Aissur Aissur Rus did as she asked. The few points of light that still glowed in what had been a great shining globe told their own story. Another round of war at that intensity might leave no Foitani of any sexual persuasion alive anywhere. The projection was plain enough for even the big aliens to get outside their ideologies and notice it.
Pawasar Pawasar Ras saw. He said, "You can destroy us here on Gilver, kwopillot, but I doubt you can destroy all our worlds without being slain yourselves in the attempt."
"Let's fight them now," Voskop W Wurd said. "The more damage we do to them, the easier a time the attackers who come after us will have." Some people, Jennifer thought, did not want to get the message. But even one of Voskop W Wurd's subordinates took the warleader aside and spoke urgently to him.
Solut Mek Kem said, "What a dolorous choice: the galaxy without Foitani or full of accursed vodranet. We shall have to consult among ourselves as to which alternative appears preferable." He disappeared from the screen.
"Talking with kwopillot!" Pawasar Pawasar Ras shook his head in a very human gesture of bewilderment and dismay. "Who would have supposed it would come to that?"
"You know, one of the things Foitani really need to learn, if you'll forgive my telling you, is diplomacy," Bernard Greenberg said. "The Great Ones never seemed to have used it?they were always one people themselves, and other races were just there to be exploited or massacred. Then when they had this split into kwopillot and vodranet, the only thing they knew how to do with beings who were different was kill them. There are other choices. You Foitani from Odern and Rof Golan?and I suppose your other starfaring races?are starting to get the idea, because you have to deal with each other, and I suppose also because you have the old-time Suicide Wars as a horrible example. But none of you is what you'd call good at dealing with anybody from outside your own immediate group."
"He's right," Jennifer said. "Now you're all in a place where you can see that a big war isn't the right answer, but you don't have any other weapons?you should pardon the expression?handy with which to attack the problem."
"War is simple and direct. Its answers are clear-cut," Voskop W Wurd said.
"A writer of my species once said that, for any problem, there is always a solution that is simple, obvious?and wrong," Jennifer answered. Voskop W Wurd started to snarl at her, then stopped, looking as thoughtful as any Rof Golani Foitan she'd ever seen. She suddenly laughed. Here she was, doing exactly what the Foitani from Odern had kidnapped her to do?using her knowledge of human literature?even if not science fiction this time?to help them deal with the problem of the Great Ones.
Solut Mek Kem, who personified the problem of the Great Ones, came back onto the screen in front of Pawasar Pawasar Ras. The kwopil said, "We will speak with you, unless you would rather fight." By the way that came out in the Spanglish, and by the way he let his teeth show, Jennifer guessed he was half hoping for a battle.
"We will talk with you," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said. "War is the obvious solution; but for every question, there is an answer that is obvious, simple, and wrong."
"An interesting point of view," Solut Mek Kem said. Jennifer didn't know whether to be angry at Pawasar Pawasar Ras for taking her thought without giving her credit or glad he had listened to her. She got little time to think it over, for Solut Mek Kem went on, "In any case, we will also talk, I suppose. Do you possess nose filters such as the yellow-haired creature suggested? They might keep our two sides from fighting whether we so intend or not. The odor of vodranet cannot help but inflame us."
"I will put our technical staff to work fabricating filters," Pawasar Pawasar Ras answered. "We are similarly aroused?and not in any sexual sense, I assure you?by the way kwopillot smell. As for these non-Foitani, they are without a doubt ugly, but they have their uses."
From a Foitan, Jennifer knew, that was about as good a recommendation as she was likely to get.
Just when all seemed sweetness and light?or as close to sweetness and light as was practicable after ground and space combat between two groups each of which wished extinction upon the other?Voskop W Wurd reminded everyone that there were in fact not two groups involved, but three: "Nose filters? I don't give a putrescent fart about nose filters. I don't have to smell kwopillot to know they stink, either. Let them come after Rof Golan if they've the stomachs for it. We'll blast them into incandescent gas, and better than they deserve, too."
"Oh, shut up, you hotheaded fool," Aissur Aissur Rus said?hardly diplomatic language, but the most direct statement Jennifer had yet heard out of a Foitan from Odern.
Greenberg added, "Voskop W Wurd, think about this: Suppose they blast your people on Rof Golan into incandescent gas instead? That sort of thing happened all the time during the Suicide Wars. Wouldn't you rather talk first and then fight, given the chance? Think of it in terms of tactics if you don't understand diplomacy. Before you start a war, you ought to learn about your enemies."
"I know they are kwopillot. What more do I need?"
"You might remember they're also Great Ones," Jennifer said. "And remember how many ships you just lost. You might even remember that if the Foitani from Odern do talk with them and you don't, they might make common cause and leave you out in the cold."
"We would not do that," Pawasar Pawasar Ras and Aissur Aissur Rus protested in the same breath, so perfectly in chorus that the translator turned the two sets of identical words into a single sentence. Were less riding on this ticklish situation, it might have been funny.
However pious their protest, the two Foitani from Odern failed to convince Voskop W Wurd. "Of course you would, if you saw any advantage to it," he said. "You Oderna are like that, and what's more, you know it perfectly well. But if you think you'll make a deal with the perverts behind my back, think again. This creature has given me a good reason to enter into these talks: to keep you as honest as may be."
"Congratulations," Greenberg told Jennifer. "You've just made this a problem with three sides instead of two. Now the Rof Golani are ready to take on the Foitani from Odern again."
"Maybe there are three sides, but they're all going to talk," Jennifer answered. "When there were just two, they weren't talking. Sometimes even going backward is progress."
"I'm sure the Foitani from Odern would have agreed with you, the way they blindly loved the Great Ones till they found this batch of kwopillot."
Before Jennifer could answer, Solut Mek Kem said, "If we are to enter into these distasteful discussions, vodranet, let us begin. We will send down a flier to bring your representatives back here to the Vengeance."
"Come up into your lair?" Voskop W Wurd exclaimed. "Do you take me for a male altogether bereft of his senses? Treating with the Oderna is quite bad enough. Why should I tamely walk in and let you do as you would with me?"
"The wiser course would be for your envoys to come down to this research station," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said.
"That will not happen," Solut Mek Kem said at once. "We have already seen how you treat our kind when we approach this research base of yours. You merely seek the opportunity to dispose of our representatives quietly."
"Your behavior toward the Rof Golani in the precinct of the Great Unknown and toward the fliers of both sides in our recent dispute naturally leaves us suspicious of your good intentions," Aissur Aissur Rus said.