Homeward Bound

16

Atvar awaited the shuttlecraft descending from orbit around Home with a sinking feeling in his liver. He made the negative gesture. No, that wasn’t true. As a matter of fact, his liver felt as if it had already sunk all the way down to his toeclaws. Even in his wildest nightmares, he had never imagined a day like this might come.

And Straha had. Of all the males of the Race the Americans might have picked to rub Atvar’s snout in his own failings, Straha was the prize example. Did they know that? Atvar laughed bitterly. Of course they did! They had to.

Faster than light! The Big Uglies could travel faster than light! The Race had decided that was impossible even before Home was unified, and hadn’t worried much about it since. Some Tosevite physicist had come to the same conclusion, and the Big Uglies had believed him… while Atvar was on Tosev 3, anyhow. Unlike the Race, the Tosevites had kept worrying at the idea, though. The Race had got a scent of some of their earliest experiments, but…

Yes. But, Atvar thought bitterly. The difference between what the Race had and what the Big Uglies had was the difference between a scent and the beast it came from. And the Big Uglies’ beast was a starship.

Now what? the fleetlord wondered. Blasting the Commodore Perry would have been tempting-if another American starship might not be only days behind, might escape, and might bring word of war back to the United States long before the Race’s colony on Tosev 3 could hope to hear about it. That was a recipe for disaster.

Preventive war seemed to have gone up in smoke. Too late, too late, too late. Again, how could you hope to attack someone who knew the bite was coming long before your teeth sank in-and who could bite you whenever he pleased? Home, at least, could defend itself. What about Rabotev 2 and Halless 1? If the Big Uglies wanted to, they could smash the Empire’s other worlds before Home warned them they might be in danger.

Too late, too late, too late. The words tolled again, like a mournful gong inside Atvar’s head.

After a moment, he realized not all that noise was internal. Some came through his hearing diaphragms. The terminal at the shuttlecraft port was efficiently soundproofed. All the same, the braking rockets’ roar penetrated the insulating material and filled the building.

The windows facing the fire-scarred landing field were tinted. Even so, nictitating membranes flicked across Atvar’s eyes to protect them from the glare. The shuttlecraft settled smoothly onto the concrete. Crashes were vanishingly rare; computer control made sure of that. Atvar wouldn’t have minded seeing one of those rare, rare accidents now. No, he wouldn’t have minded a bit. Watching Straha cook…

Didn’t happen. The shuttlecraft’s braking rockets cut off. Silence returned to the terminal. Atvar didn’t quite let out a disappointed hiss. He hadn’t really hoped the shuttlecraft would crash-or, if he had, he hadn’t really expected it to.

Down came the landing ladder. The female who descended first wore the body paint of a shuttlecraft pilot. That would not be the pilot of this craft, but Nesseref, the traveler from Tosev 3. Behind her came a male of about Atvar’s years. Straha had at least not had the effrontery to wear a shiplord’s body paint, but rather the much plainer colors of an author. Last off the shuttlecraft was the Halless who’d brought it down from the Commodore Perry. Atvar forgot about the Halless right away; his attention was all on the newly arrived members of the Race.

Guards surrounded them and escorted them into the terminal. Straha said something to one of them. Her mouth fell open in a laugh. Straha had always been charming. That made Atvar like him no better.

Nesseref bent into the posture of respect as soon as she saw Atvar. “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” she said.

“And I greet you,” he replied as she rose.

“Hello, Atvar,” Straha said. “Well, now we know-it could not have turned out worse if I had been in charge.” He added a sarcastic emphatic cough.

Atvar’s fingerclaws started to shape the threat gesture one male used against another in the mating season. He forced them to relax. It wasn’t easy. Neither was keeping his tone light as he answered, “Oh, I am not so sure of that. You might have lost the war against the Big Uglies instead of managing a draw. Then we could have had this to worry about even sooner.”

Straha glared at him. “Do not project your incompetence onto me.”

“I do not need to,” Atvar said. “You have plenty of your own.”

“Excuse me, superior sirs,” Nesseref said, “but quarreling among yourselves will not help solve the problem the Race faces.”

“Neither will not quarreling among ourselves,” Straha replied, “and quarreling is much more fun.”

“No, the shuttlecraft pilot speaks truth,” Atvar said. “I thank you, Shuttlecraft Pilot. I need to know first of all how you are certain of the Big Uglies’ claims about the speed of their starship.”

“We were conscious throughout the flight,” Nesseref said.

“Could you not have been drugged while asleep, put into cold sleep, and then revived the same way?” Atvar knew he was desperately searching for any escape from the Race’s predicament.

Nesseref made the negative gesture. “I do not believe so, Exalted Fleetlord.”

“Forget it, Atvar,” Straha said. “For one thing, the Big Uglies already have word of things that will just be reaching Home now. Even as we speak, researchers here will be corroborating what they say. For another, when they go back to Tosev 3, they are willing to take more members of the Race along and then return them to Home. They are not willing to let them communicate with the colonists in any way, for fear you might do something foolish like order an attack, but if the males and females get there and come back here in something less than a large number of years, that should convince even the stubbornest-perhaps even you.”

Atvar had not thought his liver could sink any lower. He discovered he was mistaken. Straha’s sarcasm did not bother him. He and Straha had despised each other for many years. Each occasionally had to respect the other’s competence, but that did not and would not make them friends. But the message about the American Tosevites’ confidence that Straha delivered was daunting. They not only had this technique, they were sure it worked well.

“How do they do it?” Atvar asked. “How do they do it?”

“Neither one of us is a physicist,” Straha said. Nesseref made the affirmative gesture. Straha went on, “They talk about doing things with space-time strings, about maneuvering or maybe manipulating them so that points normally distant come into contact with each other. What this means or, to tell you the truth, whether this means anything is not for me to say.”

“Here I agree with the shiplord,” Nesseref said. “They are very glib, as Big Uglies often are. But whether they told us these things to inform us or to mislead us, I am in no position to judge.”

“I see.” Atvar thought about telling them that the Race’s physicists had begun work that might eventually let them catch up with the Big Uglies-assuming the Big Uglies hadn’t moved on still further by then, which was not necessarily a good bet. He started to, yes, but his tongue did not flutter. Nesseref and Straha might blab to the Tosevites. They might be monitored by the Tosevites. Who could guess how far the Tosevites’ electronics had come these days? Better to keep quiet.

“How is this world these days?” Straha asked. He then answered his own question, which was very much in character: “Not much different, or I miss my guess.”

“In most ways, no. That is as it should be, in my opinion,” Atvar said. “But you will see some things you would not have before you left: young males and females wearing false hair, for instance, and some of them even wearing wrappings.”

“Really? Is that a truth?” Straha laughed. “So just as the Big Uglies on Tosev 3 have imitated us, we have also begun to imitate them? I had not thought we possessed even so much imagination as a species.”

“The young are always unfathomable.” Atvar did not mean it as a compliment.

“They think the same of us. Do you not remember when you could hardly wait for the old fools ahead of you to hop on the funeral pyre so you could hatch the egg of the world? It was all out there waiting for you, and you wanted to grab with all ten fingerclaws. Is that a truth, or is it not?”

