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“You do not understand,” Frank Coffey insisted.
Kassquit made the negative gesture. “On the contrary. I fear I understand much too well.” She pointed toward the door. “I think you had better go. Otherwise, this conversation is all too likely to put an end to our friendship.” It was more than a friendship, of course, but that was the strongest word the language of the Race had.
“We might do better to talk things out,” Coffey said.
“No.” Kassquit used the negative gesture again. “What is there to say? You are loyal to your not-empire, as you should be. I am loyal to the Empire. This is also as it should be, I believe. We will not change each other’s minds. We will only quarrel, and what is the good of that?”
Coffey inclined his head. Kassquit understood that. It was what Big Uglies sometimes did instead of sketching the posture of respect. “No doubt you have found a truth. I will see you another time,” he said. He put on the few wrappings American Tosevites insisted on wearing in public even in the warmth of Home, then left her room.
Only after he was gone did Kassquit let tears start sliding down her face. She had known he was unlikely to make a permanent mating partner. She had expected him to return to Tosev 3 when the Admiral Peary left. But the Commodore Perry changed everything. Now he might leave within days, or tens of days. When she found happiness, did she always have to see it jerked out from under her feet?
She remembered the attack by the Reich when Jonathan Yeager was up in the starship orbiting Tosev 3 with her. Actually, for a little while that had worked out well on a personal level. It meant they’d stayed together longer than they would have otherwise, because he couldn’t go back down to the United States while the war lasted. But it had only made parting harder when the time finally came.
All at once, Kassquit wished she hadn’t thought about the Reich and the Deutsche. The Race would be doing everything it could to learn to travel faster than light. But so, without a doubt, would the Deutsche. They were formidably capable engineers. And, as far as she cold tell, their not-empire was governed by an equally formidable set of maniacs. What would they do if they succeeded before the Race did?
Maybe Frank Coffey had a point. Were the Commodore Perry a Deutsch starship, wouldn’t it have announced its presence by launching missiles at Home? The United States could have been better. But it also could have been much worse.
Kassquit yawned. She didn’t feel like thinking about it now. She felt like curling up and taking a nap. She lay down on the sleeping mat and did. When she woke up, she still felt more weary than she thought she should have. That had been happening more and more often lately. She wondered if something was wrong with her. Had she caught some Tosevite disease from Nicole Nichols or one of the other wild Big Uglies who’d come down from the Commodore Perry?
She went down to the refectory for a snack. That turned out to be a mistake. She’d always enjoyed spiced, chopped azwaca and niihau beans, but not today. They didn’t smell right. They didn’t taste quite right, either. And they sat in her stomach like a large, heavy boulder.
Then, quite suddenly, they didn’t want to sit there at all any more. She bolted from the refectory with the plate of meat and beans still half full. She got to the cloacal station just in time. She bent over one of the holes in the floor and noisily gave back what she’d eaten.
She couldn’t remember ever doing that before. It was one of the most disgusting experiences of her life. It brought a certain relief, but the taste! And the way it came out through the inside of her nose as well as her mouth!
She rinsed and spat, rinsed and spat. That didn’t help as much as she wished it would have. “I am diseased. I must be diseased,” she said, and used an emphatic cough. No one who was healthy could possibly do something so revolting.
She thought about going back to the refectory and finishing the chopped azwaca and beans. Then, with a shudder, she made the negative gesture. She didn’t believe she would ever want that dish again. It tasted much better going down than it did coming up.
Instead, she went to her room and telephoned Dr. Melanie Blanchard. “I would like you to examine me, please,” she said when the physician’s face appeared in the monitor.
“I would be happy to,” Dr. Blanchard said. “May I ask what has made you change your mind?” Her interrogative cough was a small masterpiece of curiosity. No member of the Race could have done that better.
“I am unwell,” Kassquit said simply.
“All right,” Dr. Blanchard said. “Come to my room, and I will see if I can figure out why you are.”
