“You I will trust,” Atvar said heavily. “I would not trust any other Tosevite who made this assertion, not even the Doctor. Come, then, and we shall see what we have to say to one another.”
Kassquit waited inside the terminal at the shuttlecraft port, along with a small swarm of middle-ranking functionaries from the Race. When she looked out the window, she could see the shuttlecraft that had descended from the Tosevite starship. She could even see the wild Big Uglies who had come down from it.
As wild Big Uglies were in the habit of doing, these wore cloth wrappings and foot coverings. The wrappings were minimal, leaving arms and legs mostly bare, but she wondered why the Tosevites wore anything in this climate. She looked down at her own body, nude except for her body paint and the foot coverings she too used. Her soles were softer than those of the Race, and often needed protection.
Which Tosevite out there was Jonathan Yeager? She saw only one who shaved his hair, but that didn’t necessarily prove anything. He might have stopped shaving, as she had done, and some other Tosevite might follow the practice. At this distance, it was hard to be sure.
And which wild Big Ugly was Jonathan Yeager’s permanent mate? There, Kassquit had no trouble finding an answer. That female had copper-colored hair, and only one of the Tosevites fit the bill. Kassquit’s nearly motionless face would have scowled if only it could. She knew her resentment was irrational, but that made it no less real.
The Big Uglies outside boarded the passenger-mover that normally ferried elderly and disabled males and females around the shuttleport. It had been adapted to Tosevite needs with special seats. Kassquit had been the model on which those were formed. What fit her back and fundament, so different from those of the Race, should also accommodate other Big Uglies.
The passenger-mover came back to the terminal building. A door opened. A male with a cart went out to take charge of the Big Uglies’ baggage. The cases he brought back were larger than those members of the Race would have used. Of course, members of the Race didn’t take extra sets of wrappings with them wherever they went.
In came the baggage handler. In came Ttomalss and Fleetlord Atvar. And in came the wild Big Uglies. As soon as they got inside the building, someone aimed televisor lights at them. Half a dozen reporters thrust microphones at them and shouted questions. Some of the questions were idiotic. The rest were a great deal stupider than that.
“How do you like Home?” a female yelled, over and over.
“Fine, so far. A little warm,” said the Big Ugly with the shaved head. That was Jonathan Yeager; Kassquit recognized his voice. He caught her eye and nodded, a very Tosevite style of greeting.
“Do you understand me?” another reporter shouted, as if doubting that a Big Ugly could speak the Race’s language.
“No, of course not,” the white-haired Tosevite replied. “If I understood you, I would answer your question, and I am obviously not doing that.”
Kassquit recognized not only Sam Yeager’s voice but also his offbeat slant on things. The reporter, by contrast, seemed to have no idea what to make of the answer. “Back to you in the studio,” the female said, looking for help wherever she could find it.
Another reporter asked, “Will it be peace or war?”
Had someone asked that of Sam Yeager in private, he would have said something like, Probably. But, while it was a foolish question, it wasn’t one where a joke was fitting in public. He said, “We always hope for peace. We have lived in peace with the Race on Tosev 3 for most of the time since you first came there. Now that we too can fly between the stars, that seems to me to be one more reason for each side to treat the other as an equal.”
“You sound so… so civilized,” the reporter said.
“I thank you. So do you,” Sam Yeager said.
That reporter went off in confusion. Kassquit’s mouth fell open in the silent laugh the Race used. One of the noisier kind Tosevites favored almost escaped her. If Sam Yeager kept this up, he would clear the terminal building of fools in short order. And if his methods could be more widely applied, that might have a salutary effect on the Race, or at least on how it did business.
None of the reporters or cameramales and — females wore false hair and wrappings. Those had jolted Kassquit when she first saw them. They seemed as strange to her as the first shaven-headed Big Uglies with body paint must have seemed to the Race back on Tosev 3.
Ttomalss beckoned and called out something. In the noisy chaos inside the terminal, Kassquit couldn’t make out what he said, but she thought he was beckoning to her. She pointed to herself. He made the affirmative gesture. She pushed forward through the crowd.
Males and females grumbled as she went by them, then got out of the way in a hurry when they saw who and what she was. That even applied to a female in the body paint of a police officer who was holding back the crowd. As she stepped inside, the female asked, “Why are you not already with them?”
“Because I am a citizen of the Empire, not a wild Big Ugly,” Kassquit answered proudly. She went on up to Ttomalss. “I greet you, superior sir.” To Atvar, she added, “And I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord.”
“I greet you,” the two males said together. Ttomalss went on to present her to the wild Big Uglies.
“I greet you,” Sam Yeager said. “It is good to see you again. We have both spent a lot of time on ice.”
“Truth,” Kassquit said after a moment’s pause to figure out the idiom, which did not belong naturally to the Race’s language. “Yes, indeed. Truth.” She glanced toward Ttomalss. The Race had kept her on ice till it needed her here.
“And I greet you,” the male named Frank Coffey said. “I have heard much about you. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“I thank you. The pleasure is mine,” Kassquit said. She studied him with interest. She had never met a member of the black race of Big Uglies in person till now. Coffey spoke the Race’s language well enough, if less fluently than Sam Yeager.
Back in the days when the conquest fleet was still trying to bring all of Tosev 3 into the Empire, the Race had tried to use black Big Uglies in the not-empire of the United States against the pinkish Big Uglies who often oppressed them. The strategy had failed, for too many of the dark Tosevites had feigned loyalty to the Race only to betray it. Coffey would not have been hatched at that time, but he was plainly loyal to the regime of the United States. Were he not, he never would have been chosen for this mission.
Thinking about him helped keep Kassquit from thinking about Jonathan Yeager, who was standing beside him. “I greet you,” Jonathan said. “I hope you have been well, and I hope you have been happy.”
“I have been well,” Kassquit said. Happy? She didn’t want to think about that. She doubted she could be happy, caught as she was between her biology and her culture. She did not know how to be a Tosevite, and she could never be the female of the Race she wished she were.
Jonathan Yeager said, “I present to you my mate, Karen Yeager.”
“I greet you,” Kassquit said, as politely as she could. She was as jealous of the copper-haired Big Ugly as she was of females of the Race. Karen Yeager could live a life normal for her species. That was something Kassquit would never know.
“And I greet you,” Karen Yeager said. “Forgive me, but it is customary for Tosevites to wear some form of wrapping.”
“This is Home,” Kassquit said sharply. “Here, the customs of the Race prevail. If you want to wrap yourself, that is your business. If you expect me to do so, you ask too much.”
Several of the wild Big Uglies spoke to Karen Yeager in their own language. Kassquit had learned to read Tosevite facial expressions, even if she did not form them herself. Jonathan Yeager’s mate did not look happy. Jonathan Yeager himself did not take part in the discussion in English.