Homeward Bound

14

The Race didn’t arrest Walter Stone after he returned their scooter to them. Glen Johnson assumed that meant whatever ginger had been aboard was removed before they got it back. Stone said, “What would you do if I told you they didn’t even search the scooter?”

“What would I do?” Johnson echoed. “Well, the first thing I’d do is, I’d call you a liar.”

Stone looked at him. “Are you calling me a liar?” His voice held a distinct whiff of fists behind the barn, if not of dueling pistols at dawn.

Johnson didn’t care. “That depends,” he answered. “Are you telling me the Lizards didn’t search the scooter? If you are, you’re damn straight I’m calling you a liar. They aren’t stupid. They know where ginger comes from, and they know damn well the Easter Bunny doesn’t bring it.”

“You’re the one who brought it the last time,” Stone observed.

“Yeah, and you can thank our beloved commandant for that, too,” Johnson said. “I’ve already thanked him in person, I have, I have. He played me for a sucker once, and he wanted to do it again. Do you think the Lizards would have given me thirty years, or would they have just chucked me out the air lock?”

“They didn’t find any ginger on the scooter,” Stone said, tacitly admitting they had looked after all.

“They didn’t find it when you took it over,” Johnson said. “Suppose there hadn’t been that delay before you flew it. Suppose I’d taken it when Healey told me to. What would they have found then?”

“I expect the same nothing they found when I got to their ship.” Stone sounded unperturbed, but then he usually did. He’d been a test pilot before he started flying in space. It wasn’t that nothing fazed him, only that he wouldn’t admit it if something did.

Being a Marine, Johnson had a dose of the same symptoms himself. That inhuman calm was a little more than he could take right now, though. “My ass,” he said. “And it would have been my ass if I’d taken the scooter over to the Horned Akiss. You’ve got a lot of damn nerve pretending anything different, too.”

“If you already know all the answers, why do you bother asking the questions?” Stone pushed off and glided out of the control room.

Resisting the impulse to propel the senior pilot with a good, swift kick, Johnson stayed where he was. Home spun through the sky above, or possibly below, him. He went around the world every hour and a half, more or less. What would things have been like for the Lizards in the days when they were exploring Home? Seas here didn’t all connect; there was no world-girdling ocean, the way there was on Earth. The first Lizard to circumnavigate his globe had done it on foot. How long had it taken him? What dangers had he faced?

The Race could probably answer all those questions as fast as he could ask them. It didn’t matter that woolly mammoths and cave bears had seemed at least as likely as people to inherit the Earth when the first Lizard went all the way around Home. The data would still be there. Johnson was as sure of that as he was of his own name. The Race had more packrat genes in it than humanity did.

But Johnson didn’t call the Horned Akiss or one of the Race’s other orbiting spacecraft to try to find out. He didn’t want chapter and verse. He wanted his own imagination. What would that Lizard have thought when he got halfway around? The animals and plants would have been strange. So would the Lizards he was meeting. They would have spoken different languages and had odd customs.

None of that was left here any more, not even a trace. Home was a much more homogenized place than Earth. Lizards everywhere spoke the same language. Even local accents had just about disappeared. From everything Johnson could tell, all Lizard cities except maybe the capital-which was also a shrine, and so a special case-looked pretty much alike. You could drop a female from one into another on the far side of Home and she’d have no trouble getting along.

Is that where we’re going? Johnson wondered. Even nowadays, someone from Los Angeles wouldn’t have much trouble coping in, say, Dallas or Atlanta. But Boston and San Francisco and New York City and New Orleans were still very much their own places, and Paris and Jerusalem and Shanghai were whole separate worlds.

Thinking of separate worlds made Johnson shake his head. You could take that imaginary female of the Race and drop her into a town on Rabotev 2 or Halless 1, and she still wouldn’t miss a beat. Oh, she’d know she wasn’t on Home any more; there’d be Rabotevs or Hallessi on the streets. But she’d still fit in. They’d all speak the same language. They’d all reverence the spirits of Emperors past. She wouldn’t feel herself a stranger, the way a woman from Los Angeles would in Bombay.

And the Lizards didn’t seem to think they’d lost anything. To them, the advantages of uniformity outweighed the drawbacks. He shrugged. Maybe they were right. They’d certainly made their society work. People had been banging one another over the head long before the Race arrived, with no signs of a letup any time soon. If the Race had stayed away, they might have blown themselves to hell and gone by now.

If the Lizards had come to Earth now, in the twenty-first century, humans probably would have beaten the snot out of them. If they’d come any earlier than they did, they would have wiped the floor with people. Only in a narrow range of a few years would any sort of compromise solution have been possible. And yet that was what had happened. It was pretty strange, when you got right down to it.

Fiction has to be plausible. Reality just has to happen. Glen Johnson couldn’t remember who’d said that, but it held a lot of truth.

Most of Home was spread out before him. As usual, there was less cloud cover here than on Earth. Deserts and mountains and meadows and seas were all plainly visible, as if displayed on a map. Johnson wondered what effect Home’s geography had had on the Race’s cartography. Back on Earth, people had developed map projections to help them navigate across uncharted seas. Hardly any seas here were wide enough to be uncharted.

He shrugged. That was one more thing the Lizards could probably tell him about in great detail. But he didn’t want to know in great detail. Sometimes, like a cigar, idle curiosity was only idle curiosity.

Counting cold sleep, he hadn’t smoked a cigar in close to seventy years. Every now and then, the longing for tobacco still came back. He knew the stuff was poisonous. Everybody knew that these days. People still smoked even so.

He laughed, not that it was funny. “Might as well be ginger,” he muttered, “except you can’t have such a good time with it.”

All things considered, the Indians had a lot to answer for. The Europeans had come to the New World and given them measles and smallpox, and it didn’t look as if America had sent syphilis back across the Atlantic in return. But tobacco was the Indians’ revenge. It had probably killed more people than European diseases in the Americas.

The insidious thing about tobacco was that it killed slowly. Back in the days before doctors knew what they were doing, you were likely to die of something else before it got you. That meant people got the idea it was harmless, and the smoking habit-the smoking addiction-spread like a weed.

But with diseases like typhoid and smallpox and TB knocked back on their heels, more and more people lived long enough for lung cancer and emphysema and smoking-caused heart attacks to do them in. And kicking the tobacco habit was no easier than it had ever been. Once the stuff got its hooks in you, hooked you were. Some people said quitting heroin was easier than quitting tobacco.

Johnson hadn’t had any choice. He was healthier than he would have been if he’d kept on lighting up. He knew that. He missed cigars and cigarettes even so. He’d never smoked a pipe. He managed to miss those, too.

Then something else occurred to him. Humanity and the Race were both liable to be lucky. While European diseases had devastated the natives of the Americas, Lizards and people hadn’t made each other sick. They’d shot one another, blown one another up, and blasted one another with nuclear weapons. But germ warfare didn’t seem to work out. Thank God for small favors, he thought.

Mickey Flynn came up the access tube and into the control room. “A penny for your thoughts,” he said. “I know I’m overspending, but such is life.”

“Thank you so much. I’m always glad to be around people who respect my abilities,” Johnson said.

