Aftershocks (41 page)

“Then what are we doing here?” Straha demanded.

“Looking for probabilities,” Felless answered. “Even those are better than complete ignorance and wild speculation.”

“Security’s speculation is never wild,” Diffal said. “We are, however, forced to analyze wildly conflicting data, which—”

“Gives you an excuse when you go wrong, as you do so often,” Straha broke in.

Ttomalss felt like biting both of them. Instead, he tried to change the subject: “Let us examine why Warren ended his life at the same time as he chose to allow the destruction of the American city.”

“My opinion is that this was an impulse reaction, one taken on the spur of the moment,” Diffal said. “Big Uglies seldom have the foresight for anything more complex.”

“Here, I would agree,” Felless said.

Ttomalss would have agreed, too. Before he could state his agreement out loud, Straha laughed a tremendous, jaw-gaping laugh, the laugh of a male coming from the countryside to the city for the first time. With enormous relish, he said, “I happen to know—to
know,
I tell you—that you are both mistaken.”

“And how do you
know
that?” Diffal did his best to match the ex-shiplord’s sarcasm.

But Straha had a crushing rejoinder: “Because I have been in electronic communication with Sam Yeager, who was in personal communication with Warren before he killed himself. Yeager makes it quite plain that Warren knew what he was doing, knew its cost, and was not prepared to live after inflicting that cost on his not-empire.”

“That is not fair!” Felless said. “You knew the answer to the question before it was asked.”

“I said so.” Straha’s voice was complacent. “Which would you rather do, learn the actual truth or sit around debating endlessly till you decide upon what you imagine the truth ought to be?”

By the indignant forward slant of their bodies, both Felless and Diffal would sooner have spent more time in debate. A veteran of endless committee meetings, and of committee meetings that only seemed endless, Ttomalss had some sympathy for their point of view, but only some. He said, “The truth does seem to be established in this particular interest. I suggest that we adjourn for the day so we can approach other questions with our minds refreshed.”

No one objected. The commission dissolved itself for the day. Diffal and Felless both left in a hurry. Straha stayed to gloat: “Facts? Facts are ugly things, Senior Researcher. They pierce the boldest theory through the liver and send it crashing to the ground.”

“In some ways, Superior Nuisance, you have become very much like an American Big Ugly,” Ttomalss said. “I suppose this was inevitable, but it does seem to have happened.”

Straha made the affirmative gesture. “I am not particularly surprised. I have been observing the Americans for a long time, and it is a truism that observer and observed affect each other. I suppose I have affected them, too, but rather less: they are many, and I only one.”

“You are not the only expatriate male of the Race there, though,” Ttomalss said. “We have examined the expatriates’ effect on pushing American technology forward. But we have not really considered their effect on the society of the not-empire as a whole. They must have some.”

“So they must.” Now Straha sounded thoughtful rather than vainglorious. “As I told you while you were interrogating me, you ask interesting questions. You could even answer that one, I think, were you interested in doing so. Most expatriates—unlike me—can freely come and go between the USA and territory the Race rules.”

But Ttomalss said, “That is not what I want, or not most of what I want. I would like to grasp the Americans’ view of the influence of the expatriates—it strikes me as being more important. And it could be that the expatriates are influencing the Americans in ways of which neither group is aware.”

“Those are all truths, every one of them,” Straha agreed. “They are all worth investigating, too, I am sure. I am not sure the Americans are doing anything similar themselves.”

That the Americans might be doing something similar hadn’t crossed Ttomalss’ mind. He said, “You have considerable respect for those Big Uglies—is that not another truth? And for Warren, their leader?”

“Yes to both,” Straha said. “Warren was a very great leader. Unlike the Deutsche, he found a way to hurt us at relatively low cost to his not-empire. Had his luck been a little better—had he not had males in his not-empire already influenced by the Race—he might have hurt us at no cost at all.”

“You sound as if you wish he had succeeded,” Ttomalss remarked.

To his horror, Straha thought that over before answering, “On the whole, no. His failure, after all, is what allowed me to return to the society of the Race, and I must admit I have longed to do so since shortly after my defection, and especially since the arrival of the colonization fleet.”

