Mjipa asked: "How about love? From what I hear, you Americans are always falling in love. They're as crazy on that subject as the French are about money and the British about social position."
"Oh, I was desperately in love with Jack, as I remember—the one who went to Burma—and was terribly upset when he broke the news. Since then, I've been in love with my career."
"Would you say you were—ah—I do not know quite how to put it—normal in such matters?"
"You mean, have I lesbian tendencies, don't you?"
"Well—ah—I don't want to embarrass ..."
"Don't worry, Percy darling. As far as I know I don't, and you're the one who gets embarrassed. I guess I just don't have much sex drive of any kind. Maybe a shrink would say I've sublimated it into a drive for professional success."
"How about the natives? You go kiting about the planet by yourself. You're not bad-looking even by their standards, and you 're hardly built like a wrestler. So it would surprise me if none had made advances."
She smiled. "Oh, yes, that happens. I warn them of some horrid disease, and they back away; at least they have up to now. Actually, I've had more advances from Earthmen on Krishna than from the Krishnans. That's one reason I prefer to work alone among the Krishnans."
"Oh?" said Mjipa. '"That's one thing the neo-Puritans never succeeded in stopping. Anybody in particular?"
"Almost every healthy human male I meet! One, for instance, was that Scotch engineer in Dur."
"Yes, I know Ken Strachan's reputation. He tries 'em all regardless of species."
Alicia laughed."Like that legendary fellow they tell about in America, whose first remark to every girl he meets is, 'Hey, let's fuck!' And when someone asks if he doesn't get many rebuffs, he answers, 'Sure, but you'd be surprised at how many say, "Okay, let's!" ' "
Mjipa smiled, suppressing a wince at Alicia's language. "I can just imagine Strachan saying, 'Whisht, man, I wish some hempie would lock me up wi' a beautiful lass, with orders to have sex with her!' "
"Only he wouldn't say 'have sex'; he'd use the Anglo-Saxon. And then there was your Comandante, with the beautiful silvery hair."
"William Desmond Kennedy? Good lord! And him so proper and moral and all!" (Mjipa imitated Kennedy's -brogue, as he had mimicked Strachan's burr.)"So that's why he had an attack of bureaucratic inaction when we discussed what to do with your case!"
"Is that what happened? He wanted to leave me to my fate?"
"He talked that way for a bit, though I don't believe he meant it; at least, I hope he didn't. But the rest of us brought him round. Still, I'm disappointed in Bill. Everybody thinks highly of him, but he has his clay foot, too."
"I suppose I did take some of his hide off with my refusal," she said. "I'm afraid I was anything but tactful. But he shouldn't have been vindictive about it, in his position."
"You're jolly well right, and if I ever see him again I'll tell him so. He's retired now, and in his place we've got a fat, amiable Russian slob with a drinking problem. But see here, you'd better watch yourself! Some day a randy Krishnan won't believe your story about diseases and use force."
Alicia: "I've had some narrow escapes. But that's a risk that comes with the job, just as you take a chance of being eaten by some cannibal chief." She giggled. "When the Heshvavu of Mutabwk got horny—"
"That dirty old satyr!"
"Yes, sir, that one. He was going to detain me, too, to exercise his—well, you can call it his manly charm, if an organ can be a charm. But I fixed him. I said my c—pardon, my vagina had teeth, and at the climax he was liable to have his manly charm bitten off. He didn't dare take a chance I was lying. There's a human psychoneurosis, you know—"
"So that's why Ainkhist asked me about that!" said Mjipa laughing. "I assured him it was a myth." Suddenly serious, he continued: "But I say, this may cause us trouble later! If we ever get free, we shall have to go through Ainkhist's territory to get to a seaport, and he won't take kindly to being ramped."
She shrugged. "Maybe I can get through disguised as a boy, or something. Now I have enough to worry about. But how about you, Percy? You must have had all sorts of remarkable experiences, not only with human women but also with Krishnans."
Mjipa, about to light his pipe with his wooden piston firemaker, gave a snort of laughter. "You may not believe this, Lish, but you see a man of complete sexual virtue. Don't know whether to boast or be ashamed, but I've never committed either fornication or adultery. I married young, and Victoria's given me all I need ever since. Perhaps it's not really virtue, but mere laziness and timidity on my part."
"Don't you have any vices?"
"Oh, I drink a little, and I like my pipe."
"Did you and Vicky have children?"
"We've got a son back on Terra, whom we haven't seen in dog's years. If we went back, he'd be as old as we, because of the Fitzgerald effect."
"Space travelers who go back to their native worlds," said Alicia, "run into a kind of Rip van Winkle effect. I know; I went back once and was appalled at how much had changed in the two years I was gone—only on Earth it was a quarter-century."
Mjipa nodded. "It works in reverse, too. Vicky and I should like to go back to Earth to visit our son and his family. But if we did, by the time we got back here, all my laboriously acquired expertise in Krishnan politics and economics would be out of date. So we have to be satisfied with sending each other holocasettes, telling what we've been up to." Mjipa finished lighting his pipe. "Anyway, you can see why I'm not keen about Khorosh's cockamamie plan. Vicky wouldn't like it a bit, and I should feel guilty even if she never found out."
She frowned thoughtfully. "There are forms of sexual relief that avoid the risk of pregnancy, and they'd confuse the devil out of the Krishnans—"
"Oy!" said Mjipa. "If you're thinking of one of those disgusting perversions, you can forget it as far as I'm concerned. I'll do it the normal way or not at all."
Alicia sighed. "You are a neo-Puritan!"
"So what? I came by that honestly, too. You whites still like to think of us black Africans as jolly, uninhibited sons of nature; but it's not so at all. Even in preliterate days, most southern Bantu tribes had pretty strict codes. Among the amaZulu, the penalty for adultery was death to both culprits.
Of course a lot has changed since then; but there's still a good deal of the old attitudes."
She said: "What I was really thinking—I suppose you know the Krishnans have some knowledge of contraception?"
"Yes, I know; but that doesn't help us."
"If we could get somebody to smuggle—"
"In the first place, it would ruin Khorosh's experiment, so he'll be on the watch. Second, we've got nothing to bribe any of the locals with. If I could get anything smuggled, it would be a hacksaw, if these blokes have 'em." Mjipa sighed in his turn. "Now let's do some deep knee bends."
As the slow days dragged on, the prisoners played Krishnan checkers. They played word games. They did endless exercises. They studied the wild life in the surrounding gardens. They coached each other in the Khaldoni language.
Despite all, Mjipa felt increasingly bored and frustrated. From Alicia's behavior, he inferred that she felt the same. They became increasingly irritable, with minor quarrels and explosions of temper. Alicia poked fun at what she considered Mjipa's puritanism and idealistic naiveté. She lectured him on the policies that Novorecife ought to adopt towards the Krishnans, until he burst out:
"Damn it, woman, if you weren't always telling people like these benighted natives what to do, we shouldn't be locked up here now!"
"You're out of your mind, Percy! I told you, I had no chance to lecture anyone in Zhamanak before they arrested me."