“That is… some of a truth,” Atvar answered. “I do not believe I was ever quite so vain as you show yourself to be, but I have long since suspected as much.”

Straha irked him by laughing instead of getting angry. “You are still as stuffy as you always were, I see. Well, much good it has done you.”

“This did not happen while I was in charge on Tosev 3. No one can blame me for this. The ministers here on Home decided Reffet would do better on Tosev 3 than I could,” Atvar said. “That only shows how much they knew.”

“Well, yes.” Straha made the affirmative gesture. “Next to Reffet, you are a genius. This is not necessarily praise, you understand. Next to Reffet, a beffel smashed on the highway is also a genius.” That startled a laugh out of Atvar, whose opinion of the fleetlord of the colonization fleet was not high, either. Straha went on, “You should have seen him when he learned of the Commodore Perry. He acted as if he wanted nothing more than to crawl back into his eggshell. That would be the best thing for him, if anyone wants to know what I think.”

Nesseref said, “If anyone wants to know what I think, the best thing for the Race would be to stop all this vituperation and backbiting. We will have enough trouble catching up with the Big Uglies without that.”

“No doubt you are a wise female,” Straha said, but then he spoiled it by adding, “But you take a great deal of the enjoyment out of life.”

“We have to catch up with the Big Uglies, and quickly.” Atvar used an emphatic cough. “If we do not-”

“We are at their mercy,” Straha broke in with a certain oppressive relish. “Do you suppose they might be interested in revenge for what the conquest fleet did to them?”

“Superior sir, you are not making this situation any better,” Nesseref scolded.

“Truth. I cannot make it better, not now. No one can do that except possibly our physicists, and they have not done anything along these lines in the past hundred thousand years.” Straha seemed to delight in pointing out unpleasant truths. “All I can do is bear witness to what the Big Uglies have done, the same way as you are. At that, I think I am more than good enough.”

“I will bring you both to a hotel near the one where the American Big Uglies are staying,” Atvar said.

“Why not to that hotel itself?” Straha asked. “It will be good to see Sam Yeager again. A male of sense and a male of integrity-the combination is too rare.”

“I will not take you to that hotel itself because the American Tosevites can electronically monitor too much of what goes on inside,” Atvar answered unhappily.

“Well, I cannot say that I am surprised,” Straha said. “Even when their first starship set out, they were even or ahead of us in most electronics. That should have been a warning. They are further ahead of us now.”

“I thank you for your encouragement.” Atvar still had sarcasm as a weapon against Straha. But what weapons did he have now against the Big Uglies? None that he could see.

Ttomalss met Pesskrag at an eatery not far from the hotel where the wild Big Uglies dwelt. He hadn’t been accosted going out to make the telephone call to invite her here, as he had the last time he’d tried speaking to her from a public phone. So far as he knew, the American Tosevites had no idea this place existed, which meant they couldn’t monitor it.

“I greet you,” Ttomalss said when Pesskrag sat down across from him in the booth.

“And I greet you,” Pesskrag answered. “This is such an exciting time in which to have come out of the egg!” She used an emphatic cough. “And I owe you an apology, Senior Researcher. I did not believe what you told me about the Big Uglies’ relentless drive. I was mistaken. They must be all you claimed, and more.”

A server came up and gave them both printouts of choices, adding, “We also have a special on zisuili ribs in a sauce of peffeg and other southern spices. You will enjoy it if you care for something that makes your tongue sit up and take notice.”

“That will do very well,” Ttomalss said. Pesskrag made the affirmative gesture. Ttomalss just wanted to get the server out from under his scales. Sometimes such individuals made too much of themselves. This male, mercifully, gathered up the printouts and went away.

Pesskrag kept on gushing about the Tosevites: “They went from experiment to theory to engineering in the flick of a nictitating membrane. We would never have been so impetuous-never, I tell you.”

“We are going to have to be,” Ttomalss said. “The military advantage this gives them is truly appalling. Until our signals reach Tosev 3, we are at their mercy. They have years to organize defenses against us and prepare their own surprise attack. Rabotev 2 and Halless 1 would never know what hit them. Even Home is vulnerable, though less so than it was before the Admiral Peary arrived.”

“These are truths, Senior Researcher. I cannot deny it,” Pesskrag said. “But this news holds other truths, too. These ships open much of this arm of the galaxy to colonization.”

“At the moment, they open it to Tosevite colonization,” Ttomalss said. “How long will we need to get such ships of our own?”

The physicist’s eye turrets swung up toward the ceiling as she calculated. Her tongue flicked in and out. After a bit, she said, “Now that we know it can be done, I would estimate somewhere between fifty and a hundred years.”

A pained hiss escaped Ttomalss. That wasn’t far from what he’d thought himself. He’d hoped Pesskrag would tell him he was wrong. “Not sooner?” he said. “This is a very long time for the Big Uglies to have the capability while we do not.”

“If we have to do the research and the engineering, that is my best guess,” Pesskrag said. “I know the Big Uglies did it faster, but we are not Big Uglies.”

“Truth-a truth that delights me most of the time. Here, though, it could spell the end of us.” Ttomalss paused. “Wait. You say if we do these things, it will take about this long. What else can we do?”

Before Pesskrag could answer, the server brought their meals. He had not been lying; the sauce that coated Ttomalss’ zisuili ribs stung his tongue. He drank water to help quench the fire, then ate some more. The midday meal was not a gourmet’s delight, but it was good enough of its kind. That sufficed; his mind wasn’t fully on it anyhow.

After stripping the meat from a large rib with teeth and tongue, Pesskrag said, “We could save a lot of time by buying a ship from the Big Uglies, or at least acquiring some of the engineering know-how from them. Copying is faster than creating.”

Ttomalss stared at her. That was also a truth, and a profound one. The Tosevites had caught up with the Race by imitating-stealing-technology from the conquest fleet. Of course, then the Big Uglies had proceeded to jump past their former mentors. Could the Race return the favor, or would the Empire live forever in the Tosevites’ rapidly spreading shadow?

“There is one obvious problem,” Ttomalss said. Pesskrag started eating another rib, but gestured for him to go on. He did: “It is not in the Big Uglies’ interest to sell us this technology. The longer they have it and we do not, the greater their advantage.”

“I cannot disagree with you,” Pesskrag said. “But some individual Tosevites are bound to be corrupt. We can afford enormous rewards for information. And if we cannot openly buy these secrets, perhaps we can steal them.”

“Perhaps we can,” Ttomalss said. “You may well be right. We have to try.”

“I still marvel that the Big Uglies made these experiments in the first place,” Pesskrag said. “We had a hundred thousand years in which to try them, and we never did. We were convinced we knew everything worth knowing, and content with what we had.”

“Big Uglies are never content. Never,” Ttomalss said. “Discontent is their salient characteristic.”

“This has proved to be to their advantage,” Pesskrag observed.

“I do not deny it. I could not, could I?” Ttomalss replied. “Do you truly understand how they have done what they have done?”

