"I say nothing they could not reason out for themselves," Aissur Aissur Rus answered. "They are depraved and perverse; they are not foolish." That was a distinction most humans would have had trouble drawing; Aissur Aissur Rus was able to be dispassionate even over matters that involved his passions.

"The other thing is, you don't think even full warfleets could beat the Great Ones, so you'd better talk with them," Jennifer said.

"You overstate the case," Aissur Aissur Rus said. "I am in doubt as to the likely outcome. The same must hold true for the kwopillot, else they would feel no need to continue discussions with us."

"You may well be right about that," Jennifer said.

"You humans have sexual deviants; I read of them in some of the materials in your course, human Jennifer. How is it that you have failed to destroy yourselves as a result of this fact?"

"That's a good question," Jennifer said slowly. Aissur Aissur Rus had a knack for asking good questions. That was probably how he'd come to be a leader of the team investigating the Great Unknown. He'd even gotten answers to his questions there, though by now he wished he hadn't.

Greenberg said, "One difference between Foitani and humans is that humans who differ sexually don't stand out in any obvious way like smell. When we fight, we fight about things like religion or politics or race, not sex."

Jennifer had what she thought for a moment was a brilliant idea. Then she realized that if it were all that brilliant, the Foitani would have thought of it for themselves. She threw it out anyway, to let Aissur Aissur Rus shoot it down if he wanted to: "Is there any chance that you and the kwopillot could put on perfumes that would keep you from going berserk at each other's odors?"

"There are no records of this succeeding," he answered. "The pheromones are most distinctive and most different. In any case, we need to be able to perceive these pheromones if we are to function sexually."

"Just a thought," Jennifer said, remembering that she had been about to function sexually before Aissur Aissur Rus called. She wasn't even angry at the Foitan; by now, she was used to getting interrupted.

For a miracle, Aissur Aissur Rus gave up about then and broke the connection. Grinning?he must have been thinking along with her?Greenberg stepped close. "Shall we try again, and see who calls next?"

"Sure, why not?" Then she asked, "What all do you have in the cargo bay, anyhow? A proper science fiction hero?or even heroine?would be able to improvise his way out of trouble with something that had been sitting there all along, just waiting to be used."

"You're welcome to look," Greenberg answered. "If you think you can improvise a way out of this mess with a bunch of trade junk, go right ahead and try."

"Maybe another time," Jennifer said. "Thing was, SF writers had the habit of putting things that would really help into cargo bays. I've got the feeling that real life isn't so considerate."

"The only thing real life has been considerate about is giving me the chance to fall in love with you. Even then, the damned Foitani keep calling at the wrong time."

"They aren't calling right now," Jennifer said softly.

"So they're not. Let's enjoy it while we can."

"What are you doing, human Jennifer?"

"Just examining cargo," she answered. Since the Foitan on the communicator had known her name, it was probably someone from Odern. Whoever it was, he had to have been monitoring her through some of the spy gear aboard the Harold Meeker. If she and Greenberg could sell that alone to one of the more paranoid human intelligence services, they would show a profit for the trip. The only problem there was getting the goods to the marketplace.

Armed with Greenberg's labels, with the computer to give her more details about what was in each crate or box or plastic bag, and with a pry bar, she wandered through the cargo bay, opening packages that looked interesting. A lot of them were interesting: pelts and spices and books and works of art and electronics. She knew she would have had trouble assembling such a rich variety of goods while keeping everything of high quality, as Greenberg had. He deserved his master rating. Somebody back in human space would be sure to want everything the Harold Meeker carried, and want it enough to pay highly for it.

Whether any of it would be of any use in keeping the next round of the Suicide Wars from breaking out was another matter. Maybe the Great Ones would admire some of the sculptures produced by a planet-bound Foitani race with which Odern traded, but that would not keep them from hating the artists as so many vodranet. Maybe the Foitani from Odern made marvelously compact and clever holovid scanners, but that would not keep them from loathing kwopillot or, if the claims of the old imperial Foitani got loose among them?as was very likely?from despising themselves as altered versions of the original Foitani plan they had been trying for so long to emulate.

Frustrated by her complete inability to find anything that might stop big, bluish aliens from massacring one another, Jennifer gave up and went back to the crew compartment. "Any luck?" Greenberg asked when she came out of the lift.

"None. Maybe a little less." She ran her hands through her hair, making tugging motions at it the way Greenberg did. "I should have known better. We don't have a writer stowing away a deus ex machina for us. We're going to have to do this ourselves, with our brains."

"Which haven't done us a whole lot of good so far."

"Isn't that the sad and sorry truth?"

Negotiations resumed the next day. The representatives of the Great Ones started things off by declaring in unison, "We have the solution to this problem."

"You and all your perverts are going to go and commit suicide so you don't bother decent Foitani any more?" Voskop W Wurd asked. From a human or an alien of different character, that would have been sarcasm. Jennifer thought the odds favored Voskop W Wurd's meaning every word of what he said.

Pawasar Pawasar Ras said, "Despite contemplation, I have not come upon anything that so much as approaches such a solution. I would be willing to hear one from any source, even a source as unreliable as kwopillot."

"Yes, tell us," Greenberg urged. "Jennifer and I haven't found anything that looks like an answer, either."

"Very well." Solut Mek Kem spoke for the old-time Foitani now. "The solution is classic in its simplicity. You have seen that vodranet are an unnatural alteration of the true Foitani way of being. Is this so, or not?"

"We see that the Great Ones appear to have been kwopillot, yes," Aissur Aissur Rus said. "Nevertheless, since the Suicide Wars we have built our own reality."

"What you say, though, kwopil, appears to remain in essence true, if bitter," Pawasar Pawasar Ras said. "If we are to have emulation of the Great Ones as our goal, we must bear this unpalatable fact in mind."

"Excellent," Solut Mek Kem said. "Then to solve the problem of strife between vodranet and proper Foitani, all modern Foitani must abandon their present distorted way of life and become as we are. As you have seen for yourselves, turning a vodran into a proper Foitan is easy?and no wonder, given that you are poor modifications of the true form. In a generation's time, the race can be whole again, and as it always should have been."

"I like the way I am just fine, and if any stinking kwopil has the brass to tell me my get or I would do better as perverts, we'll see how well he does radioactive," Voskop W Wurd said. Great Ones, Foitani from Odern, and Rof Golani had all installed weapons checks outside the Harold Meeker. Had it been otherwise, Jennifer was sure the blue-gray Foitan would have blazed away with everything he had.