Second Contact

10

“I do not understand,” Felless said. She had said that many, many times since coming to the Greater German Reich. Most of the time, as now, she did not mean she could not understand the translator who was rendering some official’s words into the language of the Race. For a Big Ugly, this translator spoke the language well enough. What he said, though, and what the official said, made no sense to her.

“I will repeat myself,” the security official said. He seemed patient enough, willing enough, to make himself clear. Because he had lost most of the hair on top of his head, he looked a little less alien to her than did a lot of Tosevites. Below a wide forehead, his face was narrow, with a pointed chin. He spoke in the guttural Deutsch language. The translator turned his words into those Felless could follow: “The Jews deserve extermination because they are an inferior race.”

“Yes, you have said that before, Gruppenfuhrer Eichmann,” Felless said. “But saying something and demonstrating it is true are not the same. Is it not so that the Jews have given the Tosevite notempire known as the United States many able scientists? Is it not true that the Jews under the rule of the Race are thriving in Poland and Palestine and… and elsewhere?” She had learned some Tosevite geography, but not much.

“These things are true, Senior Researcher, yes,” Eichmann said calmly. “In fact, they prove my point.”

Felless’ jaw muscles tensed. She wanted to bite him. The urge was atavistic, and she knew it. But maybe pain would make him come out with something she recognized as sense. “How does it prove your point?” she demanded. “Does it not seem to prove exactly the opposite?”

“By no means,” Eichmann said. “For the purpose and highest destiny of any race is to form a-” The interpreter hesitated. He said, “The term ‘volkisch’ has no exact translation in the language of the Race. What the Gruppenfuhrer means is that it is the destiny of each kind of Tosevite to form a not-empire made up of that particular kind and no other.”

A thousand questions occurred to Felless, starting with, Why? She suspected-indeed, she was certain-that one would not take her anywhere she wanted to go. She tried a different one instead: “How are the Jews in any way different from this?”

“They are incapable of forming a not-empire of their own,” Eichmann answered, still sounding unimpassioned, matter-of-fact. “Instead, they dwell within not-empires other, better races have created, as disease viruses dwell within a body. And, again like viruses, they poison and destroy the bodies in which they dwell.”

“Let us assume much of what you say is true,” Felless said. “Has this conclusion you draw from the data been proved experimentally? Has anyone given these Jews land on which to set up a not-empire? Have they tried and failed? What sort of experimental control could you devise?”

“They have not tried and failed,” Eichmann replied. “They have not tried at all, which demonstrates they are incapable.”

“Perhaps it only demonstrates they have not had an opportunity,” Felless said.

Eichmann shook his head back and forth, a Big Ugly gesture of negation. “There has been no independent Jewish not-empire for two thousand years.”

Felless laughed in his face. “First, this is an inadequate sample. Two thousand years-even two thousand of your long years-is no great time in terms of the history of a race or group, regardless of your opinion. Second, you are arguing in a circle. You say the Jews cannot form a not-empire because for this period of time they have had no opportunity to form a not-empire, and then you say they have had no opportunity because they cannot form a not-empire. You may have one fork of the tongue or the other on that argument; you may not have both.”

Gruppenfuhrer Eichmann stirred behind his desk. The translator murmured to Felless: “The Gruppenfuhrer is not used to such disrespect, even from a male of the Race.”

That made Felless laugh again. “For one thing, I am not a male of the Race. I am a female of the Race, as should be obvious to you. For another, when elementary logic is classed as disrespect, I am not sure rational discussion between the Gruppenfuhrer and me is possible.” I am not sure the Gruppenfuhrer is even an intelligent creature. But his kind controls explosive-metal weapons. One day soon, they may begin to try to build a starship. What do we do then?

“I have here a choice,” Eichmann said. “I can follow what you say, a female of an alien species who has no personal experience of Tosev 3 and its races and kinds. Or I can follow the words and teachings of Hitler in his famous book My Struggle. Hitler spent his whole life pondering these problems. I trust his solutions far more than I trust yours. If this makes me seem illogical in your eyes, I am willing to pay such a price.”

He was as impervious as landcruiser armor. From his perspective, what he said made a certain amount of sense-but only a certain amount, for his conclusions, as far as Felless could see, remained those of a lunatic. His notions-and, presumably, this Hitler’s notions-of the importance of an individual not-empire for every minutely different variety of Tosevite also struck her as absurd. Her own bias, she admitted to herself, was for the unity and simplicity of the Empire.

She tried again: “If every Tosevite faction should have its own not-empire, how do you justify the rule of the Reich over the Francais and the Belgians and the Danes and other such different groups of-of Tosevites?” Big Uglies, she recalled just in time, sometimes took offense at being called Big Uglies to their big, ugly faces.

“That, Senior Researcher, is very simple,” Eichmann answered. “We have defeated them on the battlefield. This proves our superiority over them and demonstrates our right to rule them.”

“Is it not so that they have also defeated you on the battlefield from time to time?” Felless asked. “Are these events not random fluctuations of strength rather than tests of competitive virtue in the evolutionary sense?”

“By no means,” the Deutsch male answered through the interpreter. “Truth, at one time the Francais defeated us. But that was a hundred fifty years ago, and since that time they have mongrelized themselves, thus weakening their race to the point where we were easily able to defeat them not once but three times-though in the middle conflict we were robbed of our victory by a stab in the back.”

Felless did laugh again. She couldn’t help it. “The absurdity of imagining that evolution proceeds in such a fashion, or can have profound results in so few generations, is almost beyond description.”

“What is beyond description is the arrogance of the Race in imagining it can come to our planet and presume to understand us in so short a time,” Eichmann said.

Understand the Tosevites? Especially the Deutsch Tosevites? Felless did not think she would ever do that. She said, “Even the Tosevite authorities in the other not-empires, and also those in areas ruled by the Race, disagree with the interpretation offered by the Reich.”

“And what would you expect?” Eichmann’s shoulders moved up and down in a Tosevite gesture of indifference similar to the one the Race used. “When Jews dominate these other not-empires-and also the areas of the planet that you administer-they will naturally try to conceal scientific fact that places them in a bad light.”

“Jews do not dominate the areas of this planet that the Race rules,” Felless said, and added an emphatic cough. “The Race dominates those areas.”

“So you think now,” the Deutsch security official said. “One day before too long, you will say something else-if you ever notice the puppet strings attached to your wrists and ankles. But perhaps you will not even realize you wear shackles.”

That did it. The idea of Big Uglies of any sort manipulating the Race without the Race’s knowledge was too absurd to contemplate. Felless rose from her chair-which, being made for Big Uglies, was none too comfortable anyhow-and said, “I see no point to further discussion along these lines. I must say, I find it strange that Tosevites who accept the Race’s superior knowledge in so many areas refuse to believe our knowledge superior in others.”

