Homeward Bound

6

Kassquit liked Rizzaffi no better than did the wild Big Uglies. She probably liked it less, and found it more appalling. The Tosevites who’d come to Home on the Admiral Peary were at least used to weather, to variations on a theme. They’d lived on the surface of a planet. She hadn’t. The air conditioning aboard a starship had no business changing. If it did, something was badly wrong somewhere.

Even ordinary weather on Home disconcerted her. The change in temperature from day to night seemed wrong. It felt unnatural to her, even though she knew it was anything but. But in Sitneff the change from what she was used to hadn’t been extreme. In Rizzaffi, it was.

She felt as if she were breathing soup. Whenever she left the hotel, cooling moisture clung to her skin instead of evaporating as it did in drier climates. She envied the Race, which did not sweat but panted. Ordinary males and females kept their hides dry-except for contact with the clammy outside air. She couldn’t. And if her sweat didn’t evaporate, she wasn’t cooled, or not to any great degree. She not only breathed soup; she might as well have been cooking in it.

The wild Big Uglies kept going out in the horrible weather again and again. Kassquit soon gave up. They really were wild to get a look at everything they could, and came back to the hotel talking about the strange animals and stranger plants they had seen. Their guide seemed downright smug about what an unusual place Rizzaffi was. Kassquit recognized the difference between unusual and enjoyable. The Americans didn’t seem to.

When Sam Yeager talked about the fibyen, Kassquit read about the animal and saw a picture of it at the terminal in her room. Having done that, she knew more about it than he did. He’d seen one in the flesh, and she hadn’t, but so what? To her, something on a monitor was as real as something seen in person. How could it be otherwise when she’d learned almost everything she knew about the universe outside her starship from the computer network?

Almost everything. She kept looking at the way Jonathan and Karen Yeager formed a pair bond. She eyed Linda and Tom de la Rosa, too, but not so much and not in the same way. When she looked at Sam Yeager’s hatchling and his mate, she kept thinking, This could have been mine.

That it could have been hers was unlikely. She knew as much. But Jonathan Yeager had been her first sexual partner-her only sexual partner. Ttomalss had offered to bring other wild Big Ugly males up from the surface of Tosev 3, but she had always declined. She could not keep them on the starship permanently, and parting with them after forming an emotional bond hurt too much to contemplate. She’d done it once, with Jonathan, and it had been knives in her spirit. Do it again? Do it again and again? Her hand shaped the negative gesture. Better not to form the bond in the first place. So she thought, anyway.

She also noticed Karen Yeager watching her. She understood jealousy. Of course she understood it. It gnawed at her whenever she saw Jonathan and Karen happy and comfortable together.

You have him. I do not. Why are you jealous? Kassquit wondered. Because she hadn’t been raised as a Big Ugly, she needed a long time to see what a wild Tosevite would have understood right away. You have him, but I had him once, for a little while. Do you wonder if he wants me back?

She took a certain sour pleasure in noting those suspicious glances from the wild female Tosevite. She also realized-again, much more slowly than she might have-why Karen Yeager had wanted her to put on wrappings: to reduce her attractiveness. Males and females of the Race could demonstrate such foolishness during mating season, but happily did without it the rest of the year. But Big Uglies, as Kassquit knew too well, were always in season. It complicated their lives. She wondered how they’d ever managed to create any kind of civilization when they had that kind of handicap.

A good many members of the Race remained convinced that the Big Uglies hadn’t created any kind of civilization. They were certain the Tosevites had stolen everything they knew from the Race. That would have been more convincing if the Big Uglies hadn’t fought the conquest fleet to a standstill when it first came to Tosev 3. Kassquit had occasionally pointed this out to males and females who mocked the Big Uglies-mocked her, in effect, for what was she if not a Big Ugly by hatching?

They always seemed surprised when she did that. They hadn’t thought it through. They knew they were superior. They didn’t have to think it through.

No one in Rizzaffi had ever seen a Big Ugly before, except in video. Wild or citizen of the Empire didn’t matter. At the hotel, the staff treated her about the same as the American Tosevites. She wasn’t convinced the staff could tell the difference. She didn’t say anything about that. She feared she would find out she was right.

She sat glumly in the refectory, eating a supper that wasn’t anything special. The starship where she’d lived for so long had had better food than this. She didn’t stop to remember that that food had mostly Tosevite origins, though after the colonization fleet arrived some of the meat and grain came from species native to Home.

As often happened, she was eating by herself. The American Big Uglies did not invite her to join them. To make matters worse, they chattered among themselves in their own language, so she couldn’t even eavesdrop. She told herself she didn’t want to. She knew she was lying.

And then a surprising thing happened. One of the wild Tosevites got up and came over to her table. She had no trouble recognizing him, thanks to his brown skin. “I greet you, Researcher,” he said politely.

“And I greet you, Major Coffey,” Kassquit answered.

“May I sit down?” the Tosevite asked.

“Yes. Please do,” Kassquit said. Then she asked a question of her own: “Why do you want to?”

“To be sociable,” he replied. “That is the word, is it not? — sociable.”

“That is the word, yes.” Kassquit made the affirmative gesture.

Coffey sat down. The table, like most in the refectory, had been adapted-not very well-to Tosevite hindquarters and posture. The wild Big Ugly said, “What do you think of Rizzaffi?”

“Not much,” Kassquit answered at once. That startled a laugh out of Coffey. She asked, “What is your opinion of this place?”

“About the same as yours,” he said. “When I was a hatchling, I lived in the southeastern United States. Summers there are very warm and very humid. But this city beats any I ever saw.” He added an emphatic cough to show Rizzaffi was much worse than any other place he knew.

He used the Race’s language in the same interesting way as Sam Yeager. He spoke fluently, but every once in a while an odd or offbeat phrase would come through. Kassquit suspected those were idioms the wild Big Uglies translated literally from their own language. Had they done it often, it would have been annoying. As things were, piquant seemed the better word.

Kassquit said as much. Major Coffey’s face showed amusement. Kassquit wished her own features made such responses. But Ttomalss hadn’t-couldn’t have-responded to her when she tried to learn to smile as a hatchling, and the ability never developed. Coffey said, “So you find us worth a laugh, then?”

“That is not what I meant,” Kassquit said. “Some of your ways of putting things would make fine additions to the language.”

“I thank you,” the wild Big Ugly said. “Your language has certainly hatched many new words in English.”

“Yes, I can see how that might be-words for things you did not have before you met the Race,” Kassquit said.

“Many of those, certainly,” Coffey agreed. “But also others. We sometimes say credit, for instance, when we mean money. ” The first word he stressed was in the Race’s language, the second in his own. He went on, “And we will often use an interrogative cough by itself when we want to say, ‘What do you mean?’ or an emphatic cough to mean something like, ‘I should say so!’ ”

“But that is a barbarism!” Kassquit exclaimed. “The Race has never used the coughs by themselves.”