“If I truly understood it, I would be able to duplicate it myself,” the physicist said. “I cannot do that, Senior Researcher. At present, anyone who tells you he or she fully understands how the Big Uglies did this is either an optimist or a liar. I think my colleagues and I do begin to grasp the theory behind what they have done. Begin to, I stress.” She used an emphatic cough. “I remain convinced that this is a useful first step.”

“No doubt,” Ttomalss said.

Pesskrag finished the second rib and began on a third. Ttomalss wished his appetite were as good. A Tosevite proverb floated through his mind: the condemned male ate a hearty meal. He wasn’t condemned himself, but all the Race might be.

He started to say something, then had to lean back in a hurry as Pesskrag used the new rib like a lecturer’s pointer and almost got sauce on his snout. “Oh, excuse me,” the female said, “but I just thought of something else. Before long, I fear charlatans and maniacs will start crawling out from under every flat stone. They will all be shouting that they know how to travel faster than light. They will show us how if we transfer some large sum to their credit balance, or if we name them prime minister, or if the Emperor balances an egg on the end of his snout.”

“An egg?” Ttomalss said, confused.

“These males and females will be addled. Just about all of them will either be addled or frauds,” Pesskrag explained. “But we will have to investigate at least some of their claims, for fear of missing something profoundly important.”

“I see.” Ttomalss made the affirmative gesture. “I think I see, anyhow. There will also be some who travel on the opposite side of the road. Did you see Professor Kralk’s memorandum, in which she states that the Big Uglies must be frauds, because faster-than-light travel is an obvious impossibility?”

“Oh, yes, I saw it. It would be pathetic if it were not so sad,” Pesskrag said. “Kralk asserts this even though the signals from Tosev 3 are confirming in detail what the Big Uglies aboard the Commodore Perry said they would say.” Pesskrag sighed. “It is too bad. Kralk was a sound female when she was younger. To be unwilling to change theory without justification is the mark of a scientist. To be unwilling to change theory even when there is abundant justification is the mark of someone whose thought processes have ossified.”

They went their separate ways then, Pesskrag back to the laboratory to go on chasing the Big Uglies and Ttomalss back to the hotel to report to Atvar on what he had learned from the physicist. A young male wearing a wig of a greenish yellow like no Tosevite’s real hair tried to sell him ginger. He snarled his rejection so fiercely, he frightened the petty criminal.

Can we change? he wondered. Or have all our processes become ossified? We are going to find out. That is certain.

He didn’t talk to Atvar inside the hotel. Again, they feared the wild Big Uglies might be able to listen to what they said. They went over to the park where Sam Yeager liked to visit in the early morning or the late afternoon. They sat in the sunshine, not in the shade, also for fear the American ambassador might have planted little electronic hearing diaphragms wherever he went.

That was probably close to a delusion of persecution. Considering what had just happened to the Race, though, was any worry about the Big Uglies’ abilities really delusional? Ttomalss feared it wasn’t.

He told Atvar what Pesskrag had told him. The fleetlord hissed in dismay. “We cannot afford to wait so long. The Tosevites will not wait for us.”

“The other alternative, as Pesskrag suggested, involves bribery and espionage,” Ttomalss said. “It may well prove quicker, as she said. But it is far less certain.”

“Nothing is certain any more,” Atvar said sadly. “Nothing.”

Ttomalss understood how he felt. The Empire was built on certainty and stability. It had been, for as long as it existed. Now all of that was likely to fly away like a swarm of startled evening sevod. “We should never have sent the conquest fleet to Tosev 3,” the psychologist said.

“This same thought has occurred to me,” Atvar answered. “But who knows whether things would have turned out better or worse? If we had waited longer, the Big Uglies might have come upon us and caught us unawares. That would have been even worse than this. I will tell you what we should have done.”

“What is that?” Ttomalss asked. “As far as I can see, all of our choices were bad.”

“What we should have done, when our probe showed Tosev 3 to be inhabited, was send the conquest fleet at once. The Big Uglies really were primitives and savages then. We could have easily subdued them, and we would not have had to worry about any of this.”

“Unless they rebelled after becoming part of the Empire and acquiring our technology,” said Ttomalss, who no longer had any faith in the Race’s ability to deal with the Tosevites.

Atvar only shrugged. “Yes, I have already heard this possibility mentioned. But I still believe doing that would have given us our best chance. Instead, we delayed-and the results of that are as we now see.”

“So they are,” Ttomalss replied. “Until we develop this technology for ourselves, we are at their mercy.”

“Exactly.” The fleetlord made the affirmative gesture. “I wonder if our best course might not be to fight the war anyway.”

“But they would intercept our order. They would know about it years before our colony on Tosev 3 learned of it. Would that not be a disaster?”

Atvar sighed. “Probably. But what do we have now? A disaster of a different sort. We might have to sacrifice the colony.”

“We would sacrifice the Rabotevs and the Hallessi, too. And who knows what the Big Uglies could do to Home itself?” Ttomalss said.

The fleetlord sighed again. “I suppose you are right. A war would have a certain finality to it, though. This way, we shall have to live with a difficult, dangerous, ambiguous future, with no guarantee that war, worse war, does not lie ahead.”

“Anyone who has been to Tosev 3 knows that life is different, dangerous, and ambiguous more often than not,” Ttomalss said, and Atvar made the affirmative gesture again.

Major Nicole Nichols was about the cutest little thing Sam Yeager had ever seen. She was just past thirty, which struck him as young for a major, but the Commodore Perry was bound to be full of hotshots. She was a light-skinned black woman with a bright smile, flashing eyes, and a shape he would have expected to see on a professional dancer, not a U.S. Air and Space Force officer.

She’d come down to Sitneff in the Commodore Perry ’s own shuttlecraft. The Lizards were too rattled to refuse permission for that. They’d contented themselves with surrounding the shuttlecraft port with police and guards. If that shuttle was packed with ginger, smugglers would have a devil of a time getting to it unless some of the guards proved venal, which wasn’t impossible.

Major Nichols was also all business. She heard Yeager’s summary of what had gone on since the Admiral Peary reached Home, then nodded briskly. “We tried to get our ship built in time to get here before you, but it didn’t quite happen,” she said, and shrugged as if to say it couldn’t be helped.

“That would have been awful!” Sam exclaimed. “We’d have revived and found out we were nothing but an afterthought.”

“Yes, but we would have been in reasonably close touch with Earth, which you weren’t,” the major answered. That plainly counted for more with her. She eyed him as if he were a museum exhibit. To her, he probably was. And he wasn’t even the right museum exhibit, for she went on, “Meaning no offense, but you do understand we’d expected to be dealing with the Doctor?”

“Oh, sure.” He nodded. “And I’m not offended. I expected the same thing. But when he didn’t wake up”-Sam shrugged-“the Lizards knew I was along, and they asked for me to represent the United States. I’ve done the best job I know how to do.”

“No one has said anything different,” Major Nichols assured him. For a moment, he took that as a compliment. Then he realized it meant the people from the Commodore Perry had been checking up on him. He supposed they would have checked on the Doctor, too, but probably not quite in the same way.

He said, “You’re going to replace me, aren’t you?”

