“Oh,” Karen said. Then there was silence-quite a bit of silence. At last, Karen went on, “Hello, Jonathan. Did you… have a good time up on the starship?” She knew what he’d been doing up there, all right. He could hear it in her voice.
“Yeah, I did.” Jonathan could hardly deny it. “I didn’t expect to stay up there so long, though. Who would have thought the Germans would really start that war? I’m awful glad to be home.” His mother would have coughed at the colloquialism, but she’d stayed down at the other end of the house. He gave it his best shot: “I’d like to see you again, if you still want to see me.”
“Well…” More silence. Karen finally continued, “I do want to go on seeing Mickey and Donald, and that’ll mean seeing you, too, won’t it? But that’s not what you meant. I know it isn’t. You were doing research, yeah, but… that kind of research?” Another pause. “Maybe when I come over there for the hatchlings, we can talk about the other stuff. That’s about the best I can do, okay?”
“Okay,” Jonathan said at once-it was as much as he’d hoped for, maybe even a little more. “Do you still want to talk to my dad?”
“No, never mind-it’ll keep,” Karen said. “Good-bye.” She hung up. So did Jonathan.
Maybe the sound of the handset going onto the cradle told his father it was safe to come into the kitchen. He glanced at Jonathan and chuckled. “You’re still in one piece, I see,” he remarked.
“Yeah.” Jonathan knew he sounded relieved. “Maybe we can work things out.”
“I hope so. She’s a nice girl.” His dad pulled a couple of bottles of Lucky Lager out of the icebox and handed one to Jonathan. “Come on out to the back yard.”
That wasn’t an invitation he usually made, but Jonathan followed. “What’s up?” he asked when they were standing on the grass.
“You asked what was new when you got into the car. I didn’t want to tell you there, or in the house. Here, I think it’s okay-who’d put a microphone on a lemon tree?”
His father sounded as weary and cynical as Jonathan had ever heard him.
“What’s up?” Jonathan asked again, swigging from the bottle of beer.
And his father told him. As he listened, his eyes got wider and wider. “That’s what I’m sitting on,” his father finished. “Do I need to remind you just how important it is not to repeat it?”
“No, sir,” Jonathan said at once, still shocked-maybe more shocked than he’d ever been in his life. “Besides, who’d believe me?”
5
Everything Kassquit and Jonathan Yeager had done together on the starship-everything from mating to cleaning their teeth-was recorded. Ttomalss studied the video and audio records with great attention: how better to learn about the interactions between a civilized Tosevite and one of the wild Big Uglies from the surface of Tosev 3?
What he found distressed him in a number of ways. He had spent Kassquit’s entire lifetime shaping her as he thought she should go. When she was with him even now, she behaved as a civilized being ought to behave. But when she was with Jonathan Yeager…
When Kassquit was with Jonathan Yeager, she behaved much as a wild Big Ugly did. She learned to imitate him far more quickly than she had learned to imitate Ttomalss-and she’d startled Ttomalss with how fast she’d learned to imitate him while she was a hatchling.
Also infuriating to the senior researcher was how quickly and accurately Jonathan Yeager could divine what was in Kassquit’s mind. Blood will tell, the male thought unhappily. That was not the conclusion he would have wanted as a culmination of his long-running experimental project.
He was so distressed about what he found, he called Felless to talk about it. “I greet you, Senior Researcher,” she said when she saw his image in the video screen. “I am glad to speak with you.”
“And I greet you, superior female.” Ttomalss wondered if his hearing diaphragms were working as they should. Felless only rarely admitted to being glad to speak with anyone, and most especially not with him.
A moment later, she explained why she was: “After so much time spent dealing with the Francais, it is good to talk shop with a member of my own species.”
“Ah,” Ttomalss said. “Yes, I can certainly understand that.”
“And why are you interested in speaking with me?” Felless asked.
“For your insights, of course,” Ttomalss answered, which was even more or less true. He told her of the disturbing data about Kassquit.
“Why does this surprise you?” she asked, sounding surprised herself. “A common law of psychological development states that hatchlings are more influenced by their peers than by the previous generation. This holds for the Race, it holds for the Rabotevs, and it holds for the Hallessi, too. Why should it not also hold for the Big Uglies?”
