Out in the front room, the telephone hooked into the Lizards’ network hissed for attention. Moishe Russie rose. “I’ll get it. Maybe-alevai — the fleetlord has changed his mind or thought of something more he can do for poor Anielewicz.” He hurried out. A moment later, though, he called, “Not Atvar at all. It’s for you, Reuven.”

“For me?” Reuven bounded out of his chair, even though he was only halfway through supper. The only person likely to call him on the Race’s telephone system was… “Hello, Jane!” he said, switching from the Hebrew usual around the house to English. “How are you?”

“Couldn’t be better.” Jane Archibald’s English had the not-quite-British accent of Australia. Blue eyes glowing, she smiled out of the screen at him. “I’ve passed my comprehensive exams, so I escape at the end of this term.”

“Congratulations!” Reuven exclaimed. He would have been sweating out his comprehensives, too, if he hadn’t left the medical college. He knew what monsters they were. Then he caught the crucial verb. “Escape?”

“That’s right.” She nodded. Her golden hair flipped up and down. “Canada’s accepted me. You’ve known forever that I didn’t want to start a practice anyplace the Lizards rule.” Reuven nodded back at her; the Lizards had been harsh in Australia, seizing the whole continent for themselves, with humans a distinct afterthought. Jane went on, “And so, sweetheart, the time is coming-and it’s coming soon-when we have to figure out where we go from here, or if we go anywhere at all from here.”

“If we’re going anywhere, I’m going to Canada,” Reuven said slowly, and Jane nodded again. He’d known he would have to make a choice like that one day. He hadn’t thought he would have to make it quite so soon. Even more slowly, he went on, “I’m going to have to think about that.”

“I know you will,” Jane replied. “I envy your having a family you can get along with, believe me I do. But I’ve got to tell you one more thing, dear: don’t take too bloody long.” Before he could find an answer, her image vanished from the screen.

Straha was used to fighting cravings. The ex-shiplord had started tasting ginger not long after he’d fled the conquest fleet, and had rarely been without it since. It helped make living among the American Big Uglies tolerable. Even so, now and again he wished he hadn’t antagonized Atvar to the point where it was either flee or face the fleetlord’s fury.

He let out a soft hiss. If the assembled shiplords had chosen to oust Atvar and name me in his place, all of Tosev 3 might belong to the Race now, he thought. Surely he could have led the conquest fleet better than that mediocre male. A large majority had thought he could. But the Race required three-quarters concurrence before making such a drastic change, and he hadn’t got that. Atvar remained in command to this day-and Straha remained in exile to this day.

He had all the ginger he wanted. It wasn’t illegal in the USA, as it was everywhere the Race ruled. Stashed away in his house-mostly of Tosevite construction, but with gadgetry from the Race-was almost enough of the precious herb to let him set up as a dealer. If he felt like a taste, he could have one. The Big Ugly who served as his driver and bodyguard wouldn’t say no. If anything, he’d assume the Tosevite facial grimace connoting benevolence and get Straha more ginger still.

But turning his eye turrets away from ginger as much as he could was something Straha had long since got used to doing. Keeping the papers Sam Yeager had given him a secret was something else again. Straha didn’t know exactly what. Yeager had given him those papers, only extracting a promise that he wouldn’t look at them unless the Big Ugly suddenly died or disappeared. Straha had kept the promise, too, regardless of how tempted he was to see what Yeager thought so important.

What does he know? Straha wondered. Why does he not want me to know it, too? How much trouble will come if I learn it? Not too much, surely.

That was the voice he sometimes heard inside his head when he wanted one taste of ginger on top of another. It was an ever so persuasive voice, one that could talk him into almost everything. Almost. He counted Sam Yeager a friend in the same way that he counted friends among the Race. Yeager relied on him, trusted him. He had to be worthy of that trust… didn’t he?

Before temptation could dig its claws into him too deeply, his driver came into the kitchen from the front room and said, “I greet you, Shiplord.”

“And I greet you,” Straha replied. The Big Ugly spoke his language about as well as a Tosevite could. “What do you want now?”

“Why do you think I want anything?” replied the male who served and guarded him.

Straha’s mouth fell open in a laugh. “Because you are who you are. Because you are what you are.”

His driver laughed, too, in the noisy Tosevite way. “All right, Shiplord. I suppose you have a point.” He bent into the posture of respect, though in doing so he showed as much mockery as he did subordination. Given the security clearance and status he had to have to be allowed to work with Straha, that made a certain amount of sense.