“That was the plan,” Major Nichols answered. “Someone who knows how things are now back on Earth has an advantage over you. I’m sure you’ve kept up with our broadcasts as best you could, but that still leaves you more than ten years behind the times.” She spoke oddly. Her rhythm was different from what Sam was used to, and she used far more words and constructions from the Race’s language as if they were English. By the way she used them, they were English to her.

“I know. As you say, it can’t be helped.” Sam smiled. “I’m looking forward to finding out what the United States is like these days.”

Something changed in the major’s face. “That… may be a little more complicated than you’d think, sir.”

Yeager raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” Major Nichols nodded. Sam said, “Well, maybe you’d better tell me about it, then.” If she were a man, he would have said, Kiss me, ’cause I think you’re gonna screw me. Being of the female persuasion, though, she might not have taken that the right way.

“This is more complicated than we thought it would be,” she repeated. “You have to understand, our instructions about you assumed you would be acting as the Doctor’s assistant and adviser, not that you would be ambassador yourself.”

“Okay. I understand that. It’s simple enough,” Sam said. “So what were these instructions that were based on that assumption?”

“That you were to stay here and continue to act as assistant and adviser to the Doctor’s successor,” Major Nichols answered.

“I… see,” Sam said slowly. “And if I didn’t want to do that? I wasn’t born yesterday, you know, even if you don’t count cold sleep. I was thinking I would enjoy retirement. I’m still thinking that, as a matter of fact.”

The major looked unhappy. “Sir, there’s no polite, friendly way to tell you this. You are to be… discouraged from coming back to Earth.”

“Am I?” Sam said tonelessly. “Well, I don’t have to be an Einstein to figure out why, do I?” His voice went harsh and flat.

“You probably don’t,” she agreed. “You’re… not remembered kindly in certain circles in the U.S. government.”

“People who tell the truth often aren’t,” Sam said. “That’s what I did, Major. That’s what my crime was, back before you were born. I told the truth.”

“They’ve rebuilt Indianapolis,” Major Nichols said. She went on, “I have cousins there. I’ve been to Earl Warren Park. The memorial to the people who died is very touching.” President Warren himself had died, by his own hand, when word of his role in the attack came out.

Sam made the affirmative gesture. He spoke in the language of the Race: “Where is the monument to those our not-empire wantonly destroyed? Do they not deserve some commemoration?”

She went right on speaking English: “It’s because you say this kind of thing that some people thought you might be more comfortable staying here than coming back to the United States.”

“ ‘Some people.’ ” Sam echoed that with an odd, sour relish. “I know what kind of people, too-the kind who think anybody who doesn’t believe all the same things they do isn’t a real American. Well, I happen to think I am, whether they like it or not.”

Major Nichols didn’t answer that right away. She studied Yeager instead. He had no idea what was going on behind her eyes. Whatever she thought, she kept to herself. He wouldn’t have wanted to play poker against her; she would have taken the shirt off his back. At last, she said, “You’re not what my briefings made me think you were going to be.”

“No horns,” he said. “No tail. No fangs, that’s for sure-I’ve only got four of my own choppers. Lost the rest more than a hundred years ago, if you add cold sleep into it.”

“They can do something about that now. They have what they call dental implants,” she told him. “They go into your jawbone, and they’re just about as good as real teeth.”

“To tell you the truth, I hardly remember what real teeth are like,” Sam said. “I’ve gone without ’em since I was a kid.” Human teeth amazed and horrified the Lizards. They couldn’t imagine why evolution made people go through life with only two sets. Like small-l lizards on earth, they replaced theirs continuously throughout their lives. And then Sam smiled sourly at the major from the Commodore Perry. “Besides, what difference does it make? You just said you’re not going to let me go back to Earth anyway, didn’t you?”

She flushed. Her skin wasn’t dark enough to hide it. In a small voice, she said, “Me and my big mouth.”

“You and your big mouth,” he agreed. “Look, tell me something I want to know for a change, will you? How are my grandchildren? Do I have great-grandchildren yet? Great-great? And how are Mickey and Donald getting along?”

“One of your grandsons-Richard-is at Stanford University, heading the Interspecies Studies Department there,” Major Nichols said. “The other-Bruce-runs a company that arranges cultural exchanges with the Lizards. They’re both well, or they were when we left. You have five great-grandchildren-three boys and two girls-all told, and two great-great-granddaughters. Bruce is divorced. Richard had a brief failed marriage, then remarried and has stayed that way for almost thirty years.”

“Lord!” Sam said softly. Jonathan’s boys had been kids when he went into cold sleep. They’d been in college when Jonathan and Karen went on ice. It sounded as if they’d done pretty well for themselves since. By the way their bodies felt, they’d be older than their parents. If that wasn’t bizarre, Sam didn’t know what would be. “And what about Mickey and Donald?”

“Mickey is working with your grandson, Bruce,” the major said. “He recently published his autobiography. He called it Between Two Worlds. He wrote it in English. It did well in the United States, and even better in translation with the Lizards. The translation is probably on its way here now at speed-of-light. There’s talk of movie versions from Hollywood and from the Race.”

“Wow!” Sam said. “That’s not half bad-better than I expected, to tell you the truth, since he had two strikes against him the minute he hatched. What about Donald? You didn’t say anything about him. Is he all right? If it’s bad news, for God’s sake spit it out. Don’t try to sugarcoat it.”

“Donald…” Nicole Nichols hesitated again. Again, Sam had trouble reading her face. Was that amusement sparking somewhere deep in her eyes? He thought so, but he couldn’t be sure. She said, “The past five years, Donald has hosted something called You’d Better Believe It. It’s the highest-rated game show in the USA and Canada. I wouldn’t want to say whether it’s the best-my tastes don’t really run in that direction-but it has to be the most spectacular. And Donald, without a doubt, is the most spectacular thing in it.”

Sam stared. Then he started to laugh. Then he started to howl. Donald had always been the more outgoing little Lizard. Now he wasn’t a little Lizard any more. And he was evidently more outgoing than Sam had ever imagined.

“I’ll be a son of a gun,” he said; he still felt funny about swearing in front of a woman, even if she was a major, too. “Should I want to shake his hand or horsewhip him?”

“That’s not for me to say,” Major Nichols answered. “We ought to have a disk with some of the shows on it aboard the ship. They knew you and your son and daughter-in-law would want to see it.”

“Well, good,” Sam said. “That’s something, anyhow. Once I see the shows, I wouldn’t mind going back and telling him what I think of them. My grandsons and Mickey probably have a lot to teach me, too.”

Major Nichols’ face froze back into a perfect, unreadable mask. She’d acted amazingly lifelike there for a little while, when she was talking about Sam’s family by blood and adoption. No more. She said, “As I told you, sir, that isn’t in our present plans. I’m sorry.”

I’ll bet, Sam thought. “Once upon a time, I read a story called ‘The Man without a Country,’ ” he said. “Darn good story. Seems as if I’m in that boat now, except the fellow in the story didn’t want his country but it looks like my country doesn’t want me.”

“I’m sorry,” Nicole Nichols said again: a polite, meaningless phrase. “In fact, the United States is grateful for everything you and the rest of the crew of the Admiral Peary have done here on Home.”

“Just not grateful enough to want me back.” Sam didn’t bother trying to hide his bitterness.