To her disappointment, Eichmann did not rise to the bait. “I agree: this is pointless,” he said. “I acceded to your request for an interview as a courtesy, nothing more. I have long been aware of the Race’s profound ignorance in matters having to do with the relations among groups of Tosevites and the menace of the Jews. Good day.”

“Good day.” Tailstump quivering with rage, Felless stalked out of Eichmann’s office, out of the bleak stone pile known as the Kaiserburg, and into the Tosevite-made vehicle waiting for her without even noticing the frozen water on the ground or the temperatures conducive to keeping water frozen. “Take me back to the embassy this instant,” she snarled to the driver. “This instant, do you hear me?”

“It shall be done, superior female,” the driver said. Wisely, he said not another word till he had delivered the researcher to the one Homelike place in all Nuremberg.

She went up to her quarters in the same high dudgeon in which she had departed from Eichmann’s workplace. Once there, she entered into the data system the conversation she’d had with the Big Ugly while it was still fresh-revoltingly fresh-in her memory. Even the acid commentary she entered along with the interview failed to relieve her temper.

I should have bitten him, she thought. By the Emperor, I really should have bitten him. Then she stopped and shuddered. By associating with Big Uglies, I am becoming as uncivilized as they are.

She went next door and asked for admittance to Ttomalss’ chamber. Instead of admittance, she got a recorded message saying he was doing field research of his own and would be back in the midafternoon.

Felless muttered and hissed discontentedly. She’d asked Ttomalss to assist her. She had not asked him to undertake autonomous research. Being around the Big Uglies, with their passion for individualism, had corrupted him, too.

Back to her own quarters she went. She remained anything but happy. Associating with Tosevites could not possibly leave anyone happy, or so she was convinced. But the depth of her own rage and frustration and despair appalled her. Ever since her premature revival, she had had nothing but bad news about Tosev 3 and its inhabitants.

Maybe she could find better news. Maybe the better news would come, in a way, from Tosev 3. The way she felt now, any change would be an improvement. Ttomalss would not approve, but, at the moment, she didn’t care what Ttomalss thought. Ttomalss had gone off to do something on his own. Felless laughed. She wondered if, when he returned-it wouldn’t be too long-he would know what she’d done. She laughed again. She doubted it. He knew plenty about Big Uglies, but that seemed to be all he knew.

She went over to her desk and opened one of the drawers. In it, after not so long on Tosev 3, she’d already stowed four or five vials of the herb called ginger. This male or that one, all of them longtimers on this dreadful, chilly world, had given the herb to her, saying it would improve the way the place looked. Up till now, she hadn’t experimented; the stuff was against regulations. After the meeting with the Deutsch male called Eichmann, she didn’t care. All she cared about was relief.

She poured some ginger into the palm of her hand. The odor hit her scent receptors: spicy, alien, alluring. Her tongue shot out, almost of itself. In moments, the ginger was gone. In only moments more, the herb reached Felless’ brain.

“Why did somebody not tell me?” she murmured through the ecstasy suffusing her. She had never imagined it could be so good. She was smarter, quicker, more powerful than she’d ever imagined being. The only sensation that compared to it was mating, which she suddenly recalled much more vividly than she had since the last time she came into her season.

Mirth and joy filled her. So did the desire for another taste. She poured more ginger onto her palm. Would Ttomalss notice? She’d find out soon.

Ttomalss did not like the Deutsche. He knew no one among the males of the Race who did like the Deutsche. Many of the males who had fought against them respected their military abilities. Some of the males who worked for the embassy also respected their ability to acquire and develop new technology. But no one liked them.

“They are arrogant,” Veffani, the Race’s ambassador, had told him, “as arrogant as if they had done something to justify such arrogance, as the Race has unquestionably done. They are murderous, and are not only unapologetic but proud of it.”

Understanding how and why that was so would have been useful for the Race. To try to gain some of that understanding, Ttomalss had spoken with a certain Rudolf Hoss, an officer in charge of one of the industrial murder facilities the Deutsche operated. His question had been the most basic one possible: “How can you stand to do what you do? Does it not oppress you?”

“Why should it?” Hoss had answered with a yawn. “It is my assignment. My duty is to obey the orders of my superiors and to carry out my assignment to the best of my ability.”

Had a male of the Race said that, it would have been laudable. But no male of the Race would have dreamt of getting an assignment like Hoss’. Rather desperately, Ttomalss had asked, “But did you not think of rejecting this assignment when it was given to you?”

“Why should I have done that?” Hoss had seemed genuinely puzzled. “My training suits me for the work. Besides, if I did not do it, someone else would have to, and I can do it better than most.”

“But the nature of the task-” Ttomalss began to wonder if his translator was doing a proper job. Could the Big Ugly across the desk from him be so oblivious to the kind of thing he did?

Evidently, Hoss could. He said, “It is an assignment, like any other.”

No matter how Ttomalss tried, he could not penetrate below that insistence on duty to the true feelings Hoss had about his work. Maybe he had no true feelings about it. Ttomalss would not have believed that possible, but it seemed to be so.

He had returned to the embassy with a mixture of relief at coming back to Homelike surroundings and frustration at failing to accomplish his object. The mixture of feelings made him hiss in annoyance when someone asked for admittance to his chamber. “Who is it?” he demanded irritably.

“I: Felless,” was the reply from outside the chamber.

The female’s voice sounded odd, but Ttomalss did not dwell on that. The unfortunate fact was that he could not refuse her entry, not when she had summoned him here to assist in her research. “Come in, superior female,” he said, and thumbed the control that opened the airtight door. Given the proficiency of the Deutsche with poisonous gases, that struck Ttomalss as a more than reasonable precaution.

“I greet you,” Felless said, skittering toward him.

“I greet you, superior female,” Ttomalss said resignedly. He swung his eye turrets toward Felless with a certain amount of curiosity. She did sound strange, and she moved strangely, too, almost as if she were going faster than she had any business doing.

“Do you know, Senior Researcher, that the Tosevites are very likely the most aggravating species evolved anywhere in the entire galaxy?” Felless said.

“Truth,” Ttomalss said with an emphatic cough. It didn’t matter if Felless’ voice wasn’t quite right, not when she said things like that. “As a matter of fact, the Big Uglies are…”

He took a deep breath, preparatory to cataloguing the Tosevites’ many iniquities. As the air went into his lung, it went past his scent receptors. The odor they caught was familiar but altogether unexpected. He stared at Felless. The long scales between his eye turrets stood up to form a sort of a crest, as they had not done since he came to Tosev 3.

Felless stared at him, too. The erection of his crest was only one response his body made on smelling that odor. Almost without conscious thought, he pushed his chair back and came around his desk toward Felless. With each stride, he grew more nearly upright, till at last he walked almost like a Big Ugly. The female bent into a position somewhat similar to the posture of respect, one which left her posterior high and swung her tailstump out of the way.

Ttomalss hurried to place himself behind her. His reproductive organ jutted from his cloaca. He thrust it into hers. A moment later, he let out a whistling hiss as pleasure shot through his body.

