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After the males of the Race rounded another corner, a Big Ugly approached them. It was a male, Fotsev saw: it had hair on its jaw and cheeks, and it exposed its entire face to the view of outsiders, which violated local custom for females. A moment later, he realized it was a prosperous male. The Big Ugly’s robes and headgear were fancier than those of most of his kind. That wasn’t so reliable an indicator as body paint, but nothing on Tosev 3 seemed as reliable as its equivalent back on Home.
Then, to his surprise, the Big Ugly spoke in the language of the Race, and spoke well for one of its kind: “You males, will you answer some questions of mine? I am an ignorant man, and I seek to learn.”
“Go ahead and ask,” Fotsev said, unused to such politeness from a Tosevite. The Big Ugly had given him more than the cook of his own species.
“I thank you,” the Tosevite said, polite still. “Is it true that, in the ships the Race is now landing, there are both males and females, as Noah, peace be upon him, took male and female beasts aboard the Ark?”
Fotsev didn’t know who Noah was, or anything about the Ark, a word the Big Ugly had of necessity put into his own language. Still, the question seemed straightforward enough. “Yes, the colonization fleet carries both males and females. How could we colonize this world if it did not?”
He waited for the Big Ugly to pitch a fit. Instead, the fellow asked, “And, of these new members of the Race we now see on the streets of Basra, some are males and some are females?”
“Yes,” Fotsev said. “How else?”
“And your females are allowed to walk the streets naked, shamelessly showing themselves for your males to gaze upon and admire and desire?” the Big Ugly persisted.
Gorppet pulled Fotsev aside for a moment to whisper, “What is this fool getting at?”
“How should I know? He is not making a fuss, and that is good enough for me,” Fotsev whispered back. To the Tosevite, he said, “We do not wrap ourselves in cloths, the way you people do.”
“But you must, when male and female are together,” the Big Ugly said earnestly. “Nakedness offends every custom.”
“Not our customs,” Fotsev said.
“But you will desire one another too much!” the Big Ugly cried in dismay.
Fotsev didn’t laugh at him, though that wasn’t easy. The Big Ugly was plainly intelligent, and as plainly ignorant, ever so ignorant. “We do not mate because of what we see,” Fotsev said. “We mate because of what we smell.”
“Nakedness is a crime against Allah,” the Tosevite said. “He will punish you for your wickedness.”
“Let us get moving,” Fotsev said to his comrades. Arguing with a Big Ugly caused nothing but trouble. Leaving him to his own foolishness seemed a better idea.
But he wouldn’t be left. He followed the males down the narrow, grimy, unpaved street, crying, “You must clothe your females. Allah teaches it. Do you dare act contrary to the word of Allah?”
“This Allah of yours never talked to me,” Fotsev said, and laughed at the foolish Big Ugly. “If he does, maybe I will listen to him. Until then, I am not going to worry about him. I will worry about things that are real instead.” He laughed again.
The Tosevite’s little eyes got as big as they could. “You say Allah is not real?” He turned and hurried away.
“You got rid of him,” Gorppet said. “Well done!” To emphasize how well done, he folded himself into the posture of respect, as if Fotsev were at least an officer and perhaps a shiplord. Fotsev laughed once more, and so did his comrades. They got through the rest of their patrol with no trouble at all.
A few days later, fresh rioting against the Race broke out in Basra. Three newly revived colonists got caught in the trouble and killed; a large number of Tosevites perished. Like his superiors, Fotsev hadn’t the faintest idea what might have touched it off.
Mordechai Anielewicz was heading back toward his flat in Lodz when two Lizards came up to him. “You are Anielewicz,” one of them said in Polish, looking from his face to a photograph and back again. Even with the photograph, he sounded unsure.
“I am Anielewicz,” Mordechai agreed, after briefly thinking about denying everything. It had worked for St. Peter, but he didn’t know how well it would work for him. “What do you want with me?”
“We are to bring you before the regional subadministrator,” the Lizard answered. He and his comrade both carried automatic weapons. They sounded nervous even so. They had reason to sound nervous. If Mordechai shouted, they’d last only moments in spite of the high-powered rifles. Jews with guns of their own were on the street and, no doubt, watching from windows, too.
But he did not shout. “I’ll come,” he said. “Do you know why the regional subadministrator wants to talk to me?”
“No,” both males said together. Anielewicz believed them. The Lizards’ bosses were in the habit of giving orders, not explanations.
“Well, I’ll find out,” Anielewicz said. “Let’s go.” He started off for Bunim’s headquarters near the square that housed the Bialut Market. The Lizards fell in on either side of him. He towered over them, but that didn’t make him feel important. Size mattered little, power a great deal. He had it, but so did Bunim. One of the Lizards spoke into a portable radio set or telephone to let the regional subadministrator know they were on their way.
When he got there, Bunim addressed him in German: “I have spoken to you of the threat against the colonists I received.”
“Regional Subadministrator, I remember,” Anielewicz replied. “Many ships have landed in Poland now. Many colonists have landed in Poland now. I know of nothing bad that has happened to them, though not many have landed near Lodz.” In their shoes, he wouldn’t have wanted to land near the border with the Greater German Reich, either.
“Nothing bad has happened-not yet,” Bunim said. “But I am concerned. Is it the right word-concerned?” He didn’t like to make mistakes. In that, he was a typical Lizard. Mistakes showed faulty planning, and the Lizards were much enamored of planning in general.
“Concerned is the right word, yes, Regional Subadministrator,” Anielewicz said, giving him what credit he could. “You have come to speak this language well.” That was a lie, but not an outrageous one. Bunim did work hard. Having delivered the compliments, Mordechai got down to business: “Why are you concerned? Have you received another threat?”
“No, no one has threatened,” Bunim told him. “That is one reason I am concerned. When you Tosevites strut and bluster, we of the Race at least know where you stand. When you are quiet, that is the time for worry. That is the time when you are hatching plots in secret. And-” He fell silent.
Anielewicz exhaled in some exasperation. “If no one had sent you the first message, you would not be worried now, even though everything was quiet. Since everything has been quiet since, why are you still worrying?”
Bunim’s eye turrets flicked this way and that. He was an unhappy Lizard, no doubt about it. “I have reason to be concerned,” he declared, and added an emphatic cough even though he was still speaking German.
“Well, if you do, you’d better show me why,” Mordechai said, his patience wearing thin. “Otherwise, I’ll just think you’ve been wasting my time.”
“Show you why? It shall be done,” Bunim said. Even in German, the phrase sounded odd, and seemed to imply Anielewicz was the regional subadministrator’s superior.
Bunim took out one of the skelkwank disks the Lizards used for just about all their recording. He stuck it in a player. Out came the threat he had mentioned before to Anielewicz. Mordechai was not tremendously fluent in the language of the Race, but he followed it well enough to understand what he heard here.
“Well?” he said when the brief recording was done. “I heard it. It was what you said it was, but so what?”
“You heard it, but you heard without full understanding,” Bunim said.
“You’d better explain, then,” Mordechai said. “I must be missing something here, but I do
n’t know what.”
“You heard the threat?” Bunim asked. Mordechai nodded. Bunim understood the human gesture. He went on, “That threat, Anielewicz, was not spoken by a Tosevite. Without the tiniest fragment of doubt, it came from the mouth of a male of the Race.”
Anielewicz thought about that for a few seconds. Then, very softly, he said, “Oy.” Bunim was right. People didn’t-couldn’t-sound quite right speaking the Lizards’ language. Sure as hell, that had been a Lizard. “What do you suppose it means?” Anielewicz asked the regional subadministrator.