“It shall be done.” Kassquit broke the connection with no more farewell than that.
“I greet you,” the American female said when Kassquit pressed the door hisser. “Before I start poking you and doing the other things physicians do, please tell me your symptoms.” Kassquit did, in harrowing detail. Dr. Blanchard nodded. “All right-nausea and fatigue. Anything else?”
Now Kassquit hesitated. “I am not sure it is relevant.”
“Tell me and let me be the judge,” Melanie Blanchard urged. “The more data I have, the better my diagnosis is likely to be.”
“Yes, that does seem reasonable.” Kassquit made the affirmative gesture, though still hesitantly. “My other notable symptom is that the blood which flows from my reproductive organs has not done so when it normally would have.”
“Really?” the doctor said, in tones of strong surprise. Kassquit used the affirmative gesture again. Dr. Blanchard reached out and squeezed one of her breasts; Kassquit yelped. Dr. Blanchard asked, “Are they unusually tender?”
“Why, yes,” Kassquit said. “How did you guess?”
“This set of symptoms is familiar to me. Sooner or later, it becomes familiar to most Tosevite females, regardless of whether they happen to be physicians. Unless I am very much mistaken, you are gravid.”
Kassquit stared. “But that is impossible. Frank Coffey uses a sheath whenever we mate. He has not failed to do so even once.”
“I am glad to hear that. It speaks well for him-and for you,” Melanie Blanchard said. “But what you have described are the textbook early symptoms of gravidity. Sheaths are good protection against such accidents, but they are not perfect.”
What Kassquit felt was irrational fury. The sheath’s failure struck her as typical slipshod Tosevite engineering. Wild Big Uglies just did things. They didn’t bother to do them right. Or maybe, considering that the prime purpose of mating was reproduction, Frank Coffey had done it right.
“There are other possibilities,” the physician said. “All of them involve serious illness, and all of them are much less likely than simple gravidity. Some time not quite a local year and a half from now, I believe you will lay an egg.” She laughed and used the negative gesture. “That is the first phrase that occurred to me in the Race’s language. It is not what will happen. You will have a hatchling.”
“A hatchling.” Kassquit still struggled to take that in. “I know nothing about caring for hatchlings.”
“I am sure the American Tosevites here on Home with you, whoever they turn out to be, will be glad to help you,” Melanie Blanchard said. “Or, if you would rather, there is a medical procedure to terminate your gravidity. It is not very difficult, especially when done early.”
“Do you recommend medically that I do this?” Kassquit asked.
“No,” Dr. Blanchard said. “You are on the old side to be gravid, but you do not seem to be dangerously so. I will have to monitor you more closely than I would if you were younger, that is all. The procedure may become medically necessary, but I do not anticipate that it will. But other factors besides the merely medical are involved in whether you wish to rear a hatchling. This may be more true for you than for most Tosevite females. You have… less practice at being a Big Ugly.”
“That is a truth,” Kassquit said. “Still, if anything will teach me, this is likely to be the experience that would.”
“You do not ne
ed to decide at once,” Dr. Blanchard said. “During the first third of your gravidity, the procedure remains fairly simple. After that, as the hatchling grows inside you, it does become harder and more dangerous for you.”
Kassquit set the palm of her hand on her belly. “I will think about it,” she said, “but I believe I wish to go forward with this.”
17
After Kassquit bolted from the refectory and came back looking wan two or three times, none of the Americans on Home had much doubt about what was ailing her. Frank Coffey sighed. He was careful to speak English: “I wonder how you say Broken Rubber in the Race’s language.”
“Congratulations-I think,” Jonathan Yeager told him.
“Thanks-I think,” Coffey said. “That isn’t what I had in mind.”
“Hey, you’ve given us something to talk about besides the Commodore Perry, ” Tom de la Rosa said. “And they said it couldn’t be done.”
Major Coffey sent him a slightly walleyed stare. “Thanks-I think,” he said again, in the same tones he’d used with Jonathan. Everybody laughed.
