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He sighed. He really couldn’t say. She remained essentially Tosevite, essentially different, in a way the Rabotevs and Hallessi didn’t. With them, cultural similarity overwhelmed biological differences. They were variations on a theme also expressed in the Race. Big Uglies weren’t. No matter what cultural trappings were painted on them, they remained different underneath.
Here they came, the wild ones and Kassquit, on a cart that had its seats adapted to their shape. The cart stopped just outside the terminal. A gate opened. The Tosevites hurried inside.
Atvar walked forward. After all these years dealing with Big Uglies, he still had trouble telling one from another. Here, he had trained himself to look for Sam Yeager’s white head fur. If the Tosevite ever put on a hat, Atvar wasn’t sure he could pick him out from the others. As things were, though, he managed.
“I greet you, Ambassador,” he said.
“And I greet you, Fleetlord,” Yeager replied. “I still find it very strange to be called by that title. Do you understand?”
“Perhaps,” Atvar said. “Life does not always give us what we expect, though. Consider my surprise when the conquest fleet came to Tosev 3 and I discovered we would not have a walkover on our hands.”
Sam Yeager let out several yips of barking Tosevite laughter. “There you have me, Fleetlord, and I admit it. You must have found that a lot stranger than I find this.”
“To tell you the truth, I was never so horrified in all my life,” Atvar said, and Sam Yeager laughed again. The former head of the conquest fleet asked, “And what did you think of Rizzaffi?”
“Interesting place to visit,” Yeager said dryly-not the fitting word, not when speaking of the port city. “I would not care to live there.”
“Only someone addled in the eggshell would,” Atvar said. “I marvel that you chose to visit the place at all.” There. Now he’d said it. He could try to find out if someone really had insulted the Big Uglies by suggesting they go there.
But Sam Yeager shrugged and said, “It is an unusual part of your planet.”
“Well, that is a truth, by the spirits of Emperors past!” Atvar used an emphatic cough.
“Fair enough,” the Tosevite ambassador said. “I, for one, would like to see unusual places. We will see enough of the ordinary while we are here. And if the unusual is not always pleasant-we can leave. And I am glad we have left. But I am also glad we went.”
“If you go to Rizzaffi with that attitude, you will do all right,” Atvar said. “If you go to Rizzaffi with any other attitude-any other attitude at all, mind you-you will want to run away as fast as you can.”
“Not so bad as that,” Yeager said. “It does have some interesting animals in the neighborhood. That fibyen is a queer-looking beast, is it not?”
“Well, yes,” Atvar admitted. “But I would not go to Rizzaffi for interesting animals alone. If I wanted to see interesting animals, I would go to the zoo. That way, I would not grow mildew all over my scales.”
He got another loud Tosevite laugh from Sam Yeager. “When I put on corrective lenses outside to see something up close, they steamed over,” Yeager said.
“I am not surprised,” Atvar replied. “When you go back to your hotel, we will talk of things more interesting than Rizzaffi. The Emperor himself has taken an interest in your being here, you know.” He cast down his eye turrets.
“We are honored, of course,” Yeager said. Polite or ironic? Atvar couldn’t tell. The Big Ugly went on, “He probably wants to figure out the smoothest way to get rid of us, just like the rest of you.”
“No such thing!” Atvar had to work hard not to show how appalled he was. Was the Race so transparent to Tosevites? If it was, it was also in a lot of trouble. Or was that just Sam Yeager proving once again that he could think along with the Race as if he had scales and eye turrets and a tailstump? Atvar dared hope so. Other Big Uglies often didn’t listen to Yeager, no matter how right he usually proved.
Now he asked, “Is there any chance I might have an audience with the Emperor myself?”
“Would you like to?” Atvar said in surprise, and Sam Yeager made the affirmative gesture, for all the world as if he were a male of the Race. The fleetlord replied, “I cannot arrange that. You must submit a request to the court. The courtiers and the Emperor himself will make the final decision.”
“I see.” Yeager eyed Atvar in a way that made him uncomfortable despite the Big Ugly’s alien, nearly unreadable features. “I suspect a recommendation from someone of fleetlord’s rank would not hurt in getting my request accepted,” Yeager said shrewdly. “Or am I wrong?”