“As soon as I find them, you may rest assured I’ll respect them,” Flynn replied. “Now-are you going to earn your stipend, or not?”

“I hate to risk bankrupting you, but I’ll try,” Johnson said. With Flynn, you had to fight dryer with dryer. Johnson expanded on his musings about tobacco and disease. When he finished, he asked, “How did I do?”

The other pilot gravely considered. “Well, I have to admit that’s probably worth a penny,” he said at last. “Who would have believed it?” He reached into the pocket of his shorts and actually produced a little bronze coin-the first real money Johnson had seen aboard the Admiral Peary. “Here. Don’t spend it all in the same place.” Flynn flipped the penny to Johnson.

“I do hope this won’t break you,” Johnson said, sticking it in his own pocket. “Why on earth did you bring it along, anyhow? How did they let you get away with it?”

“I stuck it under my tongue when I went into cold sleep, so I could pay Charon the ferryman’s fee in case I had to cross the Styx instead of this other trip we were making,” Flynn answered, deadpan.

“Yeah, sure. Now tell me another one,” Johnson said.

“All right. I won it off the commandant in a poker game.” Flynn sounded as serious with that as he had with the other.

“My left one,” Johnson said sweetly. “Healey’d give you an IOU, and it wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on.”

“Don’t you trust our esteemed leader?” Flynn asked.

Johnson trusted Lieutenant General Healey, all right. That it was trust of a negative sort had nothing to do with anything-so he told himself, anyhow. He said, “When I have the chance, I’ll buy you a drink with this.”

As far as he knew, there was no unofficial alcohol aboard the Admiral Peary. He wouldn’t have turned down a drink, any more than he would have turned down a cigar. Flynn said, “While you’re at it, you can buy me a new car, too.”

“Sure. Why not?” Johnson said grandly. What could be more useless to a man who had to stay weightless the rest of his days?

“A likely story. What’s your promise worth?” Flynn said.

“It’s worth its weight in gold,” Johnson answered.

“And now I’m supposed to think you a wit.” Flynn looked down his rather tuberous nose at Johnson. “I’ll think you half a wit, if you like. You filched that from The Devil’s Dictionary. Deny it if you can.”

“I didn’t know it was against the rules,” Johnson said.

“There’s an old whine in a new bottle,” Flynn said loftily.

“Ouch.” Johnson winced. He was a straightforward man. Puns didn’t come naturally to him. When he went up against Mickey Flynn, that sometimes left him feeling like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. All of a sudden, he laughed. The Lizards probably felt that way about the whole human race.

When Pesskrag called Ttomalss, the female physicist was more agitated than he had ever seen her. “Do you know what this means?” she demanded. “Do you have the faintest idea?”

“No. I am not a physicist,” Ttomalss said. “Perhaps you will calm yourself and tell me. I hope so, at any rate.”

“Very well. It shall be done. It shall be attempted, anyhow.” In the monitor, Pesskrag visibly tried to pull herself together. She took a deep breath and then said, “This has taken the egg of the physics we have known since before Home was unified, dropped it on a rock, and seen something altogether new and strange hatch out of it. Each experiment is more startling than the last. Sometimes my colleagues and I have trouble believing what the data show us. But then we repeat the experiments, and the results remain the same. Astonishing!” She used an emphatic cough.

“Fascinating.” Ttomalss wondered if he was lying. “Can you tell someone who is not a physicist what this means to him?”

“Before we understood-or thought we understood-the nature of matter and energy, we threw rocks and shot arrows at one another. Afterwards, we learned to fly between the stars. The changes coming here will be no less profound.”

“You suggested such things before,” Ttomalss said slowly. “I take it that what you suggested then now seems more likely?”

“Morning twilight suggests the sun. Then the sun comes over the horizon, and you see how trivial the earlier suggestion was.” Pesskrag might have been a physicist by profession, but she spoke poetically.

However poetically she spoke, she forgot something. Ttomalss said, “The Big Uglies dropped this egg some time ago. What sort of sunrise are they presently experiencing?”

“I do not know that. I cannot know that, being so many light-years removed from Tosev 3,” Pesskrag replied. “I must assume they are some years ahead of us. They made these discoveries first. From what you say, they are also quicker than we to translate theory into engineering.”

“Yes, that is a truth,” Ttomalss agreed. “If anything, that is an understatement. I asked you this before. Now I ask it again: can you prepare a memorandum telling me in nontechnical terms what sort of engineering changes you expect to hatch from these theoretical changes?”

This time, Pesskrag made the affirmative gesture. “I think I had better now. We are further along than we were, so what I say will be much less speculative than it would have the last time you asked me. I should send it to you by the day after tomorrow.”

“That will do. I thank you. Farewell.” Ttomalss broke the connection.

He knew memoranda often hatched more slowly than their authors thought they would. This one, though, came when Pesskrag promised it. Ttomalss read it on the monitor before printing a hard copy. Once he had read it, his first impulse was to conclude that Pesskrag had lost her mind. But she had evidence on her side, and he had only his feelings. He was, as he’d said, no physicist himself.

He was also alarmed. If she did know what she was talking about… If the Big Uglies knew the same sorts of things, and more besides… Ttomalss printed out the memorandum and took it to Atvar’s chamber. He was glad to find the retired fleetlord there. “This is something you should see, Exalted Fleetlord,” he said, and held out the paper.

“What is it, Senior Researcher?” Atvar seemed distracted, uninterested. “You will forgive me, I hope, but I have other things on my mind.”

“None of them is more important than this,” Ttomalss insisted.

“No?” Atvar swung one eye turret toward him. “I am concerned with the survival, or lack of same, of both the Race and the Big Uglies. Do you still hold to your claim?”

“I do, Exalted Fleetlord,” Ttomalss replied.

Slowly, Atvar’s other eye turret followed the first. “You really mean that,” he observed, astonishment in his voice. Ttomalss made the affirmative gesture. Atvar held out his hand in a way that suggested he was about as ready to claw as to grab. “Very well. Let me see this, so I can dispose of it and go on to other things.”

“Here, Exalted Fleetlord.” Ttomalss handed him the printout. Atvar began to read with one eye turret, as if to say the memorandum deserved no more. Ttomalss waited. Before long, the fleetlord was going over the document with both eyes, a sign it had engaged his interest. Ttomalss made the affirmative gesture again, this time to himself. He’d expected nothing less.

At last, Atvar looked up from the printout. “You really believe this will happen, Senior Researcher?”

“Pesskrag has never struck me as one who exaggerates for the sake of winning attention,” Ttomalss replied. “She believes this will happen. So do her colleagues. If it does, it will be important.”

“If it does, it will turn the world-several worlds-upside down,” Atvar said. Ttomalss could hardly disagree with that. The fleetlord went on, “Did I note that this is information derived from experiments modeled after those the Big Uglies have already carried out?”

“You did, yes.” Ttomalss waited to see how Atvar would respond to that.

The fleetlord let out a furious hiss. “We are going to have our work cut out for us, then, are we not?”

“It would appear so.” Ttomalss wondered how large an understatement that was.

