Down to Earth

8

Ttomalss was happily busy. Not only did he have endless work to do on his stint in the Reich (a stint that had only seemed endless), but his long experiment with Kassquit had entered a new and fascinating phase. “Now that you have made the acquaintance of these Tosevites through electronic messages and by telephone, would you be interested in meeting them in person?” he asked.

“No, superior sir,” Kassquit answered at once, “or at least not yet.”

His Tosevite hatchling perched awkwardly on the chair across the desk from his own. Not only was it the wrong shape for her posterior, but it was also too small. Ttomalss remembered when she could hardly even climb up into it-he remembered when she’d hardly been able to do anything but suck up nutrient fluid, make horrid excretions, and yowl. He had to remind himself she wasn’t like that any more. She was, these days, startlingly far from foolish.

Still, she needed guiding. “I have reviewed the recording of your conversation with these two Big Uglies,” he said-this recording had been made with her knowledge and consent. “For their kind, they do indeed seem remarkably sophisticated about the Race. This makes sense, since the senior male named Yeager is one of their experts on us. If you are ever to meet Tosevites not under our rule, they seem good candidates.”

“I understand that, superior sir,” Kassquit said, “but I am not yet ready to endure such a meeting. Even talking with them by telephone was most disturbing: more than I expected it to be.”

“Why?” Ttomalss asked. He was recording this conversation, too.

“Why, superior sir?” Yes, Kassquit was ever more her own person these days; she gave the counter question a fine sardonic edge. “It was disturbing to talk to beings who look like me. It was also disturbing to talk to beings who think nothing like me. To have both sets of circumstances combined was more than doubly disturbing, I assure you.”

“I see,” Ttomalss said. And, after a little intellectual effort, he did. “I suppose hatchlings of the Race raised by the Big Uglies, if there were such unfortunates, would be disturbed by their first meeting with true males and females of their own species.”

“Yes, I suppose they would,” Kassquit agreed. “If there were any such, I would be interested in talking with them, if we had some language in common. It would be intriguing to learn whether their experiences paralleled mine here.”

Now Ttomalss looked at her with alarm and dismay. She didn’t usually speak of herself as being apart from the Race, even though she was. Contact with the wild Big Uglies truly had disturbed her. He did his best to reassure her: “This is a circumstance unlikely to arise. The Tosevites lack the patience needed to carry out such a long-term project.”

After he’d spoken, he wondered if he was right. The Big Uglies might be impatient, but they owned boundless curiosity. If they could somehow get their hands on eggs… But, unlike Tosevites, he didn’t show his thoughts on his face. Kassquit could have no notion of what went through his mind.

Her own thoughts were taking a different trajectory. “It would not happen for some years, at any rate. They could not have even attempted to raise hatchlings until the colonization fleet arrived.”

“As I say, there is no evidence, none, that they have attempted to do such a thing,” Ttomalss replied. “Now, shall we withdraw from hypotheticals and return to what can in fact be established?”

“As you wish, superior sir.” Unlike an independent Big Ugly, Kassquit had learned proper subordination.

Ttomalss asked her, “Under what circumstances might you eventually agree to a direct meeting with these Big Uglies?”

“I need further conversations with them,” Kassquit answered. “Only then will I be able to decide if I want to take that step.”

“Not unreasonable,” Ttomalss admitted. Now that he thought on it, he was not altogether sure he wanted to risk her, either. She had never been exposed to or immunized against Tosevite diseases. There were many of those, and the Race was not well equipped to combat them. Losing Kassquit would be a devastating setback. “I think I may need further conversations with our physicians before permitting the meeting, too. I must plan with all possible forethought.”

“Certainly,” Kassquit said. “What other course to take?”

Ttomalss did not reply, not to a question obviously rhetorical. Had he been a Big Ugly, though, his features would have twisted themselves into the expression that showed amiability. You are not altogether a Tosevite, he thought. My teaching-the Race teaching-has made you far less headstrong than you would be otherwise. What has succeeded with you can succeed with your whole species.

Kassquit said, “May I go now, superior sir?”

“Yes, of course,” Ttomalss answered. “I thank you for your efforts in this matter. You must now determine whether you are willing to attempt a physical meeting with these Big Uglies, and I must determine how dangerous to your health such a meeting might be.”

After Kassquit had left his compartment, the senior researcher permitted himself a long sigh of relief. He was very glad Kassquit had declined his offer to get her a wild male Tosevite with whom she could relieve the tensions of her continuous sexual drive. He had not considered the possible medical consequences of such a meeting before he made the offer. Had she accepted, he would have felt duty-bound to carry it out. Had she fallen ill on account of anything so trivial as sexuality, he would never have forgiven himself.

He went through the recording of her conversation with the Big Uglies again. The younger Tosevite named Yeager particularly fascinated him. As far as appearance went, he might almost have hatched from the same egg as Kassquit. But his accent and his limited understanding made it plain he was only a wild Tosevite.

Ttomalss knew there were Big Uglies who imitated the Race every way they could. That encouraged him. As far as he was concerned, it marked a step toward assimilation. He had seen no such Tosevites in the Reich. The leaders there, having evidently come to the same conclusion, had banned body paint and shaved heads in the territory they held. Considering what passed for justice in that territory, Ttomalss found it unsurprising that few Tosevites there dared flout the law.

Though the younger Big Ugly was more interesting to look at, Ttomalss slowly realized the older one was much more interesting to hear. Like Jonathan Yeager, Sam Yeager spoke the language of the Race with a curious accent and with odd turns of phrase. But, listening to him, Ttomalss found that he did-or at least could-think like a male of the Race. The senior researcher wondered if he understood Big Uglies anywhere near as well as the older Yeager understood the Race. He was honest enough to admit that he didn’t know. He himself was capable-he didn’t denigrate his own abilities-but the Tosevite seemed inspired.

How, he wondered, could a Big Ugly have prepared himself to become an expert on another intelligent species when his kind hadn’t known there were any other intelligent species to meet? If he ever conversed with the elder Yeager, he would have to ask that question.

He was contemplating other questions when the telephone hissed. He’d been forming a clever thought. It disappeared. That made him hiss, in annoyance. Resignedly, he said, “Senior Researcher Ttomalss speaking-I greet you.”

“And I greet you-you who have escaped from the Reich,” said Felless, whose image overlay the now muted views of Kassquit and the two Big Uglies named Yeager. “You have no idea how lucky you are.”

“You are mistaken, superior female,” Ttomalss answered with an emphatic cough. “I know exactly how lucky I am. Spirits of Emperors past grant that you soon find yourself able to make a similar escape.”

Felless cast down her eyes. In a miserable voice, she said, “It shall not be done.” She sighed. “You transgressed against the Deutsche and were ordered out of the Reich, while I transgressed against our own kind and was ordered to stay in this accursed place. Where is the justice in that?”

“Transgressed against our-?” Ttomalss began, but his confusion quickly faded. “They caught you with your tongue in the ginger jar, did they?”

“You might say so,” Felless said bitterly. “Veffani and most of a team of senior officials from Cairo mated with me when I was summoned to a meeting in the ambassador’s office just after I had tasted.”

