The senior’s crest came up. “They are worse than the gray threshkreen of Diess? The metal threshkreen of Kerlen? They are worse than the accursed thresh of the lesser continent, who battered and destroyed our first landing and even now defy the People with fire and blood?”

The younger God King looked deckward, answering, “My lord… these are the gray thresh, their home. The beings of the lesser continent? They are the descendants of colonists, much like the People, who left their original home for a new and almost empty one, smashing and exterminating the thresh they found there.”

The chief bristled, crest unfurling. “So you are saying, young Ro’moloristen, that this place, this Europe, is too difficult a task for the People, too difficult for me?”

“No! My lord, no!” apologized the junior hastily. “It can be done. But we must approach more cautiously than is our wont. We must seize a base… or, I think, perhaps two. There we shall build our strength before completing the subjugation of the rest. Look, my lord. See. Here is my recommendation.” The younger God King played claws over an Aldenata screen.

Mollified, if only partly, Athenalras glanced at the screen. “I see. You would have us land here, east on the flat open area…”

“They call it Poland, my lord.”

“Poland?” queried Athenalras. “Barbarous name,” he snorted.

“Indeed,” agreed Ro’moloristen. “And the reputation among the threshkreen of these thresh of this barbarous place, Poland, in war is no mean one, though they have had scant success.”

“And the other major landing?”

“They call that France. Again, their reputation on the Path of Fury is no mean one, and yet, they too have had scant success.”

“I do not understand, puppy. We land, so you propose, at two locations where the local thresh are fierce in war but do not succeed in it? I simply do not understand.”