“Does that happen very often?” he asked the driver.

“Only on days when the sun comes up in the morning,” the other male assured him. They both laughed, and spent the rest of the journey through the crowded streets swapping war stories.

More Big Uglies threw rocks at the vehicle that took Gorppet back to the Cairo airfield the next day. “You ought to teach them manners with your machine gun,” he told the male at the wheel of this machine.

“Orders are to hold our fire unless they start using firearms against us,” the driver answered with a resigned shrug. “If we started shooting at them for rocks, we would have riots every day.”

“Or else they might learn they are not supposed to do things like that,” Gorppet said. The driver shrugged again, and did not reply. Gorppet outranked him-now Gorppet outranked him-but he had to do as local authority told him to do.

No one fired at the vehicle. Gorppet carried his gear into the aircraft that would take him to this place called South Africa. He wondered what it would be like. Different from Baghdad was what he wanted. The officer back there had told him the Big Uglies in the new place were different. That was good, as far as he was concerned. The officer had also told him the weather was different. That wasn’t so good, but couldn’t be helped. After a winter in the SSSR, Gorppet doubted anything less would unduly faze him.

Peering out the window, he saw the aircraft pass over terrain desolate even by the standards of Home. Afterwards, though, endless lush green vegetation replaced the desert. Gorppet stared down at it in revolted fascination. It seemed almost malignant in the aggressiveness of its growth. Only a few scattered river valleys and seasides back on Home even came close to such fertility.

So much unrelieved green proved depressing. Gorppet fell asleep for a while. When he woke again, the jungle was behind him, replaced by savanna country that gave way in turn to desert once more. Then, to his surprise, more fertile country replaced the wasteland. The aircraft descended, landed, and came to a stop.

“Welcome to South Africa,” the pilot said over the intercom to Gorppet and to the males and females who’d traveled with him. “You had better get out. Nothing but sea after this, sea and the frozen continent around the South Pole.”

Gorppet shouldered his sack and went down the ramp black-skinned Big Uglies had wheeled over to the aircraft. He’d seen few of that race up till now. They looked different from the lighter Tosevites, but were no less ugly. When they spoke, he discovered he couldn’t understand anything they said. He sighed. Knowing what the Big Uglies back in Basra and Baghdad were talking about had helped keep him alive a couple of times. He would have to see how many languages the local Tosevites spoke and how hard they were to learn.

Sack still shouldered, he trudged toward the airfield terminal. The weather was on the chilly side; the officer back in Baghdad hadn’t lied about that. But Gorppet didn’t see any frozen water on the ground, and even the broad, flat mountain to the east of the airfield and the nearby city was free of the nasty stuff. It will not be too bad, he told himself, and hoped he was right.

In the terminal, as he’d expected, was a reassignment station. A female clerk turned one eye turret toward him. “How may I help you, Small-unit Group Leader?” she asked, reading his very new, very fresh body paint.

After giving his name and pay number, Gorppet continued, “Reporting as ordered. I need quarters and a duty assignment.”

“Let me see whether your name has gone all the way through the system,” the female said. She spoke to the computer and examined the screen. After a moment, she made the affirmative hand gesture. “Yes, we have you. You are assigned to Cape Town, as a matter of fact.”

“And where in this subregion is Cape Town?” Gorppet asked.

“This city here is Cape Town,” the clerk answered. “Did you not study the area to which you would be transferred?”

“Not very much,” Gorppet admitted. “I got the order a couple of days ago, and have spent my time since either traveling or staying in transit barracks.”

“No reason you could not have examined a terminal there,” the female clerk said primly. “I would have thought an officer would show more interest in the region to which he has been assigned.”

That took Gorppet by surprise. He wasn’t used to being an officer. He wasn’t used to thinking like an officer, either. As an infantrymale, he’d gone where he was ordered, and hadn’t worried about it past that. Fighting embarrassment, he spoke gruffly: “Well, I am here now. Let me have a printout of my billet and assignment.”

“It shall be done,” the clerk said, and handed him the paper.

He rapidly read the new orders. “City patrol, is it? I can do that. I have been doing it for a long time, and this is a relatively tranquil region.”

“Is it?” the clerk said, “If you are coming from worse, I sympathize with you.” She got very insulted when Gorppet laughed at her.

Ttomalss studied the report that had come up from the Moishe Russie Medical College. Based on our present knowledge of Tosevite physiology and of available immunizations, the physician named Shpaaka wrote, it seems possible, even probable, that the specimen may, after receiving the said immunizations, safely interact with wild Tosevites. Nothing in medicine, however, is so certain as it is in engineering.

With a discontented mutter, Ttomalss blanked the computer screen. He’d hoped for a definitive answer. If the males down at the medical college couldn’t give him one, where would he get it? Nowhere, was the obvious answer. He recognized that Shpaaka was doing the best he could. Psychological research was also less exact than engineering. That still left Ttomalss unhappy.

After more mutters, he telephoned Kassquit. “I greet you, superior sir,” she said. “How are you this morning?”

“I am well, thank you,” Ttomalss answered. “And yourself?”

“Very well,” she said. “And what is the occasion of this call?”

She undoubtedly knew. She could hardly help knowing. That she asked had to mean she was unhappy about proceeding. Even so, Ttomalss explained the news he’d got from the physician down on the surface of Tosev 3. He finished, “Are you willing to undergo this series of immunizations so you are physically able to meet with wild Big Uglies?”

“I do not know, superior sir,” Kassquit replied. “What are the effects of the immunizations likely to be on me?”

“I do not suppose there will be very many effects,” Ttomalss said. “Why should there be? There are no major effects to immunizations among the Race. I had most of mine in early hatchlinghood, and scarcely remember them.”

“I see.” Kassquit made the affirmative hand gesture to show she understood. But then she said, “Still, these would not be immunizations from the Race. They would be immunizations from the Big Uglies, for Tosevite diseases. The Big Uglies are less advanced than the Race in a great many areas, and I am certain medicine is one of them.”

“Well, no doubt that is a truth.” Ttomalss admitted what he could hardly deny. “Let me inquire of Shpaaka. When he gives me the answer, I shall relay it to you.” He broke the connection.

On telephoning the physician, he got a recorded message telling him Shpaaka had gone to teach and would return his call as soon as possible. His own computer had the same kind of programming, which didn’t make him any happier about being on the receiving end of it. Concealing annoyance over such things was part of good manners. He recorded his message and settled into some other work while waiting for Shpaaka to get back to him.

After what seemed forever but really wasn’t, the physician did call back. “I greet you, Senior Researcher,” Shpaaka said. “You asked an interesting question there.”