Now there was a scandal to keep the embassy buzzing for a long time! Ttomalss had to work to keep from laughing in Felless’ face. That would be cruel-tempting, but cruel-after she’d disgraced herself. “I do not understand why you were ordered to stay there,” he said.

“As punishment,” she snapped. “I was hoping you would have a sympathetic hearing diaphragm, but I see that is too much to ask for.”

“I am lucky enough not to have acquired the ginger habit,” he said. “And it is a less urgent matter with me, since I am a male.”

“Unfair,” Felless exclaimed. “I did not ask to release pheromones after tasting. I wish I would not. I also wish I were not going to lay another clutch of eggs. But wishes are pointless, are they not?”

Ttomalss remembered the extravagant wishes he’d made while Liu Han held him in captivity. “No, not always,” he said. “They can help keep hope alive, and hope matters most when things look worst.”

“Hope?” Felless said. “My only hope is to get away from this dreadful place, and that is what I cannot do.” She paused. “No, I take that back. My other hope is to be able to get more ginger before my present supply runs out. That, at least, I expect I will be able to accomplish.” Her image disappeared from the screen.

Ttomalss stared for a little while at the soundless pictures of the two wild Big Uglies and of Kassquit. With a sigh, he ended the playback of that recording, too; he couldn’t concentrate on it. Poor Felless! For all her expertise, she hadn’t adapted well to Tosev 3. She’d expected it to be far more like Home than it really was.

If she’d stayed aboard a starship or gone to one of the new towns on the island continent or on the main continental mass, she might have done well enough. But her field of specialization involved dealing with the alien natives of Tosev 3… who had proved far more alien than the Race could possibly have imagined before setting out from Home.

Well, I know all about that, Ttomalss thought. He knew it in more intimate detail than he’d ever imagined, thanks to his captivity in China and thanks to his raising Kassquit. One way or another, everyone in the conquest fleet had learned the lessons with which the males and females of the colonization fleet were still grappling.

The colonists didn’t want to adapt. There were so many of them, they didn’t have to adapt to the same degree as had the males of the conquest fleet. They have it easy, Ttomalss thought. We did the real work, and they do not appreciate it. He wondered if the older generation of the Big Uglies ever had such thoughts about their dealings with the Race, and if the younger ones were as ungrateful as the males and females of the colonization fleet. He doubted it.

Atvar studied a map of the regions of Tosev 3 the Race ruled. Some parts of it were a tranquil yellow-green, others angry red, still others in between. He turned to Pshing, his adjutant. “Fascinating how little correlation there is between this map and the one reflecting active rebellion,” he observed.

“Truth, Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing agreed. “The subregions of the main continental mass known as China and India accept veneration of the spirits of Emperors past almost without complaint, as do large stretches of the region known as Africa. Yet China and India still seethe with political strife, while Africa is largely tranquil. Intriguing.”

“So it is.” Atvar pointed to another section of the map. “Yet the southern part of the lesser continental mass is afire with resentment against us because of this measure, and that had also been one of the areas where our administration was least difficult and annoying. It is a puzzlement.”

“We do not yet understand everything we should about the Big Uglies,” Pshing said. “A world, I have discovered since our arrival here, is a very large place to get to know in detail.”

“That is indeed a truth.” The fleetlord’s emphatic cough told how much of a truth he thought it was. He followed the cough with a sigh. “And, of course, there is this central region of the main continental mass, where rebellion and resistance to veneration of the spirits of Emperors past skitter side by side.”

Pshing also sighed. “Such a pity, too, because this region really is among the most Homelike on the whole planet. I have actually come to enjoy Cairo’s climate. It could easily be that of a temperate region back on Home. Now if only the Tosevites were temperate.”

“Expect temperance from a Big Ugly and you are doomed to disappointment,” Atvar said. His mouth came open and he waggled his lower jaw from side to side in a wry laugh. “Expect anything from a Big Ugly and you are doomed to disappointment. What have we had on Tosev 3 but one surprise after another?”

“Nothing,” his adjutant replied. “We can only hope we have also succeeded in giving the Tosevites a few surprises.” He turned one eye turret back toward the map. “I truly do wonder what accounts for the differences in response to our edict.”

“Part of it, I suppose, springs from the differences in local superstition,” Atvar said, “but the role these differences play still baffles me. The followers of the Jewish superstition, for instance, have always been well disposed to us, but they are among those who most strongly resist venerating spirits of Emperors past. They bombard me with petitions and memorials. Even Moishe Russie does nothing but complain about it.”

“I know, Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing said. “I have shielded you from several of his calls, too.”

“Have you? Well, I thank you,” Atvar said. “So many of the Big Uglies are so passionately convinced of their own correctness, they are willing to die, sometimes eager to die, to maintain it. This is one of the things that makes them such a delight to govern, as you must be aware.”

As if to underscore his words, the Tosevite howling that was the call to prayer of the Muslim superstition floated through the open windows of his office-except during the worst of the rioting, when he needed the armor glass as protection against assassins, he saw no point to closing those windows against the fine mild air of Cairo. Here and there, spatters of gunfire accompanied the howling. No, the locals were not reconciled to paying a tax for the privilege of keeping their foolish beliefs.

“With rational beings, lowering the tax, as we did, would also have lowered the resentment,” he grumbled. “With Big Uglies…”

Before he could go on fulminating, the telephone started making a racket. At Atvar’s gesture, Pshing answered it. No sooner had the caller’s image appeared on the screen than the adjutant assumed the posture of respect, saying, “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord.”

“And I greet you, Pshing,” Reffet said, “but I need to speak with your principal at once-at once, do you hear me?”

“One moment, please,” Pshing replied, and muted the sound. Still down in the posture of respect, he asked Atvar, “What is your pleasure, Exalted Fleetlord?”

Speaking with his opposite number from the colonization fleet was not exactly Atvar’s pleasure, but it was sometimes necessary. Maybe this would be one of those times. He strode up to the telephone, touched the sound control, and said, “I greet you, Reffet. How now?”

“How now indeed?” Reffet returned. “How many more males and females from the colonization fleet will face assault and perhaps assassination because of your efforts to tax Tosevite superstitions?”

No, Atvar did not care for the fleetlord from the colonization fleet, not even a little bit. With a certain sardonic relish, he replied, “You have complained because we did not, in your view, do enough to bring Tosev 3 into the Empire. Now that we are taking a step to do exactly that, you are complaining again. You cannot have it on both forks of the tongue at once.”

“Answer my question and spare me the rhetoric, if you would be so kind,” Reffet said. “We are suffering. Can you not perceive that?”

Unimpressed, Atvar answered, “My own males, the males of the conquest fleet, are suffering more, I remind you. They are the ones who actually have to enforce the new edict, and who face the dangers inherent in doing so. Colonists, if they are prudent, should not be at great risk. They do need to remember that Big Uglies, even in areas we rule, are not fully acclimated to us.”

“Are, in other words, wild beasts,” Reffet said, sarcastic in his own right. “Or would be wild beasts, did they not have the cleverness of intelligent beings. And either you do not know what you are talking about in respect to relative danger or you have not heard of the latest Tosevite outrage, word of which just reached me.”

