Second Contact Read Online Free PDF Page B

root it out without much trouble,” Felless said.
    Ttomalss remembered that pristine confidence, that sense that things would keep going smoothly because they always had. He’d known it himself. Then he’d started dealing with the Big Uglies. Like so many males on Tosev 3, he’d lost it and never got it back. He didn’t try to explain that to Felless. The female would find out for herself.
    “Why would anyone want a drug in the first place, especially an alien drug?” Felless asked him.
    “At first because you are bored, or else because you see someone else having a good time and you want one, too,” he answered. “We shall have trouble with ginger when the colonists land, mark my words.”
    “I shall record your prediction,” Felless said. “I tend to doubt its accuracy, but, as I said, you are the one with experience on Tosev 3, so perhaps you will prove correct in the end.”
    Was she so serious all the time? A lot of people back on Home were. Ttomalss remembered as much. Contact with the Big Uglies—even contact with males who had contact with the Big Uglies—had a way of abrading such seriousness. And now a hundred million colonists, once revived, would look on the relative handful of males from the colonization fleet as slightly addled eggs. Ttomalss didn’t see what anyone could do about that, either.
    Deep inside, he laughed to himself. Eventually, the colonists would have to start dealing with the Tosevites. Then they’d start getting addled, too. In spite of his best efforts to believe otherwise, Ttomalss could reach no other conclusion. Even if Tosev 3 at last came completely under the Emperor’s rule, it would be the odd world out in more ways than one for years, centuries, millennia to come.
    Because he’d been mentally picking parasites out from under his scales, he missed a comment from Felless. “I am sorry, superior female?” he said, embarrassed.
    “I said that of all the researchers with the conquest fleet, you seem to have gone furthest in your efforts to examine the integration of Tosevites and the Race.” Felless repeated the compliment with no sign of exasperation. She continued, “Some of your activities strike me as going above and beyond the call of duty.”
    “You are generous, superior female,” Ttomalss said. “My view has always been that, if this world is to be successfully colonized, effecting such integration will be mandatory.”
    “You doubt the possibility of successful colonization?” Now Felless sounded reproving, not complimentary.
    “I doubt the certainty of successful colonization,” Ttomalss replied. “Anyone with experience of Tosev 3 doubts the certainty of anything pertaining to it.”
    “And yet you have persisted,” Felless said. “In your reports, you indicate that your first experimental specimen was forcibly taken away from you, and that you yourself were kidnapped by Tosevite bandits while seeking to obtain a replacement for it.”
    “Truth,” Ttomalss said. “We badly underestimated the importance of family bonds on Tosev 3, due not only to long-term sexual pairings but also to the absurdly helpless nature of Tosevite hatchlings, which need constant care if they are to survive. Because of these factors, my experiments have met with far more opposition from the Big Uglies than they would have from any other intelligent race with which we are familiar.”
    “And yet, in the end, your work seems to have met with success,” Felless said. “I wonder if you would be so kind as to allow me to make the acquaintance of the specimen you finally succeeded in obtaining and rearing.”
    “I thought you might ask that.” Ttomalss rose. “Kassquit is waiting in the next chamber. I shall return in a moment.”
    “My first Tosevite, even if not quite a wild specimen,” Felless said in musing tones. “How interesting this will be!”
    “Please do your best to treat the Big Ugly as you would a member of the Race,” Ttomalss warned. “Since the