“S’matter? You don’t like Sylvie?” the giant asked.
Although the dance was still in its languid opening phase, the mostly male audience was already hooting encouragement. Fiben realized he must have been wearing his disapproval on his face, like an idiot. A true spy would have feigned enjoyment in order to fit in.
“Headache.” He pointed to his right temple. “Rough day. I guess I’d better go.”
The big neo-chimp grinned, his huge paw not leaving Fiben’s shoulder. “Headache? Or maybe it’s too bold for ya? Maybe you ain’t had your first sharin’ yet, hm?”
Out of the corner of his eye Fiben saw a swaying, teasing display, still demure but growing more sensual by the moment. He could feel the seething sexual tension beginning to fill the room and couldn’t guess where it might lead. There were important reasons why this sort of display was illegal… one of the few activities humans proscribed their clients.
“Of course I’ve been in sharings!” he snapped back. “It’s just that here, in public, it — it could cause a riot.”
The big stranger laughed and poked him amiably. “When!”
“I beg your par-… uh, what d’you mean?”
“I mean when did you first share, hm? From the way you talk, I’ll bet it was one of those college parties. Right? Am I right, Mr. Bluecard?”
Fiben glanced quickly right and left. First impressions notwithstanding, the big fellow seemed more curious and drunk than hostile. But Fiben wished he’d go away. His size was intimidating, and they might be attracting attention.
“Yeah,” he muttered, uncomfortable with the recollection. “It was a fraternity initiation—”
The chimmie students back at college might be good friends with, the chens in their classes, but they were never invited to sharings. It was just too dangerous to think of green-card females sexually. And anyway, they tended to be paranoid about pregnancy before marriage and genetic counseling. The possible costs were just too great.
So when chens at the University threw a party, they tended to invite girl chims from the far side of the tracks, yellow- and gray-card chimmies whose flame-colored estrus was only an exciting sham.
It was a mistake to judge such behavior by human standards. We have fundamentally different patterns, Fiben had reminded himself back then, and many times since. Still, he had never found those sharings very satisfying or joyful. Maybe someday, when he found the right marriage group…
“Sure, my sis used to go to those college parties. Sounded like fun.” The scarred chim turned to the bartender and slapped the polished surface. “Two pints! One for me an’ one for my college chum!” Fiben winced at the loud voice. Several others nearby had turned to look their way.
“So tell me,” his unwelcome acquaintance said, thrusting a paper bottle into Fiben’s hand. “Ya have any kids yet? Maybe some that are registered, but you never met?” He did not sound unfriendly, rather envious.
Fiben took a long swallow of the warm, bitter brew. He shook his head, keeping his voice low. “It doesn’t really work that way. An open birthright isn’t the same as an unlimited — a white card. If the planners have used any of my plasm I wouldn’t know it.”
“Well why the hell not! I mean its bad enough for you bluesies, having to screw test tubes on orders from the Uplift Board, but to not even know if they’ve used the gunk… Hell, my senior group-wife had a planned kid a year ago… you might even be my son’s gene-dad!” The big chim laughed and clapped Fiben again heavily on the shoulder.
This would never do. More heads were turning his way. All this talk about blue cards was not going to win him friends here. Anyway, he did not want to attract attention with a Gubru sitting less than thirty feet away. “I really have to be going,” he said, and started to edge backward. “Thanks for the beer. …”
Somebody blocked his way. “Excuse me,” Fiben said. He turned and came face to face with four chims clothed in bright zipsuits, all staring at him with arms crossed. One, a little taller than the others, pushed Fiben back toward the bar.
“Of course this one’s got offspringl” the newcomer growled. He had trimmed his facial hair, and the remaining mustache was waxed and pointed.
“Just look at those paws of his. I’ll bet he’s never done a day of honest chim’s work. Probably he’s a tech, or a scientist.” He made it sound as if the very idea of a neo-chimp wearing such a title was like a privileged child being allowed to play a complicated game of pretend.
The irony of it was that while Fiben’s hands might be less callused than many here, under his shirt were burn-scars from crash landing on a hillside at Mach five. But it wouldn’t do to speak of that here.
“Look, fellas, why don’t I buy a round. …”
His money flew across the bar as the tallest zipsuiter slapped his hand. “Worthless crap. They’ll be collectin’ it soon, like they’ll be collecting you ape aristocrats.”
“Shut up!” somebody yelled from the crowd, a brown mass of hunched shoulders. Fiben glimpsed Sylvie, rocking up on the mound. The separate strips of her skirt rippled, and Fiben caught a glimpse that made him start with amazement. She really was pink… her briefly exposed genitals in full estrus.
The zipsuiter prodded Fiben again. “Well, Mr. College-man? What good is your blue card gonna do you when the Gubru start collecting and sterilizing all you freebreeders? Hah?”
One of the newcomers, a slope-shouldered chim with a barbelate, receding forehead, had a hand in a pocket of his bright garment, gripping a pointed object. His sharp eyes seemed carnivorously intent, and he left the talking to his mustachioed friend.
Fiben had just come to realize that these guys had nothing to do with the big chim in the dungarees. In fact, that fellow had already edged away into the shadows. “I — I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t? They’ve been goin’ through the colonial records, bub, and picking up a lot of college chims like you for questioning. So far they’ve just been taking samples, but I’ve got friends who say they’re planning a full-tilt purge. Now what d’you think of that?”
“Shut th’ fkup!” someone yelled. This time several faces turned. Fiben saw glazed eyes, flecks of saliva, and bared fangs.
He felt torn. He wanted desperately to get out of here, but what if there were some truth in what the zipsuits were saying? If so, this was important information.
Fiben decided to listen a little while longer. “That’s pretty surprising,” he said, putting an elbow on the bar. “The Gubru are fanatical conservatives. Whatever they do to other patron-level races, I’d bet they’d never interfere with the process of Uplift. It’s against their own religion.”
Mustache only smiled. “Is that what your college education tells you, blue boy? Well it’s what the Galactics are saying that counts now.”
They were crowding Fiben, this bunch who seemed more interested in him than in Sylvie’s provocative gyrations. The crowd was hooting louder, the music beating harder. Fiben’s head felt as if it might crack under the noise.
”…too cool to enjoy a working man’s show. Never done any real labor. But snap his fingers, an’ our own chimmies come running!”
Fiben could tell something was false here. The one with the mustache was overly calm, his barratrous taunts too deliberate. In an environment like this, with all the noise and sexual tension — a true grunt shouldn’t be able to focus so well.
Probationers! he realized suddenly. Now he saw the signs. Two of the zipsuited chims’ faces bore the stigmata of failed genetic meddling — mottled, cacophrenic features or the blinking, forever-puzzled look of a cross-wired brain — embarrassing reminders that Uplift was an awkward process, not without its price.