3xT

by Harry Turtledove

  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?"

  Aissur Aissur Rus made a noise that might have come straight from a wolf's throat. The translator rendered it with a sigh. Jennifer had some qualms about the translation; nothing that sounded so . . . carnivorous . . . had any business being merely a sigh. Aissur Aissur Rus said, "This subject is not easy for us to discuss, human Jennifer. It is also one we never thought could arise—as the Great Ones were believed to be extinct, surely the degenerate kwopillot had to be gone. Sadly, this now appears not to be the case."

  "So what are kwopillot, and why do you keep calling them such nasty names?"

  "Wait a minute," Bernard Greenberg put in, his eyes lighting up. "This has to do with sex, doesn't it? Otherwise you wouldn't mind so much talking about it."

  "You are, as usual, astute, human Bernard," Aissur Aissur Rus said with another of those bloodthirsty-sounding sighs. "Indeed, the matter of the kwopillot does turn on sex, or more precisely on gender."

  He paused, plainly not eager to go on without being prodded further. Jennifer looked at Greenberg in open-mouthed admiration. His shot in the dark had struck home—had it ever! If the Foitani were anything like most other species, they'd find sex worth fighting about no matter how technologically advanced they were. All at once, the Suicide Wars had a rationale that made some kind of sense.

  Aissur Aissur Rus still stood silent. He looked big and blue and unhappy. Jennifer said, "May I ask, solely for the purpose of remedying my own ignorance, and with no desire to cause offense, what kwopillot do that other Foitani disapprove of?"

  The variant of the trader's standard question paid off. Aissur Aissur Rus said, "You know that my race is unusual among intelligent species, in that we are born female and become male after our thirtieth year, more or less."

  "You said so, once, yes," Jennifer agreed. "I didn't think much of it. We humans have found that intelligent races vary widely. Also—again I speak without intending to cause offense—Foitani are not sexually interesting to humans."

  "The converse also holds, I assure you," Aissur Aissur Rus replied at once. He waggled his ears. "I thank you, human Jennifer. You have given me an idea so vile to contemplate that beside it the depravities of the kwopillot fade almost—not altogether, but almost—into insignificance."

  Aissur Aissur Rus was the only Foitan Jennifer had ever suspected of owning a sense of humor. If he did, it was a nasty one, and he didn't bother with trying to speak inoffensively. She tried to match him irony for irony: "I'm glad I've given you something new and revolting to think about. Meanwhile, though, you'd started to explain what kwopillot were."

  "I had not started yet," Aissur Aissur Rus said. "Indeed, I approach the task with considerable reluctance. You may perhaps have observed that we Foitani are somewhat reticent in discussing matters which pertain to the reproductive process. The Middle English term for such affectation of reticence, I believe, is Victorian, is it not?"

  Jennifer stared at him. "That is exactly the word, Aissur Aissur Rus. I've thought it of your people myself. Now I have another reason for wishing you hadn't kidnapped me—I'd love to have seen the research paper you would have turned in. If you didn't outdo all the humans in my class, I'd be amazed."

  "As may be," Aissur Aissur Rus said. "That, however, is at present irrelevant. Rather more to the point, one of the reasons we are as reticent as we are concerning reproductive matters is that they are relatively simple to disrupt among us."

  "And kwopillot choose to disrupt them?" Greenberg pounced.

  "Exactly so, human Bernard. For unnatural reasons of their own, they choose through hormonal intervention in the egg"—this was the first Jennifer had heard of Foitani coming from eggs—"to produce creatures . . . monsters might be a better word . . . male from birth. Even more outrageously, those born properly female, again by means of hormones, opt to retain their initial gender. That is what it is to be a kwopil—to be or to have been of the wrong gender for one's age."

  "Why would anybody want to do that?" Jennifer asked, though she doubted she would get a rational answer. When it came to sex and gender, few intelligent races were rational.

  Sure enough, Aissur Aissur Rus said, "Kwopillot act as they do because, being afflicted with perversity themselves, they wish to have others with whom to share it."

  "Wait a minute," Greenberg said. "Suppose you have a male, uh, kwopil. What happens after he gets older than the age at which he was supposed to turn male anyway? Isn't he pretty much normal from then on?"

  "No," Aissur Aissur Rus said. "For one thing, the hormone treatments which made him a kwopil leave their mark: he never smells as a proper Foitan should. For another, how could he be normal even were that not so, when he has spent all his previous life in a gender unnatural to that phase?"

