Down to Earth
Page 40
“Kassquit, though, is legitimate business for him,” the driver said. “He should stick to legitimate business. He would do better if he did.” With that, he turned on his heel and strode away.
Arrogant, egg-addled . . . But Straha cursed the driver only mentally, and even then the curse broke down half formed. The Big Ugly was anything but addled, and the ex-shiplord knew it. Indeed, his effortless competence was one of the most oppressive things about him.
When the driver had gone round the corner, Straha opened a drawer, took out a vial of ginger, poured some into the palm of his hand, and tasted. Even as pleasure surged through him, he carefully put the vial back and closed the drawer. The driver knew he tasted, of course. The driver got ginger for him. But he did not like to taste in front of the Big Ugly. He treated the Tosevite as he would have treated one of his own aides: no high-ranking officer cared to do something unseemly while his subordinates were watching.
Tasting ginger, of course, was legal under the laws of the United States. But those laws mattered only so much to Straha. He lived under them, yes, but they weren’t his. The whole snout-counting process by which the Big Uglies in the USA chose their lawmakers had never failed to strike him as absurd. Emotionally, he still adhered to the regulations of the conquest fleet, and under them tasting ginger was a punishable offense.
With the herb blazing in him, he followed the driver out to the front room. The Big Ugly had just settled down with a magazine, and seemed somewhat surprised to have to deal with Straha again so soon. “Can I help you with something, Shiplord?” he asked.
“Yes,” Straha answered. “You can tell me whose snout you intend to choose in the upcoming snoutcounting for the leader of your not-empire?’
“Oh, I think I’ll vote to reelect President Warren,” the driver answered in English.
Straha didn’t blame him for shifting languages; the Big Uglies’ tongue was better suited to discussing this strange quadrennial rite of theirs. The ex-shiplord also used English: “And why is that?”
“Well, the country’s doing okay, or better than okay,” the Tosevite said. “Warren’s made sure we’re strong, and I like the way he’s handled relations with the Race. We have a saying: don’t change horses in midstream. So I figure staying with the man we’ve got is probably the best way to go.”
That sounded cautious and conservative. It might almost have been a male of the Race speaking, not a Big Ugly. As a Tosevite might have stuck out his index finger, Straha stuck out his tongue. “Suppose Warren loses, though. Suppose more American Tosevites choose the snout of this other male, this . . . Humpty?”
“Humphrey,” his driver corrected. His sigh sounded like the sigh of a male of the Race. “Then they do, that’s all. Then Humphrey becomes president, and we all hope he does as good a job as Warren did. I’d support him. I’d follow his orders. I’d have to.”
“But you would still think all the time that this other male, the one you have leading you now, would be able to do the job better,” Straha persisted.
“Yes, I probably would,” the driver said.
“Then why would you follow Humphrey?” Straha took care to pronounce the name correctly.
“Because more people would have voted for him than for Warren,” the Big Ugly replied. “We’ve been over this before, Shiplord. With us, the government is more important than the names of the people in the top slots. Things go on any which way.”
“Madness,” Straha said with conviction. “What would happen if some large number of American Tosevites decided they did not like the way the snoutcounting—uh, the election—turned out, and refused to obey the male who was chosen?”
To his surprise, the driver answered, “We had that happen once, as a matter of fact. It was just over a hundred years ago.”
“Oh? And what was the result?” Straha asked.
“It was called the Civil War,” the driver said. “You may have noticed some of the anniversary celebrations we’ve been having.” Straha made the negative hand gesture. Lots of things went on around him that he didn’t notice. With a shrug, the driver went on, “Well, whether you’ve noticed or not, the war caused so much damage that we’ve never come close to having another one over an election.”
So Big Uglies could learn from history. Straha wouldn’t have bet on it. The Tosevites were most adept technically; had they not been, this planet would be a firmly held part of the Empire. But they’d been doing their best to destroy one another when the conquest fleet arrived.
Straha wondered what would have happened if the Race had waited another couple of hundred years before sending out the conquest fleet. The Big Uglies had already been working on explosive-metal bombs. Maybe they would have committed suicide. Or maybe, Straha thought unhappily, not a single ship from the conquest fleet would have managed to land on Tosev 3.
The ginger was leaving him. So was the euphoria it had brought. Imagining the Race ambushed by fearsome Big Uglies came easy at such times. It had come too close to happening as things were.
“Is there anything else, Shiplord?” The driver returned to the language of the Race, a sure sign he considered the conversation on snoutcounting at an end.
“No, nothing else,” Straha answered. “You may return to your reading. What publication have you got there?”
By the way the driver hesitated, Straha knew he’d hit a nerve. He thought he knew what kind of nerve he’d hit, too. Sure enough, when the driver showed him the magazine, he found it to be one featuring female Big Uglies divested of most of the cloth wrappings they customarily used.
“I do not mind your titillating your mating urge if that does not interfere with your other duties, and it does not seem to,” Straha said.
Despite that reassurance, the driver closed the magazine and would not open it again while Straha was in the room. He was as embarrassed about openly indulging his sexuality as Straha was about tasting ginger in front of him. While different in so many ways, Big Uglies and the Race shared some odd things.
