Athenalras cursed. He cursed the humans and their damned cowardly ways of fighting. He cursed the fetid grass and disgusting trees of this world, "Blech, what a disgusting color, green? Red, brown, blue. Those I could understand. But green?"
Mostly, though, he cursed the Aldenata, those sticky-fingered players at godhood whose meddling had driven the People to one disgusting world after another. "Mindless, arrogant, self-righteous," he muttered. "Stupid, vain and foolish . . ."
Athenalras heard a faint coughlike sound, though coming as it did from a Posleen throat no human would have found it to be terribly coughlike. More like the hacking of a bird disgorging digestive stones, it was.
"My lord?" interrupted Ro'moloristen.
"What is it, puppy?" growled the senior, reaching forth a finger and pressing a button. In his view-screen a tall, spindly, four-legged metal tower with no obvious purpose began to waver and then melt. Athenalras grunted satisfaction; yet another example of the natives' nauseating sense of aesthetics sent to perdition.
"Reports here in the human province of France are most favorable. Our rear, in Spain, is almost secure. On the other side, Poland is putting up a spirited resistance, but there is no doubt it will fall completely . . . and very soon."
"Good," hissed the warleader. "And how goes it for our little selective breeding program in the center?"
"A mixed bag," answered Ro'moloristen, equivocally. In truth, he did not know for a certainty whether Athenalras meant progress in conquest or progress in eliminating stupid underlings. The junior God King thought it entirely possible his chief meant both.