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“As I said, they are known to be devious. Competing against one another has made them so,” Ttomalss said. He wondered whether the Big Uglies really were devious enough to impersonate a male of the Race on the computer network. As he’d told Kassquit, it was possible, but he still had trouble believing it.
Felless said, “I will be laying my eggs soon. I would like to think my hatchlings will become adults on a world where the Race is able to hold the natives in check, if nothing more.”
“Will all be well for the hatchlings if you stay here?” Ttomalss asked. “I know Slomikk was considering sending females away, to reduce the risk of radiation damage to their eggs.”
“The risk is relatively small, and my work is important to me and to the Race,” Felless replied. “I have considered, and have decided to stay.”
“Very well,” Ttomalss said. Few Tosevite females, he judged, would have made the same choice. Because of their biology and the unique helplessness of their hatchlings, their females developed stronger attachments for them than was usual among the Race. Ttomalss had discovered that after taking the female Liu Han’s hatchling and beginning the attempt to raise it as a female of the Race. Her revenge still made him shudder after all these years. Perhaps most frightening of all was the knowledge that she could have done worse.
Felless came back to what was uppermost in her mind: “How can we properly punish these Big Uglies when they flout our wishes?”
“If I knew that, I would deserve to be the fleetlord,” Ttomalss answered. “No-I would deserve to be above the fleetlord, for no one has yet found any sure answer to that question.”
“There must be one,” Felless said. “Perhaps we should start smuggling large quantities of drugs into the Reich and let the Deutsche see how they like that. I know Ambassador Veffani is considering the scheme.”
“I hope he decides wisely,” Ttomalss said, which let him avoid stating an opinion of the idea. Thinking of opinions made him ask one of Felless: “Do you believe, Senior Researcher, that a Big Ugly could impersonate a male of the Race well enough to deceive other males and females on our computer network?”
Felless considered. “I would doubt it,” she said at last. “Surely a Tosevite in close electronic contact with the Race would betray himself before long.”
“This is my belief also,” Ttomalss said with considerable relief. “I am glad to hear you confirm it.”
“Why do you ask?” Felless inquired. “Have you any evidence such impersonation may be occurring?”
“Kassquit has found enough to be thought-provoking, at least,” Ttomalss replied.
“Oh, Kassquit,” Felless said dismissively. “Being a Big Ugly herself, she doubtless looks to discover others, even if they are not there.”
“You could be right,” Ttomalss said. “That had not occurred to me, but it may hold much truth.” For all his efforts to make Kassquit as much a part of the Race as he could, biology dictated that she remained in some part a Tosevite, too. Would it be any wonder if she thought she found other Big Uglies on the computer network whether or not they were actually there? Yes, Felless’ words must indeed hold a good deal of truth-he was sure of it. He assumed the posture of respect. “I thank you, superior female. You have done much to ease my mind.”
Monique Dutourd wished with all her heart that the world would simply return to normal once more. The British Jew who’d been after her brother on behalf of his ginger-smuggling pals was gone. So were the Americans who’d been after Pierre on behalf of the Lizards.
And Pierre himself was out of the German jail and doing his best to set up his business again, even if he could no longer operate independent of the Reich. So far as Monique knew, the Gestapo wasn’t particularly aggrieved with him at the moment. Everything should have been fine, or as fine as it could get in a France under the Germans’ control for so long.
But Dieter Kuhn remained enrolled in her classes. As far as she was concerned, that in and of itself meant trouble hadn’t yet disappeared. Monique wished the SS man gave her an excuse to fail him; that might have got him out of her hair. But he was-he would be, she thought with resigned anger-a good student, easily in the top quarter of the class.
Every so often, something inside her would snap. Once, she barked, “Damn you, why can’t you leave me alone?”
“Because, my dear, you know such… interesting people,” he answered. His grin might have been attractive, had she been able to stand him. “You know smugglers, you know Jews, you know me.”
“My inscriptions are more interesting than you are,” Monique snapped, “and they’re dead.”