Atvar knew a sinking feeling in the middle of his gut. He’d known that feeling too many times on Tosev 3; he kept hoping not to have it again, and kept being disappointed. “I have not heard the latest,” he admitted. “You had better tell me.”

“Tell you I shall,” Reffet said. “One of the new towns in this region of the main continental mass, the one near the attacked desalination plants”-an image on the screen showed the area known as the Arabian Peninsula-“has just suffered a devastating attack. A Tosevite drove a large truck loaded with explosives into the center of the place and touched them off, killing himself and an undetermined but large number of males and females. Physical damage is also extensive.”

“By the Emperor!” Atvar said, and cast down his eyes. “No, I had not yet heard. The only thing I will say in aid of this is that it is cursedly difficult to thwart an individual willing to pay with his own life to accomplish some goal. This is not the least of the problems we face in attempting to consolidate our control on this world, for the Big Uglies are far more willing to resort to such behavior than any other species we know.”

“They are, no doubt, especially willing to resort to it when you incite them,” Reffet said. As he spoke, words crawled across the bottom of the screen, informing Atvar of the bombing incident all over again. Atvar read them with one eye while looking at Reffet with the other.

A detail caught the attention of the fleetlord of the conquest fleet. “How did this Big Ugly manage to drive his vehicle into the center of the new town without being searched?”

“The inhabitants must have assumed he was there to deliver something or perform a service,” Reffet answered. “One does not commonly believe a Big Ugly in a truck is come on a mission of murder.”

“In that part of Tosev 3, with the present stresses, why not?” Atvar asked. “The males of the conquest fleet cannot do everything for you, Reffet. A checkpoint outside the town might have saved the colonists much sorrow.”

“Colonists are not soldiers,” Reffet said.

“Colonists can certainly be police,” Atvar answered, “and we have already begun to discuss the need for colonists to become soldiers. The males of the conquest fleet cannot carry the whole burden forever. Before all that long, we shall grow old and die. If the Race has no soldiers left after that, who will keep the Big Uglies from eating us up?”

“If we have a permanent Soldiers’ Time on this world, how can we be a proper part of the Empire?” Reffet returned. “The meaning of the Empire is that we have soldiers only in emergencies and for conquests.”

“When is it not an emergency on Tosev 3?” Atvar asked, a question for which Reffet could have no good answer. “Before the Empire unified Home, it always had soldiers, for it always needed them. That seems to be true on this world as well. You may regret it-I certainly regret it. But can you deny it?”

“Colonists will scream if you seek to make some of them into soldiers,” the fleetlord of the colonization fleet said. “Can you deny that?”

“How loud are they screaming because of those killed or wounded in the new town?” Atvar asked.

Reffet sighed. “This is not the world they were told to anticipate when they went into cold sleep back on Home. Many of them are still having difficulty adjusting to that. I understand, for I am still having difficulty adjusting to it myself.”

“Really? I never would have noticed,” Atvar said. It sounded like praise. Reffet knew it wasn’t. He glared at Atvar. The fleet-lord of the conquest fleet went on, “Colonists can deal with Tosev 3 as they imagined it to be, or they can deal with it as it is. I know which of those courses is likely to produce more satisfactory results. I wish more colonists would come to the same conclusion, rather than screaming because things are not as they would prefer.”

“That is unfair,” Reffet said. “We have labored long and hard to establish ourselves on this planet since our arrival here. You do not give us enough credit for it.”

“And you do not give us enough credit for all the labor-yes, and all the dying, too-we of the conquest fleet did so you would have a world you could colonize, even in part,” Atvar replied. “All we get is blame. Who back on Home would have thought the Big Uglies would have either trucks or explosives to load aboard them? And yet you colonists shout abuse at us for botching the war. You still cannot see how lucky we were to come away with a draw.”

“My males and females are not meant to be soldiers,” Reffet said stubbornly.

“Are they then meant to be victims?” Atvar inquired. “That seems to be the only other choice. I grieve that this terrorist assault against them succeeded. They will have to play a part if they want to keep others from succeeding.”

“You ask too much,” Reffet said.

“You give too little,” Atvar retorted. In perfect mutual loathing, they both broke the connection at the same time.

As Straha’s driver pulled to a halt in front of the house Ristin and Ullhass shared, the Big Ugly said, “Well, Shiplord, it seems as though you will have your chance to talk to Sam Yeager here instead of having to go all the way to Gardena.”

“Why do you say that?” Straha peered through the windows in the front part of the house. He did not see Yeager or any other Tosevite.

The driver barked laughter. “Because that is his automobile there, parked just in front of us.”

“Oh.” Straha felt foolish. He had never noticed what sort of motorcar Yeager drove. All he had noticed about American motorcars was that they came in far more varieties than seemed necessary. He undid his safety belt and opened the door. “Will you come in and join us? Ullhass asked that you be included in the invitation, if you so desired.”

“I thank you, but no,” the Big Ugly answered. “For one thing, I do not much care for crowds, whether of the Race or of Tosevites. And, for another, I can do a better job of protecting you from out here than from in there. I am assuming you will be in less danger from guests than from uninvited strangers.”

“I believe that is a valid assumption, yes,” Straha said. “If it is not, I have more and more diverse difficulties than I would have thought. I shall return in due course. I hope you will not be bored waiting for me.”

“It is my duty,” the driver said. “Enjoy yourself, Shiplord.”

Straha slammed the car door shut and headed for the house. He intended to do just that. Ullhass and Ristin always had good alcohol and plenty of ginger. They also had interesting guests, no matter what the driver thought. Because they were only small-scale traitors, the Race had long since forgiven them. Males and females from the land under the Race’s control could visit here without opprobrium, where they would have caused a scandal by coming to see Straha.

At the doorway, Ullhass folded himself into the posture of respect. “I greet you, Shiplord,” he said, as deferential as if Straha still commanded the 206th Emperor Yower. “I am always pleased when you honor my home by your presence.”

“I thank you for inviting me,” Straha replied. On the whole, that was true: these gatherings were as close as he could come to the society of his own kind. And if Ullhass, like Ristin, chose to wear red-white-and-blue body paint that showed he was a U.S. prisoner of war in place of the proper markings of the Race… well, he’d been doing that for a long time now, and Straha could overlook if not forgive it.

“Come in, come in,” Ullhass urged, and stood aside to let Straha do just that. “You have been here before-you will know where we keep the alcohol and the herb and the food. Help yourself to anything you think will please you. We are also doing some outdoor cooking in back of the house, with meats both from Tosev 3 and from Home.”

Sure enough, odors of smoke and of hot meat reached Straha’s scent receptors. “The smells are intriguing indeed,” he said. “I must be careful not to slobber on your floor.” Ullhass laughed.

Straha went into the kitchen and poured himself some rum-like most of the Race, he had no use for whiskey. He loaded a small plate with Greek olives and salted nuts and potato chips, then went out through the open sliding glass door into the back yard. Sam Yeager stood out there offering helpful advice to Ristin, who was cremating meat on a grill above a charcoal fire.

“I greet you, Shiplord,” Yeager said to Straha, and raised his glass in a Tosevite salute. “Good to see you.”