“I know. But we are not talking about the Race’s language right now. We are talking about English. What would be a barbarism in your language is just new slang in ours. English is a language that has always borrowed and adapted a lot from other tongues it has met.”

“How very strange,” Kassquit said. “The Race’s language is not like that.”

“No, eh?” Frank Coffey laughed a noisy Tosevite laugh. “What about ginger?”

“That is something the Race did not have before it came to Tosev 3,” Kassquit said, a little defensively. Even more defensively, she added, “To me, it would only be a spice. Biologically, I am as much a Tosevite as you are.”

“Yes, of course.” Coffey laughed again, on a different note. “Back on Tosev 3, though, I would not have expected to sit down to supper with a female without wrappings; I will say that.”

“Well, you are not on Tosev 3,” Kassquit replied with some irritation. “I follow the Empire’s customs, not yours. Karen Yeager already bothered me about this. I say your view is foolishness. You are the guests here; the Empire is your host. If anything, you should adapt to our customs, not the other way round.”

“I was not complaining,” the wild Big Ugly said. “I was merely observing.”

Kassquit started to accept that in the polite spirit in which it seemed to have been offered. Then she stopped with her reply unspoken. She sent Frank Coffey a sharp look. How had he meant what he’d just said? Was he making an observation, or was he observing… her?

And if he was observing her, what did he have in mind? What did she think about whatever he might have in mind? Those were both interesting questions. Since Kassquit wasn’t sure what she thought about whatever he might have in mind, she decided she didn’t need to know the answers right away.

Without even noticing she’d done it, she made the affirmative gesture. She didn’t need to know this instant, sure enough. Frank Coffey would spend a lot of time-probably the rest of his life-on Home.

And if he was interested, and if she was interested, they both might pass the time more pleasantly than if not. Or, on the other hand, they might quarrel. No way to know ahead of time. That helped make Tosevite social relationships even more complicated than they would have been otherwise.

Was the experiment worth attempting, then? She knew she was getting ahead of herself, reading too much into what might have been a chance remark. But she also knew Tosevite males probably would show interest if an opportunity presented itself. And she knew she probably would, too. Compared to Tosevite males, Tosevite females might be less aggressive. Compared to the Race… She was a Tosevite, no doubt about it.

Atvar watched with a certain wry amusement as the shuttlecraft returned from Rizzaffi. Nothing could have persuaded him to go there. He knew better. You could come down with a skin fungus just by sticking your snout outdoors. The place made much of Tosev 3 seem pleasant by comparison.

He wondered if suggesting they visit Rizzaffi had been an insult of sorts, one too subtle for them to understand. That was risky. Sam Yeager had a feeling for such things. Atvar shrugged. He’d find out.

One after another, the Big Uglies came off the shuttlecraft. Even from the terminal, Atvar had no trouble recognizing Kassquit, because she did not wear wrappings the way the wild Tosevites did. She was a strange creature, as much like a female of the Race as a Big Ugly could be. The more Atvar got to know her, the more he wondered if she came close enough. If all the Big Uglies on Tosev 3 were like her, would they make satisfactory citizens of the Empire?

He sighed. He really couldn’t say. She remained essentially Tosevite, essentially different, in a way the Rabotevs and Hallessi didn’t. With them, cultural similarity overwhelmed biological differences. They were variations on a theme also expressed in the Race. Big Uglies weren’t. No matter what cultural trappings were painted on them, they remained different underneath.

Here they came, the wild ones and Kassquit, on a cart that had its seats adapted to their shape. The cart stopped just outside the terminal. A gate opened. The Tosevites hurried inside.

Atvar walked forward. After all these years dealing with Big Uglies, he still had trouble telling one from another. Here, he had trained himself to look for Sam Yeager’s white head fur. If the Tosevite ever put on a hat, Atvar wasn’t sure he could pick him out from the others. As things were, though, he managed.

“I greet you, Ambassador,” he said.

“And I greet you, Fleetlord,” Yeager replied. “I still find it very strange to be called by that title. Do you understand?”

“Perhaps,” Atvar said. “Life does not always give us what we expect, though. Consider my surprise when the conquest fleet came to Tosev 3 and I discovered we would not have a walkover on our hands.”

Sam Yeager let out several yips of barking Tosevite laughter. “There you have me, Fleetlord, and I admit it. You must have found that a lot stranger than I find this.”

“To tell you the truth, I was never so horrified in all my life,” Atvar said, and Sam Yeager laughed again. The former head of the conquest fleet asked, “And what did you think of Rizzaffi?”

“Interesting place to visit,” Yeager said dryly-not the fitting word, not when speaking of the port city. “I would not care to live there.”

“Only someone addled in the eggshell would,” Atvar said. “I marvel that you chose to visit the place at all.” There. Now he’d said it. He could try to find out if someone really had insulted the Big Uglies by suggesting they go there.

But Sam Yeager shrugged and said, “It is an unusual part of your planet.”

“Well, that is a truth, by the spirits of Emperors past!” Atvar used an emphatic cough.

“Fair enough,” the Tosevite ambassador said. “I, for one, would like to see unusual places. We will see enough of the ordinary while we are here. And if the unusual is not always pleasant-we can leave. And I am glad we have left. But I am also glad we went.”

“If you go to Rizzaffi with that attitude, you will do all right,” Atvar said. “If you go to Rizzaffi with any other attitude-any other attitude at all, mind you-you will want to run away as fast as you can.”

“Not so bad as that,” Yeager said. “It does have some interesting animals in the neighborhood. That fibyen is a queer-looking beast, is it not?”

“Well, yes,” Atvar admitted. “But I would not go to Rizzaffi for interesting animals alone. If I wanted to see interesting animals, I would go to the zoo. That way, I would not grow mildew all over my scales.”

He got another loud Tosevite laugh from Sam Yeager. “When I put on corrective lenses outside to see something up close, they steamed over,” Yeager said.

“I am not surprised,” Atvar replied. “When you go back to your hotel, we will talk of things more interesting than Rizzaffi. The Emperor himself has taken an interest in your being here, you know.” He cast down his eye turrets.

“We are honored, of course,” Yeager said. Polite or ironic? Atvar couldn’t tell. The Big Ugly went on, “He probably wants to figure out the smoothest way to get rid of us, just like the rest of you.”

“No such thing!” Atvar had to work hard not to show how appalled he was. Was the Race so transparent to Tosevites? If it was, it was also in a lot of trouble. Or was that just Sam Yeager proving once again that he could think along with the Race as if he had scales and eye turrets and a tailstump? Atvar dared hope so. Other Big Uglies often didn’t listen to Yeager, no matter how right he usually proved.

Now he asked, “Is there any chance I might have an audience with the Emperor myself?”

“Would you like to?” Atvar said in surprise, and Sam Yeager made the affirmative gesture, for all the world as if he were a male of the Race. The fleetlord replied, “I cannot arrange that. You must submit a request to the court. The courtiers and the Emperor himself will make the final decision.”

