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A bee buzzing round her head made her open her eyes. Another bicyclist was coming up the dirt track toward her. She frowned. Company was the last thing she wanted right now. Then she recognized the man on the bicycle. She stood up. “How did you find me?” she demanded angrily.
Her brother smiled as he stopped. “There are ways.”
“Such as?” Monique said, hands on hips. Pierre’s smile got wider and more annoying. She thought for a moment. Then she got angry for another reason. “You put some miserable Lizard toy on my bicycle!”
“Would I do such a thing?” Her brother’s amiability was revoltingly smug.
“Of course you would,” Monique answered. She looked at the bicycle that had betrayed her. “Now-did the Germans do the same thing? Will that dog of a Kuhn come pedaling up the road ten minutes from now?” If anything, she would have expected the SS man to get out from Marseille faster than her brother. However much she despised Dieter Kuhn, he was in far better shape than Pierre.
“I don’t think so.” Pierre still sounded smug. “I would know if they had.”
“Would you?” Monique didn’t trust anyone any more. I wonder why, she thought. “Remember, the Nazis are starting to be able to listen to your talk on the telephone, even though you didn’t think they could do that. So are you sure the gadgets you have from the Lizards areas good as they say?”
To her surprise, her brother looked thoughtful. “Am I sure? No, I’m not sure. But I have a pretty good notion with this one.”
Monique tossed her head. No matter how good a notion he had, she didn’t particularly want him around. She didn’t want anyone around. Why else would she have come all the way out here? “All right, then,” she said grudgingly. “What do you want? You must want something.”
“I should resent that,” Pierre said. Monique shrugged, as if telling him to go ahead. He laughed, annoying her further, and went on, “There you have me.”
“Say your say, then, and leave me what’s left of the day. Monday morning, I have to be a scholar again.”
Pierre clicked his tongue between his teeth. “And Monday night, very likely, you will have another visit from the fellow you love so well.”
She spent the next minute or so cursing him. One of the main reasons she’d come up here was to forget about Dieter Kuhn for a little while. It didn’t seem she could even do that.
Her brother waited till she ran down, then said, “If you want to be rid of him for good, you really should come down to the Porte d’Aix. He won’t bother you there, I promise you that, and you might be very useful to me.”
“I don’t care whether I’m useful to you or not,” Monique flared. “All I want is to be left alone. I haven’t had much luck with that, and it’s your fault.”
He bowed, more than a little scornfully. “No doubt you are right. Do you care about whether the Boche comes to your bedroom tomorrow night?”
“Damn you,” Monique said. If it weren’t for Kuhn-and it wouldn’t have been for Kuhn except for Pierre… “All I want is to be left alone.” She’d already said that. Saying it again underlined it in her own mind.
Saying it again did nothing for Pierre, though. “You can’t have that. It might be nice if you could, but you can’t. You can have the Nazi up your twat, or you can have the Porte d’Aix. Which will it be?”
Monique looked around for a rock. There by her feet lay a good one, just the size of her hand. If she bounced it off her brother’s head, she might shut him up for good. It wasn’t so simple. It couldn’t be so simple. If she stayed where she was, that didn’t just mean Kuhn. It meant her classes, her research, her friends at the university-not that she’d had time for them lately. And her research had gone to hell; she’d thought that the night before. As for her classes, Kuhn had got to know her through them. So what did that leave her?
Nothing, which was exactly what her life had become. How could it be worse, down there in the Porte d’Aix? One word and she’d find out how it could be worse. The past couple of years had taught her such things were always possible.
“Porte d’Aix,” she said wearily. If it was worse, it was worse, that was all. At least she’d escape Dieter Kuhn.
Pierre beamed. “Oh, good. I won’t have to tell my friends to put all that stuff back into your flat.” She glared furiously. He kept right on beaming. “Little sister of mine, I knew you would see sense when someone pointed it out to you.”
“Did you?” Monique said. Her brother nodded. She asked another question: “Did I?” Pierre couldn’t answer that one. Neither could she. But she’d find out.
Nesseref bustled about, making sure everything in her apartment was just the way she wanted it to be. She didn’t have guests all that often, and these would be special. She’d even borrowed a couple of chairs for the occasion.
She swung an eye turret toward Orbit. The tsiongi wasn’t too happy about being on a leash inside the apartment. Maybe she’d be able to let him off later on. But maybe she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t know for a bit, and didn’t feel like taking chances: very much a shuttlecraft pilot’s view of the world.
When the knock came, she knew at once who it had to be: no male or female of the Race would have knocked so high on the door. Few males or females would have knocked at all; most would have used the hisser set into the wall by the door frame. But using the hisser required a fingerclaw, and her guests had none.
She opened the door. “I greet you, Mordechai Anielewicz,” she said. “Come in. And this is your hatchling?”
“I greet you, Nesseref,” the Tosevite said. “Yes, this is my hatchling. His name is Heinrich.” He said something to the younger Big Ugly in their own language.
“I greet you, superior female,” Heinrich Anielewicz said in the language of the Race. “I learn your speech in school.”
He didn’t speak very well, even for a Big Ugly. But she could understand him. As she did with Mordechai Anielewicz’s use of the Race’s written language, she made allowances. Speaking as if to a youngster of her own species, she said, “I greet you, Heinrich Anielewicz. I am glad you are learning my speech. I think it will be useful for you later in life.”
“I also think so,” Heinrich said, whether because he really did or because that was an easy way to answer, Nesseref did not know. Then the gaze of the small Big Ugly-he was just about Nesseref’s size-fell on Orbit. “What is that?” he asked. “It is not a beffel.”
Nesseref laughed. Orbit would have been insulted had he understood. “No, he is not a beffel,” the shuttlecraft pilot agreed. “He is called a
tsiongi.”
“May I…” Heinrich cast about for a way to say what he wanted; he plainly didn’t have much in the way of vocabulary. But he managed: “May I be friends with it?” Without waiting for a reply, he started toward the tsiongi.
“Be careful,” Nesseref said, to him and to Mordechai Anielewicz as well. “I do not know how the tsiongi will react to Tosevites coming up to him. None of your species has ever done that before.”
Mordechai Anielewicz followed his hatchling, ready to snatch him back from danger. The younger Big Ugly, rather to Nesseref’s surprise, did what a male or female of the Race might have done: he stretched out a hand toward the tsiongi to let the beast smell him. Orbit’s tongue shot out and brushed his fleshy little fingers. The tsiongi let out a discontented hiss and deliberately turned away.
Although Nesseref didn’t know all she might have about how Tosevites reacted, she would have bet that Heinrich Anielewicz was discontented, too. Mordechai Anielewicz spoke to his hatchling in their own language. Then he returned to the language of the Race for Nesseref’s benefit: “I told him this animal might smell on him the odor of the beffel we have at home. Some of our own animals do not like the smell that others have, either.”
“Ah? Is that a truth? How interesting.” Nesseref saw no reason why things like that shouldn’t be so, but that they might be hadn’t occurred to her. “In some ways, then, life on Tosev 3 and life on Home are not so very different.” She turned her eye turrets toward Heinrich Anielewicz. “And how did you get a beffel of your own?”
“I find it in the street,” he answered. Then he started speaking his own language.
Mordechai translated: “He says he gave it something to eat and it followed him home. He says he likes it very much. And you know how the beffel helped save us when the fire started.”
“Yes, I know that. You wrote of it,” Nesseref said. “What I find hard to imagine is having a fire starting in a building where males and females of your species live.”