“How can you stand to drink that stuff?” Straha asked-Yeager’s glass did hold whiskey. “What is it good for but removing paint?”

The Big Ugly sipped the nasty stuff. “Removing troubles,” he answered, and sipped again.

That startled a laugh out of Straha, who took a drink of rum himself. “Well, but why not remove troubles with something that tastes good?” he asked.

“I like the way whiskey tastes just fine,” Yeager answered. “I have spent a lot of time getting used to it, and I see no point in wasting the accomplishment.”

That made Straha laugh, too; he enjoyed Yeager’s off-center way of looking at the world. “Have it as you will, then,” he said. “Every beffel goes to its own hole, or so the saying has it.”

“Befflem, yes.” Yeager’s head bobbed up and down. “All of your animals here now. Some of them smell very tasty.” He pointed back to the grill on which Ristin was cooking. “But others… Do you know about the rabbits in Australia, Shiplord?”

“I know what rabbits are: those hopping furry creatures with long flaps of skin channeling sound to their hearing diaphragms,” Straha answered. Yeager nodded once more. Straha continued, “And I know of Australia, because it is one of our principal centers of colonization-not that I will ever get to see as much, of course.” For a moment, his bitterness at exile showed through. “But, I confess, I do not know of any connection between rabbits and Australia.”

“Until a little more than a hundred years ago, there were no rabbits in Australia,” the Tosevite told him. “None used to live there. The settlers brought them. Because they were new, because they had no natural enemies to speak of, they spread all over Australia and became great pests. Your animals from Home are liable to do the same thing on big stretches of Tosev 3.”

“Ah. I see your concern,” Straha replied. After another sip of rum, he shrugged. “I do not know what to say about this. I do not know that there is anything to be said about it. Your settlers, I presume, brought their animals with them and transformed the ecology of the areas in which they settled till it suited them better. Our colonists are doing the same thing here on Tosev 3. Did you expect them to do otherwise?”

“If you want to know the truth, Shiplord, I did not think much about it one way or the other,” Sam Yeager said. “I do not think any Tosevites thought much about it till the colonization fleet came. Now reports from all over Tosev 3 are beginning to reach me. I do not know how big a problem your animals will turn out to be, but I think they will be a problem.”

“I would not be surprised if you were right-from a Tosevite point of view, of course,” Straha said. “To the Race, these animals are a convenience, not a problem.”

As if to prove what a convenience the Race’s domesticated animals could be, Ristin chose that moment to shout-in English-“Come and get it!” Straha let out a small snort of dismay. He knew Ristin and Ullhass had taken on as many Tosevite ways as they could, but a call like that offended his sense of dignity.

He was not so offended, however, as to keep from taking chunks of azwaca still sizzling from their time above the coals. Sam Yeager did the same. Unlike Straha’s driver, he showed no reluctance about trying the Race’s foods. After his first bite, he waved to get Ristin’s attention and spoke in English: “That’s pretty damn good.”

“Glad you like it,” the former infantrymale answered, again in the same tongue. Sure enough, he was nothing but a Big Ugly with scales and eye turrets.

But he did have good food. Straha tried the ssefenji next: a grainier, tougher meat then azwaca, and less sweet to the tongue. He didn’t like it so well, but it too was a taste of Home. And it turned out to go very well with cashews. Straha walked back into the house to get some more nuts, and filled up his glass of rum while he was there.

He glanced out the kitchen window. There sat his driver in the motorcar, looking, as best Straha could tell, bored. But the Big Ugly was in fact alert; Straha had never known him when he wasn’t alert. Seeing Straha in the window, he waved and saluted. Not many Tosevites could have recognized the ex-shiplord from such a brief glance, but he did. Straha waved back, in grudging but genuine respect.

Then he headed outside once more for another helping of ssefenji ribs. He caught Sam Yeager’s eye again. “And how is the Tosevite raised by the Race?” he asked.

“Well enough,” Yeager answered. “My hatchling and I spoke with her again, not so long ago, and with video this time. She would be a very attractive female, did she not shave off all her hair-and were her face more lively, of course.”

“Attractive? How could you judge over the telephone?” Before Yeager could answer, Straha did it for him: “Never mind. I forgot that you Big Uglies judge such matters as much by sight as by odor.”

“More by sight, I would say,” Yeager answered.

“Our females are the same, in judging a male’s mating display, but with males it is a matter of scent.” Straha looked for a way to change the subject; when not incited by pheromones, he did not care to discuss matters pertaining to mating. Having seen his driver put a new thought in his mind: “Are you aware that you have made enemies by poking your snout into places where it is not welcome? I quote someone in a position to know whereof he speaks.”

“I bet I can guess who he is, too,” Yeager said. Straha neither confirmed nor denied that. The Big Ugly’s laugh was harsh. “Yes, Shiplord, you might say I am aware of that. You just might. I killed a man last week, to keep him from killing me.”

“By the Emperor!” Straha exclaimed. “I did not know that. Why did he want to do such a thing?”

“He is too dead to ask, and his pal escaped,” Yeager answered. “I wish I knew.”

Straha studied him. “Has this incident any connection to the Big Uglies who fired shots at your home last year when the Chinese females and I were visiting?”

“I do not know that, either, and I wish I did,” Sam Yeager said. “As a matter of fact, I was wondering if you ever found out anything more about those Big Uglies.”

“Myself personally? No,” Straha replied. “Assassination is a tactic the Race seldom employs. My driver is of the opinion that the Chinese females were the likeliest targets for the Big Uglies. He is also of the opinion that you may have been a target yourself, this due to your snout-poking tendencies.”

“He is, is he?” Yeager’s mobile mouth narrowed till he seemed to have hardly more in the way of lips than a male of the Race. “Your driver has all sorts of interesting opinions. One of these days, I may have to sit down with him for a good long talk. I might learn a few things.”

“On the other fork of the tongue, you might not,” Straha told him. “He is not in the habit of revealing a great deal. I, for one, am certain he knows a great deal more than he says.”

“That does not sound much like a Big Ugly,” Sam Yeager remarked, and now his mouth stretched wide to show amusement. But his expression quickly became more nearly neutral. “It does sound like a particular kind of Big Ugly-one in the business of intelligence, for instance.”

“Are you surprised at that?” Straha felt an exile’s odd sort of pride. “I am an intelligence resource of some value to your not-empire.”

“Well, so you are, Shiplord. You-” Sam Yeager began.

But Straha stopped listening just then. As had happened before at Ullhass and Ristin’s gatherings, a female from the colonization fleet must have decided to try a taste of ginger, which was legal here in the United States. As soon as her pheromones floated outside, Straha, along with the rest of the males in the back yard, lost interest in everything else. He hurried into the house, hoping for a chance to mate.

When Mordechai Anielewicz came up to the door of his flat, he heard shouting inside. He sighed as he raised his hand to knock on the door. Both Miriam and David were old enough to have strong opinions of their own these days, and young enough to be passionately certain their opinions were the only right and proper ones, those of their parents being idiotic by assumption. No wonder life sometimes got noisy.