Straha said, “Never mind. I will leave you in privacy. And I will not hold it against you that you are so reluctant to extend me the same privilege.”
“Shiplord, my job is to keep you safe first and happy second,” the driver answered. “It is much harder for me to keep you safe if I do not know where you are and what you are doing.”
“But it would be much easier for you to keep me happy under those circumstances,” Straha said. The driver only shrugged. He had his priorities. He’d spelled them out for the ex-shiplord. And Straha, like it or not, was stuck with them: one more delight of exile.
Arguing with Heinrich Himmler hadn’t got Felless tossed out of the Reich. From that, she reluctantly concluded nothing she would do would get her expelled. The proper attitude under those circumstances was to buckle down and do her job in Nuremberg as well as she could.
Felless cared very little for the proper attitude. She was gloomily certain she could do her job here without an error for the next hundred years and Veffani would still refuse to transfer her to a starship or even to a different Tosevite not-empire. And she could not appeal to Cairo for relief from such high-handed treatment, not after several leading officials from the Race’s administrative center on Tosev 3 had mated with her in the ambassador’s conference chamber.
Among the Big Uglies, mating created bonds of affection. Among the Race, all it seemed to create was resentment, especially when it was an out-of-season, ginger-induced mating. Felless sighed. Just what she didn’t want: a reason to wish she were a Tosevite.
What she did want was another taste of ginger. The craving gnawed at her like an itch deep under her scales that she couldn’t hope to scratch. She had several tastes waiting in her desk. The battle she fought wasn’t to keep from tasting. It was to wait till she had the best chance of going long enough after her taste to keep from exciting males with her pheromones when she left her office.
It was also a losing battle. Her eye turrets kept sliding awa
y from the monitor and toward the desk drawer where she’d hidden the ginger. You are nothing but an addict, dependent on a miserable Tosevite herb, she told herself severely. That should have shamed her. Back when she’d first started tasting, it had shamed her. It didn’t any more. Now she knew it was nothing but a statement of fact.
Like her eye turrets, the chair swiveled. Before she quite knew what she’d done, she turned the chair away from the computer table and toward the desk. She’d just started to rise when the telephone circuitry inside the computer hissed for attention.
She turned back with a hiss of her own, one that mixed frustration and relief. “I greet you,” she said, and then, when she saw Veffani’s image on the screen, “I greet you, superior sir.”
“And I greet you, Senior Researcher,” the ambassador to the Reich replied. “Come to my office immediately.”
“It shall be done,” Felless said, and switched off. If she was busy, she could keep her mind—or some of her mind—off her craving. Had Veffani waited a little longer before calling, she would have created fresh scandal by poking her nose outside her office.
Maybe the call was a test. If it was, she would pass it. She’d passed other, similar, tests before. If she passed enough of them . . . odds were it still wouldn’t matter. Veffani had made it all too clear he wouldn’t let her go no matter what she did.
As she had on that disastrous day when the ambassador summoned her after she’d tasted, she walked by Slomikk in the hall. The science officer turned an eye turret in her direction, no doubt wondering whether mating pheromones would reach his scent receptors in a moment. When they didn’t, he kept on walking. Felless felt as if she’d won an obscure victory.
Pheromones didn’t matter to Veffani’s secretary, a female from the colonization fleet. Even so, after Felless’ previous fiasco, the female was wary. “I trust there will be no problem when you go in to see him?” she said.
“None,” Felless said, and walked past the secretary too fast for her to get in any more digs.
Veffani turned an eye turret toward her. “I greet you, Senior Researcher. You are commendably prompt.”
“I thank you, Ambassador.” Felless fought to hold her temper. Nothing she did here would get her a commendation, and she knew it only too well. “How may I serve the Race?”
When Veffani didn’t answer right away, hope began to rise in her. If the ambassador didn’t like what she had to say, maybe it would do her some good. At last, he said, “As you no doubt know, you were reckoned the colonization fleet’s leading expert on alien races when your fleet set out from Home.”
Felless made the affirmative gesture. “Yes, superior sir. I did not know then how much of my training would be useless here on Tosev 3.”
“This world has surprised all of us,” Veffani said, which was an undoubted truth. “The point I am trying to make, however, is that Fleetlord Reffet still reckons you a leading expert on the Big Uglies, no matter how little you deserve that recognition when compared to various males from the conquest fleet.”
Now hope did surge, hot and strong, in Felless. Being a fleetlord himself, Reffet could cancel out Atvar and the males from the conquest fleet—even Veffani. He could . . . provided he wanted to badly enough. Felless had to fight to keep a quiver from her voice as she asked, “What does the exalted fleetlord require of me?”
“I cannot tell you, because no one has informed me.” Veffani didn’t sound very happy to tell her that. He went on, “The fleetlord’s representative, a certain Faparz, will be coming down by shuttlecraft to inform you personally. He is due to arrive this evening.”
“By shuttlecraft?” Felless knew she sounded surprised, but the ambassador could scarcely blame her for that, no matter what else he blamed her for. “Why does he not communicate by telephone or electronic message?”