  "I see your point," Greenberg said slowly. So did Jennifer. No matter how refined the surgical techniques that changed them had become, transsexual humans were often pretty strange people. That might be an even greater problem for the Foitani, where the alteration was made before an individual ever saw the light of day, and where there was no natural equivalent of, say, a ten-year-old male.

  She asked, "How do you know these things, Aissur Aissur Rus? Are there still kwopillot among you? You said they were extinct."

  "Sadly, I overstated," Aissur Aissur Rus admitted. "Every starfaring Foitani world knows them, and many of those still sunk in planet-bound barbarism. The modification techniques, as I said, are far from difficult. Depraved and wealthy individuals, anxious only for their own degenerate gratification, generally create the first ones on a world. But once there are kwopillot on a world, they make more like themselves. In a way, it is understandable—who else but others of their kind would care to associate with them?"

  Jennifer and Greenberg looked at each other. They both nodded. Humans made genetically engineered sex slaves every now and again, too. A year didn't go by without a holovid drama showing that kind of lurid story. Jennifer didn't know whether to be relieved or depressed that another race could act the same way.

  Pawasar Pawasar Ras was talking to the gray-blue Rof Golani officer. He spoke too softly for Aissur Aissur Rus's translator to pick up what he was saying, but Jennifer heard one word she understood: kwopillot. When Pawasar Pawasar Ras said it, the Rof Golani Foitan's red eyes opened wide. So did his mouth, displaying his large, sharp teeth. The better to eat you, my dear, Jennifer thought. But where before the Rof Golani had wanted only to attack the Foitani from Odern, now this one listened attentively to everything Pawasar Pawasar Ras had to say.

  "They both hate these kwopillot worse than they hate each other," Greenberg said.

  Jennifer quoted the title of a Middle English novel: "The enemy of my enemy—"

  Greenberg knew the saying from which it had come. "Is my friend. Yes." He turned to Aissur Aissur Rus. "Obviously the Great Ones knew of kwopillot, too. Did they feel the same way about them as you do?"

  "There can be no doubt of it," Aissur Aissur Rus said. "Because we normally find it distasteful in the extreme to discuss such reproductive issues, the speculation is not published, but many, I think, privately believe the kwopillot problem to have been a possible cause of the Suicide Wars. I am
one of those, and not the only one here at the base."

  "What's the point of thinking if you don't publish?" Jennifer said. What she was thinking of was her fruitless search through the Foitani records on Odern. She'd never so much as heard the word kwopillot there, not even from Dargnil Dargnil Lin, who was supposed to be helping her learn about the Great Ones. She made a mental note to give him a good swift kick the next time she saw him.

  Before Aissur Aissur Rus could answer her—if he was going to—Pawasar Pawasar Ras broke his connection with the Foitan from Rof Golan. When he turned and spoke directly to Aissur Aissur Rus, the latter's translator caught his words and turned them into Spanglish: "The barbarians have agreed to parley with us. Even they know the extent of the kwopillot menace."

  "Excellent," Aissur Aissur Rus said. "All the resources we and they both can bring together will be important in eliminating revenge-minded kwopillot backed by the technological power of the Great Ones."

  "You have stated my precise concern." Pawasar Pawasar Ras went on, "Humans Bernard and Jennifer, your presence will be required at this parley. You had the greatest and most significant contact with the denizens of the tower."

  "May we go back to my ship first so we can rest and wash?" Greenberg asked.

  "Rest and wash here," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said. "If further trouble erupts from the Great Unknown, this base is the most secure place on the planet. We would not want you to be lost before you have provided us with the information we need."

  "What about afterward?" Jennifer said. Pawasar Pawasar Ras did not deign to reply, from which she drew her own dark conclusions. Reluctantly, though, she admitted to herself that the Foitan administrator had a point. She wished the Harold Meeker were an armed and armored dreadnought instead of a thoroughly ordinary trading ship.

  By Foitani standards, the chamber to which Aissur Aissur Rus led her and Greenberg was luxuriously appointed, which is to say that it had its own plumbing fixtures and a foam pad twice as thick as the one she'd enjoyed—or rather, not enjoyed—on her journey from Saugus to Odern. Aissur Aissur Rus took the door with him when he left, but Jennifer was sure the room was bugged.

  Sighing, she walked over to what the Foitani used for a toilet. "Turn your back," she told Greenberg. "I hate this miserable excuse for plumbing."

  "I know what you mean," he answered. "Still, given the choice between this and what the Great Ones had us do earlier today, I'll take this."

  "Not my idea of a pleasant choice," she answered.

  A little later, they both got out of their clothes and washed in the lukewarm washbasin water that was the only water they had. Greenberg shook his head as he examined his tattered coverall. "I should have insisted on going back to the Harold Meeker, for fresh clothes if nothing else."

