Page 30 of Aftershocks (Colonization 3)

The pungent irony there forced a laugh from Ttomalss, who also could hardly deny Felless’ words held some truth. “No, no songs of praise,” he agreed, laughing still. And, after some thought, he continued, “That may well be a cogent analysis, superior female. It may indeed. As always, experimental data would be desirable, but the superstructure of your thought certainly appears logical.”

“For which I thank you,” Felless replied. She sounded more cordial toward him than she had for some time. On the other fork of the tongue, he hadn’t praised her much lately, either. She was a female who took praise seriously.

In musing tones, Ttomalss said, “You might provoke some interesting responses if you were to publish that thesis in a Tosevite psychological journal.”

“For which I do not thank you.” Felless used an emphatic cough. “I have enough difficulties with Big Uglies as is to want to avoid more, not to provoke them.”

“Very well.” Ttomalss shrugged. “I thought you might find it amusing to watch the allegedly learned Tosevites banding together to destroy you with overheated rhetoric.”

“Again, no,” Felless said. “The trouble with Big Uglies is, they might not stop with overheated rhetoric. If I upset them badly enough, they might try to destroy me with explosives. Is it not a truth that the followers of the male called Khomeini still raise a rebellion against us despite his capture and imprisonment?”

“Yes, that is a truth,” Ttomalss admitted. “But they remain imprisoned in the grip of superstition. Contributors to psychological journals, even Tosevite psychological journals, have a more rational outlook.”

“I do not care to test this experimentally,” Felless said. “And here is my suggestion for you, Senior Researcher: since Kassquit will be influenced by her peers, you would do well to persuade her that her true peers are males and females of the Race, not the barbaric Big Uglies on the surface of Tosev 3. And now, if you will excuse me…” She disappeared from the video screen.

Even so, Ttomalss protested, “But I have always done my best to persuade her of that.” And it had worked. It still worked, to a point. Ttomalss couldn’t imagine Kassquit betraying the Race in any truly important matter. But the sexual bond she’d so quickly established with Jonathan Yeager formed the basis of a social intimacy with him different from the sort she’d established with the Race.

I wonder if I ought to arrange a new sexual partner for her, he thought. That might lessen her despondence over the departure of the wild Big Ugly. But it might also present new and more serious problems. Solving one difficulty with Tosevites all too often did produce another worse one. The whole world of Tosev 3 was a large, unexpected difficulty, or rather a multitude of them.

He dictated a note to himself so he would not forget the possibility, then returned to analyzing the recordings of Kassquit’s conversations with Jonathan Yeager. At one point, she’d asked him, “Would you not like to spend all your time living and working among the Race?” Ttomalss suspected she meant, Would you not like to spend all your time staying with me?

“If I could do it in the service of my not-empire, then maybe,” the wild Tosevite male had answered. “But I would like to have some of my species around for the sake of company. We are too different from the Race to be very comfortable with its members all the time.”

Was that U.S. propaganda, countering the Race’s propaganda that formed the only indoctrination Kassquit had had till Jonathan Yeager’s arrival? Or was it simply his view of where the truth lay? If so, was he right?

Ttomalss feared he was. No wild Rabotev or Hallessi would ever have said such a thing. The other two species in the Empire had been on the same road as the Race; they just hadn’t gone so far along it when the conquest fleets got to their planets. The Big Uglies had been going in another direction altogether when the Race arrived.

That so many of them were still going in a different direction told how strong their impetus had been. And yet the direction was not so different as it had been before the conquest fleet came; it was the resultant of their former course and that which the Race tried to impose on them. Which component of the vector would prove stronger in the end remained to be seen.

The telephone hissed for attention. “Senior Researcher Ttomalss speaking,” Ttomalss said. “I greet you.”

“I greet you, superior sir.” Kassquit’s image appeared in the screen.

“Hello, Kassquit.” Ttomalss did his best to disguise his concern. “How may I help you?” How was he supposed to analyze her behavior if she kept subjecting him to it?

“I do not know. I doubt anyone knows.”

“If you do not know how I can help you, why did you call me?” Ttomalss asked in some irritation. He didn’t expect a rational answer. He’d had several similar conversations with Kassquit since Jonathan Yeager departed for the surface of Tosev 3.

“I am sorry, superior sir,” she said, something he’d heard a great many times before. “But I have no one else with whom I might speak.”

That, unfortunately, was a truth. And it was a truth of Ttomalss’ own creation. He sighed. He recognized the obligation under which it placed him. “Very well,” he answered. “Say what you will.”

“I do not know what to say,” Kassquit wailed. “I feel as if my place in this society is not what I thought it was before I made the acquaintance of the wild Big Ugly.”

“That is not a truth.” Ttomalss appended an emphatic cough. “Your place here has not changed in the slightest.”

“Then I have changed, for I do not feel as if I fit that place any more,” Kassquit said.

“Ah.” That, for once, was something Ttomalss could get his teeth into. “Many males from the conquest fleet have similar feelings in trying to reintegrate with the more numerous members of the colonization fleet. Their time on Tosev 3 and their dealings with Tosevites have changed them so much, they no longer find the old ways of our society congenial. Something like this seems to have happened to you.”

“Yes!” Now his Tosevite ward used an emphatic cough of her own. “How is this syndrome cured?”

By all appearances, it wasn’t always curable. Ttomalss had no intention of admitting that. He said, “The chief anodyne is the passage of time.” He had also heard this was true of the aftermath of brief Tosevite sexual relationships, another point he carefully did not bring up.

Kassquit’s shoulders slumped. “I shall try to be patient, superior sir.”

“That is all you can do, I fear,” Ttomalss said. He would have to try to be patient, too.

After a brief tour of duty at Greifswald, Gorppet’s small unit had returned to the Deutsch center with the preposterous name of Peenemunde. The move made sense; the place was plainly the largest and most important center in the area. Or rather, it had been: it had taken a worse pounding than any he’d imagined, let alone any he’d seen. He and the males he commanded were constantly checking their radiation badges to make sure they were not picking up dangerous levels of radioactivity.

Despite the explosive-metal bombs that had fallen on the site, the wreckage remained impressive. Gorppet spoke to one of his troopers: “This was on its way to becoming a spaceport as large as any back on Home.”

“That would seem to be a truth, superior sir,” the male called Yarssev agreed.

“When we first came to Tosev 3, the Deutsche had not even begun launching rockets from this site,” Gorppet said.

Yarssev made the affirmative hand gesture. “That is also a truth, superior sir.”

“How long did the Race take to move from the first launch of a rocket to a spaceport?” Gorppet asked.

“I have no idea, superior sir,” Yarssev answered. “It has been a long time since they tried to make me learn history, and I have long since forgotten most of what they taught me.”

“So have I,” Gorppet said. “But this I will tell you: we did not go from rocket to spaceport in a fraction of an individual’s lifetime.”

“Well, of course not, superior s

ir,” Yarssev said. “If you ask me, there is something unnatural about the way the Big Uglies change so fast.”

“I would have a hard time arguing with you there, because I think that is also a truth,” Gorppet said. “And I will tell you something else: I think there is something unnatural about the way the Deutsche are surrendering their armaments.”

“Do you?” Yarssev gestured. The broad, low, damp plain was full of the implements of war: landcruisers, mechanized fighting vehicles, artillery pieces, rocket launchers, machine guns, stacked infantrymales’ weapons.

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