He knocked. As he did so, he cocked his head to one side and listened. One eyebrow rose. This wasn’t Miriam or David arguing with his wife. This was Heinrich, and he sounded even more passionate than either of his older siblings was in the habit of doing. Not only was he the youngest, he was also usually the sunniest. What could have made him…?

As David Anielewicz opened the door, Mordechai heard a squeak. It wasn’t a squeak from hinges that wanted oiling. It was much too friendly and endearing for that.

“He didn’t,” Anielewicz exclaimed.

“He sure did,” his older son answered. “He brought it home about an hour ago. Mother’s been trying to make him get rid of it ever since.”

No sooner had Anielewicz shut the door than Heinrich, doing an excellent impersonation of a tornado, dashed up to him shouting, “She said I could keep him! She said if I got one, I could keep him! She said, Father! And now I did, and now she won’t let me.” Tears streaked the tornado’s cheeks-mostly, Mordechai judged, tears of fury.

“Take it easy,” he said. “We’ll talk about it.” Back inside the flat, the beffel squeaked again. It sounded as if it wanted to stay, but who-who human, anyway-could know how a beffel was supposed to sound?

His wife strode into the short entry hall a moment later. It was getting crowded in there, but no one seemed to want to move away. “That thing, that horrible thing, has got to go,” Bertha declared.

“It’s not horrible,” Heinrich said. The beffel let out yet another squeak. It didn’t sound like a horrible thing. It sounded like a squeeze toy. Heinrich went on, “And you said that if I caught one, I could keep him. You did. You did.”

“But I didn’t think you’d really go and do it,” his mother said.

“That doesn’t matter,” Anielewicz said. Bertha looked appalled. Mordechai knew he would hear more-much more-about this later, but he went on, “You didn’t have to make the promise, but you did. Now I’d say you’ve got to keep it.”

Heinrich started dancing. There wasn’t room for that in the narrow hallway, but he did it anyhow. “I can keep him! I can keep him! I can keep him!” he sang.

Anielewicz took him by the shoulder and forcibly stopped the dance. “You can keep him,” he agreed, ignoring the dismay that still hadn’t left his wife’s face. “You can keep him, as long as you take care of him, and as long as he doesn’t cause trouble. If he makes horrible messes, or if he starts biting people, out he goes on his ear.” Befflem didn’t have ears, but that had nothing to do with anything.

“I promise, Father.” Heinrich’s face shone.

“You have to keep your promise, just like Mother has to keep hers,” Mordechai said, and his son nodded eagerly. He went on, “And even if you do, the beffel goes if he turns out to be a nuisance.”

His younger son nodded again. “He won’t. I know he won’t.” A Biblical prophet listening to the word of God could have spoken no more certainly.

Squeak! Mordechai chuckled. He couldn’t help himself. “Well, let me have a look at this fabulous beast.”

“Come on.” Heinrich grabbed his arm. “He’s great. You’ll see.” He led Mordechai into the front room. The beffel was under the coffee table. One of its eye turrets swiveled toward Anielewicz and his son. It squeaked and trotted toward them. Heinrich beamed. “There! You see? It likes people.”

“Maybe it does at that.” Anielewicz crouched down and held out his hand to the beffel, as he might have to give a strange dog or cat the chance to smell him. He was much more ready to jerk that hand back in a hurry than he would have been with a dog or a cat, though.

But the beffel acted as friendly as it sounded. After one more of those ridiculous squeaks, it stuck out its tongue at him. The end of the long, forked organ, amazingly like a Lizard’s, brushed the back of his hand. The beffel cocked its head to one side, as if trying to decide what to make of something unfamiliar. Then, with yet another squeak, it butted Anielewicz’s leg with its head.

“You see?” Heinrich said. “You see? He likes you. Pancer likes you.”

“Pancer, eh?” Mordechai raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to call him Tank in Polish?”

“Sure,” his son replied. “Why not? With scales all over him, he’s armored like a tank.”

“All right. You’ve got all the answers, it seems.” In an experimental sort of way, Anielewicz scratched the beffel’s head. “What do you think of that, Pancer?”

“He likes this better,” Heinrich said, and rubbed the beffel under the chin. The beffel put its head up so he could rub it more easily. Its tail thumped the carpet. If it wasn’t enjoying itself, it put on a mighty fine act. Maybe Heinrich really did have all the answers.

“How did you find out it likes that?” Mordechai asked.

“I don’t know.” His son sounded impatient. “I just did, that’s all.” He rubbed Pancer some more. In ecstasy, the beffel rolled over onto its back. Heinrich scratched its belly, whose scales were a couple of shades paler than those on its back. It wriggled around and let out several more preposterous squeaks.

David watched all this in fascination, Bertha with an expression that said she was a long way from reconciled to having the creature in the flat. Miriam chose that moment to come home from her music lesson. Pancer squeaked at her, too. She didn’t squeak. She squawked. She squawked even louder when she found out the beffel would be staying.

“Oh, Mother, how could you?” she cried, and retreated to her room. The beffel started to follow her. Heinrich held on to it. That was one of the wiser things he’d done in his young life.

Anielewicz asked, “Since you magically know all about this creature, do you happen to know what it eats?”

“I gave it some salted herrings,” Heinrich answered. “It liked them fine. I bet it’ll eat chicken, too.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Mordechai admitted. “All right, we’ll feed it like a pet and see how things go.” He remembered the first beffel he’d seen, and what it had been doing when he saw it. “If that doesn’t work, we can start giving it the neighbors’ cats.”

His wife said: “One more thing: if we find out that it belongs to some particular Lizard who wants it back, we’ll give it back to him. We’d do the same thing if we took in a stray cat or dog.”

Heinrich sent a look of appeal to Anielewicz. But Mordechai only nodded. “Your mother’s right. That’s fair.” And if Bertha had sounded a little too hopeful such a thing might happen, then she had, that was all.

Pancer ate boiled beef with enthusiasm. The beffel wouldn’t touch carrots, but ate potatoes with the same almost thoughtful air it had had after licking Mordechai: as if it wasn’t sure what to make of them but would give them the benefit of the doubt. Having eaten, the little scaly creature prowled around under the dining-room table. Toward the end of supper, Miriam squealed and sprang up out of her chair. “It licked my ankle,” she said in a high, shrill voice.

“This is not the end of the world,” Anielewicz told her. “Sit down and finish eating.”

She didn’t. “You don’t care,” she burst out. “You don’t care at all. We’ve got this ugly, horrible, Lizardy thing in here, and you think it’s funny.” She stormed off to her room again. The rest of the meal passed in silence, punctuated by occasional squeaks.

To Bertha’s obvious disappointment, no Lizard posted a notice offering a reward for the return of a missing beffel. Mordechai wondered if the beast had got lost in Lodz, or if it had wandered into the city from one of the new Lizard settlements to the east. From what he’d seen of the other one in the alley, befflem were more than able to take care of themselves.

As one day followed another, he got used to having Pancer around. Heinrich was in heaven, and didn’t even mind changing the cat box the beffel quickly learned to use. David liked the creature, too. Even Bertha stopped complaining about it. Only Miriam stayed unhappy. Anielewicz had trouble understanding why she did; it was as good-natured a pet as anyone could have wanted.

