“It should be,” Nesseref said. “Among us, it is not, though there is talk of making it one. Among us, no one would have or could have done such a thing without this cursed herb, so we did not even consider such possibilities.” She paused thoughtfully. “You Big Uglies have had to do more planning about problems pertaining to reproduction than we have.”
“It has been necessary for us,” Mordechai Anielewicz answered. “Now, with ginger, it may become necessary for you, too.”
“Us, imitating Tosevites?” Nesseref started to laugh, but stopped. “I suppose it could happen. You may have already found solutions for which we would need to spend a long time searching.”
“Truth,” the Big Ugly said. “And now, Shuttlecraft Pilot, may I ask you one question more?”
“You may ask,” Nesseref told him. “I do not promise to answer.”
“You would be a fool if you did promise,” Anielewicz replied. He had good sense for a Big Ugly. No, Nesseref thought. He has good sense. He would have good sense as a male of the Race. He asked his question: “Did you not crave the ginger when the male offered it to you?”
“Some,” Nesseref said. “But, as best I can, I do the things I ought to do, not the things I crave doing.”
To her surprise, Anielewicz burst into the barking laughter of his kind. “You had better be careful, or you will end up a Jew.”
“I do not understand the differences between one group of Tosevites and another,” Nesseref said. “I know there are differences, but I do not see why you put such weight on them.”
“That… is not simple,” the Big Ugly said. “Not all the differences are weighed rationally. I think you of the Race, taken as a whole, are more rational than we Tosevites. We think with our feelings as much as with our brains.”
“I have heard that this is so,” Nesseref replied. “I have seen that it is so, in my small experience of Big Uglies. I find it interesting that a Tosevite should also believe it is so.”
Anielewicz grimaced in such a way that the outer corners of his mouth turned up. Nesseref could not remember whether that meant he was happy or sad. Happy, evidently, for he said, “One friend should not lie to another.”
“Truth,” Nesseref said, and then decided to tease him: “Were you lying to me when you told me you were going to check on that explosive-metal bomb in Glowno? I thought you were, but was I wrong?”
The Big Ugly stood very still. He had a rifle slung on his back, a weapon of Tosevite manufacture. Nesseref had paid it no mind till that moment. She wouldn’t have then, save that he started to reach for it before arresting the motion. “I made a mistake when I ever mentioned that,” he said slowly. “And you, of course, went and told others of the Race.”
She had told Bunim, who hadn’t believed her. She started to say as much, but checked herself. If Anielewicz had been telling the truth then and did not want her or anyone of the Race to know it was truth, she would be in danger if she gave the impression she was the only one who did believe it-with her disposed of, no one would credit it. So all she said was, “Yes, I did that.”
“And now the Race knows where the weapon is,” Anielewicz said with a sigh. He began to reach for the rifle again. Nesseref braced herself to leap for him as she’d attacked the male of her own kind. But he checked himself once more. After shaking his head, he continued, “No blame attaches to you. You could not have known how much this would inconvenience me and my fellow Jews.”
“I do not understand why it does inconvenience you,” Nesseref said. “The Race rules here. No group of Tosevites does. No group of Tosevites can. What need has a small faction like yours for an explosive-metal bomb?”
“You are new to Tosev 3, sure enough,” Mordechai Anielewicz answered patiently. “I must remember: this means you are new to the way groups deal with one another, for the Race has no groups, not as we Tosevites do.”
“And a good thing, too,” Nesseref said, with an emphatic cough. “We do not spend our time squabbling among ourselves. In our unity is our strength.”
Anielewicz’s mouth went up at the corners. “That holds some truth, but only some. With us Tosevites, disunity is our strength. Had we not had so many groups competing against one another, we could never have come far enough fast enough to have resisted when the Race landed on our planet.”
Nesseref wished the Big Uglies had not come far enough fast enough to be able to resist the Race. At the moment, though, that was a side issue. She returned to the main point: “I still do not understand why a small group of Tosevites would need such a thing as an explosive-metal bomb.”
“Because even a large group will think twice about harming a small group that can, if pressed, do a great deal of harm in return,” Mordechai Anielewicz replied. “Even the Race will think twice about harming a small group of Tosevites that can do it a great deal of harm in return. Do you understand now, my friend?”
“Yes, now I understand-at least in theory,” Nesseref said. “But I do not understand why so many Tosevite groups remain small and separate instead of joining together with others.”
“Old hatreds,” Anielewicz said. Nesseref had to laugh at that. Anielewicz laughed, too, in the yipping Tosevite way. He continued, “Nothing here seems old to the Race. I understand that. But it does not matter. Anything that seems old to us may as well be old in truth.”
In one way, that was an absurdity, a logical contradiction. On the other fork of the tongue, though, it made a twisted kind of sense. Many things on Tosev 3, Nesseref was discovering, made that kind of sense if they made any.
Anielewicz had trouble telling females of the Race from males, but he’d gained some skill in reading the reactions males and females had in common. He said, “I think you begin to understand the problem.”
“All I understand is that this world is a much more complicated place than Home,” Nesseref said. “This little place called Poland, for instance. It has Poles in it, which makes sense, and you Jews, which does not.”
“If you think I will argue with that, you are mistaken,” the Tosevite said.
Ignoring the interruption, Nesseref went on, “In one direction are the Deutsche, who hate both Poles and Jews. In the other direction are the Russkis, who also hate both Poles and Jews. Does this make them allies? No! They hate each other, too. Where is the sense in this?”
“Nowhere I can find,” Anielewicz replied; Nesseref got the idea she’d amused him, though she couldn’t understand why. He went on, “Oh, by the way, you missed one thing.”
“And that is?” She was not sure she wanted to know.
Anielewicz told her nonetheless: “Poles and Jews hate each other, too.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Nesseref asked.
“I do not know. Why are you not surprised?” The Tosevite laughed his kind’s laugh once more. Then he asked, “Did you ever find a site you thought would make a good shuttlecraft port?”
“None yet that satisfies me and Bunim both,” Nesseref replied. “And anything near Glowno is also near the explosive-metal bomb you may have.” She chose those words with great care; she did not want him to reach for the rifle again.
“Tell me where you do decide to put the shuttlecraft port, and I will move the bomb close to it,” Anielewicz said, just as if he seriously meant to help.
“Thank you so much,” Nesseref said. “Maybe it is the nature of your reproductive patterns that makes you Big Uglies so full of deceit.”
“Maybe it is,” Anielewicz said. “And maybe the Race will learn such deceit now, too.” And off he went, having got the last word.
Today, of course, Mordechai Anielewicz’s legs decided to act up on him. He had to keep stopping to rest as he bicycled up to Glowno. Had he not breathed in that nerve gas all those years before, he would have been able to make the trip with ease. Of course, had he not breathed in that nerve gas, the Nazis might have touched off the atomic bomb with which he was presently concerned. In that case, he wouldn’t be breathing at all at the moment.