Foster, Alan Dean Quozl

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She stared at him, whether out of curiosity or deliberate reproachfulness he had no way of determining.
Age was revered among the Quozl and Mindy was older, but Mindy was the one guilty of betrayal. It
greatly diminished her position among the Quozl.
Or maybe it was just, he thought with a start, that Tries-simple-Glow felt sorry for him.
It never, ever occurred to him that she might like him.
What do you think, human Chad? Do we grab the horny bull?
He made a stifled noise, kept his lips rigorously together lest he expose his teeth and thereby his brutal
human nature. Some of the tension went out of him. It had no choice. A sideways glance showed Mindy
with head bowed
and her hand over her mouth. Evidently the Quozi linguists mastery of human slang was not quite
complete.
It s a thought. You can t hide here forever. I ve always believed that. If not Arlo somebody else would
find you, maybe somebody we don t know and can t influence. He took a deep breath. Personally I ve
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always thought you were fooling yourselves, thinking you could stay hidden here for hundreds of years.
Sure the area is infrequently visited, but wilderness areas everywhere are drawing more and more visitors
every year. It s not like you dug in up on the Canadian Shield or under the Greenland icepack or
something. Sooner or later one of your survey teams was bound to run into somebody. Or some mining
company would ve sent prospectors in here illegally just to check the prospects out. There s cobalt and
chromium and all sorts of valuable stuff in this part of the country. Runs tells me you ve been mining it
yourself. A mining team might ve found you by accident. He turned his attention to the senior Burrow
Master present. There were a dozen Burrows now, accord-ing to Runs. As he spoke he dropped his
eyes, deferential as any Quozi. He sensed the gesture was appreciated.
Arlo s forcing wider contact. It s up to you to preempt him. How do you want to do it? Take out an ad
on tv or inUSAToday?Should we bring reporters here? The big papers and networks wouldn t come but
I think we could cajole somebody from a local station into bringing a crew up. As soon as they put out
the first pictures you d have all the attention you never wanted.
One avalanche at a time is enough to deal with. Short-key-Leaps spoke without rising. So long as the
exposure is limited to this Arlo person we are able to proceed at a pacewe determine.
Tries-simple-Glow indicated acknowledgment with a dip of her right ear, continued. We will commence
with caution and necessary improvisation. It has been decided thattwoQuozi will go with you to make
known our pres-ence to human society. Your observers will see onlytwoQuozl at first. This we believe,
based on what we have studied of your people, will be more reassuring to them. We think it would be
unsettling for many of your kind to learn immediately that thousands of Quozi are living among them. We
have always believed this.
The longer we can keep the scale and location of the Burrows a secret, the better it will be. It offers us
flexibility in the event your people react violently to the revelation.
They won t, Chad said sharply, immediately regretting his impolite out-burst.
Tries-simple-Glow muted her instinctive reaction. Can you promise us that?
Chad relented, his reply resigned. No. I can t.
Then we must go cautiously. We can force the issue, but at our own speed. If more humans meet two
Quozl, they will be much less interested in talking to this Arlo about other Quozi whose location he
knows not and whose numbers he can only guess at.
We also believe that this meeting should take place in a large metropoli-tan region far from the
Burrows. It will draw all attention from this area, which can only be to the good. If we cannot delay
another hundred cycles, perhaps we can delay a few. We can put the time to good use. Not only must
humans be properly prepared for contact. So must our own people. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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