The driver sighed. “Shiplord, is this your day to be particularly difficult?”
“Perhaps it is,” Straha answered. “And perhaps we can compromise. At a time convenient to Sam Yeager, will you drive me to his house, so we can discuss these things without fretting over insecure telephone lines?”
“It shall be done,” the Tosevite said, and sighed again. He was not happy about Straha’s request, but evidently saw no way to evade it. Gradually, over the long years of his exile, the ex-shiplord had come to learn the subtleties of the Big Uglies’ responses. When setting out for Tosev 3, he hadn’t imagined such knowledge would be useful—but then, the Race hadn’t imagined a great many things about Tosev 3.
Since his driver was also in some measure his keeper, and was his link to the Tosevite authorities of the United States, Straha decided conciliation might be a wise course. “Will you eat with me?” he asked: that was an amicable gesture among the Big Uglies, as it was among the Race. “I have some zisuili chops defrosting in the kitchen.”
“Will they poison me?” the driver asked.
“I doubt it,” Straha answered. “Few Tosevite foods have proved poisonous to us.” He thought of ginger. “And sometimes, when they do poison us, we enjoy it.”
“Even so, Shiplord, I think I will decline,” the Tosevite said. “I have not found appetizing the odors that come from your meats.”
“No?” Straha shrugged, then thought on how best to manipulate Big Uglies, particularly the males of the species. “If you have not the courage to try new things, I will enjoy a larger meal of my own.”
In due course, he and the driver sat down at the table together. The Tosevite ate a small bite of zisuili meat, then paused in thought of his own. “Not so bad,” he said at last. “Are all your meats as salty as this, though?”
“Yes,” Straha answered. “To us, as you well know, uncured Tosevite meats seem unpleasantly bland. More potato chips?”
“I thank you, but no,” the driver said. “I will make do with what I have here.” He did dutifully finish the portion Straha had given him. When he was through, he gathered up his dishes and Straha’s and began to wash them.
Having an intelligent being perform such a service for Straha took him back to the most ancient days of the Race. Most of the time, he would have reckoned it a reversion to barbarism. This once, he found it no less than his due.
Vyacheslav Molotov’s secretary stuck his head into the Kremlin office Molotov most commonly used. “Comrade General Secretary, the ambassador from the Race has arrived,” the fellow said.
“Thank you for informing me, Pytor Maksimovich,” Molotov answered. He had no great desire to see Queek, but could hardly refuse his request for an interview. “Tell him I shall be there directly.” The secretary hurried away. Molotov nodded to himself as he rose. If he found an interview with Queek unpleasant, he was determined that the Lizard should not enjoy it, either.
Having promised to come at once, he deliberately took his time in walking to the office where the ambassador and his interpreter waited. Queek sat impassively, but the Pole who did his talking for him sent Molotov a dirty look. The general secretary savored that, as he would have savored a particularly delicate tea.
“To business,” he said, as if he had not delayed at all. “I must tell you that the peace-loving peasants and workers of the Soviet Union again reject out of hand the invidious assertions the Race has made in regard to our alleged collaboration with the freedom-loving peoples of those parts of the world you now occupy.”
Queek spoke at some length. The interpreter summed up his first couple of hissing sentences in one word: “Nichevo.”
“It doesn’t matter, eh?” Molotov said. “In that case, why did your principal demand this meeting?”
After the interpreter had done his job, Queek spoke again. The Pole turned his words into Russian: “I wanted to inform you personally that Peking is once more in the hands of the Race. This effectively brings to an end the rebellion the Soviet Union fomented and abetted.”
“I deny fomenting the rebellion of the freedom-loving Chinese people and their People’s Liberation Army,” Molotov answered—truthfully, for Mao would have risen up against the Lizards without any encouragement from Moscow. “And I also deny assisting the rebellion in any way.” That was a great thumping lie, but the Race had never—quite—been able to prove it.