When he released her, he said, “I did not know you were coming into your season, superior female.”

“Neither did I,” Felless said. “My body usually gives me some warning. This time, I had none. I tasted ginger a little while ago, and-”

She got no further than that. The pheromones pouring from her still filled the air and still intoxicated Ttomalss. The visual cues he gave excited Felless once more, and she reassumed the mating posture. Ttomalss coupled with her again, just as he had observed male Big Uglies repeatedly joining with females.

After the second mating, he was as worn as she. He had trouble thinking straight. He could still smell the pheromones. He wanted to couple again, even if he was not sure his body would respond to his desire. Hoarsely, he said, “Maybe you had better go. The embassy will be a chaotic place for a while, if this is truly our females’ season on Tosev 3.”

“But it should not be.” Felless sounded as dazed as Ttomalss felt. “I did not think I was coming into season, as I said. I do not think I am due to come into season for some time. But I did. By the Emperor, I did.” She cast down her eyes, as she should have. Then, of itself, her head began to lower. Her hindquarters began to rise.

Ttomalss started to move behind her once more. Had he not already coupled twice in mere moments, he would have joined with her yet again. Instead, in a strangled voice, he said, “Get out.”

Felless, still half in the mating posture, scuttled for the door. She poked the recessed button beside it with a fingerclaw. The door slid open. She scurried out-and almost ran into Veffani, who had a hand raised to activate the intercom and ask for admittance.

“Your pardon, superior sir,” Felless gasped.

“No apology necessary, Senior Researcher,” the ambassador to the Reich replied. As Ttomalss had done, he took a breath so he could say something more. As Ttomalss had done, he stopped with the words unspoken. The long scales at the top of his head lifted up, as Ttomalss’ were still doing. He stood more nearly erect.

Felless began to assume the full mating posture once more. But to Ttomalss, Veffani’s visual cues were not a signal for mating. To him, millions of years of evolution made them scream, Rival! He stalked toward Veffani, fingerclaws spread, mouth open in what was anything but a laugh.

It was not rational. It was anything but rational. Some small part of his mind knew that perfectly well. It watched in horror as the larger, dominant, part commanded him to hunt down and slaughter the male who was his superior.

Veffani was locked in the grip of fury, too, now that he saw Ttomalss’ visual cues along with smelling Felless’ pheromones. With what must have taken great effort, he said, “This is madness. We have to stop.”

“Truth.” The remaining part of Ttomalss’ mind that could still think clearly seized on the excuse not to tear and snap at Veffani. Then the telephone hissed for his attention. That was a stimulus against which evolution had developed few defenses. He turned away to answer it. Veffani did not spring upon him.

The call turned out to be inconsequential. When Ttomalss disconnected, he saw that Veffani was just disconnecting from Felless. The ambassador had taken advantage of his distraction to mate.

“Superior female, please leave before we are all completely addled,” Ttomalss said. Felless straightened from the mating posture and scurried off up the hallway.

Her pheromones lingered in the air, but not at a level to send Ttomalss and Veffani wild. “Now that the season is here, it is sweet,” Veffani said. “Soon it will be over, and we can go back to being ourselves.”

“Truth,” Ttomalss said. “And that will be sweet, too. I am glad to have mated, but I did not miss it while going so long without.”

“Well, of course not,” Veffani said. “Are we Tosevites, to be thinking of mating every moment of the day and night?” He paused, then waggled his tongue in self-deprecation. “At the moment, we might as well be Big Uglies. I still feel the urge-and the urge to quarrel with you as well.”

“And I with you, superior sir.” Ttomalss’ wits, distracted by the mating urge, remained less sharp than they should have been. When something new occurred to him, he cursed himself for not having seen it sooner. “How the Tosevites will laugh at us now that we are interested in such matters once more.”

“As I said, soon it will be over,” Veffani replied. “And of one thing you may be sure: Tosevites have short memories. Very soon, they will forget their mockery and accept our behavior as normal for us, just as their behavior, however revolting we find it, is normal for them.”

“In one way, superior sir, that is a most perceptive observation on your part,” Ttomalss said, and explained to the ambassador to the Reich how Kassquit, even though raised as nearly as possible as a female of the Race, still sought physical relief at regular intervals. The researcher went on, “In a different way, though, I fear you may be too optimistic, for when have the Big Uglies ever proved accepting either of us or of other factions of their own kind?”

“Well, that is also a truth.” Veffani let out an annoyed hiss. “I cannot think straight, not with these pheromones still in the air. And every male in the place will have scent receptors tingling, looking for the female in her season.”

“And soon the rest of the females will be in heat, too-and so the mating season will go,” Ttomalss said. “And then it will be over for another year. We shall have a new crop of hatchlings to begin to civilize, which will afford the Big Uglies further chances for mirth, not that their own hatchlings are anything save risible.” He checked himself. “No, that is not strictly true. Their hatchlings are risible while they are raising them. When one of us attempts the task, it is, I assure you, no laughing matter.”

“That I believe. You have my admiration for your efforts along those lines,” Veffani said. “I should not have cared to try to emulate them. What I should care for is-” He broke off and made another self-mocking tongue waggle. “What I should care for is another mating. Being in the season makes us strange, does it not?”

Before Ttomalss could answer, a male came hurrying down the hall. The scales of his crest were raised; he had the determined stride of one who knew exactly what he wanted, though not exactly where it was. A moment later, another similarly intent male followed him. Ttomalss laughed. “It has begun.”

With his mouth open, he caught more of Felless’ pheromones. His crest stood higher, too.

Nesseref was fed up with Tosev 3: not with the Big Uglies-who, while their reproductive habits were revolting, had proved to have some interesting and even personable individuals among them-but with her own kind. She gave Bunim, the regional subadministrator headquartered in Lodz, a sour stare. “In my opinion, superior sir, you cannot have it both ways. You wanted the shuttlecraft port in this area, but now you keep raising objections to every site I propose.”

“That, Shuttlecraft Pilot, is because you continue to propose objectionable sites,” Bunim replied. “Things in this region are more complicated than you seem to understand.”

“Enlighten me, then,” Nesseref said, with more sarcasm than she should have aimed at a superior. At the moment, she would cheerfully have aimed a weapon at Bunim. Obstructionist, she thought.

Through the window of his office, she could see little clumps of frozen water twisting and swirling in the icy breeze. The stuff was interesting, perhaps even attractive in a bizarre way-when seen through a window. Nesseref had acquired more experience of snow than she’d ever wanted, trying to find a landing site that would satisfy her and Bunim both.

Despite the cold, despite the snow, Tosevites still met to buy and sell in the market square on which Bunim’s office faced. They put on more layers of muffling and went about their business. In a way, such determination was admirable. In another way, it made her reckon the Big Uglies addled.

