He dictated a note to himself so he would not forget the possibility, then returned to analyzing the recordings of Kassquit’s conversations with Jonathan Yeager. At one point, she’d asked him, “Would you not like to spend all your time living and working among the Race?” Ttomalss suspected she meant, Would you not like to spend all your time staying with me?
“If I could do it in the service of my not-empire, then maybe,” the wild Tosevite male had answered. “But I would like to have some of my species around for the sake of company. We are too different from the Race to be very comfortable with its members all the time.”
Was that U.S. propaganda, countering the Race’s propaganda that formed the only indoctrination Kassquit had had till Jonathan Yeager’s arrival? Or was it simply his view of where the truth lay? If so, was he right?
Ttomalss feared he was. No wild Rabotev or Hallessi would ever have said such a thing. The other two species in the Empire had been on the same road as the Race; they just hadn’t gone so far along it when the conquest fleets got to their planets. The Big Uglies had been going in another direction altogether when the Race arrived.
That so many of them were still going in a different direction told how strong their impetus had been. And yet the direction was not so different as it had been before the conquest fleet came; it was the resultant of their former course and that which the Race tried to impose on them. Which component of the vector would prove stronger in the end remained to be seen.
The telephone hissed for attention. “Senior Researcher Ttomalss speaking,” Ttomalss said. “I greet you.”
“I greet you, superior sir.” Kassquit’s image appeared in the screen.
“Hello, Kassquit.” Ttomalss did his best to disguise his concern. “How may I help you?” How was he supposed to analyze her behavior if she kept subjecting him to it?
“I do not know. I doubt anyone knows.”
“If you do not know how I can help you, why did you call me?” Ttomalss asked in some irritation. He didn’t expect a rational answer. He’d had several similar conversations with Kassquit since Jonathan Yeager departed for the surface of Tosev 3.
“I am sorry, superior sir,” she said, something he’d heard a great many times before. “But I have no one else with whom I might speak.”
That, unfortunately, was a truth. And it was a truth of Ttomalss’ own creation. He sighed. He recognized the obligation under which it placed him. “Very well,” he answered. “Say what you will.”
“I do not know what to say,” Kassquit wailed. “I feel as if my place in this society is not what I thought it was before I made the acquaintance of the wild Big Ugly.”
“That is not a truth.” Ttomalss appended an emphatic cough. “Your place here has not changed in the slightest.”
“Then I have changed, for I do not feel as if I fit that place any more,” Kassquit said.
“Ah.” That, for once, was something Ttomalss could get his teeth into. “Many males from the conquest fleet have similar feelings in trying to reintegrate with the more numerous members of the colonization fleet. Their time on Tosev 3 and their dealings with Tosevites have changed them so much, they no longer find the old ways of our society congenial. Something like this seems to have happened to you.”
“Yes!” Now his Tosevite ward used an emphatic cough of her own. “How is this syndrome cured?”
By all appearances, it wasn’t always curable. Ttomalss had no intention of admitting that. He said, “The chief anodyne is the passage of time.” He had also heard this was true of the aftermath of brief Tosevite sexual relationships, another point he carefully did not bring up.
Kassquit’s shoulders slumped. “I shall try to be patient, superior sir.”
“That is all you can do, I fear,” Ttomalss said. He would have to try to be patient, too.
After a brief tour of duty at Greifswald, Gorppet’s small unit had returned to the Deutsch center with the preposterous name of Peenemunde. The move made sense; the place was plainly the largest and most important center in the area. Or rather, it had been: it had taken a worse pounding than any he’d imagined, let alone any he’d seen. He and the males he commanded were constantly checking their radiation badges to make sure they were not picking up dangerous levels of radioactivity.
Despite the explosive-metal bombs that had fallen on the site, the wreckage remained impressive. Gorppet spoke to one of his troopers: “This was on its way to becoming a spaceport as large as any back on Home.”
“That would seem to be a truth, superior sir,” the male called Yarssev agreed.