“That is the most self-centered attitude I have ever heard,” Ttomalss said. “What about the males and females aboard the ships that were destroyed?”

“They were in cold sleep, and so had no idea whatever that they had died,” Straha said. “All things considered, it is an end to be envied—a better one than you or I can expect.”

“Sophistry. Nothing but sophistry.” Ttomalss was furious, and didn’t try to hide it. “What about the Big Uglies in and around Indianapolis, many of whom are still in torment as a result of the strike?”

“They are only Big Uglies,” Straha said with chilling indifference. But then he checked himself. “No, Senior Researcher, you have a point there, and I have to admit it. Do you know what the Tosevites are apt to say about the males and females who died in the attack on the colonization fleet? ‘They are only Lizards.’ ” The last word was in English. Straha explained it: “That is the slang term the Tosevites use for us, just as we call them Big Uglies when they are not around to hear.”

“Sometimes looking at them is like looking into a mirror—we see ourselves, only backwards,” Ttomalss said, and Straha made the affirmative gesture. Ttomalss went on, “Other times, though, we see ourselves in a distorting mirror—the case of their sexuality comes to mind.”

Straha laughed. “That may be true of how things were back on Home. With ginger, it is not true of how things are here, as you know very well.”

“Prohibitions against the herb—” Ttomalss began.

“Are useless,” Straha interrupted. “In his infinite generosity, the exalted fleetlord hinted he might let me continue to use the herb in gratitude for the service I had rendered the Race, but he would not if I were not a properly obedient male. The threat alarmed me at first, but I needed about a day and a half to find my own supplier, and I am far from the only one in this complex who tastes. Have you never caught the scent of a female’s pheromones?”

“I have,” Ttomalss admitted. “I wish I could say I had not, but I have.”

“Whenever a female tastes where males can smell her, odds are she will mate,” Straha said. “Whenever a female mates out of season, whenever females incite males to mating, our sexuality becomes more like the Big Uglies’. Is that a truth, or am I lying and deceiving you?”

“That is a truth,” Ttomalss said. “Without a doubt, it is also the worst social problem the Race is facing on Tosev 3.”

“It is only a problem if we insist on calling it one,” Straha said. “If we do not, it becomes interesting, even enjoyable.”

“That is disgusting,” Ttomalss said with considerable dignity. Straha laughed at him. He didn’t care. He got to his feet and walked out of the conference chamber. As he opened the door, he turned an eye turret back toward the ex-shiplord and added, “When we talk again, I hope we can do so without such revolting comments.” Straha didn’t say a word, but he kept on laughing.

Ttomalss fumed as he went down the corridor and toward his own chamber—a safe haven from Straha’s depravity. He had to bank the fire of his anger to find his way through the winding maze of corridors that made up Shepheard’s Hotel. It had been a confusing place when the Big Uglies ran it, and the Race’s additions, thanks to security concerns, often made things worse rather than better.

When a certain odor reached Ttomalss’ scent receptors, he let out a soft hiss and started walking faster . . . and a little more nearly erect. He hardly noticed he was doing it till he’d reached his own corridor. By then, the scales of the crest atop his head were standing erect, too—the sure sign of a male ready to mate, and also ready to fight about mating if he had to. He wouldn’t have called Straha’s words disgusting then. Part of his mind realized that, but only a small part.

The door across the hallway from his own stood open. The delicious pheromones wafted out from in there. Ttomalss hurried inside. He almost bumped into another male who was leaving. “Go on,” the other fellow said happily. “You get no quarrel from me. I have already mated.”

Felless stood in the middle of the floor. She’d started to straighten up from the mating posture, but the sight of Ttomalss’ erect stance and crest—his mating display—sent her back down into it. Even as her tailstump twitched out of the way so his cloaca could join hers, she mumbled, “I did not intend for this to happen.”

“What you intended does not matter,” Ttomalss answered. The hiss he let out as pleasure shot through him was anything but soft. He could have mated with her again, but the drive to do so felt less urgent now. Instead, he turned away and went to his own room. Even as he left Felless’ chamber, another excited male was hurrying toward it.

In his room, the door closed behind him, he could scarcely smell the pheromones. Rational thought returned. He’d never tasted ginger, not even once. But the herb reached out and touched his life all the same. Maybe Straha hadn’t been so far wrong, no matter how crudely he put things.