“That I can answer,” Veffani replied. “The accursed Deutsch Tosevites are becoming altogether too good at reading and decoding our signals. And they are not the only ones, are they? Do I not recall your telling me an American Big Ugly succeeded for some time in masquerading as a male of the Race on the computer network?”
“Yes, superior sir, that is correct.” Felless knew another stab of jealousy about Ttomalss—one that, for a change, had nothing to do with his escape from the Reich. His project involving the Tosevite hatchling kept paying handsome dividends. Felless might have thought of doing such a thing herself, but Ttomalss, having come with the conquest fleet, had an enormous head start on her . . . as he did in all matters Tosevite. She forced her thoughts back to the matter directly in front of her. “Then whatever message Faparz bears is one where security is an important concern?”
“I should think so, yes,” Veffani answered. “My I offer you a word of advice, Senior Researcher?”
“I rather think I know what you are about to say,” Felless replied.
“Duty requires me to say it anyhow.” It wasn’t just duty, either: Veffani looked as if he was enjoying himself. “Do not taste ginger between now and then. Faparz is not a Big Ugly male, and you will not win favor with him because he has mated with you. The reverse is likelier to be true.”
“Believe me, superior sir, I understand that,” Felless said stiffly. She would crave ginger, and this evening felt a long way off. But the ambassador was undoubtedly right, even if he took too much pleasure in rubbing her snout in her own disgrace.
“For your sake, I hope you do,” he said now. “I would just as soon see your punishment continue; in my opinion, you deserve it. You will prove that if you humiliate yourself with the representative of the fleetlord of the colonization fleet as well as with those from the conquest fleet.” Felless did her best to hide her resentment, part of which sprang from Veffani’s being right. The ambassador went on, “I dismiss you.”
“I thank you, superior sir.” Felless did not in fact feel in the least thankful, but even Big Uglies recognized how hypocrisy lubricated social wheels. She hurried away before Veffani found any more pungent advice for her.
As was her habit, she retreated to her office. That proved a mistake; her eye turrets kept going back to the drawer where she kept her precious vials of ginger. But fleeing the office would have meant mingling with the rest of the embassy staff, most of whom where members of the conquest fleet and most of whom had no more use for her than did Veffani. Except when I’ve been tasting ginger, she thought. They have a use for me then, but not one that makes them like me or respect me any more afterwards.
All that made perfect sense . . . in her mind. But she’d been on the point of tasting when Veffani summoned her to his office. No matter what made sense in her mind, her body craved ginger. It let her know it craved ginger, too, and in no uncertain terms. Every moment seemed an eternity. She wanted to call Veffani back and ask him when in the evening Faparz was scheduled to arrive, but made herself hold back. The ambassador would surely understand why she made such a call: would understand, and would scorn her more than ever.
She was trembling with the desperate urge to taste when the intercom unit connected to her door hissed for attention. “Enter,” she called, and the male waiting in the corridor did come in.
“I greet you, Senior Researcher,” Faparz said. The body paint on one side of his torso and one arm was plainer than Felless’. That on his other side was as colorful and ornate as anyone on or near Tosev 3 possessed.
“I greet you, Fleetlord’s Adjutant,” Felless replied. Veffani hadn’t told her Reffet was sending his adjutant, and Felless hadn’t expected it. Maybe the ambassador hadn’t known. But maybe he’d been hoping she would taste, and would end up in trouble because of it. Well, she hadn’t. Pride helped fight her desire for the Tosevite herb—helped a little, anyway. “How may I serve the commander of the colonization fleet?”
“We are seeking to make colonization more effective, and to spread safely over broader areas of Tosev 3,” Faparz replied. “Your insights into this process will be valuable, and most appreciated.”
“I agree,” Faparz said. “This notion has already been proposed, and is likely to be implemented.” Felless hid her disappointment. But Reffet’s adjutant went on, “That is the sort of idea we are seeking. That you can find such a scheme on the spur of the moment shows you are likely to be valuable to the project.”
“Spirits of Emperors past look kindly on you for your praise!” Felless exclaimed. Then her own spirits grew gloomy, almost as if ginger were ebbing from her system. “But I must tell you, Fleetlord’s Adjutant, that removing me from the Reich may prove difficult. Ambassador Veffani has . . . formed a grudge against me, and desires that I stay here to work among Big Uglies.”
“I am aware of the nature of this, ah, grudge,” Faparz said primly, and Felless’ spirits tumbled down into her toeclaws. Then Reffet’s aide continued, “Still, I believe we may accommodate the ambassador while still involving you. Some of this research is being conducted at a consular site that, while within the boundaries of the Reich, is relatively close to territory the Race rules, and the climate there is certainly more salubrious than in this miserable, cold, dank, misty place.”
“If you are offering me a new assignment, superior sir, I gladly accept.” Felless had to swallow an emphatic cough that would have shown how glad she really was. Now she felt almost as if she’d had the taste of ginger she’d forgone waiting for Faparz. Wherever he—and Reffet—sent her, it couldn’t possibly be worse than Nuremberg. Of that she had not a doubt in the world, not a doubt in the whole wide Empire.