Unusually, Queek didn’t try to prove it now. He just said, “Your claims are noted. They are also, as I say, irrelevant. China is ours. China will remain ours. The same applies farther west on the main continental mass. Our cities in that region do not suffer to any great degree despite the damage inflicted on the seaside desalination plants thereabouts.”
“We had nothing to do with that damage, either,” Molotov said. That wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a lie, either. The Soviet Union did smuggle arms down into the Middle East, but the locals there used them as they saw fit, not as the USSR desired. Mao was a nationalist, but he was also a Communist. The Arabs and Persians hated Moscow’s ideology almost as much as they hated the Race.
“Your rockets called Katyushas were among the weapons employed against the desalination plants,” Queek said.
“Katyushas have been in production for more than twenty years,” Molotov said blandly. “Many were captured by the fascists in their invasion of the Soviet Union, and others by the Race. These weapons are also widely imitated.”
“You always have excuses and denials,” Queek said. “Do you wonder that the Race has trouble taking them seriously?”
“What I have is a complaint, and the Race had better take it seriously,” Molotov said—he was indeed intent on making sure Queek went away unhappy.
“We shall treat it with the seriousness it deserves, whatever that proves to be,” the Lizard answered. “I do find it intriguing that this not-empire, the cause of so many complaints, is now issuing one. Say on. I hope you intend no frivolity.”
“None whatsoever,” said Molotov, to whom frivolity was as alien as satyriasis. The ironic style Queek affected was also the one he preferred; he flattered himself that he was better at it than the Lizard. He went on, “My complaint—the Soviet Union’s complaint—is that your alien domestic animals have begun straying from the border regions of the territory you occupy into land unquestionably under the jurisdiction of the Soviet Union. I demand that the Race do everything in its power to curb these incursions, and that you pay compensation for damage to our crops and livestock.”
“Animals, unfortunately, know nothing of political borders. They go where they can find food,” Queek said. “We shall have no complaints if you drive them back over the frontier. We shall also have no complaints if you slay them when you find them on your territory. Compensation for damages does not strike me as unreasonable, provided your claims are not exorbitant.”
It was a softer answer than Molotov had expected, and so one that left him disappointed. He said, “Some of your beasts are devouring the crops that will yield the bread that feeds the Soviet people. Others kill chickens and ducks, and have even been known to kill cats and dogs as well.”
The translation took a little while; Molotov guessed that the interpreter had to explain to the Lizard what sort of animals he was talking about. Finally, Queek said, “You would be referring to befflem, I suppose, in the matter of your livestock, befflem and possibly tsiongyu.”
Molotov cared very little about the Race’s names for its annoying creatures. He was about to say as much, but checked himself. Queek would surely respond that the names of proper Earthly animals did not matter to him, either. Forestalling an opponent could be as important as counterattacking after a sally. The Soviet leader contented himself with observing, “Whatever else these creatures may be, they are pests, and they will be exterminated from Soviet soil.”
“I wish you good fortune in your efforts along those lines,” Queek said: yes, he did have a sardonic turn of phrase. “The Race has been making simil
ar efforts since long before the establishment of the Empire. Some few have been partially successful. Most, however, were undoubted failures.”
Molotov studied the Lizard. He reluctantly concluded Queek, despite the sarcasm, was not joking. He thought about feral cats that lived off pigeons and mice and squirrels and such, and about packs of wild dogs that scavenged in the cities and sometimes killed cattle and sheep out in the countryside. “You have released a new plague on us, you are telling me,” he said.
Queek shrugged after that was translated. “You have your domestic animals, and we have ours. They have accompanied us as the Empire has grown. We see no reason why Tosev 3 should be different from any other world in this regard.”
“You have not conquered us, as you conquered these other worlds,” Molotov said. “Your animals have no business on our soil.”
