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Kassquit paused to take a bite of aasson. After she swallowed, she answered, “You might say so. Yes, superior sir, you might say so.”
“Good. I am glad to hear it.” Ttomalss was also glad he had seen it. “Do you happen to know why you are more cheerful?” If she did, he would do his best to make sure conditions did not change for her.
“Yes, superior sir, I do know,” Kassquit said, and said no more.
Trying not to show the exasperation he felt, Ttomalss asked, “Do you mind telling me why you are more cheerful than usual? Is it by any chance the aftereffect of your audience with the Emperor?” He felt proud of himself for being so insightful.
And he felt correspondingly deflated and annoyed when Kassquit used the negative gesture. “No, superior sir, I do not mind telling you,” she replied. Ttomalss brightened, hoping that was why she’d used it. But she went on, “Though I am and always will be proud the Emperor received me, I must confess that that is not the main reason why I am more cheerful these days.”
Once more, she didn’t elaborate. This time, Ttomalss did let out an irked hiss. “I ask again: why are you, then?”
“Do you truly want to know?” Kassquit inquired-perhaps ironically, though that did not occur to the psychologist till later. At the time, he just made the affirmative gesture. Kassquit said, “Very well, then, superior sir-I will tell you. I am more cheerful than usual because I have begun mating again. I find it much more satisfactory and much more enjoyable than self-stimulation. Do you have any other questions?”
Ttomalss didn’t. He finished breakfast in a hurry and left the refectory as fast as he could. That didn’t take him far enough away. He left the hotel, too, and strode at random down the streets of Sitneff. He hoped immersing himself in his own kind would take the bad taste of Tosevites off his tongue.
Even Kassquit! Or was it, especially Kassquit? She had everything the Race and the Empire could give her. She had a reasonable rank and more than adequate wealth. She even had the privilege of an imperial audience, which Ttomalss himself did not enjoy. And what did she value? What made her happy-made her so happy, Ttomalss couldn’t help but notice? Tosevite mating behavior-and that even after she was warned against it!
It hardly seemed fair.
She is a Big Ugly after all, Ttomalss thought sadly. In spite of everything we have done for her, she is still nothing but a Big Ugly. That was a liverbreaking notion. Air whooshed out of his lung in a long, sad sigh. She was as much a citizen of the Empire as any Tosevite could possibly be, more than any other Tosevite was likely to be for thousands of years, if ever. But her biology still drove her in ways no member of the Race could fully understand.
Or was that true? Back on Tosev 3, there was a small but growing number of males and females who used ginger to simulate the Big Uglies’ year-round sexuality. Some of them had even adopted the Tosevite custom of permanent exclusive mating bonds. To most of the Race, they were perverts, even more depraved than the Big Uglies themselves. But might they not one day serve as a bridge between the Empire on the one hand and the wild and stubbornly independent Tosevites on the other? And might Kassquit not be part of that same bridge?
Ttomalss could dare hope. But Tosev 3 had dashed the Race’s hopes again and again ever since the conquest fleet arrived. In a Tosevite legend, hope was the last thing to emerge from a box of troubles. The legend didn’t say what happened next. Ttomalss’ guess was that the troubles leaped on new-hatched hope and devoured it.
An automobile warning hissed at him. He sprang in the air in surprise and skittered back to the curb. He’d walked off against traffic, something he never would have done if he hadn’t been so gloomy and distracted. If that car had smashed me, it would have been your fault, Kassquit.
The audience with the Emperor made her proud. But mating with a wild Big Ugly (and with which? — she hadn’t said) made her happy. Ttomalss wondered if he ought to see which American Tosevite seemed unusually happy these days. But would a wild Big Ugly show it the way Kassquit did? The Americans were used to mating in a way she wasn’t.
She would rather be pleased in this way by her own kind than honored by the Empire. A stray beffel beeped at Ttomalss. He was usually kind to animals, but he made as if to kick this one. The beffel had been a stray for a while. It recognized that gesture, and scrambled away on its short, strong legs before the blow could connect. He wouldn’t have actually kicked, but the beffel couldn’t know that.
My superiors will have to hear of this, but how am I supposed to put it in a report? Ttomalss wondered. How can I phrase it so that it does not reflect badly on Kassquit-or on me? Atvar would understand. He’d seen how things were on Tosev 3, and he had some notion of normal Tosevite sexual behavior. But most of the so-called experts here on Home had no direct experience with Big Uglies. They would be offended or disgusted-or maybe they would be offended and disgusted. Ttomalss didn’t want Kassquit punished for what was, to her, normal behavior. That wouldn’t be fair.
