Second Contact (40 page)

“Have they?” Atvar shrugged. Such things happened all the time during mating season. Still, Kirel’s point was well taken. Atvar said, “A good notion. I shall summon Moishe Russie. Not only is he a Big Ugly, but also a physician, or what passes for such among his kind. He will undoubtedly be able to tell us much that we do not yet know or suspect about what lies ahead for us.”

He wasted no time, but telephoned Russie at his practice in Jerusalem. Being the most powerful individual on the planet had its advantages: Russie did not refuse to speak to him. Atvar couched his orders in polite terms; he had seen over the years how touchy and stubborn Russie could be. But they were orders, and of that the fleetlord left no doubt.

Next morning, Russie presented himself at Shepheard’s Hotel. “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” he said when Pshing escorted him into Atvar’s presence. “How may I assist you?” He spoke the language of the Race well if pedantically.

Atvar remembered there had been a time when Russie was unwilling to assist the Race in anything. He had, to some degree, mellowed. If he could help the Race without hurting his own kind, he would. The situation was not ideal from the fleetlord’s point of view, but it was acceptable. On Tosev 3, that ranked as something of a triumph.

“I shall explain,” Atvar said, and he did.

Russie listened intently. Atvar had studied Tosevite expressions—far more varied and less subtle than those of the Race—but saw nothing on the Big Ugly’s face save polite interest. When the fleetlord finished, Russie said, “I have already heard something of this. There was an incident in Jerusalem the other day that shocked both Jews and Muslims, but no one knew its likely cause till now.”

An incident that shocked the Muslims was the last thing the fleetlord wanted; that Tosevite faction was already far too restive. He said, “How are we to prevent further such incidents?”

“As you surely know, it is our strong custom to mate privately,” Russie said. “A ban on public mating by the Race would help keep order in areas of the planet you rule.”

“Our custom is the opposite,” Atvar said. “We are in the habit of mating wherever we chance to be when the urge strikes us. Still, for the sake of good order among the Tosevites, a ban such as you suggest might be worthwhile.” It would be a palliative, as would tighter controls on ginger-smuggling, but Tosev 3 had taught him palliatives were not always to be despised.

“If your females, or some of them, are to be in season all the time, you will also need rules about with whom they can mate, and perhaps about what happens when a male mates with a female against her will,” Russie said.

“If a female is in season, mating is not against her will,” Atvar answered.

Russie shrugged. “You know better than I.”

“Not necessarily,” Atvar said. “This is unfamiliar territory for the Race, as unfamiliar as Tosev 3 was before our probe landed here—and as unfamiliar as Tosev 3 was after the probe landed here, too.”

“Why exactly, then, have you summoned me?” the Tosevite asked.

Atvar turned both eye turrets toward him. “For your suggestions,” the fleetlord replied. “You have already given some. I hope you will give more. The Race will have to cope, as we have had to cope with so much on your world.”

“If you had thought of it as our world from the beginning, you would not have these problems now.” Moishe Russie’s face twisted into a peculiar grimace. “And I, very likely, would be dead. I will do what I can for you, Exalted Fleetlord.”

“I thank you.” Atvar sounded more sincere than he had expected. With luck, Russie would not notice.

Monique Dutourd kept noticing Lizards on the streets of Marseille as she bicycled to work. She hadn’t seen so many since the Race ruled the south of France back in the days when she was a girl. Normally, she would not have taken much notice of them. After learning how her brother made his living—after learning Pierre was alive to make a living—she paid more attention to them. She couldn’t help wondering whether they were here to smuggle things into and out of the city.

Semester break had come and gone. Now she was teaching about the later Roman Empire, all the way through the sixth-century era of Justinian. Sure as the devil—in more ways than one, she supposed—Dieter Kuhn was enrolled in the class, still under the name of Laforce.

She wished he weren’t. She wished he weren’t for a couple of reasons, in fact. For one thing, of course, he still wanted to use her to do something dreadful to Pierre. And, for another, she had to teach about the Germanic invasions of the Roman Empire in this part of the course. She knew by his examinations that he took meticulous notes. Having meticulous notes on a Frenchwoman’s opinions about the Germanic invasions of the Empire in
Gestapo
hands might not have been the last thing she wanted, but it came close.

