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“Is it not a severe problem everywhere?” the other male answered. “When it was just a matter of you or me tasting, it was not such an important business, I agree. But with females involved, it became more important. Have you never had pheromones reach your scent receptors?”
“Every now and then,” Gorppet admitted. “Sometimes more often than every now and then. It makes me feel as shameless as a Big Ugly.”
“Well, there you are, superior sir,” the other male said. “It is the same for everyone, which is why ginger is such a problem.”
“Truth,” Gorppet said, and went on his way. Ginger was not a problem for him. He’d been tasting ever since the Race first discovered what the herb could do. Oh, he’d let himself get a little addled every now and again, but most of the time he was pretty careful with his tastes. So were a large number of the males from the conquest fleet. They’d had plenty of practice with ginger. They knew what it could do for them, and they knew what it could do to them, too.
On the other fork of the tongue, the colonists were still learning-and females who bad trouble learning addled the males around them, too. Most of the really large sales Gorppet had made were to colonists seeking excess. They were fools. Gorppet was convinced they would have got into trouble regardless of whether he was the one who sold them the herb.
He looked back with one eye turret. The protesting Big Uglies went round a corner, herded along by that handful of males from the Race. For all the noise the Tosevites made, they evidently weren’t after trouble; they might as well have been a herd of azwaca driven to a fresh part of their feeding range.
Domesticated, Gorppet thought. They weren’t completely domesticated, not the way azwaca were, but they were getting there. The Muslim Big Uglies farther north, by contrast, remained wild beasts. And what of the Tosevites in the independent not-empires? Gorppet hadn’t had much to do with them since the fighting stopped, but they’d kept on being independent. That argued they were tough customers still, and a long way from domestication or assimilation or whatever the Race wanted to call it.
So did the pugnaciousness of the not-empire called the Reich. Gorppet had fought Deutsch soldiers as well as Russkis in the SSSR. He hadn’t liked them then; he still didn’t. And now they had more in the way of technology than they’d enjoyed then. That went a long way toward making them more dangerous.
But when Gorppet got back to his barracks, all thoughts of Big Uglies, even pugnacious ones, disappeared from his head. A couple of males whose body paint showed they were from the inspector general’s office awaited him there. “You are Gorppet, recently promoted to the rank of small-unit group leader?” It was phrased as a question-it even came with an interrogative cough-but it was not a question.
“I am, superior sir,” Gorppet answered, more calmly than he felt. “And who are you?” If they had him, they had him. If they didn’t, he was cursed if he would make life easy for them.
“Who we are is of no consequence, nor is it any of your business,” the other male said. “We ask the questions here.” Sure enough, he had the arrogance that went with the office he served.
“Go ahead and ask, then. I have nothing to hide.” Gorppet was guilty of enough that one more lie wouldn’t hurt him in the least-if they had him. If they did, they’d have to show him they did.
The other inspector spoke up: “Are you now or have you ever been acquainted with Tosevites named Rance Auerbach and Penny Summers?”
If they knew enough to ask, they could tell whether he lied or not on that one. “I have met them a few times,” he answered. “They are more interesting than most Big Uglies, because they speak our language fairly well-the female better than the male. I have not seen them for some little while, however. Why do you wish to know?”
“We ask the questions here,” the first male repeated. “Were you aware that they were and are notorious ginger smugglers?”
“No, superior sir,” Gorppet said. “Ginger-smuggling is illegal, and we never discussed anything illegal. Discussing illegal acts is illegal in itself, is it not?”
“It is indeed,” both males from the inspectorate said together. The second one went on, “Now-when was the last time you saw these two Big Uglies?”
“I do not precisely remember,” Gorppet answered. “As I say, it was some time ago. Do you know what has become of them? I rather miss their company.” Was that too audacious? He’d find out.
Together, the two males made the negative gesture. “We were hoping you would be able to tell us,” the second one said.
Gorppet made the same gesture himself. “I am sorry, superior sir, but I cannot do it. I hope nothing unfortunate has happened to them.” That was even true, especially when he thought of Rance Auerbach. The Big Ugly had been through the worst the fighting could do, just as Gorppet had himself.
“We do not know,” the first inspector said. “We believe, however, that they were involved in the recent unfortunate incident. You do know to which matter I refer?”
“I believe so, superior sir-gossip is everywhere,” Gorppet answered. “I hope not, for their sakes.” And you don’t know about me after all! He felt like laughing in the inspectors’ faces.
17
Mordechai Anielewicz had just sat down to supper when air-raid sirens began to wail in the streets of Lodz. Bertha exclaimed in dismay and set the roast chicken she was bringing in from the kitchen down on the table. Mordechai sprang to his feet. “Grab your masks, everyone!” he said. “Then down to the cellar as fast as we can go.”
His own gas mask was right behind him. He pulled it on, wondering how much good it would do. He’d already made the acquaintance of German poison gas once. He’d been lucky then; Heinrich Jager had had syringes of the antidote. Even so, he’d almost died. A second exposure… He didn’t want to think about it.
Bertha had her mask on. So did Miriam and David. Heinrich… Where was Heinrich? Anielewicz shouted his younger son’s name.
&
nbsp; “I’ve got my mask, Father!” Heinrich Anielewicz shouted back from the bedroom. “But I can’t find Pancer!”
“Leave the beffel!” Mordechai exclaimed. “We’ve got to get down to the cellar!”
“I can’t leave him,” Heinrich said. “Oh-here he is, under the bed. I’ve got him.” He came out with the beffel in his arms. “All right-we can go now.”
The sirens were shrieking like lost souls. Mordechai whacked Heinrich on the backside as his son hurried past him. “You put yourself in danger and your whole family with you, on account of your pet,” he snapped.
“I’m sorry,” Heinrich said. “But Pancer saved us once, you know, so I thought I ought to save him, too, if I could.”
That wasn’t the sort of response to which Anielewicz could find an easy comeback. Heinrich didn’t see his life as more important than the beffel’s. “Come on,” Mordechai said. Bertha carefully shut the door behind them as they hurried down the hall, down the stairs, and into the cellar below the block of flats. Everyone else in the building hurried with them, men, women, and children all wearing masks that turned them from people into pig-snouted aliens.
“There, you see!” From behind his mask, Heinrich’s still-piping voice rose in triumph. “They’ve got a dog, and they’ve got a cat?”
“I see.” Anielewicz said. “The other thing I see is, they took chances they shouldn’t have, and so did you?”
Heinrich’s older brother had a more urgent, more important question: “If an explosive-metal bomb goes off in Lodz, how much good will hiding in the cellar do us?”