“Circumstances are not just what we thought they’d be when we got our orders,” she said. “Maybe the commandant will see that as justification for changing them. I must tell you, though, I doubt it. And I certainly don’t have the authority to do so. If you will excuse me, sir…” She left his room before he could say whether he excused her or not. He stared around the place. Live here, or somewhere much like here, for the rest of his life? Live here while other humans zipped back and forth between the stars? Had any man ever had a crueler prison?

Karen Yeager slid the skelkwank disk into the player. Disk and player had been manufactured more than ten light-years apart by two different species, but the one fit perfectly into the other. Humans had borrowed the Lizards’ standards along with their technology. A lot of what they made was interchangeable with what they’d taken from the Race.

“This ought to be fun,” Jonathan said.

“This ought to be terrible,” Sam Yeager said. “A game-show host? My God, why didn’t Donald just go out and start robbing banks?”

“I’ll tell you what I want to see,” Karen said. “I want to see what the clothes and the hairstyles look like. We’ve been out of touch for a long time.”

“We’ll be a bunch of frumps when we do get home,” Melanie Blanchard said. Then she shrugged. “We would have been even worse frumps if we’d gone back in cold sleep.”

All the Americans from the Admiral Peary crowded into Karen and Jonathan’s room to watch the disk of You’d Better Believe It. The ice cubes Karen was so proud of were chilling a lot of Lizard-style vodka. Frank Coffey said, “At least we got here, by God. We were awake and doing our jobs when the Commodore Perry came in. There are bound to be ships behind us full of people in cold sleep. What they’ll think when they wake up…” He shook his head.

“Little bit of a surprise,” Sam Yeager said. He seemed subdued. He was drinking more than Karen would have expected, too. Or am I just imagining things? she wondered. She didn’t want to ask if anything was wrong, not there in front of everybody. Her father-in-law had almost as strong a sense of privacy as a cat.

Instead, Karen said, “Shall I fire it up?”

“Yeah, do it.” Tom de la Rosa raised his glass in salute. “Let’s see what we came all these light-years to escape.” Everybody laughed.

“Play,” Karen said in the Race’s language. That was one difference between local machines and those back on Earth: these didn’t understand English. They didn’t always understand a human accent, either. This time, though, the disk started spinning.

Music swelled. It sounded raucous and tinny to Karen, but what she listened to would have sounded the same to her grandparents. The computer graphics for the opening credits were at least as smooth and at least as fancy as anything the Lizards used. Sam Yeager looked impressed. That hadn’t happened when he went into cold sleep in 1977. By the time Karen did, seventeen years later, people had pretty much caught up.

“And now,” the announcer said in the slightly greasy tones of announcers everywhere and everywhen, “here are the lovely Rita and Donald and… You’d Better Believe It!”

The audience applauded frantically. The lovely Rita strutted out onto the stage. She was lovely: a statuesque brunette with a profile to die for. Karen, though, didn’t think her husband or any of the other American males in the audience was paying attention to Rita’s profile. The sparkling gown she wore trailed behind her on the floor… but was cut Minoan-style on top.

“Holy Jesus!” Tom said. “How‘d you like to put makeup there?”

“I’d like it fine,” Frank Coffey said. The guys bayed goatish laughter. Karen wanted to kick Jonathan. He hadn’t said a word, but he was paying close attention to the screen.

When the camera went to the studio audience for a moment, Karen saw about half the younger women were topless. Some of them wore Lizard-style body paint, some didn’t. That had been coming in Karen’s time, but it hadn’t got there yet. Plainly, it had now.

Back to Rita. She flashed a million-watt smile. “Now, folks,” she said, “heeeeere’s… Donald!”

He bounded out to center stage. The audience went nuts. All the Americans in the room in Sitneff started howling with glee. Donald was wearing a tuxedo-a painted-on tuxedo, perfect right down to the red-carnation boutonniere. Even his hands had been painted to make them seem a Caucasian‘s-though not a whole lot of Caucasians had fingerclaws.

“Hello, people!” he said. Energy came off him in waves. “Welcome to another session of-”

“You’d Better Believe It! ” the audience shouted. They applauded themselves.

“That’s right.” Donald couldn’t grin-his mouth wasn’t made for it. But he gave the impression that he was grinning. He was a performer right down to the tip of his tailstump. “Now we’re going to find out how much tonight’s contestants don’t know-and how much they’ll pay for it.” It was a throwaway line. The studio audience broke up anyway. Karen felt herself smiling, too. She couldn’t help it. Donald pulled a smile out of her the way a magician pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

She looked around the room. She wasn’t the only one smiling. Donald had even managed to distract the men from the lovely Rita. If that didn’t prove he had what it took, nothing ever would.

Out came the first contestant, a short, dumpy, gray-haired woman from Great Falls, Montana. Donald contrived to grin at her, too. “Hello, Mrs. Donahue,” he said. “What’s your excuse for being here with us tonight? Exhibitionism? Or just greed?”

Mrs. Donahue blushed. “A little of both, maybe,” she said.

“You’d better believe it! ” the audience roared. She had to know that was coming, but she flinched anyway.

“Well, here we go,” Donald said. “Why don’t you climb into the hot seat, and we’ll give you a whirl.”

The hot seat had a seat belt. Karen rapidly discovered why: Donald had meant that whirl literally. The seat could spin on all three axes. It could also give electric shocks and do a wide variety of other unpleasant things. Mrs. Donahue had to answer questions while the chair and some really horrible sound effects discombobulated her. Not surprisingly, she didn’t cover herself with glory.

“Too bad,” Donald said when her ordeal was over. “No all-expense-paid trip to the Moon for you, I’m afraid. But you do have the new refrigerator and five hundred dollars in cash, so this didn’t turn out too bad after all.”

“You’d better believe it!” Mrs. Donahue said gamely, and the audience gave her a big hand.

Later on, a young man did win a trip to the Moon, and just about passed out from excitement. Back on Earth, going to the Moon evidently still wasn’t something people did every day. Here from the Tau Ceti system, it didn’t seem quite such a big deal. Karen glanced over at Sam Yeager. He’d been to the Moon. He’d had a photo on his wall to prove it. Karen never had. If you lived in Southern California, going to Home and not the Moon was like going to Madagascar without ever visiting Long Beach.

At the end of the show, Donald’s eye turrets followed the lovely Rita’s… visible assets as if he were a human male with some special girl-watching equipment. Then one of them swiveled back toward the camera for a moment. “I know the real reason-reasons-you watch, you crazy people out there. You can’t fool me. We’ll see you tomorrow-and you’ll see us, too. So long.” The screen went dark.

“Pause,” Karen said in the Race’s language. For a wonder, the player listened to her twice running. She went back to English: “Do we really want to watch another episode right away?”

“If it’s got Rita in it, I’ll watch it,” Tom said. Linda planted a good, solid elbow in his ribs. He yelped, overacting-but he didn’t overact half as much as Donald did.

“Well,” Sam Yeager said, “it’s nice to know he’s making an honest living.”

“You call that honest?” Jonathan asked.

