“No,” he said. The whining noises got louder;no was a word the hatchling understood, even if one it usually chose to ignore. It whined some more, then added what sounded like an emphatic cough: I really want to go out there.
“No,” Ttomalss said again, and the hatchling went from whining to screaming. It screamed when it didn’t get what it wanted. When it screamed, all the researchers along the whole corridor joined in hating both it and Ttomalss for harboring it.
He went over and picked it up. “I’m sorry,” he lied as he earned it away from the door. He distracted it with a ball he’d taken from an exercise chamber. “Here, you see? This stupid thing bounces.” The hatchling stared in evident amazement. Ttomalss knew relief. It wasn’t always easy to distract any more; it remembered what it had been doing and what it wanted to do.
But the ball seemed interesting. When it stopped bouncing, the hatchling crawled over to it, picked it up, and stuck it up against its mouth. Ttomalss had been sure it would do that, and had washed the ball beforehand. He’d learned the hatchling would stick anything it could into its mouth, and learned not to let it get its hands on things small enough to go inside there. Sticking his hand into its slimy little maw to retrieve this or that was not something he relished, and he’d already had to do it more than once.
The communicator squawked for his attention. Before going to answer, he quickly scanned the area where the Tosevite sat to make sure nothing swallowable was close by. Satisfied over that, he answered the instrument.
Ppevel’s face stared out of the screen at him. “Superior sir,” he said, activating his own video.
“I greet you, Psychologist,” Ppevel said. “I am to warn you that there is an increased probability you will be required to turn over the Tosevite hatchling upon which you are currently conducting research to the Big Ugly female from whose body it emerged. Do not merely be prepared for this eventuality; anticipate it as near-term reality.”
“It shall be done,” Ttomalss said; he was, after all, a male of the Race. Even as he pledged obedience, though, he knew a sinking feeling. He did his best not to show it as he asked, “Superior sir, what has led to this hasty decision?”
Ppevel hissed softly;hasty was a term of condemnation among the Race. But he answered civilly enough: “The female from whose body this hatchling came has acquired increased status in the People’s Liberation Army, the Tosevite group in China responsible for most of the guerrilla activity against us there. Thus, propitiating her is of increased priority when compared to its importance a short while ago.”
“I-see,” Ttomalss said slowly. As he tried to think, the Tosevite hatchling started whimpering. It got nervous now when he was out of its sight for very long. Doing his best to ignore the little squalling nuisance, he tried to keep his wits on the course they had begun. “If this female’s status in the outlaw organization is lowered, then, superior sir, the pressure to turn over the hatchling also lessens once more, is that not correct?”
“In theory, yes,” Ppevel replied. “How you can hope to turn theory to practice in this particular instance is difficult for me to comprehend. Our influence over any Tosevite groups, even those allegedly favoring us, is more limited than we would like; our influence over those in active opposition to us is, for all practical purposes, nil except for measures military.”
He was right, of course. The Big Uglies were prone to believe that what they wanted would come true merely because they wanted it. The delusion afflicted the Race to a lesser degree.And yet, Ttomalss thought,there ought to be a way. It wasn’t as if the female Liu Han had had no contact with the Race before giving birth to this hatchling. The small creature had been conceived in an orbiting starship; its mother had been part of the Race’s initial study cadre on the bizarre nature of Tosevite sexuality and mating patterns.
All at once, Ttomalss’ mouth fell open. “Are you laughing at me, Psychologist?” Ppevel asked, his voice soft and dangerous.
“By no means, superior sir,” Ttomalss answered hastily. “I do believe, however, that I have devised a way to lower the status of the female Liu Han. If successful, as you say, this will lower her rank and prestige in the People’s Liberation Army and will allow my vital research program to continue.”
“My belief is that you place higher priority on the second than on the first,” Ppevel said. Since that was true, Ttomalss did not reply. Ppevel went on, “I forbid military action against or assassination of the female in question. Either of these tactics, even if successful, will raise rather than lower her status. Some males have fallen into the slipshod Tosevite habit of obeying only such orders as suit them. You would be most unwise, Psychologist, to number yourself among them in this particular case.”
“It shall be done as you say in every particular, superior sir,” Ttomalss promised. “I have no plans for violence against the Big Ugly in question. I plan to reduce her status through ridicule and humiliation.”
“If this can be done, well enough,” Ppevel said. “Getting the Big Uglies even to notice they have been humiliated, though, is a difficult undertaking.”
“Not in all instances, superior sir,” Ttomalss said. “Not in all instances.” He made his good-byes, checked the hatchling-which, for a wonder, hadn’t got into any mischief-and then went to work on the computer. He knew just where to look for the data sequences he had in mind.
Nieh Ho-T’ing turned south offChang Men Ta — the street that led into the Chinese city of Peking from the Western Gate-and ontoNiu Chieh. The district that centered on Cow Street was where the Muslims of Peking congregated. Nieh did not normally think much of Muslims; their outmoded faith blinded them to the truth of the dialectic. But, against the little scaly devils, ideology could for the moment be overlooked.
He was reasonably well fed, which made the curio-shop owners standing in the doorways of their establishments shout and wave with particular vigor as he walked past. Nine out of every ten of that breed were Muslims. Given the trash they sold, that helped reinforce the view most Chinese had of the Muslim minority: that their honesty was not always above reproach.
Further downNiu Chieh, on the eastern side of the street, stood the largest mosque in Peking. Hundreds, maybe thousands, worshiped there every day. Theqadis who led them in prayer had a potentially large group of recruits ready to hand, recruits who could also give good service to the People’s Liberation Army-if they would.
A large crowd of men stood around… “No, they aren’t outside the mosque, they’re in front of it,” Nieh said aloud. He wondered what was going on, and hurried down Cow Street to find out.
As he drew nearer, he saw that the scaly devils had setup in the street one of their machines that could make three-dimensional pictures appear in the air above it. They sometimes tried broadcasting their propaganda on those machines. Nieh had never bothered suppressing their efforts; as far as he was concerned, the scaly devils’ propaganda was so laughably bad that it served only to estrange them from the people.
Now, though, they were up to something new. The images floating in midair above the machine weren’t propaganda at all, not in any conventional sense of the word. They were just pornography: a Chinese woman fornicating with a man who was too hairy and who had too big a nose to be anything but a foreign devil.
Nieh Ho-T’ing walked down Cow Street toward the display. He was a straitlaced sort himself, and wondered if the little devils hoped to provoke their audience into degeneracy. The show they were putting on here was disgusting but. If that wasn’t what they intended, apparently pointless.