Atvar said, “Do your pet physicists have an idea how long this will need to go from experiment to production?”

“This report does not state it,” Ttomalss answered. “The last time I asked Pesskrag the same question, she gave me an estimate-hardly more than a guess, she said-of at least a hundred fifty years.”

“That was her estimate for us?” Atvar asked. When Ttomalss showed that it was, Atvar asked a grimly sardonic question: “How long will it take the Big Uglies?”

“Again, Exalted Fleetlord, I have no idea. I am only a messenger here. Pesskrag would not offer an estimate for that.”

“Of course she would not.” Yes, irony had its claws in the fleetlord, all right. “What do she and her colleagues know of Tosevites? About what I know of physics. They could hardly know less than that, could they?”

“Well, they could know as little as I know about physics,” Ttomalss said.

He startled a laugh out of Atvar. “Either way, they do not know much. And that is the problem, would you not agree? Even those of us with some understanding of the Big Uglies too often underrate them. The less the physicists’ knowledge, the greater their tendency to do so.”

“The less the physicists’ knowledge of Big Uglies, the greater their tendency to think the Tosevites are just like us,” Ttomalss replied.

“We both said the same thing, in slightly different ways,” Atvar said. Ttomalss wished he could disagree with that, but knew he could not. The fleetlord continued, “We are going to have some interesting times, are we not? Not pleasant, necessarily, but interesting.”

“I would think so, yes,” Ttomalss said. “Forgive me, but you seemed out of sorts when I brought you this report.”

“Did I? I suppose I did,” Atvar said. “Talks with the Big Uglies are not going as well as I wish they were. Sam Yeager simply does not have a realistic view of the situation.”

“Are you sure, Exalted Fleetlord?” Ttomalss asked. “From all I have seen, the American ambassador is about as reasonable a Tosevite as was ever hatched.”

“This has also been my view,” Atvar replied. “He has also been as friendly to the Race as any Tosevite could be expected to be. That makes his present intransigence all the more disappointing. I fear he must have instructions that constrain him, for he is not at all yielding, even on small points.”

“How much have you yielded to him?”

“What I am allowed to,” Atvar said. “He pushes the notion of formal equality to ridiculous extremes, though. If one believes his assumptions, there is no difference between the Empire and the United States in sovereignty and in obligations, none whatever.”

“What is the likely result if these talks fail?” Ttomalss asked.

“War. What else?” Atvar sounded particularly bleak.

“Then they had better not fail. Or do you disagree?”

“Oh, no.” The fleetlord used the negative gesture. “I think you are absolutely right. The Emperor agrees with you, too. But if the wild Big Uglies present impossible demands, what are we supposed to do? Yield to them? I am very sorry, Senior Researcher, but I think not.”

“One more question, Exalted Fleetlord, and then I will leave,” Ttomalss said. “Do the Tosevites think our requirements are as ridiculous as we think theirs? If they do, perhaps both sides should be more flexible and seek some sort of compromise solution.”

“Easier to propose a compromise than to propose compromise terms both sides would find acceptable,” Atvar said coldly. “Farewell.”

That was an unmistakable dismissal. “Farewell,” Ttomalss said, and left the fleetlord’s chamber. He had done what he could. The Race as a whole had done what it could. The wild Big Uglies, no doubt, would loudly insist that they had done what they could. And what was the likely result of all that? The same disaster that would have appeared if everyone had gone into these talks with the worst will imaginable. So much for good intentions, the psychologist thought. There was some sort of Tosevite saying about what good intentions were worth. He couldn’t recall the details, but remembered thinking that the phrase, when he’d heard it translated, held more truth than he wished it did.

The elevator ride down to the lobby felt like a fall, perhaps a fall straight into despair. Hoping to make himself feel better with some food, Ttomalss went into the refectory. The result was not what he’d hoped for. Oh, the food would be pleasant enough; the hotel had a good kitchen. But Kassquit and Frank Coffey were in there ahead of him, sitting in a couple of chairs designed for Big Uglies.

It wasn’t that Ttomalss begrudged his former ward’s happiness. So he told himself, at any rate. Still, seeing her so obviously pleased with the company of her fellow Tosevite got under his scales. If behavior sprang from biology more than from culture, perhaps conflict with the wild Big Uglies was inevitable-a conclusion he would rather not have reached just then.

He did his best to reach a different conclusion. Maybe their happiness together showed that citizens of the Empire and wild Tosevites could get on well despite their cultural differences. That sounded reassuring, but he couldn’t make himself believe it. It would have been a truth had all citizens of the Empire been Tosevites. Had Kassquit been a member of the Race, Frank Coffey would not have been interested in her in the way he was. Tosevite sexuality makes cultural differences less important, he judged. But that was an argument for biological primacy, not against it, and one he wished he had not thought of.

The server brought his zisuili ribs. They were tender and meaty, the sauce that covered them tart on his tongue. He savored them less than he wished he would have. His mind was on other things. Atvar had always been on the optimistic side when it came to dealing with the Big Uglies. If even he feared a clash was inevitable, maybe it was.

Sam Yeager knew the commandant of the Admiral Peary was the sort of man who would have disposed of him like a crumpled paper towel for letting the Lizards know who was responsible for the attack on the colonization fleet. That was one reason Yeager hated talking with Lieutenant General Healey.

And the commandant despised him right back. He knew it. As far as Healey was concerned, he was a traitor and a Lizard-lover, somebody who cared about the Race more than he did about humanity or his own country. Their mutual lack of affection had made their conversation about ginger not long before particularly unpleasant.

Healey could have worked much more easily with the Doctor. Nobody had ever questioned the Doctor’s patriotism. And the Doctor would have figured Healey was a useful tool, and treated him with the respect required to keep him… useful. (Nobody, Yeager was convinced, could have kept Healey happy. The capacity for happiness simply was not in the man.)

But the USA was stuck with one Sam Yeager as ambassador. It meant Lieutenant General Healey had to take him seriously, for his position if not for himself. And it also meant that, now and again, like it or not, Sam had to deal with Healey.

“Are you sure this conversation is secure?” Healey growled. Yeager might have guessed those would be the first words out of his mouth.

“As sure as my instruments will let me be,” he answered. Of course the Race would try to monitor conversations between the ground and the Admiral Peary. The scrambling equipment was human-made, the best around in 1994. That put it a little ahead of anything the Lizards owned. But they had a whole solar system’s worth of electronics here to try to tease signal out of noise. Maybe they could. Sam felt he had to add, “Life doesn’t come with a guarantee, you know.”

“Yes, I am aware of that.” By Healey’s sour rasp, he was wishing he were having this conversation with the Doctor. He muttered something Sam couldn’t make out, which was probably just as well. Then he gathered himself. “Tell me what’s on your mind, Ambassador.” In his own crabbed way, he was making an effort. If he dealt with Sam Yeager the ambassador, he wouldn’t have to think so much about Sam Yeager the man-the man he couldn’t stand.

“I think you would do well to stay alert for anything unexpected.” Sam picked his words with as much care as he could.

“We always do,” Healey said, as if Sam couldn’t be trusted to know that for himself. But then his tone sharpened: “Are you telling me there may be some special reason we need to be alert?” He was narrow. He was sour. He was also professionally competent, however little Yeager cared to acknowledge that.

