Once the aircraft had rolled to a halt, she got out and arranged transportation to the new consulate building. Formalities were minimal; the Francais, unlike the Deutsche, didn’t go out of their way to make things difficult for the Race.
They had better not, she thought. They owe us a great deal more than I owe Ttomalss. Of course, by all indications, the Big Uglies worried a great deal less than the Race did about their debts.
All the motorcars outside the terminal building were of Tosevite manufacture and had Big Uglies driving them. She got into one and said, “To the consulate.” She spoke in her language, since she knew no other.
“It shall be done,” the driver said. He opened and closed his hands four times. “Twenty francs.” Francs, she knew, were what the local Big Uglies used for money. She had some of the little metal disks. They differed in value, depending on their size and design. Somewhere on them, no doubt, were Tosevite numerals. Felless had never bothered learning those, but she did know which size was worth ten francs. She gave the driver two of those. He made the Race’s affirmative gesture. “I thank you.”
By the time he got her to the consulate, Felless was by no means sure she thanked him. She had seen that many Tosevites drove as if they did not care whether they lived or died. This Francais male seemed to be actively courting death. He drove as if his motorcar were a missile, and guided it into tiny openings, even into imaginary openings, defying everyone around him. Back on Home, males of some animal species used such challenges to establish territories during the mating season. What purpose they served here was beyond Felless’ comprehension.
She escaped from the motorcar as if escaping prison-though she had trouble imagining a prison as dangerous as the trip from the airfield-and fled into the consulate. After exchanging greetings with some of the males and females there, she went back to her own room. The chamber she’d had at Shepheard’s Hotel had been adequate, but this was home.
She felt like having a taste of ginger to celebrate surviving her encounter with the maniacal Big Ugly, but refrained. Suppertime was coming, and she knew she would want to go down to the refectory: through some tradition probably older than the unification of Home under the Empire, aircraft never served adequate meals. The time for the herb will come, she told herself. Sooner or later, she always found a chance to taste.
When she did go to the refectory, she had trouble getting time to eat. She was too busy greeting friends and acquaintances and giving them gossip from Cairo and about her work with Straha. Everyone paid attention when she talked about that; the ex-shiplord fascinated veterans from the conquest fleet and also males and females from among the colonists. He’d fascinated Felless, too; his tale of disobedience and defection was far outside the Race’s normal pattern of behavior.
Because Felless spent so much time talking, she took a while to notice that the food wasn’t up to the quality of what she’d been eating in Cairo. She shrugged-what could one expect in a provincial place like France? She also took a while to notice that one familiar face was missing. “Where is Business Administrator Keffesh?” she asked the female sitting beside her.
“Had you not heard?” the other female exclaimed in surprise. “But no, you could not have-you were in Cairo. How foolish of me. Well, Business Administrator Keffesh is now Prisoner Keffesh, I am afraid. He was caught dealing ginger with a notorious Tosevite. The herb is such a nuisance.” She spoke with the smug superiority of one who had never tasted.
“Truth: the herb is indeed a nuisance,” Felless said in a hollow voice. If Keffesh was a prisoner, he’d presumably been interrogated and had presumably confessed and told all he knew in the hope of gaining leniency. Felless wondered if he’d reckoned his dealings with her important enough to mention to the authorities.
One way or the other, she would find out before long. Either nothing would happen or she would get yet another unpleasant telephone call from Ambassador Veffani. Or perhaps Veffani wouldn’t bother telephoning. Perhaps he would simply send law-enforcement officials to search her chamber and arrest her if they found any illicit ginger-a redundancy if ever there was one.
But then she made the negative gesture under the table. Veffani could have ordered her chamber searched while she was in Cairo. Had he done so, he would without a doubt have radioed an order for her arrest to the Race’s administrative center. Since he hadn’t, maybe Keffesh hadn’t implicated her after all. She could hope he hadn’t, anyhow.
She sipped at the fermented fruit juice that accompanied her meal. Alcohol was a pleasure familiar from Home, and she didn’t mind the taste of this particular Tosevite variation on the theme. Next to ginger, though, alcohol seemed pretty pallid stuff. I will taste again, she thought fiercely. I will, by the Emperor.
As she cast down her eye turrets, the irony of swearing by her sovereign when contemplating the illegal herb struck her. She shrugged. The Emperor didn’t know what he was missing. It would be many years before he found out, if he ever did.
After learning the news about Keffesh, getting out of the refectory and back to her chamber felt like escape, almost as much as getting out of the wild Big Ugly’s motorcar had. But that Francais male couldn’t have pursued her here. The telephone, that dangerous instrument, could-and did. She flinched when it hissed. “Senior Researcher Felless,” she said. “I greet you.”
As she’d feared, Veffani’s image was the one that appeared on her monitor. “And I greet you, Senior Researcher,” he replied. “Welcome home. I trust your journey from Cairo went well?”
“I thank you, superior sir. Yes, it went well enough.” Felless was delighted to stick to polite commonplaces. “It went well enough till I landed here at Marseille, at any rate.” She had no trouble working up indignation while recounting the antics of her driver.
And Veffani was sympathetic there, when he’d proved much less so elsewhere. “This is a problem here, and it is a problem in many parts of Tosev 3 where we rule directly,” he said. “Before we came to Tosev 3, the Big Uglies did not even build their motorcars with safety belts. They kill one another by the tens of thousands, and seem utterly indifferent to the carnage.”
“I count myself lucky that I was not among the slain earlier today,” Felless said.
“I am glad you were not,” Veffani said. “I have had nothing but fine reports of your work in Cairo, and I take no small pleasure in telling you so.”
“That is very good news, superior sir,” Felless replied. You have no idea how good it is. If you did have any such idea, you would be telling me something altogether different. And you would take no small pleasure in that, either. “It was a very interesting experience, and one where I learned a good deal.”
“Do I understand that your commission concluded the Tosevite Warren acted as he did from reasons of policy rather than on a whim or out of despair after being discovered in his efforts against us?” Veffani asked.
“That is the consensus, yes,” Felless answered. “Thanks to data Straha obtained from private Tosevite sources, no other conclusion seemed possible.”
“Too bad,” Veffani said. “I would rather have been able to reckon him a fool, but he served his not-empire well.”
“He was a murderous barbarian, and I am glad to know that he is dead and no longer a danger to the Race,” Felless said.
“I agree with every word of what you have said,” Veffani answered. “None of that, however, in any way contradicts what I said.”
“No, I suppose not.” Felless paused and thought about the ambassador’s tone of voice. “You admire him, superior sir. Is that not a truth?” She knew she sounded accusing. She enjoyed sounded accusing, as a matter of fact. She’d spent a lot of time listening to Veffani’s accusations, which were usually all too well justified. Now she could get some of her own back.