“I see.” Yeager eyed Atvar in a way that made him uncomfortable despite the Big Ugly’s alien, nearly unreadable features. “I suspect a recommendation from someone of fleetlord’s rank would not hurt in getting my request accepted,” Yeager said shrewdly. “Or am I wrong?”

“No, you are not wrong. Influence matters, regardless of the world,” Atvar said. “I will make that recommendation on your behalf. If it is accepted, you will have to learn some fairly elaborate ceremonial.”

“I can do that, I think,” Sam Yeager said. “And I thank you for your kindness. I expect you will want something for it one of these days, which is only right. I will do what I can to arrange that. Influence runs both ways, after all. We have a saying: ‘You scratch my back and I will scratch yours.’ ”

“I understand your meaning,” Atvar said. “This saves me the trouble of raising such a delicate topic.”

“I am glad,” Yeager said, and that was irony. “I also hope the Emperor will be kind enough to forgive any breaches of protocol I might accidentally commit. I am only an ignorant alien who knows no better.”

Had any other alien ever known so much about the Race? Atvar had his doubts. He said, “Yes, there is precedent for such forgiveness from the days when the first Rabotevs and Hallessi came to reverence sovereigns long ago.”

“Well, I am very glad to hear it,” the Big Ugly said. “What is the usual penalty for botching the rituals in front of the Emperor?”

He would not cast down his eyes when he named the sovereign. That proved him foreign-a word the Race hadn’t had to think about for a long time before invading Tosev 3. It also irritated Atvar no end. With a certain sour amusement, then, he answered, “Traditionally, it is being thrown to the beasts.”

There, he took Sam Yeager by surprise. “Is it?” he said. “Forgive me for saying so, but that strikes me as a trifle drastic.” He paused. “What are the beasts these wicked males and females are thrown to?”

“You are too clever,” Atvar said. “In the ancientest days, long before Home was unified, they were sdanli-large, fierce predators. Ever since, though, they have been courtiers in sdanli-skin masks who tell the incompetent wretches what fools and idiots they are and how they did not deserve their audiences.”

“Really?” Sam Yeager asked. Atvar made the affirmative gesture. The wild Big Ugly laughed. “I like that. It is very… symbolic.”

“Just so,” Atvar said. “The pain, perhaps, is less than that of actually being devoured. But the humiliation remains. Males and females have been known to slay themselves in shame after such a session with the courtiers. For most of them, of course, one audience with the Emperor”-he cast down his eye turrets-“is all they will ever have, and is, or would be, the high point of their lives. When it suddenly becomes the low point instead, they can think only of escape.”

An audience with the Emperor would in a sense be wasted on a wild Big Ugly. He wouldn’t appreciate the honor granted him. Without a hundred thousand years of tradition behind it, what would it mean to him? A meeting with a sovereign not his own, a meeting with a sovereign he reckoned no more than equal to his own. Back on Tosev 3, Atvar had had to pretend he believed the Big Uglies’ not-emperors to be of the same rank as the Emperor. Here on Home, he didn’t have to go through that farce. But for Sam Yeager, it was no farce. It was a truth.

The Big Ugly said, “Well, you would not have to worry about that with me.”

“No, I suppose not,” Atvar said; Yeager had just gone a long way toward confirming his own thoughts of a moment before. Even so, the fleetlord went on, “I will, as I said, support your request if you like. How the courtiers and the Emperor respond to it, though, is not within the grip of my fingerclaws.”

“I would be very grateful for your support, Fleetlord, very grateful indeed.” Yeager used an emphatic cough. “Back on Tosev 3, the Race’s ambassador would meet with my not-emperor. Only seems fair to turn things around here.”

He truly did believe a wild Big Ugly chosen for a limited term by an absurd process of snoutcounting matched in importance the ruler of three and a half inhabited planets spread over four solar systems.

Ah, but if the Emperor had only ruled four planets…! Since he didn’t, Atvar had to put up with Yeager’s provincial arrogance. “Again, Ambassador, I will do what I can on your behalf.”

Maybe the Emperor would reject the idea. But maybe he wouldn’t. He was certainly interested in the Big Uglies and concerned about them. Atvar suspected the audience, if granted, would not be publicized. Too many males and females would envy the Big Ugly.

Yeager said, “You know we American Big Uglies”-he used the Race’s slang for his species without self-consciousness-“have a literature imagining technological achievements of which we are not yet capable?”

“I have heard that, yes,” Atvar replied. “Why do you mention it now?”

“Because there are times when my being here on Home feels as if it came from one of those stories,” the Tosevite said. “If I were to meet the Emperor of another intelligent species, how could it seem like anything but what we call science fiction?” He laughed. “I probably should not tell you that. I am sure the Doctor never would have said anything so undiplomatic.”

“You are honest. You are candid,” Atvar said. And, no matter how well you can think like one of us, you are not, and I fear, never will be.

After some little while on Home, Karen Yeager was getting used to being stared at whenever she went out on the streets of Sitneff. The Lizards didn’t come right up and harass her and Jonathan and the de la Rosas, but eye turrets always swiveled toward the humans. Some males and females would exclaim and point. Karen didn’t like it, but she supposed it was inevitable.

Sometimes she stared right back-mostly at the males and females who wore wigs and T-shirts and sometimes even shorts: shorts ventilated for their tailstumps. Did they have any idea how ridiculous they looked? Probably about as ridiculous as humans with shaved heads and body paint, but she didn’t dwell on that.

And then one day, like the most curious Lizard, she was pointing and exclaiming at the little green man-that was what he looked like-coming out of a shop. “Look!” she exclaimed in English. “A Halless!” She felt as if she’d spotted a rare and exotic species of bird.

The Halless was about as tall as a Lizard, which meant he came up to her chest. He was the green of romaine lettuce, though his hide was scaly, not leafy. He stood more nearly erect than Lizards did. His feet were wide and flat, his hands-only three fingers and a thumb on each-spidery and delicate.

Like the Rabotev shuttlecraft pilot they’d met, he had a shorter snout than did males and females of the Race. Unlike the Rabotevs and the Lizards, he had ears: long, pointed ones, set high up on his round head. His eyes were on stalks longer than those of the Rabotevs, and could look in different directions at the same time.

None of the Lizards paid any special attention to him. They were used to Hallessi. He stared at the humans with as much curiosity as the members of the Race showed. In a high, thin, squeaky voice, he said, “I greet you, Tosevites.”

“And we greet you, Halless,” Karen answered, wondering what she sounded like to him. “May I ask your name?”

“Wakonafula,” he answered, which didn’t sound like a handle a Lizard would carry. “And you are…?”

Karen gave her name. So did her husband and Tom and Linda de la Rosa. They seemed willing to let her do the talking, so she did: “We have never met anyone from your world before. Can you tell us what it is like?”

