Her reply won Ttomalss’ respect. He had seen a great many individuals-both members of the Race and Big Uglies-who, because they were experts in one area, were convinced they were also experts in other, usually unrelated, areas. When he said as much, Monique Dutourd started to laugh. “And what do you find funny?” he asked, his dignity affronted.
“I am sorry, superior sir,” she said, “but I find it strange that you are making an argument like the one a famous Tosevite savant named Socrates used when he was on trial for his life almost twenty-four hundred years ago.”
“Am I?” Ttomalss wondered who this Socrates was. “Did his argument succeed?”
“No,” Monique Dutourd answered. “He was put to death.”
“Oh. How… unfortunate.” Ttomalss found a different question: “Did you use your years or mine there?”
“Mine,” she said, so he mentally doubled the figure. She added, “At that time, the Romans were only a small and unimportant group. They later conquered the Greeks, one of whose subgroups, the Athenians, executed Socrates. The Greeks were culturally more advanced than the Romans, but could not unify politically. The Romans conquered them and learned much from them afterwards.”
“I see,” Ttomalss said. Ancientest history back on Home was full of stories like that, some true, others legendary, with scholars disagreeing over which was which. He asked, “What benefits did the Romans give to keep conquered subregions from rebelling?”
“Security from outside invasion,” Monique Dutourd answered. “Security from feuds with their neighbors also within Roman territory. Local self-government, as I said before. A large area unified culturally, and also unified economically.”
“I see,” Ttomalss repeated. “These are, of course, advantages you Tosevites would receive on becoming subjects of the Empire.”
“Ah, subjects,” the Tosevite historian said. “One thing the Romans did that made them unusual among our empires was to grant full citizenship to more and more groups that had formerly been subjects.”
“You could expect the same from us,” Ttomalss said. “Why, already there is one Tosevite with full citizenship in the Empire.”
“How interesting,” Monique Dutourd replied. “Why only one? Who is he?”
“She,” Ttomalss corrected. “That is a complicated story. It has to do with the unusual circumstances of her hatching.” He said not a word about the continuing dispute with Kassquit over whether he kept the right to monitor her activities if she was a full citizen of the Empire. That was also complicated, and none of Monique Dutourd’s business. Instead, Ttomalss asked, “If these Romans were such successful rulers of their empire, why did it fail?”
“Scholars have been arguing over that ever since it happened,” the Tosevite female answered. “There is no one answer. There were diseases that reduced the population. The economy suffered as a result of this. Rulers grew more harsh, and their bureaucracy grew more stifling. And there were foreign invasions, most importantly from the Deutsche, who lived to the north of the Roman Empire.”
“The Deutsche?” Ttomalss exclaimed in surprise. “The same Deutsche whom the Race knows only too well?”
“Their ancestors, rather,” Monique Dutourd said.
“Yes, of course,” Ttomalss said impatiently. “How interesting. That strikes me as an example of true historical continuity. I have not seen many on Tosev 3.”
“They are here,” Monique Dutourd said. “If you have not seen them, it is because you have not looked for them-or perhaps you have not known where to look.”
“Yes, I suppose that could be,” Ttomalss admitted. “Would you be willing to teach me more Tosevite history?”
“It could be,” the female Big Ugly said. “There would be the question of payment, of course.”
“Of course,” Ttomalss said. “I am sure we can come to some sort of equitable arrangement about that.”
“Payment might not necessarily involve money,” Monique Dutourd said, “or not money alone. I would want my kinsmale fully pardoned, now that I am cooperating with the Race.”
“Regardless of his unpleasant and unsavory dealings,” Ttomalss said.
“Yes. Regardless of them.” Ttomalss noted that the Tosevite female did not deny them. She wanted the ginger smuggler forgiven in spite of them. He sighed. Kinship, not friendship, he thought. That showed historical continuity among the Big Uglies, sure enough. He sighed. He could wish-he did wish-it didn’t.
Monique Dutourd wished she hadn’t come to Tours with fall heading toward winter. The city did not show itself to her at best advantage. She was a child of the warm Mediterranean; winter in Marseille was almost always mild, with snow a rarity. Not here. Sure enough, the Atlantic drove Tours’ climate, and frost came to the city early and often. After Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, Roman colonists in ancient Caesarodunum would have been as appalled at the weather as she was now.
The climate at the university was also a good deal less than warm. Monique knew she wouldn’t have gained a position had Felless not pulled wires for her. By all the signs, every colleague in the history department knew as much, too. Her welcome ranged from unenthusiastic to downright hostile.
“Let me teach,” she told her department chairman, a white-haired fellow named Michel Casson who’d been at the university since recovering from a wound he’d received defending Verdun in 1916. “Let me publish. I’ll show you that I belong in this place.”
“You will have the opportunity,” Casson replied, peering at her through reading glasses that magnified his eyes tremendously. “We cannot prevent you from having the opportunity. It is to be hoped that you will not damage the reputation of the university too badly by what you do with it.”
Ears burning, Monique left his office in a hurry. That she might prove an asset to the university had plainly never entered his mind. Her nails bit into her palms. I’ll show you, by God, she thought. Having lost all her notes for the paper on the cult of Isis in Gallia Narbonensis that had occupied her before Marseille went up in nuclear fire, she was doing her best to reconstruct it despite a research library that wasn’t nearly so good as the snooty professors and librarians believed.
Back in Marseille, having to deal with her brother and the unwelcome attentions of Dieter Kuhn had made her neglect the monograph. Here in Tours, Kuhn was gone from her life, for which she heartily thanked the Lord, the Virgin, and all the saints. Instead, though, she had to deal with the Lizard named Ttomalss. He wanted nothing from her in bed. He even paid. But guiding him through Roman history stole time from the paper, no less than submitting to the German’s less intellectual pursuits had done.
And she still had to deal with Pierre. Technically, she supposed he was a paroled prisoner. She tried not to have anything to do with him when he wasn’t translating for Ttomalss. She sometimes wished she hadn’t got him out of the Race’s prison to interpret for her. Her life would have been simpler if she’d left him there to rot.
But he is my brother. Blood was thicker than water. She wondered if Pierre would go to a tenth the trouble for her that she’d gone through for him. She had her doubts. Pierre was for Pierre, first, last, and always.
One day, after they’d got off the telephone with Ttomalss, he said, “It’s a pity that Lizard is such a straight arrow. If he weren’t, I could have a fine new ginger network going already.”
“Do you mean you don’t have one?” Monique asked with what she hoped was withering sarcasm.
Predictably, her brother refused to wither. “Of course I do,” he said. “I meant a new one, one that reached right up into his starship. That would be worth arranging, if only I could.”
“Don’t you ever think of anything but ginger and Lizards?” she demanded.
“Ginger is what I do for a living,” Pierre said imperturbably. “The Lizards are my customers. Don’t you ever think of anything else but those old Romans who’ve been dead forever?”