After whispering to each other, the Security males made the affirmative gesture. “On your snout be it,” one of them said. He left. His partner stayed.
“I thank you, superior sir,” Gorppet said quietly.
“I warned you when I recruited you for Security that we would not tolerate large-scale ginger operations,” Hozzanet said. “But you have a chance to redeem yourself even there-if that bomb does not burst.”
“If it does, spirits of Emperors past will judge us,” Nesseref said, and cast down her eye turrets.
“That is a truth,” Hozzanet agreed. “And they will judge harshly-they have never heard of ginger.”
“What you need to do,” Nesseref said, “is to get into communication with Anielewicz and help him persuade his fellow Jews not to detonate the explosive-metal bomb. If not…” She found herself puzzled and dismayed. She had never thought she would have any great use for a ginger dealer, but Gorppet plainly worked hard on his actual duties when he was not involved with the herb. And he didn’t seem to use it as some males did, as a tool to get females to mate with him.
Now he made the affirmative gesture. “That is a truth, superior female. It is what I need to do-or you, if you think the Big Ugly more likely to heed a friend than an acquaintance. But do you have any idea how to accomplish it without inciting the other Jewish Tosevites to set off the bomb?”
Wishing she could do anything else but, Nesseref used the negative gesture.
Prevod was an excellent writer. Straha would never have asked her to collaborate with him had he not liked some of her work he’d seen. And, as he saw from the prose the two of them produced together, his memoirs would be an egg-smasher to set tongues wagging for years…if they were ever published. He’d always expected Atvar to prove an obstacle to publication. He hadn’t expected the same problem from his coauthor.
“But, Shiplord, you cannot say that!” Prevod exclaimed, not for the first time, when Straha outlined another of the quarrels that had led to his barely unsuccessful effort to overthrow Atvar as fleetlord of the conquest fleet.
“And why not?” Straha demanded. He liked it that she was polite enough to call him shiplord, even though he was no longer entitled to wear the body paint showing him to be the third most powerful male in the conquest fleet. “It is a truth. I never stopped warning him that his half measures would lead to trouble. He continued them, and they did indeed lead to trouble.”
“Have you got documentary evidence to support this?” Prevod asked.
“I am sure such evidence exists,” Straha said. “I did not offer this advice in secret, but in meetings of the high-ranking officers of the fleet. Those records would have been preserved.”
“Can we gain access to them?” Prevod asked. “Or are they concealed from general view under secrecy regulations?”
“The latter, I would suspect,” Straha said. “Atvar would not be eager to have his ineptitude displayed for everyone to see.” He hesitated. When he went on, his tone was grudging: “And, I admit, even now we might not want the Big Uglies to learn how divided and uncertain we were in those days. They might think that malady still afflicted us. And”-acid returned to his voice-“with Atvar still in command, they might be right.”
Prevod sighed. “Without the documentation, Shiplord, how can I hope to include this incident in the book?”
Straha sighed, too. “I am not writing a history text here, you know. Footnotes are not mandatory.” He studied Prevod. She was young and bright and highly skilled with words. When he engaged her, he’d thought that would be enough. He’d thought it would be more than enough, in fact. What he thought now was, Maybe I was wrong. Swinging an eye turret her way, he asked, “Have you ever felt inclined to challenge authority?”
“Why, no, Shiplord.” She sounded astonished that he should put such a question to her. “Those senior to me are generally senior for good reason. They know more than I do, and have more experience. Should I not learn from them rather than trying to substitute my inferior judgment for theirs?”
That was the response a female of the Race should have given. It was the response the large majority of males and females would have given. Straha knew as much. But hearing it now frustrated him no end. “If those in authority make a mistake, should you not point it out? If you fail to point it out, will they not go on making it-and probably making other mistakes as well?”
“Their own superiors are the ones who should correct them,” Prevod replied. “That is not an appropriate role for an inferior.”
“Who was Atvar’s superior?” Straha asked. “He made mistakes. He made them in huge lots. Who was to point them out to him? He had no superiors here. He still has none-and he is probably still making mistakes.”
“In my opinion, rehashing a past that cannot be changed will not gain you many readers,” Prevod said. “You would create a far more entertaining and exciting book by concentrating on the foibles of the Big Uglies and on your return to the Race with the information about which group of Tosevites attacked the colonization fleet. Do remember, most of those who read the book will have come here as members of the colonization fleet, not the conquest fleet.”
“I understand that,” Straha said. “You want this to be an entertaining and exciting memoir, then, not an important one?”
“If no one reads it, how can it be an important memoir?” Prevod said.
By the Emperor, how I want a taste of ginger, Straha thought. By the Emperor, how I need a taste of ginger. He refrained, though it wasn’t easy. He knew he would have a harder time putting up with Prevod if he did taste. Picking his words with care, he said, “One of the so-called foibles you mention was an honesty so thoroughgoing, the male who possessed it gave me information that would harm his own not-empire and his own species because he judged that the right thing to do. How many males and females of the Race could hope to match him? But perhaps that would not amuse my readers enough to be entertaining.”
He intended his words for sarcasm. But Prevod took them literally, saying, “Many would think well of the Big Ugly under those circumstances. Having a sympathetic Tosevite appear might make for an interesting novelty.”
“We both use the language of the Race,” Straha said, “but I wonder if we speak the same tongue. Maybe I should go on in English.” He spoke the last sentence in the Tosevite language. He hadn’t used it since fleeing the United States.
“What did you just say?” Now Prevod sounded interested. When he told her, she went on, “Did you have to learn that Tosevite tongue? Were the Big Uglies too ignorant to learn ours?”
“You really ought to know better,” Straha said. “Some of them not only speak it but write it quite well.” That was when he realized he’d lost his temper, for he added, “About as well as you do, in fact.”
Prevod’s tailstump quivered in anger. She said, “That is ridiculous.”
“Is it?” Yes, Straha had lost his temper. He wrote an electronic message to Sam Yeager under the name of Maargyees that Yeager used to fool the Race’s computer network: I am trying to persuade a certain-a very certain-female that you are literate in our language.
Luck was with him, for a reply came back almost at once: I am sorry, Shiplord, but I cannot write it any more than I can speak it.
I see, Straha wrote back. And why not?
Because I am only a Big Ugly, of course, Sam Yeager returned. How can anyone without a tailstump have any brains? That is where the Race keeps them, is it not?
I often wonder if we keep them anywhere, Straha wrote.
Well, in that case you are wasted as a male of the Race, his Tosevite friend answered. You really ought to turn into a Big Ugly.