“He’s paying his own bills,” the older man answered. “If that’s the most popular game show in the country, he’s probably making money hand over fist. Of course, if that’s the most popular game show in the country, it’s probably a judgment on us all, but that’s a different story. But it’s not illegal, no matter what else you can say about it.”

“I think we’ve got the idea of what he does,” Frank Coffey said. “I wouldn’t mind leering at Rita some more-just don’t tell Kassquit about it-but it can wait. Rita’s a knockout, and Donald’s pretty damn funny, but the show…” He shuddered and knocked back his drink. Then he walked out of the room. Karen wondered if he realized he was whistling the theme song from You’d Better Believe It.

The de la Rosas and Dr. Blanchard also left. Sam Yeager got up, too, but only to fix himself another drink. “What’s up, Dad?” Jonathan asked-he’d noticed something was out of kilter, too, then. “You’re not just down in the dumps because Donald’s making a buffoon of himself on national TV. You were low before we got the disk.”

“Now that you mention it-yes,” his father said. He stared down at the glass in his hand, as if expecting to find the answer there. Karen had never seen him do that before. It alarmed her. After a moment, still looking down into the glass, Sam went on, “They don’t want to let me go home.”

“What? Why not?” As soon as the words were out of Karen’s mouth, she knew how silly they were. She knew damn well why not. She just hadn’t imagined it would still matter, not after all these years.

Jonathan had no trouble figuring it out, either. “That’s outrageous, Dad,” he said. “You were right, by God.”

“You’d better believe it,” his father said, and laughed a sour laugh. “But what’s that got to do with the price of beer?”

“What… exactly did Major Nichols tell you?” Karen asked.

“First off, they didn’t expect to find me the ambassador. They figured I’d be minding the Doctor’s p’s and q’s for him,” Sam Yeager said. “They were going to have me go on minding p’s and q’s for whatever young hotshot they’ve brought to take over here. Told me there were still hard feelings back home over what I did. I wonder how big a villain I am in the history books.” He swigged the almost-vodka.

“You shouldn’t be,” Karen said. “The people who ordered the attack on the colonization fleet were the villains.”

Her father-in-law shrugged. “I think so, too. But if the powers that be don’t…” He finished his drink. “I wonder if the Commodore Perry brought any real, live air conditioners for the new ambassador and his people. We should have thought of that ourselves, but we were too dumb.” His mouth twisted. “Of course, even if they do have ’em, they probably wouldn’t give me one.”

“Oh, for the love of God, Dad!” Jonathan said.

“Yes, for the love of God.” Sam Yeager sounded like something straight out of Edgar Allan Poe. Karen wondered if he did it on purpose.

She said, “Talk to their captain. Maybe he’ll change his mind.”

“Maybe.” Her father-in-law sounded dubious in the extreme. He also sounded furious-just how much so, she didn’t really understand till he went on, “I’d rather stay here than beg, though. Why should I have to beg for what I… darn well deserve anyway?” He held out his glass to her. “Fix me another one, would you? After all, I’ve got so much to celebrate.”

Atvar climbed out of the shuttlecraft at the Preffilo port. Males and females in the body paint of the imperial court met him in the terminal and whisked him away to the palace. He hadn’t been summoned to the capital for an audience with the Emperor, but for a working meeting with him. The ceremonial was much less involved. The honor might have been greater. A meeting with the Emperor meant he really wanted your opinion. An audience could mean anything at all. Champions at the biennial games got audiences with the Emperor.

Since it was only a meeting-if only was the right word-Atvar didn’t have to worry about the imperial laver and limner. His own body paint would do. The courtiers whisked him into the palace through a side entrance. No reporters waited to shout asinine questions at him. Word had got out that a second Tosevite starship had come to Home. Word on what kind of starship it was hadn’t, not yet. He wondered just how the males and females in charge of such things would get that across. He wondered if they could do it without touching off a panic. He would have panicked if he’d got news like that.

In fact, he had panicked when he got news like that. The Race was at the Big Uglies’ mercy, if they had any. If that wasn’t worth panicking about, what would be?

The 37th Emperor Risson sat in a conference room not much different from the ones in the hotel back in Sitneff, though the furniture was of higher quality. Atvar folded himself into the special posture of respect reserved for the Emperor alone. “Rise,” Risson told him, the overhead lights gleaming from his imperial gold body paint. “Now that you have done that, Fleetlord, let us forget about ceremony for the rest of this session.”

“Just as you say, your Majesty, so it shall be done,” Atvar replied. That had been a truth for Emperors for a hundred thousand years. How much longer would it stay a truth? The answer wasn’t in the Race’s hands.

By the way Risson’s eye turrets waggled, the same thought had occurred to him. Oddly, that relieved Atvar. He would not have wanted the Emperor blind to the consequences of what had happened here. Risson said, “Well, we have not seen an egg like this one since the days when Home was unified and we did not fight the last war among ourselves after all.”

“I wish I could say you were wrong, your Majesty.” Instead of saying that, Atvar made the affirmative gesture. “I only hope this one hatches as successfully. It will not be easy.”

“No.” Risson clicked his fingerclaws on the tabletop, as any thoughtful and not very happy member of the Race might have done. “By everything we can tell, the Big Uglies are not lying about what this new ship of theirs can do.”

“I wanted to think they were. I did not really believe it,” Atvar said.

“My reaction exactly,” Risson said. “Neither Straha nor the shuttlecraft pilot-Nesseref-appears to have been drugged and deluded.”

“In my opinion, Straha has long been deluded, but he thinks the same of me,” Atvar said.

“I know something of the feuds that plagued the conquest fleet. I do not care to know more, from either side. They do not matter now,” the Emperor said. “The only thing that matters is verifying the Big Uglies’ claims. Straha and Nesseref tend to do that. So does the information we are receiving at speed-of-light from Tosev 3. The American Tosevites already know what we are hearing for the first time.”

“Your Majesty, however much I tried to keep from doing so, I thought I had to believe them as soon as that ship arrived,” Atvar said. “For one thing, it seemed to come out of nowhere. For another, it is the culmination of something toward which the Big Uglies have been reaching for some time. Our physicists are behind theirs, but they are at least beginning to reach in the same direction.”

“We are behind the Big Uglies. We change more slowly than they do. This does not bode well for us,” Risson said.

“The same thought has occurred to me,” Atvar said. “I would be lying if I said it filled my liver with delight.”

“Immediate war might still be our best course,” Risson said. “I do not want it. I do not think our chances are good. But if they only grow worse, perhaps we should send that message, no matter how many years it takes to arrive.”

Atvar made the negative gesture. “No, your Majesty,” he said, and used an emphatic cough. “This same thought occurred to me, but it would be a disaster. Consider: the Big Uglies must see this is one of our options. If they put one of their ships in line between our solar system and the star Tosev, they can intercept our signal, return to Tosev 3, and be ready to attack or defend against whatever we send from here, whichever suits them better, years before the colonists have any idea they are supposed to help us go to war.”

Risson did consider, for some little while. At last, with obvious reluctance, he made the affirmative gesture. “Well, Fleetlord, that is a truth. It is not a palatable truth, but a truth it is.”