Wakonafula made the negative gesture. “I am sorry, but I cannot, not from personal experience. I was hatched here on Home, as were several generations of my ancestors. I have seen videos of Halless 1, but I suppose you will have done that, too. And I have also seen videos of Tosev 3. How can you possibly exist on such a miserably cold, wet world?”

“It does not seem that way to us,” Tom de la Rosa said. “We are evolved to find it normal. To us, Home is a miserably hot, dry world.”

“That strikes me as very strange,” Wakonafula said. “When it is so pleasant here… But, as you say, you are adapted to conditions on Tosev 3, however nasty they may be.”

“Why did your ancestors leave their planet and come to Home?” Karen asked.

“A fair number of students come here from Halless 1-and also from Rabotev 2, for that matter-for courses not available on other worlds,” the Halless answered. “Home still has the best universities in the Empire, even after all these millennia. And some students, having completed their work, choose to stay here instead of going back into cold sleep and back to the worlds where they hatched. We are citizens of the Empire, too, after all.”

Back when India belonged to Britain and not to the Race, some of its bright youngsters had traveled halfway around the world to study at Oxford and Cambridge. Not all of them went back to their homeland once their studies were done, either. Some stayed in London and formed an Indian community there. Funny to think that the same sort of thing could happen so many light-years from Earth.

“May I ask you a question?” Linda de la Rosa asked.

Now Wakonafula used the affirmative gesture. “Speak,” he urged.

“I thank you,” Linda said. “Does it not trouble you that Home has the best universities? If your folk ruled Halless 1 instead of the colonists from Home, would it not have the very best of everything?”

Trir, the humans’ Lizard guide, spluttered indignantly. She sounded like an angry tea kettle. Karen had trouble blaming her. If Linda wasn’t preaching sedition, she was coming mighty close.

But Wakonafula said, “You have asked several questions, not one. Let me answer like this: if it were not for the Race, we would still be barbarians. We would die of diseases we easily cure today, thanks to the Race. We would go to war with one another; our planet had several rival empires when the conquest fleet came. Thanks to the Race, we live at peace. If Halless 1 is not equal to Home in every way-and it is not, as far as I can tell from here-it is far closer than it was before the conquest. In the fullness of time, it will catch up.”

He sounded calmly confident. In the fullness of time… How many humans had ever had the patience to wait for the fullness of time? The Race did. Back on Earth, the Lizards had always insisted that Hallessi and Rabotevs thought more like them than like humans. Judging by Wakonafula, they had a point. Humans commonly preferred kicking over the apple cart now to waiting for the fullness of time.

On the other hand, how reliable was Wakonafula? Was he a chance-met Hallessi, as he seemed to be? Or was he a plant, primed to tell the Big Uglies what the Race wanted them to hear? How could anyone be sure? That was a good question. Karen knew she had no certain answer for it.

“If you will excuse me, I must be on my way,” the Halless said now, and left. Yes, he might well have had-probably did have-business of his own to take care of. But that casual departure roused Karen’s suspicions.

And then Trir said, “You see that all species within the Empire are happy to be a part of it.”

Once roused, Karen’s suspicions soared. This was pretty clumsy propaganda-but then, the Lizards never had been as smooth about such things as people were. More than a little annoyed, she said, “I am very sorry, but I do not see anything of the sort.”

“How could you not?” the guide asked in what sounded like genuine surprise. “The Halless said-”

“I heard what he said,” Karen broke in. “But his saying it does not have to make it a truth. He could easily have received instructions from superiors about what he was to tell us.”

“That is a shocking suggestion,” Trir exclaimed.

Karen’s husband made the negative gesture. “I do not think so,” Jonathan Yeager said. “Such things happen all the time on Tosev 3. No reason they should not happen here as well.”

“Why should we resort to such trickery?” Trir asked.

“To make us believe things in the Empire are better than they really are,” Karen said. “Do you not agree that would be to your advantage?”

Trir let out an indignant hiss. “I will not even dignify such a claim with a response. Its foolishness must be as obvious to you as it is to me.”

Was there any point to arguing more? Reluctantly, Karen decided there wasn’t. The Lizard was not going to admit anything. Maybe Trir really didn’t see there was anything to admit. Karen wouldn’t have been surprised, only saddened, to find that was so. Plenty of humans couldn’t see their superiors’ ulterior motives, either.

And the guide also seemed perturbed, saying, “Perhaps we should go back to the hotel. That way, no more unfortunate incidents can take place.”

“This was not unfortunate. This was interesting,” Tom de la Rosa said. “We learned something about the Hallessi and something about the Empire.” And if we didn’t learn exactly what you wanted us to, well, too bad, Karen thought. But Trir was unlikely to see things like that.

A genuinely unfortunate incident did happen not long before they got to the hotel. A Lizard skittered up to them and said, “You things are what they call Big Uglies, right? You are not Hallessi or Rabotevs? No-you cannot be. I know what they look like, and you do not look like that. You must be Big Uglies.”

“Go away. Do not bother these individuals,” Trir said sharply.

“It is not a bother,” Karen Yeager said. “Yes, we are from Tosev 3. Why do you ask?”

“Ginger!” The stranger added an emphatic cough. “You must have some of the herb. I will buy it from you. I will give you whatever you want for it. Tell me what that is, and I will pay it. I am not a poor male.” Another emphatic cough.

Such things had happened before, but never with such naked, obvious, desperate longing. “I am sorry,” Karen said, “but we have no ginger.”

“You must!” the Lizard exclaimed. “You must! I will go mad-utterly mad, I tell you-if I do not get what I need.”

“Police!” the guide shouted. Hissing out a string of curses, the Lizard who wanted drugs scurried away. Trir said, “Please ignore that male’s disgraceful conduct. It is abnormal, depraved, and altogether disgusting. You should never have been exposed to it.”

“We know about the Race and ginger,” Karen said. “The problem on Tosev 3 is far larger and far worse than it is here.”

“Impossible!” Trir declared, proving Lizards could be parochial, too.

“Not only not impossible, but a truth,” Karen said, and tacked on an emphatic cough. “Remember-on our home planet ginger is cheap and easily available. A large number of colonists there use it. In fact, it is beginning to change the entire society of the Race there.”

“A drug? What a ridiculous notion. You must be lying to me on purpose,” Trir said angrily.

“She is not.” Now Jonathan Yeager used an emphatic cough. “Remember, ginger brings females into their season. If females are continuously in season, males also come into season continuously. On Tosev 3, the Race’s sexuality has grown much more like ours.”

The guide’s tailstump quivered in agitation. “That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard in my life.”

“Which does not mean that it is anything but a truth,” Karen said. “A little investigation on your computer network will prove as much.”

“I do not believe it,” Trir said in a voice like a slamming door. Karen did not believe the Lizard would do any investigating. Among the Race as among humans, clinging to what one was already sure of was easier and more satisfying than finding out for oneself. Trir pointed. “And here is the hotel.” Here is where I can get rid of you and your dangerous ideas.

