At least I don’t publish anything touching on this period, she thought. A lecture could be thought of as written on the wind. A scholarly article left a record as permanent as the inscriptions she pursued. The Gestapo could, if it so chose, do all sorts of unpleasant things with that.
The Gestapo, in the person of Sturmbannfuhrer Dieter Kuhn, came up to her after the lecture and said, “Another stimulating discussion of the issues. You have my compliments, for whatever you think they may be worth.”
“Thank you,” Monique said, and turned away to answer a genuine student’s question about where the Goths had landed along the coast of Asia Minor. It was the last real question she had. When she finished dealing with it, Dieter Kuhn still stood waiting. Her temper flared. “Damn you. What do you want?”
“If it is all right with you, we will ride back to your flat together,” Kuhn said.
“And if it is not all right with me?” Monique set her hands on her hips.
Kuhn shrugged, not quite as a Frenchman would have done. “Then we will ride back to your flat together anyhow.” He had never been anything but polite to her, but he made it very plain he did not intend to take no for an answer.
“Why?” she asked, playing for time.
She did not really expect an answer, but the SS officer gave her one: “Because something strange is happening in your brother’s dealings with the Lizards. It could be that, before too long, he will see us as friends, or at least as professional colleagues, rather than as foes.”
It did not sound like a lie. But then, if it was, it wouldn’t. Still, Monique started to dismiss it… till she remembered the morning traffic snarl. “Does it have to do with Lizards screwing?” she asked.
His eyes, brown as hers, widened slightly. “You are very clever,” he said, as if wondering whether she was too clever for her own good. “How did you figure that out? The situation has made itself plain only in the past few weeks. There has been no talk of it in the newspapers or on the wireless. We have made certain of that.”
“I wish I could take more credit for intelligence, but I saw a pair of them, ah, enjoying themselves as I rode down to the university this morning,” Monique answered.
“Ah,” Kuhn said. “I see. And now, shall we go?”
Monique considered. The only other choice she saw was screaming and hoping enough Frenchmen came running to give the SS man a good beating. But that would be dangerous not only for her but also for anyone who came to her aid. She sighed. “Very well,” she said, though it wasn’t.
Kuhn had, as usual, come prepared. The bicycle he rode was almost as old and disreputable as hers. She rode every day. So far as she knew, he didn’t. He had no trouble staying with her even so. She got the feeling he was, if anything, holding back. She sped up till she might have been racing. Kuhn stuck like a burr. He glanced over to her and nodded, plainly enjoying himself. Damn him, he wasn’t even breathing hard.
As she let him into her flat, she wished, not for the first time, that she only had to worry about him tearing off his trousers. She suspected she wouldn’t be able to stop him if he tried-and a Frenchwoman who dared lodge a complaint against the all-powerful SS would be lucky if she just got ignored. But Kuhn wasn’t interested in her body-or not interested enough to do anything along those lines. To him, she was a tool, a key, not an object of desire.
“Call your brother,” he said now. He must have seen the mulish resistance on her face, for he went on, “You may tell him I am forcing you to do it. You may, if you like, tell him I wish to speak with him, for I do.”
“Why don’t you just call him yourself, then, and leave me out of it?” Monique demanded. More than anything else, she wanted not to be stuck between the brother she didn’t know and the SS she knew too well.
“He is more likely to pay attention to his sister than to someone who has been hunting him for some time,” Dieter Kuhn answered.
“He hasn’t paid any attention to me for more than twenty years,” Monique said. Kuhn looked at her. The look said, Get on with it. Hating herself, she picked up the telephone and dialed the number she’d worked so hard to learn.
“Allo?” It was the woman with the sexy voice. Pierre’s wife? His mistress? Only his secretary? Did smugglers have secretaries? Monique didn’t know.
“Hello,” she said back. “This is Pierre’s sister. There is an SS man in my flat who needs to speak with him.”
That got her a few seconds of silence, and then Pierre’s voice, as full of suspicion as the woman’s had been the first time Monique spoke to her: “Hello, little sister. What nonsense is this about an SS man? Is it the fellow who wanted to be your boyfriend?”
“Yes.” Monique’s face heated. She thrust the handset at Kuhn. “Here.”
“Thank you.” He took it with complete aplomb. “Bonjour, Dutourd. I just thought you ought to know that ginger is a genuine aphrodisiac for female Lizards. They didn’t like the trade before. Now they have an even bigger reason to hate it. If they come after you-when they come after you-we won’t lift a finger to stop them, not unless we get some cooperation on your end.”
He played the game well. Monique already knew that. Now she saw it again. She wondered how much difference it would make to her brother. Not much, she hoped. If Pierre didn’t play this game well, he wouldn’t have been able to stay in business so long himself.
He said something. Monique could hear his voice coming out of the telephone, but not the words. Dieter Kuhn obviously heard the words. “I think you are being an optimist,” he replied. “I think, in fact, you are being a fool. As I said, if you do not cooperate with us, we shall not cooperate with you. Au revoir. ” He hung up, then turned to Monique. “Your brother is stubborn. He will live to regret it-for how long, I cannot say.”
Monique burst into tears. Through them, she pointed to the door. “Get out.” Rather to her surprise, Kuhn left. She cried for a long time even so.
Straha turned one eye up from the documents and photographs Major Sam Yeager had given him toward the Tosevite himself. “You are confirming what my sources in lands ruled by the Race have already reported to me,” he said. “I find it highly amusing. Would you not agree?”
“I just might, Shiplord,” Yeager answered. “For the past twenty years, the Race has been calling us sexually wild, and now your males and females are mating whenever they get the chance. Yes, that is pretty funny, all right.”
“Atvar will be shedding his skin in patches,” Straha said with a certain morbid relish. “Females coming into heat outside the proper mating season will be something new and unexpected. The Race is not at its best dealing with the new and unexpected.” He added an emphatic cough. “And Atvar is not good at dealing with the new and unexpected even for a male of the Race.”
Yeager said, “If you already knew this, Shiplord, I am sorry I had you come down to my house to look at these things.”
“Do not concern yourself,” Straha answered. “I know that one of the things I am is a Tosevite tool. I chose the role myself, if you will recall.” He laughed a small laugh. “How strange that the herb which gives males so much pleasure turns out to give females and males even more.”
“Shiplord, that is one of the things I wanted to ask you,” Yeager said. “There are a couple of females of the Race in Los Angeles now. If we were to arrange to give them some ginger while you were around… if you want us to do that, we can take care of it for you. You have done a lot for us over the years.”
Straha thought about it, then made the negative hand gesture. “You mean this generously, I have no doubt. I believe a Big Ugly who had gone without a female for as long as I have would be inclined to accept. But a male of the Race, you must understand, has no desire until his scent receptors catch the odor of a female in her season.”