Three members of the committee leaned forward when he asked the question, focused intently on Benita. She said, “The envoys said all the diplomatic and professional Inkleozese are female. Most of their race’s artists and craftsmen are male, however. Males and females in their race have different skills. The females work better with persons and the males with things.”
“So they say,” snorted a burly committee member.
“Well, it’s possible the envoys are prejudiced,” she granted. “Or the Inkleozese themselves. For generations, our national legislature was made up of men only, most of whom thought women were brainless. Some of them still think so.”
“But the Pistach envoys are male?” the same man asked intently.
“No, sir. They are not. They are non-reproductive members of their race, which has five or six different types or genders in it, like ants, or bees.”
“Then they’re gay!”
“Sir, a worker bee is not gay. It is simply non-sexual.”
“Worker bees are females,” asserted a man at the end of the table. “I raise bees, I know.”
“Worker bees aren’t lesbians, and Pistach aren’t gay. They’re non-sexual.”
They went on, not for long. Several men on the committee seemed to be convinced that God could imagine no more than two sexes, that the devil had come up with a third, that every being in the universe had to be one of those three, and therefore Vess and Chiddy had to be gay. Finally they started asking questions about the Pistach home world and the Pistach themselves, questions that could equally well have been asked about Sodom and Gomorrah. She had to tell them she didn’t know the answers.
“They don’t talk about their home world a great deal. They mention it from time to time, but I’ve never gained a clear idea of their world and how it works. Actually, I have a clearer picture of the predator worlds than I do the Pistach, because the envoys talk more about the predators.”
The committeemen looked at each other, with no idea what else they might ask her. After a spate of whispering, they excused her and Chad escorted her downstairs where he had asked the aggravation of reporters to wait.
“The senators seem to be stuck on the idea the Pistach are gay, which they’re not,” she said to the waiting microphones. “Senator Morse seems to be stuck with the idea that I’m part of some conspiracy, which I’m not. The committee became very upset when I told them the predators might have made a side agreement with someone associated with their committee.”
“Agreement for what?” called a man from the back of the group.
“A formal agreement to hunt people here on Earth,” she said in her most innocent voice. “They could just go on poaching, but they really want a formal agreement for their own legal protection at the Confederation level.”
She answered shouted questions for about ten minutes, then Chad got her away with the help of six men in suits who barricaded her from the reporters as they got her out a back door. Then they went to the White House where she was sneaked up the back stairs into the family quarters where the president and First Lady were waiting for them.
“Well,” said the president to Benita. “So much for anonymity, Benita.”
“And so much for calming the committee down,” said the First Lady, shaking her head. “A couple of our party are on the committee. They told us it was quite a show.”
Benita said, “Keeping me anonymous was a lost cause from the beginning, Mr. President, ma’am. I got to the point I wasn’t interested in calming them down.”
“Chad says you’ve had some personal experience with the predators,” murmured the FL.
“Not one I’d care to repeat, ma’am.”
Chad took a chair by the window. Benita was gestured to the chair opposite the president, who leaned forward, fixing his eyes on hers.
“Benita, we’re in trouble here, and we need your help.”
She folded her hands in her lap as he went on:
“We have assumed the Pistach are beneficent. They’ve told us so, the things they’ve done for us have measurably helped without harming anyone. We would prefer to believe them, and we’ve gone along with them when they told us the predators are a separate people, races that eat other intelligent life and who do not, therefore, eat Republicans. Or newsmen.”