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And the Tosevites insisted they didn’t have one set of standards, but many-perhaps one for each of their not-empires. “You are all one species,” she said. “How can you have more than one standard? The Empire has three species-four now, counting Tosevites-but only one standard. Having many on a single planet is absurd.” Ttomalss had also said the Big Uglies varied by culture, but she wanted to hear how these wild ones explained it.
Jonathan Yeager said, “We do not always agree on what the right way to do things is.”
Sam Yeager made the affirmative gesture. “Sometimes there is no right or wrong way to do something, only different ways. Being different is not always the same as being right or wrong. I think the Race has trouble seeing that.”
“Back on Home, the Race has no trouble seeing right from wrong,” Kassquit said; that was what she’d been taught. “Contact with Tosevites has corrupted some of us.”
To her surprise and annoyance, both wild Big Uglies burst into loud barking yips of laughter. “That is not a truth, superior female,” Sam Yeager said, and used an emphatic cough. “I have met plenty of males-and some females now, too-who are as crooked as any Big Ugly ever hatched.”
He sounded very sure of himself. In the face of direct experience, how much was teaching worth? Kassquit decided to change the subject again: “What do the two of you hope to learn by these visits with me?”
“How to meet the Race halfway,” Jonathan Yeager answered.
Sam Yeager amended that: “To see whether we can meet the Race halfway. If we cannot, then perhaps war is the best hope we have after all.”
Live free or die. It struck her as a slogan fit only for the hopelessly addled. Plainly, it meant something different to the wild Big Uglies. She did not want to explore that path again. Instead, she pointed with her tongue at Jonathan Yeager and said, “It seems to me that you are meeting the Race halfway.”
“I enjoy your culture,” he answered. “It interests me. I am learning your language, because I cannot deal with the Race without it. But under this”-he patted his shaven head and tapped the body paint on his chest-“under this, I am still a Tosevite with my own culture. Meeting you helped show me what a truth that is.”
“Did it?” Kassquit felt a pang of disappointment. “Meeting you made me hope you were leading toward…” Her voice trailed away. She was not sure how to say what she wanted without giving offense.
Sam Yeager, who seemed not to take offense easily, spoke for her: “You thought Jonathan was leading toward the Race’s quiet, bloodless conquest of Tosev 3.”
“Well, yes.” Kassquit made the affirmative gesture, even if she wouldn’t have been so frank as the wild Tosevite.
Then the older Yeager surprised her again, saying, “You could be right. I do not know if you are. Frankly, I doubt that you are. But you could be.”
“Why do you doubt it?” Kassquit asked.
“Because no matter how much of the Race’s outward culture we adopt-no matter whether we start using body paint instead of wrapping, no matter whether we reverence the spirits of Emperors past instead of keeping our own superstitions-we are still too different from you,” Sam Yeager answered. “And we will stay different from you, because of our sexuality and the social patterns that come from it.”
“Truth,” Jonathan Yeager said. His agreement with his father hurt Kassquit more than the elder Yeager’s words. And he went on, “In fact, is not ginger making males and females of the Race here on and around Tosev 3 more like us than like the Race as it is back on Home?”
Kassquit thought of Felless, who could not stop tasting ginger and who was going to lay her second clutch of eggs as a result. She thought of the mating she’d watched in a corridor of this very starship. That had shaken her faith in the Race’s wisdom and rationality. She thought of the endless prohibitions against ginger, and of how widely they were flouted.
“I hope not,” she said, and used an emphatic cough of her own.
“But you recognize the possibility?” Sam Yeager asked. “I do not suppose I have to tell you that officials of the Race recognize the possibility?”
“No, you do not have to tell me that,” Kassquit admitted. “I am quite aware of it. I wish I were not, but such is life.”
“Indeed,” Sam Yeager said. “May I ask you another question?” He waited for her to use the affirmative gesture before going on, “You have talked about what you hope will happen with the Big Uglies, and you have talked about what you hope will happen with the Race. What do you hope will happen to you?”
