That Drucker did, only too well. The Reich ran on anonymous accusations. And he was already in a bad odor with the Gestapo and with his own higher-ups because of the accusations against Kathe. Regardless of whether there was any truth in Grillparzer’s letter, Drucker couldn’t stand another investigation. It would mean his neck, and no mistake-and probably his wife’s neck, too, after he couldn’t protect her any more.

He licked his lips. “How much do you want?” he whispered.

“Now you’re talking like a smart boy,” Grillparzer said with another nasty chuckle. “I like smart boys. Five thousand for starters. We’ll see where it goes from there.”

Drucker let out a silent sigh of relief. He could make the first payment. Maybe Grillparzer aimed to bleed him to death a little at a time, not all at once. After that first payment… He’d worry about that later. “How do I get you the money?” he asked.

“I’ll let you know,” the ex-gunner answered.

“I’m going up next week,” Drucker warned. “My wife doesn’t know anything about this, and I don’t want her to. Don’t mix her up in this, Grillparzer, or you’ll get trouble from me, not cash.”

“I’m not afraid of you, Hans old boy,” Grillparzer said, but that might not have been altogether true, for he went on, “All right, we’ll play that your way-for now. You’ll hear from me.” He hung up.

Kathe chose that moment to come into the living room. “And how is your old army buddy?” she asked indulgently.

“Fine,” Drucker answered, and the lie survived his wife’s long and intimate acquaintance with him. He nodded, ever so slightly. Now he had a little stretch of time in which to plan how best to commit a murder.

Ttomalss had been studying the Big Uglies ever since the conquest fleet came to Tosev 3. Sometimes he thought he understood this world’s strange inhabitants as well as anyone not hatched among them could. He certainly had that reputation among the Race. He was, after all, the only male who’d ever successfully reared a Tosevite hatchling from its earliest days to the approach of maturity. He was, so far as he knew, the only male addled enough even to try such a mad venture.

But, despite that success, despite endless other research, despite endless study of others’ research on the Big Uglies and even their research on themselves, he sometimes thought he didn’t understand them at all. He’d had a lot of those moments since coming to the Greater German Reich. Now he found himself facing another one.

A Big Ugly named Rascher, who called himself a physician-by Tosevite standards, maybe he was one, but Tosevite standards were low, low-spoke in the tones of calm reason that so often characterized officials of the Reich at their most outrageous: “Of course these individuals deserve death, Senior Researcher. They are a weakness in the fabric of the Aryan race, and so must be plucked from it without mercy.”

He used the language of the Race. As far as Ttomalss was concerned, that only made the horror underlying his words worse. The researcher said, “I do not understand the logic behind your statement.” I ought to learn that phrase in the language of the Deutsche, Ttomalss thought. Spirits of Emperors past know I use it often enough.

“Is it not obvious?” Dr. Rascher said. “Does the Race not also punish males who mate with other males?”

Ttomalss shrugged; that was a gesture the Race and Tosevites shared. “I have heard of such matings happening among us,” he admitted. “During the mating season, we are apt to become rather frantic. But the occurrences are rare and accidental, so what point to making a fuss, let alone punishing the behavior?”

“It is not rare and accidental among us,” the Big Ugly said. “Some misguided males deliberately pursue it. They must be rooted out, exterminated, lest they pollute us with this unnatural behavior.”

“I do not understand,” Ttomalss said again. “If they mate among themselves, they cannot have hatchlings. This in itself eliminates them from your gene pool. Where is the need to root out and exterminate?”

“Mating among males is filthy and degenerate,” Dr. Rascher declared. “It corrupts the young in the Reich.”

“Even if what you say is true-and I have seen no evidence to that effect-do you not believe the problem to be self-correcting?” Ttomalss asked. “I repeat, these males are unlikely to breed, and so, except for new mutations-assuming this trait to be genetically induced, about which I have seen no evidence either for or against-will in the course of centuries gradually tend to diminish. You Deutsch Tosevites, if you will forgive me for saying so, have always struck the Race as being impatient even for your species.”

He had been around Big Uglies long enough to recognize Dr. Rascher’s glower for what it was. The Deutsch physician snapped, “And the Race has always struck us Aryans as being insanely tolerant. If you are daft enough to put up with degeneracy in your own kind for centuries or millennia on end, that is your affair. If we choose to take direct action in uprooting it, that is ours.”

Plainly, Ttomalss wouldn’t get anywhere with this line. The Race, to its dismay, had got nowhere in attempting to dissuade the Deutsche from slaughtering the Jews in their not-empire for no other reason than that they were Jews. Since they were as determined to slaughter males with different mating habits, they would go on doing that, too. Males… That sparked a thought in Ttomalss’ mind. “Have you also females who mate with females? If so, what do you do with them?”

“Exterminate them when we catch them, of course,” Dr. Rascher replied. “We are consistent. Did you expect anything different?”

“Not really,” Ttomalss said with a sigh. Unless he was mistaken, Rascher’s face bore an expression of smug self-satisfaction. The researcher hadn’t been familiar with that expression in his work in China, but had seen it on a great many Deutsch officials. They are ideology-mad, he thought. Too many Big Uglies are ideology-mad. They are as drunk on their ideologies as they are on their sexuality.

“You should not have,” Dr. Rascher said, and added an emphatic cough. “It is most important for the Aryan race to preserve its purity and to prevent its defilement by such elements as these.”

“I have heard you Deutsche use this term ‘Aryan’ before,” Ttomalss said. “Sometimes you seem to use it to refer to yourselves and yourselves alone, but sometimes you seem to use it in a different way. Please define it for me.” He knew how important precise definitions were. The Deutsche, all too often, preferred arguing in a circle to precision, though they vehemently denied that was the case.

Dr. Rascher said, “I will define it with great pleasure, taking the definition from the words of our great Leader, Adolf Hitler. Aryans have been and are the race which is the bearer of Tosevite cultural development. It is no accident that the first cultures arose in places where the Aryan, in his encounters with lower races, subjugated them and bent them to his will. As a conqueror, he regulated their practical activity, according to his will and for his aims. As long as he ruthlessly upheld the master attitude, not only did he really remain master, but also the preserver and increaser of culture, which was based on his abilities. When he gives up his purity of blood, he loses his place in the wonderful world which he has made for himself. This is why we so oppose the idea of mingling races.”

“You Deutsche see yourselves as Aryans, then, but not all Aryans are necessarily Deutsche-is that correct?” Ttomalss asked.

“It is, although we are the most perfect representatives of the Aryan race anywhere on Tosev 3,” Rascher replied.

“Fascinating,” Ttomalss said. “Most fascinating indeed. And what is your evidence for these assertions?”