“Back on Home, this could not have happened,” Fotsev said slowly. “Back on Home, females all come into their season at about the same time, and there are plenty to go around for the males. It is not like that here on Tosev 3.”
“I do not like the way it is here on Tosev 3,” the female said with an emphatic cough of her own. “He used me without my consent. He coupled with me against what would have been my will. That is not right.”
“I agree—that is not right,” Fotsev said. “I think that male committed a crime. I think he committed a new crime, a crime that would have been impossible back on Home. This is a crime that could only happen on Tosev 3.”
“What do we do about it?” Gorppet asked. “If female pheromones keep lingering in the air, more males will think to use ginger to get what they want from females who would not otherwise be ready to give it to them.”
“Truth.” Fotsev took his radio off his belt. “For now, we can only report it—report it and hope our superiors have better ideas than we do.” Even as he began to speak, he could see that neither Gorppet nor the female who’d been fed ginger thought the authorities would. He didn’t think so, either, but did his best not to show it.
Shpaaka looked out at his human students at the Russie Medical College. Along with the rest of the class, Reuven Russie stared at the male Lizard. He poised his pen to record whatever wisdom Shpaaka saw fit to dispense this morning.
Instead of beginning his lecture in the usual way, though, Shpaaka said, “I think I must call on you Tosevites for assistance today.”
A low buzz of surprise went through the chamber. Shpaaka did nothing to check it. That was surprising, too. The male usually took sardonic pleasure in inveighing against Tosevite rudeness and lack of self-control when what he reckoned to be those things manifested themselves in his lecture hall. Reuven raised a hand and waited to be recognized. Jane Archibald came straight out and asked a question: “What is the difficulty, superior sir?”
Shpaaka did not discipline her. He did not even reprove her for the breach of decorum. “The difficulty, I daresay, is one with which you are already familiar,” he replied. “You are intelligent; you have good sources of information. Surely it will not come as any great surprise when I say that the Tosevite herb known as ginger has a pharmacological effect on females of the Race both unexpected and disconcerting.”
It was no surprise to Reuven, not when Atvar had summoned his father to Cairo to confer with him about the problem. Looking around the hall, he saw that his classmates didn’t look astonished, either. Stories of Lizards seen coupling in the streets of Jerusalem had been making the rounds at the medical college for the past few days. Some students had doubted them. Reuven knew better.
Now Jane showed proper etiquette: “Superior sir, permission to ask another question?”
“Granted,” Shpaaka said. “The search for understanding proceeds through questions. It can proceed no other way.”
“How do you believe we Tosevites can help you, superior sir?” Jane asked. Reuven knew what she thought of the Race, and of what the Race had done to Australia. None of that showed in her speech as she went on, “We know little or nothing about the reproductive behavior of the Race. We have had no chance to learn about it until now, when females have come to Tosev 3. In what way, then, can we possibly assist you?”
“This is a good question, a cogent question,” Shpaaka said. “But I must tell you, the reproductive behavior the Race has begun exhibiting here on Tosev 3 is not similar to that which we display on Home.” He sighed, an amazingly humanlike sound. “Very little the Race does on Tosev 3 appears to be similar to what we do back on Home.” An emphatic cough stressed that.
After a moment during which he seemed to gather himself, he went on, “Back on Home, virtually all females come into their season within a short time. Virtually all males are stimulated by the pheromones they release and have the opportunity to mate with at least one of them. That is normality.”
It was normality for most life on Earth, too. Reuven understood that perfectly well. He also understood it was not normality for humans. Glancing over at Jane Archibald, he was glad things worked the way they did, even if he hadn’t had the chance to put all the theory into practice.
Maybe Jane felt his eye on her. She looked his way and impudently stuck out her tongue. He laughed and looked toward Shpaaka again.