“It’s ugly,” she said the one time he asked her about it, and said no more. He gave up. The beffel didn’t strike him as ugly, but he didn’t think anything he said along those lines would make her change her mind.

A couple of nights after that, Heinrich shook him out of a sound sleep. “Father, I think there’s a fire in the building,” the boy said urgently. “Pancer woke me up. He’s never done that before. I was going to be mad at him, but then I smelled smoke.”

Anielewicz smelled it, too. Bertha was sitting up beside him. “Get out to the fire escape,” he told her. “Take Heinrich with you.”

“And Pancer,” Heinrich said. “I’ve got him right here.”

“And Pancer,” Mordechai agreed. “I’ll get the other children.”

“David’s already getting Miriam,” Heinrich said, which made Anielewicz feel useless and inefficient.

But he didn’t just smell smoke. He could see flames now-they were burning through the door. “Go on, then, both of you-and Pancer,” he said, and ran up the hall to make sure David and Miriam were coming. They were; he had to stop abruptly to keep from running into them. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Bertha’s feet and Heinrich’s were already rattling on the cast iron of the fire escape. Mordechai shoved his older son and daughter out onto the escape ahead of him. He hurried after them; flames were starting to lick across the carpet, and the smoke was getting thick.

As he stepped out of the flat, he paused a moment, sniffing. Along with the smoke, he smelled something else, something familiar, something he didn’t expect to smell inside the block of flats. After a heartbeat’s worth of puzzlement, he recognized it. “Gottenyu!” he exclaimed. “That’s gasoline!”

He didn’t know if anyone heard him. His family-and other people in the block of flats-were hurrying down the iron stairs. They let down the last leg of the stairway with a screech of unoiled metal and reached the street. More people spilled out the front door, but cries and shrieks from above warned that not everyone who lived in the building would be able to get out.

A clanging announced the arrival of the fire engine, which had to come from only a couple of blocks up Lutomierska Street. The firemen started playing water on the blazing building. Mordechai turned to Bertha and said, “That fire didn’t just happen. Somebody set it.” He explained what he’d smelled and what it had to mean.

“Vey iz mir!” his wife exclaimed. “Who would do such a thing?”

“Well, I don’t know,” he answered, “but whoever tried to shoot me not so long ago is a pretty good guess, I’d say. And I’d also say the mamzer, whoever he is, doesn’t care how many other people he kills as long as he gets me.” In the flickering light of the flames, Bertha’s eyes were wide with horror as she nodded.

Heinrich, meanwhile, rounded on Miriam. “If it hadn’t been for Pancer, we might never have woken up at all,” he said, and thrust the beffel in Miriam’s face. After a moment’s hesitation, she bent down and gave it a quick kiss on the snout. Pancer squeaked.

Nesseref was glad she had her tsiongi. He was better company than a lot of the males and females she knew. He didn’t argue with her. He didn’t try to get her to taste ginger so he could mate with her. He didn’t give her stupid orders. He lived contentedly in her apartment, and enjoyed going for walks when she took him out.

She’d named him Orbit, partly because she was a shuttlecraft pilot, partly because he had at first liked to walk around her on his leash if she gave him the chance. Little by little, she was training him out of that unfortunate habit. Pretty soon Orbit would be as fine a companion on the street as he was in the apartment-with a couple of other exceptions.

One of those exceptions was as ancient as the history of domestication back on Home. Ever more befflem roamed the streets of the new town outside Jezow. Whenever Orbit saw one of them, the tsiongi seemed to think he was duty-bound to try to kill the little squeaking beast. As often as not, the befflem were ready to squabble, too.

That, Nesseref could have dealt with. The Race had been dealing with squabbling tsiongyu and befflem since before civilization hatched from the egg of barbarism. She had more trouble with Orbit’s encounters with Tosevite flying creatures.

She supposed she could hardly blame the tsiongi. The little feathered beasts were so slow and awkward on the ground, they looked as if they ought to be the easiest prey imaginable. And so, joyously, Orbit would rush at them-and they would fly away.

The tsiongi would leap at them, miss, and then turn an indignant eye turret toward Nesseref, as if to say, They are not supposed to be able to do that. To Orbit, the unexpected abilities of the birds were as confusing and demoralizing as the unexpected abilities of the Big Uglies had been to the males of the conquest fleet.

Once, one of the gray feathered creatures with green heads waited so long before taking to the air that Orbit’s leap after it was even higher and more awkward than usual, though no more successful. The tsiongi crashed back to the pavement with a piteous screech.

As the disgruntled beast picked itself up, a male called, “Does he think he is going to learn to fly, too?” His mouth gaped wide; he plainly enjoyed his own wit.

Nesseref didn’t. “He has a better chance of learning to fly than you do of learning to be funny,” she snapped.

“Well, pardon me for existing,” the male said. “I did not know the Emperor had come to Tosev 3.”

“There are, no doubt, a great many things you did not know,” Nesseref said acidly. “By the evidence you have shown so far, you demonstrate this every time you speak.”

She and the male were eyeing each other’s body paint before they exchanged more insults. The male was only a data-entry clerk; Nesseref outranked him. If he tried coming back at her again, she was ready to blister his hearing diaphragms. He must have seen as much; he turned and skittered away.

Orbit kept on trying to catch birds. So did the other tsiongyu Nesseref saw in her walk along the streets of the new town. Noting that made the shuttlecraft pilot feel better, though it did nothing for her pet.

And then, as she was heading back toward her apartment building, a beffel trotted past with one of those plump gray birds in its mouth. Orbit saw the beffel-and the prize the beffel had, the prize the tsiongi hadn’t been able to get-an instant before Nesseref did. That instant was all Orbit needed. The tsiongi streaked after the beffel and, catching Nesseref by surprise, jerked the leash out of her hand.

“No! Come back!” she shouted, and ran after Orbit. The tsiongi, unfortunately, ran faster than she did. Tsiongyu also ran faster than befflem. The beffel, looking back with one eye turret, saw Orbit gaining on it. Hoping to distract its pursuer, it spat out its prey.

The ploy worked. The beffel dashed away as Orbit stopped in front of the feathered Tosevite creature and stuck out his tongue to find out what it smelled like before devouring it. Only then did the tsiongi discover the beffel had seized the bird without killing it. With a flutter of wings, the bird, though hurt, managed to get into the air and fly off. Orbit snapped at it but missed, even though its flight was as slow and awkward as that of a badly damaged killercraft.

Before the tsiongi could go after it, Nesseref came dashing up and grabbed the end of the leash. “No!” she said once more when Orbit tried to break loose. This time, because she had hold of the leash, Orbit had to listen to her.

Nesseref scolded the tsiongi all the way back to the apartment building. That probably didn’t do much good as far as Orbit was concerned: he was going to keep right on chasing befflem and trying to catch birds. But it did make the shuttlecraft pilot feel better.

When she got into the apartment building, she discovered the day’s mail had come. She didn’t expect much; most things where time mattered came electronically instead. But some of the local shops advertised themselves on paper, and she’d already found a couple of good bargains by paying attention to their flyers. Maybe she would be lucky again today.

