“To brag that the Race has suppressed the uprising in China,” Molotov said. “He labored under the delusion that we did not already know.”

“Ah,” Zhukov said; Molotov could imagine his nod even if he couldn’t see it. The marshal went on, “When the Chinese are ready themselves or when we can stir them up, they will rise again, of course. You had a countercomplaint ready, I assume?”

“Oh, yes-the matter of these animals from Home on our soil,” Molotov said. Zhukov would hear it from someone else, if not from him. “They do threaten to become a nuisance in our border regions, but Queek proved conciliatory on the matter of compensation.”

“I wish you had found something stronger,” Zhukov grumbled, “but I suppose foreign affairs is your bailiwick.” For as long as I feel like letting it be your bailiwick. Marshal Zhukov didn’t always say everything he thought, either. But then, he didn’t always have to. That was what holding power meant.

Felless felt isolated and useless and frustrated at the Race’s embassy to the Reich. With Ttomalss gone, she had no one there with whom she could really have a conversation grounded in her professional expertise. Most of the males and females at the embassy dealt with the Deutsch Tosevites in a purely pragmatic way, caring nothing for the theoretical underpinnings of interspecies relations.

The Deutsche cared nothing for those underpinnings, either, so far as Felless could tell. As time went on, they grew less and less willing to discuss with her the rationale behind their strange not-empire. She had had trouble enough grasping even what they were willing to discuss. Now that new information came in more slowly than it had before, she despaired of ever making sense of their system.

She’d thought about insulting some Deutsch official to the point where his government would expel her from the not-empire, as Ttomalss had been lucky enough to manage. She’d not only thought about it, she’d tried to do it a couple of times. That had involved her in shouting matches with Big Uglies, but no expulsion order came, worse luck. She remained stuck here in Nuremberg, stuck without escape and hating every moment of it.

Her office was her refuge. She could analyze such data as she had, and she could reach out to the wider world of the Race through the computer network. And…

Sometimes she would stay in her office for days at a time, bringing food back from the refectory, storing it in a little refrigerator, and reheating it in an even more compact radar oven. The locked door there was a shield against a world far more unpleasant than she had imagined on waking from cold sleep. Behind that shield, she could do her best to make the world go away.

After finishing the first of several meals she had waiting in the refrigerator, she went over to her desk, opened one of the drawers, reached behind several file folders, and took out a small plastic vial half full of brownish powder. “By the Emperor,” she said softly, “ginger is the only thing that makes Tosev 3 even close to being a world worth living on.”

Her fingers trembled in anticipation as she took off the stopper. She couldn’t taste as often as she craved the herb, not with the punishments to which males and females-especially females-were liable these days. Only when she was sure no one would disturb her till she no longer reeked of pheromones did she dare shake powdered ginger into the palm of her hand, bend her head low over it, and flick out her tongue.

Ginger’s hot, spicy flavor was marvelous enough, but what the herb did when it coursed through her blood and set her brain afire made the flavor seem a small thing. When she tasted ginger, she was as near omnipotent as made no difference. Somewhere back inside her mind, she knew both the omnipotence and the delight that came with it were illusions. She knew, but she didn’t care.

She also knew the euphoria she got from ginger wouldn’t last long enough to suit her. It never did. The only way it could have lasted long enough to suit her was never to end. But the herb didn’t work that way, however much she wished it did.

All too soon, she began to slide down into the depression that was the price she paid for the euphoria. She hissed in despair and walked over to the desk. She knew that if she tasted again, the depression would only be worse and deeper after that second taste. Again, she knew but she didn’t care. That would be later. She felt bad enough now to want to escape.

And escape wasn’t far away. She didn’t have to think to yank the top off the vial of ginger, pour some more of the herb into the palm of her hand, and lap it up. She sighed and shuddered with pleasure. Again she was brilliant, strong, invincible. Again she could-

The telephone hissed. She strode over to it as if she were the Emperor at a ceremonial function. She didn’t mind talking on the telephone while ginger lifted her; it made her feel more clever than the caller, whoever he might be. This time, she saw as she turned an eye turret toward the screen, it was Ambassador Veffani. “I greet you, superior sir,” she said, and assumed the posture of respect.

“And I greet you, Senior Researcher,” Veffani answered. “Please come to my office immediately. Several males and females have come from Cairo to discuss our present relations with the Reich, and your contributions would be valuable.”

Felless stared at him. “But, superior sir-” she began, and discovered the difference between feeling brilliant and actually being brilliant. If she went out of her office now, she would turn the whole embassy topsy-turvy, let alone that chamber full of males and females with fancy body paint. But what sort of excuse could she find for not coming when the ambassador required her presence? The ginger didn’t give her any marvelous ideas. She tried her best: “Superior sir, could I not participate by telephone? I am in the midst of an exacting report, and-”

“No,” Veffani broke in. “Conference calls with too many participants quickly grow confusing. Please come and give your insights in person.”

He said please, but he meant it as an order. “But, superior sir…” Felless repeated. “That might not be the best idea right now.” Veffani knew she had a ginger habit-or rather, he knew she had had one. She hoped he would be able to hear what she wasn’t saying.

If he could, he didn’t choose to. He said, “Senior Researcher, your presence is required here. I will see you directly.”

Felless let out along, hissing sigh. Had he forgotten about the herb, or was he going to use this opportunity to show her up and expose her to punishment? It didn’t really matter. He’d left her no choice. She sighed again. “It shall be done, superior sir,” she said, and broke the connection.

She knew what would happen when she stepped out into the corridor and headed for Veffani’s office. The only question was where and with whom. As things happened, she hadn’t gone more than half a dozen steps before she saw Slomikk, the science officer.

He saw her, too. “I greet you, Senior Researcher. How are you tod…?” His voice trailed away as the pheromones she couldn’t help emitting reached his scent receptors. Almost at once, he straightened till he stood nearly as erect as a Big Ugly. The scales of his crest rose along the crown of his head, too, as they did at no other time than during a mating display.

And his visual cues affected Felless just as her scent cues affected him. She bent down till her snout all but touched the floor the mating posture was not so far removed from the posture of respect. “Hurry,” she said with the small part of her rational mind that still functioned. “I must see the ambassador.”

Slomikk wasn’t listening. She hadn’t expected that he would be. He took his place behind her. Of itself, her tailstump moved up and out of the way. The science officer thrust his mating organ into her cloaca. The pleasure she felt was different from what she got with ginger, though she couldn’t have said how.