The imperial Foitani seemed better at giving orders than taking them. Another Great One fired in the direction from which the laser had come. Jennifer didn't know whether he took it out. Another laser, from a different position, cut him down. That bolt flew much too close to her. She felt a blast of heat and smelled ozone as if lightning had struck nearby. Only a few meters away, sandy ground bubbled into glass.
The amplified voice roared again, louder than ever. This time, the Great Ones, those few left on their feet, spread their arms wide. The ones with weapons dropped them. Only a couple of Foitani from Odern were in any shape to keep fighting. Regardless of whether their foes had quit, they started to attack again. The voice from the base cried out once more, this time with different words. Reluctantly, the Foitani from Odern held back. One?Jennifer thought it was Pawasar Pawasar Ras?shouted what was plainly a protest. The voice from inside the base shouted him down.
More Foitani from Odern emerged. All of this group were heavily armed, with rifles similar to the ones the Rof Golani carried. An armored fighting vehicle also came forth from some concealed entrance and clanked toward the Great Ones. It carried a fat laser tube and a cannon whose muzzle seemed to Jennifer's frightened eyes to be about as wide as her head.
The armed modern Foitani advanced on the imperials who had come out of the Great Unknown. They were more than cautious but less than the bloodthirsty maniacs into which Pawasar Pawasar Ras's party had turned. Greenberg noticed that at once. "How come they don't want to tear the Great Ones limb from limb?" he said.
"The breeze is blowing from the base to us again," Jennifer answered. "Maybe they can't smell them any more."
"Maybe the Great Ones haven't had a bath in the last twenty-eight thousand years," he said.
Jennifer made a face at him. Taking advantage of the fact that nobody was going to point a gun at her for talking, she said, "Maybe they?"
The voice from the base boomed forth once more, this time in Spanglish. "Humans Bernard and Jennifer, this is Aissur Aissur Rus. I suggest you come into the base through the passage from which our soldiers have just debouched. They are ordered to let you pass through them. We would not want you to come to harm through staying too close to the kwopillot from the Great Unknown."
"The who?" Jennifer said at the same time as Greenberg said, "The what?" The translator program had missed a word. Maybe it didn't have a Spanglish equivalent, even an approximate one. That happened now and again with translator programs. Trouble was, when it did, the word that refused to translate was almost always vitally important.
Aissur Aissur Rus didn't answer either Greenberg or Jennifer. Neither of them felt like asking again?whatever kwopillot were, he'd made it clear it wasn't safe to be anywhere around them. The behavior of Pawasar Pawasar Ras had done a pretty good job of that, too. Both humans hurried to pass through the ranks of the Foitani from Odern. The big, blue aliens ignored them, keeping eyes, attention, and weapons on the Great Ones.
The fickle breeze shifted again just as Jennifer was about to go down into the underground research base. Behind her, the Foitani from Odern bellowed in rage. A rifle began to bark, then another and another. Aissur Aissur Rus was screaming for the soldiers to stop shooting, but they wouldn't stop. The Great Ones went down like ninepins. When they were all dead, the soldiers rushed forward to kick and beat at their shattered bodies.
Sickened, Jennifer turned away. The kibbles she'd eaten sat like a ball of lead in her stomach. She hoped they'd stay down. "Back inside the radius of doom, the old-time Foitani treated the ones from Rof Golan the same way," Greenberg said.
"I know," Jennifer said. That had been only yesterday. She shook her head in disbelief. "I didn't like that, either."
"Neither did I. Let's get away from the Foitani with guns before they decide we might make good targets, too."
She let Greenberg take her by the elbow and lead her down the passageway. As soon as they were at the bottom, Aissur Aissur Rus spoke to them in Spanglish once more. "Come immediately to the command center. The ceiling light will direct you."
Following the moving light like a will-o'-the-wisp, they soon came to the screen-filled chamber from which Aissur Aissur Rus had spoken. He said, "I congratulate you on penetrating the tower at the center of the Great Unknown, humans. But had I known it was filled with kwopillot, I would have agreed with Pawasar Pawasar Ras that it remain sealed forever. I thought them merely the stuff of legend and modern depravity. Would I had been right."
"What are kwopillot?" Jennifer demanded. Bernard Greenberg opened his mouth, then closed it again. He'd evidently been about to ask the same question.
But before Aissur Aissur Rus could answer, Pawasar Pawasar Ras and Thegun Thegun Nug limped into the chamber. They were dirty and bloody and looked more like beasts of prey than intelligent beings. "Kwopillot!" Pawasar Pawasar Ras exclaimed. Had she not thought he'd tear her limb from limb, Jennifer would have kicked him.
Thegun Thegun Nug said something. Aissur Aissur Rus's translator turned it into Spanglish. "Filthy, reeking perverts! If the Suicide Wars were fought against them, suppressing them was worth the price."
"Aye, so it was," Pawasar Pawasar Ras declared. Aissur Aissur Rus didn't say anything, but he didn't look as if he disagreed, either.
"What are kwopillot?" Greenberg got the question out this time.
Word by word, the translator turned it into the Foitani language. That seemed to remind Aissur Aissur Rus and his colleagues that the humans were there. His answer, though, was less than helpful. "Never mind, human Bernard. They are practically extinct, and it is as well."
"No, they aren't," Greenberg said loudly. "Whatever they are, you may have murdered as many of them as came out of the tower in the middle of the Great Unknown, but how many do you think are still left in there? It's a big tower, you know, and it's awake or active or whatever you want to call it, thanks to us. What do you want to bet that more kwopillot will pop out of it soon?"
Aissur Aissur Rus, Pawasar Pawasar Ras, and Thegun Thegun Nug all bared their teeth at him. Thegun Thegun Nug growled something. Aissur Aissur Rus's translator turned it into, "What a terrible thing to say." Jennifer suspected the original had been rather more pungent.
Aissur Aissur Rus said, "Unfortunately, the human may well be right. We should make preparations on that assumption, at any rate. Those who came forth may have been kwopillot, but they were also Great Ones, with all the powers we have long believed the Great Ones held. If the kwopillot truly hold all the resources contained within the Great Unknown, how are we to resist them?"
"Better to ally with the Rof Golani than to risk such filth spreading through our sphere," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said.
Maybe he had just been indulging in rhetoric, but Aissur Aissur Rus took him up on it. "An excellent suggestion, honored kin-group leader. Call them at once; we have already observed that they too know the proper response to this menace."
"As you say, Aissur Aissur Rus." Pawasar Pawasar Ras went over to a communications panel and started talking into it. Before long, the image of a gray-blue Foitan from Rof Golan appeared on the screen on front of him.
"What are kwopillot?" Jennifer asked. It was the third time the humans had tried that question, and they were still without an answer.
"They are disgusting," Thegun Thegun Nug said. "I go to wash their reek from my fur." He stalked off.
Jennifer turned to Aissur Aissur Rus. "Will you please explain what's going on, and why you've all started killing each other on sight?"