Along with the bright-colored printed sheets, her box held a plain white envelope of peculiar size. The paper was strange, too: of coarser manufacture than she’d ever seen before. When she turned it over, she understood, for it had her address written not only in the language of the Race but also in the funny-looking characters the local Big Uglies used. Something had been pasted in one corner of the envelope: a small picture of a Tosevite in a lorry partly obscured by a rubber stamp with more Tosevite characters. Nesseref needed a moment to remember that was how the Big Uglies showed they’d paid a required postage fee.

“Why would a Tosevite want to write me?” she asked Orbit. If the tsiongi knew, he wasn’t talking; his experience with all things Tosevite had been less than happy. Nesseref scratched him below his hearing diaphragm. “Well, let’s go up and find out.”

Once she’d closed the door to the apartment behind her, she opened the envelope-awkwardly, because it wasn’t made quite like the ones the Race used. She tore the letter inside, but not badly. After she got it unfolded, she turned both eye turrets to the page.

I greet you, superior female, she read. Mordechai Anielewicz here. I do not often try to write your language, so I am sure this will have many mistakes. I am sorry, and I hope you will excuse them. She had already noted and discounted a couple of misspellings and some strange turns of phrase, and had dismissed them-she couldn’t have written Anielewicz’s language at all.

He went on, The reason I am writing to you is that I want you to find for me whatever sort of treat a beffel might like most. My hatchling brought one home, and it may have saved our lives, because it woke him when a fire started in the building where I lived. We lost our goods, but otherwise escaped without harm. We are very grateful to the beffel, as you will understand.

Nesseref turned one eye turret toward Orbit; the tsiongi had gone to rest on the couch. “It is a good thing you do not understand what is in this letter,” she said. Orbit, fortunately, didn’t understand that, either.

Whatever you find, please mail it to me at my new address, Anielewicz wrote. Here it is, in characters a Tosevite postal delivery male will understand. You have only to copy them. He’d printed the characters very plainly. Nesseref thought she could imitate them well enough to let a Big Ugly make sense of them-or she could scan them into her computer and print them out. Her Tosevite friend finished, Let me know what this costs and l will arrange to pay you back.

Exchange between the Big Uglies and the Race was often problematical. That didn’t matter, though, not here. Nesseref wouldn’t have expected repayment from a male or female of the Race for such a favor, and saw no reason to expect it from Anielewicz, either.

She went to the computer and wrote, I greet you. I am glad to be able to greet you. How strange that an animal from Home should have saved you from the fire. How did it start? That question loomed large in her mind. The Race’s buildings were nearly fireproof, and were equipped with extinguishing systems in case a blaze did somehow break out. She’d seen, though, that the Big Uglies didn’t build to anything like the same standards.

With this letter I will send a cloth animal full of ssrissp seeds, she continued. Befflem like the scent very much. You need not pay me back; it is my pleasure. I am glad you are safe. You write my language well. That was an overstatement, but she had been able to understand him.

After printing the letter, she scrawled her name below it. “How strange,” she said to Orbit. One of the tsiongi’s eye turrets turned toward her He knew she was talking to him, but not why. She explained: “Who would have thought a Big Ugly would take charge of a beffel?”

Orbit rolled onto his back and stuck his feet in the air. Maybe he followed more than she thought, for every line of his body said that he cared nothing for befflem-or for Big Uglies, either. He’d always ignored the rubbish collectors and other Tosevites he sometimes saw on the streets of the new town.

Even so, Nesseref went on, “And who would have thought a beffel could-or would-save a Tosevite’s life?”

Still on his back, the tsiongi opened his mouth in an enormous yawn. He probably would have been just as well pleased to learn that a lot of Big Uglies had burned, so long as that meant the beffel went up in flames with them. Nesseref understood the attitude, but didn’t sympathize with it.

The next day, after she got back from the shuttlecraft base not far outside the new town, she visited the pet store where she’d bought Orbit. When she chose a ssrissp-seed animal, the female who ran the place remarked, “I hope you know that tsiongyu care nothing for these toys.”

“Of course I know that,” Nesseref said indignantly. “Do you think I hatched out of my eggshell yesterday? This is not for me-it is for a friend who has a beffel. Does that meet with your approval, superior female?”

Nesseref was in fact of far higher rank than the other female. But the pet-shop proprietor seemed to have trouble recognizing sarcasm. She answered, “I suppose you can get one if you really want to.”

“Thank you so much,” Nesseref said. “My friend, by the way, is a Tosevite. He likes his beffel very much.”

“A Big Ugly with a beffel?” The other female stared in undisguised horror. “What is this world coming to?”

She meant it as a rhetorical question, but Nesseref answered it anyhow: “Something no one on Home expected-a true blending of the Race and the Tosevites.”

“I do not like it,” the other female said firmly.

Although Nesseref wasn’t so sure she liked it, either, she said, “It may just turn out to be… interesting.”

David Goldfarb thought the Canadian shipping line that ran the Liberty Hot Springs might have changed the ship’s name after acquiring her from the USA, but no one had bothered. He asked a sailor about it one day as the ship steamed west across the Atlantic.

“No, we wouldn’t do that,” the fellow answered. “Hadn’t been for the Americans, we’d be bowing down to the Emperor five times a day, too, or whatever it is the Lizards do.”

He sounded like an American himself, at least to Goldfarb’s ear. The RAF officer-no, the ex-RAF officer, he reminded himself-could gauge the home region and status of anyone from the British Isles just by listening to him for a couple of minutes. But American accents only put him in mind of evenings at the cinema, and all Yanks seemed to him to talk the same way.

But when he remarked that the sailor sounded like an American screen actor, the fellow laughed at him. “You can tell the difference once you learn how,” he said. “We say zed and shedule, the same as you do in England. On the other side of the border, they say zee and skedule. And when they go through a door, they go owt ”-he exaggerated the pronunciation-“but we go oat.”

“Now that you tell me, I can hear the difference,” Goldfarb admitted, “but I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.”

The Canadian shrugged. Was that rueful? Resigned? Amused? Something of all three? Goldfarb wasn’t sure. The sailor said, “Getting harder and harder for us to tell differences these days. Since the fighting stopped, we’ve looked more and more south to the USA and less and less across the ocean to England. Meaning no offense, pal, but you’ve had other things on your mind than us.”

“I know,” Goldfarb said bitterly. “Britain’s looking south more and more these days, too-south across the Channel to the Greater German Reich. The UK is turning into a pack of little Nazis because it’s next door to the big ones.”

“Yes, it’s a shame,” the sailor said. He sounded sympathetic but distant-what happened to the United Kingdom didn’t matter much to him. And the Reich wasn’t the biggest danger loose in the world, and hadn’t been for a long time. Next to the Lizards, who cared about Germans?

And, next to the sailor’s duties, he didn’t care much about keeping a passenger entertained. Oh, he was polite; he tipped his cap as he went on his way. But go on his way he did, leaving Goldfarb alone on the deck of the Liberty Hot Springs, with the Atlantic all around him.