“There’s no place like home,” Karen said in English. Her husband and the de la Rosas laughed. Trir was bewildered. Since Karen was annoyed at her, she didn’t bother translating, and left the Lizard that way.

The scooters aboard the Admiral Peary easily outdid the ones the Lewis and Clark had carried. The little rockets had the advantage of thirty years’ development in electronics, motors, and materials. They were lighter, stronger, faster, and better than the ones Glen Johnson had used in the asteroid belt. They carried more fuel, too, so he could travel farther.

In principle, though, they remained the same. They had identical rocket motors at front and back, and smaller maneuvering jets all around. Get one pointed the way you wanted it to go, accelerate, get near where you were going, use the nose rocket to decelerate the same amount, and there you were. Easy as pie… in theory.

Of course, lots of things that were easy in theory turned out to be something else again in reality. This was one of those. Even with radar, gauging distances and vectors and burn times wasn’t easy. But Johnson had started as a Marine pilot flying piston-engined fighters against the Race. He’d been shot down twice, and still carried a burn scar on his right arm as a souvenir of those insane days. If he hadn’t been recovering from his wounds when the fighting stopped, he would have gone up again-and likely got shot down again, this time permanently. Life for human pilots during the invasion had been nasty, brutish, and almost always short.

And Johnson had done as much patrol flying in Earth orbit as any man around before… joining the crew of the Lewis and Clark. And he’d taken a scooter from the Lewis and Clark to one rock in the asteroid belt or another, and from rock to rock as well. If any human being was qualified to fly one while orbiting Home, he was the man.

He discovered spacesuit design had changed while he was in cold sleep, too. The changes weren’t major, but the helmet was less crowded, instruments were easier to read, and there were fewer sharp edges and angles on which he could bang his head. All of this was the sort of thing the Lizards would have done automatically before they ever let anybody into a spacesuit. People didn’t work that way. If things weren’t perfect, people went ahead regardless. That was why the Admiral Peary had got to the Tau Ceti system-and why the Doctor hadn’t.

“Testing-one, two, three,” Johnson said into his radio mike. “Do you read?”

“Read you five by five, scooter,” a voice replied in his ear. “Do you read me?”

“Also five by five,” Johnson said. “Ready to be launched.”

“Roger.” The outer door to the air lock opened. Johnson used the maneuvering jets to ease the scooter out of the lock and away from the ship. Only after he was safely clear of the Admiral Peary did he fire up the rocket at the stern. It gave him a little weight, or acceleration’s simulation of weight. He guided the scooter toward the closest Lizard spaceship.

“Calling the Horned Akiss, ” he said into his radio mike. An akiss was a legendary creature among the Race-close enough to a dragon for government work. Horned Akiss made a pretty good name for a military spacecraft, which that one was. “Repeat-calling the Horned Akiss. This is the Admiral Peary ’s number-one scooter. Requesting permission to approach, as previously arranged.”

“Permission granted.” A Lizard’s voice sounded in his ear. “Approach air lock number three. Repeat-number three.” To guide him, red and yellow lights came on around the designated air lock. The Lizard continued, “Remember, you and your scooter will be searched before you are permitted into the ship.”

“I understand,” Johnson said. The males and females aboard the Lizards’ ship weren’t worried about weapons. If he tried a treacherous attack on the Horned Akiss, the rest of the Race’s ships would go after the Admiral Peary. What they were worried about was ginger smuggling.

The radar and computer would have told Johnson when to make his deceleration burn and for how long-if he’d paid any attention to them. He did it by eye and feel instead, and got what was for all practical purposes the same result: the scooter lay motionless relative to the air lock. When the outer door opened, he eased the scooter inside with the maneuvering jets, the same way as he’d brought it out of the Admiral Peary ’s air lock.

Behind him, the outer door closed. The Lizard on the radio said, “You may now remove your spacesuit for search.” Before Johnson did, he checked to make sure the pressure in the air lock was adequate. The Lizard hadn’t been lying to him. Even so, he was cautious as he broke the seal on his face plate, and ready to slam it shut again if things weren’t as they seemed.

They were. The air the Race breathed had a smaller percentage of oxygen than the Earthly atmosphere, but the overall pressure was a little higher, so things evened out. He could smell the Lizards: a faint, slightly musky odor, not unpleasant. The Horned Akiss’ crew probably didn’t even know it was there. When he got back to the Admiral Peary, he’d smell people the same way for a little while, till his nose got used to them again.

The inner airlock door opened. Two Lizards glided in, moving at least as smoothly weightless as humans did. “We greet you,” one of them said. “Now-out of that suit.” He added an emphatic cough.

“I obey,” Johnson said. Under the suit, he wore a T-shirt and shorts. He could have gone naked, for all the Race cared. The Lizards in charge of security had long wands they used to sniff out ginger. One went over the spacesuit, the other Johnson and the scooter. Only after no alarm lights came on did Johnson ask, “Are you satisfied now?”

“Moderately so,” answered the one who’d examined him. “We will still X-ray the scooter, to make sure you have not secreted away some of the herb in the tubing. But, for now, you may enter the Horned Akiss. If you prove to be smuggling, you will not be allowed to leave.”

“I thank you so much!” Johnson exclaimed, and used an emphatic cough. “And I greet you, too.”

Both Lizards’ mouths fell open in silent, toothy laughs. Johnson was laughing, too. He’d visited the Race’s spacecraft before. Their searches were always as thorough as this one. They didn’t know whether the Admiral Peary had ginger aboard. They didn’t believe in taking chances, though.

Together, they said, “We greet you. We like you. If you are carrying the herb, we will like you too well to let you leave, as we have said. Otherwise, welcome.”

Except for that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play? Johnson thought wryly. “I thank you so very much!” he repeated, tacking on another emphatic cough. For good measure, he also bent into the posture of respect.

That made the Lizards laugh again. “You are more sarcastic than you have any business being,” one of them said.

“Oh, no.” Johnson used the Race’s negative gesture. “You are mistaken. This is normal for Big Uglies.”

They laughed one more time. “No wonder your species is so much trouble,” said the one who’d spoken before.

“No wonder at all,” Johnson agreed. “Now, come on-take me to your leader.” He did some laughing of his own. “I always wanted to say that.”

Neither of the Lizards got the joke. But they understood irony as well as he did. Both of them assumed the posture of respect. They chorused, “It shall be done, superior Big Ugly!”

As a matter of fact, by their body paint and his own eagles, Johnson did outrank them. It was pretty damn funny any which way. And they did take him to their leader.

The corridors in the Horned Akiss were narrower and lower than those aboard the Admiral Peary. Not surprising, not when Lizards were smaller than people. The handholds were of a slightly different shape and set at distances Johnson found oddly inconvenient. But he managed with minimal difficulty. The laws of the universe operated in the same way for the Lizards as they did for mankind. The differences between spacecraft were in the details. The broad brush strokes remained the same.