Too late to recall the words, she remembered that, at a nod from Sturmbannfuhrer Kuhn, she could become as dead as any inscription praising Isis. He didn’t order her arrested and tormented. But he could have. She knew he could have. These days, a lot of fear of the Nazis was based on what they had done and might do, not on what they usually did. That fear sufficed.
“You are still a key to your brother’s good behavior,” Dieter Kuhn said imperturbably. Then something in his face changed. “And you are also an intelligent, good-looking woman. If you think I do not find you attractive, you are mistaken.”
Monique looked around the empty lecture hall as if seeking a place to hide. She found none, of course. She hadn’t been sure whether Kuhn was interested in her that way or not; she’d wondered if he preferred his own sex. Now that she knew the answer, she wished she didn’t.
“It is not mutual,” she said sharply. “And you could keep a perfectly good eye on me without my ever knowing you were doing it. I wish you would keep an eye on me without my knowing it. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about you all the time.”
She hoped she hurt him. She wanted to hurt him. But if she did, he gave no sign. “I do not suggest how you should conduct your research,” he said. “In your area, you are the expert. Leave mine to me.”
She said something venomous in the Marseille dialect. It rocketed over Kuhn’s head: the French he spoke was purely Parisian. Having vented her spleen, she asked, “May I please go now?”
He looked innocent-not easy for an SS man. “But of course,” he said. “I am not holding you here by force. We are only having a conversation here, you and I.”
He wasn’t holding her, but he could. He could do anything he wanted. Yes, the knowledge of his unlimited power was what made him fearsome. Monique said something else she hoped he would not understand before stalking past him. He didn’t interfere. He didn’t follow her as she rode home. But, again, he could have.
A crane with a wrecking ball was demolishing the synagogue on Rue Breteuil. Monique wondered what sort of Teutonic thoroughness that implied. Had the Germans decided to knock the place down because it was on their list of Jewish monuments or to keep any other would-be independent ginger smugglers from meeting behind it? Only they would know, and they would assume it was no one else’s business.
Monique carried her bicycle upstairs and sauteed some mullet in white wine-the Romans would surely have approved-for supper. She kept eyeing the telephone as she did the dishes afterwards, and then as she got to work on her inscriptions. It stayed quiet. She gave it a suspicious look. Why wasn’t Dieter Kuhn calling her to complain about this, that, or the other thing? Or why wasn’t her brother on the line to complain about whatever made Kuhn happy?
The telephone did not ring for four days, which, lately, came close to being a record. When at last it did, it was neither Kuhn nor Monique’s brother, but Lucie, Pierre’s friend with the boudoir voice. The rest of her, Monique knew, was dumpy, and she was acquiring a mustache, but on the phone she might have been Aphrodite.
“He’s back,” she said happily. “He’s made it all up with them.”
“Back where?” Monique asked. By the way Lucie sounded, she meant back in her arms, but she always sounded that way. And it didn’t fit the rest of what she’d said. “Made it up with whom? The Germans?”
“No, no, no,” Lucie said, a
nd Monique could almost see her wagging a forefinger. “With the Lizards, of course.”
“He has?” Monique exclaimed. The Nazis were sure to be listening. She wondered what they’d make of that. She wondered what to make of it herself. “I thought they wanted something bad to happen to him.”
“Oh, they did,” Lucie said airily, “but not any more. Now they’re glad he’s free. Some of them are glad because he’ll deal in ginger again, others because they can use him to smuggle drugs for people into the Reich. Many important Lizards want him to do just that.”
Lucie was no fool. She had to know the Germans were listening to Monique’s telephone. That meant she wanted them to hear what she was saying. If she wasn’t thumbing her nose at the Nazis, Monique didn’t know what she was doing.
Monique also didn’t know how she felt about the news Lucie gave her. She had taken Pierre’s ginger-smuggling more or less in stride. She didn’t mind his selling drugs to the Lizards, no matter what those drugs ended up doing to them. In principle, then, she didn’t suppose she ought to mind if the shoe went on the other foot. Principle, she discovered, went only so far.
“What will the Germans do when they find out Pierre is working for the Lizards again?” she asked, and then answered her own question: “They will kill him, that’s what.”
