"They've found an artifact they cannot try to use and stay sane. If they're within ten or twelve kilometers of it, they can't help trying to use it, either, whatever the hell it is. I've seen dozens of the poor bastards who tried. They aren't pretty. The ones on the fringes of the effect around the thing can fight the compulsion, but if they get too close, they're doomed. Finally they lost enough people to make them fortify the whole area. But they were still curious, so they hired a non-Foitan?me?to see what he could find out."
"And you went crazy, too," Jennifer said, "or you never would have given them my name."
Pawasar Pawasar Ras's eyes swung sharply toward Greenberg when Thegun Thegun Nug's translator turned that into the local language. "Does the other human speak accurately, human Bernard? Has the Great Unknown"?even with the translator, Jennifer could hear the capital letters?"affected your psychological integrity?"
"I do not think so, honored kin-group leader Pawasar Pawasar Ras," Greenberg answered. Jennifer had finally managed to get his goat; he gave her a dirty look as he went on, "You may have noticed that humans use irony more than Foitani do."
"This practice of saying one thing while meaning another is rank, manifest foolishness," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said.
"As may be," Greenberg answered mildly; he sounded used to soothing Pawasar Pawasar Ras every so often. He turned back to Jennifer: "I couldn't find anything about this artifact that would make anybody go insane, human or Foitan. If it's not a physical effect, what's left? Best bet, I figured, was something cultural. I've been a trader a long time; I know something about that sort of thing. But you know more. Not only do you have your trader background, you've got a working knowledge of all the hypothetical cases your old-time writers invented. And the more I dealt with this thing, the more hypothetical everything about it looked, if you know what I mean. So I mentioned your name to the Foitani."
The worst part was, it made sense. Jennifer tried to stay angry, but failed. She let out a long sigh. "And they took the ball and shot it toward the far goal," she said. "That does seem to be the way they do things."
"It certainly does." Greenberg cocked his head at her. "Shot the ball toward the far goal? I didn't know you followed battleball."
"An acquired taste. It's wearing off, believe me. Now that I'm here, there isn't any good way back without going along, is there?" She turned to Pawasar Pawasar Ras. "All right, where next?"
"To the world Gilver," he answered with almost robotic literality. "This is the world upon which the Great Unknown is situated."
"Any chance for research first?" she asked: she was an academic before anything else. "You've been studying your ancestors ever since the, ah, Suicide Wars. Did they leave behind any records that might help you understand this thing?"
"That is an intelligent question." Pawasar Pawasar Ras's ears twitched, so he was genuinely pleased. "We have not found any data related to the world Gilver that pertain to it. Dargnil Dargnil Lin here can assist you in examining our data bases, if you think that would be valuable. He is expert in the ancient archives."
"I would like to see them, yes," Jennifer said. She wondered if Dargnil Dargnil Lin was an exception, or if steady, solid, serious types among the Foitani gravitated toward jobs like archivist as they did with humans.
"See to it, Dargnil Dargnil Lin," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said.
"It shall be done, honored kin-group leader," Dargnil Dargnil Lin replied.
Striking while the iron was hot and the big boss in a cooperative frame of mind, Jennifer said, "I saw Bernard Greenberg's ship here at this spaceport, honored kin-group leader." If she was going to butter up Pawasar Pawasar Ras, might as well get him good and greasy. "May I stay aboard it? A human ship truly would be a more proper base for me." And thanks to you, I'll never, ever keep a dog.
"If the human Bernard does not object, you may do this," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said.
"I don't object," Greenberg said at once.
"Then you may make those arrangements, human," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said to Jennifer?he still didn't have her name. Though Foitani eyes were next to impossible to read, she felt his gaze intensify as he went on, "Do not think this will permit you two humans to plan a joint escape. Aside from the dangers inherent for non-Foitani flying through space once in the Great Ones' sphere, we have our own tracker and explosive device secured in the?the?what is the name of your ship, human Bernard?"
"The Harold Meeker, honored kin-group leader," Greenberg said.
"Yes, the Harold Meeker. Very well, then, human, ah?"
"Jennifer." Took him long enough to ask, Jennifer thought.
"Yes, Jennifer. You may proceed, then, human Jennifer, with your researches for a period not to exceed, ah, twenty Odern days, Dargnil Dargnil Lin to assist you as necessary. Then you and human Bernard shall travel to Gilver to continue in the attempt to analyze the Great Unknown. Thegun Thegun Nug, Aissur Aissur Rus, Dargnil Dargnil Lin, and I shall accompany you there."
Jennifer had expected the other three Foitani to go offworld with her if she left Odern. They were plainly her keepers. But Pawasar Pawasar Ras surprised her by including himself. From what she knew of big-wheel executives, they didn't often inflict themselves on actual research sites. "Why you?" she asked him.
"The Great Unknown is my project," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said, as if that explained everything. To him, it seemed to. To Jennifer, it showed the Foitani definitely were not human?not that she hadn't noticed that already.
Jennifer finished a salami sandwich. The meat was greasy, the bread bland. The mustard was tangier than she cared for. She washed down the sandwich with a glass of vin extremely ordinaire. After Foitani rations, it all tasted wonderful. "Thank you, Bernard," she said. "I just may live. I may even decide I want to."
"Sorry there isn't more and better," Greenberg answered. "I've been in Foitani space long enough that I'm starting to run low myself."
"And I'll make you run out all the faster. I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You always did apologize too much; do you know that? If I hadn't opened my big mouth, you'd still be happily back on Saugus. Sharing real food with you is the least I can do to pay you back. We won't starve on what the Foitani eat?"
"However much we wish we would," Jennifer finished for him.
He studied her, one eyebrow raised. After Ali Bakhtiar's virtuoso displays of superciliosity, this was amateur night. The master trader said, "You've changed a bit since we flew together a few years ago. Then you wouldn't have interrupted or made sour jokes."
She shrugged. "I've finished growing up. I find I can manage all right for myself. Now to business, if you don't mind, because I don't want to spend one more second here than I have to. First off, is your ship bugged?"
"I assume so. Pity we don't know some arcane foreign languages we could use to talk privately," Greenberg said. Jennifer gave a rueful nod. Nobody bothered to learn to speak foreign languages these days, not with oral translator programs so widely available. She supposed she could make a stab at speaking Middle English, but the Foitani were more likely to understand her than Greenberg was.
"What is this Great Unknown thing, anyway?" she asked.
"If I knew, I would tell you," he answered. "If I knew, we could go home, come to that. But I don't know. I just hope we'll be able to find out. I keep worrying about what the Foitani may do if we can't?and we may not be able to. Nobody who isn't a Foitan has any real notion of what their ancestors were capable of, back before the Suicide Wars. I told you, though, it's pretty clear they were technologically ahead of where we are now."