Aftershocks (55 page)

After fortune cookies and almond cookies, Jonathan paid for dinner. They went out to the car. His arm slipped around Karen’s waist. She leaned against him. “What time is it?” she asked.

Jonathan looked at his watch. “A little past eight,” he answered. “Next show at the drive-in starts at 8:45. We can do that, if you feel like it.”

“Sure,” Karen said, so Jonathan drove east on Rosecrans to Vermont and then south past Artesia to the drive-in. It wasn’t very crowded. The movie—a thriller about the ginger trade set in Marseille before it had gone up in radioactive fire—had been there for a couple of weeks, and would be closing soon. Jonathan didn’t mind. He found a spot well away from most of the other cars, under a light pole with a dead lamp.

Karen snickered. “How much of the movie are we going to watch?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “We’ll find out. Shall I go get some Cokes?”

“Sure,” she said. “Don’t bother with candy or popcorn, though—not for me, anyway. I’m pretty full.”

“Okay. Me, too. Be right back.” Jonathan got out of the car and went over to the concession stand. When he returned to the car with the sodas, he found Karen sitting in the back seat. His hopes rose. They probably wouldn’t see a whole lot of the film. He slid in beside her. “Here.” He handed her one of the Cokes. “We’d better be careful not to spill these later.”

She looked at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, which made both of them laugh so hard, they almost spilled the Cokes then.

They did pay some attention to the first few minutes of the movie, but even then they were paying a lot more attention to each other. Jonathan put his arm around Karen. She snuggled against him. He never did figure out which of them started the first kiss. Whichever one it was, the kiss went on and on. Karen put a hand on the back of his neck to pull him to her.

He rubbed her breasts through the fabric of her blouse. She made a noise deep in her throat—almost a growl. Thus encouraged, he undid two buttons of the blouse and reached inside the cup of her bra. Her flesh was soft and smooth and warm.

Before very long, her blouse and bra were off. Now that they were en-gaged, there didn’t seem to be much point to the stop-and-start games they’d played while they were dating. She rubbed him, too, through his chinos. He hoped he wouldn’t explode.

He slid his hand under her skirt to the joining of her legs. “Oh, God, Jonathan,” she whispered as he stroked her.

“I’ve got a rubber in my wallet,” he said. She hesitated. They still hadn’t gone all the way. But then she lay back on the seat. Jonathan tried to get her panties off, get his trousers down far enough, and put on the rubber, all at the same time. At last, he managed all three. “I love you,” he gasped as he clumsily poised himself over her.

The rubber helped. Without it, he was sure he would have come as soon as he started. As he had with Kassquit, he discovered this was Karen’s first time. Since it wasn’t his, he had a better notion of what to do than he’d had up in the starship. Karen still winced when he pierced her.

Even with the rubber, he didn’t last long. After gasping his way to delight, he asked, “Are you okay? Was it okay?”

“It hurt,” she answered. “I know it’s supposed to get better. Right now, I like your hand and your mouth more. Is that all right?” She sounded anxious.

“I guess so,” Jonathan answered. He liked her hand and especially her mouth at least as well, too. But this had a finality to it that nothing else could match. He kissed her. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Karen said. “Give me my top back, will you?” Inside a couple of minutes, they were fully dressed again—just in time for the big car chase. Jonathan couldn’t think of a movie he’d enjoyed more.

Ttomalss wondered whether all the time he’d spent raising Kassquit had been for nothing. Every time he looked at her, his liver twinged inside him.

Her hair grew longer every day, making her resemble a wild Big Ugly more and more. Her spirit seemed more like a wild Big Ugly’s every day, too.

In something close to despair, he railed at her: “Will you also wash off your body paint and put on wrappings?”

“No, I see no need for that,” Kassquit answered with maddening calm. “But if I am a Tosevite citizen of the Empire, should I not follow Tosevite usages where they do no harm? I do not think a head of hair is very harmful.”

“In any direct sense, probably not,” Ttomalss admitted. “But your grow-ing it seems a slap in the snout at the Race, which has spent so much effort to nurture you and to acculturate you.”