On she pedaled, threading her way through the traffic with nearly automatic ease. She was glad trousers were more acceptable on women than they had been when she was a girl. They helped preserve modesty on a bicycle and, in winter, they also kept her legs warm—not that Marseille winter was all that cold.

Just south of Rue Grignan, traffic came to a halt. Even on a bicycle, Monique could barely squeeze forward. She tilted her left wrist to look at her watch. When she saw the time, she muttered a curse. She was liable to be late to her lecture, which meant she was liable to be in trouble with the university authorities.

Up ahead, someone in a motorcar blew his horn, and then someone else and someone else again. But, curiously, she heard none of the ripe oaths she would have expected motorists and bicyclists caught in a traffic jam to loose. Instead, what floated back to her ears was laughter, laughter and rude suggestions: “Turn a hose on them!” “In the name of God, find them a hotel room!” “Yes, for heaven’s sake—one with a bidet!” That brought more coarse laughter.

“What
is
going on up there?” Monique exclaimed, picking her way between a fat man on a bicycle too small for him and a German soldier in a field-gray Volkswagen utility vehicle. The soldier blew her a kiss. The fat man winked at her. She ignored them both. Standing on tiptoe while straddling the bicycle, she tried to see what was going on up ahead. People couldn’t have been so shameless as to prove their affection for each other in the middle of a crosswalk . . . could they?

A man who should have shaved the day before yesterday looked back over his shoulder and said, “There’s a couple of Lizards up ahead there, fucking their brains out.”

“No,” Monique said, not so much contradiction as simple disbelief.

But, as she edged up even with the man with the stubbled cheeks and chin, she discovered he was telling the truth. There in the middle of the road, a couple of Lizards were going at it for all they were worth. She’d never seen, never imagined seeing, such a thing. In an abstract way, she admired the male’s stamina and enthusiasm, though she wouldn’t have wanted to stand so long with her head down by her toes, as the female was doing.

Aesthetic considerations here were very much by the way. What mattered to her was that the Lizards, by blocking traffic, were going to make her late. “Yes, turn a fire hose on them!” she shouted.

After what seemed like forever but was about five minutes, she got past them. They were still mating as enthusiastically as ever. Half a block down, she spied a policeman. “Why don’t you arrest them?” she shouted, still furious at the delay.

With a shrug, the
flic
replied, “My dear
mademoiselle
, I do not know whether it is against the law for Lizards to fornicate in public. So far as I am aware, no statute covers such an eventuality.” He shrugged again and took a bite from a sandwich he carried in place of his billy club, which swung on his belt.

“Arrest them for blocking traffic if you can’t arrest them for screwing,” Monique snapped. The policeman only shrugged again. Monique had no time to argue with him. She pedaled furiously—in every sense of the word—toward the south.

When she strode into the lecture hall, sweat stained her blouse. But she was on time, with about fifteen seconds to spare. She began to talk about the Gothic incursions into the Roman Empire in the middle of the third century, incursions that had cost the Emperor Decius his life, as dispassionately—or so she hoped—as if no such people as the Germans had troubled the world in the seventeen hundred years since Decius’ unfortunate and untimely demise.

At least I don’t publish anything touching on this period,
she thought. A lecture could be thought of as written on the wind. A scholarly article left a record as permanent as the inscriptions she pursued. The
Gestapo
could, if it so chose, do all sorts of unpleasant things with that.

The
Gestapo
, in the person of
Sturmbannführer
Dieter Kuhn, came up to her after the lecture and said, “Another stimulating discussion of the issues. You have my compliments, for whatever you think they may be worth.”

“Thank you,” Monique said, and turned away to answer a genuine student’s question about where the Goths had landed along the coast of Asia Minor. It was the last real question she had. When she finished dealing with it, Dieter Kuhn still stood waiting. Her temper flared. “Damn you. What do you want?”

“If it is all right with you, we will ride back to your flat together,” Kuhn said.

“And if it is not all right with me?” Monique set her hands on her hips.

Kuhn shrugged, not quite as a Frenchman would have done. “Then we will ride back to your flat together anyhow.” He had never been anything but polite to her, but he made it very plain he did not intend to take no for an answer.

