She wondered what males and females of the Race would think if they knew the person who challenged their views was in fact an overtall, overstraight, soft-skinned, small-eyed Big Ugly. Actually, she didn’t wonder. She knew. Whatever respect she’d earned for her brains would vanish, dissolved in the scorn and suspicion the Race felt toward Tosevites.

She felt the same scorn and suspicion toward Tosevites herself. She’d learned it from Ttomalss, who’d raised her since hatchlinghood; from every other male-and, since the coming of the colonization fleet, female-of the Race she’d met in person; and from every bit of video and writing the Race had produced about Tosev 3.

But having it aimed at her hurt almost too much to bear.

She checked for new comments and speculations about which independent Tosevite not-empire had attacked and destroyed more than ten ships from the colonization fleet not long after they took up their orbits around this world. The Race had delivered token punishments to each of the three suspects-the SSSR, the USA, and the Reich — because it could not prove which of them had done the murderous deed. That didn’t stop males and females from speculating endlessly, but the speculations, as far as Kassquit could see, had reached the point of diminishing returns. And the less the speculators knew, the more strident they were about advancing their ill-informed claims.

With more than a little relief, she escaped that area and went to one nearby: one where the Race discussed the American spacecraft known, for no reason she could fathom, as the Lewis and Flark. No. She corrected herself: the Lewis and Clark. Changing the name made it no more meaningful to her.

Here, too, discussion had died down. The Lewis and Clark had been a mystery when the American Big Uglies were fitting out their former space station to travel through this solar system. They’d done so in such ostentatious secrecy that they’d aroused everyone’s suspicion and alarm. Most males and females had feared they were turning it into some immense, and immensely dangerous, orbital fortress.

It had even aroused the Big Uglies’ suspicions. Somehow or other, a Tosevite going by the name of Regeya had wormed his way onto the Race’s network, to learn what he could of what the Race thought and had learned about the space station. No one had recognized him for what he was till Kassquit did.

I should be proud of that, she thought. I got him expelled from areas of the network where he had no right to go.

With a sigh, Kassquit made the negative hand gesture. She was proud… but then again, she wasn’t. The Tosevite who called himself Regeya had had a more interesting way of looking at things and expressing himself than most of the males and females with whose opinions she’d become all too familiar. The network was a duller place without him on it.

It is a more secure place without him on it, Kassquit told herself. That consoled the part of her which devoted itself to duty: a very large part, thanks to Ttomalss’ training. But it wasn’t all of her. The rest craved fun and amusement. She sometimes wished it wouldn’t, but it did.

Some of the curious part of her also wished Regeya remained on the network. Before she’d recognized him as a Big Ugly, he’d come close to doing the same in reverse. She didn’t know how; her command of the Race’s written language was perfect, which his wasn’t quite. But he had. He’d asked to talk to her by telephone. She couldn’t do that, not without giving away what she was.

“Fun,” she said aloud. “Amusement.” She went to a new area on the network, one that offered both of those: the area devoted to discussion of the best ways to nurture hatchlings. The conquest fleet had been all-male; not till the colonization fleet arrived did that area become necessary.

How do you make hatchlings not bite when you feed them? someone-a harassed someone-had written since Kassquit last checked there.

Someone else, evidently a voice of experience, had given a three-word reply to that: You do not. The responder had also added the Race’s conventional symbol for an emphatic cough.

The next message was a glyph of an open mouth, the conventional symbol for laughter. Kassquit’s mouth fell open, too. She laughed like that when she remembered to. Sometimes, though, amusement made her yip the way a Big Ugly was biologically programmed to do.

A few messages further on, someone named Maargyees wrote, This is my very first clutch of eggs. I wish I had never laid them. Not being able to talk to the hatchlings is driving me out of my scales. What do I do about that?

Live with it, answered the cynic who’d replied to the earlier message.

We all do, someone else added. Sooner or later, they turn into civilized beings. We did, you know.

Maargyees wasn’t easily quelled. Sure seems like later to me, she wrote.

How is it that you are so ignorant of hatchlings and their ways? a male asked.

Me? Maargyees answered. I was hatched in a barn myself I do not know anything. Know? I do not even suspect anything.

That sent several laughter signs up onto the computer screen. Kassquit added one of her own. Maargyees had a flippant, irreverent way of looking at the world, very different from the endless run of boring comments from most males and females. Kassquit hadn’t seen anything like it for quite a while. She hadn’t seen anything like it, as a matter of fact, since…

She paused with her artificial fingerclaws poised above the keyboard. “Since Regeya,” she said aloud. And she knew only too well who, or rather what, Regeya had turned out to be.

Could the obstreperous Big Ugly, having been booted off the network once, have found a new disguise under which to return? Kassquit decided to do a little checking. No messages from anyone named Maargyees appeared anywhere until some time after Regeya had been removed. That didn’t prove anything, but it was suggestive. Maargyees sounded more like a name a Rabotev should carry than one belonging to a female of the Race, but that didn’t prove anything, either-some members of the Race hatched on Rabotev 2 had local names.

As she had for the falsely named Regeya, Kassquit checked the records. Sure enough, a Maargyees had come with the colonization fleet-a Maargyees with a personal identification number different from the one this female was using.

“Well, well,” Kassquit murmured. She knew she ought to report the wild Big Ugly’s return to the network, but had trouble bringing herself to do it. Things had been dull since Regeya vanished from the network. And Kassquit had a hard time seeing how asking questions about hatchlings constituted any sort of danger for the Race.

She could always report the Tosevite later. For now, she sent him-him, not her-an electronic message: I greet you, Maargyees. And how is the life of a senior tube technician these days? That was the fictitious occupation the equally fictitious Regeya had said he used.

If she didn’t get an answer, Kassquit vowed she would report that the Tosevite was roaming the network again. But one came back before long: I greet you, Kassquit. And how is the life of a snoopy nuisance these days? With the words, he used the symbol suggesting he didn’t intend to be taken seriously.

Very well; I thank you, Kassquit answered. And have you truly laid eggs?

Oh, yes, Regeya-so she thought of him-answered. A big square green one and a little purple one with orange spots.

Kassquit stared at the words on the screen, imagining a Big Ugly producing such a preposterous clutch. She dissolved in Tosevite-style noisy giggles. The picture was too deliciously absurd for anything else. I like you, she wrote. I really do.