Bliss filled her. The sensation reminded her of how she felt during mating season. She hadn’t thought much about that since her last season ended. Like the rest of the Race, she kept the mating season and what went on then in a separate compartment of her mind from the rest of her life. Ginger seemed to make the walls around that compartment crumble.

She shivered in the breeze, a shiver that had very little to do with the wretched Tosevite weather. To be interested in mating when she was not in season frightened her; some severe hormonal disorders had symptoms like that. But, at the same time, she enjoyed-she couldn’t help enjoying-the delicious feeling of longing that stole over her.

She took another taste, bending her head low over the ginger still in the palm of her hand. Bending her head low was also the beginning of the mating posture. She did her best not to think about that. With the herb coursing through her, not thinking was easy.

Nesseref swung her eye turrets back toward the building in which Bunim had his headquarters, to make sure the sentries hadn’t noticed her tasting ginger. Despite the number of males from the conquest fleet who used the stuff, it remained against regulations. The penalties imposed for using it struck her as absurdly harsh. She did not want to get caught.

Whether she wanted to or not, though, she was about to get caught, for both sentries were approaching her. She started to move away, hoping for the chance to sidle round a corner and disappear. But they were advancing on her with quick and determined strides.

Then she saw that their erectile scales had risen, and that they were moving with a more nearly upright gait than the Race usually used. “By the Emperor,” she whispered, “I was not just thinking about mating after all.” The breeze blew her words away-the same breeze that had blown her pheromones to the two males standing outside Bunim’s building.

One of them gestured, motioning for her to stick her head down farther and her hindquarters in the air. It was a gesture only used, only seen, during the mating season. She obeyed it without thinking. That seemed easier than ever.

Sometimes, in the wildness of the season, males fought over females. Sometimes they simply took turns. That was what happened here. The male who had not gestured tugged at Nesseref’s wrappings, then at his own, so they could join. “Miserable, clumsy things,” he grumbled.

He thrust his reproductive organ into hers. The pleasure that gave, when added to the pleasure of the ginger, was almost more than Nesseref could bear. When the male finished, the other one took his place. She enjoyed his attentions as much as those of his predecessor.

Dimly, she noticed a crowd of Tosevites gathering around her and the two males she had aroused. The Big Uglies stared and pointed and said things in their incomprehensible language. Some of them made strange barking, yapping sounds. Nesseref had heard that was how they laughed. She didn’t care. She didn’t care about anything except the ginger and what the males were doing.

They’d switched again. A moment later, the one who’d gone first finished his new coupling. The other one took his place once more.

By the time he finished, the ginger was beginning the ebb from Nesseref’s system. She raised her head and lowered her rump, turning her eye turrets back toward the males. “Enough,” she said. Suddenly, what she’d just been doing disgusted her. She felt as low as she’d been filled with delight a moment before.

“No such thing as enough,” one of the guards said, and gave an emphatic cough. But he’d mated with her twice, so both the words and the cough sounded halfhearted.

“Funny a female should come into season in winter,” the male remarked. “Probably has something to do with the long Tosevite years.”

Sunk in depression as she was-something about which ginger-tasters had not warned her-Nesseref did not answer. But I wasn’t coming into season, she thought. I wasn’t. I would know if I were. I always know a few days before I do. Every female knows beforehand.

She hadn’t been close to coming into season till she tasted ginger. As soon as she’d tasted it, thoughts of mating started going through her head. That was very strange. She wondered if it would happen every time she tasted. Maybe she would find out, because she wanted to taste again. From these depths, the heights to which she’d ascended on the herb seemed all the more desirable.

Desirable… “Do you males go into season when you taste ginger?” she asked the guards, figuring one or both of them was likely to use the herb.

“No,” one answered. “That’s foolish. How can a male go into season without a female in heat to send him there?” The other sentry gestured to show he agreed.

I don’t know, Nesseref thought. How can a female go into season when it’s not her time? She didn’t know that, either, not for certain, but she’d just done it. Now she noticed the gaping, laughing Tosevites. By the Emperor, how am I any different from them? One more question for which she had no answer.

“I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said. “I trust your stay in Australia proved enjoyable and restorative?”

“Oh, indeed, Shiplord, indeed,” Atvar said. “And I trust there are new crises and disasters awaiting me here.” His mouth opened in a wry laugh. “There always are.”

“No crises or disasters,” Kirel said, and Atvar felt a strange mixture of disappointment and relief. The shiplord of the bannership went on, “There is one thing, however, which has come up in the last few days that does appear worthy of your attention.”

“There always is,” Atvar said with a sigh. “Very well, Shiplord: enlighten me. You were on the point of doing so anyhow, I have no doubt.”

“As a matter of fact, I was,” Kirel agreed. “It appears that, here and there across Tosev 3, a certain number of females from the colonization fleet have come into season. Matings have taken place, and one male near Basra was badly bitten in a fight over a female.”

“That is curious,” the fleetlord said. “A certain number of females, you tell me? They should all enter their season at about the same time, not piecemeal. Did Reffet use some peculiar selection criteria for them? Are some from the worlds of the Rabotevs and Hallessi rather than Home?”

“I do not believe that to be the case,” Kirel replied. “Nevertheless, there does appear to be a common factor in these incidents.”

His tone warned that good news did not lie ahead. Atvar fixed him with a baleful stare. “I suppose you are going to tell me what this common factor is, too. Before you do, tell me whether I really want to know.”

“I do not know whether you do or not, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said, “but I will tell you that you need to know.”

“Very well,” Atvar said, with the air of a male who expected the enemy to do his worst.

Kirel proceeded to do just that: “It appears that all the females who suddenly came into season had tasted ginger shortly before they did so. This is not certain, due to natural reluctance to admit to ginger-tasting, but it appears likely to be true.”

“I think I will go back to Australia now,” Atvar said. “No, on second thought, I believe I will go into cold sleep and have my miserable, frozen carcass shipped back to Home. When I am revived there, everything that has happened to me here will seem to be only a dream remembered from hibernation. Yes, I like the sound of that very much.”

“Exalted Fleetlord, you led us into battle against the Big Uglies,” Kirel said loyally. “You gained as satisfactory a peace as you could after conditions turned out to be different from those we anticipated. Do you now despair over an herb we have been fighting since not long after our landing on Tosev 3?”

“I am tempted to,” Atvar replied. “Are you not? Fight as we would, we could not keep a great many males from becoming regular ginger users. Do you think we shall have any better luck with the females from the colonization fleet?”