Bunim said, “The situation is complicated in this way: the Race rules Poland, but not in the way we rule Rabotev 2 or even the way we rule most other parts of Tosev 3. The two groups of Tosevites here-the Poles and the Jews-are both heavily armed and could, should they rise up against us, cause us a great deal of difficulty. The Jews are even said to possess an explosive-metal device, though I do not know for certain if this is true.”

“I met a Tosevite who said he was checking the security for such a bomb,” Nesseref said.

“All Tosevites lie,” Bunim said dismissively. “But the point is, the only reason the locals tolerate us is that they loathe the not-empires to either side of them, the Greater German Reich and the SSSR, more than they loathe us. We do not want them to loathe us more than they loathe these not-empires, or they might succeed in expelling us. Thus we have to step carefully. We cannot simply move in and take whatever we want. This includes taking land we want, provided the Big Uglies now owning it do not care to give it up. Now do you begin to see?”

“I do, superior sir.” What Nesseref thought she saw was a confession of weakness, but saying so would not do. What she did say was, “You are telling me you are treating these Big Uglies as if, in property rights and such, they were males and females of the Race.”

“Essentially, yes,” Bunim said.

Nesseref’s opinion of that policy was not high. Bunim, however, would not care what her opinion was, and his superiors would support his opinion. Nesseref said what she could: “I do wish this policy had been communicated to me some time ago rather than now. Doing so would have prevented a great deal of friction between us.” I could have done my job properly and gone away, she thought savagely. This is not a garden spot. From what I have seen of Tosev 3, it has no garden spots.

“I suppose I assumed you understood what the situation was here,” Bunim said. “We of the conquest fleet take matters Tosevite so much for granted by now, we are liable to forget that you colonists are less familiar with them.”

“It would be better if you did not.” Nesseref got up. “And now, superior sir, if you will excuse me…” She turned and departed without looking back at Bunim, so she never found out whether he excused her or not.

Outside, the wind snapped at her as if it had teeth, blowing snow into her face and into the front of the building where Bunim had his office. She drew her own mufflings more tightly around her. Her eye turrets turned toward the guards around the building. She pitied them. They had to endure this brutal weather for far longer stretches than she.

They’d also had to endure Bunim for a far longer stretch than she had. She pitied them for that, too. Now she turned an eye turret back toward his office. He infuriated her. He knew things, didn’t bother to tell them to her, and then blamed her when her work had problems.

“Unconscionable,” she muttered. But his superiors would back him. She was very sure of that. They’d served with him since the conquest fleet arrived. She was only a newcomer, and a newcomer of lower rank at that. “Unfair.” That was a low mumble, too. It was also the way the world-any world-worked.

She hated it, hated Bunim, hated everything about Tosev 3 except, strangely, a Tosevite or two. Rummaging in her belt pouch, she pulled out one of the vials of ginger males had given her. Maybe that would make her feel better. Nice if something could, she thought.

The breeze threatened to blow the ginger out of the palm of her hand. It was so cold that she wondered if her tongue would freeze to her skin when she shot it out. The taste of the herb was like nothing she’d ever known, sharp and sweet at the same time. And its effect was everything the males of the conquest fleet had said it would be, everything and then some. The truth of that amazed her as much as the sensation itself; she knew perfectly well how much males were in the habit of exaggerating.

Bliss filled her. The sensation reminded her of how she felt during mating season. She hadn’t thought much about that since her last season ended. Like the rest of the Race, she kept the mating season and what went on then in a separate compartment of her mind from the rest of her life. Ginger seemed to make the walls around that compartment crumble.

She shivered in the breeze, a shiver that had very little to do with the wretched Tosevite weather. To be interested in mating when she was not in season frightened her; some severe hormonal disorders had symptoms like that. But, at the same time, she enjoyed-she couldn’t help enjoying-the delicious feeling of longing that stole over her.

She took another taste, bending her head low over the ginger still in the palm of her hand. Bending her head low was also the beginning of the mating posture. She did her best not to think about that. With the herb coursing through her, not thinking was easy.

Nesseref swung her eye turrets back toward the building in which Bunim had his headquarters, to make sure the sentries hadn’t noticed her tasting ginger. Despite the number of males from the conquest fleet who used the stuff, it remained against regulations. The penalties imposed for using it struck her as absurdly harsh. She did not want to get caught.

Whether she wanted to or not, though, she was about to get caught, for both sentries were approaching her. She started to move away, hoping for the chance to sidle round a corner and disappear. But they were advancing on her with quick and determined strides.

Then she saw that their erectile scales had risen, and that they were moving with a more nearly upright gait than the Race usually used. “By the Emperor,” she whispered, “I was not just thinking about mating after all.” The breeze blew her words away-the same breeze that had blown her pheromones to the two males standing outside Bunim’s building.

One of them gestured, motioning for her to stick her head down farther and her hindquarters in the air. It was a gesture only used, only seen, during the mating season. She obeyed it without thinking. That seemed easier than ever.

Sometimes, in the wildness of the season, males fought over females. Sometimes they simply took turns. That was what happened here. The male who had not gestured tugged at Nesseref’s wrappings, then at his own, so they could join. “Miserable, clumsy things,” he grumbled.

He thrust his reproductive organ into hers. The pleasure that gave, when added to the pleasure of the ginger, was almost more than Nesseref could bear. When the male finished, the other one took his place. She enjoyed his attentions as much as those of his predecessor.

Dimly, she noticed a crowd of Tosevites gathering around her and the two males she had aroused. The Big Uglies stared and pointed and said things in their incomprehensible language. Some of them made strange barking, yapping sounds. Nesseref had heard that was how they laughed. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything except the ginger and what the males were doing.

They’d switched again. A moment later, the one who’d gone first finished his new coupling. The other one took his place once more.

By the time he finished, the ginger was beginning the ebb from Nesseref’s system. She raised her head and lowered her rump, turning her eye turrets back toward the males. “Enough,” she said. Suddenly, what she’d just been doing disgusted her. She felt as low as she’d been filled with delight a moment before.

“No such thing as enough,” one of the guards said, and gave an emphatic cough. But he’d mated with her twice, so both the words and the cough sounded halfhearted.

“Funny a female should come into season in winter,” the male remarked. “Probably has something to do with the long Tosevite years.”

Sunk in depression as she was-something about which ginger-tasters had not warned her-Nesseref did not answer. But I wasn’t coming into season, she thought. I wasn’t. I would know if I were. I always know a few days before I do. Every female knows beforehand.

She hadn’t been close to coming into season till she tasted ginger. As soon as she’d tasted it, thoughts of mating started going through her head. That was very strange. She wondered if it would happen every time she tasted. Maybe she would find out, because she wanted to taste again. From these depths, the heights to which she’d ascended on the herb seemed all the more desirable.

Desirable… “Do you males go into season when you taste ginger?” she asked the guards, figuring one or both of them was likely to use the herb.

“No,” one answered. “That’s foolish. How can a male go into season without a female in heat to send him there?” The other sentry gestured to show he agreed.