The Lizard physician had needed another pause to marshal his thoughts. After that second—embarrassed?—hesitation, he said, “Here on Tosev 3, it appears that ginger causes females almost immediately to enter their season, and to emit the pheromones showing males they have done so. But only a relatively small number of females taste ginger. More males are apt to scent the pheromones than have an in-season female readily accessible to them. This causes tension and frustration of a sort we are not used to.
“Furthermore, females—and males—do not taste ginger only during one short season of the year, but continuously. This means pheromones showing females to be in season are, or will be, released into the air throughout the year. Sexual tension of the sort I previously mentioned will likewise be continuous.
“Now, this runs contrary to all our long-established instinctual patterns. It is, however, the paradigm of normality for you Big Uglies. Your insights on how we are to cope with it will be greatly appreciated.”
Atvar had made the identical appeal to Reuven’s father. Reuven wondered if, all over the world, Lizards were asking such questions of humans they thought they could trust. He pitied them and laughed at them at the same time. They’d been smugly superior for a long time. Now, abruptly, things weren’t so simple for them.
With sudden indignation, Shpaaka added, “We have even had a couple of incidents where a male, smelling a distant female’s pheromones, has surreptitiously given an adjacent female ginger so he could mate with her. This is a depth of iniquity to which I doubt even you Tosevites have ever plunged.”
The lecture hall erupted in loud Tosevite laughter. Reuven joined in. He couldn’t help himself. Even after twenty years on Earth, after twenty years of intensive research on human beings, the Lizards remained painfully naive. They were likely to be right, too: they would need human help in dealing with problems of sexuality. Reuven doubted they could do it on their own.
Shpaaka looked out at his students. “Perhaps I was mistaken,” he said, his voice dry. “Do you find it amusing that your kind may be more iniquitous than I had previously imagined?”
“Yes, superior sir,” they chorused, which touched off another round of raucous laughter.
Shpaaka laughed, too, in the silent manner of his kind. “Very well, perhaps it is amusing,” he said. “But tell me, how do we prevent more such unfortunate incidents in the future?”
That was a serious question, seriously meant. After a little thought, Reuven raised his hand. When Shpaaka recognized him, he said, “Superior sir, I do not know if you will be able to prevent them altogether. We cannot; we have never been able to. We do work to keep them to a minimum.”
“You Tosevites are, in many circumstances, more readily satisfied than we would be,” Shpaaka returned. Reuven glowered; the Lizard had asked for advice, but then what had he done with it? Mocked it, nothing else. Shpaaka seemed to realize his discontent, saying, “In matters pertaining to desire, perfect success may be more difficult to obtain than elsewhere.”
“Permission to speak, superior sir?” an Argentine student named Pedro Magallanes asked. When he got it, he said, “Do the other races in your Empire ever have, ah, problems of this sort?”
“Only in rare instances, due to one hormonal imbalance or another,” Shpaaka replied. “The same holds true for the Race. Until becoming acquainted with you Tosevites, we thought it must necessarily hold true for any intelligent species. Now we discover it does not even necessarily hold true for ourselves. I would appreciate the irony more were it less painful.”
That he noticed it at all spoke well for him. The human rul
ers of the Greater German Reich and the Soviet Union could not recognize irony if it cocked its leg and pissed on their ankles; of that Reuven was certain.
“You Tosevites have had long practice controlling continuous reproductive urges,” Shpaaka went on. “Since we are newcomers to the business, we shall probably end up borrowing from you: yes, I know, another irony.”
Shpaaka’s students whispered and murmured to one another. The Lizard affected not to notice, an indulgence he seldom granted them. Bahadur Singh, a turbaned Sikh, spoke to Reuven in English: “This will drive the Lizards to distraction—assuredly, to distraction—for some time to come.” His eyes glowed. “Maybe my country can use the distraction to make itself free.”