“When we first came to Tosev 3, the Deutsche had not even begun launching rockets from this site,” Gorppet said.
Yarssev made the affirmative hand gesture. “That is also a truth, superior sir.”
“How long did the Race take to move from the first launch of a rocket to a spaceport?” Gorppet asked.
“I have no idea, superior sir,” Yarssev answered. “It has been a long time since they tried to make me learn history, and I have long since forgotten most of what they taught me.”
“So have I,” Gorppet said. “But this I will tell you: we did not go from rocket to spaceport in a fraction of an individual’s lifetime.”
“Well, of course not, superior sir,” Yarssev said. “If you ask me, there is something unnatural about the way the Big Uglies change so fast.”
“I would have a hard time arguing with you there, because I think that is also a truth,” Gorppet said. “And I will tell you something else: I think there is something unnatural about the way the Deutsche are surrendering their armaments.”
“Do you?” Yarssev gestured. The broad, low, damp plain was full of the implements of war: landcruisers, mechanized fighting vehicles, artillery pieces, rocket launchers, machine guns, stacked infantrymales’ weapons.
But Gorppet made the negative gesture. “Not enough. Remember what these Big Uglies threw at us in Poland? They had more than this-and better than this, too. They do not love us. They have no reason to love us. I think they are trying to hold out, to conceal, as much as they can.”
“What will you do, superior sir?” Yarssev asked.
And Gorppet had to hiss in dismay. That was an unfortunate question. He wished with every lobe of his liver that the trooper had not asked it. He answered, “There is not much I can do, you know. I am only a small-unit group leader. I have no tremendous authority, certainly not enough to compel the Deutsche to do anything. All I have is a lot of combat experience, and it tells me something is wrong here.”
Yarssev found another unfortunate question: “Have you given your views to the company commander?”
Gorppet let out another dismayed hiss. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I have. His opinion of the situation differs from mine.”
That was all he would say to Yarssev. The company commander was smugly convinced the Deutsche were obeying all treaty requirements. Gorppet hissed once more. Back in the days when he was an ordinary trooper, he’d seen that officers all too often didn’t want to listen to him. It wasn’t so much that they were smarter or more experienced than he was. But they had rank, and so they didn’t have to listen. He’d been sure things were different among officers, that they paid attention to their fellows if not to their inferiors. To his company commander, though, he remained an inferior.
Deutsch males moved among the weaponry they were turning over to the Race. Deutsch civilians were properly submissive to the Race. They knew their not-empire had taken a beating. These were not civilians. They wore the gray wrappings and steel helmets of soldiers. They also wore an almost palpable air of resentment and regret that the fighting had ended.
“Look at them.” Gorppet pointed with his tongue. “Do they have the look of males who will contentedly return to civilian life?”
“Does it matter if they are contented or not?” Yarssev asked in return. “So long as they are demobilized and have no weapons with which they can wage war against us, why should we care if they hate us?”
“Because, if they hate us, they will seek to hide and to regain weapons,” Gorppet answered patiently. “At the moment, they are merely submitting because they have no choice. I would sooner see them truly conquered.”
Yarssev didn’t argue with him any more. Of course not, Gorppet thought. I am an officer. He sees no point to arguing with officers, because he will not convince them even if he is right.
Gorppet laughed. When he’d been a trooper himself, most officers had looked like addled eggs to him, too. Now, though, he was sure he was right and Yarssev wrong. Perspective counted for a great deal.
Perspective… Gorppet made the affirmative hand gesture, although no one had asked him anything. Even if his company commander wasn’t interested in what he had to say, he could think of some males who might be. He found his top-ranking underofficer and told him not to let the Deutsche steal any troopers while he was gone, then went over to the tents marking brigade headquarters not far away. The brigade commander’s tent, of course, was bigger and more impressive than any of the others. Gorppet ignored it. The tent he had in mind was the least obtrusive one in the whole compound.