I don’t know, Nesseref thought. How can a female go into season when it’s not her time? She didn’t know that, either, not for certain, but she’d just done it. Now she noticed the gaping, laughing Tosevites. By the Emperor, how am I any different from them? One more question for which she had no answer.

“I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said. “I trust your stay in Australia proved enjoyable and restorative?”

“Oh, indeed, Shiplord, indeed,” Atvar said. “And I trust there are new crises and disasters awaiting me here.” His mouth opened in a wry laugh. “There always are.”

“No crises or disasters,” Kirel said, and Atvar felt a strange mixture of disappointment and relief. The shiplord of the bannership went on, “There is one thing, however, which has come up in the last few days that does appear worthy of your attention.”

“There always is,” Atvar said with a sigh. “Very well, Shiplord: enlighten me. You were on the point of doing so anyhow, I have no doubt.”

“As a matter of fact, I was,” Kirel agreed. “It appears that, here and there across Tosev 3, a certain number of females from the colonization fleet have come into season. Matings have taken place, and one male near Basra was badly bitten in a fight over a female.”

“That is curious,” the fleetlord said. “A certain number of females, you tell me? They should all enter their season at about the same time, not piecemeal. Did Reffet use some peculiar selection criteria for them? Are some from the worlds of the Rabotevs and Hallessi rather than Home?”

“I do not believe that to be the case,” Kirel replied. “Nevertheless, there does appear to be a common factor in these incidents.”

His tone warned that good news did not lie ahead. Atvar fixed him with a baleful stare. “I suppose you are going to tell me what this common factor is, too. Before you do, tell me whether I really want to know.”

“I do not know whether you do or not, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said, “but I will tell you that you need to know.”

“Very well,” Atvar said, with the air of a male who expected the enemy to do his worst.

Kirel proceeded to do just that: “It appears that all the females who suddenly came into season had tasted ginger shortly before they did so. This is not certain, due to natural reluctance to admit to ginger-tasting, but it appears likely to be true.”

“I think I will go back to Australia now,” Atvar said. “No, on second thought, I believe I will go into cold sleep and have my miserable, frozen carcass shipped back to Home. When I am revived there, everything that has happened to me here will seem to be only a dream remembered from hibernation. Yes, I like the sound of that very much.”

“Exalted Fleetlord, you led us into battle against the Big Uglies,” Kirel said loyally. “You gained as satisfactory a peace as you could after conditions turned out to be different from those we anticipated. Do you now despair over an herb we have been fighting since not long after our landing on Tosev 3?”

“I am tempted to,” Atvar replied. “Are you not? Fight as we would, we could not keep a great many males from becoming regular ginger users. Do you think we shall have any better luck with the females from the colonization fleet?”

“Who can say, with any certainty?” Kirel replied. “We may yet find a way to overcome the craving the herb causes.”

“I hope you are right,” Atvar said. “But I wish I truly believed it.” He studied Kirel. The shiplord of the 127th Emperor Hetto truly did not seem too upset at the news he had given Atvar. Perhaps he did not understand its implications. Atvar did. Tosev 3 had given him practice in recognizing catastrophes while they were still hatching. He proceeded to spell this one out: “You say it is truth that females who taste ginger go into their season?”

“Some females, yes: this is truth,” Kirel said. “I do not know if it is truth for all females.”

“Spirits of Emperors past grant that it not be,” Atvar said, and cast his eyes down to the floor of his office in Shepheard’s Hotel. “Females going into season will mean males going into season, sure as night follows day.”

“That is also truth, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel admitted. “I have no doubt it will prove a nuisance, but-”

“A nuisance,” Atvar exclaimed. “A nuisance? Is that all you see?” Kirel was sound, conservative, reliable. He had as much imagination now as he’d had in his eggshell, when he’d had nothing to imagine. Atvar said, “Females will not taste ginger at only one season of the year, any more than males do.”

“No doubt you are right once more, Exalted Fleetlord.” No, Kirel really did not grasp the size of the disaster looming ahead.

Atvar made it unmistakably clear: “Shiplord, if we have females accessible to mating at any season of the year and males accessible to mating at any season of the year, how are we any different from Big Uglies? ”

“That is a… fascinating question, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said slowly. “I must confess, I have no good answer for it at the moment.”

“I was hoping you might, because I have none, either,” Atvar said. “The accursed Tosevites have evolved to cope with their bizarre biology. If our biology on this world becomes bizarre, how are we to cope? Evolution has not prepared us to be in season the year around. Can you imagine anything more wearing? How are we to get done that which will assuredly need doing if our minds are constantly filled with thoughts of mating?”

Kirel’s eye turrets were rigid and still with horror as he stared at the fleetlord. “No analysis up to this time has suggested such a chain of events,” he said. “That does not necessarily mean they are improbable, however. Indeed, they strike me as all too probable.” He folded himself into the posture of respect. “How did you come to postulate them?”

“When dealing with matters on this planet, my standard method is to take the worst thing I can imagine, multiply it by ten, and then begin to suspect I have something a quarter of the way to the true level of misfortune,” Atvar said.

Kirel laughed. Atvar wished he had been joking. Kirel asked, “What is now to be done?”

“I do not know,” Atvar answered. His laugh, unlike Kirel’s, was bitter. “We have been studying the Tosevites’ sexuality since we arrived here. Who would have imagined our research might have practical applications to our own situation?”

“We must do everything we can to keep ginger out of the hands and off the tongues of females,” Kirel said. “That will not eliminate the problem, but it will help reduce it.”

“Draft the appropriate orders for my approval,” Atvar said. “As you say, that will not remove the problem, but it will make it smaller. And, like an army that has taken a heavy blow, we need to buy time and regroup.”

“Truth. It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord.” Kirel hesitated, then went on, “If I may offer a suggestion?”

“Please do,” Atvar said. “The more suggestions we have now, the better.”

“Very well, then.” Kirel looked away from Atvar with both eye turrets for a moment. He was embarrassed at what he was about to say, then. Nevertheless, he said it: “In matters pertaining to year-round sexuality, we are the ignorant ones, the Big Uglies the experts. You could do worse than consult with them in regard to this problem. We shall not be able to keep it secret. In fact, if some of the reports reaching Cairo are true, it is no longer secret. Some very public matings have occurred.”

“Have they?” Atvar shrugged. Such things happened all the time during mating season. Still, Kirel’s point was well taken. Atvar said, “A good notion. I shall summon Moishe Russie. Not only is he a Big Ugly, but also a physician, or what passes for such among his kind. He will undoubtedly be able to tell us much that we do not yet know or suspect about what lies ahead for us.”

He wasted no time, but telephoned Russie at his practice in Jerusalem. Being the most powerful individual on the planet had its advantages: Russie did not refuse to speak to him. Atvar couched his orders in polite terms; he had seen over the years how touchy and stubborn Russie could be. But they were orders, and of that the fleetlord left no doubt.