And Yeager had to answer, “Yes, I’m afraid there may be.”

“Suppose you tell me more,” the commandant rapped out.

“There are… sovereignty issues,” Sam said unhappily. “Free-trade issues. The Race has most-favored-nation status in commerce with the United States. It doesn’t want to see that there are reciprocity issues. If tariffs keep us from carrying on any sort of trade with the planets in the Empire-”

“Then we have a problem,” Healey broke in, and Sam couldn’t disagree with him. Healey went on, “All right, Ambassador. I suppose I have to thank you for the heads-up. I promise you, we won’t be caught napping. Anything else?”

“I don’t think so,” Sam said. “Out.” He broke the connection. It was his turn to do some muttering. One reason the Admiral Peary had come to Home heavily armed was to remind the Race war with the United States didn’t just mean war within the Sun’s solar system. War could come home to the other worlds the Empire ruled.

Healey was probably the right man to be up there, too. If he had to fight for his ship, he would do it till the Lizards overwhelmed him. Inevitably, they would, but they’d know they’d been in a scrap, too.

They’d never had anybody insist on full equality with them before. They didn’t know how to respond. No, that wasn’t true. They couldn’t see that they needed to agree. That came closer to the truth.

Shaking his head, Sam left his room. He went down to the lobby, where he found Tom de la Rosa and Frank Coffey good-naturedly arguing about, of all things, a blown call in the 1985 World Series. De la Rosa rounded on him as he came up. “What do you think, Sam? Was the guy safe or out?”

“Beats me,” Sam said. “I’d been on ice for years.”

“So had that stupid umpire,” Coffey said. “The only difference is, they ran him out there anyway.”

Yeager looked around. There weren’t any Lizards close by-just a couple of guards at the door. But the Race was bound to have bugged the area. He would have, in the Lizards’ place. Any edge you could get was better than none. He said, “Come on back up to my room, gentlemen, if you’d be so kind.” The Lizards had bugs there, too. The difference was, those bugs didn’t work-Sam didn’t think they did, anyhow.

“What’s up?” Tom asked. Yeager only shrugged, pointed at a wall, and tapped his own ear. The Lizards could have all the bugs they wanted down here, but they wouldn’t get everything that was going on.

De la Rosa and Coffey certainly knew what Sam was saying. They kept on hashing out the blown call-or maybe the good call, if you believed Tom-all the way up the elevator. By the time they got off, Sam found himself wishing he’d seen the play. He wondered if people back on Earth were still arguing about it, too.

But everyone’s manner changed when the three of them got back to the hotel room. “What’s up?” de la Rosa asked again, this time in a much less casual tone of voice.

Before answering, Sam checked the bug sniffer. Only after he saw everything was green did he ask what was on his mind: “Which is better, a treaty that doesn’t give us everything we ought to have or a fight to make sure we get it?”

“Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?” Frank Coffey quoted.

De la Rosa grinned at him. “You’re a lot of things, Major, but I’ll be damned if I can see you as a melancholy Dane.”

“You’re right-I’m too cheerful,” Coffey said. De la Rosa and Yeager both made faces at him.

“It’s a serious question, though.” Sam got back to business. “It looks more and more as if the Lizards aren’t going to give us full equality all over the Empire. So what do we do about that? Do we settle for something less, or do we go to war and blow everything to hell and gone?”

“Can’t very well phone home for instructions, can you?” de la Rosa said.

“Not unless I want to go back into cold sleep till the answer comes in twenty-odd years from now,” Yeager answered. “And there’s not much point to sending out an ambassador if you’re going to do it all by radio, is there?”

“You’re the man on the spot,” Coffey agreed. “In the end, it all comes down to you.”

Sam knew that. He wished Frank Coffey hadn’t put it so baldly. He wished the Doctor had revived. He wished for all sorts of things he wouldn’t get. The weight lay on his shoulders. He was responsible for billions of lives scattered among four different species. Nobody since the Emperor who’d sent the conquest fleet to Earth had borne that kind of burden-and the Lizard hadn’t known he bore it.

“If we accept an inferior treaty now, maybe we can get it fixed when we’re stronger,” Tom said. “We’re getting stronger all the time, too.”

“Other side of that coin is, maybe the Lizards will think they have a precedent for holding us down,” Coffey said. “What are your orders, Ambassador?”

He was a military man. To him, orders were Holy Writ. Sam had lived in that world for a long time. He understood it, but he didn’t feel bound by it, not any more. He said, “The first thing my orders are is out of date. Tom said it: I can’t phone home. I’m the man on the spot. If my orders tell me to insist on complete equality no matter what and I see that means war, I’m going to think long and hard before I follow them.”

“Are you saying you won’t follow them?” Coffey asked. That was a dangerous question. If he saw somebody wantonly disobeying orders… well, who could guess what he might do?

“No, I’m not saying I won’t follow them,” Yeager answered carefully. “But war on this scale is something nobody’s ever imagined, not even the people who were around when the conquest fleet landed.” He was one of those people. There were a few more up on the Admiral Peary. Back on Earth? Only the oldest of the old, and even they would have been children back then.

A good many Lizards who’d been active then were still around. That wasn’t just on account of cold sleep, either. They lasted longer than people did. But did they understand what they might be setting in motion? Sam didn’t think so.

“What will make up your mind, one way or the other?” Frank Coffey didn’t want to let it alone. He was capable. He was dutiful. He made Sam want to kick him in the teeth.

Still picking his words with care, Sam said, “If they say, ‘You have to do it our way, or we’ll go to war with you right now,’ I don’t see that I have any choice. We let them know we’ll fight. You can’t let them get away with that kind of threat. If they think they can, they’ll own us.”

“No doubt about that,” Coffey said. Tom de la Rosa nodded.

“Okay,” Sam said. “But if they say something like, ‘We want to stay peaceful, but this is the only kind of treaty we can accept,’ that may be a different story. Then it might be a better idea to say, ‘Well, we’re not real happy with this, but we’ll make the deal for now,’ and figure our grandchildren can finish picking the Lizards’ pockets.”

“I like that, or most of me does,” Tom said. “It won’t stop the ecological damage, but a lot of that’s already done.”

Coffey stayed dubious. “I don’t want them thinking they can push us around at all. They’re like anybody else who’s got power and wants more: give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile. And who knows who’ll be doing the pushing around fifty years from now, or a hundred and fifty?”

“It hasn’t come to ultimatums yet,” Yeager said. “I’m still hoping it doesn’t.”

“But you wouldn’t have warned the Admiral Peary if you weren’t worried,” Major Coffey said. “I know you, Ambassador. You wouldn’t give Lieutenant General Healey the time of day if you weren’t worried.” He was too obviously right to make that worth denying. When Sam didn’t say anything, Coffey asked his question again: “What are your orders?”

They weren’t Sam‘s. They were intended for the Doctor. He would have had no qualms about carrying them out. Yeager was sure of that. “Basically, to ensure our freedom and independence,” he answered. “That’s what this is all about. Past the basics, I’ve got a lot of discretion. I have to. The home office is a hell of a long way from here.”