“I had assumed it would be different as a result of the prolonged parental care they receive, which makes them unlike the species-the other species, I should say-of the Empire,” Ttomalss replied. “I might also note that the leading Tosevite psychological theories stress the primacy of the relationship between parents and hatchlings.”
Felless’ mouth opened wide in hearty, unabashed laughter. “Why in the name of the Emperor do you take Tosevite psychological theories seriously?” she asked. “I have examined a few of them. For one thing, they strike me as preposterous. For another, they contradict one another in any number of ways, demonstrating that they cannot all be true and that, very likely, none of them is true.”
“I do understand that,” Ttomalss said stiffly. “I have been examining Tosevite psychological theories a good deal longer than you have, I might add. And one point where they are in unanimity is on the vital importance of this bond.”
“But it makes no logical sense!” Felless exclaimed. “Even in Tosevite terms, it makes no logical sense.”
“There I might well disagree with you, superior female,” Ttomalss said. “Some of the Big Uglies appear to have very persuasive arguments for the nurturing influence of parents upon hatchlings. Given their biological patterns, I have no trouble finding these arguments plausible.”
“Plausibility and truth hatch from different eggs,” Felless said, something Ttomalss could hardly deny. The female from the colonization fleet went on, “Consider, Senior Researcher. Where will even a Big Ugly end up spending most of his time? With his parents and their other hatchlings, or with his peers? With his peers, of course. Whom will he have to work harder to accommodate, his parents and their other hatchlings, or his peers? Again, his peers, of course. His parents and close kin are biologically programmed to be accommodating to him. If they were not, they probably could not stand him at all, Big Uglies being what they are. If, however, he acts as if he has his head up his cloaca among his peers, are they not likely to inform him of this in no uncertain terms? No male or female of the Race with whom I am familiar has ever composed songs of praise for the Tosevites’ kindness or gentle manners.”
The pungent irony there forced a laugh from Ttomalss, who also could hardly deny Felless’ words held some truth. “No, no songs of praise,” he agreed, laughing still. And, after some thought, he continued, “That may well be a cogent analysis, superior female. It may indeed. As always, experimental data would be desirable, but the superstructure of your thought certainly appears logical.”
“For which I thank you,” Felless replied. She sounded more cordial toward him than she had for some time. On the other fork of the tongue, he hadn’t praised her much lately, either. She was a female who took praise seriously.
In musing tones, Ttomalss said, “You might provoke some interesting responses if you were to publish that thesis in a Tosevite psychological journal.”
“For which I do not thank you.” Felless used an emphatic cough. “I have enough difficulties with Big Uglies as is to want to avoid more, not to provoke them.”
“Very well.” Ttomalss shrugged. “I thought you might find it amusing to watch the allegedly learned Tosevites banding together to destroy you with overheated rhetoric.”
“Again, no,” Felless said. “The trouble with Big Uglies is, they might not stop with overheated rhetoric. If I upset them badly enough, they might try to destroy me with explosives. Is it not a truth that the followers of the male called Khomeini still raise a rebellion against us despite his capture and imprisonment?”
“Yes, that is a truth,” Ttomalss admitted. “But they remain imprisoned in the grip of superstition. Contributors to psychological journals, even Tosevite psychological journals, have a more rational outlook.”
“I do not care to test this experimentally,” Felless said. “And here is my suggestion for you, Senior Researcher: since Kassquit will be influenced by her peers, you would do well to persuade her that her true peers are males and females of the Race, not the barbaric Big Uglies on the surface of Tosev 3. And now, if you will excuse me…” She disappeared from the video screen.
Even so, Ttomalss protested, “But I have always done my best to persuade her of that.” And it had worked. It still worked, to a point. Ttomalss couldn’t imagine Kassquit betraying the Race in any truly important matter. But the sexual bond she’d so quickly established with Jonathan Yeager formed the basis of a social intimacy with him different from the sort she’d established with the Race.
I wonder if I ought to arrange a new sexual partner for her, he thought. That might lessen her despondence over the departure of the wild Big Ugly. But it might also present new and more serious problems. Solving one difficulty with Tosevites all too often did produce another worse one. The whole world of Tosev 3 was a large, unexpected difficulty, or rather a multitude of them.