Next morning, Russie presented himself at Shepheard’s Hotel. “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” he said when Pshing escorted him into Atvar’s presence. “How may I assist you?” He spoke the language of the Race well if pedantically.

Atvar remembered there had been a time when Russie was unwilling to assist the Race in anything. He had, to some degree, mellowed. If he could help the Race without hurting his own kind, he would. The situation was not ideal from the fleetlord’s point of view, but it was acceptable. On Tosev 3, that ranked as something of a triumph.

“I shall explain,” Atvar said, and he did.

Russie listened intently. Atvar had studied Tosevite expressions-far more varied and less subtle than those of the Race-but saw nothing on the Big Ugly’s face save polite interest. When the fleetlord finished, Russie said, “I have already heard something of this. There was an incident in Jerusalem the other day that shocked both Jews and Muslims, but no one knew its likely cause till now.”

An incident that shocked the Muslims was the last thing the fleetlord wanted; that Tosevite faction was already far too restive. He said, “How are we to prevent further such incidents?”

“As you surely know, it is our strong custom to mate privately,” Russie said. “A ban on public mating by the Race would help keep order in areas of the planet you rule.”

“Our custom is the opposite,” Atvar said. “We are in the habit of mating wherever we chance to be when the urge strikes us. Still, for the sake of good order among the Tosevites, a ban such as you suggest might be worthwhile.” It would be a palliative, as would tighter controls on ginger-smuggling, but Tosev 3 had taught him palliatives were not always to be despised.

“If your females, or some of them, are to be in season all the time, you will also need rules about with whom they can mate, and perhaps about what happens when a male mates with a female against her will,” Russie said.

“If a female is in season, mating is not against her will,” Atvar answered.

Russie shrugged. “You know better than I.”

“Not necessarily,” Atvar said. “This is unfamiliar territory for the Race, as unfamiliar as Tosev 3 was before our probe landed here-and as unfamiliar as Tosev 3 was after the probe landed here, too.”

“Why exactly, then, have you summoned me?” the Tosevite asked.

Atvar turned both eye turrets toward him. “For your suggestions,” the fleetlord replied. “You have already given some. I hope you will give more. The Race will have to cope, as we have had to cope with so much on your world.”

“If you had thought of it as our world from the beginning, you would not have these problems now.” Moishe Russie’s face twisted into a peculiar grimace. “And I, very likely, would be dead. I will do what I can for you, Exalted Fleetlord.”

“I thank you.” Atvar sounded more sincere than he had expected. With luck, Russie would not notice.

Monique Dutourd kept noticing Lizards on the streets of Marseille as she bicycled to work. She hadn’t seen so many since the Race ruled the south of France back in the days when she was a girl. Normally, she would not have taken much notice of them. After learning how her brother made his living-after learning Pierre was alive to make a living-she paid more attention to them. She couldn’t help wondering whether they were here to smuggle things into and out of the city.

Semester break had come and gone. Now she was teaching about the later Roman Empire, all the way through the sixth-century era of Justinian. Sure as the devil-in more ways than one, she supposed-Dieter Kuhn was enrolled in the class, still under the name of Laforce.

She wished he weren’t. She wished he weren’t for a couple of reasons, in fact. For one thing, of course, he still wanted to use her to do something dreadful to Pierre. And, for another, she had to teach about the Germanic invasions of the Roman Empire in this part of the course. She knew by his examinations that he took meticulous notes. Having meticulous notes on a Frenchwoman’s opinions about the Germanic invasions of the Empire in Gestapo hands might not have been the last thing she wanted, but it came close.

On she pedaled, threading her way through the traffic with nearly automatic ease. She was glad trousers were more acceptable on women than they had been when she was a girl. They helped preserve modesty on a bicycle and, in winter, they also kept her legs warm-not that Marseille winter was all that cold.

Just south of Rue Grignan, traffic came to a halt. Even on a bicycle, Monique could barely squeeze forward. She tilted her left wrist to look at her watch. When she saw the time, she muttered a curse. She was liable to be late to her lecture, which meant she was liable to be in trouble with the university authorities.

Up ahead, someone in a motorcar blew his horn, and then someone else and someone else again. But, curiously, she heard none of the ripe oaths she would have expected motorists and bicyclists caught in a traffic jam to loose. Instead, what floated back to her ears was laughter, laughter and rude suggestions: “Turn a hose on them!” “In the name of God, find them a hotel room!” “Yes, for heaven’s sake-one with a bidet!” That brought more coarse laughter.

“What is going on up there?” Monique exclaimed, picking her way between a fat man on a bicycle too small for him and a German soldier in a field-gray Volkswagen utility vehicle. The soldier blew her a kiss. The fat man winked at her. She ignored them both. Standing on tiptoe while straddling the bicycle, she tried to see what was going on up ahead. People couldn’t have been so shameless as to prove their affection for each other in the middle of a crosswalk… could they?

A man who should have shaved the day before yesterday looked back over his shoulder and said, “There’s a couple of Lizards up ahead there, fucking their brains out.”

“No,” Monique said, not so much contradiction as simple disbelief.

But, as she edged up even with the man with the stubbled cheeks and chin, she discovered he was telling the truth. There in the middle of the road, a couple of Lizards were going at it for all they were worth. She’d never seen, never imagined seeing, such a thing. In an abstract way, she admired the male’s stamina and enthusiasm, though she wouldn’t have wanted to stand so long with her head down by her toes, as the female was doing.

Aesthetic considerations here were very much by the way. What mattered to her was that the Lizards, by blocking traffic, were going to make her late. “Yes, turn a fire hose on them!” she shouted.

After what seemed like forever but was about five minutes, she got past them. They were still mating as enthusiastically as ever. Half a block down, she spied a policeman. “Why don’t you arrest them?” she shouted, still furious at the delay.

With a shrug, the flic replied, “My dear mademoiselle, I do not know whether it is against the law for Lizards to fornicate in public. So far as I am aware, no statute covers such an eventuality.” He shrugged again and took a bite from a sandwich he carried in place of his billy club, which swung on his belt.

“Arrest them for blocking traffic if you can’t arrest them for screwing,” Monique snapped. The policeman only shrugged again. Monique had no time to argue with him. She pedaled furiously-in every sense of the word-toward the south.

When she strode into the lecture hall, sweat stained her blouse. But she was on time, with about fifteen seconds to spare. She began to talk about the Gothic incursions into the Roman Empire in the middle of the third century, incursions that had cost the Emperor Decius his life, as dispassionately-or so she hoped-as if no such people as the Germans had troubled the world in the seventeen hundred years since Decius’ unfortunate and untimely demise.

At least I don’t publish anything touching on this period, she thought. A lecture could be thought of as written on the wind. A scholarly article left a record as permanent as the inscriptions she pursued. The Gestapo could, if it so chose, do all sorts of unpleasant things with that.

