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Gathering himself, Ttomalss said, “Obliging you in this regard will not be easy, you know. I must tell you that, even among Tosevites, regular sexual relations do not necessarily guarantee happiness. The literature and music and moving pictures the Tosevites produce demonstrate as much without the shed skin of a doubt.”
“I believe it,” Kassquit said. “Please understand that I am not seeking only sexual pleasure. I can, to some degree, supply that for myself. But the companionship I enjoyed with Jonathan Yeager along with the sexual pleasure… I miss that very much.” She sighed. “However much I might wish to be one, I am not and cannot be a female of the Race. I am, to some degree, irrevocably a Big Ugly.”
She’d had that thought before she’d ever met any wild Tosevites, too. It had horrified and disgusted her then. It still did, to some degree. But she could not deny that she wanted to know more of the feelings she’d had when Jonathan Yeager was aboard the starship with her.
Ttomalss said, “Several Tosevite languages have a word for the emotional state you describe. Jonathan Yeager used the tongue called English, is that not a truth? In English, the term is…” He paused to consult the computer, then made the affirmative gesture to show he’d found what he wanted. “The term is love.”
By the nature of things, he could have only an intellectual understanding of the emotion he named. But he was not a fool; he had indeed identified the feeling Kassquit craved. She made the affirmative gesture, too. “Jonathan Yeager taught me the word,” she agreed. “And, as you must know, he has informed me that he is entering into a permanent mating arrangement with a wild female Big Ugly-that, in effect, he loves someone else. This has been difficult for me to accept with equanimity.”
There. She’d topped her own earlier understatement. She hadn’t thought she could.
“You knew when Jonathan Yeager came to the starship that his relation with you would be only temporary,” Ttomalss reminded her. “It was as much an experiment from his perspective as from yours-an experiment prolonged because of the fighting that broke out against the Deutsche. Perhaps it would have been better had the experiment not been prolonged.”
“Yes, perhaps it would have,” Kassquit said. “But I cannot do anything about that except try to adjust as well as I can to the consequences of what did happen. Learning to experience this intensely pleasurable emotion and then having it taken away has been difficult.” Another fine understatement.
“I have asked you before if you wanted me to find you another Tosevite male,” Ttomalss said. “If you wish me to do so, I will do my best to provide you with one who will be pleasing.”
“I thank you, superior sir, but that is still not what I want,” Kassquit said. “For one thing, I have no certainty of matching the pleasure I received from Jonathan Yeager, pleasure both sexual and emotional. For another, suppose I should. That liaison would also necessarily be temporary, and I would go into another fit of depression after it ended. From what I am given to understand, this is rather like the emotional cycle ginger tasters experience.”
“Perhaps it is. I cannot speak there from personal experience, and I am glad I cannot,” Ttomalss said. “I can say that some ginger tasters appear to enjoy the cycle between pleasure and gloom, while others wish they could escape it and escape from their use of the herb.”
“But what am I to do?” Kassquit asked, though Ttomalss was hardly in a position to be able to tell her.
He pointed that out: “Your two choices are to remain as you are and to regret the one sexual and emotional relationship you had or to embark on another and then come to regret that, too. I would be the first to admit that neither of these strikes me as ideal.”
“They both strike me as disastrous.” Kassquit’s fingerclaws were short and wide and blunt. They bit into the soft flesh of her palms even so. “And yet, superior sir, I see no others, either.”
“We shall do what we can for you, Kassquit. On that you have my word,” Ttomalss said. Kassquit wondered how much his word would be worth, and whether it would be worth anything. But she did believe he would try. He went on, “Soon I shall see you in person. I look forward to it. For now, farewell.”
“Farewell,” Kassquit echoed, and Ttomalss’ image vanished from the monitor.
She looked around her cubicle and sighed again. For most of her life, this little space had been her refuge against the males-and, later, the females-of the Race who’d scorned her. Now it seemed much more like a trap. What could she do here by herself? What could she do anywhere here by herself? And how, among the males and females of the Race, could she ever feel as if she weren’t by herself? Her hand shaped the negative gesture. It was impossible.
After shaping that gesture, she scratched her head. It felt rough and a little itchy. She should have shaved it the day before, but she hadn’t felt like taking the trouble. The next time she washed, though, she would have to do it.
