"We do not know that," Pawasar Pawasar Ras answered. "We have been trying to learn for many years."
Again, a little later, "How is it that you creatures were able to enter the central tower and we True Folk not only failed but also failed to perceive the existence of an opening?"
"I don't know how that happened, either," Jennifer said. "The Foitani from Odern also couldn't see the opening; I do know that."
"It is so," Pawasar Pawasar Ras admitted. "Voskop W Wurd, when the humans went inside the central tower, our visual observations and the readings of our instruments reported that they were penetrating a wall which remained solid. Indeed, it did remain solid for your soldiers close by. The Great Ones seem to have mastered selective permeability of solid matter. How they did this, I cannot say."
"Selective is right," Greenberg said. "When we wanted to get out of the tower later on, the wall was solid for, or rather against, us, too."
"Tell me of the Great Ones," Voskop W Wurd said. As best they could, Jennifer and Greenberg did. When they finished, the Foitan from Rof Golan made a ripping-cloth noise the translator rendered as a thoughtful grunt. "To think they truly have survived, to think their knowledge is available for hunting down."
"I see two problems with that," Jennifer said.
"You are not a Foitan. Who cares what you see?" Voskop W Wurd said.
"If you don't, why are you asking me questions?" Jennifer asked. Voskop W Wurd's lips skinned back from his teeth. Jennifer ignored him and went on, "First, now that the Great Ones are awake again, they may be interested in hunting down what you know, too. And second, they're kwopillot, so how do you propose to deal with them?"
Voskop W Wurd turned to Pawasar Pawasar Ras. "There can be no doubt they are kwopillot?"
"None." Pawasar Pawasar Ras spoke to the air. "Bring in the evidence." A door opened in the wall opposite the one by which Jennifer and Greenberg stood. Two Foitani from Odern dragged in the torn corpse of a Great One. Pawasar Pawasar Ras addressed Voskop W Wurd, "Judge for yourself."
Voskop W Wurd's nostrils flared. The snarl he had given Jennifer was as nothing next to the one he unleashed now. The gray-blue Foitani from Rof Golan who were with him echoed the cry. He said, "Aye, that is the harshest kwopil reek I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. They were all thus?"
"Every one we encountered," Pawasar Pawasar Ras answered.
"Then every one needs to be tied down in the hot sun and disemboweled. That's how we keep the menace of kwopillot from spreading among us," Voskop W Wurd declared.
Jennifer gulped. She hoped the Foitani from Odern would denounce Voskop W Wurd for the bloodthirsty barbarian he was. But Aissur Aissur Rus said only, "We use lethal injections ourselves. Still, the principle remains the same."
Greenberg whispered, "I wonder what kwopillot do to ordinary Foitani when they're the ones in power."
"Nothing good, I'd bet," Jennifer whispered back.
"You Oderna are too soft with your aliens," Voskop W Wurd said to Pawasar Pawasar Ras. "There they go, plotting who knows what between themselves."
"Repeat yourselves, humans Jennifer and Bernard, loud enough for the translator to pick up your words," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said.
Before Jennifer could repeat herself, a Foitani voice started shouting from a ceiling speaker. The translator brought her the gist of the announcement. "Honored kin-group leader, radar reports the central tower of the Great Unknown has lifted off from the surface of Gilver and is performing as a spacecraft. We have visual confirmation as well. Please advise."
VIII
"A spacecraft?" Pawasar Pawasar Ras, Aissur Aissur Rus, and Voskop W Wurd said it in the Foitani language, Jennifer and Greenberg in Spanglish.
Voskop W Wurd recovered first. He shouted in the Foitani language. "Shoot the foul-smelling thing down," the translator said. "Your ships and mine together, Oderna. We can kill each other any time we choose. The kwopillot will not wait."
"That is a reasonable assessment of the situation," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said after a moment's pause for thought. He spoke to the ceiling. "All ships from Odern are directed to destroy the spacecraft which has arisen from the Great Unknown. Warleader Voskop W Wurd instructs Rof Golani ships to cooperate in this effort."
"Missiles launching," the ceiling speaker reported.
Voskop W Wurd bared his teeth. "This is not a proper headquarters, Pawasar Pawasar Ras. If I cannot bite the foe in person, at least let me see how my fellows' fangs sink in."
"As you wish," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said after another pause. "I do not think you or your followers would be in a good position to betray us." He rapped on the wall behind him, then hurried through the door he had called into being. Aissur Aissur Rus and his other aides followed. The Foitani from Rof Golan were right behind.
The Rof Golani did not bother making the doorway close after themselves. "Come on," Jennifer said to Greenberg. "If we follow them, we may get some idea of what's going on."
"We may get our heads bitten off, too?literally, if the Rof Golani have anything to say about it," he answered. All the same, he went after the Foitani. So did Jennifer.
They had to trot to catch up with the bigger aliens, then to keep up with them. A couple of Rof Golani snarled at them, but otherwise left them alone. They hurried into the command post hard on Voskop W Wurd's heels.
The plan had been chaotic enough before the Rof Golani came in. Foitani from Odern ran here and there, shouted at one another and into headsets, pointed at screens and holovid radar plots. A couple of the dark blue Foitani turned in threatening fashion toward the gray-blue interlopers from Rof Golan. Pawasar Pawasar Ras said, "They are become our cobelligerents against the flying tower. Furnish Voskop W Wurd with communications gear, that he may command his spacecraft to cooperate with us against the common foe, for kwopillot cannot be other than the enemies of all proper Foitani."
One of the Foitani from Odern gave Voskop W Wurd a headset. He screamed into it. Watching one of the radar tanks, Jennifer saw red sparks begin to move in unison with blue ones as both colors converged on a bigger white point of light.
Greenberg was watching the tank, too. He said, "The Rof Golani came here intending to smash up Gilver. They ought to be able to blow the tower into the middle of next week, no matter how big it is."
"Do we want them to?" Jennifer asked. "I know they say the old-time Foitani are evil and vicious, but as far as I can see, they're just acting the same way the modern ones do. And since when are aliens' sex lives any of our business?"
"I'd feel better about being neutral if we still had a way home in case the Great Ones wrecked the Harold Meeker," he answered. "As long as it's sitting outside this base, I'm for the Foitani from Odern and Rof Golan."
"Something to that," Jennifer had to admit.
She and Greenberg did their best to stay out from underfoot as Foitani hurried this way and that. Jumping clear was all up to them, for the Foitani would not change directions for their sake. Jennifer wondered if that was because humans were too small for Foitani to bother noticing, or just because they were non-Foitani and therefore not worth dodging. Whichever way it was?she suspected the latter?she quickly learned to grow eyes in the back of her head to keep from getting trampled.
A Rof Golani ship abruptly vanished from the radar tank. Voskop W Wurd screamed something that the translator rendered as, "How extremely unfortunate." A good deal of juice seemed to have been squeezed out somewhere.
More ships started disappearing. No matter what sort of Foitani perverts crewed it, no matter that it had been grounded for twenty-eight thousand years, the ship that had been a tower was a formidable killing machine. Voskop W Wurd made noises suggesting a wild animal with a leg caught in a trap. Pawasar Pawasar Ras sounded calmer?that seemed the way on Odern?but no happier.