Aftershocks c-3 Page 6

  One of the locals said, “You could have stayed in Marseille. That, at least, would have shut you up when a bomb burst there.”

  “Who addled your egg?” Felless retorted. “A bomb bursting here would have been the best thing that could happen to this place.”

  That made all the locals in the luggage shop where Felless was trying to find something she liked hiss with derision. She didn’t care. As far as she was concerned, the new town was nothing but a small town back on Home dropped onto the surface of Tosev 3. Its males and females certainly struck her as provincial and clannish. They shouldn’t have; they’d come from all over the homeworld of the Race. But only a few years on Tosev 3 had united them against the world outside the borders of their settlement.

  One of them said, “You do not know what you are talking about. Several bombs have burst not far from here. My friend was right. One of those bombs should have burst on you.” His tailstump quivered in fury.

  His friend, a female, added, “Look at her body paint. She does research on the Big Uglies. That must mean she likes them. And if liking Big Uglies does not prove she is addled, what would?”

  Males and females spoke up in loud agreement. Familiarity with the Tosevites had bred only contempt for them in Felless. To these members of the Race, though, she didn’t want to admit that. She said, “They are here. There are more of them than we thought there would be, and they know more than we thought they would. We have to deal with them as they are, worse luck.”

  “We ought to get rid of all of them, as we got rid of the Deutsche,” a male said. “Then we could make this world into something worth having.”

  “Not all the Deutsche are destroyed,” Felless said. “And they got rid of too many of us. How long did you fear this town would be under attack from explosive-metal bombs, as your neighbors were?”

  “If you like Big Uglies so much, you are welcome to them,” a female said angrily.

  There they were, again accusing Felless of something of which she was emphatically not guilty. With such dignity as she could muster, she said, “Since you will not listen to me, what point is there to my even talking to you?” Out she went, accompanied by the jeers of the locals.

  The building in which she’d been housed was so overcrowded, it boasted only a few computer terminals rather than one for every male and female of the Race. She had to line up to get her own electronic messages and to send any to the rest of the Race on Tosev 3. And, having stood in line, she discovered that the messages waiting for her were not worth having.

  She’d just turned away in disappointment when a ceiling-mounted loudspeaker called her name: “Senior Researcher Felless! Senior Researcher Felless! Report to the unit manager’s office immediately!”

  Fuming, Felless went. If one of the idiot locals had complained about her because of the argument, someone was going to hear about it. She had every intention of being loud and obnoxious in her rebuttal. When she buzzed the door, the manager opened it. “What now?” Felless snapped.

  “Superior female, you have a telephone call here. The caller did not want to route it into the dormitory, but sent it here for the sake of privacy,” the manager replied.

  “Oh.” Some of Felless’ anger evaporated. Grudgingly, she said, “I thank you.”

  “Here is the telephone.” The unit manager pointed. “I hope the news is good for you, superior female.”

  When Felless saw who waited for her on the screen, her eye turrets twitched in surprise. “Ambassador Veffani!” she exclaimed. “I greet you, superior sir. I had no idea you-” She broke off.

  “Were not communing in person with the spirits of Emperors past?” Veffani suggested. “When the Race bombed Nuremberg, I thought I would be, but the shelter we built proved better than that of the Deutsch not-emperor. If you think this disappointed me, you are mistaken. Of course, we were also trying harder to dispose of him than of me-or I hope we were, at any rate.”

  “I am glad to see you well, superior sir,” Felless said, though she would not have been too sad to learn Veffani had perished in the war. He was a strict male, and had punished her severely for using ginger. Still, hypocrisy lubricated the wheels of social interaction. “What are your present duties? Are you still ambassador to the Reich? ”

  Veffani made the negative hand gesture. “A military commissioner will deal with the Deutsche for the indefinite future. Since, however, I have considerable experience in the northwestern region of the main continental mass, I have been assigned as ambassador to the newly reconstituted not-empire of France.”

  “Congratulations, superior sir,” Felless said with fulsome insincerity.

  “I thank you. You are gracious.” Veffani knew a good deal about fulsome insincerity himself. He went on, “And, with your own experience in the Reich and in France, you would make a valuable addition to my team here. I have put in a requisition for your services, and it has been accepted.”

  Felless knew she should have been furious at such high-handed treatment. Somehow, she wasn’t. If anything, she was relieved. “I thank you, superior sir,” she said. “Doing something useful to the Race will be a relief, especially after confinement in this refugee center and among the provincials who make up the bulk of the local population.”

  “Do you know, Senior Researcher, I hoped you would say something like that,” Veffani told her. “You are a talented female. You have done good work. I am going to give you only one warning.”

  “I think I already know what it is,” Felless said.

  “I am going to give it to you anyhow,” the ambassador replied. “Plainly, you need to have it repeated again and again. Here it is: keep your tongue out of the ginger vial. The trouble you cause through your sexual pheromones outweighs any good you can do with your research. Do you understand me?”

  “I do, superior sir.” Felless added an emphatic cough.

  Veffani, however, had known her since not long after she came out of cold sleep. “Since you understand, will you obey?”

