Second Contact (4 page)

By studying motion pictures of prisoners, Molotov had gained a good working knowledge of what Lizards’ gestures and motions meant. Gromyko had succeeded in alarming Queek. Molotov added, “If you expect to get good treatment from us, you must show us good treatment in return.”

That was a lesson the Lizards had had a hard time learning. It was also an invitation to dicker. Would Queek see as much? Molotov wasn’t sure. The Lizards were better diplomats now than they had been when they first came—they had more practice at the art, too. They weren’t stupid. Anyone who thought otherwise quickly paid the price. But they were naive, even more naive than Americans.

“The converse should also apply,” Queek said. “Why should we even deal with you, when you keep sending weapons to those who would overthrow our rule?”

“We deny this,” Molotov said automatically. But did Queek offer an opening? Molotov was willing to trade hint for hint: “Why should we trust you, when you plainly plan on packing the borders with your kind?”

Queek paused before replying. Was he also trying to decide whether he heard the beginnings of a deal? At last, he said, “We should have less need to rely on the Race’s military might if you did not keep provoking your surrogates against us with hopes of a triumph surely impossible.”

“Have you not seen, Ambassador, how little is impossible on this world?” Molotov said.

“We have seen this, yes: seen it to our sorrow,” Queek replied. “Were it not so, I would not be here negotiating with you. But since I am, perhaps we can discuss this matter further.”

“Perhaps we can,” Molotov said. “I have doubts as to whether it will come to anything, but perhaps we can.” He watched Queek lean forward slightly. Yes, the Lizard was serious. Molotov did not smile.
Getting down to business
was a capitalist phrase, but in the privacy of his own mind he used it anyway.

Ttomalss politely inclined his head. “It is a pleasure to see a new face from Home, superior female,” he said to the researcher from the colonization fleet who had come to consult with him. On the whole, he was telling the truth; he had not always got on well with the colleagues who had accompanied him in the colonization fleet, or with the Big Uglies he studied.

“In this matter, I should call you ‘superior sir,’ ” the newcomer—her name was Felless—replied. “You have the expertise. You have the experience with these Tosevites.”

More than I ever wanted,
Ttomalss thought, remembering captivity in China he’d expected to lead to his death. Aloud, he said, “You are gracious,” which was also true, for Felless’ body paint showed that she outranked him.

“You have had all the time since the arrival of the conquest fleet to assimilate the implausible nature of the natives of Tosev 3,” Felless said. “To me, having to try to understand it in a matter of days—a most hasty and inefficient procedure—it seems not merely implausible but impossible.”

“This was our reaction on reaching this world, too,” Ttomalss said. “We have since had to adapt to changing conditions.” He let his mouth fall open. “Anyone on Tosev 3 who fails to adapt is ruined. We have seen that demonstrated—and most often painfully demonstrated—time and again.”

“So I gather,” Felless said. “It must have been very difficult for you. Change, after all, is an unnatural condition.”

“So I thought before leaving Home,” Ttomalss replied. “So I still think, at times, for so I was trained to think all my life. But, had we not changed, the best we could have done would have been to destroy this planet—and where would that have left you and the colonization fleet, superior female?”

Felless did not take him seriously. He could tell at a glance; he barely needed one eye turret to see it, let alone two. That saddened him, but hardly surprised him. She had the beginnings of an intellectual understanding of what the Race had been through on Tosev 3. Ttomalss had been through every bit of it. The scars still marked his spirit. It would never be free of them till it met the spirits of Emperors past face to face.

“You are to be commended for your diligent efforts to gain understanding of the roots of Tosevite behavior,” Felless said.

“Nice to know someone thinks so,” Ttomalss said, remembering quarrels down through the years. “Some males, I think, would sooner stay ignorant. And some would sooner put their tongues in a ginger jar and forget their research and everything else.”

He waited. Sure enough, Felless asked a hesitant question: “Ginger? I have seen the name in the reports. It must refer to a drug native to Tosev 3, for it is certainly unknown back on Home.”