The only long sea voyages he’d made before were to Poland and back during the fighting, when he’d rescued his cousin Moishe Russie from a Lizard gaol. He’d gone by submarine then, and hadn’t had much-hadn’t had any-chance to look out. Traveling from Liverpool to Belfast for his last RAF posting hadn’t been the same, either, for he’d hardly gone out of sight of land. Now…

Now, for the first time in his life, he got a sense of how truly vast the ocean was. The ship didn’t seem to move on it. Nothing came up over the western horizon, nothing vanished below the eastern horizon. From what his senses told him, the Liberty Hot Springs might sail on forever without seeing land again.

Goldfarb wondered if it was the same out in space. Airplanes were different. He knew about them. The sense of motion was never absent in them; neither was the sense that the journey, which by the nature of things could last only hours, would soon end. Traveling across the solar system as the Lewis and Clark had done, or from star to star as the Lizards did… Those were wider oceans than the Liberty Hot Springs was meant to sail.

A couple of other sailors hurried past him, intent on business of their own. On this ship, passengers were an afterthought. On a liner, they wouldn’t have been, but Goldfarb wouldn’t have been able to afford passage across the Atlantic on a liner. Serving his country all his adult life hadn’t made him rich.

He wondered what serving his country all his adult life had got him. In some small ways, he’d helped make sure Britain wouldn’t be occupied by the Germans or the Lizards, but he doubted that would have changed much had he stayed in London’s East End instead of volunteering for the RAF.

Of course, if he’d played along with the ginger smugglers in the RAF, he might well be on his way toward getting rich now. But that wasn’t why he’d joined. He might not know many things, but he was certain of that.

Some sort of bird flew by the ship. Pointing to it, a passing sailor said, “Land in a couple of days.”

“Really?” Goldfarb said, and the Canadian nodded. Goldfarb felt foolish; he knew when the journey had started and how long it was supposed to last, and shouldn’t have needed the bird to remind him when they would approach Canada. Using it as a sign took him back to the days before steam engines, back even to the days before chronometers, when accurately gauging a ship’s position was impossible and such portents really mattered.

Naomi came up from below and looked around. Seeing Goldfarb, she waved and made her way over to him. She’d always been very fair; in the moderately rough seas they’d met earlier in the journey, she’d gone pale as skimmed milk. She didn’t have a whole lot of color now, either, come to that.

“Won’t be too much longer,” David said, and spoke of the bird as if it, and not the steady thud of the ship’s engine, meant they would be coming to Canada soon.

Naomi accepted the news in the spirit with which he’d offered it. “Danken Gott dafur,” she said. “It’s seemed like forever.” A voyage that had been timeless in one sense for Goldfarb had been timeless in a very different sense for her. She gathered herself and went on, “The children will be disappointed.”

“Yes, they’ve had a fine time,” Goldfarb agreed. “They won’t want to get off the ship when we get to Montreal.”

Naomi rolled her eyes. “If I have to, I’ll drag them off,” she said. “Who would have thought my children would turn out to be good sailors?” She sounded as if they’d betrayed her by not getting sick.

When the Liberty Hot Springs reached Canadian waters, Goldfarb got another surprise: the scale of the country. The Gulf of St. Lawrence, protected from the greater sea by Newfoundland and the headland of Nova Scotia, was impressive, but nothing had prepared him for the St. Lawrence River itself. He had trouble seeing both banks at the same time when the ship first entered it: where gulf stopped and river began seemed very much a matter of opinion. Even when it eventually narrowed, it remained awe-inspiringly large.

“There must be as much water going through here as there is in all the rivers in England put together,” Goldfarb remarked to a sailor.

“Oh, more than that,” the Canadian said smugly.

And, fighting against the St. Lawrence’s fierce current, the Liberty Hot Springs took two and a half days to get to Montreal after entering the river. That journey alone was about as far as it was from the Isle of Wight in southern England to the Orkneys off the northern coast of Scotland-but it took in only a small bite of the vastness that was Canada. Goldfarb’s notions of scale got revised again.

Only Montreal itself failed to overwhelm him. It was a fair-sized city, sure enough. But to a man born and raised in London, that was all it was. Britain might be small, but it had plenty of people.

When longshoremen tied the ship up at a quay, he gave a long sigh of relief. “We’re here,” he said to Naomi. “We can start over now.”

“Let’s not be so happy till we get through customs,” his wife answered. She’d been a refugee before, fleeing the Reich. If that wasn’t enough to ingrain pessimism in someone, Goldfarb didn’t know what would be.

But he said, “Well, our papers are in order, so we shouldn’t have any trouble.” As she had up on deck a few days before, his wife rolled her eyes.

Clutching papers and suitcases and children, he and Naomi went over the gangplank, off the ship, and onto Canadian soil. He’d wondered if, in Montreal, he would have to deal with officials who spoke French. But the fellow to whose post he came wore a name badge that said V. WILLIAMS and used English of the same sort as the sailors on the Liberty Hot Springs.

“So you are immigrating to our country, eh?” he said, examining passports and immigration forms.

“Yes, sir.” A lifetime in the RAF had taught Goldfarb the shortest answers were the best.

“Reason for leaving Great Britain?” Williams asked.

“Too many people getting too chummy with Himmler,” Goldfarb said dryly.

Whatever Williams had expected by way of reply, that wasn’t it. He was about Goldfarb’s age; he might well have seen action against the Germans himself. “Er, yes,” he said, and scribbled a note on the form in front of him. “So your claim would involve political liberties, then? We don’t often see that from the mother country.”

Naomi said, “You will see more of it, I think, as England comes closer to the Reich.”

“It could be so, ma’am,” the immigration officer said, and wrote another note. He turned back to David. “Now, then-what skills do you bring to Canada?”

“I’m just retired from the RAF,” Goldfarb answered. “I served since 1939, and I’ve been working with radars all that time. I’ll gladly pass along anything I happen to know that you don’t, and I’ll be looking for civilian work in electronics or at an airport.”

“I see.” Williams turned away and shuffled through some papers. He pulled one out, read it, and nodded. “I thought your name was familiar. You’re the fellow who was involved in that ginger-smuggling mess last year, aren’t you?”

“Yes, that’s me,” Goldfarb answered with a sinking feeling.

His old chum Jerome Jones had managed to clear away the obstacles to his emigration from Britain. What obstacles had Basil Roundbush and his pals managed to throw up against his immigration into Canada?

Williams tapped the eraser end of his pencil against his front teeth, “You and your family are to be permitted into the country,” he said, still eyeing that sheet of paper. “You are to be permitted entry, but you are also to be transported to Ottawa for a thorough interrogation. Until that interrogation is completed to the satisfaction of the authorities, you are to remain under the authority of the Canadian government.”

“What precisely does that mean?” Goldfarb asked. I should have known this wouldn’t be easy. Gevalt, Naomi knew it wouldn’t be easy.

“What it says, more or less,” the immigration officer answered. “You are not free to settle until this process is finalized.” He sounded every inch a bureaucrat.

Voice brittle, Naomi asked, “And how long is that likely to take?”

Williams spread his hands. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t the least idea. That’s not my bailiwick at all, I’m afraid.” Yes, he was a bureaucrat, all right.

“We’re prisoners, then,” David Goldfarb said.

“Not prisoners-not exactly, anyhow,” Williams answered.

“But not free, either.”

The immigration officer nodded. “No, not free.”