“I repeat: we are willing to discuss reasonable compensation,” the ambassador from the Race said. “But I also repeat that you are unreasonable if you expect us to keep perfect control over all our animals at all times. I am certain your own not-empire is unable to do this, so why do you assume we can?”
For that, Molotov found no good answer. He shifted his ground: “It appears to me that you are seeking to win through environmental change what you could not win at the battlefield or at the negotiating table.”
“Our intention is to colonize this world. We have never said otherwise,” Queek replied. “We are not at war with the Soviet Union or with any other independent Tosevite not-empire, but we do hope and expect to bring all of Tosev 3 into the Empire in the fullness of time.”
“That shall not happen,” Molotov declared.
“Perhaps you speak truth,” the Lizard told him. “I do not deny the possibility. But, as I said at a previous meeting, this is not necessarily to your advantage. If you become a threat to the Empire as a whole, rather than merely to peace and good order here on Tosev 3, we shall be as ruthless as circumstances require. Do not doubt that I mean this with complete sincerity.”
However much Molotov wanted to, he didn’t doubt that. “We must also be able to protect ourselves from you,” he warned. “You want us to abandon technical progress. As I have said before, that is impossible.” The USSR didn’t just have to protect itself from the Race, either. The Reich and the USA remained potential enemies. So did Japan, in a more limited way. Molotov had been a boy during the Russo-Japanese War, but he still remembered his country’s humiliation. One day, the Soviet Union would settle scores, against all its neighbors, human and otherwise.
Queek said, “It appears, then, that we are on a collision course. In that case, squabbles over domestic animals suddenly become less important, would you not agree?”
Molotov shrugged. “Since we are not in combat, my view is that we had best behave as if we were at peace.”
“Ah,” the Lizard said. “Yes, that is a sensible attitude, I must admit. I would not have expected it of you.” The Polish interpreter’s eyes gleamed as he turned that into Russian.
“Life is full of surprises,” Molotov said. “Have we anything further to discuss?”
“I think not,” Queek replied. “I have delivered the statement required of me by my superiors, I have heard your complaint and suggested a possible resolution, and I have listened to your bluster pertaining to your not-empire’s technical prowess. Nothing more remains that I can see.”
“Bluster travels on both sides of the street,” Molotov said icily, and rose from his desk. “This meeting is at an end. The guards will escort you back to your limousine. Good day.” He didn’t say good riddance, but his manner suggested it.
After the Lizards’ ambassador and his interpreter had left, Molotov went into the antechamber to one side of the office. There he changed all his clothes, down to socks and underwear. If Queek or his human stooge had smuggled electronic eavesdropping devices into the office, they would go no farther than the antechamber. Molotov wondered if the Race knew he entertained human visitors in another office. He wouldn’t have been surprised. He didn’t mind offending the Lizards—or anyone else—but didn’t care to do so inadvertently.
Once back in clothes sure to be uncontaminated, Molotov returned to the regular office. No sooner had he got there than the telephone rang. He picked it up. “Marshal Zhukov on the line,” his secretary said.
Molotov’s expression did not change, but he grimaced inside. Zhukov knew altogether too much about his comings and goings. No doubt the marshal had a spy among Molotov’s aides. “Put him through,” Molotov said, suppressing a sigh, and then, “Good day, Georgi Konstantinovich. And how are you?”
“Fine, thank you, Comrade General Secretary,” Zhukov replied, outwardly deferential. But, a blunt soldier, he had little patience with small talk. “What did the Lizard want?”
“To brag that the Race has suppressed the uprising in China,” Molotov said. “He labored under the delusion that we did not already know.”
“Ah,” Zhukov said; Molotov could imagine his nod even if he couldn’t see it. The marshal went on, “When the Chinese are ready themselves or when we can stir them up, they will rise again, of course. You had a countercomplaint ready, I assume?”
“Oh, yes—the matter of these animals from Home on our soil,” Molotov said. Zhukov would hear it from someone else, if not from him. “They do threaten to become a nuisance in our border regions, but Queek proved conciliatory on the matter of compensation.”
