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The concierge was a snooty Lizard named Nibgris. He understood about freezers; the Race used them to keep food fresh, just as humans did. But the idea that someone might want small bits of frozen water flummoxed him. “What would you use them for, superior Tosevite?” he asked, using the honorific with the same oily false politeness hotel people laid on back on Earth.
“To make the liquids I drink colder and more enjoyable,” Karen answered.
Nibgris’ eye turrets aimed every which way but right at her. That meant he thought she was crazy but was too polite to say so out loud. “How can a cold drink possibly be more enjoyable than one at the proper temperature?” he asked.
“To Tosevites, cold drinks are proper,” she said.
“What do you expect me to use to hold the bits of water?” he inquired.
“I do not know,” Karen said. “This is not my world. It is yours. I was hoping you might help me. Is that not why you are employed here?”
“Perhaps, superior female, you might use a few tens of measuring cups.” Nibgris’ mouth fell open in a laugh. He didn’t expect to be taken seriously.
Karen didn’t care what he expected. Briskly, she made the affirmative gesture. “They would do excellently. I thank you. Please bring a small freezer and the measuring cups up to my room at once.”
The concierge’s tailstump quivered in agitation. “We have not got that many cups in the entire establishment!”
“Do you suppose you could send someone out to buy them?” Karen asked. “I am sure your government would reimburse you. Even if it did not, though, I doubt the expense would bankrupt the hotel.”
Nibgris jerked as if a mosquito had bitten him. A sarcastic Big Ugly seemed to be the last thing he knew how to face. “It is not the expense,” he said plaintively. “It is the ridiculousness of the request.”
“Is any request that leads to making a guest more comfortable ridiculous?” Karen asked.
“Well… no.” Nibgris spoke with obvious reluctance. People who worked in hotels always claimed their first goal was making their guests comfortable. More often than not, it was really making things more convenient for themselves. That didn’t seem much different here on Home.
“I would do it myself, but I do not have any of your money,” Karen said. “It would be a great help to me and to my mate and to all the other Tosevites. We would be most grateful.” She added an emphatic cough.
By the way Nibgris’ tongue flicked in and out, he cared nothing for humans’ gratitude. But the resigned sigh that followed was amazingly manlike. “It shall be done, superior Tosevite.”
“I thank you,” Karen said sweetly. She could afford to be sweet now. She’d got what she wanted-or thought she had.
Nibgris took his own sweet time about having the Lizards who served him bring up the freezer. When Karen called the next day to complain, the concierge said, “My apologies, superior Tosevite, but there has been a certain disagreement with the kitchens. The cooks claim that anything connected with food or drink in any way is their province, and they should be the ones to bring the freezer and the measuring cups to you.”
“I do not care who does it. I only care that someone does it.” Karen used another emphatic cough. “Transfer my call to the head of the kitchens, if you would be so kind. I will see if I can get some action out of that male-or is it a female?”
“A female-her name is Senyahh.” Nibgris transferred the call with every sign of relief.
Senyahh seemed startled to see a Big Ugly staring out of the monitor at her. “Yes? You wish?” she asked in tones just this side of actively hostile.
“I wish the freezer Nibgris promised me yesterday, and the measuring cups in which to freeze water.” Karen was feeling just this side-or perhaps just the other side-of hostile herself. Snarling at one more Lizard functionary was the last thing she wanted to do, but by then she would have crawled through flames and broken glass to get her hands on ice cubes.
“Why do you think I am responsible for fulfilling Nibgris’ rash promises?” Senyahh demanded. “I see no necessity for such a bizarre request.”
“That is because you are not a Tosevite,” Karen said.
“By the spirits of Emperors past, I am glad I am not, too.” Senyahh tacked on a scornful emphatic cough.
Karen’s temper snapped. “By the spirits of Emperors past, Senyahh, I am glad of the same thing. You would be as much a disgrace to my species as you are to your own.” The head of the kitchens hissed furiously. Ignoring her, Karen went on, “I expect the freezer and the cups inside of a tenth of a day. If they are not here, I shall complain to Fleetlord Atvar, who has the hearing diaphragm of the present Emperor. Once Atvar is through with you, you may find out more about the spirits of Emperors past than you ever wanted to know. A tenth of a day, do you hear me?” She broke the connection before Senyahh could answer.
As she angrily stared at the blank monitor, she wondered if she’d gone too far. Would fear of punishment persuade the head of the kitchens to do as she wanted? Or would Senyahh decide Atvar was unlikely to side with a Big Ugly and against a fellow Lizard? Karen would know in a couple of hours.
“Being mulish?” Jonathan asked-a word he must have got from his father.
“I’ll say!” The trouble Karen had had poured out of her. She finished, “Do you think I antagonized the miserable Lizard?”
“Probably-but so what?” Jonathan sounded unconcerned. “If you act like a superior, the Lizards will think you are. It works the same way with us, only a little less, I think. And if you don’t have a freezer inside a tenth of a day, you really ought to give Atvar a piece of your mind. He’ll back you.”
“Do you think so?” Karen asked anxiously.
“You bet I do.” Jonathan used an emphatic cough even though they were speaking English. “If he tells you no, you can sic Dad on him, and you’d better believe he doesn’t want that.”
Karen judged Jonathan was right. Atvar had enough important things to quarrel and quibble about with Sam Yeager that something as monumentally trivial as ice cubes would only prove an irritation. If she were Senyahh, she wouldn’t have cared to risk the fleetlord’s wrath.
Time scurried on. Just before-just before-the deadline, the Race’s equivalent of a doorbell hissed for attention. Two Lizards with a square metal box on a wheeled cart stood outside. A cardboard carton full of plastic cups lay on top of the metal box. “You are the Tosevite who wanted a freezer?” one of the Lizards asked. He sounded as if he couldn’t have cared less one way or the other.
“I am,” Karen said.
“Well, here it is,” he said, and turned to his partner. “Come on, Fegrep. Give it a shove. As soon as we plug it in, we can go do something else.”
“Right,” Fegrep said. “Pretty crazy, a freezer in a room. And why does the Big Ugly want all those stupid cups?” He’d just heard Karen speak his language, but seemed to think she couldn’t understand it. Or maybe he just didn’t care.
Under other circumstances, Karen might have got angry. As things were, she was too glad to see the freezer to worry about anything else. The workmales wheeled it into the room, eased it down off the cart, and plugged it in. Then they left. Karen opened the freezer. It was cold in there, sure enough. She started filling the measuring cups full of water and sticking them inside the freezer. “Ice cubes!” she told Jonathan. “All we have to do is wait.”
“They’re round,” he observed. “How can they be ice cubes?”
She corrected herself: “Ice cylinders. Thank you, Mr. Webster’s Dictionary of the English Language.” Her husband might have got angry, too. Instead, he took a bow. As he must have known it would, that annoyed her even more.
After she started making ice cubes (she refused to think of them as cylinders) she kept opening the freezer every so often to see how they were doing. “You’re letting the cold air out,” Jonathan said helpfully.
“I know I am,” she answered. “I don’t care. I’ve been waiting all this time.
I can wait a little longer.”
Some small stretch of time after she would have had ice cubes if she’d been patient, she had them anyhow. Coaxing them out of the measuring cups wasn’t so easy, but she managed. She put five of them in a glass of room-temperature-which is to say, lukewarm-water, then waited for them to do their stuff. After five minutes, she rested the glass against her cheek for a moment.