  "Too late to worry about it now." Jennifer scrubbed and scrubbed until most of the dirt came off her hide. She looked down at herself. Even clean, she was several different colors, most of them unappetizing. "With all these scratches and bruises and scrapes, I look more like a road map than a human being."

  "A relief map, maybe. The terrain is lovely," Greenberg said. Jennifer snorted, not quite comfortably; even foolish compliments made her uneasy. Greenberg went on, "What do you think we ought to do now?"

  She chose to think he was talking about the situation generally rather than the two of them in particular. She was too tired to worry about the two of them in particular. "Given the chance, I'd just as soon sleep," she said. "If we're going to be talking to the Rof Golani, we shouldn't be punchy while we're at it."

  If he'd had anything else in mind, he didn't show it. He got dressed and lay down on the pad. Jennifer joined him a moment later. No sooner was she horizontal than exhaustion bludgeoned her.

  "Wake up, humans!" The flat Spanglish from the translator was loud and abrupt enough to make sure they did just that. Jennifer found she'd snuggled against Greenberg while she slept, whether for warmth, protection, or no particular reason she couldn't say. The voice from overhead went on, "The delegation from Rof Golan has arrived. Your immediate presence at the deliberations is necessary."

  "Yes, Thegun Thegun Nug," Jennifer said around a yawn.

  A brief pause, then. "How do you know to whom you speak? The translator eliminates the timbre of individual voices."

  "It doesn't eliminate personalities," she answered; let the order-giving pest make of that what he would. Whatever he made of it, he said nothing more. She asked Greenberg, "How long were we out?"

  "A couple of hours," he answered after a glance at his watch. "Better than nothing, less than enough."

  "Enough of your chatter," Thegun Thegun Nug said. "As I told you, your presence is required immediately."

  Jennifer was fed up enough with his arrogance to tell him to take a flying leap, but a door opened in the wall just then. Behind it stood a Foitan with one of their nasty stunners. He gestured imperiously. "Charming as always," she said to the ceiling as she stood up. Thegun Thegun Nug did not bother answering.

  The Foitan gestured again: out. He stepped back to make sure Jennifer and Greenberg could not get behind him. They followed a glowing ceiling light. He followed them. After a while, he rapped on a hallway wall. When the rap produced a door, he pointed through it. The two humans went in. The door vanished behind them.

  Pawasar Pawasar Ras, Aissur Aissur Rus, and several other Foitani from Odern stood against one wall of the room. A smaller number of blue-gray Foitani from Rof Golan stood against the opposite wall. No one carried any weapons. From the way the two groups kept empty space between them, Jennifer got the feeling they'd fight with bare hands if they got too close together.

  The Rof Golani turned their red eyes on the humans. Pawasar Pawasar Ras spoke; his translator passed his words to Jennifer and Greenberg. "Warleader, these are the aliens of whom I spoke. Humans, know that you face the Rof Golani warleader Voskop W Wurd and his staff."

  Voskop W Wurd took half a step forward to identify himself. He looked like a warleader, especially if the war was to be fought with claws and fangs. When he spoke, his words had the howling quality Jennifer had heard before from Rof Golani. Pawasar Pawasar Ras's translator abraded emotion from them. "You are the creatures who effected entry into the Great Unknown?"

  "So we are," Greenberg said. "Your soldiers did their level best to kill us while we were in there, too."

  Several Foitani from Rof Golan snarled as that was translated. Jennifer was glad they were unarmed. Voskop W Wurd spoke to Pawasar Pawasar Ras. "You are soft, blue one. You allow the vermin more license than even a person deserves."

  Aissur Aissur Rus answered for his boss. "And because of it, Rof Golani, we have learned more than we would have with our usual straightforward approach to non-Foitani intelligences."

  Voskop W Wurd's wordless snarl told what he thought of that. But in his own way he too was an officer and leader. "This is a parley, to seek information," he said, as if reminding himself. "Very well, creatures, inform me."

  Having met Enfram Enfram Marf, Jennifer knew what the typical "straightforward" Foitani attitude toward other intelligent races was like. The Great Ones had shown it, too, so Voskop W Wurd's version was less irritating than it might have been otherwise. She merely wished him into me hottest fire-pit in hell before she began telling what had happened over the previous couple of days. She and Greenberg took turns with the story. They must have been interesting, for Voskop W Wurd eventually settled down and listened just as if they had been Foitani.

  At one point, he asked, "What is the mechanism that creates a ring of insanity around the Great Unknown?"

  "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 t
he 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.