Two large males in gray paint as simple as the Emperor’s suddenly stepped into the aisle, blocking Atvar’s progress. He gestured with his left hand. “I too serve his Majesty,” he declared. That sent them away; they slunk back into the shadows from which they had sprung. They represented what had once been a more rigorous test of loyalty.
At last, Atvar dropped into the posture of respect before the throne. He cast his eye turrets down to the ground. The stone floor here was highly polished. How many males and females had petitioned how many Emperors in this very spot? The numbers were large. That was as far as Atvar was willing to go.
“Arise, Fleetlord Atvar,” the 37th Emperor Risson said, from somewhere up above Atvar.
“I thank your Majesty for his kindness and generosity in summoning me into his presence when I am unworthy of the honor.” Atvar stuck to the words of the ritual. How many times had how many Emperors heard them?
“Arise, I say again,” Risson returned. Atvar obeyed. The Emperor went on, “Now-enough of that nonsense for a little while. What are we going to do about these miserable Big Uglies, anyway?”
Atvar stared. The previous Emperor had not said anything like that when the fleetlord saw him before going into cold sleep. “Your Majesty?” Atvar said, unsure whether to believe his hearing diaphragms.
“What are we going to do about the Big Uglies?” Risson repeated. “They are here, on Home. We have never had a problem like this before. If we do not make the right choices, the Empire will have itself a lot of trouble.”
“I have been saying that for a long time,” Atvar said dazedly. “I did not think anyone was listening.”
“I have been,” the Emperor said. “Some of the males and females who serve me are… used to doing things as they have been done since the Empire was unified. For the situation we now have, I do not think this is adequate.”
“But if you speak, your Majesty-” Atvar began.
“I will have a reign of a hundred years or so-a little more, if I am lucky,” Risson said. “The bureaucracy has been here for more than a hundred thousand. It will be here at least as much longer, and knows it. Emperors give orders. We even have them obeyed. It often matters much less than you would think. A great many things go on the same old way when you cannot keep both eye turrets on them-and you cannot, not all the time. Or was your experience as fleetlord on Tosev 3 different?”
“No, your Majesty,” Atvar said. “But I am only a subject, while you are the Emperor. My spirit is nothing special. Yours will help determine if your subjects have a happy afterlife. Do not the males and females who serve you remember this?”
“Some of them may,” the Emperor said. “But a lot of them have worked with me and with my predecessor, and some even with his predecessor. Much more than ordinary males and females, they take their sovereigns for granted.”
Atvar had heard more startling things in this brief audience than in all the time since awakening again on Home. (He’d heard plenty of startling things on Tosev 3, but everything startling seemed to hatch there.) “I would not think anyone could take your Majesty for granted,” he said.
“Well, that is a fine compliment, and I thank you for it, but it does not have much to do with what is truth,” Risson said. “And I tell you, Fleetlord, I want you to do everything you can to make peace with the Big Uglies. If you do not, we will have a disaster the likes of which we have never imagined. Or do you believe I am wrong?”
“I wish I did, your Majesty,” Atvar replied. “With all my liver, I wish I did.”
Kassquit had an odd feeling when she came back to Sitneff after the excursion to the park near the South Pole. Whenever she was alone with members of the Race, she always stressed that she was a citizen of the Empire, and no different from any other citizen of the Empire. She made members of the Race believe it, too, not least because she believed it herself.
But when she found herself in the company of other Tosevites, she also found herself taking their side in arguments with males and females of the Race. Part of that, there, had hatched from Trir’s outrageous rudeness. Kassquit understood as much. The rest, though? She looked like a wild Big Ugly. Her biology was that of a wild Big Ugly. In evolutionary terms, the Race’s body paint was only skin deep. Beneath it, she remained a Tosevite herself.
“This concerns me, superior sir,” she told Ttomalss in his chamber in the hotel where the American Big Uglies also dwelt. “I wonder if my advice to the Race is adequate. I wonder if it is accurate. I have the odd feeling of being torn in two.”
“Your words do not surprise me,” her mentor said. Kassquit was relieved to hear it. He understood her better than any other member of the Race. Sometimes, though, that was not saying much. He went on, “Since your cultural and biological backgrounds are so different, is it much of a surprise that they often conflict? I would think not. What is your view?”
“I believe you speak the truth here,” Kassquit said, relieved to have the discussion persist and not founder on some rock of incomprehension. “Perhaps this accounts for some of my intense curiosity whenever I find myself around wild Big Uglies.”
“Perhaps it does,” Ttomalss agreed. “Well, no harm indulging your curiosity. You are not likely to betray the Race by doing so. Nor are you likely to go back into cold sleep and return to Tosev 3. Or do you think I am mistaken?”
“No, superior sir, I do not. And I thank you for your patience and understanding,” Kassquit said. “I hope you will forgive me for saying that I still find this world strange in many ways. Living on the starship orbiting Tosev 3 prepared me for some of it, but only for some. The males and females here are different from those I knew back there.”
“Those were picked males-and, later, females,” Ttomalss said. “The ones you meet here are not. They are apt to be less intelligent and less sophisticated than the males and females chosen to travel to the Tosevite solar system. Would you judge all Big Uglies on the basis of the ones the not-empire of the United States chose to send to Home?”
“I suppose not,” Kassquit admitted. “Still, that is a far smaller sample than the one the Race sent in the conquest and colonization fleets.”
“Indeed it is,” Ttomalss replied. “The reason being that we can send two large fleets to Tosev 3, while the wild Big Uglies have just managed to send a single starship to Home.”
“Yes, superior sir,” Kassquit said dutifully. But she could not resist adding, “Of course, when the Race first came to Tosev 3, the wild Big Uglies could not fly beyond their own atmosphere, or very far up into it. In what short period has the Race shown comparable growth?”
For some reason, that seemed to upset Ttomalss, who broke off the conversation. Kassquit wondered why-so much for his patience and understanding. Only the next day did she figure out what had gone wrong. He had compared Tosevites to the Race in a way that slighted her biological relatives. And what had she done in response? She had compared her species and the Race-to the advantage of the wild Big Uglies.
Things were as she’d warned him. Altogether without intending to, she’d proved as much. She was more like the Race than wild Big Uglies-and she was more like wild Big Uglies than the Race.
Males and females of the Race stared at her whenever she ventured out in public. Some of them asked her if she was a wild Big Ugly. That was a reasonable question. She always denied it politely. The males and females who kept talking with her after that were often curious how a Tosevite could be a citizen of the Empire. That was reasonable, too.
But then there were the males and females who had no idea what she was. Video had been coming back from Tosev 3 for 160 of Home’s years, but a good many members of the Race did not seem to know what a Big Ugly looked like. She got asked if she was a Hallessi, and even if she was a Rabotev. One of the ones who did that was wearing false hair to pretend to be a Big Ugly himself. Kassquit hadn’t imagined such ignorance was possible.