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“When I see this building, I understand why you find it hard to imagine.” The larger Anielewicz used an emphatic cough. “But our buildings are not like this. And this fire was set on purpose, to try to kill me, or so I think.” He spoke quickly there, doing his best to make sure his hatchling couldn’t follow what he said.
He succeeded in that, and, in any case, Heinrich Anielewicz seemed more interested in Orbit than in Nesseref. The shuttle-craft pilot said, “You have vicious enemies.”
“Truth.” Mordechai’s shrug was much like one from a male of the Race. “Do you see why I would rather talk about befflem?”
“Befflem?” Heinrich understood that word. “What about befflem?”
“What interests me about befflem,” Nesseref said, “is that they have so quickly begun to run wild here. I hear this is true of several kinds of our animals. We begin to make Tosev 3 into a world more like Home through them.”
Heinrich didn’t get all of that. Mordechai did. He said, “For you, this may be fine. For us, I do not think it is.”
Before Nesseref could answer that, the timer in the kitchen hissed. “Ah, good,” she said. “That means supper is ready. I have made it from the meat of Tosevite animals, as you asked, and made sure none of it was from the one you call ‘pig.’ I do not understand why you cannot eat other meats, but I am not quarreling with you.”
“We Jews can eat other meats, but we may not,” Mordechai Anielewicz said. “It is one of the rules of our… superstition, is what the Race calls it.”
“Why have such rules?” Nesseref asked. “Do they not pose a nutritional hardship?”
“Nor really, or not very often,” Mordechai answered. “They do help remind us that we are a special group of Tosevites. Our belief is that the one who created the universe made us his chosen group.”
Nesseref had learned that all Big Uglies were on the prickly side when it came to their superstitions. Picking her words with care, she asked, “Chosen for what? For disagreements with your neighbors?”
Mordechai Anielewicz translated that into his own tongue. He and Heinrich both let out yips of barking Tosevite laughter. In the language of the Race, Mordechai said, “It often seems so.”
“Well, you and your hatchling and I are not disagreeing,” Nesseref said. “Let us sit down and eat together. I have alcohol for you, if you would care for it. Afterwards, we can talk more about these things.”
“Good enough,” Mordechai said. “Can I do anything to help?”
“I do not think so,” Nesseref said. “I have chairs for your kind, and I also have your style of eating utensils. Let us use them now.”
Heinrich Anielewicz went straight through the doorway into the eating area. Mordechai Anielewicz had to duck his head to get through, as he’d had to duck his head to enter Nesseref’s apartment. She’d wondered if he would be able to stand straight inside the apartment, but his head didn’t quite brush the ceiling.
Even so, he said, “Now I understand why the Race calls us Big Uglies. In a place made for the Race, I feel very large indeed.” He spoke in his own tongue to his hatchling, who answered him in the same language. The older Tosevite translated: “Heinrich says he thinks this place is just the right size.”
“For him, it would be.” Nesseref corrected herself: “For him, it would be now. When he is full grown, it will seem cramped to him, too. Here, sit down, both of you, and I will bring the food and the alcohol.”
“Only a little alcohol for my hatchling,” Mordechai Anielewicz said. “It is not our custom to let hatchlings become intoxicated.”
“Nor ours,” Nesseref agreed, “but a little will do no harm.” The elder Anielewicz’s head went up and down, the Tosevite gesture of agreement.
After a moment, Nesseref brought bowls of stew from the kitchen to the table. Nothing in the stew would offend Mordechai and Heinrich’s sensibilities: it was of the local meat called beef, and had more vegetables in it than Nesseref would have used had she been cooking for herself. Tosevites, she’d learned, preferred more calories from carbohydrates and fewer from proteins and fats than did the Race.
As everyone began to eat, a problem developed. Mordechai Anielewicz said, “Superior female, may we please have knives as well as forks and spoons? Some of these pieces are rather large for us.”
“It shall be done.” Nesseref hurried back into the kitchen and returned with the utensils. As she handed one to each of the Tosevites, she said, “You have my apologies. I cut the meat and the vegetables in portions that would fit my mouth, forgetting that yours are smaller.”