“It could be so.” Reuven didn’t really think it likely. The Lizards, distracted or not, would do whatever they had to do to hold on to India. But Bahadur Singh had hope. Reuven had no hope that Palestine could ever shake off the Lizards’ yoke. Even if it could, it would be torn between Arabs and Jews. The aliens’ rule was about as good as anyone here could hope for, having at least the advantage of disinterest.
Most of the time, Reuven took that for granted. Now, when he looked at it, he found it depressing. Couldn’t people get along well enough so they didn’t need to have disinterested aliens keeping them from quarreling with one another?
His quiet laugh was rueful. His father would have known better even than to bother shaping the question in his own mind. If Poland hadn’t taught that the only possible answer was, Of course not, you fool, what would? The squabbles in Palestine even under Lizard rule should have driven the point home with a sledgehammer.
Before he let it depress him too much, a student from the Soviet Union named Anna Suslova asked, “Permission to speak, superior sir?” Reuven sometimes wondered how she’d got into the medical college, and whether someone capable had taken the entrance exams for her. She often seemed out of her depth here. The question she put to Shpaaka showed how her mind worked: “Superior sir, why not punish ginger users so severely, fear of punishment keeps females from using the drug?”
“We have been trying to do this with our males since we came to Tosev 3,” Shpaaka replied. “We have not succeeded. By all indications, ginger causes pleasure even more acute in females. How likely is it that we will eliminate its use among them through intimidation?”
Maybe he’d thought that sardonic rejoinder would quash Anna Suslova. If so, he had misjudged her. With a toss of her head, she replied, “It could be that you have not yet made the punishment severe enough to intimidate properly.”
“Yes, it could be,” Shpaaka admitted. “But it could also be that we are not so fond of spilling one another’s blood as Tosevites often seem to be.”
Anna Suslova tossed her head again. “In an emergency, superior sir, one does what is immediately necessary and worries about its consequences later. Had the Soviet Union not followed this principle, is it not likely my not-empire would be under the rule of the Race today?”
“Yes, I suppose that is likely,” Shpaaka said. “My opinion is, many of the Tosevites of your not-empire would be happier were that so.”
Where he hadn’t before, he got through to the Russian girl with that. She glared at him, furious and not even trying to hide it. For a Lizard, he was good at recognizing human facial expressions, but he didn’t call her on this one. Reuven Russie scratched his head. If he’d justified the Race’s rule in Palestine on the grounds of utility for the human population, how could he avoid extending the principle over the whole planet?
He contributed little to the discussion for the rest of the period.
Liu Han looked out from the window of her suite in the Biltmore Hotel at the wide street and the automobiles that packed it to the point where hardly any of them could move. With no small reluctance, she turned to her daughter and said, “I am beginning to believe that the Americans’ constant boasting about their prosperity is not boasting, but is a simple statement of fact.”
“They eat well,” Liu Mei said. Then she corrected herself: “They have plenty to eat, and they eat whenever they like. I see that, even if I do not care for much of their food. They have many more motorcars and televisors and radios than we do. They have more room than we do. This is a large city, not so large as Peking but still large, but it does not feel crowded. All these things do make for prosperity, yes. Who could disagree?”
“I myself disagreed,” Liu Han said. “This hotel is a hotel for rich people. Anyone can see that. The Americans do not bother pretending otherwise. Any country will treat rich people, important people, well, no matter how it treats its workers and peasants. You cannot judge how prosperous the United States is by the way the American ruling classes treat us.”
“I understand that, Mother.” Liu Mei’s voice showed amusement, even if her face did not. “It is good, though, that the Americans treat us as important people. They cannot be treating us as rich people, for we are not.”
“No, we are not rich people,” Liu Han agreed. “We should have trouble paying for a day’s stay in this hotel, let alone a stay of weeks like the one they are giving us. But we have been enough other places and seen enough other things for me to be sure they are not simply showing us their best, as we have sometimes done for foreign visitors over the years.”
