“Produce a hatchling that cannot survive?” The phrase sounded awkward to Kassquit.
“English has a term for this-miscarry. ” Dr. Blanchard spoke the word in her language. “If you miscarry, you discharge the hatchling from your body long before it would come out if everything were normal. Miscarried hatchlings usually have something wrong with them that would not let them live.”
“I see. They are like eggs that are fertile and laid where conditions are good, but that do not hatch,” Kassquit said.
The doctor made the affirmative gesture. “Yes, I think that is a good comparison,” she said. “I must tell you, Researcher: I do not know as much as I might about how the Race develops. Keeping track of how Tosevites work is a full-time job in itself.”
“I believe that,” Kassquit said.
“Good. It is a truth.” Dr. Blanchard used an emphatic cough. She peeled off the elastomere glove she’d been wearing and tossed it into a trash can. “For now, I am glad to say, you seem as healthy and normal as any female could.”
“This is good to hear,” Kassquit said. “Do you have any idea how long the morning sickness will last?”
“It usually ends after the first third of your gravidity-about half of one of Home’s years after your egg was fertilized,” Dr. Blanchard answered. “Bear in mind, though, that is not a promise. Each female is different. Some never have morning sickness at all. Some have it much more severely than you do, and suffer from it until the hatchling comes out. I am sorry, but you will just have to wait and see.”
“I am sorry, too.” Kassquit felt like using an emphatic cough of her own. “Have you finished inspecting me for this time?”
“Yes.” Dr. Blanchard nodded, then used the affirmative gesture. “As I say, you have earned the stamp of approval.” She mimed applying the stamp to Kassquit’s left buttock. Kassquit’s mouth fell open. That was funny, but not funny enough to make her laugh out loud the way the wild Big Uglies did.
Laughter or no, she was anything but sorry to escape the doctor. Getting examined took her back to the days of her hatchlinghood. Members of the Race had constantly poked and prodded at her then. In a way, she couldn’t blame them for that. They were trying to find out as much as they could about Tosevites. In another way…
She shrugged. No doubt she would have been addled no matter how the Race raised her. One species simply could not fill all the needs the hatchlings of another had. That was all the more true when the first was imperfectly familiar with the needs of the second.
Part of her wished she could go back to Tosev 3 on the Commodore Perry. She would have liked to meet Mickey and Donald. If anybody on four worlds could understand her and what she’d gone through over the years, the males the Yeagers had raised were the ones. By all accounts, they had done well for themselves in the United States. But they were also surely caught between their biology and their culture. Mickey had said as much in the title of his autobiography.
Had they learned the Race’s language, or did they speak only English? If they had learned the Race’s tongue, did they speak it with an accent? They would have the right mouthparts to speak it properly, yes. They wouldn’t have the mushy tone Tosevites couldn’t help. But they would have grown up using very different sounds: the sounds of English. How much difference would that make?
I should have learned English, she thought. But she had a pretty good idea why the Race had never taught it to her. The males and females in charge of such things must have feared learning a Tosevite language would make her too much like a wild Big Ugly. And maybe they’d even been right. Who could say for sure?
If she did ask to go aboard the Commodore Perry and visit Tosev 3, what would the American Tosevites say? Kassquit paused and then made the negative gesture. That was the wrong question. The right question was, how was she worse off even if they said no? If they did, she would be where she was now. If they said yes, she would be better off than she was now. As was true most of the time, asking was the right thing to do here.
But whom could she ask? The formidable female officer named Nichols? Kassquit hadn’t seen her around the hotel lately. She hadn’t seen anyone from the Commodore Perry around the hotel lately. Maybe that meant nothing. Maybe it meant the faster-than-light ship was about to bombard Sitneff. How could you tell what wild Big Uglies would do next? Kassquit knew she couldn’t.
She went to see Ambassador Yeager. He laughed. “You want me to get them to take you?” he said. “I cannot even get them to take me.”
“I know that, superior sir. I am sorry for it. I think it is altogether unjust.” Kassquit added an emphatic cough.
“Now that you mention it, so do I,” Sam Yeager said. “I hope you will not be angry, but I have to tell you that I do not think traveling on the Commodore Perry would be good for you, at least not in the near future.”
“Why not?” Kassquit demanded. There were times when she thought everyone on four worlds joined together in thwarting her. She knew such thoughts were not true, but that did not always keep her from having them.
“Well, for one thing, you would keep company with many more wild Big Uglies than you ever have before,” the American ambassador answered. “You would have a much greater risk of disease than you ever had before. Who can say how you would respond? You have never been exposed to diseases before. And remember, you are gravid. Disease could also affect the hatchling growing inside you. So could traveling faster than light. I do not know that it would. But I do not know that it would not, either. I do know that hatchlings growing inside females are often more sensitive to changes in environment than adults are. If I commanded the Commodore Perry, I would not accept you as a passenger simply because you are gravid.”
“I… see.” Kassquit had expected Sam Yeager to argue in terms of politics and statesmanship. Instead, he’d talked about biology. That was harder to refute or get around. Kassquit wasn’t sure she should try to get around it, either. She said, “Would Dr. Blanchard confirm what you say?”
“I think so. By all means, ask her,” the ambassador replied. “And ask a member of the Race who has studied Tosevites. I am not a physician.” He tacked on an emphatic cough to stress the not. “All I can tell you is what a reasonably well-educated wild Big Ugly thinks he knows. Experts know better than I do. Talk to them.”
“It shall be done.” Kassquit pointed accusingly at Yeager. “You make entirely too much sense.”
He laughed again, on the same sour note he’d used the first time. “I am glad you think so. I am glad somebody thinks so. There are a good many who think I am nothing but an old fool.”
“I have never been one of those,” Kassquit said. “The way you think has always interested me, ever since the days when we both pretended to be members of the Race on the computer bulletin-board system back on Tosev 3.” She pointed at him again. “You should not have been able to gain access to that system.”
Now Sam Yeager’s laugh held real amusement. “I know. I had a friend who got the necessary programming for me.”
“A friend,” Kassquit echoed. She had no trouble figuring out what that meant. “Not another wild Big Ugly, not that long ago. You mean a male of the Race, someone from the conquest fleet.”
“Well, what if I do?” Yeager answered. “Even then, plenty of males decided they would rather live in the United States than in the lands the Race ruled. We released all the prisoners of war we held who wanted to go. The rest became what we call naturalized citizens of our not-empire.”