  Not likely, Felless thought. Even here, even now, with no chance whatever for privacy, she ached for a taste. But Veffani would surely make her rot here if she told him the truth. And so, with next to no hesitation, she lied:

  “It shall be done.”

  She was not at all sure the diplomat believed her. By the way he said, “I shall hold you to that,” he might have been warning her he didn’t. But he continued, “You shall report to Marseille, where you were previously posted.”

  “Marseille?” Now Felless was startled all over again. “I thought an explosive-metal bomb destroyed the city.”

  “And so one did,” Veffani answered. “But rebuilding is under way. You will use your expertise in Tosevite psychology to guide the Big Uglies toward increased acceptance of the Race.”

  “Will I?” Felless said tonelessly. “Superior sir, is this assignment not just a continuation of the punishment you have been inflicting on me for the unfortunate activity that occurred in your office in Nuremberg?”

  “Unfortunate activity, indeed,” Veffani said. “You committed a criminal offense by tasting ginger, Senior Researcher, and you cannot delete that offense by means of a euphemism. You also created an enormous scandal when your pheromones disrupted my meeting and caused the males who had come from Cairo and me to couple with you. Only because of your skills have you escaped getting green bands painted on your upper arms and punishment much harsher than being forced to practice your profession where I order you to do so. If you complain further, you will assuredly learn what real punishment entails. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, superior sir.” What Felless really understood was that she wanted revenge on Veffani. She had no way to get it, or none she knew of, but she wanted it.

  The Race’s ambassador to the Reich — no, to France now-said, “I do not ask you to be fond of me, Senior Researcher. I merely ask-indeed, I require-that you carry out your assignment to the best of your ability.”

  “It shall be done,
superior sir.” Felless even believed Veffani. That made her no less eager for vengeance.

  Veffani said, “A transportation aircraft is scheduled to leave your vicinity for Marseille tomorrow evening. I expect you to be on it.”

  “It shall be done,” Felless said again, whereupon Veffani broke the connection.

  And Felless was aboard that transport aircraft, though getting to it proved harder than she’d expected. It departed not from the new town in which she was a refugee, but from one that looked close on the map but was a long, boring ground journey away. Even getting her ground transportation proved difficult; local officials were anything but sympathetic to the problems refugees faced.

  At last, anxious to be on her way and edgy from lust for ginger, Felless snapped, “Suppose you get in touch with Fleetlord Reffet, the commander of the colonization fleet, and find out what his view of the matter is. He ordered me awakened from cold sleep early to help deal with the Big Uglies, and now you petty functionaries are hindering me? You do so at your peril.”

  She hoped they would think she was bluffing. She would have enjoyed watching them proved wrong. But they yielded. She was not only sent off to the new town from which the aircraft would leave, she was sent off in a mechanized combat vehicle, to protect her against Tosevite bandits. Even though the Deutsche were defeated, the superstitiously fanatical Big Uglies of this subregion remained in a simmering state of revolt against the Race.

  The countryside, by what she saw of it through a firing port, was Homelike enough. That fit in with the weather, which was perfectly comfortable-more comfortable than it would be in Marseille, though that was a considerable improvement over cold, damp Nuremberg.

  Herds of azwaca and zisuili grazed on the sparse plants by the road. Felless went by too fast to tell whether the plants were Tosevite natives or, like the beasts, imports from Home. The domestic animals reminded her that, despite the difficulties the Big Uglies caused, the settlement of Tosev 3 was proceeding. As far as physical conditions went, the world was indeed on its way to becoming part of the Empire.

  When the aircraft took off, she tried to maintain a similarly optimistic view of political and social conditions. That wasn’t so easy, but she managed. With the Reich prostrate, one of the three major obstacles to full conquest of Tosev 3 had disappeared. Only the USA and the SSSR remained. Surely they would blunder and fall one of these days, too.

  One of these days. That didn’t seem soon enough. One of these days, she would get another taste of ginger, too. That didn’t seem soon enough, either.

  Staring steadily at the ambassador from the Race who sat across the desk from him, Vyacheslav Molotov shook his head. “Nyet,” he said.

  Queek’s translator, a Pole, turned the refusal into its equivalent in the language of the Race. Queek let out another series of hisses and pops and coughs and splutters. The interpreter rendered them into Russian for the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR: “The ambassador urges you to contemplate the fate of the Greater German Reich before refusing so promptly.”

  That gave Molotov a nasty twinge of fear, as it was doubtless meant to do. Even so, he said, “Nyet,” again, and asked Queek, “Are you threatening the peace-loving workers and peasants of the Soviet Union with aggressive war? The Reich attacked you; you had the right to resist. If you attack us, we shall also resist, and do so as strongly as possible.”

  “No one speaks of attack.” Queek backtracked a little. “But, considering the harm we suffered from the orbital installations of the Reich, it is reasonable for us to seek to limit these in other Tosevite powers.”

  “Nyet,” Molotov said for the third time. “Fighting between the Race and the Soviet Union stopped with each side recognizing the full sovereignty and independence of the other. We do not seek to infringe on your sovereignty, and you have no right to infringe upon ours. We shall fight to defend it.”