“You’re right about that,” Tom said.

“Sure are,” Frank Coffey said. “But you don’t get anywhere against oppression by bowing down and saying, ‘Thank you,’ to the fellow with the bullwhip. No offense, Ambassador, but that just doesn’t work.” Sam would have been happier had he thought the black man was wrong.

When the phone hissed for attention, Atvar had just come out of the shower. That was a smaller problem for a member of the Race than it would have been for a wild Big Ugly; he didn’t need to worry about decking himself with wrappings before he went to answer. But it was an annoyance even so.

Shaking a last couple of drops of water off the end of his snout, he sat down in front of the monitor and let the camera pick up his image. “This is Atvar. I greet you,” he said.

“And I greet you, Fleetlord.”

The face on the screen made Atvar hiss in surprise. “Your Majesty!” he exclaimed, and began to fold into the special posture of respect reserved for the Emperor.

“Never mind that,” the 37th Emperor Risson said, holding up a hand. “We have serious matters to discuss.”

Atvar made the affirmative gesture. “As always, your Majesty, I am at your service.”

“Good,” Risson said. “How seriously do you take this new report from Senior Researcher Ttomalss and the physicists he has recruited?”

“Seriously enough to pass it on in the hope that your eye turrets would move across it,” Atvar answered. “I cannot fully comment on the quality of the research. There I have to rely on the scholars involved. But, by their reputations, they are first-rate males and females.”

“Yes.” Risson used the affirmative gesture, too. “This being so, what they say is probably right. What do we do about that?”

“I think perhaps you should ask the physicists and not me,” Atvar said. “My own view is, we push ahead with this research as hard as we can. The Big Uglies already have a considerable start on us.”

“That is also a truth.” Risson used the same gesture again. “How likely is it, in your opinion, that we will be able to catch up?”

There was an interesting question-so interesting, Atvar almost wished the Emperor hadn’t asked it. The Race had had a head start on the Tosevites in technology. It didn’t any more. The Big Uglies moved faster than the Race did. If they had found something new and the Race had to make up lost ground…

The Emperor deserved the truth. Indeed, he required the truth. With a sigh, Atvar answered, “While it may not be impossible, I do not believe it will be easy, either. We are more sensible than they are, but without a doubt they are more nimble.”

“I was hoping you would tell me something else,” Risson said with a sigh of his own. “Your view closely matches those of my other advisers. This being so, our view of negotiations with the American Big Uglies necessarily changes, too, would you not agree?”

“I would,” Atvar said. “I have begun to take a less compromising line with Sam Yeager. We are likely to be stronger now than in the future. Any bargains we make should reflect our current strength.”

“Good. Very good. Again, I agree,” Risson said. “I also wonder how much the Big Uglies here know about the research back on their own planet. Our monitoring has not picked up much in the way of information on it coming from the wild Tosevites on their home planet. Speculation is that Tosevite leaders know we are listening to their transmissions and do not wish to give us any data they do not have to.”

“That strikes me as reasonable,” Atvar said. “I wish it did not, but it does. The Tosevites are more accustomed to secrecy than we are. They have internal rivalries the likes of which we have not known since before Home was unified.”

“So I am given to understand.” The 37th Emperor Risson sighed again. “You know I want peace with the Big Uglies. Who could not, when war would prove so destructive?” He waited. As far as Atvar was concerned, agreement there was automatic. The Emperor went on, “But if war should become necessary, better war when we are stronger than when we are weaker.”

“Just so, your Majesty-thus the harder line,” Atvar replied. “I do not relish it. Who could? But better on our terms than on the Tosevites’ terms. So far, Sam Yeager has been intransigent when it comes to the Americans’ demands. If we cannot get what we require by other means, shall we proceed to whatever forceful steps prove necessary?”

“War is only a last resort,” Risson said. “Always, war is only a last resort. But if it becomes necessary…”

“They will have some warning,” Atvar warned. “When the signals from their own ship fall silent, they will know something has gone wrong.”

“Why should those signals fall silent?” the Emperor asked. “We can continue with negotiations here as always. If the Big Uglies in our solar system fail to detect the outgoing signals, then we have many years before any come back here from Tosev 3 to alert them. Is that not a truth?”

Before answering, Atvar had to stop and think that over. Once he had, he bent not into the special posture of respect that applied to the Emperor alone but into the more general posture one gave not only to superiors but also to anyone who said something extraordinarily clever. “I do believe that would serve, your Majesty… provided the Big Uglies do not learn about the scheme ahead of time.”

“How likely are they to do so?” Risson asked.

“I am not certain. No one is quite certain,” Atvar replied. “I would suggest, though, that you do not mention this any more when calling me here. Tosevite electronics are good enough to keep us from monitoring their conversations in their rooms and most of their conversations with their starship. How well they can monitor ours is unknown, but we should exercise caution.”

“What they have here can defeat our electronics?” Risson said. Atvar made the affirmative gesture. The Emperor went on with his own thought: “What they have on Tosev 3 will be more advanced than what they have here?”

“That is also bound to be a truth, your Majesty,” Atvar agreed. “Our technology is stable. Theirs advances by leaps and bounds. This is, no doubt, one of the reasons why they have the arrogance to believe themselves our equals.”

“Indeed,” Risson said. “And it is one of the reasons we should strike first, if we must strike. If they get too far ahead of us, we have no hope of fighting them successfully. Again, you know I would rather have peace.”

“I do, your Majesty.” Atvar’s emphatic cough showed how well he knew it.

“And yet my first duty is to preserve the Empire and the Race,” Risson continued. “If the only way I can do that is through a preventive war, then I must consider one, no matter how distasteful I find it. If we ever reach a position where the wild Big Uglies can dictate the terms of engagement to us, we are lost.”

“Another truth,” Atvar said. “When I administered our lands on Tosev 3, I often contemplated preventive war against the Tosevites. I always held off on launching it, both in the hope that we would be able to live peacefully alongside them and out of fear for the damage such a war would have caused even then. Perhaps I was wrong to hold back.”

“Perhaps you were, Fleetlord,” Risson said. “But it is too late to dwell on that now. We have to make the best of the present situation, and to make sure the future is not worse than the present.”

“Just so, your Majesty,” Atvar said.

“If these physicists prove to know what they are talking about, we have less time to make up our minds than I wish we did,” the Emperor said. “I will do everything in my power to drive our research efforts forward. I am not a scientist, though. All I can offer is moral suasion.”

Atvar made the negative gesture. “No, your Majesty, there is one thing more, and something much more important.”

“Oh? And that is?”

“Funding.”

Risson laughed, though Atvar hadn’t been joking. “Yes, Fleetlord, that is bound to be a truth, and an important one, as you say. Believe me, the appropriate ministries will hear that this is a project of the highest priority. It will go forward.”