“Very well, then,” Straha said with a certain amount of asperity. He was jealous of his rank, despite the realities of the situation. “Suppose you tell me what you do want, then.”

“It shall be done, Shiplord,” the driver said, again mixing obedience with mockery. “You surely know that the colonization fleet has released its domestic animals in the areas the Race rules.”

“I should hope so,” Straha exclaimed, “considering the azwaca and zisuili in my freezer here.”

“Exactly so,” his driver agreed. “Are you also aware how rapidly these animals from Home are spreading in the desert regions of Tosev 3?”

“These are for the most part not deserts to us or to our beasts,” Straha said. “Home is a hotter, drier world than this one. What you call desert is to us more often than not a temperate grassland.”

“However you like,” the Big Ugly said with a shrug very much like one a male of the Race might have used. “But that is not the point. The point is, these beasts are making themselves at home here faster than anyone could reasonably have expected. This is certainly true in northern Mexico.”

“I have heard as much, in fact,” Straha said.

“And you will also have heard that animals from Home respect international borders not at all. They are also establishing themselves in the American Southwest.”

“Indeed: I have heard that, too,” Straha said. “You still have not told me what you want, though.”

“Is it not obvious?” the Tosevite returned. “How do we get rid of the miserable things? We do not eat them.”

“Why are you asking me?” Straha said. “I am not an ecological engineer, and I do not know what resources you have available to you.”

“We are willing to commit whatever resources prove necessary,” his driver said. “These animals are highly unwelcome here, and they seem to be spreading very fast. Wherever the weather stays warm the year around, they appear at home.”

“Unless you can hunt them into extinction, they probably will stay that way, too,” Straha said.

“How nice,” the Big Ugly said, his voice sour. That was an English idiom, translated literally into the language of the Race. It didn’t mean what it said, but just the opposite. “I am sure my superiors will be delighted to hear that.” He didn’t mean what he said there, either.

Straha said, “I expect that we are also introducing the plants from Home on which our domestic animals prefer to feed. They too will take advantage of any ecological niches available to them here on Tosev 3. In fact, I am given to understand that this process has already begun in the subregion of the main continental mass called India.”

“Terrific.” The driver didn’t bother to translate that ironic comment into the language of the Race, but left it in English. Straha had grown reasonably fluent in the language of the USA as the years went by. Gathering himself, the Tosevite switched to Straha’s tongue: “How are we supposed to hunt weeds into extinction?”

“As a matter of fact, I doubt you can do it,” Straha replied. “Now that we have come to Tosev 3, we are going to make this world as much like Home as we can. You would be addled to expect us to behave any differently.”

“The war between the Race and us Tosevites has never really stopped, has it?” his driver said. “We are not shooting at each other as much as we used to, but we are still fighting.”

“When there is shooting, you Big Uglies do not usually enjoy it,” Straha said. “I offer the example of the Deutsche for your contemplation.”

“Believe me, Shiplord, my superiors are contemplating it,” his driver said. “But you did not answer my question, or did not answer it fully.”

“I am surprised you needed to ask it,” Straha replied. “Of course the struggle goes on, by whatever means appear convenient. The leaders of the Race will not be excessively concerned as to what those methods are. Results will matter far more to them. They are not in a hurry. They are never in a hurry.”

“That has cost them, here on Tosev 3,” the Big Ugly remarked.

“Truth,” Straha admitted. “I advocated more haste myself, which led to nothing but my exile. But our usual slow pace also has its advantages. We move so slowly, our pressure is all but imperceptible. That does not mean it is not there, however.”

Pursing his absurdly mobile lips, the Big Ugly let out a soft, low whistle. The sound was utterly different from anything the Race could produce. Straha had needed a long time to figure out what it meant: something on the order of resignation. At last, his driver said, “Well, we shall just have to go on exerting pressure of our own if we intend to survive-is that not also a truth?”

“Yes, I should say so,” Straha answered. “The question is whether you Tosevites will be able to discover and to use effective forms of pressure.”

“I think we shall manage,” his driver said. “If there is one thing we Big Uglies are good at, it is making nuisances of ourselves.”

Straha could hardly quarrel with that. Had the Tosevites not been good at making nuisances of themselves, their world would be firmly under the dominion of the Race today. The ex-shiplord turned an eye turret toward the driver and found a way in which to change the subject: “Are you not letting the hairs between your mouth and your snout escape from cutting?”