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“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.”