“I am glad to hear it, your Majesty,” Atvar said. Risson said a few polite good-byes, then broke the connection. Atvar stared thoughtfully at the monitor. The Emperor was worrying about the new developments, which was good. Atvar still wondered how much difference it would make. The Big Uglies had a lead, and they moved faster than the Race. How likely was it that the Race could catch up? Not very, Atvar feared. Which meant…

“Which means trouble,” the fleetlord muttered. Like the 37th Emperor Risson, he vastly preferred peace. Unlike his sovereign, he’d seen war and its aftermath at first hand, not just as signals sent across the light-years. More war now would be dreadful-but more war later might be worse.

One of his eye turrets swung toward the ceiling. Somewhere up there, out past all the stories above him, the Tosevite starship spun through space. When the conquest fleet first came to Tosev 3, the Big Uglies hadn’t been able to fly out of their stratosphere. Two generations before that, they’d had no powered flight at all. And now they were here.

Their nuclear weapons were here, too. If it was possible to keep the wild Big Uglies on that ship from finding out the Race had gone to war against the United States, that might save Home some nasty punishment. Or, on the other hand, it might not. Something might go wrong, in which case the starship would strike the Race’s home planet. The Big Uglies might launch other starships, too. For that matter, they might already have launched them. There was one of Atvar’s nightmares.

Signals flew faster than ships between the stars. That had been true ever since the Race first sent a probe to the Rabotevs’ system, and remained true today. Atvar hoped he would have heard if more Tosevite ships were on the way. He hoped, but he wasn’t sure. The Race could keep the American starship here from knowing an attack order had gone out. Back in the Tosevite system, the Big Uglies might be able to keep the Race from learning they’d launched ships. Because they’d been cheating one another for as long as they’d been more or less civilized, they were more practiced at all forms of trickery than the Race was.

And what was going on in their physics laboratories? How long before abstract experiments turned into routine engineering? Could the Big Uglies turn these experiments into engineering at all? Could anyone?

We’ll find out, Atvar thought. He laughed. Before leaving for Tosev 3, he’d been used to knowing how things worked, what everything’s place was-and everyone‘s, too. It wasn’t like that any more. It never would be again, not till the last Big Uglies had been firmly incorporated into the Empire-and maybe not even then.

Atvar made the negative gesture. One other possibility could also bring back order. It might return when the last Big Uglies died. It might-if the Tosevites didn’t take the Race (to say nothing of the Rabotevs and Hallessi) down with them.

They would do their best. The fleetlord was sure of that. How good their best might be… As Atvar did so often in his dealings with the Big Uglies, he trembled between hope and fear. More often than not, the Race’s hopes about Tosev 3 had proved unjustified. The Race’s fears…

He wished that hadn’t occurred to him.

Karen Yeager wondered why Major Coffey had called all the Americans on the surface of Home to his room. He’d never done that before. He was the expert here on matters military. If he had something to say, he usually said it to Karen’s father-in-law. What was so important that everyone needed to hear it?

At least Kassquit wasn’t here. Karen had half wondered if she would be. In that case, Frank Coffey wouldn’t have been talking about military affairs, but about his own. Could he have been foolish enough to ask Kassquit to marry him? People far from home did strange things, and no one had ever been farther from home than the people who’d flown on the Admiral Peary. Even so-

“People, we have a problem.” Coffey’s words cut across Karen’s thoughts. The major paused to check the antibugging gadgets, then nodded to himself. He went on, “The Lizards have come up with something sneaky.” He went on to explain how the Race could order war to start back on Earth without leaving the humans on and orbiting Home any the wiser.

Though the room was warm-what rooms on Home weren’t warm, except the ones that were downright hot? — ice walked up Karen’s back. “They can’t do that!” she exclaimed. She felt foolish the moment the words were out of her mouth. The Lizards damn well could do that, which was exactly the problem.

“What do we do about it?” Linda de la Rosa asked.

Sure enough, that was the real question. “Whatever we do is risky,” Sam Yeager said. “If we sit tight, the Lizards may get away with their scheme. If we don’t, we let them know we’re tapping their phone lines. They may not like that at all.”

“What can they do? Throw us off the planet?” Karen asked. “Even if they do, how are we worse off?”

“We have to make sure they don’t order their colonists to sucker-punch the United States without our knowing it,” Frank Coffey said.

“It would be nice if they didn’t order the colonists to sucker-punch the United States even if we do know about it,” Tom de la Rosa said. Karen had a devil of a time disagreeing with that.

Melanie Blanchard said, “I don’t see how we can stop them from sending the order secretly. All they have to do is transmit from a ship that’s gone outside this solar system. They’d have the angle on any detectors we could put out.”

That held the unpleasant ring of truth. Jonathan said, “All things considered, we’re probably lucky they didn’t think of this sooner. They haven’t had to worry about these kinds of problems for a long, long time. They’re a little slow on the uptake.”

“So what do we do?” Sam Yeager asked. “We let them know we know what they’ve got in mind?”

“That would show them our electronics are better than theirs,” Coffey said. “It might make them think twice about taking us on. Who knows how far we’ve come since the Admiral Peary left, and how far we will have come by the time their signal gets to Earth?”

“We might make them more eager to jump us, though, to make sure they don’t fall further behind,” Tom said. “From what you told us, the Emperor and Atvar were talking about that.”

“And what are these experiments they were talking about?” Karen asked. “It sounds like they’re trying to catch up with some sort of discovery that got made on Earth a while ago. Do we know anything about that?”

Nobody answered, not right away. At last, Major Coffey said, “People back on Earth may not have transmitted anything about it to us, just to make sure the Lizards didn’t intercept… whatever it is.”

That made a fair amount of sense. It also argued that the discovery, whatever it was, was important. Jonathan said, “The Lizards must have spotted it on their own, then. Has the Admiral Peary picked up anything that would give us a clue?”

“There’s a lot of electronic traffic coming from Earth to Home-an awful lot,” Coffey said. “We’re the Race’s number-one interest right now. There’s more than our starship can keep up with. This bit might have slipped through without even being noticed-or it might have been encrypted. We haven’t broken all the Lizards’ algorithms, not by a long shot.”

“What kind of search can we run?” Sam Yeager held up a hand. “Never mind. I don’t need to know right now. But whatever they can do on the ship, they ought to start doing it. The more we know, the better off we’ll be.”

“Maybe we can shame the Lizards into behaving,” Linda said. Then she laughed. “I know-don’t hold my breath.”

“I’ll try. It’s one more weapon. What’s that line? Conscience is the still, small voice that tells you someone may be watching,” Sam said. “The other thing the ship has to do is send a warning back to the States that there might be a surprise attack. After Pearl Harbor and the strike against the colonization fleet, Earth has seen too much of that kind of thing.”

Major Coffey stirred, but didn’t say anything. More than a few people in the military still felt the strike against the colonization fleet had been legitimate because the United States carried it out. Frank Coffey had never shown any signs of being one of those officers-never till now. He probably still deserved the benefit of the doubt.

“Are we agreed, then?” Sam Yeager asked. “I will protest to Atvar and the Emperor and anyone else who’ll listen. I’ll let them know we’re sending back a warning, so they won’t catch us napping.”

“They’ll deny everything,” Jonathan predicted.

“We would,” Tom de la Rosa said. “They may not even bother-they haven’t had as much practice at being hypocrites as we have. Any which way, though, the more complicated we make their lives, the better.”