Medium Spaceship Commander Henrep’s office even reminded Johnson of Lieutenant General Charles Healey‘s. It had the same sense of carefully constrained order. Henrep looked even more like a snapping turtle than Healey did, too, but he couldn’t help it-he was hatched that way. Fixing Johnson with both eyes, he asked, “What is the real purpose of this visit?”

“Friendship,” Johnson answered. “Nothing but friendship.”

“An overrated concept,” Henrep declared-yes, he did have a good deal in common with Healey.

Johnson used the negative gesture again. “I think you are mistaken, superior sir. The Race is going to have to learn to get along with wild Tosevites, and wild Tosevites are going to have to learn to get along with the Race. If we do not, we will destroy each other, and neither side would benefit from that.”

Henrep remained unimpressed. “The Race can certainly destroy your species. Just as certainly, you cannot destroy us. You can, no doubt, ruin Tosev 3. You can, perhaps, damage Home. You cannot harm Halless 1 or Rabotev 2. The Empire would be wounded, yes. But even at the worst it would go on.”

“That is the situation as we here know it now, yes,” Johnson replied. “But how do you know my not-empire has not sent starships to Rabotev and Halless to attack their inhabited planets in case of trouble elsewhere between your kind and mine? Are you sure that is not so?”

By the way Henrep glowered, the only thing he was sure of was that he couldn’t stand the human floating in front of him. His tailstump quivering with anger, he said, “That would be vicious and brutal beyond belief.”

“So it would. So would destroying us,” Johnson said. “We can do each other a lot of damage. That is why it would be better to live as friends.”

“It would have been better to destroy you before you had any chance of threatening us,” Henrep said angrily. He not only acted like Lieutenant General Healey, he thought like him, too.

“Maybe it would-though I would not agree with that,” Johnson said. “But it is much too late to worry about that now. And so, superior sir… friendship.”

A phone on Henrep’s desk hissed before he could tell Johnson just where to put his friendship. The Lizard listened, spoke a quick agreement, and hung up. One of his eyes swung back to Johnson. “You have no ginger.” He sounded almost as accusing as if the human had tried to smuggle twenty tons of the herb.

“I could have told you that. I did tell you that.”

“So you did. But you are a Big Ugly. That makes you a liar until proved otherwise.” Henrep’s second eye turret moved toward Johnson. “How long do you think your slow, homely excuse for a ship could survive if we really went after it?”

“Long enough to smash up your planet, superior sir.” Johnson turned what should have been a title of respect into one of contempt. “And if you do not believe me, you are welcome to find out for yourself.”

Henrep sputtered like a leaky pot with a tight lid over a hot fire. Johnson swallowed a sigh. So much for friendship, he thought.

Jonathan Yeager held up a hand. The guide waggled an eye turret in his direction to tell him he might speak. He asked, “How old did you say that building back there was?”

“Why did you not pay closer attention when I spoke before?” Trir snapped.

“Well, excuse my ignorance,” Jonathan said.

In English, Karen said, “What’s her problem? She’s supposed to be telling us what’s what. That’s her job. If we want to find out more, she should be happy.”

“Beats me,” Jonathan said, also in English.

That didn’t seem to suit Trir, either. The guide said, “Why do you not speak a language a civilized person can understand?”

“Maybe I will,” Jonathan answered, returning to the Race’s tongue, “when I see you acting like a civilized person.”

Trir sputtered and hissed indignantly. “That’s telling her,” Tom de la Rosa said in English. His wife nodded.

Karen said, “I think we all need to behave ourselves better.” She used the language of the Race, and looked right at Trir.

The guide made a gesture Jonathan had not seen before, one obviously full of annoyance. “You Big Uglies have to be the most foolish species ever to imagine itself intelligent,” she said. “Do you not even understand what is going on around you?”

All the humans exchanged confused looks. “It could be that we do not,” Jonathan said. “Perhaps you would be generous enough to explain the situation-whatever the situation is-to us?”

That produced an exasperated snort from Trir. “That such things should be necessary…” she muttered, and then, reluctantly, used the affirmative gesture. “Oh, very well. There does seem to be no help for it. Can you not sense that, along with other females in this region, I am approaching the mating season? This is its effect on my behavior. Before long, the males’ scent receptors will start noting our pheromones, and then life will be… hectic for a little while.”

“Oh,” Jonathan said. The Lizards went through mating seasons on Earth, too, but there were so many ginger-tasters there that the rhythm of their life wasn’t so well defined as it was here on Home. He went on, “Apologies. I did not know it. Your pheromones mean nothing to us, you know.”

“Tosevites,” Trir said, more to herself, he judged, than to him. She gathered herself. “Well, that is the situation. If you cannot adjust to it, do not blame me.”

She still sounded far more irritable than Lizards usually did. Jonathan said, “We will try to adjust. Perhaps you should do the same, if that is possible for you.”

“Of course it is possible.” Trir sounded furious. “How dare you presume it is anything but possible?”

“Well, if it is, suppose you tell me once more how old that building back there is,” Jonathan said.

“If you had been listening-” But the Lizard caught herself. “Oh, very well, since you insist. It was built in the reign of the 29th Emperor Rekrap, more than seven thousand years ago-fairly recently, then.”

“Fairly recently,” Jonathan echoed. “Oh, yes, superior female. Truth.” Seven thousand of the Race’s years were about thirty-five hundred of Earth‘s. So that building wasn’t older than the Pyramids. It was about the same age as Stonehenge. Old as the hills as far as mankind was concerned. Nothing special, not to the Race.

Tom de la Rosa asked, “What are the oldest buildings in this city?”

“Here in Sitneff?” Trir said. “Most of the construction here dates from modern times. This is a region with some seismic activity-not a lot, but some. Few of the structures here go back much beyond twenty-five thousand years.”

All the humans started to laugh. Frank Coffey said, “Even dividing by two, that’s not what I call modern.” He spoke in English, but tacked on an emphatic cough just the same.

And he wasn’t wrong. What had people been doing 12,500 years ago? Hunting and gathering-that was it. They were just starting to filter down into the Americas. The latest high-tech weapons system was the bow and arrow. They might have domesticated the dog. On the other hand, they might not have, too. No one on Earth knew how to plant a crop or read or write or get any kind of metal out of a rock.

And the Race? The Race, by then, had already conquered the Rabotevs. Lizards were living on Epsilon Eridani 2 as well as Tau Ceti 2. Life here on Home had changed only in details, in refinements, since then.

They’re still doing the same things they did back then, and doing them the same old way, pretty much, Jonathan thought. Us? We got from nowhere to here, and we got here under our own power.

Trir looked at things differently. “It is because rebuilding is sometimes necessary in this part of the world that Sitneff enjoys so few traditions. It is part of the present but, unfortunately, not really part of the past.” As the humans laughed again, the guide’s eye turrets swung from one of them to the next. “Do I see that you are dubious about what I have said?”