“Why?” she asked, playing for time.

She did not really expect an answer, but the SS officer gave her one: “Because something strange is happening in your brother’s dealings with the Lizards. It could be that, before too long, he will see us as friends, or at least as professional colleagues, rather than as foes.”

It did not sound like a lie. But then, if it was, it wouldn’t. Still, Monique started to dismiss it . . . till she remembered the morning traffic snarl. “Does it have to do with Lizards screwing?” she asked.

His eyes, brown as hers, widened slightly. “You are very clever,” he said, as if wondering whether she was too clever for her own good. “How did you figure that out? The situation has made itself plain only in the past few weeks. There has been no talk of it in the newspapers or on the wireless. We have made certain of that.”

“I wish I could take more credit for intelligence, but I saw a pair of them, ah, enjoying themselves as I rode down to the university this morning,” Monique answered.

“Ah,” Kuhn said. “I see. And now, shall we go?”

Monique considered. The only other choice she saw was screaming and hoping enough Frenchmen came running to give the SS man a good beating. But that would be dangerous not only for her but also for anyone who came to her aid. She sighed. “Very well,” she said, though it wasn’t.

Kuhn had, as usual, come prepared. The bicycle he rode was almost as old and disreputable as hers. She rode every day. So far as she knew, he didn’t. He had no trouble staying with her even so. She got the feeling he was, if anything, holding back. She sped up till she might have been racing. Kuhn stuck like a burr. He glanced over to her and nodded, plainly enjoying himself. Damn him, he wasn’t even breathing hard.

As she let him into her flat, she wished, not for the first time, that she only had to worry about him tearing off his trousers. She suspected she wouldn’t be able to stop him if he tried—and a Frenchwoman who dared lodge a complaint against the all-powerful SS would be lucky if she just got ignored. But Kuhn wasn’t interested in her body—or not interested enough to do anything along those lines. To him, she was a tool, a key, not an object of desire.

“Call your brother,” he said now. He must have seen the mulish resistance on her face, for he went on, “You may tell him I am forcing you to do it. You may, if you like, tell him I wish to speak with him, for I do.”

“Why don’t you just call him yourself, then, and leave me out of it?” Monique demanded. More than anything else, she wanted not to be stuck between the brother she didn’t know and the SS she knew too well.

“He is more likely to pay attention to his sister than to someone who has been hunting him for some time,” Dieter Kuhn answered.

“He hasn’t paid any attention to me for more than twenty years,” Monique said. Kuhn looked at her. The look said,
Get on with it.
Hating herself, she picked up the telephone and dialed the number she’d worked so hard to learn.

“Allô?”
It was the woman with the sexy voice. Pierre’s wife? His mistress? Only his secretary? Did smugglers have secretaries? Monique didn’t know.

“Hello,” she said back. “This is Pierre’s sister. There is an SS man in my flat who needs to speak with him.”

That got her a few seconds of silence, and then Pierre’s voice, as full of suspicion as the woman’s had been the first time Monique spoke to her: “Hello, little sister. What nonsense is this about an SS man? Is it the fellow who wanted to be your boyfriend?”

“Yes.” Monique’s face heated. She thrust the handset at Kuhn. “Here.”

“Thank you.” He took it with complete aplomb. “
Bonjour,
Dutourd. I just thought you ought to know that ginger is a genuine aphrodisiac for female Lizards. They didn’t like the trade before. Now they have an even bigger reason to hate it. If they come after you—when they come after you—we won’t lift a finger to stop them, not unless we get some cooperation on your end.”

He played the game well. Monique already knew that. Now she saw it again. She wondered how much difference it would make to her brother. Not much, she hoped. If Pierre didn’t play this game well, he wouldn’t have been able to stay in business so long himself.

He said something. Monique could hear his voice coming out of the telephone, but not the words. Dieter Kuhn obviously heard the words. “I think you are being an optimist,” he replied. “I think, in fact, you are being a fool. As I said, if you do not cooperate with us, we shall not cooperate with you.
Au revoir.
” He hung up, then turned to Monique. “Your brother is stubborn. He will live to regret it—for how long, I cannot say.”