The Ranger stopped where he was, deeply shocked. "Hovan, what are you saying? The Empire isn't out to commit genocide! We don't kill non-combatants on purpose!" "No such thing as noncombatants is. When we to Homeworld retreat, we no other place to go will have. All will fighters be, except the very youngest. It happened so, in the clan wars nearly four thousand years ago." Hovan's calm words meant the Empire was in the process of exterminating an entire intelligent race, a crime more monstrous than any recorded in the history of all three Imperial races combined. And the Empire didn't even know it! The Ranger would have cursed, but not even a space-scout's inventive vocabulary could express his feelings. Not really expecting an affirmative answer, Tarlac asked, "Can they--the women and children, anyway--can any of them surrender?" "No word for that in Language is," Hovan said. "We the concept from humans learned. They cannot." And that was a certain indicator in any language. Lacking the word, it lacked the concept, and so did the people who spoke it. It was true that no Traiti had surrendered during the entire course of the war, and there had been speculation about the reason; the hypothesis that Traiti were incapable of it had gained some favor over the years. Tarlac wasn't glad to find it was right. That meant that even more than the chance of peace rode on his survival of this Ordeal. Damn! Tarlac thought the word with vehement intensity, but didn't say it aloud. It wasn't fair! A race's extinction should not depend on one man, especially one who wasn't at all sure of his own ability to survive! Clearly, he could no longer afford such doubts. So, think of something else for now. Okay. He'd already begun to see how complex the Traiti were, much more so than the Empire suspected. The Empire's knowledge was limited to these people's savage ferocity--or what seemed like savage ferocity. The war had exploded suddenly and simply: a scoutship exploring about 150 parsecs coreward from Irschcha had fallen silent. A rescue ship sent to check on the scout had had time to describe its attackers before it was destroyed as well. The third ship was the Emperor Chang, a battle cruiser which survived its Traiti attack and brought word that, like it or not, the Empire was at war with an unreasoning enemy. Traiti hostility was long proven, but Tarlac could no longer believe it was unreasoning. "Hovan--why did your people attack that first scout, ten years ago? I feel certain it didn't give any deliberate provocation."