“You have made me a creature, a tool, a thing to be used,” Kassquit said. “It has taken me a long time, probably too long, to realize I can be more than that. If I am a citizen of the Empire, I should have as much freedom as any other citizen. If I choose to be eccentric, I may.” She ran a hand over her dark, hairy scalp.

“If you choose to make yourself ugly, you mean,” Ttomalss said.

But Kassquit made the negative gesture. “For Tosevites, and especially for Tosevite females, hair seems to contribute to attractiveness. I should prefer to be judged by the standards of my own biological species there. I have had enough of being thought a repulsively ugly imitation of a female of the Race. Believe me, superior sir, I have had more than enough of that.” She used an emphatic cough.

Ttomalss flinched. He knew some of the things Tessrek and other males had said while he was rearing Kassquit. He’d never really thought about the effect that hearing such things might have on a young individual isolated from everyone around her because of her appearance and biology. There were probably a lot of things he’d never thought about while rearing Kassquit. Some of them were coming up out of the shadows to bite him now.

Slowly, he said, “Punishing me for errors I made in the past serves no useful purpose I can see.”

“I am not punishing you. That is not my intention at all,” Kassquit said. “I am, however, asserting my own individuality. Any citizen of the Empire may do as much.”

“That is a truth,” Ttomalss said. “Another truth, however, is that most citizens of the Empire suppress a good deal of their individuality, the better to fit into the society of which they are but small parts.”

Kassquit ran a hand over her hair again, and then along her smooth, scaleless, upright body. Even as she bent into the posture of respect, she spoke with poisonous politeness: “Exactly how, superior sir, am I supposed to suppress my individuality? You cannot change me into a female of the Race. You do not know how many times I have wished you could. Since I cannot be a female of the Race, how can I do better than to be the best Tosevite female I can possibly be?”

Her argument was painfully cogent. But Ttomalss had an argument of his own: “You are not culturally prepared to be a Tosevite female.”

“Of course I am not,” Kassquit said. “You were the one who told me I was the first Tosevite citizen of the Empire. Do you now disavow those words because I have learned to see that I am truly a Tosevite and cannot imitate the Race in every imaginable way?”

“At the moment, you seem to be doing your best not to imitate the Race in any imaginable way.” Ttomalss didn’t try to hide his bitterness.

“I have spent my whole life imitating the Race,” Kassquit said. “Am I not entitled to spend some little while discovering what the biological part of my individuality means, and how I can best adjust to its demands?”

“Of course you are,” Ttomalss answered, wishing he could say no. “But I do wish you would not throw yourself into this voyage of discovery with such painful intensity. It will do you no good.”

“No doubt you were the proper judge of such things when I was a hatchling,” Kassquit said. “Now that I am an adult, however, I will plot my course as I think best, not in accordance with anyone else’s views.”

“Even if that course proves a disastrous mistake?” Ttomalss asked.

Kassquit made the affirmative gesture. “Even if that course proves a di-sastrous mistake. You, of course, superior sir, have never made a single mistake in all the days since you broke out of your eggshell.”

At the moment, Ttomalss was thinking the most disastrous mistake he’d ever made was deciding to rear a Tosevite hatchling. He’d thought that before, when the terrifying Chinese female named Liu Han kidnapped him as vengeance for his trying to raise her hatchling as he’d succeeded in raising Kassquit. But even his success here was proving full of thorns he’d never expected.

“Every male, every female makes mistakes,” he said. “Wise ones, however, do not make unnecessary mistakes.”

“Which are which is for me to judge, superior sir,” Kassquit said. “And now, if you will excuse me
. .
.” She didn’t wait to find out if he would excuse her. She just turned and strode out of his chamber. Had the door been the type common on Tosev 3, she would have slammed it. As things were, she could only leave in a huff.

With a sigh, Ttomalss got down to the rest of his work, to everything that had accumulated while he was down in Cairo working with the other members of the commission on Earl Warren. He studied a report of Tosevite attendance at shrines dedicated to the spirits of Emperors past. Since establishing those shrines had been his idea, reports naturally came to him.

He would have liked to see the numbers larger than they were. Few Big Uglies in the regions where their native superstitions were particularly powerful sought to modify those superstitions. That was unfortunate, because those were the areas where Ttomalss had most hoped to change Tosevite behavior and beliefs.

