Page 96 of Down to Earth (Colonization 2)

She-and the computer-put the shuttlecraft down in the middle of the landing port. A vehicle hurried across the wide concrete expanse to meet the shuttlecraft. It was not the usual motorcar, but a mechanized combat vehicle. “The Big Uglies will have to work hard to destroy that machine,” Ppevel observed.

“Truth,” Nesseref said. But seeing the combat vehicle did not reassure her. If the Race sent it out to bring Ppevel-and, incidentally, herself-into Cairo, that meant there was some risk to them both.

“I thank you for a job well done,” the regional subadministrator told her.

“You are welcome, superior sir.” Nesseref didn’t say the computer had done the work, with her along as little more than an organic emergency backup. She’d almost had to take over the controls of the shuttlecraft-this was as close as she’d ever come to doing just that. Had her luck been a little worse… but she didn’t care to think about that. “If you like, I will go first, and attract whatever gunfire may be waiting for us.”

“That will not be necessary, though I do appreciate the thought behind it,” Ppevel said. He unstrapped himself and went down the ladder with easy haste that showed he’d flown in a good many shuttlecraft before. No one shot at him; the helicopters now buzzing around the port must have suppressed that Tosevite gun.

Nesseref followed him out of the shuttlecraft. A male in helmet and body armor said, “Into the vehicle! Do not waste time.”

“I was not wasting time,” Nesseref said indignantly. “Make sure this shuttlecraft is well repaired. It took damage from the shells that exploded nearby. Had they cut a fuel or oxygen line, the craft-and my passenger, and I-would be scattered all over this port.”

“It shall be done, superior female?” The trooper lowered his voice as he went on, “Would you like a taste of ginger? That would make you feel better.”

“No!” Nesseref used an emphatic cough. “If I had a taste of ginger, you would feel better, which is what you have in mind.”

“Pheromones are in the air,” the male admitted, “but I did not mean it like that.”

“Of course you did,” Nesseref told him. “If you do not mention the herb again, I will not have to learn your name and report you.” She pushed past the male and into the mechanized combat vehicle. Glumly, he followed. She repeated her warning about the damage the shuttlecraft had taken to the driver, who relayed it by radio to the ground crew males and females at the shuttlecraft port. Nesseref relaxed a little after hearing him do that.

A couple of-rocks and a glass bottle hit the combat vehicle as it rolled through the insanely crowded streets of Cairo. Ppevel took that in stride. “The same thing happens in China.”

“Well, it does not happen in cities in Poland,” Nesseref said. “The Big Uglies there are much better behaved. Why, I even invited one of them and his hatchling to supper at my apartment, and the evening proved quite pleasant.”

“I have heard about Poland,” Ppevel answered. “I must say I believe it to be a special case. The Big Uglies in that subregion find their Tosevite neighbors more unpleasant than they find us, and so look to us to protect them against those neighbors. That does not hold true either in China or here. I wish it did. It would make our rule much easier.”

Remembering conversations with veteran administrators in Poland, Nesseref realized she had to yield the point, and did: “You are probably right, superior sir.”

Right or wrong, Ppevel got better accommodations than she did. The mechanized combat vehicle took him to the Race’s administrative center, which had been a luxurious Tosevite hotel before the conquest fleet arrived and had since been thoroughly modernized. After he went inside, the vehicle took Nesseref to the barracks for visiting males and females, some little distance away.

“You will be quartered in the hall to the left, the females’ hall,” the officer in charge of the barracks said, pointing with his tongue.

“Barracks separated by sex?” Nesseref exclaimed. “I never heard of such a thing.”

“You will hear more of it in the future, superior female,” the officer said. “Because of the Tosevite herb, we have had enough unfortunate incidents to reckon such segregation the wiser policy.”

Nesseref thought about that. If a female who tasted ginger was liable to come into season at any time, and if a male inflamed by some other female’s pheromones was liable to give a female ginger to provoke mating behavior in her… Nesseref made the affirmative gesture. “I see the need.”

The barracks were as depressing as such places usually were. None of the females with whom she spoke knew anyone she knew. None of them was from the same region of Home as she was. Most of them appeared more interested in watching the video on a large wall monitor than in any sort of conversation.

One who did feel like talking had a definite goal in mind: “Do you have any ginger?” she asked Nesseref.

“I do not,” Nesseref answered sharply. “I do not want any, either. Ginger is more trouble than it is worth.”

“Nonsense,” the other female said, and tacked on an emphatic cough. “Ginger is the only thing that makes this miserable, accursed planet worth inhabiting. Without it, I would just as soon have stayed in cold sleep.”

“I think your wits did stay in cold sleep,” Nesseref said. “How much trouble have you caused by broadcasting your pheromones far and wide? How many clutches of eggs have you laid because of the nasty herb?”

“Only one,” the female said, sounding altogether unconcerned. “And I placed no burden whatever on the Race in doing so.”

“Of course you did,” Nesseref told her. “Someone is now raising the hatchlings who came from those eggs.”

“No one from the Race.” The other female remained blithe. “As soon as I laid my clutch, I sold the eggs to some Big Uglies who wanted them. Those hatchlings are their worry, not the Race’s.”

“You did what?” Nesseref could imagine depravity, but such utter indifference was beyond her comprehension. “By the Emperor, what would Tosevites do with hatchlings? What would they do to hatchlings?”

“I do not know, and I do no

t much care,” the other female said. “I do know that I got enough ginger for the eggs to keep me happy for a long time. But now I have gone through it all, and I wish I had some more.”

“Disgraceful,” Nesseref said. “I ought to report you to the authorities.”

“Go ahead,” the female said. “Go right ahead. I will deny everything. How do you propose to prove any of this whatsoever?”

Nesseref had no good answer for that, however much she wanted one. She turned both eye turrets away from the other female, as if denying her the right to exist. The direct insult did what she wanted; the other female’s toeclaws clicked on the hard floor as she went away. The almost equally hard cot on which Nesseref slept wasn’t the only reason she passed a restless, uncomfortable night.

She had an uncomfortable flight back to Poland, too. She’d expected the local Big Uglies to stone the vehicle that took her to the airfield, and they did. Had that been all, she would have accepted it as an ordinary nuisance and thought little more about it. But it wasn’t all-far from it.

As soon as her aircraft entered the Reich’s air space, a Deutsch killercraft met it and kept pace with it, so close that Nesseref could seethe Big Ugly in the cockpit of the lean, deadly looking machine. Had he chosen to launch missiles or use his cannon, he could have shot down the aircraft in which she flew as easily as he pleased.

He didn’t. When the aircraft left the Reich and flew into Polish air space, the Deutsch Tosevite peeled off and went back to one of his own airbases. But even the Deutsche had not offered such provocations for a long time. Nesseref was very happy indeed when her machine rolled to a stop outside of Warsaw and she got off.

Living in Lodz, not far from the eastern border of the Greater German Reich, meant Mordechai Anielewicz could receive German television programming. Speaking Yiddish, and having studied German in school, he understood the language well enough. That didn’t mean he turned his receiver to the channels coming from the Reich very often. Football games were worth watching; the Germans and the nations subject to them fielded some fine clubs. But the interminable Nazi propaganda shows ranged from boring to savagely offensive.

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