Kassquit said as much. Major Coffey’s face showed amusement. Kassquit wished her own features made such responses. But Ttomalss hadn’t-couldn’t have-responded to her when she tried to learn to smile as a hatchling, and the ability never developed. Coffey said, “So you find us worth a laugh, then?”
“That is not what I meant,” Kassquit said. “Some of your ways of putting things would make fine additions to the language.”
“I thank you,” the wild Big Ugly said. “Your language has certainly hatched many new words in English.”
“Yes, I can see how that might be-words for things you did not have before you met the Race,” Kassquit said.
“Many of those, certainly,” Coffey agreed. “But also others. We sometimes say credit, for instance, when we mean money. ” The first word he stressed was in the Race’s language, the second in his own. He went on, “And we will often use an interrogative cough by itself when we want to say, ‘What do you mean?’ or an emphatic cough to mean something like, ‘I should say so!’ ”
“But that is a barbarism!” Kassquit exclaimed. “The Race has never used the coughs by themselves.”
“I know. But we are not talking about the Race’s language right now. We are talking about English. What would be a barbarism in your language is just new slang in ours. English is a language that has always borrowed and adapted a lot from other tongues it has met.”
“How very strange,” Kassquit said. “The Race’s language is not like that.”
“No, eh?” Frank Coffey laughed a noisy Tosevite laugh. “What about ginger?”
“That is something the Race did not have before it came to Tosev 3,” Kassquit said, a little defensively. Even more defensively, she added, “To me, it would only be a spice. Biologically, I am as much a Tosevite as you are.”
“Yes, of course.” Coffey laughed again, on a different note. “Back on Tosev 3, though, I would not have expected to sit down to supper with a female without wrappings; I will say that.”
“Well, you are not on Tosev 3,” Kassquit replied with some irritation. “I follow the Empire’s customs, not yours. Karen Yeager already bothered me about this. I say your view is foolishness. You are the guests here; the Empire is your host. If anything, you should adapt to our customs, not the other way round.”
“I was not complaining,” the wild Big Ugly said. “I was merely observing.”
Kassquit started to accept that in the polite spirit in which it seemed to have been offered. Then she stopped with her reply unspoken. She sent Frank Coffey a sharp look. How had he meant what he’d just said? Was he making an observation, or was he observing… her?
And if he was observing her, what did he have in mind? What did she think about whatever he might have in mind? Those were both interesting questions. Since Kassquit wasn’t sure what she thought about whatever he might have in mind, she decided she didn’t need to know the answers right away.
Without even noticing she’d done it, she made the affirmative gesture. She didn’t need to know this instant, sure enough. Frank Coffey would spend a lot of time-probably the rest of his life-on Home.
And if he was interested, and if she was interested, they both might pass the time more pleasantly than if not. Or, on the other hand, they might quarrel. No way to know ahead of time. That helped make Tosevite social relationships even more complicated than they would have been otherwise.
Was the experiment worth attempting, then? She knew she was getting ahead of herself, reading too much into what might have been a chance remark. But she also knew Tosevite males probably would show interest if an opportunity presented itself. And she knew she probably would, too. Compared to Tosevite males, Tosevite females might be less aggressive. Compared to the Race… She was a Tosevite, no doubt about it.
Atvar watched with a certain wry amusement as the shuttlecraft returned from Rizzaffi. Nothing could have persuaded him to go there. He knew better. You could come down with a skin fungus just by sticking your snout outdoors. The place made much of Tosev 3 seem pleasant by comparison.
He wondered if suggesting they visit Rizzaffi had been an insult of sorts, one too subtle for them to understand. That was risky. Sam Yeager had a feeling for such things. Atvar shrugged. He’d find out.
One after another, the Big Uglies came off the shuttlecraft. Even from the terminal, Atvar had no trouble recognizing Kassquit, because she did not wear wrappings the way the wild Tosevites did. She was a strange creature, as much like a female of the Race as a Big Ugly could be. The more Atvar got to know her, the more he wondered if she came close enough. If all the Big Uglies on Tosev 3 were like her, would they make satisfactory citizens of the Empire?
He sighed. He really couldn’t say. She remained essentially Tosevite, essentially different, in a way the Rabotevs and Hallessi didn’t. With them, cultural similarity overwhelmed biological differences. They were variations on a theme also expressed in the Race. Big Uglies weren’t. No matter what cultural trappings were painted on them, they remained different underneath.
Here they came, the wild ones and Kassquit, on a cart that had its seats adapted to their shape. The cart stopped just outside the terminal. A gate opened. The Tosevites hurried inside.
Atvar walked forward. After all these years dealing with Big Uglies, he still had trouble telling one from another. Here, he had trained himself to look for Sam Yeager’s white head fur. If the Tosevite ever put on a hat, Atvar wasn’t sure he could pick him out from the others. As things were, though, he managed.
“I greet you, Ambassador,” he said.
“And I greet you, Fleetlord,” Yeager replied. “I still find it very strange to be called by that title. Do you understand?”
“Perhaps,” Atvar said. “Life does not always give us what we expect, though. Consider my surprise when the conquest fleet came to Tosev 3 and I discovered we would not have a walkover on our hands.”
Sam Yeager let out several yips of barking Tosevite laughter. “There you have me, Fleetlord, and I admit it. You must have found that a lot stranger than I find this.”
“To tell you the truth, I was never so horrified in all my life,” Atvar said, and Sam Yeager laughed again. The former head of the conquest fleet asked, “And what did you think of Rizzaffi?”
“Interesting place to visit,” Yeager said dryly-not the fitting word, not when speaking of the port city. “I would not care to live there.”
“Only someone addled in the eggshell would,” Atvar said. “I marvel that you chose to visit the place at all.” There. Now he’d said it. He could try to find out if someone really had insulted the Big Uglies by suggesting they go there.
But Sam Yeager shrugged and said, “It is an unusual part of your planet.”
“Well, that is a truth, by the spirits of Emperors past!” Atvar used an emphatic cough.
“Fair enough,” the Tosevite ambassador said. “I, for one, would like to see unusual places. We will see enough of the ordinary while we are here. And if the unusual is not always pleasant-we can leave. And I am glad we have left. But I am also glad we went.”
“If you go to Rizzaffi with that attitude, you will do all right,” Atvar said. “If you go to Rizzaffi with any other attitude-any other attitude at all, mind you-you will want to run away as fast as you can.”
“Not so bad as that,” Yeager said. “It does have some interesting animals in the neighborhood. That fibyen is a queer-looking beast, is it not?”
“Well, yes,” Atvar admitted. “But I would not go to Rizzaffi for interesting animals alone. If I wanted to see interesting animals, I would go to the zoo. That way, I would not grow mildew all over my scales.”