“Amen,” Karen said. Several other people nodded.

“All right, then. We’ll try it like that.” Sam Yeager shook his head. “I wish I were talking about getting my car to start, not rolling the dice for everybody on the planet-for everybody on four planets.”

“You’re the one the Lizards wanted when the Doctor didn’t wake up,” Karen said. “If they won’t listen to you, they won’t listen to anybody.”

Her father-in-law nodded, not altogether cheerfully. “That’s what I’m afraid of-that they won’t listen to anybody. Well, we’ll find out.” On that note, the meeting broke up.

“Happy day,” Jonathan said as the Americans filed out of Frank Coffey’s room.

“Uh-huh.” Karen felt numb, drained. “I wonder just how much trouble there’s going to be.” She looked around, as if expecting the hotel corridors to go up in a radioactive cloud any minute now. That had always been possible, though they’d all done their best not to think about it. Now it felt appallingly probable.

“If anybody can get us out of it, Dad’s the one,” Jonathan said. “You were right about that.” He plainly meant it. At a moment like this, he didn’t waste time on jealousy of his father, the way he often did. Even when jealous, though, he didn’t try to tear down his father’s abilities; he only wished his own measured up to them.

“We’ll see.” Karen did her best to look on the bright side of things, if there was one. “It sounds like a lot’s been going on back on Earth that we don’t know much about. I do wonder what those experiments the Lizards were talking about mean.”

Jonathan waved her to silence. She bit down on the inside of her lower lip, hard enough to hurt. She’d let her mouth run away with her. The Race was bound to be bugging the corridors. The Americans didn’t even try trolling for eavesdropping devices there; the job was too big.

“They’ll know we know soon enough,” she said.

“Oh, yeah.” Jonathan didn’t argue with that. “And we’ll never get a nickel’s worth of useful intelligence by tapping the phones again.” He shrugged. “What can you do? Sometimes that stuff is useless if you don’t cash it in.”

Lunch in the refectory was… interesting. Kassquit knew the Americans had gathered, and wanted to know why. Nobody wanted to tell her. Her face never showed anything much. Even so, Karen had no trouble telling she was getting angry. “Why will you not let me know what you talked about?” she demanded of all of them-and of Frank Coffey in particular.

Like so many lovers through the eons, she assumed her beloved would tell her everything because they were lovers. Karen had wondered about that herself. But Coffey said what he had to say: “I am sorry, but this was private business for us. When we decide to talk about it with the Race, we will.”

“But I am not a member of the Race. You of all males ought to know that,” Kassquit said pointedly.

“You are a citizen of the Empire,” Coffey said. “That is what I meant. We Americans often think of the Empire as belonging only to the Race. I realize that is wrong, but it is our first approximation.”

“I am also a member of the Empire’s team of negotiators,” Kassquit pointed out. “If anyone on Home is entitled to know, I am.”

Sam Yeager made the negative gesture. “This is a matter for the fleetlord, and perhaps for the Emperor himself.”

Karen wondered if that said too much. It was enough to make Kassquit’s eyes widen in surprise: one expression she did have. “What could be so important? Our talks are not going perfectly, but they have not suffered any great crisis.”

That only proved she was out of the loop for some of the things going on around her. Karen eyed her with an almost malicious satisfaction. You’re not as smart as you think you are. We know things you don’t. She stopped herself just before she tacked on a couple of mental Nyah-nyah s.

“You will hear soon enough,” Sam said.

“Why will you not tell me now?” Kassquit asked.

“Because high officials in the Empire need to know first, as I said before,” Sam Yeager answered, more patiently than Karen would have. “They will tell you what you need to know. If they do not tell you enough, ask me. I will speak freely then. Until I have followed protocol, though…” He made the negative gesture.

Karen thought Kassquit would get angry at that, but she didn’t. She was reasonable, sometimes even when being reasonable was unreasonable. Not letting her emotions run wild probably helped her in dealing with the Race. Lizards operated differently from people; Kassquit would have been banging her head against a stone wall if she’d tried getting them to respond on her terms. But her chilly rationality was one of the things that made her seem not quite human.

Now she said, “Very well, Ambassador. I understand the point, even if I do not like it. I shall be most interested to learn what your concerns are.”

“I thank you for your patience,” Karen’s father-in-law said, letting her down easy.

In English, Tom de la Rosa said, “She’s not going to wait for Atvar and Ttomalss. She’s going to try to wheedle it out of you, Frank.” He grinned to show Coffey he didn’t mean that seriously.

“She can try,” Coffey said, also in English. “I know what I can tell her, and I know what I can’t.”

Karen eyed Kassquit. Even if she didn’t wear clothes, she probably wasn’t cut out to be a spy. Karen sighed. Life was different from the movies. Here was a naked woman on the other side, and she didn’t seem to be using her charms for purposes of espionage. What was the world-what were the worlds-coming to?

Kassquit stared at Ttomalss in something approaching horror. “The Big Uglies dared spy on the conversations of the Emperor himself?” She cast down her eyes at mentioning her sovereign.

Ttomalss also looked down at the floor for a moment as he made the affirmative gesture. “I am afraid that is a truth, yes. What is even more disturbing is that they were able to eavesdrop on the Emperor’s conversation with Fleetlord Atvar. We have had no luck listening to their private conversations.”

“That is not a matter of luck. It is a matter of technology,” Kassquit pointed out.

“You are correct. I wish you were not,” Ttomalss told her. “And the technology the wild Big Uglies brought here is bound to be years out of date on Tosev 3. Just how far out of date it may be is a matter of considerable concern to us.”

“I understand that, yes,” Kassquit agreed. “Can you tell me what the Emperor and the fleetlord were talking about, or are you going to be as obscure as the wild Tosevites?” She added the last bit as artlessly as she could. With luck, it would get Ttomalss to talk where he might otherwise have kept quiet.

And it did. He said, “In fact, their conversation does relate to advancing Tosevite technology. They were discussing whether that advancing technology made a preventive war necessary.”

“Oh,” Kassquit said, and then, “Oh, dear.” She tried to gather herself. “The Race has talked about this for many years, but always abandoned the idea. Why is it back on the agenda now?”

Ttomalss hesitated. Then he shrugged. “The wild Big Uglies already know this, so there is no longer any reason why you should not. Do you remember my colleague back on Tosev 3, Senior Researcher Felless?”

“Yes,” Kassquit said. “I must tell you I did not like her much.”

“Felless is difficult for members of the Race to like, too-except when she has been tasting ginger, of course.” Ttomalss qualified that with a fine, sarcastic, eye-turret-waggling leer. But he continued, “However difficult she may be, no one doubts her ability-when she is not tasting ginger. She noticed some unusual Tosevite technological development and sent word of it here.”

“What sort of development?” Kassquit asked.

“We are not yet completely sure of that,” Ttomalss answered. “But the physicists are convinced it will have important results at some point in the future.”

“What sort of important results? How far in the future?”

“Again, we are not completely certain,” Ttomalss said.

Kassquit eyed him. “Precisely what are you certain of, superior sir?”

Ttomalss shifted uneasily in his chair. “What do you mean? Do you intend that for sarcasm?”