Ttomalss would sometimes ask her what she thought would happen, or even what she wanted. But what she hoped? He didn’t seem to think about that. Kassquit hadn’t done a whole lot of thinking about it, either. After a long pause, she said, “I do not know. My position is too anomalous to give me the luxury of many hopes, would you not agree?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I would,” he replied. “I wondered if you understood that. You might well be better off, or at least have more peace of mind, if you did not. Does that sound very callous?”
“It does indeed.” Kassquit considered. “But then, the truth often sounds callous, does it not?”
“I fear it does,” Sam Yeager said. “One more question, if you please.” He asked it before she could tell him yes or no: “What would you wish for yourself? If you could have anything, what would it be?”
Kassquit had hardly dared ask that question of herself. Ttomalss hadn’t thought to ask about her desires any more than he had about her hopes. To him, she remained part experimental animal, part hatchling. Over the past few years, he’d had to recognize that she had a will, a mind, of her own, but he was a long way from liking the idea. But she answered Sam Yeager without hesitation, saying, “If I could have anything I wanted, I would be rehatched as a female of the Race.”
Sam Yeager and Jonathan Yeager both made the affirmative hand gesture. “Yes, I can see how you would want that,” the older Big Ugly said. “Let me ask it a different way, then-if you could have anything you wanted that you might actually get, what would it be?”
That was harder. All of Kassquit’s material needs were met; only in the social sphere did she have problems. “I do not know,” she said at last. “I have plenty to eat; I have the Race’s communication network; what more in that regard could I desire?” She met question with question: “What would you choose, Sam Yeager? See how you like answering.”
The Big Ugly yipped Tosevite laughter. “The easy answer is, ‘more money.’ Ask any Tosevite, and he will say that, or something like it. He might ask for a bigger house, or a fancier motorcar, or other such things, but it all means the same in the end. Unlike you, we mostly do not have enough to keep us happy.”
Kassquit turned her head toward Jonathan Yeag
er. “And what of you?”
“I do not know if this is possible or not,” the younger Tosevite answered, “but I hope I live long enough to be able to travel to Home, either on a ship of the Race or on a Tosevite starship.”
“A Tosevite starship?” The very idea was a nightmare to Kassquit, as it was to every male and female of the Race. She didn’t know whether she ought to spell that out, so she contented herself with asking, “If that should prove impossible, what would you like?”
Jonathan Yeager hesitated. Sam Yeager said something in their own language. Jonathan Yeager’s answer was short. Sam Yeager laughed again. He turned to Kassquit and returned to the language of the Race: “I told him that having a mate with whom he can be happy throughout his life is also important.”
“You did not wish for that yourself,” Kassquit pointed out.
“No, but then, I am lucky enough to have such a mate,” Sam Yeager answered. “Jonathan has a female friend who may become such a mate, but it is difficult to be sure about such things ahead of time.”
“What are the criteria for judging whether a mate is good or not?” Kassquit asked. If she was questioning the Big Uglies, they couldn’t very well question her. She liked this better.
Jonathan Yeager’s skin was more transparent than Kassquit’s. She could watch blood rise to his face. She’d felt the same thing in herself in moments of embarrassment, so that was probably what he was feeling, too. If Sam Yeager also felt it, he showed no sign. He answered, “That varies from individual to individual. A mate who makes one male or female happy would addle another in short order.”
“How does one judge the possibility that one of these lifelong matings”-the notion struck Kassquit as very strange-“will be successful?”
“Some of that involves the sexual desire each partner arouses in the other, and the sexual pleasure each gives the other,” Sam Yeager answered. “Those are often enough reason for the partners to come together, but they do not mean that the mating will be a long-term success. The male and the female also have to be friends, to see things in similar ways, and to forgive each other’s small failings. It is not easy to judge in advance whether this will happen.”
