Second Contact

“Truth,” Fotsev said. “They act like parasites-or they do most of the time. But where are they this morning?”

“Not at their lessons, that is certain,” Gorppet said with a nasty laugh. Most of the local Tosevite hatchlings had no lessons to attend. The ones who did receive what the locals considered an education learned to add and subtract a little, to write in their language, and to read from the manual of the superstition dominant hereabouts. Maybe that was better than nothing. Fotsev would not have bet anything he cared to lose on it.

When the patrol came into the central market square, he saw for himself that things were not right. On almost every day, the pandemonium in the market square outdid the rest of Basra put together. Not today. Today, hardly any merchants displayed food or cloth or brasswork or the other things they made. Today, males and females of the Race from the new towns out in the desert outnumbered Tosevites as customers.

“Too quiet,” Gorppet said.

“Much too quiet,” Fotsev agreed. He waited for Betvoss to weigh in on the opposite side, but the other male said not a word.

Horrible electrified squawkings burst from the towers attached to the buildings where the local Big Uglies practiced their superstition. “The call to prayer,” Gorppet said, and Fotsev made the affirmative gesture. “Now we shall see how many of them come out,” Gorppet went on. “If they stay home for this… well, they never have, not in all the time I have been here.”

Sure enough, robed Big Uglies emerged from houses and shops and streamed toward the mosques of Basra. “Praying is not the only thing they do in those buildings,” Fotsev said worriedly. “The males who lead them in prayer are also known to lead them in rebellion against the Empire.”

“We ought to go in there and make sure they say only things that have to do with their foolish beliefs,” Betvoss said. “Those males have no business meddling in politics. They should be punished if they try.”

“We have punished some of them,” Fotsev said. “Others keep popping up.”

“The other fork of the tongue is, they have no notion where their superstition ends and politics begins,” Gorppet added. “For them, the two are not to be separated.”

“We should instruct them, then.” Betvoss flourished his rifle to show what kind of instruction he had in mind. “We should go into those houses of superstition and kill the Big Uglies who preach against us, kill them or at least take them away and imprison them so they ca

“We tried that, not long after we occupied these parts,” Gorppet said. “It did not work: it created more turbulence than it suppressed. And so many of these Tosevites are experts in the fine points of their foolish belief that new leaders arose almost at once to replace the ones we captured.”

“Too bad,” Betvoss said, and there, for once, Fotsev couldn’t disagree with him.

With most of the Big Uglies worshiping, the patrol prowled down streets even more deserted than before. “Too easy,” Fotsev muttered under his breath. “Too easy, too quiet.”

His eye turrets kept on sliding now this way, now that, looking for places from which the Tosevites might ambush the patrol, and also for good defensive positions in case of trouble. That there was no sign of trouble except for things being calmer than usual did nothing to deter him. He felt like a hatchling still in the egg that trembled when it heard a predator’s footsteps. It could not see danger, but knew danger was there nonetheless. Fotsev thought it was here, too.

His telephone hissed. The sound, designed to get his attention, made him start with alarm, though danger on Tosev 3 was likelier to start with angry shouts from Big Uglies or with the frightened yappings of their animals. He put the phone to a hearing diaphragm, listened, said, “It shall be done, superior sir,” and set the instrument back on his belt.

“What shall be done?” Gorppet asked.

“I knew trouble was stirring somewhere,” Fotsev answered. “The Big Uglies have captured a bus on its way into Basra from one of the new towns and kidnapped all the females who were riding in it. The suspicion is that they intend to hold them for ransom.”

“Clever of the authorities to figure that out,” Gorppet said with heavy sarcasm. “Lesser minds would have been incapable of it.”

“Why kidnap only females?” Betvoss said. “Males are more dangerous to them, for there are no female soldiers.”

“That is not how the Big Uglies think,” Gorppet said. “Females matter more to them, because they are always in season. And besides, females do not know how to fight back. If they captured males, they might capture a trained soldier, one who could harm them.”

“That makes sense,” Betvoss said-he was being unusually reasonable today. “If we can find them, we can probably earn promotions.”

“If we see some evidence that we are near these kidnapped females, of course we shall try to rescue them,” Fotsev said. “But we must not forget everything else while we search for them.”

“Truth,” Gorppet said. “Otherwise, the Tosevites will make us regret it.”

“Onward, then,” Fotsev said.

Onward they went, through the narrow, winding streets of Basra. A breeze sprang up, sending new and different stinks onto their scent receptors. After a while, the Big Uglies came out of their houses of worship. Gorppet, who spoke their language, called out to some of them. A few-only a few-answered. “They deny knowing anything about these females,” he said.

“Did you expect anything different?” Fotsev asked.

“Expect? No,” Gorppet answered. “But you never can tell. I might have been lucky. The Tosevites have feuds among themselves. Had I found a male at feud with the kidnappers, he might have told us what we need to know.”

For a small stretch of time, the Big Uglies returning from their worship filled the streets. Then they might have disappeared off the face of Tosev 3. Everything grew quiet again-much too quiet, as far as Fotsev was concerned. Something simmered under the surface, though he couldn’t tell what. That sense of walking on uncertain ground gnawed at him.

The breeze picked up and swirled dust into his face. His nictitating membranes flicked back and forth, back and forth, protecting his eyes from the grit. “Weather reminds me of a windy day back on Home,” he remarked, and a couple of the other males made the affirmative hand gesture.

Then, all at once, the breeze blew him a scent that also reminded him of Home. “By the Emperor!” he said softly. He was not the only male in the patrol to smell those pheromones, of course. Everyone else started standing more nearly erect, too.

“She’s close,” Betvoss said hoarsely. “She’s very close.”

“She… maybe they,” Gorppet said. “The scent is strong.” His voice was hot and hungry, and he added an emphatic cough.

“I wonder if these are the kidnapped females.” Fotsev reluctantly reached for his telephone to report the possibility.

“Investigate with caution,” a male back at the barracks told him.

“It shall be done,” Fotsev replied. But that other male, that distant male, did not have a cloud of pheromones blowing into his face. When Fotsev relayed the order to the rest of the patrol, what he said was, “We have permission to go forward.”

A couple of males exclaimed in delight. Betvoss said, “It will probably be a couple of ginger-addled females from the new towns. But if they are ginger-addled, they will want to mate, and smelling them certainly makes me want to mate. And so…” He hurried in the direction the delicious scent led him. So did Fotsev. So did the whole patrol. They were investigating, but had forgotten all about caution.

Rounding a corner, Fotsev saw a couple of females at the dark dead end of an alleyway. The pheromones came off them in waves. He and his comrades rushed toward them. Only when he got very near did his lust-impaired senses note they were bound and gagged.