“Yes. It’s an herb that grows here,” Ttomalss said. “For the natives, it is just a spice, the way
balj
is back on Home. It is a drug for us, though, and a nasty one. It makes a male feel smart and bold and strong—and when it wears off, it makes him feel like having some more. Once it gets its claws in you, you will do almost anything for another taste.”

“With more enforcement personnel here now, we should be able to root it out without much trouble,” Felless said.

Ttomalss remembered that pristine confidence, that sense that things would keep going smoothly because they always had. He’d known it himself. Then he’d started dealing with the Big Uglies. Like so many males on Tosev 3, he’d lost it and never got it back. He didn’t try to explain that to Felless. The female would find out for herself.

“Why would anyone want a drug in the first place, especially an alien drug?” Felless asked him.

“At first because you are bored, or else because you see someone else having a good time and you want one, too,” he answered. “We shall have trouble with ginger when the colonists land, mark my words.”

“I shall record your prediction,” Felless said. “I tend to doubt its accuracy, but, as I said, you are the one with experience on Tosev 3, so perhaps you will prove correct in the end.”

Was she so serious all the time? A lot of people back on Home were. Ttomalss remembered as much. Contact with the Big Uglies—even contact with males who had contact with the Big Uglies—had a way of abrading such seriousness. And now a hundred million colonists, once revived, would look on the relative handful of males from the colonization fleet as slightly addled eggs. Ttomalss didn’t see what anyone could do about that, either.

Deep inside, he laughed to himself. Eventually, the colonists would have to start dealing with the Tosevites. Then they’d start getting addled, too. In spite of his best efforts to believe otherwise, Ttomalss could reach no other conclusion. Even if Tosev 3 at last came completely under the Emperor’s rule, it would be the odd world out in more ways than one for years, centuries, millennia to come.

Because he’d been mentally picking parasites out from under his scales, he missed a comment from Felless. “I am sorry, superior female?” he said, embarrassed.

“I said that of all the researchers with the conquest fleet, you seem to have gone furthest in your efforts to examine the integration of Tosevites and the Race.” Felless repeated the compliment with no sign of exasperation. She continued, “Some of your activities strike me as going above and beyond the call of duty.”

“You are generous, superior female,” Ttomalss said. “My view has always been that, if this world is to be successfully colonized, effecting such integration will be mandatory.”

“You doubt the possibility of successful colonization?” Now Felless sounded reproving, not complimentary.

“I doubt the certainty of successful colonization,” Ttomalss replied. “Anyone with experience of Tosev 3 doubts the certainty of anything pertaining to it.”

“And yet you have persisted,” Felless said. “In your reports, you indicate that your first experimental specimen was forcibly taken away from you, and that you yourself were kidnapped by Tosevite bandits while seeking to obtain a replacement for it.”

“Truth,” Ttomalss said. “We badly underestimated the importance of family bonds on Tosev 3, due not only to long-term sexual pairings but also to the absurdly helpless nature of Tosevite hatchlings, which need constant care if they are to survive. Because of these factors, my experiments have met with far more opposition from the Big Uglies than they would have from any other intelligent race with which we are familiar.”

“And yet, in the end, your work seems to have met with success,” Felless said. “I wonder if you would be so kind as to allow me to make the acquaintance of the specimen you finally succeeded in obtaining and rearing.”

“I thought you might ask that.” Ttomalss rose. “Kassquit is waiting in the next chamber. I shall return in a moment.”

“My first Tosevite, even if not quite a wild specimen,” Felless said in musing tones. “How interesting this will be!”

“Please do your best to treat the Big Ugly as you would a member of the Race,” Ttomalss warned. “Since the Tosevite gained speech—which Big Uglies do more quickly than our own hatchlings—all males have followed this course, which appears to have worked well.”

“It shall be done,” Felless promised.

Ttomalss went into the adjacent chamber, where Kassquit sat in front of a screen, engrossed in a game. “The researcher from Home wishes to speak with you,” Ttomalss said.

“It shall be done, superior sir,” Kassquit said obediently, and got up. The Big Ugly, though not large for a Tosevite, stood head and neck above Ttomalss. Kassquit followed him back to the chamber where Felless waited. Bending into the posture of respect, the Tosevite said to her, “I greet you, superior sir.”