“No harm done,” Mordechai Anielewicz said. “We have creatures called ‘snakes’ that can take very large bites, but we Tosevites cannot.”
The Big Uglies’ smaller mouthparts didn’t keep them from finishing the supper at about the same time as Nesseref did. “Is it enough?” she asked anxiously. “I do not know just how much you eat at a meal. If you are still hungry, plenty more is in the pot.”
After the elder and younger spoke back and forth, Mordechai said, “My hatchling tells me he has had enough. You gave him about what he would eat at home. I would thank you for a little more, if it is no trouble.”
“It is no trouble at all.” Nesseref used an emphatic cough. She brought the bigger Big Ugly another bowl of stew, and also took a smaller second helping for herself. To the growing hatchling, she said, “You may play with the tsiongi while we finish, if he will permit it. Please be careful, though. If he does not, just watch him. I do not want you bitten.”
Heinrich Anielewicz followed that without need for translation. “I thank you, superior female,” he said. “It shall be done.” He brought out the stock phrases more fluently than he spoke while trying to shape his own thoughts in the Race’s language. Pushing back his chair, he returned to the front room. Nesseref listened for sounds of alarm, but none came.
Mordechai Anielewicz sipped at his alcohol. He too seemed to be listening to make sure Heinrich and Orbit were getting on well. When things had stayed quiet for a little while, he said, “May I ask you a question, superior female?”
“You may ask,” Nesseref said. “I may not know the answer, or I may know and be unable to tell you. That depends on the question.”
“I understand,” the Big Ugly said. “Here it is: Do you know how close the Deutsche came to launching an attack on Poland recently?”
“Ah,” Nesseref said. “No, I do not know how close, not for a certainty. For that, you would have to talk with the males of the conquest fleet. I do know my shuttlecraft port was placed on heightened alert, and that the alert was abandoned a few days later. The Race, I would say, judges any immediate danger past.”
“The Race, I would say, is too optimistic,” Anielewicz answered. “But I thank you for the information. It confirms other things I have learned. We may have been very lucky there.”
Nesseref asked a question of her own: “And if we had not been? What would you have done with your explosive-metal bomb then?” She still didn’t know if he had one, but she thought he might.
“Do you know the Tosevite story of Samson in the, uh, house of superstition?” Anielewicz asked. When the shuttlecraft pilot made the negative hand gesture, the Big Ugly said, “Count yourself lucky.” He added an emphatic cough.
Atvar turned an eye turret toward Pshing with more than a little annoyance. “Must I see the accursed Tosevite now?” he said.
“Exalted Fleetlord, it is a scheduled appointment,” his adjutant answered. “Having conceded these not-empires their independence, we seem to have little choice but to treat them as if we meant it.”
“I am painfully aware of that,” Atvar answered. “If you will recall, I recently suffered through a harangue from the American ambassador, who seemed shocked we would presume to swing an eye turret in the direction of what his not-empire is doing with its spaceship. Truculent, arrogant… Maybe I should retire and let Reffet see how he likes taking on this whole burden.”
“Please
do not do that, Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing said earnestly. “You would leave us at the mercy of the colonists. They still show little true understanding of the realities of Tosev 3.”
“Well, there you have spoken a truth,” Atvar said, flattered. “But it is a temptation, nonetheless. I have done too much for too long. Kirel might manage as well-or as poorly-as I have.”
In Atvar’s opinion, the thing most likely to limit Kirel’s effectiveness was Kirel himself. He kept that to himself; he would not cast aspersions on the senior shiplord of the conquest fleet to amuse his adjutant. “Send in the Deutsch ambassador,” he said. “The sooner I have heard his absurd, outlandish complaints, the sooner I can dispose of them.”
“It shall be done.” Pshing went out into an antechamber and returned with a Big Ugly named Ludwig Bieberback.
Atvar preferred dealing with Bieberback to trying to deal with his predecessor, Ribbentrop. This Tosevite had some elementary understanding of the world around him. He also spoke the language of the Race; going through interpreters had often been enough to give Atvar the itch.
“I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” the Deutsch male said now, assuming the posture of respect.