Why bother? she wondered. The answer leaped into her mind as soon as the thought formed: to look more as if I were a member of the Race.
Kassquit walked over to the built-in mirror in the cubicle. As always, she had to stoop a little to see herself in it; it was made for a member of the Race, not a Big Ugly. She looked at her flat, vertical, short-snouted, softskinned, eye-turretless face with the fleshy sound receptors to either side.
“What difference would hair make?” she said aloud. Try as she would, she’d never look like a member of the Race. Then a new thought occurred to her. “Rabotevs and Hallessi do not look like members of the Race, either, but they are citizens of the Empire. I am a Tosevite citizen of the Empire. If I want, I can look like a Tosevite.”
Wild Big Uglies-except the ones like Jonathan Yeager, who also imitated the Race-let their hair grow. Even Jonathan Yeager had shaved only the hair on his scalp and face, not that on the rest of his body. And, from what he had said, most females, even among those who imitated the Race, let the hair on their scalps grow.
That female with whom he will be mating, that Karen Culpepper, probably has hair, Kassquit thought. At first, that struck her as a good argument for shaving. But then she hesitated. Perhaps hair increased sexual attractiveness, in the same way that, among the Race, a male’s upraised scaly crest helped prompt a female to mate with him.
I am a Big Ugly. I cannot help being a Big Ugly. Even after this world becomes part of the Empire, Tosevite citizens of the Empire will probably go right on letting their hair grow. Why should I not do the same? I cannot be a female of the Race, but I can be a Tosevite female who is a citizen of the Empire. In fact, I cannot be anything else.
She ran a hand over her scalp, wondering how long the hair would take to grow to a respectable length. Then she let that hand slide down between her legs. She would grow hair there, too, and under her arms as well. She wondered whether she ought to keep shaving those areas even if she left her scalp alone. Then she shrugged. Jonathan Yeager hadn’t shaved around his private parts, or under his arms, either. She decided to let the hair grow. If she decided she didn’t like it, she could always get rid of it later.
The hair on her scalp quickly became noticeable. After she’d ignored the razor only a few days, the researcher named Tessrek spoke to her in the refectory: “Are you trying to look like a wild Big Ugly? If so, you are succeeding.”
He’d never liked her, not even when she was a hatchling. She didn’t like him, either, not even a little. She answered, “Why should I not look like a Tosevite, superior sir? As you never tire of pointing out, it is what I am.”
“High time you admit as much, too, instead of trying to act like a photocopy of a member of the Race,” he said, but warily-she’d already proved she could hold her own i
n a war of wits.
“Civilization does not depend on shape or appearance,” she said now. “Civilization depends on culture. You certainly prove that.”
“I thank you,” he said, before realizing she didn’t mean it as a compliment. A couple of males at the table with him were quicker on the uptake. Their laughter told Tessrek he’d made a fool of himself. He sprang to his feet and angrily skittered away. Kassquit ran her hand over her now fuzzy scalp. It itched a little. So did her underarms and private parts. Even so, she thought she might learn to enjoy having hair.
When Jonathan Yeager’s father got off the telephone, he was laughing fit to burst. “What’s funny, Dad?” Jonathan asked.
“We’ve got ourselves something brand new, that’s what,” his father answered. “We’re going to accept a couple of Lizards-and I do mean a couple, in every sense of the word-who aren’t just political refugees. They’re sexual refugees, too. Sexual outlaws, you might even say.”
“Outlaws?” That intrigued Jonathan, as his dad must have known it would. “Why? What have they done?” He tried to imagine what sort of sex crime a Lizard-no, two Lizards-could commit. Imagination, unfortunately, failed him.
Grinning, Sam Yeager said, “They’ve fallen in love, and they want to get married. And so the Lizards are throwing them right out of their territory and letting us worry about ’em. They’d tar ’em and feather ’em and ride ’em out of town on a rail, too, except they think feathers are just about as strange and unnatural as falling in love.”
Jonathan didn’t think falling in love was unnatural. He enjoyed it. But it hadn’t occurred to him that Lizards might do the same. “How on earth did that happen?” he asked. Before his father could answer, he held up a hand. “It’s got something to do with ginger, doesn’t it? It would have to.”
