Page 73 of Aftershocks (Colonization 3)

“I greet you,” Felless said.

“And I greet you, Senior Researcher,” Straha said easily. “The paint is the pattern I used to escape the United States. I have been ordered not to wear that of my former rank. It would upset too many males and females, Atvar chief among them. Call me whatever you please. A lot of males have called me a lot of things over the years.” He seemed perversely proud of that.

“Let us get down to business,” Ttomalss said. “We have been assembled here to analyze why an apparently successful leader like Earl Warren, after being discovered in his treachery, would sacrifice a city rather than the weaponry we expected him to give up.”

“His actions do not show any failure of intelligence on our part,” Diffal said. The male from Security went on, “He made the decision on his own, consulting no one. He offered us no trail of signals to intercept.”

“No one here is criticizing you,” Felless said.

“My opinion is simple,” Straha said. “He never expected to be caught for the attack on the colonization fleet. When he was, he chose the option that hurt the United States least. End of story.”

“It cannot be so simple,” Diffal said.

“Why not?” Straha asked. “That is not something Drefsab, your predecessor, would have said.”

“Drefsab had a gift for thinking like a Big Ugly. I lack it. I admit as much,” Diffal said. “But what did his gift get him? It got him killed in a worthless skirmish, and nothing more. I am still here to do the best I can.”

“You are a Security male, so you see complications everywhere,” Straha jeered.

“Complications are everywhere,” Diffal said.

“You said as much to me, Superior Nuisance.” Ttomalss seemed to enjoy using the title Straha had given himself.

“I said ambiguities are everywhere,” Straha said. “There is a difference.”

“Perhaps,” Ttomalss said.

Felless would not have yielded the point so readily. She said, “Let us return to the issue we are supposed to grasp with our fingerclaws. Was Warren a male with a complex personality, or was he one who could be relied upon to do the obvious thing?”

“Having met him several times, I can state without fear of contradiction that he was one of the most obvious males ever hatched,” Straha said.

But Diffal made the negative gesture. “He wished to be seen as obvious: that is a truth. But no male who truly was obvious could have ordered the attack on the colonization fleet and successfully concealed it for so long. No male who was obvious could have refused our demand to weaken his not-empire and sacrificed a city instead. We seek the subtleties under his scales.”

“Any male who is able to keep a secret, to keep his mouth shut, always seems a prodigy to someone from Security,” Straha said.

“Any male who is able to keep a secret should certainly seem a prodigy to you,” Diffal retorted. “You have value only when your mouth is open.”

Straha hissed in fury. “Enough, both of you!” Felless shouted. “Too much, in fact. The only thing this commission is showing is our own foibles, not those of the Tosevite we are supposed to be investigating.” She thought she was speaking an obvious truth, but the others stared at her as if she’d just hatched a miracle of wisdom. The way things were going, maybe she had.

By the time the Warren commission had been meeting for a few days, Ttomalss had learned more about the foibles of his colleagues than he’d ever wanted to know. Straha thought he knew everything about everything. Diffal was convinced nobody knew anything about anything. And Felless was convinced she could reconcile the other two males no matter how ferociously they disagreed.

What were they learning about him? If anything, he inclined toward Diffal. “To imagine that we are going to be certain of the reasons for any Big Ugly’s behavior is an exercise in presumption,” he said one morning when they were more rancorous than usual.

“Then what are we doing here?” Straha demanded.

“Looking for probabilities,” Felless answered. “Even those are better than complete ignorance and wild speculation.”

“Security’s speculation is never wild,” Diffal said. “We are, however, forced to analyze wildly conflicting data, which-”

“Gives you an excuse when you go wrong, as you do so often,” Straha broke in.

Ttomalss felt like biting both of them. Instead, he tried to change the subject: “Let us examine why Warren ended his life at the same time as he chose to allow the destruction of the American city.”

“My opinion is that this was an impulse reaction, one taken on the spur of the moment,” Diffal said. “Big Uglies seldom have the foresight for anything more complex.”

“Here, I would agree,” Felless said.

Ttomalss would have agreed, too. Before he could state his agreement out loud, Straha laughed a tremendous, jaw-gaping laugh, the laugh of a male coming from the countryside to the city for the first time. With enormous relish, he said, “I happen to know-to know, I tell you-that you are both mistaken.”

“And how do you know that?” Diffal did his best to match the ex-shiplord’s sarcasm.

But Straha had a crushing rejoinder: “Because I have been in electronic communication with Sam Yeager, who was in personal communication with Warren before he killed himself. Yeager makes it quite plain that Warren knew what he was doing, knew its cost, and was not prepared to live after inflicting that cost on his not-empire.”

“That is not fair!” Felless said. “You knew the answer to the question before it was asked.”

“I said so.” Straha’s voice was complacent. “Which would you rather do, learn the actual truth or sit around debating endlessly till you decide upon what you imagine the truth ought to be?”

By the indignant forward slant of their bodies, both Felless and Diffal would sooner have spent more time in debate. A veteran of endless committee meeti

ngs, and of committee meetings that only seemed endless, Ttomalss had some sympathy for their point of view, but only some. He said, “The truth does seem to be established in this particular interest. I suggest that we adjourn for the day so we can approach other questions with our minds refreshed.”

No one objected. The commission dissolved itself for the day. Diffal and Felless both left in a hurry. Straha stayed to gloat: “Facts? Facts are ugly things, Senior Researcher. They pierce the boldest theory through the liver and send it crashing to the ground.”

“In some ways, Superior Nuisance, you have become very much like an American Big Ugly,” Ttomalss said. “I suppose this was inevitable, but it does seem to have happened.”

Straha made the affirmative gesture. “I am not particularly surprised. I have been observing the Americans for a long time, and it is a truism that observer and observed affect each other. I suppose I have affected them, too, but rather less: they are many, and I only one.”

“You are not the only expatriate male of the Race there, though,” Ttomalss said. “We have examined the expatriates’ effect on pushing American technology forward. But we have not really considered their effect on the society of the not-empire as a whole. They must have some.”

“So they must.” Now Straha sounded thoughtful rather than vainglorious. “As I told you while you were interrogating me, you ask interesting questions. You could even answer that one, I think, were you interested in doing so. Most expatriates-unlike me-can freely come and go between the USA and territory the Race rules.”

But Ttomalss said, “That is not what I want, or not most of what I want. I would like to grasp the Americans’ view of the influence of the expatriates-it strikes me as being more important. And it could be that the expatriates are influencing the Americans in ways of which neither group is aware.”

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