“Who among the Americans is hesitant?” Kassquit asked in some surprise. “In my communications with Sam Yeager, he expresses eagerness, and says his hatchling feels the same way.”

“In the hatchling’s case, if not in that of the elder Yeager, such eagerness may in part be related to sexual desire,” Ttomalss said dryly.

Not for the first time, Kassquit was glad her face didn’t show what she felt. A pang of longing? It startled her. It embarrassed her. But it was there. She didn’t want to think about it, and so, resolutely, she didn’t. All she said was, “They showed no signs of it at the last meeting. And, if it is a factor, it is certainly not the only one involved.”

“There I would agree with you,” Ttomalss replied. “And, so long as you want them, I also want these meetings to go forward, as I have said. I shall do everything I can to resolve the difficulties, which appear to be bureaucratic in nature.”

“I thank you, superior sir.” Kassquit got to her feet, towering over the males and females in the refectory. She set her tray and bowl and utensils on the conveyor that took them off to be washed and reused, then went back to her cubicle. That little space gave her as much privacy as she could get aboard the starship. Somewhere, though, a tiny camera recorded everything she did. She was a Tosevite citizen of the Empire, true. But she was also a specimen for the Race to study.

She wished Ttomalss hadn’t told her about the camera. Now, when she felt the overpowering need to stroke her private parts-as she sometimes did-she also felt even more constraint and guilt than she had before. It wasn’t just that her biology made her different from the Race, not any more. It was also that Ttomalss-and other males and females-could watch her being different, and could scorn her for the differences.

As she checked for electronic messages, though, she let her mouth fall open in a laugh. The idea that struck her wasn’t funny enough to make her laugh out loud-another difference rooted in Tosevite biology. But ginger had made the Race’s reproductive behavior more like that prevailing down on Tosev 3. Ttomalss and other males and females-especially Felless, whom she intensely disliked-were no longer in such a good position to criticize what she did.

Sure enough, a couple of messages awaited her. One, assuming she truly did belong to the Race, tried to sell her a new, improved fingerclaw trimmer. She wondered how, after so many millennia of civilization, a fingerclaw trimmer could possibly be improved. Most likely, the merchant selling it had been on Tosev 3 so long, he’d acquired Tosevite notions of extravagant advertising. Kassquit deleted that one without a qualm.

The other message came from Sam Yeager. Your people are being kind of picky about letting Jonathan and me come up for a second visit, he wrote. Seems they do not want an American spacecraft linking up with one of your starships. Hard to blame them, with the Deutsche making such nuisances of themselves, but we Americans are still mostly harmless.

Kassquit pondered that. How was she supposed to take it? Tone was hard to gauge on electronic messages anyhow, and she had all the more trouble because Sam Yeager was a Big Ugly. She also noted that the story he told was different from the one she’d got from Ttomalss. She didn’t suppose that should have surprised her; Tosevites were even more reluctant to admit they could be at fault than were males or females of the Race.

Would it be possible for you and your hatchling to fly here in one of our shuttlecraft? she asked.

No immediate answer came back, which didn’t surprise her. Sam Yeager’s message wasn’t very recent, and he’d doubtless gone off to do other things instead of sitting at his computer waiting for her reply. She read for a while, then returned to the computer to check the news-the Deutsche still sounded as bellicose as ever-and then, in an act that brought her as much pleasure from defiance as from physical sensation, turned off the lights in the cubicle and caressed herself.

No doubt the camera monitored infrared. The watchers would know what she was doing even with the lights out. While she was doing it, she didn’t care. That was a mixture of defiance and physical sensation, too. She’d seen videos of Big Uglies mating-more products of the Race’s research on Tosevites. She wasn’t usually in the habit of imagining herself in one of those videos, but today she did: another act of defiance. And she imagined the male with which she was doing the improbable deed had Jonathan Yeager’s face.

After the pleasure faded, the shame for what she’d done seemed all the greater. As she turned the lights back on and washed her hands, she sighed. She wished her body wouldn’t drive her to such extremes. But it did, and she had to come to terms with that.

A fair stretch of the day went by before Sam Yeager answered her. I think you have a good idea there, he wrote. I will pass it on to my superiors. You do the same on your side of the fence, and we shall see what happens next.

Good enough, Kassquit wrote back, adding, I hope your own superiors will not prove difficult, to see how he would respond.

Well, they may, he answered, this time promptly. They do not trust me so far as I would like, it seems. But I am useful to them, and so they just have to put up with me.

That sounds like my own position here, Kassquit wrote in some surprise. She wondered how Sam Yeager had fallen foul of his own kind. Not through looking the wrong way, anyhow: he looked like a typical Big Ugly. Maybe he would explain if he did come up to the starship again.

16

Nesseref let out a soft, astonished hiss as she guided the shuttlecraft down toward the Tosevite city called Los Angeles. She hadn’t realized the Big Uglies built on such a scale. Few structures seemed very tall, but built-up areas stretched as far as her eye turrets could turn.

A Tosevite speaking the language of the Race said, “This is Los Angeles International Airport. Shuttlecraft, you are cleared for your final descent. All airplane traffic has been diverted from the area.”

“I should hope so!” Nesseref exclaimed. That the Big Uglies didn’t take the notion of clearing air traffic for granted, that they felt they had to mention it, chilled her. How many mishaps did their air travel system allow?

She didn’t care to think about that. There was the concrete expanse of the airport. The radio beacon had guided the shuttlecraft well enough. Now she saw the visual beacons, too, the ones that would mark out her precise landing spot.

As she had while in Cairo, she let her fingerclaw hover above the switch that would fire the braking rockets if the shuttlecraft’s electronics didn’t do the job. But the braking rockets ignited when they should have. Deceleration pressed her into her seat. Just routine, she told herself. Landing at a port under the Big Uglies’ control wasn’t quite routine, but she’d done it before. Once more shouldn’t be a problem.

Controlled by the computer, the braking rockets started burning just as the shuttlecraft’s landing legs touched the concrete. “Very neat job there,” the Big Ugly monitoring the descent said. “We will bring out more fuel and liquid oxygen for you, and also your passengers.”

“I thank you,” Nesseref answered, though she didn’t feel particularly thankful. She just hoped the Tosevites knew what they were doing. Even the Race treated liquid hydrogen with a great deal of respect. If the Big Uglies didn’t, they’d put her in danger.

But everything seemed to go as it should. The trucks the Big Uglies sent out had fittings that matched those of her oxygen and fuel tanks. She’d been told the fittings were supposed to be standardized, but was glad to find reality matching her suppositions. And the Tosevites handling the hoses exercised as much caution as they should have.