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And one, a clever fellow, had offered her ginger. “Have a taste,” he’d said, those upright scales on his head quivering. “You’ll feel like mating then.”
“I do not want to feel like mating!” she’d shouted in a transport of fury that still astonished her. “If my season had come on its own, that would have been one thing. Drugging myself for the sake of your mating urge is something else again.”
“Spoilsport,” he’d hissed, and gone off in a huff. He was Ambassador Veffani’s first secretary, an important male in the embassy. Felless had to hope he wouldn’t hold a grudge against her once female pheromones weren’t addling his scent receptors.
The trouble was, males remained in a state of low-grade lust for days at a time. One female or another in the embassy would taste ginger and set them off. Every so often, Felless proved unable to resist temptation herself. One of the males who coupled with her during a slip was the first secretary. Maybe that made him stop resenting her for her earlier refusal.
Even the Big Uglies noticed the disruption that had come over the Race. One of them, a male with a Deutsch chemical firm, complained to her about it: “Before, we could make arrangements and rely on them. Now, nothing your males and females say can be trusted from one day to the next. This is not good.”
“Were it not for the herb that comes from this planet, were it not for the Tosevites who supply us this herb, we would not have such difficulties,” she answered, not wanting all the blame to rest on her back.
She failed to impress the Big Ugly. “We Tosevites have also drugs,” he answered. “They do not turn all of us unreliable. When we catch Tosevites who use drugs, we treat them as criminals. We punish them. Sometimes we punish them severely.”
What a Deutsch male meant by severe punishment was either death or something that would make the victim long for it. Felless did not care to imagine herself on the receiving end of such punishment. She said, “We also punish those who use ginger.”
“You do not punish them enough, or they would not dare use it,” the Tosevite told her.
He sounded logical. He also sounded sure of himself. The Deutsche had a way of doing both those things at once. Sometimes, that made them very effective. Others, it just meant they went more spectacularly wrong than they would have otherwise. “Your ways are too harsh for us,” Felless said.
“Then you will suffer because of this,” the Big Ugly said, “and those of us who do business with you, unfortunately, will also suffer.” He got up and bowed stiffly from the waist, the Tosevite equivalent of the posture of respect. Then he turned and marched out of Felless’ office.
Troubled, she went to see the ambassador to the Deutsche. “Superior sir,” she said, “we are becoming the laughingstock of the Tosevites. Something must be done to minimize the effect ginger has on us.”
“In principle, Senior Researcher, I agree,” Veffani answered. “After the ginger bombs above our new city in Australia, I could scarcely disagree. Wherever we have both males and females, the Big Uglies have it within their power to incapacitate us. This is a danger we did not face even during the fighting.”
“What are we to do?” Felless asked.
“I do not know,” the ambassador said. “This is still under discussion by leading officials of both the conquest fleet and the colonization fleet. One part of the emerging solution-or emerging effort to find a solution-is the imposition of harsher penalties on those guilty of tasting ginger.”
“That solution would appeal to the Big Uglies,” Felless said, and explained the conversation she’d just had with the Deutsch male. “Shall we imitate their barbarism?”
“We may have no choice,” Veffani replied. “If we do not imitate their barbarism, we seem to be heading in the direction of imitating their reproductive habits, as you must realize.” Felless realized it all too well; he had coupled with her that first time she’d tasted ginger, when she still did not know what it would do to her. The ambassador went on, “Which would you prefer?”
“Neither, superior sir,” Felless answered at once. “I would prefer for things to return to the way they have always been.”
“A sentiment worthy of the Race,” Veffani said. “Tell me, then, how to make this particular situation unhatch and return to its egg.”
“I cannot,” Felless said softly. “I wish I could. And, speaking of eggs…”
She could feel a pair growing inside her, though they would not be ready to lay for some time yet. She had thought a successful mating-whichever one it had been-would shut down her desire and her production of pheromones. That was the sensible way things had worked back on Home.