The Gestapo, in the person of Sturmbannfuhrer Dieter Kuhn, came up to her after the lecture and said, “Another stimulating discussion of the issues. You have my compliments, for whatever you think they may be worth.”

“Thank you,” Monique said, and turned away to answer a genuine student’s question about where the Goths had landed along the coast of Asia Minor. It was the last real question she had. When she finished dealing with it, Dieter Kuhn still stood waiting. Her temper flared. “Damn you. What do you want?”

“If it is all right with you, we will ride back to your flat together,” Kuhn said.

“And if it is not all right with me?” Monique set her hands on her hips.

Kuhn shrugged, not quite as a Frenchman would have done. “Then we will ride back to your flat together anyhow.” He had never been anything but polite to her, but he made it very plain he did not intend to take no for an answer.

“Why?” she asked, playing for time.

She did not really expect an answer, but the SS officer gave her one: “Because something strange is happening in your brother’s dealings with the Lizards. It could be that, before too long, he will see us as friends, or at least as professional colleagues, rather than as foes.”

It did not sound like a lie. But then, if it was, it wouldn’t. Still, Monique started to dismiss it… till she remembered the morning traffic snarl. “Does it have to do with Lizards screwing?” she asked.

His eyes, brown as hers, widened slightly. “You are very clever,” he said, as if wondering whether she was too clever for her own good. “How did you figure that out? The situation has made itself plain only in the past few weeks. There has been no talk of it in the newspapers or on the wireless. We have made certain of that.”

“I wish I could take more credit for intelligence, but I saw a pair of them, ah, enjoying themselves as I rode down to the university this morning,” Monique answered.

“Ah,” Kuhn said. “I see. And now, shall we go?”

Monique considered. The only other choice she saw was screaming and hoping enough Frenchmen came running to give the SS man a good beating. But that would be dangerous not only for her but also for anyone who came to her aid. She sighed. “Very well,” she said, though it wasn’t.

Kuhn had, as usual, come prepared. The bicycle he rode was almost as old and disreputable as hers. She rode every day. So far as she knew, he didn’t. He had no trouble staying with her even so. She got the feeling he was, if anything, holding back. She sped up till she might have been racing. Kuhn stuck like a burr. He glanced over to her and nodded, plainly enjoying himself. Damn him, he wasn’t even breathing hard.

As she let him into her flat, she wished, not for the first time, that she only had to worry about him tearing off his trousers. She suspected she wouldn’t be able to stop him if he tried-and a Frenchwoman who dared lodge a complaint against the all-powerful SS would be lucky if she just got ignored. But Kuhn wasn’t interested in her body-or not interested enough to do anything along those lines. To him, she was a tool, a key, not an object of desire.

“Call your brother,” he said now. He must have seen the mulish resistance on her face, for he went on, “You may tell him I am forcing you to do it. You may, if you like, tell him I wish to speak with him, for I do.”

“Why don’t you just call him yourself, then, and leave me out of it?” Monique demanded. More than anything else, she wanted not to be stuck between the brother she didn’t know and the SS she knew too well.

“He is more likely to pay attention to his sister than to someone who has been hunting him for some time,” Dieter Kuhn answered.

“He hasn’t paid any attention to me for more than twenty years,” Monique said. Kuhn looked at her. The look said, Get on with it. Hating herself, she picked up the telephone and dialed the number she’d worked so hard to learn.

“Allo?” It was the woman with the sexy voice. Pierre’s wife? His mistress? Only his secretary? Did smugglers have secretaries? Monique didn’t know.

“Hello,” she said back. “This is Pierre’s sister. There is an SS man in my flat who needs to speak with him.”

That got her a few seconds of silence, and then Pierre’s voice, as full of suspicion as the woman’s had been the first time Monique spoke to her: “Hello, little sister. What nonsense is this about an SS man? Is it the fellow who wanted to be your boyfriend?”

“Yes.” Monique’s face heated. She thrust the handset at Kuhn. “Here.”

“Thank you.” He took it with complete aplomb. “Bonjour, Dutourd. I just thought you ought to know that ginger is a genuine aphrodisiac for female Lizards. They didn’t like the trade before. Now they have an even bigger reason to hate it. If they come after you-when they come after you-we won’t lift a finger to stop them, not unless we get some cooperation on your end.”

He played the game well. Monique already knew that. Now she saw it again. She wondered how much difference it would make to her brother. Not much, she hoped. If Pierre didn’t play this game well, he wouldn’t have been able to stay in business so long himself.

He said something. Monique could hear his voice coming out of the telephone, but not the words. Dieter Kuhn obviously heard the words. “I think you are being an optimist,” he replied. “I think, in fact, you are being a fool. As I said, if you do not cooperate with us, we shall not cooperate with you. Au revoir. ” He hung up, then turned to Monique. “Your brother is stubborn. He will live to regret it-for how long, I cannot say.”

Monique burst into tears. Through them, she pointed to the door. “Get out.” Rather to her surprise, Kuhn left. She cried for a long time even so.

Straha turned one eye up from the documents and photographs Major Sam Yeager had given him toward the Tosevite himself. “You are confirming what my sources in lands ruled by the Race have already reported to me,” he said. “I find it highly amusing. Would you not agree?”

“I just might, Shiplord,” Yeager answered. “For the past twenty years, the Race has been calling us sexually wild, and now your males and females are mating whenever they get the chance. Yes, that is pretty funny, all right.”

“Atvar will be shedding his skin in patches,” Straha said with a certain morbid relish. “Females coming into heat outside the proper mating season will be something new and unexpected. The Race is not at its best dealing with the new and unexpected.” He added an emphatic cough. “And Atvar is not good at dealing with the new and unexpected even for a male of the Race.”

Yeager said, “If you already knew this, Shiplord, I am sorry I had you come down to my house to look at these things.”

“Do not concern yourself,” Straha answered. “I know that one of the things I am is a Tosevite tool. I chose the role myself, if you will recall.” He laughed a small laugh. “How strange that the herb which gives males so much pleasure turns out to give females and males even more.”

“Shiplord, that is one of the things I wanted to ask you,” Yeager said. “There are a couple of females of the Race in Los Angeles now. If we were to arrange to give them some ginger while you were around… if you want us to do that, we can take care of it for you. You have done a lot for us over the years.”

Straha thought about it, then made the negative hand gesture. “You mean this generously, I have no doubt. I believe a Big Ugly who had gone without a female for as long as I have would be inclined to accept. But a male of the Race, you must understand, has no desire until his scent receptors catch the odor of a female in her season.”

“No, I do understand that,” Yeager answered. “If we gave one of these females ginger, you would smell that odor. I wondered if you wanted to, is all.”

“Again, I say thank you, but no,” Straha said. “I am content to remain as I am. If I could join fully in the colonies now forming, it might be something else, but I know it will never be permitted.”