Laughing still, Jonathan said, “Well, superior female, it all depends on what you mean by the past. Back on Tosev 3, our whole recorded history is only about ten thousands of your years old.”

That made Trir’s mouth drop open in a laugh of her own. “How very curious,” she said. “Perhaps that accounts for some of your semibarbarous behavior.”

“Maybe it does,” Jonathan said. He thought Trir’s rudeness was at least semibarbarous, but he was willing to let it pass. This wasn’t his planet, after all.

Linda de la Rosa saw things differently. “What sort of behavior do you call it when you insult the guests you are supposed to be guiding? We did not need nearly as long as you did to learn to travel among the stars, and we deserve all proper respect for that.” She finished with an emphatic cough.

Trir’s nictitating membranes flicked back and forth across her eyes: a gesture of complete astonishment. “How dare you speak to me that way?” she demanded.

“I speak to you as one equal to another, as one equal telling another she has shown bad manners,” Linda de la Rosa answered. “If you do not care for that, behave better. You will not have the problem any more in that case, I promise you.”

“How can you be so insolent?” Trir’s tailstump quivered furiously.

“Maybe I am a semibarbarian, as you say. Maybe I just recognize one when I hear one,” Linda told her.

That didn’t make Trir any happier. In tones colder than the weather even at Home’s South Pole, she said, “I think it would be an excellent idea to return to your lodgings now. I also think it would be an excellent idea to furnish you with a new guide, one more tolerant of your… vagaries.”

They walked back to the hotel in tense silence. Trir said nothing about any of the buildings they passed. The Race might have signed its Declaration of Independence in one and its Constitution in the next. If it had, the humans heard not a word about it. The buildings remained no more than piles of stone and concrete. Whatever had happened in them in days gone by, whatever might be happening in them now, would remain forever mysterious-at least if the humans had to find out from Trir.

And things did not improve once Jonathan and the rest of the Americans got back to the hotel. A sort of tension was in the air. Trir was far from the only snappy, peevish Lizard Jonathan saw. The scaly crests between the eyes of males, crests that normally lay flat, began to come up in display.

“Nobody’s going to want to pay any attention to us for the next few weeks,” Jonathan said to Karen after they went up to their room.

She nodded. “Sure does look that way, doesn’t it? They aren’t going to pay attention to anything but screwing themselves silly.”

“Which is what they always say we do,” Jonathan added. With any luck at all, the Lizards snooping and translating would be embarrassed-if the jamming let their bugs pick up anything. “Either they don’t know us as well as they think they do, or they don’t know themselves as well as they think they do.”

“Maybe,” Karen answered. “Or maybe they just took their data from you when you were in your twenties.”

“Ha!” Jonathan said. “Don’t I wish!” He paused, then added, “What I really wish is that I could do half now of what I did then. Of course, there’s not a guy my age who wouldn’t say that.”

“Men,” Karen said, not altogether unkindly. “You just have to make up in technique what you lose in, ah, enthusiasm.”

“Is that what it is?” Jonathan said. She nodded. In an experimental way, he stepped toward her. The experiment proved successful enough that, after a little while, they lay down on the sleeping mat together. Some time after that, he asked, “Well, did I?”

“Did you what?” Karen’s voice was lazy.

“Make up in technique what I’ve lost in enthusiasm?”

She poked him in the ribs. “Well, what do you think? Besides, you seemed enthusiastic enough to me.”

“Good.”

Later, after they were both dressed again, Karen remarked, “The funny thing is, we talk about sex even more than we do it. The Lizards?” She shook her head. “They talk about it even less than they do it. It’s like they try to forget about mating season when it isn’t happening.”

“Hell, they do forget about it when it isn’t happening,” Jonathan said. “If something had happened to the colonization fleet so it never got to Earth, the males from the conquest fleet wouldn’t have cared if they never mated again, poor bastards. Without the pheromones, it just doesn’t matter to them.”

“That isn’t quite what I meant. They don’t write novels about what goes on during mating season, or plays, or songs, or much of anything. They don’t care, not the way we do.”

Jonathan thought that over. Slowly, he said, “When they’re not in the mating season, they don’t care about sex at all.” He held up a hasty hand. “Yes, I know you just said that. I wasn’t done. When they are in the season, they don’t care about anything else. They’re too busy doing it to want to write about it or sing about it.”

“Maybe,” Karen said.

Jonathan suddenly laughed. She sent him a quizzical look. He said, “Back on Earth, if they keep using ginger the way they were, they really will get to where they’re a little horny all the time, the way we are. I wonder if they will start writing about it then back there, and what the Lizards here on Home will think of them if they do.”

“Probably that they’re a bunch of perverts,” Karen said. “They already think that about us.”

“Yeah, I know, you old pervert, you,” Jonathan said. “But we have fun.”

Atvar tried to keep his mind on the discussion. Sam Yeager had presented some serious proposals on ways in which the Race and the wild Big Uglies could hope to keep the peace, both back on Tosev 3 and in the solar systems that made up the Empire. He’d also pointed out the obvious once more: now that the Big Uglies had interstellar travel of their own, trade with the Empire would take on a new footing. The Race would have to start taking steps to accommodate Tosevite starships.

Those were important points. Certain males and females here on Home had realized as much years earlier. Nothing had been done about that realization, though. No one seemed to know when or if anything would be taken care of. Nothing moved quickly here. Nothing had had to, not for millennia.

But anyone who delayed while dealing with the Big Uglies would be sorry, and in short order. Atvar knew that. He made the point whenever he could, and as forcefully as he could. Hardly anybody seemed to want to listen to him.

And he had trouble listening to Sam Yeager right now. The scales on his crest kept twitching up. They were not under his conscious control. He had pheromones in the scent receptors on his tongue. Next to that, ordinary business, even important ordinary business, seemed pallid stuff.

At last, when he realized he hadn’t heard the last three points the wild Big Ugly had brought up, he raised a hand. “I am sorry, Ambassador,” he said. “I am very sorry indeed. But even for an old male like me, mating season is here. I cannot keep my mind on business while I smell females. We can take this up again when the madness subsides, if that is all right with you.”

Sam Yeager laughed in the loud, barking Tosevite way. “And we can take it up again when the madness subsides even if that is not all right with me,” he said. “The Race may not have mating on its mind most of the year, but you sure make up for lost time when you do.”

Ruefully, Atvar made the affirmative gesture. “That is a truth, Ambassador. It is not a truth we are particularly proud of, but it is a truth.”

“You do not offend me. You are what you are,” the Big Ugly said. “I will remind you that you needed much longer to say the same thing about us.”

“That is also a truth,” Atvar admitted. “And it is a truth that your habits still strike us as unhealthy and repulsive. But your biology has made you what you are, as ours has done with us. We can accept that. What is particularly unhealthy and repulsive to us is the way ginger has made us begin to imitate your sexual patterns. Our biology has not adapted us to be continuously interested in mating.”

