Also infuriating to the senior researcher was how quickly and accurately Jonathan Yeager could divine what was in Kassquit’s mind. Blood will tell, the male thought unhappily. That was not the conclusion he would have wanted as a culmination of his long-running experimental project.
He was so distressed about what he found, he called Felless to talk about it. “I greet you, Senior Researcher,” she said when she saw his image in the video screen. “I am glad to speak with you.”
“And I greet you, superior female.” Ttomalss wondered if his hearing diaphragms were working as they should. Felless only rarely admitted to being glad to speak with anyone, and most especially not with him.
A moment later, she explained why she was: “After so much time spent dealing with the Francais, it is good to talk shop with a member of my own species.”
“Ah,” Ttomalss said. “Yes, I can certainly understand that.”
“And why are you interested in speaking with me?” Felless asked.
“For your insights, of course,” Ttomalss answered, which was even more or less true. He told her of the disturbing data about Kassquit.
“Why does this surprise you?” she asked, sounding surprised herself. “A common law of psychological development states that hatchlings are more influenced by their peers than by the previous generation. This holds for the Race, it holds for the Rabotevs, and it holds for the Hallessi, too. Why should it not also hold for the Big Uglies?”
“I had assumed it would be different as a result of the prolonged parental care they receive, which makes them unlike the species-the other species, I should say-of the Empire,” Ttomalss replied. “I might also note that the leading Tosevite psychological theories stress the primacy of the relationship between parents and hatchlings.”
Felless’ mouth opened wide in hearty, unabashed laughter. “Why in the name of the Emperor do you take Tosevite psychological theories seriously?” she asked. “I have examined a few of them. For one thing, they strike me as preposterous. For another, they contradict one another in any number of ways, demonstrating that they cannot all be true and that, very likely, none of them is true.”
“I do understand that,” Ttomalss said stiffly. “I have been examining Tosevite psychological theories a good deal longer than you have, I might add. And one point where they are in unanimity is on the vital importance of this bond.”
“But it makes no logical sense!” Felless exclaimed. “Even in Tosevite terms, it makes no logical sense.”
“There I might well disagree with you, superior female,” Ttomalss said. “Some of the Big Uglies appear to have very persuasive arguments for the nurturing influence of parents upon hatchlings. Given their biological patterns, I have no trouble finding these arguments plausible.”
“Plausibility and truth hatch from different eggs,” Felless said, something Ttomalss could hardly deny. The female from the colonization fleet went on, “Consider, Senior Researcher. Where will even a Big Ugly end up spending most of his time? With his parents and their other hatchlings, or with his peers? With his peers, of course. Whom will he have to work harder to accommodate, his parents and their other hatchlings, or his peers? Again, his peers, of course. His parents and close kin are biologically programmed to be accommodating to him. If they were not, they probably could not stand him at all, Big Uglies being what they are. If, however, he acts as if he has his head up his cloaca among his peers, are they not likely to inform him of this in no uncertain terms? No male or female of the Race with whom I am familiar has ever composed songs of praise for the Tosevites’ kindness or gentle manners.”
The pungent irony there forced a laugh from Ttomalss, who also could hardly deny Felless’ words held some truth. “No, no songs of praise,” he agreed, laughing still. And, after some thought, he continued, “That may well be a cogent analysis, superior female. It may indeed. As always, experimental data would be desirable, but the superstructure of your thought certainly appears logical.”
“For which I thank you,” Felless replied. She sounded more cordial toward him than she had for some time. On the other fork of the tongue, he hadn’t praised her much lately, either. She was a female who took praise seriously.
In musing tones, Ttomalss said, “You might provoke some interesting responses if you were to publish that thesis in a Tosevite psychological journal.”
“For which I do not thank you.” Felless used an emphatic cough. “I have enough difficulties with Big Uglies as is to want to avoid more, not to provoke them.”
“Very well.” Ttomalss shrugged. “I thought you might find it amusing to watch the allegedly learned Tosevites banding together to destroy you with overheated rhetoric.”
“Again, no,” Felless said. “The trouble with Big Uglies is, they might not stop with overheated rhetoric. If I upset them badly enough, they might try to destroy me with explosives. Is it not a truth that the followers of the male called Khomeini still raise a rebellion against us despite his capture and imprisonment?”
“Yes, that is a truth,” Ttomalss admitted. “But they remain imprisoned in the grip of superstition. Contributors to psychological journals, even Tosevite psychological journals, have a more rational outlook.”
“I do not care to test this experimentally,” Felless said. “And here is my suggestion for you, Senior Researcher: since Kassquit will be influenced by her peers, you would do well to persuade her that her true peers are males and females of the Race, not the barbaric Big Uglies on the surface of Tosev 3. And now, if you will excuse me…” She disappeared from the video screen.
Even so, Ttomalss protested, “But I have always done my best to persuade her of that.” And it had worked. It still worked, to a point. Ttomalss couldn’t imagine Kassquit betraying the Race in any truly important matter. But the sexual bond she’d so quickly established with Jonathan Yeager formed the basis of a social intimacy with him different from the sort she’d established with the Race.
I wonder if I ought to arrange a new sexual partner for her, he thought. That might lessen her despondence over the departure of the wild Big Ugly. But it might also present new and more serious problems. Solving one difficulty with Tosevites all too often did produce another worse one. The whole world of Tosev 3 was a large, unexpected difficulty, or rather a multitude of them.
He dictated a note to himself so he would not forget the possibility, then returned to analyzing the recordings of Kassquit’s conversations with Jonathan Yeager. At one point, she’d asked him, “Would you not like to spend all your time living and working among the Race?” Ttomalss suspected she meant, Would you not like to spend all your time staying with me?
“If I could do it in the service of my not-empire, then maybe,” the wild Tosevite male had answered. “But I would like to have some of my species around for the sake of company. We are too different from the Race to be very comfortable with its members all the time.”
Was that U.S. propaganda, countering the Race’s propaganda that formed the only indoctrination Kassquit had had till Jonathan Yeager’s arrival? Or was it simply his view of where the truth lay? If so, was he right?
Ttomalss feared he was. No wild Rabotev or Hallessi would ever have said such a thing. The other two species in the Empire had been on the same road as the Race; they just hadn’t gone so far along it when the conquest fleets got to their planets. The Big Uglies had been going in another direction altogether when the Race arrived.
That so many of them were still going in a different direction told how strong their impetus had been. And yet the direction was not so different as it had been before the conquest fleet came; it was the resultant of their former course and that which the Race tried to impose on them. Which component of the vector would prove stronger in the end remained to be seen.