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“That’s not fair, hon,” Jonathan said. “If you hadn’t done anything for twenty years-and I don’t think Kassquit has, not since me-wouldn’t you grab the chance if it came along?”
Karen thought about twenty years of celibacy. Going without was easier for most women than for most men, but even so… “Maybe,” she said grudgingly.
No matter how grudgingly she said it, Jonathan had to know how big an admission that was. “Give her a break, will you?” he said. “She needs all the breaks she can get, and she hasn’t caught very many of them.”
“Maybe,” Karen said again, even more grudgingly than before. “But what about Frank? What’s he thinking? Is he thinking?”
“There are four women on this planet,” Jonathan said. “As far as I know, he’s never come on to you or Linda. If he has, nobody’s said anything about it.”
“He hasn’t with me, anyway,” Karen said.
“All right, then. Let’s figure he hasn’t with Linda, either,” Jonathan said. “Melanie Blanchard just got here. That leaves…” He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t have to.
Every word he said made good logical sense. But this wasn’t a matter for logic-or it didn’t feel like one to Karen, anyhow. When she said, “It’s Kassquit!” she summed up everything that wasn’t logical about it.
Jonathan only shrugged. “I can’t do anything about it. I haven’t done anything about it, either, and you know darn well I haven’t. If you don’t like it, take it up with Frank. And good luck to you.”
He wasn’t often so blunt. Karen wished he hadn’t been this time, either. She said, “I couldn’t do that!”
“Okay, fine,” her husband said. “In that case, wouldn’t you say it’s none of your beeswax? And if it isn’t, what are you worrying about?”
“Talk about not being fair!” Karen exclaimed. “How long have you known without telling me?”
“A while,” he said, which told her less than she wanted to know. He went on, “If you watch them, you can kind of tell. It’s the way they look at each other when they think nobody else is paying any attention.”
Karen had always paid as little attention to Kassquit as she could while staying polite, or maybe even a little less than that. And she evidently hadn’t paid as much to Frank Coffey as she should have. “I still have trouble believing it,” she said.
“Oh, it’s true,” Jonathan said. “If it weren’t, why would Frank have started taking rubbers from the medical supplies?”
For that, Karen had no answer. She did wonder how her husband knew Coffey was doing that. Had he actually seen him? Or did he know how many he and Tom de la Rosa were likely to use, and figure the excess must have gone to Frank? Karen decided she wasn’t curious enough about that to ask.
She said, “I still don’t think it can be good for what we’re trying to do here. It’s… sleeping with the enemy, that’s what it is.”
“Sorry, hon, but I don’t think you’re right,” Jonathan told her. “Anything that keeps us from going nuts here is pretty good, far as I’m concerned. Kassquit’s no more Mata Hari than she is Martha Washington. If anybody gives anything away in pillow talk, she’s likely to be the one.”
He was altogether too likely to be right about that. Because he was, Karen didn’t try to contradict him. She just said, “The whole idea is repulsive, that’s all.”
Jonathan said nothing at all. No, sleeping with Kassquit hadn’t repelled him. That wasn’t anything Karen didn’t already know; after all, he’d done it before they were married. Since he hadn’t tried doing it since, she didn’t suppose she ought to mention it. But biting her tongue wasn’t easy.
In the face of that silence from her husband, she said, “I’m going down to the refectory. It’s just about time for lunch.”
“Go ahead,” Jonathan answered. “I’m not hungry yet. I’ll come down in a while. I’ve got some paperwork I need to catch up on.”
Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. Karen wouldn’t have bet one way or the other. Plainly, though, he didn’t want to go on talking about Kassquit and Frank Coffey. Karen didn’t see what she could do about it short of ramming the topic down his throat. That wouldn’t accomplish anything but starting a fight. Life was too short… wasn’t it? With a twinge of regret, she decided it was.
“I’ll see you later, then,” she said. “I am hungry.” That wasn’t a lie. She left the room and walked down the hall to the elevators.
When one arrived, it announced itself with a hiss, not a bell. She wondered if she would ever hear a bell again when a door opened. Sometimes small things made all the difference between feeling at home and being forcibly reminded you were on an alien world. She got into the elevator. It was smoother than any Earthly model she’d ever known.
She braced herself for more alienness in the refectory. The food there, or most of it, wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what she was used to, either. She supposed a Japanese traveling through South Dakota had the same problem. If so, she sympathized.
Some of the booths had been adapted to accommodate humans. The adaptations were clumsy but functional. A Lizard came up to her with a menu. “Here are today’s offerings, superior Tosevite,” the server said.
“I thank you.” Karen read through it. “Ah, you have the azwaca cutlets again. Bring me those, please.”
“It shall be done, superior Tosevite. And to drink?”
“The ippa-fruit juice. Chilled, if you have it.” Ippa-fruit juice had a citrusy tartness to it.
“We do.” The server made the affirmative gesture. “We woul
d not for ourselves, but we have seen how fond of cold things you Tosevites are. Please wait. I will take your order to the cooks. It will not be long.”
“Good,” Karen said. For the moment, she had the refectory to herself. That suited her. She wasn’t in the mood to face anyone else just then anyhow. She wished the refectory were cooler. She wished all of Home were cooler.
Of course, what she wished had nothing to do with how things really worked. She knew that, even if she didn’t like it very much. The Race had cooled the refectory even this far only to accommodate her kind. The Lizards liked things hot. The heat of a medium summer’s day in Los Angeles wasn’t heat to them at all. It was chill.
The server brought the ippa-fruit juice. It wasn’t as cold as lemonade would have been back on Earth, but it was chilled. The tangy sweetness pleased her. Had the Race brought ippa fruit to Earth? If so, a trade might easily spring up. Plenty of people would like it. I’ll have to ask Tom, she thought. If anyone here would know, he was the man.
When she finished the juice, the server refilled her glass from a pitcher. In a lot of ways, restaurants on Earth and Home were similar. “Your meal will come very shortly,” he assured her two or three times, sounding much like a human waiter anxious to preserve his tip. The Americans didn’t need to worry about tipping, though, not while they ate in the hotel refectory. Karen didn’t even know if Lizards were in the habit of tipping. If they were, the government took care of it here.
The server had just brought her the cutlets-and some roasted tubers on the side-when Kassquit walked into the refectory. Karen nodded, not in a friendly way (that was beyond her), but at least politely. She wanted to see how Kassquit would behave and what, if anything, she had to say for herself.
Kassquit nodded back with that same wary politeness. “I greet you,” the half-alien woman said.
“And I greet you,” Karen answered. “I hope you are well and happy?”
“I am well, yes. I thank you for asking.” Kassquit considered the rest of the question. “Happy? Who can say for certain? There certainly were times in the past when I was more unhappy.”
