3 x T

"Whew!" Je

"You said it, especially when the people we're supposed to keep from each other's throats are as all-around charming as the Foitani," Greenberg said. "Right now, I would kill for a beer; Foitani kibbles and water aren't my idea of a way to unwind."

Je

"I second that," Greenberg said, approving of the sentiment without recognizing the source. He went on, "The other thing is, I don't know whether we ought to be encouraging the Foitani to make peace with each other or to slug it out. If they do band together and have the technology of the Great Ones to use, they could turn into a real handful for the human worlds to deal with. But I can't say I'm eager to think of myself as the fellow who touched off the second round of the Suicide Wars."

"I know." Je

"How could we look at ourselves in a mirror afterward?" Greenberg walked over next to Je

"From time to time, when I remember, I think I'd like to live through this, no matter how it turns out," Je

"Me, too." Greenberg made the hair-pulling gesture he must have started using when he had more hair to pull. He said, "I'm going up to the living quarters and take a shower. Maybe once I soak my head, all this will make better sense. Somehow I doubt it, though."

Je

Greenberg came out with a towel around his middle. "You want a turn?"

"At what?" With a mischievous smile, she pulled down the towel. When Greenberg reached for her, she skipped back. "There, you'll see, the communicator will buzz just as we get started." Her words didn't stop her from undoing the straps of her coveralls.

Just as they got started, the communicator buzzed. Je

Voice replaced the insistent chiming. "Humans Bernard and Je

"Go ahead," Je

"Although analysis can at this stage be only preliminary, the data appear to possess validity."

"Do they?" Je

He said, "As I stated, they appear to." He wasn't going to concede anything he didn't have to, integrity or no. Je

"If they were kwopillot, how did you get to be vodranet?" Greenberg asked. "Did a mutation spread through the species?"

"In a ma

Having dealt with Foitani for some time, Je

More silence from the communicator. Greenberg drew his own conclusions from that and made silent clapping motions. Finally, Aissur Aissur Rus said, "If the records of the kwopillot are to be trusted, it was, yes." The translator was emotionless and Foitani from Odern didn't sound upset even when they were, but Je

"What's wrong with that?" Greenberg said, in spite of Je

Aissur Aissur Rus said, "I can conceive of no greater humiliation. How would you like it if your entire species had been deliberately redesigned, merely to allow a greater number of sexual opportunities to its members?"

Put that way, Je

"No wonder it is so easy to produce kwopillot," Aissur Aissur Rus went on. "They are, after all, merely a reversion to our former evolutionary pattern. If the Great Ones are to be believed, the origins of vodranet?our origins?sprang from the desire of some Foitani at the time to experience both male and female sexual pleasure, which are for us quite different in sensation. Others resisted the introduction of such a radical change into the germ plasm of the race, and the result?the result appears to have been the Suicide Wars."

Je

"Pawasar Pawasar Ras has gone into his quarters. He has spoken to no one. He has forbidden me to discuss this with any person. I have chosen to interpret that to include only Foitani. Our sexual difficulties and conflicts must be of merely academic interest to you humans."

"Not if we end up getting killed on account of them," Greenberg said.

"Yes, that might affect your thinking to some degree," Aissur Aissur Rus admitted. "Nevertheless, although I have always been one to favor the expansion of knowledge by whatever means become available?as witness my recruiting the two of you to help enter the Great Unknown?I would, for the sake of my species' future, be willing, indeed eager, to see that no mention of what we have learned here ever reached Odern."

"The only way to make sure of that would be to destroy the Vengeance," Je

"Were it in my power, I would cheerfully do so," Aissur Aissur Rus said. "Unfortunately, however, the kwopillot are much more likely to destroy me. Perhaps the soundest course would be merely to string these discussions along until the fleets from Odern and Rof Golan arrive, and hope they can rid us of the Vengeance?and our problem?once and for all."

"If it is, you've just given the game away," Greenberg pointed out. "Or don't you think the Great Ones are monitoring your radio traffic?"