“No, you are not wrong. Influence matters, regardless of the world,” Atvar said. “I will make that recommendation on your behalf. If it is accepted, you will have to learn some fairly elaborate ceremonial.”
“I can do that, I think,” Sam Yeager said. “And I thank you for your kindness. I expect you will want something for it one of these days, which is only right. I will do what I can to arrange that. Influence runs both ways, after all. We have a saying: ‘You scratch my back and I will scratch yours.’ ”
“I understand your meaning,” Atvar said. “This saves me the trouble of raising such a delicate topic.”
“I am glad,” Yeager said, and that was irony. “I also hope the Emperor will be kind enough to forgive any breaches of protocol I might accidentally commit. I am only an ignorant alien who knows no better.”
Had any other alien ever known so much about the Race? Atvar had his doubts. He said, “Yes, there is precedent for such forgiveness from the days when the first Rabotevs and Hallessi came to reverence sovereigns long ago.”
“Well, I am very glad to hear it,” the Big Ugly said. “What is the usual penalty for botching the rituals in front of the Emperor?”
He would not cast down his eyes when he named the sovereign. That proved him foreign-a word the Race hadn’t had to think about for a long time before invading Tosev 3. It also irritated Atvar no end. With a certain sour amusement, then, he answered, “Traditionally, it is being thrown to the beasts.”
There, he took Sam Yeager by surprise. “Is it?” he said. “Forgive me for saying so, but that strikes me as a trifle drastic.” He paused. “What are the beasts these wicked males and females are thrown to?”
“You are too clever,” Atvar said. “In the ancientest days, long before Home was unified, they were sdanli-large, fierce predators. Ever since, though, they have been courtiers in sdanli-skin masks who tell the incompetent wretches what fools and idiots they are and how they did not deserve their audiences.”
“Really?” Sam Yeager asked. Atvar made the affirmative gesture. The wild Big Ugly laughed. “I like that. It is very… symbolic.”
“Just so,” Atvar said. “The pain, perhaps, is less than that of actually being devoured. But the humiliation remains. Males and females have been known to slay themselves in shame after such a session with the courtiers. For most of them, of course, one audience with the Emperor”-he cast down his eye turrets-“is all they will ever have, and is, or would be, the high point of their lives. When it suddenly becomes the low point instead, they can think only of escape.”
An audience with the Emperor would in a sense be wasted on a wild Big Ugly. He wouldn’t appreciate the honor granted him. Without a hundred thousand years of tradition behind it, what would it mean to him? A meeting with a sovereign not his own, a meeting with a sovereign he reckoned no more than equal to his own. Back on Tosev 3, Atvar had had to pretend he believed the Big Uglies’ not-emperors to be of the same rank as the Emperor. Here on Home, he didn’t have to go through that farce. But for Sam Yeager, it was no farce. It was a truth.
The Big Ugly said, “Well, you would not have to worry about that with me.”
“No, I suppose not,” Atvar said; Yeager had just gone a long way toward confirming his own thoughts of a moment before. Even so, the fleetlord went on, “I will, as I said, support your request if you like. How the courtiers a
nd the Emperor respond to it, though, is not within the grip of my fingerclaws.”
“I would be very grateful for your support, Fleetlord, very grateful indeed.” Yeager used an emphatic cough. “Back on Tosev 3, the Race’s ambassador would meet with my not-emperor. Only seems fair to turn things around here.”
He truly did believe a wild Big Ugly chosen for a limited term by an absurd process of snoutcounting matched in importance the ruler of three and a half inhabited planets spread over four solar systems.
Ah, but if the Emperor had only ruled four planets…! Since he didn’t, Atvar had to put up with Yeager’s provincial arrogance. “Again, Ambassador, I will do what I can on your behalf.”
Maybe the Emperor would reject the idea. But maybe he wouldn’t. He was certainly interested in the Big Uglies and concerned about them. Atvar suspected the audience, if granted, would not be publicized. Too many males and females would envy the Big Ugly.
Yeager said, “You know we American Big Uglies”-he used the Race’s slang for his species without self-consciousness-“have a literature imagining technological achievements of which we are not yet capable?”
“I have heard that, yes,” Atvar replied. “Why do you mention it now?”