Exile. Once more, the word beat at him. It was what he was. He would never be anything else. He could never be anything else. If Atvar died tomorrow, his replacement would be Kirel, who might as well have hatched from the same egg. And Reffet, the fleetlord of the colonization fleet, was too new-come to Tosev 3 to understand what had driven Straha to do as he did.

Suppose he had succeeded in overthrowing Atvar, after the Big Uglies set off their first explosive-metal bomb. Suppose he had gone on to conquer the whole chilly, miserable planet. What would he do now? — for surely some females would taste ginger under his regime. He longed for a taste himself right now, as he sat here talking with Yeager.

He truly did not know what he would do. He did know Atvar was welcome to the problem. Whatever Atvar did would probably be a half measure, too little and too late. That was Atvar’s way. Straha said as much.

“It is not easy to figure out what he might do,” Yeager said, echoing Straha’s thought. “A lot of ginger goes into the parts of Tosev 3 the Race occupies, and a lot gets grown there, too. I do not see how the Race will be able to stop females from tasting it. And when they do…”

“Indeed, Sam Yeager,” Straha said. “Preventing that will be difficult. And I have heard that females continue to give off the pheromones for some time after first being stimulated to do so by the herb.”

“I had not heard that. I had better write it down.” Yeager did. The chimes at his front door pealed. He got to his feet. “Excuse me.” He hurried out to see who was there; he had no intercom to check from back here in his study.

After the door opened, Straha heard Yeager speaking English: “Oh, hello, Karen. Come on in. Jonathan’s back in his bedroom. Chemistry tonight, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, Mr. Yeager. He’s got to help me on this one-he’s better at it than I am.” This voice was higher and thinner than Yeager’s: it came, Straha judged, from a female Big Ugly. And, sure enough, the Tosevite who walked past the doorway wore her coppery hair long and possessed-and, indeed, displayed-prominent mammary glands. She also displayed a lot of skin, which was painted in a good imitation of the pattern a mine-clearance underofficer wore.

Straha did not know what to make of young Big Uglies imitating the Race like that. The first time he’d seen it, a couple of years before, he’d been offended. Now he was more nearly resigned, and hoped it meant assimilation in action. Even Sam Yeager’s offspring decorated himself so.

“Oh,” the young Tosevite said, seeing him. She assumed the posture of respect about as well as a Big Ugly could and shifted from English to the language of the Race: “I greet you, superior sir.”

“I greet you, Mine-Clearance Underofficer,” Straha replied with wry amusement. “My proper title is Shiplord.”

“Ship-?” The female’s small eyes went as wide as they could. Still in the posture of respect, she said, “I meant no offense.”

“I do not reckon myself insulted.” Straha watched her staring at his ornate body paint, and wondered if she would be sporting something like it soon. “You speak and understand my language well,” he said. “Now go and study your chemistry. It may prove useful to you later in life.”

From behind the young female, Sam Yeager spoke again in English: “Yeah, run along, Karen. I’m talking shop here, I’m afraid.” On she went, that bright hair shining. Yeager came back into the study. “I hope she did not disturb you too much, Shiplord.”

“By her presence? No,” Straha replied. “I spoke truth when I said she spoke well. But I hope you will not be insulted when I say I would sooner have a more experienced underofficer in charge of securing a mined area.”

“As a matter of fact, I agree with you.” Yeager shook his head, a gesture of bemusement Straha understood. “But I sometimes think a lot of young males and females would sooner belong to the Race than to their own kind.” He laughed a loud Tosevite laugh. “Even the ones who imitate the Race most closely, though, forget how different your mating habits are from ours. Imitating those would not be easy for them.”

“As things seem to have turned out, your young females and males would say they are imitating our females and males under the influence of ginger,” Straha observed. “That would let them do anything they like in matters pertaining to mating.”

“They already come too close to doing anything they like,” Yeager answered. “It was not like this when I was an adolescent. And my father could have said the same thing before me, and his father before him.”

“There in a sentence you have the difference between your species and mine,” Straha replied. “With us, everything is always the same from one generation to the next.” He paused. “Though I do wonder whether that will hold as true on Tosev 3 as it has on the other worlds we rule. Everything we do here seems built on sand.”

“If you cannot change on this world, you are going to have problems, sure enough,” Sam Yeager said.

“Changing our mating habits will not be easy,” Straha said. “But I can also see that keeping from changing our mating habits will not be easy, either. I crave ginger right now. Surely females will crave it as much as males. If at each taste it stimulates them to give off the pheromones that indicate they are in season… life on this planet will grow even more complicated for us than it is already.”

“You had better get used to the idea, then,” Yeager said. “How do you suppose it will change your society?”

“I do not know. In the absence of data, I would sooner not try to guess,” Straha replied. “My kind is not so given to reckless speculation as is yours.” He pointed to the Tosevite. “I will tell you this, however: life for you independent Big Uglies has also grown more complicated than it used to be.”

“How do you mean?” Yeager asked, and then checked himself. “Oh. Of course. The attack against the colonization fleet.”

“Yes, the attack against the colonization fleet,” Straha agreed. “You Big Uglies learn quickly, but you also forget quickly. The Race is different. If, two hundred years from now, the Race learns which not-empire is guilty of that attack, we will punish that not-empire. And we will be searching for the truth through all those two hundred years.”

“I understand,” Yeager said, but Straha wondered if he really did. He was, after all, a Tosevite himself, even if he had unusual insight into the way the Race thought.

“Is there anything else?” Straha asked him. Yeager shook his head again, this time in negation. Typical Tosevite inefficiency, Straha thought, to have one gesture do duty for two separate meanings. The exile shiplord got to his feet. “Then I shall depart. I now have much to think about, and so, I would imagine, have you.”

“Truth,” said Yeager. He walked with Straha to the front door, and stood watching till the male had got into the Tosevite vehicle in which he was conveyed from one point to another in this city-which was not small even by the standards of the Race.

“Take me back to my home,” he told the Big Ugly who was his driver and guard.

“It shall be done, Shiplord.” The fellow started the vehicle’s motor. As he did so, he remarked, “That was an attractive female who went into Major Yeager’s house.” He appended an emphatic cough.

“If you say so,” Straha answered. “I am glad you found something to amuse you while I was talking with the major. On me, I assure you, the attractiveness, if any, of the female was wasted. I did note, however, that she made a most improbable mine-clearance underofficer.”

His driver laughed. “I believe it!” He glanced back at Straha, a habit the shiplord wished he would forget while the motorcar was moving. “How do you judge if a female of the Race is attractive?”

“By scent more than by sight,” Straha answered absently. He wondered if he should have told Yeager he wanted to mate with a female after all. If he was lucky, his eggs would join in the new society the Race was building here, even if he could not. He shrugged. Mating simply was not the urgent matter with him that it was for Tosevites. He missed it not at all. Getting home to his ginger struck him as much more urgent. “Do not dawdle,” he told the driver, and the motorcar went faster.