“I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said. “I trust your stay in Australia proved enjoyable and restorative?”
“Oh, indeed, Shiplord, indeed,” Atvar said. “And I trust there are new crises and disasters awaiting me here.” His mouth opened in a wry laugh. “There always are.”
“No crises or disasters,” Kirel said, and Atvar felt a strange mixture of disappointment and relief. The shiplord of the bannership went on, “There is one thing, however, which has come up in the last few days that does appear worthy of your attention.”
“There always is,” Atvar said with a sigh. “Very well, Shiplord: enlighten me. You were on the point of doing so anyhow, I have no doubt.”
“As a matter of fact, I was,” Kirel agreed. “It appears that, here and there across Tosev 3, a certain number of females from the colonization fleet have come into season. Matings have taken place, and one male near Basra was badly bitten in a fight over a female.”
“That is curious,” the fleetlord said. “A certain number of females, you tell me? They should all enter their season at about the same time, not piecemeal. Did Reffet use some peculiar selection criteria for them? Are some from the worlds of the Rabotevs and Hallessi rather than Home?”
“I do not believe that to be the case,” Kirel replied. “Nevertheless, there does appear to be a common factor in these incidents.”
His tone warned that good news did not lie ahead. Atvar fixed him with a baleful stare. “I suppose you are going to tell me what this common factor is, too. Before you do, tell me whether I really want to know.”
“I do not know whether you do or not, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said, “but I will tell you that you need to know.”
“Very well,” Atvar said, with the air of a male who expected the enemy to do his worst.
Kirel proceeded to do just that: “It appears that all the females who suddenly came into season had tasted ginger shortly before they did so. This is not certain, due to natural reluctance to admit to ginger-tasting, but it appears likely to be true.”
“I think I will go back to Australia now,” Atvar said. “No, on second thought, I believe I will go into cold sleep and have my miserable, frozen carcass shipped back to Home. When I am revived there, everything that has happened to me here will seem to be only a dream remembered from hibernation. Yes, I like the sound of that very much.”
“Exalted Fleetlord, you led us into battle against the Big Uglies,” Kirel said loyally. “You gained as satisfactory a peace as you could after conditions turned out to be different from those we anticipated. Do you now despair over an herb we have been fighting since not long after our landing on Tosev 3?”
“I am tempted to,” Atvar replied. “Are you not? Fight as we would, we could not keep a great many males from becoming regular ginger users. Do you think we shall have any better luck with the females from the colonization fleet?”
“Who can say, with any certainty?” Kirel replied. “We may yet find a way to overcome the craving the herb causes.”
“I hope you are right,” Atvar said. “But I wish I truly believed it.” He studied Kirel. The shiplord of the 127th Emperor Hetto truly did not seem too upset at the news he had given Atvar. Perhaps he did not understand its implications. Atvar did. Tosev 3 had given him practice in recognizing catastrophes while they were still hatching. He proceeded to spell this one out: “You say it is truth that females who taste ginger go into their season?”
“Some females, yes: this is truth,” Kirel said. “I do not know if it is truth for all females.”
“Spirits of Emperors past grant that it not be,” Atvar said, and cast his eyes down to the floor of his office in Shepheard’s Hotel. “Females going into season will mean males going into season, sure as night follows day.”
“That is also truth, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel admitted. “I have no doubt it will prove a nuisance, but-”
“A nuisance,” Atvar exclaimed. “A nuisance? Is that all you see?” Kirel was sound, conservative, reliable. He had as much imagination now as he’d had in his eggshell, when he’d had nothing to imagine. Atvar said, “Females will not taste ginger at only one season of the year, any more than males do.”
“No doubt you are right once more, Exalted Fleetlord.” No, Kirel really did not grasp the size of the disaster looming ahead.
Atvar made it unmistakably clear: “Shiplord, if we have females accessible to mating at any season of the year and males accessible to mating at any season of the year, how are we any different from Big Uglies? ”
“That is a… fascinating question, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said slowly. “I must confess, I have no good answer for it at the moment.”
“I was hoping you might, because I have none, either,” Atvar said. “The accursed Tosevites have evolved to cope with their bizarre biology. If our biology on this world becomes bizarre, how are we to cope? Evolution has not prepared us to be in season the year around. Can you imagine anything more wearing? How are we to get done that which will assuredly need doing if our minds are constantly filled with thoughts of mating?”
Kirel’s eye turrets were rigid and still with horror as he stared at the fleetlord. “No analysis up to this time has suggested such a chain of events,” he said. “That does not necessarily mean they are improbable, however. Indeed, they strike me as all too probable.” He folded himself into the posture of respect. “How did you come to postulate them?”
“When dealing with matters on this planet, my standard method is to take the worst thing I can imagine, multiply it by ten, and then begin to suspect I have something a quarter of the way to the true level of misfortune,” Atvar said.
Kirel laughed. Atvar wished he had been joking. Kirel asked, “What is now to be done?”
“I do not know,” Atvar answered. His laugh, unlike Kirel’s, was bitter. “We have been studying the Tosevites’ sexuality since we arrived here. Who would have imagined our research might have practical applications to our own situation?”
“We must do everything we can to keep ginger out of the hands and off the tongues of females,” Kirel said. “That will not eliminate the problem, but it will help reduce it.”
“Draft the appropriate orders for my approval,” Atvar said. “As you say, that will not remove the problem, but it will make it smaller. And, like an army that has taken a heavy blow, we need to buy time and regroup.”
“Truth. It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord.” Kirel hesitated, then went on, “If I may offer a suggestion?”
“Please do,” Atvar said. “The more suggestions we have now, the better.”
“Very well, then.” Kirel looked away from Atvar with both eye turrets for a moment. He was embarrassed at what he was about to say, then. Nevertheless, he said it: “In matters pertaining to year-round sexuality, we are the ignorant ones, the Big Uglies the experts. You could do worse than consult with them in regard to this problem. We shall not be able to keep it secret. In fact, if some of the reports reaching Cairo are true, it is no longer secret. Some very public matings have occurred.”
“Have they?” Atvar shrugged. Such things happened all the time during mating season. Still, Kirel’s point was well taken. Atvar said, “A good notion. I shall summon Moishe Russie. Not only is he a Big Ugly, but also a physician, or what passes for such among his kind. He will undoubtedly be able to tell us much that we do not yet know or suspect about what lies ahead for us.”
He wasted no time, but telephoned Russie at his practice in Jerusalem. Being the most powerful individual on the planet had its advantages: Russie did not refuse to speak to him. Atvar couched his orders in polite terms; he had seen over the years how touchy and stubborn Russie could be. But they were orders, and of that the fleetlord left no doubt.