“Superior female,” Ttomalss corrected. He turned to Felless. “You are the first female Kassquit has met.”

“I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, Kassquit,” Felless said.

“I thank you, superior female.” Kassquit used the correct title this time. The Big Ugly’s voice was slightly mushy; Tosevite mouthparts could not quite handle all the sounds of the language of the Race. “You are truly from Home?”

“I am,” Felless said.

“I would like to visit Home,” Kassquit said wistfully, “but cold sleep has not yet been adapted to my biochemistry.”

“Perhaps it will be one day,” Felless said. Ttomalss watched her try to hide surprise; Kassquit was young, but far from stupid. Felless went on, “Rabotevs and Hallessi travel between the stars—no reason Tosevites should not as well.”

“I hope you are right, superior female.” Kassquit turned small, immobile eyes toward Ttomalss. “May I be excused, superior sir?”

Was that shyness or a desire to return to the game? Whatever it was, Ttomalss yielded to it: “You may.”

“I thank you, superior sir. I am glad to have met you, superior female.” After another respectful bend, Kassquit left, tall and ridiculously erect.

“Brighter than I expected,” Felless remarked once the Big Ugly was gone. “Less alien-seeming, too; far less so than the Tosevites in the images I have seen.”

“That is by design, to aid in integration,” Ttomalss said. “The body paint, of course, designates Kassquit as my apprentice. The unsightly hair at the top of the Tosevite’s head is frequently clipped to the skin. When Kassquit reached sexual maturity, more hair grew at the armpits and around the genital area, though Kassquit’s race is less hairy than most Tosevites.”

“What is the function of these hairy patches that emerge at sexual maturity?” Felless asked. “I presume they pertain to reproduction in some way.”

“That is not yet fully understood,” Ttomalss admitted. “They may help spread pheromones from odorous glands in these areas, but Tosevite reproductive behavior is less closely tied to odor cues than our own.”

“Are these creatures truly accessible to one another at all seasons?” Felless asked. A wriggle said what she thought of the idea.

But Ttomalss had to answer, “Truly. And they find our way as strange and repugnant as we find theirs. I confess that, despite my scientific objectivity, I have a great deal of trouble grasping this. Surely our way is far more convenient. You are not in season; my scent receptors know as much; and so you are simply a colleague. No complications involved with mating need arise.”

“And a good thing, too,” Felless exclaimed. She and Ttomalss both laughed at the absurdities of the Big Uglies.

“Home.” Kassquit tasted the sound of the word. Home was more real in the Tosevite’s mind than Tosev 3, around which this ship had orbited longer than Kassquit had been alive.

Tosevite,
Kassquit thought.
That is what I call myself. And why not? That is what I am.

It didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem fair. Without this preposterously large, preposterously ugly body (Kassquit knew the nickname the males of the Race—and, no doubt, this new female, too—had for Tosevites), the good brain inside this strangely domed skull might have accomplished something worthwhile. Oh, it still might, but that was far less likely than it would have been otherwise.

“If I had been hatched on Home . . .” Kassquit said. And how many times had that thought echoed and reechoed? More than Kassquit could count.
Did I ask for this body? Spirits of Emperors past, did I?
The eyes that looked down at the metal floor could not slew in turrets.
And is that my fault?

Every step Kassquit took was a reminder of alienness. This Tosevite body would not bend forward into a proper posture—or what would have been a proper posture for anyone else. And the lack of true claws on Kassquit’s fingertips was another inconvenience. Ttomalss had turned out prosthetics that made operating machinery much easier. A proper member of the Race, though, would not have needed prosthetics.

I am not a proper member of the Race. I am a Tosevite, brought up as if I were a proper member of the Race, or as close to a proper member of the Race as I can be, given my limitations. Oh, how I wish I had no such limitations. I am part person, part experimental animal.

Kassquit did not resent that. The Race needed experimental animals, to learn how to live with and eventually rule the tempestuous Tosevites. Ttomalss had said as little about the natives of Tosev 3 as he could. From the small things he had let fall now and then, Kassquit understood what an honor, what a privilege, it had been to be selected for this role. Life as a Tosevite peasant? Kassquit’s mouth dropped open in scornful amusement at the idea.