“I wish you had found something stronger,” Zhukov grumbled, “but I suppose foreign affairs is your bailiwick.” For as long as I feel like letting it be your bailiwick. Marshal Zhukov didn’t always say everything he thought, either. But then, he didn’t always have to. That was what holding power meant.
Felless felt isolated and useless and frustrated at the Race’s embassy to the Reich. With Ttomalss gone, she had no one there with whom she could really have a conversation grounded in her professional expertise. Most of the males and females at the embassy dealt with the Deutsch Tosevites in a purely pragmatic way, caring nothing for the theoretical underpinnings of interspecies relations.
The Deutsche cared nothing for those underpinnings, either, so far as Felless could tell. As time went on, they grew less and less willing to discuss with her the rationale behind their strange not-empire. She had had trouble enough grasping even what they were willing to discuss. Now that new information came in more slowly than it had before, she despaired of ever making sense of their system.
She’d thought about insulting some Deutsch official to the point where his government would expel her from the not-empire, as Ttomalss had been lucky enough to manage. She’d not only thought about it, she’d tried to do it a couple of times. That had involved her in shouting matches with Big Uglies, but no expulsion order came, worse luck. She remained stuck here in Nuremberg, stuck without escape and hating every moment of it.
Her office was her refuge. She could analyze such data as she had, and she could reach out to the wider world of the Race through the computer network. And . . .
Sometimes she would stay in her office for days at a time, bringing food back from the refectory, storing it in a little refrigerator, and reheating it in an even more compact radar oven. The locked door there was a shield against a world far more unpleasant than she had imagined on waking from cold sleep. Behind that shield, she could do her best to make the world go away.
After finishing the first of several meals she had waiting in the refrigerator, she went over to her desk, opened one of the drawers, reached behind several file folders, and took out a small plastic vial half full of brownish powder. “By the Emperor,” she said softly, “ginger is the only thing that makes Tosev 3 even close to being a world worth living on.”
Her fingers trembled in anticipation as she took off the stopper. She couldn’t taste as often as she craved the herb, not with the punishments to which males and females—especially females—were liable these days. Only when she was sure no one would disturb h
er till she no longer reeked of pheromones did she dare shake powdered ginger into the palm of her hand, bend her head low over it, and flick out her tongue.
Ginger’s hot, spicy flavor was marvelous enough, but what the herb did when it coursed through her blood and set her brain afire made the flavor seem a small thing. When she tasted ginger, she was as near omnipotent as made no difference. Somewhere back inside her mind, she knew both the omnipotence and the delight that came with it were illusions. She knew, but she didn’t care.
She also knew the euphoria she got from ginger wouldn’t last long enough to suit her. It never did. The only way it could have lasted long enough to suit her was never to end. But the herb didn’t work that way, however much she wished it did.
All too soon, she began to slide down into the depression that was the price she paid for the euphoria. She hissed in despair and walked over to the desk. She knew that if she tasted again, the depression would only be worse and deeper after that second taste. Again, she knew but she didn’t care. That would be later. She felt bad enough now to want to escape.
And escape wasn’t far away. She didn’t have to think to yank the top off the vial of ginger, pour some more of the herb into the palm of her hand, and lap it up. She sighed and shuddered with pleasure. Again she was brilliant, strong, invincible. Again she could—
The telephone hissed. She strode over to it as if she were the Emperor at a ceremonial function. She didn’t mind talking on the telephone while ginger lifted her; it made her feel more clever than the caller, whoever he might be. This time, she saw as she turned an eye turret toward the screen, it was Ambassador Veffani. “I greet you, superior sir,” she said, and assumed the posture of respect.
“And I greet you, Senior Researcher,” Veffani answered. “Please come to my office immediately. Several males and females have come from Cairo to discuss our present relations with the Reich, and your contributions would be valuable.”
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