He stopped, so abruptly that a female in a blue wig that looked nothing like any real Big Ugly’s hair almost ran into him. She said something rude. He ignored her, which made her say something even ruder. He still paid her no attention. He stood there on the sidewalk in front of a meat market. If Kassquit’s behavior is normal for her, why are you getting so upset about it?
Because she took me by surprise. No, the answer there wasn’t very hard to find, was it? The Race did not approve of surprises or respond well to them-another reason Tosev 3 had caused it so many headaches. Males and females liked to know how everything worked, how all the pieces fit together, and exactly what their part was in the bigger scheme of things.
To the Race, Big Uglies sometimes seemed to act almost at random. Part of that was because Tosevites worried less about the future than did members of the Race. If they saw present opportunity, they grabbed with both hands. And their sexual and family ties made them do things inexplicable to the Race.
“Sexual ties.” Ttomalss muttered the words out loud. A male going by kept one eye turret on him till he passed out of sight. Again, the psychologist hardly noticed, though in other circumstances he would have been mortified to draw so much attention. He still didn’t know with which American male Kassquit had mated.
Only four candidates. Two of them had permanent mating contracts with females. Ttomalss had learned, though, that Big Uglies respected such contracts only imperfectly. And Jonathan Yeager had been Kassquit’s first partner, all those years before. Would they have returned to each other?
Or would Tom de la Rosa have forsaken his partner? As an ecological expert, de la Rosa was formidable. In sexual terms… Ttomalss had no idea what he was like in sexual terms.
He knew just as little about Major Frank Coffey in that context. Dark brown Big Uglies had a formidable sexual reputation among paler ones, but that reputation appeared to be undeserved. Under the skin, Tosevite subspecies were remarkably similar.
Then there was Sam Yeager himself. He had been mated, but his longtime partner was dead. Would he be looking for sexual opportunities now? How could a member of the Race hope to know?
You could ask him, Ttomalss thought. Then he made the negative gesture. The American ambassador would not get angry at the question. Ttomalss was reasonably sure of that. But Yeager would laugh at him. He was pretty sure of that, too. He was no more fond of making a fool of himself than anyone else of any species.
Just when he had decided he couldn’t make a reasonable guess about the candidates, he realized he hadn’t really considered all of them. Big Uglies occasionally became intimate with members of their own sex. Because of pheromones and crest displays, such behavior was much rarer among the Race. Could Kassquit have experimented with a female?
Kassquit could have done almost anything. What she had done, she knew and Ttomalss didn’t. He also had to admit to himself that he couldn’t figure it out from the evidence he had. Maybe a Big Ugly could have. He wouldn’t have been surprised. But, de
spite all his years studying the Tosevites, he was no Big Ugly himself.
He was glad of that, too. Imagine putting a sexual liaison ahead of an audience with the Emperor! If that didn’t prove how different the Tosevites were, what would?
He did his best to look on the bright side of things. Sooner or later, the truth would come out. His store of data would grow. The bright side turned darker. No matter how much data he had, would he ever really understand?
The Americans had been living in one another’s pockets ever since they got to Home. They had few secrets from one another. Keeping secrets wasn’t easy, and they hardly ever bothered. Even so, not everything got talked about right out in the open. Karen Yeager was probably the last one to realize Major Coffey and Kassquit had started sleeping together.
When she did, she was horrified. “Isn’t that treason or something?” she demanded of her husband.
“I doubt it,” he answered. “I can’t see Frank giving secrets away to the Lizards no matter what. Can you? It would take a lot more than a what-do-you-call-it-a honey trap, that’s what they say-to get him to do anything like that.”
Karen considered. Reluctantly, she decided Jonathan was right. She made herself an almost-vodka, chilling it with ice she’d fought so hard to win. “Well, maybe so,” she said. “But it’s still disgusting. She’s hardly even human.”
Jonathan didn’t say anything. That was no doubt smart on his part. Karen remembered, just too late, that he hadn’t found anything disgusting about sleeping with Kassquit. If men could, they would, or most of them would.
“She really isn’t,” Karen said, as if Jonathan had contradicted her.
“I know she’s not,” he answered uncomfortably. “But she does try. It makes her more… more pathetic than if she didn’t. Part of her wants to be-I think a lot of her wants to be. But she doesn’t know how. How could she, seeing the way she was raised? She’s crazy, yeah, but she could be a lot crazier. And you know what the saddest thing is?”
“Tell me.” Ominous echoes filled Karen’s voice.
Her husband usually heeded those echoes. Not today. He spoke as if he hadn’t heard them: “The saddest thing is, she knows how much she’s missing. And she knows she’s never going to get it-not from us, and not from the Lizards, either. How do you go on after you’ve figured something like that out?”
“She seems to have found some way to amuse herself,” Karen said.