“Oh, no, superior sir. How could I possibly be sarcastic because you are evading my questions? What do you suppose might provoke me into doing something of that sort?”

“This is not helpful.” Ttomalss’ voice was thick with disapproval.

“No, it is not,” Kassquit agreed. “Your evasions are not helpful, either. The Tosevites evade my questions, too. I can understand that. They are not citizens of the Empire, and do not trouble their livers over its concerns. But I thought you and I were on the same side.”

“Until the experiments progress further, I cannot offer you a report on them,” Ttomalss said, which sounded like another evasion to Kassquit. Then he asked, “What questions are the Big Uglies evading?”

“The ones you would expect: the ones that have to do with dealings between the United States and the Empire. As I say, those evasions make sense. The ones you put forward strike me as absurd.”

“You do not understand the full situation,” Ttomalss said.

“That is a truth. I do not. And the reason I do not is that you will not tell me enough to let me understand it,” Kassquit said angrily.

“When I am authorized to give you all the details, you may be assured that I will,” Ttomalss said.

“Oh? And why may I be assured of that?” Kassquit snapped, even more angrily than before.

Ttomalss’ tailstump quivered, so she’d succeeded in angering him, too. “If you do not care for my choices in this matter, I suggest that you take it up with Fleetlord Atvar, or with the Emperor himself.”

“I thank you, superior sir. I thank you so very much.” The way Kassquit bent into the posture of respect had no respect whatsoever in it. The way Ttomalss’ tailstump quivered more than ever said he knew it, too. Kassquit went on, “It shall be done. Perhaps one of them has a certain minimal respect for the truth.” She straightened, turned her back, and stalked out of his chamber.

She started to go to Atvar’s room. Then she stopped in the hallway and made the negative gesture. She would do that if all else failed. The 37th Emperor Risson had granted her an audience. Perhaps he would speak to her as well. And if he did, she intended to hurl that right into Ttomalss’ snout.

Telephoning the Emperor, of course, was not so simple as putting a call in to the palace and expecting him to pick it up on the other end of the line. But it was easier for her than it might have been for a female of the Race. The sight of her Tosevite features in the monitor got her quickly transferred from a low-level functionary to a mid-level functionary to Herrep himself, for the males and females who served the Emperor remembered he had received two Big Uglies not long before.

The protocol master was made of sterner stuff. “What is the purpose of this call?” Herrep asked. His interrogative cough was the chilliest Kassquit had ever heard.

“To discuss with his Majesty relations between the Empire and the wild Big Uglies,” Kassquit answered. “You will agree, superior sir, that this matter is of relevance-I should say, of unique relevance-to me.”

Herrep could hardly deny that. She was a citizen of the Empire and a Big Ugly. No one else on Home could say both those things. She knew she wasn’t wild. She wondered if Herrep would remember. To him, wouldn’t one Big Ugly be the same as another?

“Wait,” he said. “I will see if his Majesty wishes to speak to you.” A pleasant, almost hypnotic moving pattern replaced his image on the monitor. Soft music began to play. Kassquit drummed her fingers on the desk in her room. They did not make sharp clicks, as those of a member of the Race would have done. Her fingerclaws were short and broad and blunt; she wore artificial ones to work the Race’s switches and operate its keyboards.

She was beginning to wonder how patient she ought to be when the pattern vanished and the music fell silent. A male’s face looked out at her. It wasn’t Herrep‘s; it belonged to the 37th Emperor Risson. Kassquit scrambled to assume the special posture of respect. “I greet you, your Majesty. I thank you for taking the time to speak with me.”

“You are welcome, Researcher,” Risson replied. “We need not stand on much ceremony on the telephone. Am I correct in believing you have learned discussions with the wild Tosevites have gone less well than we might have wished?”

“Yes, your Majesty,” Kassquit said. “I have learned that. It dismays me. What dismays me even more is that I have been unable to learn why these talks have taken this unfortunate turn.”

“There are two main reasons,” the Emperor told her. “The first is Tosevite arrogance over issues of sovereignty and equality. Under other circumstances, this might be solved with patience and good will on both sides. I believe such patience does exist.”

“What are these other circumstances, if I may ask?” Kassquit said.

“The wild Big Uglies are pulling ahead of us technologically,” Risson said. “They rubbed our snouts in this recently, when they showed they could monitor our voice communications and could keep us from monitoring theirs.”

“A shocking breach of privacy,” Kassquit said sympathetically.

“Shocking because they were able to do it,” Risson said. “After all, we have been trying to spy on them, too. But they succeeded and we failed. And their technology changes so much faster than ours. What do they currently have on Tosev 3? If we do not stop them now, will we be able to later?”

Kassquit knew those were all good questions. She also knew the Race had been debating them for years. “Why worry so much now?” she asked. “How has the situation changed for the worse?”

“In two ways,” the Emperor said. “First, the wild Big Uglies can now reach us on our own planets. Any war against them would be Empirewide rather than confined to the system of Tosev 3. The longer we delay, the more harm they can do us, too.” Kassquit used the affirmative gesture; that was an obvious truth. Risson went on, “The second factor has grown more important as time passes. It is the growing fear that soon they will be able to hurt us and we will not be able to hurt them, as they can tap our telephones undetected till they admit it while we cannot monitor their conversations.”

“Does this have to do with certain experiments that have been conducted on Tosev 3?”

Risson’s eye turrets both swung sharply toward Kassquit. Yes, that had been the right question to ask. “You heard of this from…?” he asked.

“I heard of their existence from Senior Researcher Ttomalss, your Majesty. I heard no more than that,” Kassquit answered.

“Ah. Very well.” Risson seemed to relax, which doubtless meant Ttomalss did have orders from on high not to say much about such things to Kassquit. The Emperor went on, “Yes, important experiments have taken place on Tosev 3. Just how important they are, our physicists are now trying to determine. We do not know how far or how fast the wild Tosevites have advanced from what we know they were doing some years ago. We do know we will have to try to catch up, and that will not be easy, since the Tosevites generally run faster than we do.”

“What are the consequences if the Empire fails to catch up?” Kassquit asked.

“Bad. Very bad,” Risson said.

That wasn’t what Kassquit had expected to hear, but it told her how seriously the Emperor took the situation. She tried again: “In what way are these consequences bad, your Majesty?”

“In every way we can imagine, and probably also in ways we have yet to imagine,” Risson replied. “It is because of these experiments that we view the current situation with such concern.”

“Can you please tell me why you view them with such alarm?” Kassquit persisted. “The better I understand the situation, the more help I will be able to give the Empire.”

“For the time being, I am afraid that this information is secret,” Risson said. “We are still evaluating it ourselves. Also, the American Tosevites appear to be ignorant of what has taken place on their home planet. It would be to our advantage to have them remain ignorant. If they knew the full situation, their demands would become even more intolerable than they already are. And now, Researcher, if you will excuse me…” He broke the connection.

Kassquit stared at the monitor. Risson hadn’t told her everything she wanted to know. But he had, perhaps, told her more than he thought he had. Whatever the wild Big Uglies back on Tosev 3 had discovered, it was even more important than she’d imagined.