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“And now, our feature presentation,” the announcer boomed. Karen snuggled closer to Jonathan. He let his hand close on the smooth skin of her shoulder rather than just resting there. Quite involuntarily, he took a deep breath. He had to remind himself they weren’t in a hurry: for one thing, it was a three-hour movie.
Spaceships filled the enormous screen. “That’s terrific trick photography,” Karen said.
“No, it’s not-it’s real Lizard newsreel footage. I’ve seen it before,” Jonathan answered. “I wonder how much MGM had to pay the Race to use it.”
They watched the movie for a while, though the view from the backseat wasn’t so good as it would have been from up front. Jonathan soon discovered the film was even hokier than he’d feared; just from things his folks had said, he soon found half a dozen absurdities. But some of the battle sequences looked very gritty and realistic. They were newsreel footage, too, human-filmed black-and-white footage turned into color with the help of computers. Watching how the director cut back and forth from them to the actors and the story he was shooting himself kept Jonathan half interested for a while. James Dean aside, Karen hadn’t much cared to begin with. Before long, they found other things to do.
Jonathan untied the bow that held her little halter top on. It was so small, nobody coming by in the dark would notice whether she was wearing it, anyhow. And… “You did the body paint under there, too!” he exclaimed.
Karen smiled at him. “I thought you might find that out,” she answered as he caressed her. She turned toward him. He kissed her, then lowered his face to her breasts. She sighed and pressed him to her. They sank down onto the seat together.
Neither of them had the nerve to go all the way in the drive-in, but Jonathan’s hand glided along her thighs and then dived under the waistband of her shorts and inside her panties. He kissed her breasts and her mouth as he rubbed her. His lips were pressed against hers when she let out a little mewling cry a couple of minutes later. He’d made sure he would be kissing her just then; he knew she got noisy at such times.
“Sit up,” she said. She unzipped his fly, reached in, and pulled him out. His breath came ragged. Her touch seemed sweeter than ever as she stroked him. And then, instead of finishing him with her hands the way she usually did, she bent over him and took him in her mouth. She’d never done that before. He was astonished at how good it felt. She didn’t have to do it very long, either-he exploded almost instantly. Karen pulled back, wheezing and gulping and choking a little, too. She grabbed a napkin from the cardboard carton and wiped at her chin. “Sorry,” she told him. “You caught me by surprise.”
“You caught me by surprise, too.” Jonathan was amazed the whole drive-in couldn’t hear his thudding heart. “What made you decide to do that?” Whatever it was, he hoped it would make her decide to do it again.
“I don’t know.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief. “But my mother did tell us to have a good time, remember.” Their laughter came closer to disturbing the people a few spaces over than anything else they’d done.
Like any Tosevite, Kassquit used metabolic water to cool herself. She used a lot of it aboard her starship, which was of course kept at the temperature the Race found comfortable. Never having known any other, she took that temperature for granted. Intellectually, she knew it was warmer than the mean down on Tosev 3, but that meant little to her. It was the temperature she was used to.
Sweating, of course, made her unique on the starship. The very idea disgusted most males and females of the Race. Because it disgusted them, it disgusted Kassquit, too. She wished she could pant as they did. But that wasn’t how her kind had evolved, so she was stuck with being clammy a lot of the time.
She’d also noticed that she put forth more metabolic water when stressed. She felt stressed now, as stressed as she ever had in her life. She was expecting another telephone call from the wild Big Ugly named Sam Yeager. This time, at Ttomalss’ urging, she was going to leave the video on.
“If you are going to serve as a link between the Race and the Tosevites, you cannot fear to look at them, or to have them look at you,” her mentor had said.
“Truth,” she’d answered, for a truth it obviously was. And Sam Yeager was what passed for an expert on the Race among the Tosevites. She’d seen as much from his comments on the electronic network-and even from his gaining access to the network in the first place.
