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“And what is that supposed to mean?” Did the American Tosevite make his interrogative cough sound sarcastic, or was that just a trick of Kassquit’s overheated imagination? She recognized the possibility, but she didn’t think so.
“As if you do not know,” she said furiously. “You all got along fine down here without the services of a physician. None of you has needed a physician.” Coffey started to say something-probably that you never could tell when someone would need a physician. She overrode him: “The real reason she came down to Home is obvious enough.”
“Not to me,” he said. “You had better tell me what this ‘real reason’ is.”
“Why, to provide you with a mating partner from among your fellow wild Big Uglies, of course,” Kassquit said.
Frank Coffey stared at her. Again, he started to say something. Kassquit didn’t stop him this time. He stopped himself-by starting to laugh. And once he started, he could not stop. Raucous Tosevite mirth poured out of him. Kassquit thought it would never end. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the torrent slowed.
“I see nothing funny about it,” Kassquit said in icy tones.
That only started the wild Tosevite laughing again. This time, the fit did not last quite so long. But when it ended, tears left bright streaks down Coffey’s cheeks. “Oh, dear,” he said, wheezing and gasping for breath. “I think I hurt myself. But I could not help it. I am very sorry, Kassquit, but you packed an impressive amount of misunderstanding into one sentence there.”
“I do not believe I misunderstood anything,” Kassquit said. “You had better explain to me why you think I did.”
“It shall be done, superior female.” Coffey began ticking off points on his fingers. “Dr. Blanchard did not come down here to become my mating partner. The two of us have not mated. We have never discussed mating, not even once. We have not made advances at each other. I have no idea whether she would be interested in mating with me. If I had to guess, I would doubt it. I know for a fact that I am not particularly interested in mating with her.”
“So you say,” Kassquit jeered.
Coffey nodded. Then he used the Race’s affirmative gesture. “Yes. So I say. And it is a truth, too. I see you are a citizen of the Empire. You certainly do not understand how things work among wild Big Uglies. And I ought to ask you a question of my own: why do you care about what Dr. Blanchard and I may or may not do?”
“Because I was hoping to mate with you myself,” Kassquit answered. Had she been raised as a wild Big Ugly, she might not have been so blunt. But then, had she been raised as a wild Big Ugly, she would have been different in so many ways, the question wouldn’t have arisen in that form.
“Oh,” Frank Coffey said, and then, “Oh,” again in an altogether different tone of voice.
When he didn’t say anything else for some little while, Kassquit asked, “Well? What do you think of that?”
He wasn’t laughing any more. Kassquit didn’t think she could have borne it if he were. Despite her prodding, he didn’t answer right away. When he did, he spoke slowly and thoughtfully: “I think you know I would be lying if I said the idea of mating with you had never crossed my mind.”
“I had thought that, yes,” Kassquit agreed. “That was why I was so upset when Dr. Blanchard came down from your starship. She is one of your kind in a way that I cannot be. I thought-I feared-she would make a better partner for you.”
The brown Big Ugly did laugh then, but, Kassquit judged, much more at himself than at her. He said, “I have trouble believing anyone named Melanie could make a good partner for me-but to understand that you would need to know the American Gone with the Wind, not the Race’s book of the same name.”
Kassquit didn’t understand; the American Gone with the Wind meant nothing to her. She did finally start to believe that he wasn’t eager to mate with Dr. Blanchard. And if he wasn’t… “This idea had crossed your mind, then, you say? And what did you think of it when it did?”
“Obviously, part of me liked it very much-but that part has never been what anyone would call fussy,” he replied. No matter how far removed from the affairs of wild Big Uglies she was, she had no trouble figuring out what he meant. He went on, “The rest of me was not nearly so sure-is not nearly so sure-that would be a good idea. You are isolated from our ways of doing things. I was very much afraid I would be taking advantage of you.”
“Why?” Kassquit asked in genuine puzzlement. “Would we not both take pleasure from this? How is that more advantageous to you than to me?”
“Things are more complicated than that-or they often are, anyway, back on Tosev 3,” Coffey said. “We do not have a mating season the way the Race does, and emotional attachments between partners are usual with us. In fact, mating among us does not just spring from previously existing emotional attachments. The act of mating, the pleasure of mating, giving pleasure to another in mating, helps cause emotional attachments. Do you have any idea what I am talking about?”
