Harry Turtledove - Aftershocks

He squeaked-she’d found a ticklish spot. And, just for half a second, the corny old joke put him off his stride. He had told Kassquit something pretty much like that, or as close to it as he could come in the language of the Race, which wasn’t really made for such sentiments. He wondered how Kassquit was doing, and hoped she was doing well.

But then his mouth found its way to the tip of Karen’s breast again. She sighed and pressed his head against her. He stopped thinking about Kassquit. He stopped thinking about everything. A moment later, the marriage became official in a way that had nothing to do with either the church or the state of California, but that was as old as mankind nonetheless.

“Oh, Jonathan,” Karen said softly.

“I love you,” he answered.

They made love a couple of times, fell asleep in each other’s arms, and woke up to make love again. Over the course of the night, the champagne did disappear. It wasn’t enough to make them drunk; it was enough to make them happy, not that they weren’t pretty happy already.

The wakeup call at eight the next morning interrupted something that wasn’t sleep. Afterwards, Jonathan said, “I don’t know why we’re flying up to San Francisco for our honeymoon.”

“It’ll be fun,” Karen said. “We’ll see all sorts of things we haven’t seen before.”

“If we ever get out of the hotel room, we will,” he said. “I don’t know about that.”

“Braggart.” She wrinkled her nose at him. They both laughed. Jonathan squeezed her. They went downstairs for breakfast, and then back up to the room to find something to do in the couple of hours before the plane took off. To Jonathan’s considerable pride, they did. On the basis of a bit more than half a day, he liked being married just fine.

Kassquit stooped slightly to look in the mirror in her cubicle. That she had to stoop reminded her she wasn’t biologically part of the Race: the mirror was at the perfect height for a male or female from Home. She’d had to start stooping even before she reached her full growth. Either she’d tried not to think about it or she’d let it mortify her, as did every difference between herself as she was and the female of the Race she wished she were.

Now she knew those differences were even larger than she’d thought before she met wild Big Uglies. That knowledge could mortify her, too. “I am a citizen of the Empire,” she said. “I am a Tosevite, but I am also a citizen of the Empire.”

It was a truth. Sometimes-perhaps, even, more often than not-it helped calm her. But the converse held, too. She was a citizen of the Empire, but she was also a Tosevite. And, at the moment, she was engaged in a task which proved exactly that.

Her hair-the hair on her scalp, that is, not the hair that sprouted elsewhere on her body-had got long enough to need combing. The black plastic comb she held had come up from the surface of Tosev 3 at her request. The Race didn’t make anything like it: what point, with scales instead of hair? She’d needed to send an electronic message to Sam Yeager to find out how the Big Uglies kept hair in any kind of order. “Comb,” she said as she used it. The word was English. The Race did not have the thing, and so did not have a term for it.

After she finished using the comb, she studied the result. Her hair was neater, no doubt about it. She suspected any Big Ugly who saw her would have approved. She also suspected neither males nor females of the Race would care one way or the other. Members of the Race disapproved of her hair on general principles. Not long ago, that disapproval would have crushed her. Now, every once in a while, she enjoyed annoying males and females. If that wasn’t her Tosevite blood coming out, she had no idea what it was.

The intercom panel by the door hissed for her attention. “Who is it?” she asked.

“I: Ttomalss,” came the reply.

Kassquit stuck on an artificial fingerclaw for a moment, so she could prod the switch to let him in. “I greet you, superior sir,” she said, bending into the posture of respect.

“And I greet you,” Ttomalss replied. “I hope you are well?”

She made the affirmative gesture. “Yes. I thank you. And yourself?” After Ttomalss used the same gesture, Kassquit asked him, “And what can I do for you today, superior sir?”

“You mentioned to me the ambiguities involved in recording every action of an individual who is a citizen of the Empire with the same privileges as those enjoyed by other citizens of the Empire,” Ttomalss said.

“I certainly did mention that to you, yes,” Kassquit said. “And I do not believe the issue is in the least ambiguous.”

“You will, I hope, understand that I did not and do not altogether agree with you,” Ttomalss said. “But a review committee of higher-ranking individuals has come to a different conclusion. I am now able to tell you that the routine recording of your actions has ceased and will not resume.”

“That is… very good news, superior sir.” Kassquit added an emphatic cough. She knew she sounded astonished. She was astonished. That the Race would put her wishes ahead of its own research was something to be astonished about. Then she checked her swelling delight. “Wait.”

“What is it?” Ttomalss asked.

“You say you are able to tell me the routine recording of my actions has stopped,” Kassquit answered. “You do not say that this is a truth. Is it a truth, superior sir?”

She watched him narrowly. She was not a female of the Race, to have instinctual cues about what his body language meant, but she’d been watching him all her life. When he flinched now, the motion was tiny, but she saw it. And when he said, “What do you mean?” she caught the startled alarm in his voice.

“I mean that you were lying to me,” she said sadly. “I mean that you thought I would not pay close enough attention to your words. When I was a hatchling, I would not have. But I am an adult now. When you lie to me, I have some chance of realizing it.”

“You do not understand.” But Ttomalss didn’t deny what she’d said.

She wished he would have denied it. “I understand you have lied to me. I understand I cannot trust you any more. Do you understand-do you have any idea-how much pain that causes me? I am sorry, superior sir, but I do not think I want to see you again for some time to come. Please go.”

“Kassquit, I-” Ttomalss began.

“Get out!” Kassquit shrieked at the top of her lung-no, lungs; being a Tosevite, she had two. They seemed to make her voice doubly loud, doubly shrill, inside the little cubicle. Ttomalss cowered in alarm as her cry echoed and reechoed from the metal walls. Without a word, he fled.

As the door hissed shut behind him, Kassquit fought the urge to run after him and do him an injury. Assuming she actually could, what would it do except land her in trouble? It would make me feel better, she thought. But, in the end, that proved not quite reason enough, and she let her mentor escape.

She made the negative gesture. “No. I let him escape physically,” she said, much more quietly than she’d ordered him to go. “But he will not get away with it, by the spirits of Emperors past.”

After casting down her eyes as any other citizen of the Empire would have, she made a telephone call. A female of the Race said, “Office of Fleetlord Reffet, fleetlord of the colonization fleet. How may… I help… you?” Her voice faltered as she saw herself facing a Tosevite rather than the member of the Race she’d expected.

“I am Junior Researcher Kassquit,” Kassquit said. “I should like to speak to the Exalted Fleetlord, if that is possible.”

“I doubt very much that it will be,” the female replied.