“I can see one way around it,” Atvar said. “If we were to have a passenger on their starship, that male or female could deliver a message to Fleetlord Reffet and Fleetlord Kirel. That way, the delay would be overcome.”

“You are clever, Fleetlord. Unfortunately, the Big Uglies have thought of the same thing,” Risson said. “They will let us have passengers, but they will not let them communicate with members of the Race on Tosev 3 in any way, citing exactly the danger you named.”

With an unhappy hiss, Atvar said, “That cursed Straha told me the same thing. I had forgotten-my apologies, your Majesty. We have been too naive for too long; deceit does not come naturally to us any more.”

“Instead of what we call diplomats, maybe we should have sent a shipload of azwaca-hide dealers to Tosev 3,” the Emperor said. “They always have an eye turret on the main chance, and might have done better at getting what we need out of the Big Uglies.”

“You should tell that one to your diplomatic aides, your Majesty. It holds much truth,” Atvar said. Until the conquest fleet faltered on Tosev 3, Emperors had not needed diplomatic aides since Home was unified. The very word ambassador was obsolete in the Empire, preserved only in historical fiction. On Tosev 3, it had hatched out of the eggshell of dormancy once more.

“I would not wish to make them unhappy,” Risson said. “They try their best. We have all tried our best. Sometimes… Sometimes things do not fall out as we wish they would. I have no idea what is to be done about this, except to go on doing the best we can.”

“If we do not do that, we will fail,” Atvar said. “Of course, even if we do, we may well fail anyhow.”

“This thought has also crossed my mind,” Risson said. “It is one of the reasons I have not slept well since this new starship came here. Having the other one in orbit above me, knowing some missile was bound to be aimed at this palace, was bad enough. But this one, this one we cannot imitate, let alone surpass-this is very bad. And do you know what else?”

“No, your Majesty. What else?” Atvar asked.

The 37th Emperor Risson let out an indignant hiss. “You will not be surprised to learn we have Tosevite encyclopedias here on Home,” he said. “What better way to learn about the Big Uglies than through their own words? Some of our scholars who read English have investigated the American Tosevites after whom these two starships were named.” He hissed again, even more irately than before.

“And?” Atvar asked, as the Emperor surely meant him to do.

“And the first ship, the Admiral Peary, is named for the Big Ugly who first reached the North Pole on Tosev 3,” Risson said. “That was surely a Big Ugly who went into the unknown, and so his is a good name to give an early starship. But the Commodore Perry… ” He hissed one more time. “This Commodore Perry traveled by sea from the United States to the islands of Nippon, where he forced the Nipponese into concluding trade agreements with him because of the strength of his warships. Is this a deliberate insult to us? Do the Americans reckon us similar barbarians to exploit as they please?”

“Today, your Majesty, the Nipponese are no more-and no less-barbarous than any other wild Big Uglies,” Atvar replied. “And-” He broke off.

Not soon enough. “Yes?” Risson prodded.

Atvar wished he’d kept quiet. Now he had to go on with his thought, such as it was: “I was going to say, your Majesty, that I understand the analogy the Big Uglies may have been drawing. Commodore Perry could travel by sea to the Nipponese. They could not travel by sea on their own to the land he came from. We are in a like situation in regard to that second starship.”

Risson stiffened. Atvar wondered if he would be sent away, never to see his sovereign again. Then, to his vast relief, the Emperor laughed. “Well, Fleetlord, you have made your point, I must say. That analogy has more teeth than I wish it did. Until we can match the Tosevites’ prowess, maybe we are in truth no better than semibarbarians.”

“For many millennia, we have believed ourselves to stand at the pinnacle of biological and social evolution,” Atvar said. “And why not? Our society was successful and stable. We easily overcame the other intelligent species we met and remolded their cultures and their worlds in the image of ours. Who could oppose us? Who could show us there were other ways of doing things?” He laughed, too, bitterly. “Well, now we know the answer to that.”

“Yes. Now we know.” Risson’s voice was heavy with worry. “But thinking we were superior to all around us helped make us that way in fact… for a long time. Now that we see we are not at the pinnacle, as you said, will we begin to view ourselves as permanently inferior to the Big Uglies? That could also become a self-fulfilling prophecy, you know.”

The fleetlord didn’t answer right away. He’d had more experience worrying about Big Uglies than perhaps any other member of the Race. What worried him more than anything else was that they needed to be worried about. When the conquest fleet first landed, the Tosevites had used numbers and appalling heroism and even more appalling deceit to make up for their technological deficit. More appalling still was how fast that deficit had shrunk. And now… Yes. And now, Atvar thought.

“As you said, your Majesty, we have to do the best we can,” he said at last. “They learned from us. For a while now, we will have to learn from them. And then, with a little luck, we can learn from each other. One thing this breakthrough will do: it will mean both the Tosevites and we can colonize much more widely than ever before. Both sides are vulnerable now because we are so concentrated. If we have colonies on hundreds of worlds rather than a handful, the situation changes.”

It was Risson’s turn to stop and think. “The Empire would not be the same. It would not, it could not, hope to hold together.”

“Probably not, your Majesty,” Atvar said. “But the Race would survive. In the end, is that not the most important thing?” Risson thought again, then used the affirmative gesture.

Now that Kassquit knew what Ttomalss had not wanted to tell her about, she also understood why her mentor and the Emperor had been so unwilling. Nothing would ever be the same again for the Empire. The Race, convinced faster-than-light travel was impossible, hadn’t seriously looked for it. For the Big Uglies, impossible seemed nothing but a word to get around. And now they’d got around it. If the Race couldn’t, it would find itself in deadly peril.

She’d wondered if she would have mixed feelings about what the American Tosevites had done. They were, after all, her own kin, far more than any members of the Race could have been. She might have shared some of the pride at their achievement. She had before, over smaller things.

But she didn’t, not because of this. This terrified her. She could see the danger it represented to the Empire. As long as the Big Uglies had this technology and the Race didn’t, the planets of the Empire lived on Tosevite sufferance.

“Do not worry, not on account of this,” Frank Coffey told her after she poured out her alarm to him in her room one afternoon. “Remember, this is the United States that has this technology. My not-empire will not do anything to touch off a war against the Race.”

“No?” Kassquit said. “I am sure the millions your not-empire killed in the attack on the colonization fleet would be ever so relieved to hear that.”

Coffey did have the grace to wince. He spread his hands, palms up. The paler skin there and on the soles of his feet, so different from the rest of his body, never failed to fascinate Kassquit. He said, “That was a long time ago. We would not do such a thing now.”

“Oh? Are you certain? If your not-emperor gave the order, would your soldiers disobey it?” Kassquit asked. “Or would they do as they were told?”

“Our not-emperor would not give such an order,” Coffey said, though he didn’t tell her how he knew such a thing. “And if he-or she-did give it, not all soldiers would obey. Remember, Sam Yeager is our ambassador to the Race. He was a soldier who disobeyed.”

“Yes, and was sent into exile because of it,” Kassquit said. “He would not be ambassador if the Doctor had lived, and he will not stay ambassador now that the new ship is here. Nor will the newcomers allow him to go back to Tosev 3. So much for the respect he won for disobeying orders.”

