Harry Turtledove - Second Contact

It didn’t seem right. It didn’t seem fair. Without this preposterously large, preposterously ugly body (Kassquit knew the nickname the males of the Race-and, no doubt, this new female, too-had for Tosevites), the good brain inside this strangely domed skull might have accomplished something worthwhile. Oh, it still might, but that was far less likely than it would have been otherwise.

“If I had been hatched on Home…” Kassquit said. And how many times had that thought echoed and reechoed? More than Kassquit could count. Did I ask for this body? Spirits of Emperors past, did I? The eyes that looked down at the metal floor could not slew in turrets. And is that my fault?

Every step Kassquit took was a reminder of alienness. This Tosevite body would not bend forward into a proper posture-or what would have been a proper posture for anyone else. And the lack of true claws on Kassquit’s fingertips was another inconvenience. Ttomalss had turned out prosthetics that made operating machinery much easier. A proper member of the Race, though, would not have needed prosthetics.

I am not a proper member of the Race. I am a Tosevite, brought up as if I were a proper member of the Race, or as close to a proper member of the Race as I can be, given my limitations. Oh, how I wish I had no such limitations. I am part person, part experimental animal.

Kassquit did not resent that. The Race needed experimental animals, to learn how to live with and eventually rule the tempestuous Tosevites. Ttomalss had said as little about the natives of Tosev 3 as he could. From the small things he had let fall now and then, Kassquit understood what an honor, what a privilege, it had been to be selected for this role. Life as a Tosevite peasant? Kassquit’s mouth dropped open in scornful amusement at the idea.

A small sound escaped Kassquit’s mouth along with the laugh. I should have better control, Kassquit thought. I usually do have better control, but I am upset. Ttomalss had said that Tosevites showed amusement with a noise rather than in the Race’s far more sophisticated, far more elegant fashion.

I do not want to act like a Tosevite! In no way do I want to act like a Tosevite! I am one, but I wish I were not!

Some things could not be helped. Posture was one. Skin was another. Kassquit ran one hand along the other arm. I should be a dark greenish brown like a proper male of the Race, or even, I discover, a proper female of the Race. Instead, I am a sort of pale yellowish tan color-a very disagreeable shade for a person to be.

“And my skin is smooth,” Kassquit said with a sad sigh. “It will never be anything but smooth, I fear.” Kassquit sighed again. When I was coming out of hatchlinghood, how I waited till it would be like the ones everybody else had. I did not really understand then how different I was. The Emperor surely knows I do try to fit in as best I can.

The skin under Kassquit’s palm was also faintly damp. Ttomalss had explained why that was so: instead of panting to cool the body, Tosevites used the evaporation of metabolic water. Tosev 3 was a wetter world than Home, which let the Big Uglies expend water so lavishly. Tosev 3 was also a colder world than Home, which meant the ship, whose climate was Homelike, seemed warm to Kassquit’s Tosevite body and prompted the activation of the cooling mechanism.

It all made good sense. Ttomalss had patiently explained it over and over to Kassquit. It was, for Tosevites, thoroughly normal. It was also thoroughly disgusting, as far as Kassquit was concerned.

Other things about the Tosevite body were even more disgusting: the business of passing liquid waste as well as solid, for instance. That also had to do with Tosev 3’s revolting wetness. Again, Ttomalss had been patience itself in explaining the reasons behind the differences.

“I do not care about the reasons,” Kassquit muttered. “I wish there were no differences.”

I am not usually like this, Kassquit thought. Usually, I can see what makes me more like the Race, not what separates me from it. I wish I had not met Felless. Seeing someone freshly come from Home reminds me that I am not and I cannot be. That hurts. It hurts worse than I expected.

An itch on top of the head made Kassquit scratch. Very, very short hair rasped under the not-quite-claws at the tips of Kassquit’s fingers. Hair was another nasty thing about the Tosevite body. I wish I did not have any, Kassquit thought. Smooth is bad. Hairy is even worse. Emperor be praised that I do get clipped regularly. I wished I could die when the hair started sprouting here and there on my body. Having to get my head clipped is humiliation enough. Add these other spots and it is almost too much to bear.

Ttomalss had been reassuring about that, too. The Race’s research proved it was normal among Tosevites of about Kassquit’s age. But it was not normal aboard the ship. It made Kassquit even more abnormal here.

What would I do without Ttomalss? Kassquit wondered. The male had been a guide, a teacher, a mentor, a hearing diaphragm to listen, for all of Kassquit’s life. A hearing diaphragm to listen? I will not think about the strange curls of flesh at the sides of my head, nor about the holes inside them with which I hear. I will not think about them. I will not.

Trying not to think about something worked as well as that usually did. Kassquit touched an ear, then gave it a painful yank. Maybe I should have these clipped. It would not be too hard, and it would make me look a little closer to the way I should.

Ttomalss had not wanted to put a mirror in Kassquit’s compartment. His argument had been that looking at such a different face would only lead to discontentment. “I will be more discontented if you do not treat me as if I were part of the Race,” Kassquit remembered saying. “If I were a member of the Race, I would have one.” Ttomalss had yielded; it was the first argument Kassquit had ever won from him.

The technician who had installed the mirror in the compartment had treated Kassquit like a member of the Race, all right. He had fastened it at a level that would have been perfect for a member of the Race. Kassquit had to stoop to see anything but the paint marking this unsatisfactory body’s unsatisfactory torso.

Stooping, Kassquit thought, This is how I look. I cannot do anything about it. Small eyes, white with dark center, folds of skin at their inner corners narrowing them further still, without nearly the angle of vision the Race enjoyed. Kassquit had had strips of hair above them, too-Tosevite signaling organs, Ttomalss called them-but those strips got clipped with the rest. A projection below and between the eyes that housed the nostrils. An absurdly small mouth with mobile soft tissue around it and a wildly variegated set of teeth inside.

Out came Kassquit’s tongue for a critical examination. It needed criticizing, all right, being short and blunt and unforked. Again, and not for the first time, Kassquit wondered whether surgery could correct that flaw.

“What is the use?” Kassquit said, straightening once more. “What is the use of any of it? They can cut this and clip those and maybe do some other things, too, but it will not help, not really. I will still look like-this.”

Maybe Ttomalss had been right. Maybe the mirror should have stayed out. In the end, though, how much would it have mattered? I am a Tosevite. I wish I were not, but I am. With or without a mirror, I know it.

Kassquit went over to the computer terminal, put on false fingerclaws, and returned to the earlier game. But it didn’t engross, as it had before going in to see Felless. Reality has a way of breaking in, Kassquit thought. The best thing about the computer is that it does not know-or if it does know, it does not care; it really does not care-I am a Tosevite. That is one of the reasons it is so much fun. As far as the computer is concerned, I am as good as anybody else. How can I go on believing that, even imagining that, after meeting a female straight from Home?