AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Ttomalss hadn’t thought about infirm Big Uglies. He’d seen plenty in China-rather fewer in the Reich, where the standards of medicine, if not high, were higher. “Well, it cannot be helped,” he said after a brief pause.
“Oh, it could be,” Shpaaka said. “All we have to do is rescind the idiotic policy we are now following. But I do not expect that, and I shall not take up any more of your time advocating it. Good day to you.”
“Good day,” Ttomalss answered, but he was talking to a blank screen: the physician had already gone.
He thought about telephoning Kassquit with the news, but decided to wait and take a meal with her at the refectory so he could pass it along in person. Among the Race, males and females had a harder time saying no in person than they did over the telephone. Ttomalss idly wondered if the same held true among the Big Uglies-those of them who had telephones, that is. Eventually, the Race would get around to researching such things. He doubted the time would come while he remained alive, though.
At the next meal, he put Shpaaka’s opinion to Kassquit. “How do you feel about the notion of bodily discomfort?” he asked.
“I really do not know,” she answered. “I have known very little bodily discomfort in my life here. The notion of illness seems strange to me.”
“You are fortunate-far more fortunate than the Big Uglies down on the surface of Tosev 3,” Ttomalss said. “You have never been exposed to the microorganisms that cause disease among them, and those of the Race do not seem to find you appetizing.”
“If I were to meet with wild Big Uglies, I would need these immunizations, would I not?” Kassquit asked.
“I would strongly recommend that you have them, at any rate,” Ttomalss said. “I would not wish to see you fall ill as a result of such a meeting.” And I certainly would not wish you to die, not after l have put so much hard work into raising you up to this point.
Kassquit might have plucked that thought right out of his head. She said, “Yes, it would be inconvenient to you if I died in the middle of your research, would it not?” After a moment, she added, “It would also be most inconvenient to me.” She used an emphatic cough.
“Of course it would,” Ttomalss said uncomfortably. “If you do decide to meet with these wild Tosevites in person, you would be wise to receive these immunizations first.”
“You very much want me to meet with them, is that not so?” Without waiting for Ttomalss’ reply, Kassquit gave one herself: “It must be so. Why else would you have gone to all the trouble of raising me?” She sighed. “Well, if I am going to be an experimental animal, I had best be a good one. Is that not a truth, superior sir?” She waved a hand at the refectory full of males and females. “For all your efforts, and for all mine, I can never fully fit in here, can I?”
“Perhaps not fully, but as much as a Rabotev or a Hallessi.” Ttomalss spoke with care. As Kassquit reached maturity, so did her sense of judgment.
She proved that by making the negative hand gesture. “I believe you are mistaken, superior sir. From all I have been able to learn-and I have done my best to learn all I could, since the matter so urgently concerns me-the Hallessi and Rabotevs are far more like the Race than Tosevites are. Would you agree with that, or not?”
“I would have to agree,” Ttomalss said, wishing he could do anything but, yet knowing he would forfeit her confidence forever if he lied. “But I would also have to tell you that, when the day comes when all Tosevites are as acculturated to the ways of the Empire as you are now, the Race will have no difficulty in ruling this planet.”
“May it be so,” Kassquit said. “And you need me to help you make it so, is that not also a truth?”
“You know it is,” Ttomalss answered. “You have known it ever since you grew old enough to understand such things.”
Kassquit sighed again. “Truth, superior sir: I have known that. And the best way for me to make it so is for me to begin meeting with Big Uglies in person. You have wanted me to do so since my first telephone conversation with Sam Yeager, and you were surely planning such a thing even before the Big Ugly precipitated matters. Can you truthfully tell me I am mistaken?”
“No,” Ttomalss said. “I cannot tell you that. But I can tell you I have not tried to force you onto this course, and I shall not do so. If you do not wish it, it shall not be done.”
“For which I thank you-but it needs to be done, does it not?” Kassquit asked bleakly. Again, she did not wait for Ttomalss to reply, but answered her own question: “It does indeed need to be done. Very well, superior sir. I shall do it.”
