THE PORTAL is humanity's reach across the planes: a standing gate to whatever answers.
The builders expect beings of great enlightenment, whose mere presence would end all war.
The builders expect a great many things.
Requires GRAVITON ENGINEERING.
Three times in four the counsel is luminous, and every war on Earth ends at once.
The fourth time the Greys move in. A host city loses a fifth of its trade to corruption, and a citizen to a discontent nothing settles. Every 10 turns they take one more city - anyone's, anywhere.
They keep no hungry house: one turn of NEGATIVE FOOD and they are gone.