  “Your independence would be respected…” Queek began.

  “Nyet,” Molotov repeated. He knew he sounded like a broken record, knew and didn’t care. “We reckon any infringement a major infringement, one that cannot and will not be tolerated.”

  “That is not an appropriate position for you to take in the present circumstances,” Queek said.

  “I am of the opinion it is perfectly appropriate,” Molotov said. “Are you familiar with the phrase, ‘the thin end of the wedge’?”

  Queek obviously wasn’t. The Pole who translated for him went back and forth with him in the language of the Race. At last, the ambassador said, “Very well: I now grasp the concept. I still believe, however, that you are needlessly concerned.”

  “I do not,” Molotov said stubbornly. “Suppose the Soviet Union tried to impose such conditions on the Race?”

  Queek had no hair, which was the only thing that kept him from bristling. “You have neither the right nor the strength to do any such thing,” he said.

  “You grow indignant when the shoe goes on the other foot,” Molotov said, which required another colloquy between the ambassador and his interpreter. “You have no more right to impose such limits on us than we do on you. And as for strength-we can hurt you, and you know it full well. And you will not have such an easy time wrecking us as you did with the Reich, for we are far less concentrated geographically than the Germans were.”

  Queek made noises that put Molotov in mind of a samovar boiling over. The interpreter turned them into rhythmically accented Russian: “Do you presume to threaten the Race?”

  “Nyet,” Molotov said yet again. “But the Race also has no business threatening the Soviet Union. You need to understand that very clearly.”

  He wondered if Queek did. He wondered if Queek could. Reciprocity was something with which the Race had always had trouble. Down deep, the Lizards didn’t really believe Earth’s independent nations had any business staying that way. They were imperialists first, last, and always.

  “We are stronger than you,” Queek insisted.

  “It could be,” said Molotov, who knew perfectly well it was. “But we have strength enough to protect ourselves, and to protect our rights as a free and independent state.”

  More overheated-teakettle noises came from the Lizards’ ambassador. “This is an unreasonable and insolent attitude,” the translator said.

  “By no means.” Molotov saw a chance to take the initiative, saw it and seized it: “I presume you have made this same demand upon the United States. What has the Americans’ response been?”

  Queek hesitated. Molotov thought he understood that hesitation: the Lizard wanted to lie, but was realizing he couldn’t, for Molotov had but to ask the American ambassador to learn the truth. After the hesitation, Queek said, “The Americans have also raised a certain number of objections to our reasonable proposal, I must admit.”

  Molotov was tempted to laugh in his scaly face. Instead, the leader of the Soviet Union said, “Why, then, do you suppose we would acquiesce where they refuse?” He had not a doubt in the world that the Americans’ ”objections” had been expressed a great deal more stridently than his own.

  With an amazingly human sigh, Queek replied, “Since the Soviet Union prides itself on rationality, it was hoped you would see the plain good sense manifest in our proposal.”

  “It was hoped we would give in without protest, you mean,” Molotov said. “This was an error, a miscalculation, on your part. We are more wary of the Race now than we were before your war against Germany. I am sure the Americans feel the same way. I am especially sure the Japanese feel the same way.”

  “We are most unhappy with the Nipponese,” Queek said. “We have never accorded them recognition as a fully independent empire, even though we also never occupied most of the land they ruled at the time of our arrival. Now that they have begun detonating their own explosive-metal bombs, they have begun to presume for themselves a rank above their station.”

  “Now they too are beginning to be able to defend themselves against your imperialist agg
ression,” Molotov said. “Our relations with Japan have been correct since the war we fought against the Japanese when I was young.”

  “They still claim large stretches of the subregion of the main continental mass known as China,” Queek said. “Regardless of what sort of weapons they have, we do not intend to yield this to them.”

  “The people of China, I might add, maintain a strong interest in establishing their own independence once more, and in remaining neither under your control nor under that of the Japanese,” Molotov pointed out. “This desire for freedom and autonomy is the reason for their continued revolutionary struggle against your occupation.”

  “This is a revolutionary struggle the Soviet Union encourages in ways inconsistent with maintaining good relations with the Race,” Queek said.

  “I deny that,” Molotov said stonily. “The Race has continually made that assertion, and has never been able to prove it.”

  “This is fortunate for the Soviet Union,” Queek replied. “We may not be able to prove it, but we believe it to be a truth nonetheless. Many of the Chinese bandits proclaim an ideology identical to yours.”

  “They were in China before the Race came,” Molotov said. “They are indigenous, and unconnected to us.” The first of those statements was true, the second tautology-of course Chinese were Chinese-and the last a resounding lie. But the Lizards hadn’t caught the NKVD or the GRU in the act of supplying the Chinese People’s Liberation Army with munitions to go on with the struggle. Till they did, Molotov would go right on lying.

  Queek remained unconvinced. “Even that pack of bandits who have lately taken hostages from among our regional subadministrators and threatened them with death or torment if we do not return to them certain of their comrades”-the Polish interpreter, no friend to Marxist-Leninist thought, pronounced tovarishchi with malicious glee-“whom we are now holding imprisoned?” he demanded.