paced up and down the chamber, working hard to bring himself back under control. At last he turned back toward Je

He stopped. His fur stood on end again. He waited until it had subsided before he went on, "I found myself filled with insight such as I'd never had before. I knew?I could feel that I knew?exactly how to comprehend the Great Unknown. I started to go toward it, to implement my knowledge. I went by the most direct route. I threw a desk and table out of the way, tried to batter down a wall at a place where no door existed in it, kicked and clawed the technician when he had the ill luck to stand in my way. It took four of his fellows at the installation to cart me back to a safe distance, and I fought them at every step until my mind was free of the Great Unknown's thrall."

The account of his episode of insanity was all the more chilling because it came out in the translator's flat tones. Je

She asked, "When you were safe again, did you recall the insight you'd had within your radius of doom?"

"No, and that may be the worst of it. I still feel that if I returned there, I would know again; I gather others of my kind have had a similar reaction. But none ever succeeded in communicating this knowledge, and I doubt I would prove the lone exception." He whispered something in his own language. The translator made it come out as emotionlessly as everything else, but Je

They went to see Pawasar Pawasar Ras, who fixed Aissur Aissur Rus with a black ball-bearing stare. "You have been advocating this course for some time."

"Yes, honored kin-group leader, I have," Aissur Aissur Rus said.

Pawasar Pawasar Ras turned to Je

"Because if you really do want answers about the Great Unknown and nothing you've tried has worked, then you'd better try something else. If you're not serious about this project, then you can go on doing the same old things for the next twenty-eight thousand years." She threw in the number with malice aforethought. Beside her, Aissur Aissur Rus's ears twitched, but he kept quiet. She finished, "Honored kin-group leader, you were serious enough about what your people are doing here on Gilver to come here yourself. The Foitani from Rof Golan seem serious about this place, too. So why won't you do what plainly needs doing?"

Pawasar Pawasar Ras bared his teeth at her. She stood firm, as she had with Dargnil Dargnil Lin in the library. Finally Pawasar Pawasar Ras said, "Had the Great Ones encountered your species, human Je

"I'll take that for a compliment," Je

"Honored kin-group leader, what the human means is that?" Aissur Aissur Rus began.

"Don't soften what I said," Je

"As we have noted, you do not think kindly of our species," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said. "Tell me this, then: Why do you care whether our project succeeds or fails? Indeed, I would expect you to hope we fail, so that you might gain a measure of revenge thereby."

Je

"At last, human Je

"You sound as if you expect the tower'll start spitting out warriors from the age of the Great Ones, or something like that," Je

"As you did, I will give two reasons for my concern, human Je

Je

She shook her head. If she didn't take the chance, she didn't think she'd ever see Saugus again. She was willing to take a lot of chances to get back to human space. No matter how big the tower in the middle of the Great Unknown was, she didn't think it could hold enough old-time Foitani to overrun the entire human section of the galaxy. After what Pawasar Pawasar Ras had said, she wasn't as sure of that, but she didn't think so.

"Let's go on with it," she said.

"We will need to consult with some of our soldiers," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said. "They will best be able to gauge the type and strength of explosive likely to penetrate the tower while doing the minimum amount of damage."

"Possibly Enfram Enfram Marf. He is a specialist in ordnance," Aissur Aissur Rus suggested.