Ttomalss sighed. He’d wanted to talk with the ex-shiplord about the dead leader of the United States. Somehow, the conversation had got round to sexuality. By way of ginger, he remembered. Straha seemed not at all unhappy about being addicted to it. Ttomalss would have been ashamed. Maybe Straha had been ashamed, once upon a time. But Tosev 3 eroded shame as it eroded everything else that made the Race what it was. Ttomalss reminded himself not to tell Kassquit he’d mated with Felless again.

Mordechai Anielewicz studied the farm from a low rise. He might have been an officer working out the best plan of attack. In fact, that was exactly what he was. He turned to the squad of Lizards behind him and spoke in their language: “I thank you for your help in this matter.”

Their leader, an underofficer named Oteisho, shrugged an amazingly humanlike shrug. “We are ordered to assist you. You have assisted the Race. We pay our debts.”

So you do,
Mordechai thought.
You’re better about it than most people.
Aloud, he said, “We had best advance in open order. I do not think this Gustav Kluge will open fire on us, but I might be wrong.”

“He will be one very sorry Deutsch male if he tries,” Oteisho remarked: half professional appraisal, half anticipation. The males of the Race who’d fought the Germans in Poland had no love for them. Oteisho turned and gave orders to the infantrymales in his squad. They spread out, weapons at the ready. Oteisho gestured to Anielewicz. “Lead us.”

“I shall.” He couldn’t say,
It shall be done,
not when he was in charge. He hoped he wasn’t leading them on a wild-goose chase. Briefly, he wondered what Lizards chased on Home instead of wild geese. But then he swung his rifle down off his shoulder and started toward Kluge’s farm.

People were working in the fields. That was to be expected, with harvest time on the way. What wasn’t to be expected was that other people—men, all of them—were standing guard in the fields to make sure none of the workers escaped. The guards were armed and looked alert. How many farms in Germany had used slave labor before this latest round of fighting? How many had kept right on doing it even after the
Reich
got smashed into the dust? Quite a few, evidently. From the farmers’ point of view, why not? Germany remained independent of the Lizards; who was going to tell them they couldn’t do that any more?

“I am, by God,” Mordechai muttered. Oteisho turned one eye turret his way. When he said nothing more, the Lizard underofficer relaxed and kept his attention on his males. They were veterans; Anielewicz could see as much by the way they handled themselves. Even so, he wondered if he’d brought as much firepower with him as Gustav Kluge had on the farm. Kluge’s men were liable to be veterans, too: demobilized soldiers looking for work that would keep them fed.

One of the guards, in a civilian shirt and, sure enough, field-gray
Wehrmacht
trousers, strolled toward Anielewicz and the Lizards. He had a cigarette in a corner of his mouth and an assault rifle slung on his back. Keeping his hands well away from the weapon, he asked the inevitable question:
“Was ist los?”

“We’re looking for some people,” Anielewicz answered. He was careful to speak German, not Yiddish. Kluge’s men wouldn’t love him anyhow; they’d love him even less if—no, when—they found out he was a Jew.

“Lots of people are, these days.” The guard leaned forward a little bit, the picture of insolence. “Why should we let ’em go, even if you find ’em? If they’ve got labor contracts, buddy, they’re here for the duration, and if you don’t like that, you can take it to court.”

“They’re my wife and children,” Anielewicz said tightly. “Bertha, Miriam, David, and Heinrich are the names.” He didn’t give his surname; it would have told too much.

“And who the devil are
you?”
the guard asked. The question didn’t come out so nastily as it might have. The next sentence explained why: “You must be somebody, if you’ve brought tame Lizards along.”

One of the infantrymales turned out to speak some German. “We are not tame,” he said. “Move wrong. You will see how not tame we are.” He sounded as if he hoped the guard would make a false move.

Up from the farmhouse came a burly, gray-haired man who walked with a cane and a peculiar, rolling gait that meant he’d lost a leg above the knee. The guard turned back to him with something like relief. “Here’s Herr Kluge, the boss. You can tell him your story.” He stepped aside and let the farmer do his own talking.