“All right,” she said. “See the Canadian consul tomorrow. If you want to see the American consul, too, that’s all right.”
“Fair enough.” David finished the second whiskey. It was a hefty tot; he could feel it. “If I went out now, they could nick me for drunken cycling.” Naomi laughed, but he remembered how many times over the years he’d pedaled back to his bed somewhat, or more than somewhat, the worse for wear.
He was sober when he cycled over to the Canadian consulate after his next tour in front of the radar. When he explained what he wanted, a clerk there said, “I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t accept serving officers.”
“If you accept me, I won’t be a serving officer,” David answered. “If you accept me, I’ll resign my commission like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Will you give me the forms on that basis?” The clerk nodded and handed him a set. He filled them out on the spot and gave them back. They seemed straightforward enough.
The clerk glanced at them. He looked up at Goldfarb. “Your government would be idiotic to let you go.”
“Perhaps you didn’t notice I’m a Jew,” Goldfarb said. Then, seeing the surprise on the clerk’s face, he realized the fellow hadn’t noticed. Such indifference was rare in the United Kingdom of 1963. He hoped it was common in Canada.
He rode to the American consulate a few blocks away. The clerk there was female and pretty. The forms, however, were much longer and uglier than the ones the Canadians used. Goldfarb slogged through them, too, and turned them in.
“Thank you, Flight Lieutenant,” the clerk said. She, too, looked over the papers. “The USA can pick and choose whom we let in, you know, but by these I’d say-unofficially, of course-you have a fair chance. Better than fair, in fact.”
He grinned all the way back to his flat. The Canadians wanted him. So did the Americans. He wasn’t used to that, not in Britain these days he wasn’t. “I ought to be,” he said, careless of the looks he might get for talking to himself. “By God, I bloody well ought to be.”
18
“I remain of the opinion that you are making too much of this,” Ttomalss said.
Kassquit glared at him out of his computer screen. “My investigation shows otherwise, superior sir,” she replied, deferential but unyielding, “and I remain of the opinion that you make too little of it. It is a serious matter.”
“It may be,” Ttomalss said. “You have no real proof.”
“Superior sir, are you being deliberately blind?” Kassquit asked. “There is no such title as senior tube specialist. This Regeya, whoever he may be, does not write like any member of the Race whose words are familiar to me. I think-as you yourself suggested-he really must be a Big Ugly.”
Hearing that come from one Tosevite’s mouth to describe another amused Ttomalss. He didn’t let that show, not wanting to offend Kassquit. He did say, “I have done a little investigating of my own.” And he had-a very little. “It would not be easy for a Tosevite to gain access to our network from the outside, so to speak.”
“You have always told me how the wild Big Uglies succeed in doing what seems most difficult to us,” Kassquit said. “If we can gain access to their computers-and I assume we can and do-they may be able to do the same to us.”
Ttomalss knew the Race did just that; his conversation with the embassy’s science officer would have told him as much had he been naive enough to believe otherwise. But he did not fancy having his own words thrown back in his snout. “We can do things to them that they cannot do to us in return.”
“Can you be sure computer spying is one of those things?” Kassquit asked. “If I were a Big Ugly”-she paused in momentary confusion, for in biological terms she was a Big Ugly-“I would try my best to reach the Race’s computers.”
“Well, so would I,” Ttomalss agreed, “but I have since spoken with Slomikk, the science officer here”-his research, a casual conversation-“and he does not think the Tosevites have this ability regardless of what they may desire.”
“No one will listen to me!” Kassquit said angrily. “I have tried and tried to persuade males and females involved in computer security to investigate this Regeya, and they ignore me, because to them I am nothing but a Big Ugly myself. I had hoped they would take me seriously, but now I discover that even you do not take me seriously. Farewell, then.” She broke the connection.
“Foolishness,” Ttomalss muttered. Kassquit was surely seeing things that were not there. Big Uglies seemed far more susceptible to wild imaginings than did males and females of the Race.
And yet, as the senior researcher had to admit, his Tosevite ward did make a sort of circumstantial case. He could not imagine what sort of body paint a senior tube technician would wear. Checking a data store, he found Kassquit was right: no such classification existed. And Regeya was an unusual name. But not all males and females used their true names under all circumstances. When aiming criticism at a superior, for instance, anonymity came in handy.
With a sigh, Ttomalss began sifting through computer records in search of the elusive Regeya, whoever he might be. Because the fellow had that unusual name, his messages were easy to track, even without knowing his pay number. And, Ttomalss discovered, Kassquit was right: Regeya did have an unusual turn of phrase. But did that make him a Big Ugly, or just a male with a mind of his own?
The more Ttomalss read of Regeya’s messages, the more he doubted the fellow whose phosphors he followed was a Tosevite. He did not believe any Big Ugly could have such insight into the way the Race thought and felt. No, Regeya might be eccentric, but Ttomalss felt nearly certain he was a male of the Race.
Being in Nuremberg and concerned with the Deutsche, Ttomalss had paid no attention to the American space station and to whatever the Big Uglies from the lesser continental mass were doing to it. Whatever it was, it struck him as suspicious. He did not seem to be the only one who thought it was, either. By all the signs, this Regeya did, too.
Because of that more than because of Regeya, whoever the individual behind the messages under the name might be, Ttomalss did send a message of his own to Security, asking what was known about the American space station.
Nothing that can be released to unauthorized personnel. The answer, sharp and stinging, came back almost at once.
It infuriated Ttomalss, who, unlike Kassquit, wasn’t used to being ignored. He did what he almost certainly would not have done otherwise: he wrote back, saying, Are you aware that a possible Tosevite under an assumed identity as a male of the Race is also seeking information about this space station?
Again, the response was very prompt. A Tosevite? Impossible.
To his bemusement, Ttomalss found himself using with Security all the arguments Kassquit had used with him. And Security was little more impressed with them than he had been. Tell me the individual named Regeya is demonstrably a male of the Race, and I will be convinced there is no need for concern here, he wrote.
This time, he waited a long time for an answer. He waited, and waited, and waited, and no answer came. At last, when he’d almost given up, he did get one last message. Your continued interest in the security of the Race is appreciated, it said: only that, and nothing more.
He stared at the screen. “Well, what does that mean?” he asked. “Did I make them think of something that had not occurred to them before, or are they just trying to get rid of me?” The words displayed gave him no answer.
He did not get long to wonder, for he had just turned away to try to do some other work when Felless telephoned. He guessed that meant she’d been tasting ginger; otherwise, she would have come to his office. “Those idiots!” she exclaimed. “Those treacherous, lying, double-dealing idiots!”