Harry Turtledove: Aftershocks

Hearing it hurt even so, because he feared truth lay beneath it. You cannot hatch a beffel out of a tsiongi’s egg was a proverb older than the unification of Home. He’d done his best with Kassquit, and had improved his chances of turning her into something close to a female of the Race by not allowing her any contact with wild Big Uglies till she was an adult.

As he pondered, the recording kept playing in his monitor. Before long, Kassquit and Jonathan Yeager were mating. Watching them, Ttomalss let out a small, irritated hiss. He’d known how corrosive a force Tosevite sexuality was. Now he was seeing it again.

He moved the recording back to Kassquit’s telling Jonathan Yeager she had not mated with the other Big Ugly aboard the starship. Ttomalss had wondered whether she would; he’d made a point of not mentioning the subject so he could avoid influencing her actions. Since she’d become acquainted with the pleasures of mating, he had rather expected that she would indulge herself. But no.

“Pair bonding,” he said, and his computer recorded the words. “Because Kassquit is presently satisfied with Jonathan Yeager as a sexual partner, she seeks no other. These bonds of sexual attraction, and the bonds of kinship that spring from them, create the passionate attachments so characteristic of Big Uglies-and so dangerous to the Race.”

The trouble is, he thought, that Big Uglies calculate less than we do. If they are outraged because of harm that has come to individuals for whom they have conceived one of these passionate attachments, they will seek revenge without regard for their own safety. Preventing damage from Big Uglies willing, even eager, to die if they can also hurt us is very difficult.

Ttomalss wondered if that hadn’t been the motivation behind the Reich’s attack on the Race. More than any of the Big Uglies’ other independent not-empires, the Greater German Reich struck him as a Tosevite family writ large. The not-emperors of the Reich had always stressed the ties of kinship existing among their males and females. They had also stressed the innate superiority of the Deutsche over all other varieties of Tosevites. Ttomalss, like other researchers from the Race-and like non-Deutsch Big Uglies-was convinced that was drivel, but the Deutsche really believed it.

And, believing in their own superiority, believing in the wisdom of their not-emperors because those leaders were perceived as kin, the Deutsche had charged off to war against the Race without so much as a second thought. Ttomalss wondered if they-the survivors, a decided minority-still relied so blindly on the wisdom of those leaders.

But he did not have to wonder, not with a Deutsch Tosevite aboard this very starship. He paid another visit to the compartment where Johannes Drucker was housed. The Big Ugly who had almost destroyed the ship saluted him and said, “I greet you, superior sir.” He did not make a difficult captive, much to the relief of every male and female of the Race aboard the starship.

“And I greet you,” Ttomalss said. “Tell me, how do you feel about the leaders of your not-empire who took you into a losing war?”

“I always thought anyone who wanted the Race to attack was a fool,” the Big Ugly replied at once, his syntax strange but understandable. “I have in space been, after all. I know, and always did know, the Race is stronger than the Reich. I blame my leaders for their ignorance.”

That was a sensible answer; a member of the Race might have said much the same thing. “If you believed them to be fools,” Ttomalss asked, “why did you and the other Deutsche obey them without question?”

“I do not know,” Johannes Drucker said. “Why did the males of your conquest fleet, when they saw Tosev 3 was so different from what they had expected, keep on saying, ‘It shall be done,’ to your leaders, even after those leaders ordered them to do many foolish things?”

“That is different,” Ttomalss said testily.

“How, superior sir?” the Deutsch male asked.

“The answer should be obvious,” Ttomalss said, and changed the subject: “What will you and your fellow Deutsche do if your new not-emperor tries to lead you into further misadventures?”

“I do not believe he will,” Johannes Drucker said. “I have known him for some time. He is an able, sensible male.”

Ttomalss doubted Drucker’s objectivity. In any case, the Big Ugly had been too literal-minded to suit him. “Let me rephrase that,” the psychological researcher said. “What will you Deutsche do if some future leader seeks to lead you into misadventures?”

“I do not know,” Johannes Drucker answered. “How can I know, until a thing happens?”

Seeing he wasn’t going to get anywhere on that line of questioning, Ttomalss tried another: “What do you think of the female, Kassquit?”

Johannes Drucker let out several yips of Tosevite laughter. “I never expected a female Tosevite aboard your starship to meet, especially one without any… wrappings?” He had to cast about to find the term the Race used. “It made life here more entertaining than I thought it would be.”

“Entertaining.” That was hardly the word Ttomalss would have used. “Did you find yourself interested in mating with her?”

The Big Ugly shook his head, then used the Race’s negative hand gesture. “For one thing, I hope my own mate is still alive down in the Reich. For another, I did not think Kassquit was interested in mating with me.” Ttomalss wasn’t so sure Johannes Drucker was right about that, but gave no sign of what he thought. The Tosevite continued, “And I did not her attractive find, or not very. I like females with”-he gestured to show he meant hair-“and with faces that move more.”

“Kassquit cannot help the way her face behaves,” Ttomalss said. “That seems to happen when the Race raises Tosevites from hatchlinghood.”

“You have it with others tried?” Drucker sounded accusing. Ttomalss hoped he was misreading the Big Ugly, but didn’t think so. Before he could answer, Drucker added, “I suppose it is a wonder that she is not more nearly insane than she is in fact.”

In a way, that casual comment infuriated Ttomalss. In another way, he understood it. Judged by Tosevite standards, he couldn’t have done a perfect job of raising Kassquit, despite his years of effort. He said, “She is satisfied with her life here.”

“But naturally. She knows no other,” Johannes Drucker said.

“If she did know another life, it would be as a Chinese peasant,” Ttomalss said. “Do you think that would be preferable to what she has now?”

Johannes Drucker started to say something, then hesitated. At last, he answered, “I asked her this myself. She could not judge. I do not find it easy to decide, either. If you raise an animal in a laboratory, is that preferable to the life the animal would in the wild have led? The animal may live longer and be better fed, but it is not free.”

“You Big Uglies value freedom more than the Race does,” Ttomalss said.

“That is because we more of it have known,” the Big Ugly said. “Your males of the conquest fleet have seen far more freedom than the males and females of the colonization fleet. Do they not prefer it more, too?”

“How could you know that?” Ttomalss asked in surprise.

With another loud, barking laugh, Drucker answered, “I listen to the conversations you of the Race among yourselves have. Radio intercepts are an important part of the business. You, now, you know us Tosevites pretty well, so I would guess you are from the conquest fleet. Is that a truth, or not a truth?”

“It is a truth,” Ttomalss admitted.

“I thought so,” the Deutsch Tosevite said. “You have a good-sized piece of your life here spent. It is natural that we have changed because the Race came to Tosev 3. Is it so surprising that coming to Tosev 3 has changed the Race, too?”