But sweat poured off her now. Her heart pounded in her chest. She wished she’d never agreed to this. She wished she could hide. She wished she could flee. She wished the video unit in the computer terminal would malfunction. She wished something would happen to the Tosevite so his call couldn’t come through.
None of those wishes, none of the prayers she breathed to spirits of Emperors past, came true. At precisely the appointed time, her screen lit. She muttered a worried curse under her breath-had the spirits of Emperors past forsaken her because she was so irrevocably a Big Ugly herself?
Her internal torment did not show on her face. Nothing much showed on her face. She knew that set her apart from other Tosevites as much as sweating set her apart from the Race, but she didn’t want Tosevites perceiving her thoughts and feelings anyhow.
“I greet you, Sam Yeager,” she said, and then stopped in surprise, for not one but two Tosevite faces peered out of the screen at her.
“I greet you, superior female,” one of the Big Uglies said. His skin had wrinkles in it that almost made him look scaled. He had yellowish gray hair on his head and wore cloth wrappings. “I am Sam Yeager. I also present to you my hatchling here. His name is Jonathan Yeager.”
“I greet you, superior female,” the other Big Ugly said. He spoke a little less fluently than his father, but Kassquit had no trouble understanding him. She eyed him in some surprise. Like her, he shaved his head. And, like her, he wore body paint rather than wrappings-at least, on as much of him as she could see.
“I greet you, Jonathan Yeager,” she replied, doing her best to say the name as Sam Yeager had. “Are you truly a missile radar technician?”
“No, superior female,” he answered, still speaking the language of the Race slowly and carefully. The corners of his mouth turned upward. That, Kassquit had learned, was an expression of amiability. He went on, “I wear the body paint for decoration and amusement, no more.”
“I see,” Kassquit said, though not at all sure she did. She continued, “And I greet you, Sam Yeager. You are surely senior to your hatchling, so I am remiss in making my greetings out of order. I apologize.”
“Do not fret about it. I am not offended,” Sam Yeager replied. “I am not such an easy fellow to offend. I brought my hatchling along with me so you could see that we also have bridges between th
e Race and the Tosevites.”
“You are such a bridge yourself, I am given to understand,” Kassquit said.
“Yes, that is also a truth,” Sam Yeager agreed. “We have realized the Race is going to be on Tosev 3 for a long time to come. That means we are going to have to deal with it one way or another. And besides…” He glanced over to Jonathan Yeager. Like Kassquit, he had to turn his whole head to do it; he couldn’t just flick one eye turret toward the other Tosevite in the screen. Far more than his words, that motion reminded her she was his biological kin. “Besides, he is ignorant enough to think the Race is a whole lot of fun.”
Was that an insult? Kassquit looked toward Sam Yeager’s hatchling. The corners of Jonathan Yeager’s mouth turned up again. “Truth,” he said, and added an emphatic cough.
“What sort of truth?” Kassquit asked, bewildered. “That you are ignorant?”
“He will never admit that,” Sam Yeager said with a barking Tosevite laugh.
Another insult? Evidently not, for Jonathan Yeager laughed, too, laughed and said, “No-truth that things having to do with the Race are fun.”
“Fun.” Kassquit chewed on the word. She knew what it meant, of course, but she’d never thought of applying it to the Race or the way the Race lived. More bewildered than ever, she asked, “Why?”
“Good question,” Sam Yeager said cheerfully. “I never have been able to figure it out myself.” Then he waved one of his hands-one of his fleshy, soft-skinned hands, so like hers-back and forth, palm out. “I do not intend you to take that seriously.”
“You never intend anyone to take anything you say seriously,” Jonathan Yeager said, and both Big Uglies laughed. Then the younger one turned his face back toward Kassquit. He too had to move his whole head. Kassquit watched in fascination. The wild Tosevites took such motions utterly for granted, while she’d never failed to feel self-conscious about them. But then, they all used those motions, while she was the only individual she knew who did. Jonathan Yeager went on, “Of course the Race is fun. It is new and exciting and fascinating. Is it any wonder that I think as l do?”