She thought of televisors and radios and motorcars, as Liu Mei had. She thought of machines to wash dishes, which she’d seen in some of the homes she’d visited, and machines to wash clothes, which she’d seen in almost all of the homes. Those machines were like proletarians who could not be oppressed and so would never need to rise up in revolution against their capitalist overlords.
And she thought of something simpler, something far more fundamental. In every house she visited, she made sure she asked to use the toilet. And every house boasted one, sometimes more than one, not just a squatting-style toilet like those some rich men in China had, but a veritable porcelain throne. And every house boasted not just the cold running water that made the toilet flush but also hot, hers to command at the turn of a tap. If that was not prosperity, what was?
Liu Mei said, “And all the books they have! So many more people have libraries of their own here than back home. That major’s house, for instance, had more bookshelves than I was able to count.”
“Yes, I remember,” Liu Han said, more than a little discontentedly. When she and Liu Mei went to visit Major Yeager, she’d thought the books that packed his house another attempt at deception—a Potemkin village, the Russians called it: something meant to be seen but not used. But when she plucked a book off a shelf at random, Yeager had talked animatedly about it in both English and the language of the Race. Liu Han sighed. “His wife is a scholar. Maybe that helps account for it.”
“He knew my father,” Liu Mei said in tones of wonder. “I never thought I would meet anyone who knew my father. I have cousins in this country. I never thought I would have cousins anywhere.”
Absurdly, Liu Han felt a stab of jealousy. So far as she could tell, she had no relatives except Liu Mei alive anywhere in China. Between them, the little scaly devils and the Japanese had ground her ancestral village to powder; of her family, only she had got out from between the millstones.
“Major Yeager knew your father better than I ever did,” Liu Han said slowly. A strange thing to say, she knew, when Bobby Fiore had sown the seed that grew into Liu Mei deep inside her womb. Strange—but true. “He knew him longer than I did, and they spoke the same language, so they could understand each other. Your father and I spoke in broken bits of Chinese and the little scaly devils’ language and English. He never learned to speak Chinese very well.”
And with our bodies, she thought, though she did not say that aloud. Our bodies understood, even when we did not. That, by the spirit of the compassionate Buddha, was knowledge of Bobby Fiore Major Yeager did not have.
Liu Mei said, “Is it tonight we are going back to Major Yeager’s house?”
“Yes, tonight,�
�� Liu Han answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Because it is good to go to a place where people understand the little devils’ language,” her daughter answered. “It is not as good as if Major Yeager and his wife and his son spoke Chinese, but we both know more of the little devils’ language than we do English, and all three of them are fluent in it.”
“I will not tell you you are wrong,” Liu Han said. Even so, she glanced over toward Liu Mei. “And you will have a chance to talk with that son—Jonathan, his name is. Do not be too free with him. The Americans have less restraint in their dealings between young people than we do.”
“Do you know what he reminded me of?” Liu Mei said. “The young people in Peking who imitate the scaly devils, that’s what. Except he knows more about them than the young people in Peking do.”
“There was that one we saw,” Liu Han began. But then she shrugged. “You are probably right. You have to remember, though, that his father and mother deal with the scaly devils every day. If he has learned much of them, he has learned it because of what his parents do.” Liu Mei nodded, accepting that. Liu Han let out a silent sigh of relief. She did not want her daughter to have any excuse for developing an infatuation for any American youth.
By the time evening came, she was ready and more than ready to go down to Major Yeager’s home, if only to relax. She had spent the day conferring with several American members of Congress. Frankie Wong helped by interpreting, but she tried to speak as much English as she could, because she did not fully trust him to translate accurately. That made it a grueling session, one in which she felt as if her brains were being rolled out onto something flat and hard like dough being made into noodles.
And the congressmen were less sympathetic than she’d hoped they would be. “Let me say I do not see why we should be helping international Communism,” declared one, a man with a long nose and jowls that showed even more dark stubble than Bobby Fiore had had.
Colonization: Second Contact Page 39