“Well, you can borrow some of our forms from us,” Sam Yeager replied. “Back on Tosev 3, you already seem to have discovered the idea of marriage-and the idea of prostitution.” The two key words were in English; the language of the Race had no short, exact term for either.

Atvar had heard both English words often enough before going into cold sleep to know what they meant. He despised the words and the concepts behind them. The Race had brought civilization to the Rabotevs and the Hallessi-and to the Tosevites. What could be more humiliating than borrowing ways to live from barbarians? Nothing he could think of.

But right now he could hardly think at all-and he did not much want to, either. “If you will excuse me…” he said, and rose from his chair and hurried out of the conference chamber.

Somewhere not far away, a female was ready to mate. That was all he needed to know. He turned his head now this way, now that, seeking the source of that wonderful, alluring odor. It was stronger that way… He hurried down a corridor. His hands spread, stretching out his fingerclaws as far as they would go. Males often brawled during mating season. Some of the brawls were fatal. Penalties for such affrays were always light, and often suspended. Everyone understood that such things happened under the influence of pheromones. It was too bad, but what could you do?

There! There she was! And there was another male-a miserable creature, by his body paint a hotel nutritionist, second class-headed for her. Atvar hissed furiously. Of their own accord, the scales that made up his crest lifted themselves from the top of his head. That was partly display for the female’s sake, partly a threat gesture aimed at the hotel nutritionist.

“Go away!” the nutritionist said, hissing angrily.

Instead of answering with words, Atvar leaped at him, ready to claw and bite and do whatever he had to do to make his rival retreat. The hotel nutritionist was much younger, but not very spirited. He snapped halfheartedly as Atvar came forward, but then turned and fled without making a real fight of it.

Atvar let out a triumphant snort. He turned back to the female. “Now,” he said urgently.

And now it was. She bent before him. Her tailstump twisted to one side, out of the way. He poised himself above and behind her. Their cloacas joined. Pleasure shot through him.

Still driven by the pheromones in the air, Atvar would have coupled again. But the female skittered away. “Enough!” she said. “You have done what you needed to do.”

“I have not yet done everything I want to do,” Atvar said. The female ignored him. He hadn’t expected anything different. He might have hoped, but he hadn’t expected. And his own mating drive was less urgent than it had been in his younger days. He trotted off. If that hotel nutritionist, second class, made a sufficiently aggressive display to this female, he might yet get a chance to mate with her. But my sperm are still in the lead, Atvar thought smugly.

He went out into the street. It was chaos there, as he’d thought it would be. Males and females coupled on the sidewalk and even in the middle of traffic. Sometimes, males overwhelmed by pheromones would leap out of their vehicles and join females. Or females in cars and trucks would see a mating display and be so stimulated that they would stop their machines, get out, and assume the mating position in the middle of the road.

Accidents always skyrocketed at this time of year, along with the brawls. It was no wonder that the Race didn’t care to think about the mating season when it finally ended. Males and females simply were not themselves, and they knew it. Who would want to remember a time like this, let alone celebrate the mating urge the way the Big Uglies did? Incomprehensible.

Atvar coupled with another female out in front of the hotel. Then, sated for the moment, he watched the show all around him. It was interesting for the time being, but he knew he was pheromone-addled. When the pheromones wore off, so would the appeal of the spectacle.

Overhead, a pair of squazeffi flew by. They were conjoined. A lot of creatures mated at this time of year. That way, the eggs the females laid would hatch in the springtime, when the chance for hatchlings’ survival was highest. Like other flying creatures on Home, they had long necks, beaky mouths full of teeth, and bare, membranous wings with claws on the forward margin. Their hides were a safe, sensible green-brown, not much different from the color of his own skin.

Tosev 3 had nothing like squazeffi. Similar animals had once existed there, but were millions of years extinct. Instead, the dominant fliers there were gaudy creatures with feathers. Atvar had never got used to birds, not in all the time he’d spent on the Big Uglies’ homeworld. They looked more like something a gifted but strange video-game designer might imagine than anything real or natural.

He wondered what the Tosevites thought of squazeffi and other proper flying things. If he still remembered to ask after mating season-by no means certain, not with the pheromones addling him-he would have to ask them. In the meantime…

In the meantime, he ambled back into the hotel. A Big Ugly-the dark brown one named Coffey-walked past him. Like Rabotevs and Hallessi, the Tosevite was oblivious to the pheromones filling the air around him. He said, “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” as if Atvar weren’t thinking more of females than of anything else.

The fleetlord managed to reply, “And I greet you.” Frank Coffey smelled like a Tosevite-a strange odor to a male of the Race, but not one to which to pay much attention during mating season.

Then Atvar spotted Trir. The guide saw him at the same time. His crest flared erect. He straightened into a display a male used only at this time of year. Trir might not have intended to mate with him. But the visual cues from his display had the same effect on her as females’ pheromones had on him. She bent into the mating posture. He hurried around behind her and completed the act. After his hiss of pleasure, she hurried away.

Frank Coffey had paused to watch the brief coupling. “May I ask you a question, Exalted Fleetlord?” he said.

“Ask.” Still feeling some of the delight he’d known during the mating act, Atvar was inclined to be magnanimous.

“How does the Race get anything done during mating season?” the wild Big Ugly inquired.

“That is a good question,” Atvar answered. “Females too old to lay eggs help keep things going, and there are a few males who, poor fellows, do not respond to pheromones. Rabotevs and Hallessi are useful in this role, too, now that we can bring them back here. They have mating seasons of their own, of course, but we do not need to take those into account here as much as we do on their home planets.”

“I suppose not,” Coffey said, and then, thoughtfully, “I wonder how many intelligent species have mating seasons and how many mate all through the year.”

“Until we got to know about you Tosevites, we thought all such species were like the Race,” Atvar said. “The first two we came to know certainly were, so we thought it was a rule. Now, though, the tally stands at three species with seasons and one without. I would have to say this sample is too small to be statistically significant.”

“I would say you are bound to be right.” The Tosevite looked up toward the ceiling-no, up beyond the ceiling, as his next words proved: “I wonder how many intelligent species the galaxy holds.”

“Who can guess?” Atvar said. “We have probed several stars like Home with no planets at all, and one other with a world that supports life but is even colder and less pleasant for us than Tosev 3: not worth colonizing, in our judgment. One of these days, we will find another inhabited world and conquer it.”

“Suppose someone else finds the Empire?” Coffey asked.

Atvar shrugged. “That has not happened in all the history of the Race, and by now our radio signals have spread across most of the galaxy. No one from beyond has come looking for us yet.” He swung his eye turrets toward the wild Big Ugly. “I think we would do better to worry about the species with which we are already acquainted.” Coffey did not presume to disagree with him.