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So much unrelieved green proved depressing. Gorppet fell asleep for a while. When he woke again, the jungle was behind him, replaced by savanna country that gave way in turn to desert once more. Then, to his surprise, more fertile country replaced the wasteland. The aircraft descended, landed, and came to a stop.
“Welcome to South Africa,” the pilot said over the intercom to Gorppet and to the males and females who’d traveled with him. “You had better get out. Nothing but sea after this, sea and the frozen continent around the South Pole.”
Gorppet shouldered his sack and went down the ramp black-skinned Big Uglies had wheeled over to the aircraft. He’d seen few of that race up till now. They looked different from the lighter Tosevites, but were no less ugly. When they spoke, he discovered he couldn’t understand anything they said. He sighed. Knowing what the Big Uglies back in Basra and Baghdad were talking about had helped keep him alive a couple of times. He would have to see how many languages the local Tosevites spoke and how hard they were to learn.
Sack still shouldered, he trudged toward the airfield terminal. The weather was on the chilly side; the officer back in Baghdad hadn’t lied about that. But Gorppet didn’t see any frozen water on the ground, and even the broad, flat mountain to the east of the airfield and the nearby city was free of the nasty stuff. It will not be too bad, he told himself, and hoped he was right.
In the terminal, as he’d expected, was a reassignment station. A female clerk turned one eye turret toward him. “How may I help you, Small-unit Group Leader?” she asked, reading his very new, very fresh body paint.
After giving his name and pay number, Gorppet continued, “Reporting as ordered. I need quarters and a duty assignment.”
“Let me see whether your name has gone all the way through the system,” the female said. She spoke to the computer and examined the screen. After a moment, she made the affirmative hand gesture. “Yes, we have you. You are assigned to Cape Town, as a matter of fact.”
“And where in this subregion is Cape Town?” Gorppet asked.
“This city here is Cape Town,” the clerk answered. “Did you not study the area to which you would be transferred?”
“Not very much,” Gorppet admitted. “I got the order a couple of days ago, and have spent my time since either traveling or staying in transit barracks.”
“No reason you could not have examined a terminal there,” the female clerk said primly. “I would have thought an officer would show more interest in the region to which he has been assigned.”
That took Gorppet by surprise. He wasn’t used to being an officer. He wasn’t used to thinking like an officer, either. As an infantrymale, he’d gone where he was ordered, and hadn’t worried about it past that. Fighting embarrassment, he spoke gruffly: “Well, I am here now. Let me have a printout of my billet and assignment.”
“It shall be done,” the clerk said, and handed him the paper.
He rapidly read the new orders. “City patrol, is it? I can do that. I have been doing it for a long time, and this is a relatively tranquil region.”
“Is it?” the clerk said, “If you are coming from worse, I sympathize with you.” She got very insulted when Gorppet laughed at her.
Ttomalss studied the report that had come up from the Moishe Russie Medical College. Based on our present knowledge of Tosevite physiology and of available immunizations, the physician named Shpaaka wrote, it seems possible, even probable, that the specimen may, after receiving the said immunizations, safely interact with wild Tosevites. Nothing in medicine, however, is so certain as it is in engineering.
With a discontented mutter, Ttomalss blanked the computer screen. He’d hoped for a definitive answer. If the males down at the medical college couldn’t give him one, where would he get it? Nowhere, was the obvious answer. He recognized that Shpaaka was doing the best he could. Psychological research was also less exact than engineering. That still left Ttomalss unhappy.
After more mutters, he telephoned Kassquit. “I greet you, superior sir,” she said. “How are you this morning?”
“I am well, thank you,” Ttomalss answered. “And yourself?”
“Very well,” she said. “And what is the occasion of this call?”
She undoubtedly knew. She could hardly help knowing. That she asked had to mean she was unhappy about proceeding. Even so, Ttomalss explained the news he’d got from the physician down on the surface of Tosev 3. He finished, “Are you willing to undergo this series of immunizations so you are physically able to meet with wild Big Uglies?”
“I do not know, superior sir,” Kassquit replied. “What are the effects of the immunizations likely to be on me?”
“I do not suppose there will be very many effects,” Ttomalss said. “Why should there be? There are no major effects to immunizations among the Race. I had most of mine in early hatchlinghood, and scarcely remember them.”
“I see.” Kassquit made the affirmative hand gesture to show she understood. But then she said, “Still, these would not be immunizations from the Race. They would be immunizations from the Big Uglies, for Tosevite diseases. The Big Uglies are less advanced than the Race in a great many areas, and I am certain medicine is one of them.”
“Well, no doubt that is a truth.” Ttomalss admitted what he could hardly deny. “Let me inquire of Shpaaka. When he gives me the answer, I shall relay it to you.” He broke the connection.
On telephoning the physician, he got a recorded message telling him Shpaaka had gone to teach and would return his call as soon as possible. His own computer had the same kind of programming, which didn’t make him any happier about being on the receiving end of it. Concealing annoyance over such things was part of good manners. He recorded his message and settled into some other work while waiting for Shpaaka to get back to him.
After what seemed forever but really wasn’t, the physician did call back. “I greet you, Senior Researcher,” Shpaaka said. “You asked an interesting question there.”
“I thank you, Senior Physician,” Ttomalss replied. “The question, however, does not come from me. It comes from my Tosevite ward, who is of course most intimately concerned with it.”
“I see. That certainly makes sense,” Shpaaka said. “I had to do some research of my own before I could give the answer: partly by asking Big Ugly students of their experience with immunizations, partly having some of them consult Tosevite medical texts so they could translate the data in those texts for me.”
“I thank you for your diligence,” Ttomalss said. “And what conclusions did you reach?”
“That Tosevite medicine, like so much on this planet, is primitive and sophisticated at the same time,” the physician told him. “The Big Uglies know how to stimulate the immune system to make it produce antibodies against various local diseases, but do so by brute force, without caring much about reducing symptoms from the immunizations. Some of them appear to be unpleasant, though none has any long-term consequences worthy of note.”
“I see,” Ttomalss repeated, not altogether happily. If the immunizations were likely to make Kassquit sick, would she want to go forward with them?
Shpaaka said, “I tell you this, Senior Researcher: finding your answer has been one of the more pleasant, enjoyable, and interesting things I have had to do lately.”
“Oh?” Ttomalss said, as he was plainly meant to do. “And why is that?”
“Because the medical college has been cast into turmoil, that is why,” the physician replied. “You may or may not know that some miserable individual who thought he was more clever than he really was devised the brilliant plan of making the Big Uglies pay for the privilege of exercising their superstitions, which has provoked disorder over wide stretches of Tosev 3.”
“Yes, I do recall that,” Ttomalss said in faintly strangled tones. Shpaaka’s sarcasm stung. Fortunately, the other male didn’t know he was talking to the originator of the plan he scorned.
“You do? Good,” Shpaaka said. “Well, som
eone then decided on the converse for the medical college: that no one who failed to give reverence to the spirits of Emperors past would be allowed to continue. What no one anticipated, however, was that many Big Uglies-including some of the most able students, and even including the hatchling of the Big Ugly for whom the medical college was named-would be so attached to their superstitions that they would withdraw instead of doing what we required of them.”
“That is unfortunate, both for them and for relations between the Race and their species,” Ttomalss said.
Shpaaka made the affirmative hand gesture. “It is also unfortunate for the Tosevites these half-trained individuals will eventually treat. They would have done far better by choosing to stay.”