There in the crowded refectory, Ttomalss rose from his seat and assumed the posture of respect before Kassquit. His Tosevite ward exclaimed in surprise. So did a good many males and females, who also stared and pointed. He didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, what he’d done was altogether appropriate. As he rose once more, he said, “I thank you.”
“You are welcome,” Kassquit answered. “You may give whatever orders are necessary to begin the immunization process.”
“I shall do that,” Ttomalss said. He’d almost answered, It shall be done. Kassquit was not his superior. Somehow, though, she’d made him feel as if she were. He wondered how she’d managed to do that.
11
In her life aboard the Race’s starship, Kassquit had known little bodily discomfort. Oh, she’d had her share of bumps and bruises and cuts-more than her share, as she saw things, for her skin was softer and more vulnerable than the scaly hides of the Race-but none of them had been bad. And, since her body reached maturity, she’d also had to deal with the cyclic nature of Tosevite female physiology. It made her resent her origins-the Race certainly had no such problems-but, with the passage of time, she’d grown resigned to it.
These immunizations brought a whole different order of unpleasantness. One of them raised a nasty pustule on her arm. Up till then, her knowledge of infections had been purely theoretical. For a while, as the afflicted region swelled and hurt, she wondered if her immune system could cope with the microorganisms from the planet on which her kind had evolved. But, after a few days, the pustule did scab over, even though the scar it left behind looked as if it was liable to be permanent.
Other injections proved almost as unpleasant as that one. They made her arm or her buttock sore for a couple of days at a time. Some of them raised her body temperature as her immune system fought the germs that stimulated it. She’d never known fever before, and didn’t enjoy the feeling of lassitude and stupidity it brought.
As a physician readied yet another hypodermic, she asked, “By the Emperor, how many diseases are there down on Tosev 3?”
“A great many,” the male answered, casting down his eyes for a moment. “Even more than there are on Home, by all indications-or perhaps it is just that the Big Uglies can cure or prevent so few of them. This one is called cholera, I believe. It is not an illness you would want to have, and that is a truth.” He used an emphatic cough. “This immunization does not confer perfect resistance to the causative organism, but it is the best the Tosevites can do. Now you will give me your arm?”
“It shall be done,” Kassquit said with a sigh. She did not flinch as the needle penetrated her.
“There. That was very easy,” the phys
ician said, swabbing the injection site with a disinfectant. “It was, in fact, easier than it would have been with a male or female of the Race. Here, your thin skin is an advantage?”
“How nice,” Kassquit said distantly. She did not want to be different from the Race. With all her heart, she wished she could be a female like any other. She knew what such wishes were worth, but couldn’t help making them.
Except for the one that had raised the pustule, the injection for the disease called cholera proved the most unpleasant Kassquit had endured. She enjoyed neither the pain nor the fever. They seemed to take forever to ebb. If the disease was worse than the treatment that guarded against it, it had to be very nasty indeed.
Sam Yeager telephoned Kassquit while she was recovering from the immunization. Not feeling up to dealing with the Big Ugly, she refused the call. Before long, he sent her a message over the computer network: I hope I have done nothing to cause offense.
That was polite enough to require a polite answer. No, she replied. It is only that I have not felt well lately.
I am sorry to hear it, he wrote back promptly. I did not think it would be easy for you to get sick up there, away from all the germs of Tosev 3. I hope you get better soon.
I have been free of the germs of Tosev 3, Kassquit answered. That is the cause of my present discomfort: I am being immunized against them, and some of the immunizations have unpleasant aftereffects.
Again, Sam Yeager wrote back almost at once. He had to be sitting by his computer as Kassquit was sitting by hers. Are you getting immunized so you can meet Big Uglies in person? he asked. If you are, I hope that my hatchling and I are two of the Big Uglies you will want to meet. We certainly want to meet you. He used the conventional symbol that represented an emphatic cough.