As the males of the conquest fleet said over and over again, nothing on Tosev 3 worked the way it did back on Home. Ginger short-circuited the end of her cycle. Even though she was gravid, she still released pheromones and wanted to mate every time she tasted. The matings, she knew, were no more than meaningless sensation, like the meaningless sensation suffusing so much of Tosevite sexuality. That did not mean she did not hunger for them.
Ginger also produced nothing but meaningless sensation. That did not mean she did not hunger for it, either.
Veffani said, “If you should have any ginger, Senior Researcher, I strongly suggest you divest yourself of it. Penalties for possession and intoxication are going to increase. They are going to increase more for females than for males, too.”
“That is unjust!” Felless exclaimed.
“Perhaps in one sense, it is. In another sense, however, it most assuredly is not,” Veffani replied. “Consider: a male under the influence of the herb is likely to disrupt only his own life. If he is an experienced user, and not too greedy, he does not even do that to any great extent. But a female disrupts not only her own life but also the lives of all the males who scent her pheromones. Does that not make a greater penalty for females appropriate?”
“Perhaps,” Felless said grudgingly. “But there should also be a penalty, and a severe one, for males who give females ginger in order to induce them to mate when they would not do so otherwise.”
“Such penalties are also being drafted,” the ambassador said. “We have had cases of this sort of behavior reported. Males with pheromones filling their scent receptors are less rational than we would like. Even now, I find a certain difficulty in concentrating. Somewhere in this building, a female is in her season, and the pheromones drift in through my open door. I can understand how thoughts of mating, even by trickery, might come to mind.”
“The Tosevites have a term for this disgusting trickery, which is not unknown among them,” Felless said. “They call it seduction.”
“Tosevite languages have borrowed many words from our tongue,” Veffani said. “How unfortunate that we should have to take such a sordid term from theirs. We never needed it before.”
“Truth,” Felless said. “And I wish we did not need it now.” She let out a worried hiss. “Eventually, smugglers are bound to carry ginger Home. What will it do there, by the Emperor?”
“Nothing good,” the ambassador answered. “I can say no more than that; I have, as yet, no data from which to program the computer to evaluate possible scenarios. But this herb can bring nothing but trouble and disruption to Home. I need no computer to see the truth in that. It brings nothing but trouble and disruption here.”
“With that, superior sir, I cannot possibly disagree,” Felless said. “And now, with your permission, I shall withdraw from your presence.” She did not say she was withdrawing so she could dispose of the ginger in her quarters; after what Veffani had told her, she did not want to admit she had any of the Tosevite herb. If he drew his conclusions from the way she acted, that was one thing. If he had actual evidence of her possessing ginger, that could be something else again.
Her mouth dropped open. He’d mated with her. She’d gone into her season, as ginger made females do. If that didn’t give him some sort of hint that she used the herb, what would?
It was on his mind, for, a
fter using the affirmative hand gesture, he added, “Do bear in mind what I have said, Senior Researcher.”
“It shall be done,” Felless said, and departed. She sneaked back up to the chamber the embassy staff had assigned her, and managed to get inside without having Ttomalss notice her. As males went, he wasn’t a bad fellow. He hadn’t given her ginger in the hope of inciting her to mate, as Veffani’s first secretary had done. So far as she knew, he did not even use the herb. He’d warned her against it before anyone knew the effect it had on females. But even so…
Even so, he’d mated with her. Under most circumstances, that bond was far more casual in the Race than among the Tosevites. Under many circumstances, it was no bond at all. During the season, who could say with certainty with whom one had mated? But ginger changed that, as ginger changed everything Felless knew. She knew only too well, in the cases of Ttomalss and Veffani.
She also knew only too well that she did still have ginger hidden in her office. She opened a drawer, lifted up the folders full of printouts, and took out the vial. Pouring the herb down the sink, letting water wash away the herb, was surely the most expedient course.
Her craving rose up to smite her. She could not throw the ginger away, no matter how hard she tried. She thrust the vial back into the drawer and slammed it shut. Then she stood and quivered for some little while. The temptation was not to take out the vial again and get rid of the ginger. The temptation was to take out the vial again and taste till the ginger was gone.