“You do not understand,” Frank Coffey insisted.

Kassquit made the negative gesture. “On the contrary. I fear I understand much too well.” She pointed toward the door. “I think you had better go. Otherwise, this conversation is all too likely to put an end to our friendship.” It was more than a friendship, of course, but that was the strongest word the language of the Race had.

“We might do better to talk things out,” Coffey said.

“No.” Kassquit used the negative gesture again. “What is there to say? You are loyal to your not-empire, as you should be. I am loyal to the Empire. This is also as it should be, I believe. We will not change each other’s minds. We will only quarrel, and what is the good of that?”

Coffey inclined his head. Kassquit understood that. It was what Big Uglies sometimes did instead of sketching the posture of respect. “No doubt you have found a truth. I will see you another time,” he said. He put on the few wrappings American Tosevites insisted on wearing in public even in the warmth of Home, then left her room.

Only after he was gone did Kassquit let tears start sliding down her face. She had known he was unlikely to make a permanent mating partner. She had expected him to return to Tosev 3 when the Admiral Peary left. But the Commodore Perry changed everything. Now he might leave within days, or tens of days. When she found happiness, did she always have to see it jerked out from under her feet?

She remembered the attack by the Reich when Jonathan Yeager was up in the starship orbiting Tosev 3 with her. Actually, for a little while that had worked out well on a personal level. It meant they’d stayed together longer than they would have otherwise, because he couldn’t go back down to the United States while the war lasted. But it had only made parting harder when the time finally came.

All at once, Kassquit wished she hadn’t thought about the Reich and the Deutsche. The Race would be doing everything it could to learn to travel faster than light. But so, without a doubt, would the Deutsche. They were formidably capable engineers. And, as far as she cold tell, their not-empire was governed by an equally formidable set of maniacs. What would they do if they succeeded before the Race did?

Maybe Frank Coffey had a point. Were the Commodore Perry a Deutsch starship, wouldn’t it have announced its presence by launching missiles at Home? The United States could have been better. But it also could have been much worse.

Kassquit yawned. She didn’t feel like thinking about it now. She felt like curling up and taking a nap. She lay down on the sleeping mat and did. When she woke up, she still felt more weary than she thought she should have. That had been happening more and more often lately. She wondered if something was wrong with her. Had she caught some Tosevite disease from Nicole Nichols or one of the other wild Big Uglies who’d come down from the Commodore Perry?

She went down to the refectory for a snack. That turned out to be a mistake. She’d always enjoyed spiced, chopped azwaca and niihau beans, but not today. They didn’t smell right. They didn’t taste quite right, either. And they sat in her stomach like a large, heavy boulder.

Then, quite suddenly, they didn’t want to sit there at all any more. She bolted from the refectory with the plate of meat and beans still half full. She got to the cloacal station just in time. She bent over one of the holes in the floor and noisily gave back what she’d eaten.

She couldn’t remember ever doing that before. It was one of the most disgusting experiences of her life. It brought a certain relief, but the taste! And the way it came out through the inside of her nose as well as her mouth!

She rinsed and spat, rinsed and spat. That didn’t help as much as she wished it would have. “I am diseased. I must be diseased,” she said, and used an emphatic cough. No one who was healthy could possibly do something so revolting.

She thought about going back to the refectory and finishing the chopped azwaca and beans. Then, with a shudder, she made the negative gesture. She didn’t believe she would ever want that dish again. It tasted much better going down than it did coming up.

Instead, she went to her room and telephoned Dr. Melanie Blanchard. “I would like you to examine me, please,” she said when the physician’s face appeared in the monitor.

“I would be happy to,” Dr. Blanchard said. “May I ask what has made you change your mind?” Her interrogative cough was a small masterpiece of curiosity. No member of the Race could have done that better.

“I am unwell,” Kassquit said simply.

“All right,” Dr. Blanchard said. “Come to my room, and I will see if I can figure out why you are.”

“It shall be done.” Kassquit broke the connection with no more farewell than that.

“I greet you,” the American female said when Kassquit pressed the door hisser. “Before I start poking you and doing the other things physicians do, please tell me your symptoms.” Kassquit did, in harrowing detail. Dr. Blanchard nodded. “All right-nausea and fatigue. Anything else?”

Now Kassquit hesitated. “I am not sure it is relevant.”

“Tell me and let me be the judge,” Melanie Blanchard urged. “The more data I have, the better my diagnosis is likely to be.”

“Yes, that does seem reasonable.” Kassquit made the affirmative gesture, though still hesitantly. “My other notable symptom is that the blood which flows from my reproductive organs has not done so when it normally would have.”

“Really?” the doctor said, in tones of strong surprise. Kassquit used the affirmative gesture again. Dr. Blanchard reached out and squeezed one of her breasts; Kassquit yelped. Dr. Blanchard asked, “Are they unusually tender?”

“Why, yes,” Kassquit said. “How did you guess?”

“This set of symptoms is familiar to me. Sooner or later, it becomes familiar to most Tosevite females, regardless of whether they happen to be physicians. Unless I am very much mistaken, you are gravid.”

Kassquit stared. “But that is impossible. Frank Coffey uses a sheath whenever we mate. He has not failed to do so even once.”

“I am glad to hear that. It speaks well for him-and for you,” Melanie Blanchard said. “But what you have described are the textbook early symptoms of gravidity. Sheaths are good protection against such accidents, but they are not perfect.”

What Kassquit felt was irrational fury. The sheath’s failure struck her as typical slipshod Tosevite engineering. Wild Big Uglies just did things. They didn’t bother to do them right. Or maybe, considering that the prime purpose of mating was reproduction, Frank Coffey had done it right.

“There are other possibilities,” the physician said. “All of them involve serious illness, and all of them are much less likely than simple gravidity. Some time not quite a local year and a half from now, I believe you will lay an egg.” She laughed and used the negative gesture. “That is the first phrase that occurred to me in the Race’s language. It is not what will happen. You will have a hatchling.”

“A hatchling.” Kassquit still struggled to take that in. “I know nothing about caring for hatchlings.”

“I am sure the American Tosevites here on Home with you, whoever they turn out to be, will be glad to help you,” Melanie Blanchard said. “Or, if you would rather, there is a medical procedure to terminate your gravidity. It is not very difficult, especially when done early.”

“Do you recommend medically that I do this?” Kassquit asked.

“No,” Dr. Blanchard said. “You are on the old side to be gravid, but you do not seem to be dangerously so. I will have to monitor you more closely than I would if you were younger, that is all. The procedure may become medically necessary, but I do not anticipate that it will. But other factors besides the merely medical are involved in whether you wish to rear a hatchling. This may be more true for you than for most Tosevite females. You have… less practice at being a Big Ugly.”

“That is a truth,” Kassquit said. “Still, if anything will teach me, this is likely to be the experience that would.”

“You do not need to decide at once,” Dr. Blanchard said. “During the first third of your gravidity, the procedure remains fairly simple. After that, as the hatchling grows inside you, it does become harder and more dangerous for you.”

Kassquit set the palm of her hand on her belly. “I will think about it,” she said, “but I believe I wish to go forward with this.”