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She also noticed Karen Yeager watching her. She understood jealousy. Of course she understood it. It gnawed at her whenever she saw Jonathan and Karen happy and comfortable together.
You have him. I do not. Why are you jealous? Kassquit wondered. Because she hadn’t been raised as a Big Ugly, she needed a long time to see what a wild Tosevite would have understood right away. You have him, but I had him once, for a little while. Do you wonder if he wants me back?
She took a certain sour pleasure in noting those suspicious glances from the wild female Tosevite. She also realized-again, much more slowly than she might have-why Karen Yeager had wanted her to put on wrappings: to reduce her attractiveness. Males and females of the Race could demonstrate such foolishness during mating season, but happily did without it the rest of the year. But Big Uglies, as Kassquit knew too well, were always in season. It complicated their lives. She wondered how they’d ever managed to create any kind of civilization when they had that kind of handicap.
A good many members of the Race remained convinced that the Big Uglies hadn’t created any kind of civilization. They were certain the Tosevites had stolen everything they knew from the Race. That would have been more convincing if the Big Uglies hadn’t fought the conquest fleet to a standstill when it first came to Tosev 3. Kassquit had occasionally pointed this out to males and females who mocked the Big Uglies-mocked her, in effect, for what was she if not a Big Ugly by hatching?
They always seemed surprised when she did that. They hadn’t thought it through. They knew they were superior. They didn’t have to think it through.
No one in Rizzaffi had ever seen a Big Ugly before, except in video. Wild or citizen of the Empire didn’t matter. At the hotel, the staff treated her about the same as the American Tosevites. She wasn’t convinced the staff could tell the difference. She didn’t say anything about that. She feared she would find out she was right.
She sat glumly in the refectory, eating a supper that wasn’t anything special. The starship where she’d lived for so long had had better food than this. She didn’t stop to remember that that food had mostly Tosevite origins, though after the colonization fleet arrived some of the meat and grain came from species native to Home.
As often happened, she was eating by herself. The American Big Uglies did not invite her to join them. To make matters worse, they chattered among themselves in their own language, so she couldn’t even eavesdrop. She told herself she didn’t want to. She knew she was lying.
And then a surprising thing happened. One of the wild Tosevites got up and came over to her table. She had no trouble recognizing him, thanks to his brown skin. “I greet you, Researcher,” he said politely.
“And I greet you, Major Coffey,” Kassquit answered.
“May I sit down?” the Tosevite asked.
“Yes. Please do,” Kassquit said. Then she asked a question of her own: “Why do you want to?”
“To be sociable,” he replied. “That is the word, is it not? — sociable.”
“That is the word, yes.” Kassquit made the affirmative gesture.
Coffey sat down. The table, like most in the refectory, had been adapted-not very well-to Tosevite hindquarters and posture. The wild Big Ugly said, “What do you think of Rizzaffi?”
“Not much,” Kassquit answered at once. That startled a laugh out of Coffey. She asked, “What is your opinion of this place?”
“About the same as yours,” he said. “When I was a hatchling, I lived in the southeastern United States. Summers there are very warm and very humid. But this city beats any I ever saw.” He added an emphatic cough to show Rizzaffi was much worse than any other place he knew.
He used the Race’s language in the same interesting way as Sam Yeager. He spoke fluently, but every once in a while an odd or offbeat phrase would come through. Kassquit suspected those were idioms the wild Big Uglies translated literally from their own language. Had they done it often, it would have been annoying. As things were, piquant seemed the better word.
Kassquit said as much. Major Coffey’s face showed amusement. Kassquit wished her own features made such responses. But Ttomalss hadn’t-couldn’t have-responded to her when she tried to learn to smile as a hatchling, and the ability never developed. Coffey said, “So you find us worth a laugh, then?”
“That is not what I meant,” Kassquit said. “Some of your ways of putting things would make fine additions to the language.”
“I thank you,” the wild Big Ugly said. “Your language has certainly hatched many new words in English.”
“Yes, I can see how that might be-words for things you did not have before you met the Race,” Kassquit said.
“Many of those, certainly,” Coffey agreed. “But also others. We sometimes say credit, for instance, when we mean money. ” The first word he stressed was in the Race’s language, the second in his own. He went on, “And we will often use an interrogative cough by itself when we want to say, ‘What do you mean?’ or an emphatic cough to mean something like, ‘I should say so!’ ”
“But that is a barbarism!” Kassquit exclaimed. “The Race has never used the coughs by themselves.”
“I know. But we are not talking about the Race’s language right now. We are talking about English. What would be a barbarism in your language is just new slang in ours. English is a language that has always borrowed and adapted a lot from other tongues it has met.”
“How very strange,” Kassquit said. “The Race’s language is not like that.”
“No, eh?” Frank Coffey laughed a noisy Tosevite laugh. “What about ginger?”
“That is something the Race did not have before it came to Tosev 3,” Kassquit said, a little defensively. Even more defensively, she added, “To me, it would only be a spice. Biologically, I am as much a Tosevite as you are.”
“Yes, of course.” Coffey laughed again, on a different note. “Back on Tosev 3, though, I would not have expected to sit down to supper with a female without wrappings; I will say that.”
“Well, you are not on Tosev 3,” Kassquit replied with some irritation. “I follow the Empire’s customs, not yours. Karen Yeager already bothered me about this. I say your view is foolishness. You are the guests here; the Empire is your host. If anything, you should adapt to our customs, not the other way round.”
“I was not complaining,” the wild Big Ugly said. “I was merely observing.”
Kassquit started to accept that in the polite spirit in which it seemed to have been offered. Then she stopped with her reply unspoken. She sent Frank Coffey a sharp look. How had he meant what he’d just said? Was he making an observation, or was he observing… her?
And if he was observing her, what did he have in mind? What did she think about whatever he mi
ght have in mind? Those were both interesting questions. Since Kassquit wasn’t sure what she thought about whatever he might have in mind, she decided she didn’t need to know the answers right away.
Without even noticing she’d done it, she made the affirmative gesture. She didn’t need to know this instant, sure enough. Frank Coffey would spend a lot of time-probably the rest of his life-on Home.
And if he was interested, and if she was interested, they both might pass the time more pleasantly than if not. Or, on the other hand, they might quarrel. No way to know ahead of time. That helped make Tosevite social relationships even more complicated than they would have been otherwise.
Was the experiment worth attempting, then? She knew she was getting ahead of herself, reading too much into what might have been a chance remark. But she also knew Tosevite males probably would show interest if an opportunity presented itself. And she knew she probably would, too. Compared to Tosevite males, Tosevite females might be less aggressive. Compared to the Race… She was a Tosevite, no doubt about it.
Atvar watched with a certain wry amusement as the shuttlecraft returned from Rizzaffi. Nothing could have persuaded him to go there. He knew better. You could come down with a skin fungus just by sticking your snout outdoors. The place made much of Tosev 3 seem pleasant by comparison.
He wondered if suggesting they visit Rizzaffi had been an insult of sorts, one too subtle for them to understand. That was risky. Sam Yeager had a feeling for such things. Atvar shrugged. He’d find out.
One after another, the Big Uglies came off the shuttlecraft. Even from the terminal, Atvar had no trouble recognizing Kassquit, because she did not wear wrappings the way the wild Tosevites did. She was a strange creature, as much like a female of the Race as a Big Ugly could be. The more Atvar got to know her, the more he wondered if she came close enough. If all the Big Uglies on Tosev 3 were like her, would they make satisfactory citizens of the Empire?