“Patience,” Ttomalss said to himself. Patience was the foundation upon which the Race had built its success. But it seemed to be more a virtue on Home than here on Tosev 3.

Ttomalss hissed in surprise on noticing that the shrines with the highest attendance were not on territory the Race ruled at all, but in the not-empire of the United States. He wondered what that meant, and wondered all the more so because the Americans had gone to the extreme of immolating their own city to keep the Race from gaining influence over them.

Further investigation of this apparent paradox may well prove worth-while,
he wrote. Then he noticed that Atvar had arranged to send the two perverts who had caused so much scandal to the United States. The Amen-cans would apparently put up with anything, no matter how bizarre.

The telephone hissed. “Senior Researcher Ttomalss,” he said. “I greet you.”

“And I greet you.” The image that appeared on the monitor belonged to Tessnek, who’d been an itch under Ttomalss’ scales every since he started trying to raise Tosevite hatchlings.
With him, I have to put up with any-thing, too,
Ttomalss thought. Tessnek went on, “Are you aware of the latest disgusting behavior on the part of your pet Big Ugly?”

“She is not my pet,” Ttomalss said. However much Kassquit disheartened him, Tessrek was the last male before whom he would show that. “She is a citizen of the Empire, as I am and as you are.”

“She certainly boasts of being one,” Tessrek said, “but her behavior hardly makes the boast anything in which she or the Empire can take pride.”

“By which I suppose you mean that you tried baiting her again and found yourself unhappy at the outcome,” Ttomalss said. “You really should learn, Tessrek. This has happened before, and it will keep right on happening as long as you refuse to recognize that she is an adult and an intelligent being.” He himself was none too eager to recognize Kassquit as an adult, but he wouldn’t admit that to Tessrek, either.

Tessnek hissed scornfully. “I am not referring to the Big Ugly’s usual rudeness. I am resigned to that.” He was lying, as Ttomalss knew, for the sake of moral advantage. Before Ttomalss could call him on it, he continued, “I am referring to the disgusting growth of hair she is cultivating on top of her head. It truly does sicken me. I want to turn my eye turrets away every time I see her.”

“You have never complained about the hair wild Big Uglies grow,” Ttomalss replied, “so I think you are singling her out for undue, unfair attention.”

“But those other Big Uglies are, as you point out, wild,” Tessnek said. “Both you and Kassquit have been prating that she is a proper citizen of the Empire. Proper citizens of the Empire do not grow hair.”

“I know of no law or regulation forbidding citizens of the Empire from growing hair.” Ttomalss swung both eye turrets toward Tessrek and spoke in judicious tones: “As a matter of fact, you might try it yourself. It could do wonders for your appearance.”

Tessrek hissed again, this time in real fury. Ttomalss broke the connection in the middle of the hiss. With any luck, Tessrek wouldn’t bother him for some time. Ttomalss’ mouth fell open in a laugh. He hadn’t enjoyed himself so much since
. . . Since mating with Felless,
he thought. But then he made the negative gesture. The pleasures of mating were altogether distinct from other sorts.

He went back to work with a lighter liver. A moment later, though, he too hissed, in chagrin and dismay. He’d bounced Kassquit’s arguments off Tessnek’s snout. They made a surprisingly good case when he used them against a male he’d long disliked.

Of course, when Kassquit used those arguments against him, he’d thought them absurd. What did that mean? He was scientist enough to see one possibility he’d rejected out of hand before.
By the Emperor,
he thought, and cast down his eye turrets.
What if she is right?

Once conquered, the Rabotevs and the Hallessi had soon abandoned almost all of their own cultural baggage and been assimilated into the larger, more complex, more sophisticated culture that was the Empire. And their cases had always been the Race’s models for what would happen on Tosev 3.

But what if the model was wrong? In terms of biology, the Big Uglies were fan more different from the Race than either the Rabotevs on the Hal-lessi. And in terms of culture, they were far closer to the Race than the Rabotevs on the Hallessi had been. Both those factors argued that they would acculturate more slowly and to a lesser degree than either of the other species the Race had conquered.