“Oh, yes,” Kassquit said softly. She remembered all too well how bereft she had felt when Jonathan Yeager left the Race’s starship and returned to the surface of Tosev 3, and how devastated she was when she learned he was making a permanent mating arrangement with Karen Yeager. That had seemed like betrayal-nothing less. If Frank Coffey were to abandon her for a wild Tosevite female, too… She shoved that thought aside and made the affirmative gesture. “I understand exactly what you mean.”
Her tone must have carried conviction, for Coffey did not argue with her any more. He just said, “Knowing all this, you would still wish to go forward?”
“I would,” she answered. “I may end up unhappy. I understand that. But I feel empty now. Next to empty, even unhappy does not seem so bad.”
“That… makes more sense than I wish it did,” the wild Big Ugly said. He nodded-again, Kassquit thought, more to himself than to her-and laughed quietly. “In that case, superior female, there is an English expression that seems to fit here: my place or yours?”
Kassquit needed a moment to figure out what that meant, but only a moment. “Why not mine?” she said.
They rode up the elevator together. Kassquit hung the PRIVACY, PLEASE sign in front of her room. Then Frank Coffey said, “Wait. I had better make sure you do not become gravid. Let me get a sheath. I will be back right away.”
He took a little longer than Kassquit had expected, but not long enough for her to complain when he returned. It had been a long time since she lay down with a male Tosevite, but she remembered what to do. And he knew how to stimulate her. He turned out to know better than Jonathan Yeager had. At first, that surprised her. Then she realized Jonathan Yeager must have been almost as inexperienced as she was. And then she stopped caring about such things.
Afterwards, Frank Coffey was careful to keep his weight on his elbows and knees and not on her. “The Race’s language does not have words for this,” he said. “ ‘I thank you’ is not nearly strong enough.” He kissed her. “I hope that says something.”
“Oh, yes.” Kassquit felt near tears. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed this. “Oh, yes.” She used an emphatic cough. It didn’t seem adequate, either. She kissed him this time. A member of the Race wouldn’t have understood. He seemed to.
Ttomalss knew he had too many things going on all at the same time. He kept waiting to hear whether Pesskrag and her fellow physicists were making progress in their experiments. He monitored what the wild Big Uglies were up to, and reported back on that to Atvar. The retired fleetlord also seemed to be running in too many directions at once.
“Rats! ” he said to Ttomalss out of a clear sky. “We have got to find those creatures and get rid of them, Senior Researcher, or this entire world will suffer on account of them.”
r /> “Truth,” Ttomalss agreed. “Maybe you should clear everyone out of this hotel and fumigate it, the way you would for pests of our own.”
“I have discussed this matter with Sam Yeager,” Atvar said unhappily. “He is not enthusiastic about moving. He is not obstructive-he will relocate if we insist. But he is not enthusiastic. Diplomacy is, or can be, a nuisance. I hesitate to displace him if I can accomplish my goals by other means.”
“How many more rats have you recovered?” Ttomalss asked.
Even more unhappily, Atvar answered, “One after that which Senyahh killed. And it was not captured here in the hotel but in the park across the way. That is another reason I hesitate to displace the wild Big Uglies: it may already be too late.”
It may already be too late. Ttomalss didn’t respond to that. It was the Race’s usual lament when dealing with the Tosevites. Here, it was liable to be true in more ways than Atvar had meant it.
After leaving the fleetlord’s suite, Ttomalss left a message for Pesskrag. The physicist took her time about calling him back. Maybe she was busy experimenting. Maybe she’d finished experimenting but had nothing new to tell him. Maybe she was just sick and tired of him. Till she did eventually answer, he couldn’t say.
What with everything else that was going on, Ttomalss hardly had the chance to turn an eye turret toward Kassquit every now and then. Her room in the hotel was not electronically monitored, as were those of the wild Big Uglies (not that those microphones had yielded much; the American Tosevites appeared to have antimonitoring electronics of their own). Not only was she assumed to be on the Emperor’s side, but she had also strongly objected to being monitored back on the starship orbiting Tosev 3.
Without that continuous monitoring, Ttomalss had to rely on what he observed when he and Kassquit were together. He would have done better observing one of his own species. He knew that. However acculturated Kassquit was, her basic responses remained Tosevite, and alien.
One morning at breakfast, he said, “You will correct me if I am wrong, but do you not seem more cheerful than usual?”
