Homeward Bound

7

Most of the time, the Race mocked Tosevite sexuality. For a small stretch of each year, though, males and females here far outdid the wildest of wild Big Uglies in sheer carnality. Kassquit had seen two mating seasons before this one. They astonished and appalled her. The creatures she’d thought she knew turned into altogether different beings for a little while.

She had seen mating behavior in the starship orbiting Tosev 3 after the colonization fleet brought females to her homeworld. Some of those females had come into season on their own. Others, ginger-tasters, had had chemical help. That was disruptive enough, as their pheromones sent males all over the ship into heat. But this… this was a world gone mad.

And it was a madness of which she had no part. The Race scorned Tosevite sexuality, yes. Kassquit knew that only too well. She’d been on the receiving end of such comments more times than she could count back in the starship orbiting Tosev 3. She hadn’t heard so many since waking up on Home. It wasn’t that males and females here were more polite. If anything, the reverse was true. But a lot of them were simply ignorant of how Big Uglies worked.

For the time being, Kassquit could have done the mocking. Males and females coupled on the streets. They coupled in the middle of the streets. Males brawling over females clawed and bit one another till they bled. Yes, Kassquit could have done the mocking-had she found anyone to listen to her.

The Race paid no attention. Right now, males and females were too busy joining to worry about anything else. Later, once the females’ pheromones wore off, everyone would try to pretend the mating season had never happened. Kassquit had already seen that. And, once the females’ pheromones had worn off, males and females would go back to disparaging the Tosevites for their lascivious and disgusting habits. She’d seen that, too.

Now, though, she could talk with the American Big Uglies. They hadn’t come down to the surface of Home when she watched the two previous mating seasons. The server in the hotel refectory was a female. She skittered about as if she’d tasted too much ginger, but Kassquit did not think that was the problem. Unless she was wrong, the female had to hurry to get her work done before some male interrupted her.

To Frank Coffey, Kassquit said, “This is a difficult time.”

“Truth.” The wild Big Ugly laughed. “We Tosevites do not do things like this. The Race must think about nothing but mating. What a perverse and depraved sexuality its males and females must have.”

For a moment, Kassquit thought he was serious in spite of that laugh. He sounded exactly like a pompous male grumbling about the Big Uglies. Then she realized he had to be joking, no matter how serious he sounded. That made the jest all the more delicious. She laughed, too, at first the way the Race did and then noisily, like any other Tosevite. She did that only when she thought something was very funny.

Frank Coffey raised an eyebrow. “Do you disagree with me? How can you possibly disagree with me? I wonder how we Big Uglies can hope to deal with creatures so constantly obsessed with mating.”

That only made Kassquit laugh harder. “Do you have any idea how much you sound like some kind of self-important fool of a male pontificating about Tosevites?”

“Why, no,” Coffey said.

Again, Kassquit needed a couple of heartbeats to be sure he was kidding. Again, the brief doubt made the joke funnier. She got out of her seat and bent into the full posture of respect. “I thank you,” she said.

“For what?” Now the brown Big Ugly seemed genuinely confused, rather than playing at confusion as he had a little while before.

“For what?” Kassquit echoed. “I will tell you for what. For puncturing the pretensions of the Race, that is for what.”

“You are grateful for that?” Coffey asked. Was his surprise here genuine or affected? Kassquit couldn’t tell. The wild Big Ugly went on, “Since you are a citizen of the Empire, I would have thought that you would be angry at me for poking fun at the Race.”

Kassquit made the negative gesture. “No,” she said, and added an emphatic cough. “The Race can be foolish. The Race can be very foolish. Sometimes they realize it, sometimes they do not. But being a citizen of the Empire is more, much more, than being a member of the Race.”

“That is not how it has seemed to us Tosevites,” Coffey said.

“Well, no,” Kassquit admitted. “But that is because of the special circumstances surrounding the occupation of Tosev 3.”

“Special circumstances?” Now Frank Coffey did the echoing. “I should say so!”

“I have never denied them,” Kassquit said. “I could not very well, could I? But you will have seen, I think, that the Empire treats all its citizens alike, regardless of their species. And we all have the spirits of Emperors past looking after our spirits when we pass from this world to the next.”

She looked down for a moment when she mentioned the spirits of Emperors past. Coffey didn’t. None of the wild Big Uglies did. He said, “I will admit you are better at treating all your citizens alike than we are, though we do improve. But you will understand we have different opinions about what happens after death.”

The Tosevite opinions Kassquit had studied left her convinced they were nothing but superstition. How could a being like a male Big Ugly with preposterous powers have created the entire universe? The idea was ridiculous. And even if such a being had done such a thing, why had he not seen fit to tell the Big Uglies about the Race and the Empire before the conquest fleet arrived? No, the notion fell apart the moment it was examined closely.

But mocking Tosevite superstitions only hatched hatred and enmity. Kassquit said, “In this case, I think we will have to agree to disagree.”

“Fair enough,” Coffey replied. “That is an idiom in English. I did not know the Race’s language also used it.”

For her part, Kassquit was surprised the Big Uglies could come up with such a civilized concept. She did not say that, either, for fear of causing offense. She did say, “You wild Tosevites have proved less savage than many here on Home expected.”

That set Frank Coffey laughing. “By our standards, we are civilized, you know. We may not be part of the Empire, but we are convinced we deserve to stand alongside it.”

“Yes, I know you are,” Kassquit replied, which kept her from having to state her own opinion about American convictions.

Evidently, though, she did not need to, for the wild Big Ugly said, “You do not think we are right.”

“No, I do not. Home has been unified for a hundred thousand years. The Race has been traveling between the stars for twenty-eight thousand years. When the Race came to Tosev 3, you Tosevites were fighting an enormous war among yourselves. You are still not a unified species. All this being true, how do you presume to claim equality with the Empire?”

“Because we have won it,” the wild Big Ugly answered, and used an emphatic cough. “I do not care how old the Race is. In America, the question to ask is, what have you done yourself? No one cares what your ancient ancestor did. Here is what we did in the United States: when the Race attacked us without warning, we fought the invaders to a standstill. We won our independence, and we deserve it. You said as much yourself to Trir down by the South Pole. I admired you for your honesty, for I know we are not altogether your folk.”

“Admired… me?” Kassquit wasn’t used to hearing such praise. Home had plants that always turned toward the sun. She turned toward compliments in much the same way. “I thank you. I thank you very much.”

“You are welcome,” Frank Coffey said. “And I will tell you one other reason why we deserve to stand alongside the Empire.” He waited. Kassquit made the affirmative gesture, urging him to go on. He did: “Because you and I are sitting here in the refectory of a medium-good hotel in Sitneff, on Home, and I, at least, did not come here on a starship the Race built. Is that not reason enough?”

I am proud of the Empire, Kassquit thought, but the wild Big Uglies have their pride, too, even if it is for smaller achievements. “Perhaps it is-for you, at any rate,” she said. She would not admit the Tosevites’ deeds matched those of the Race. That would have gone too far.

“All right. I suspect we are also agreeing to disagree here.” Coffey shrugged. “That too is part of diplomacy.”

“I suppose it is.” Kassquit hesitated, then said, “There are times when I wish I did not have to deal with my own species as if it were made up of aliens. But, to me, it is. I do not know what to do about that.”

“You have a real problem there,” Frank Coffey said gravely. “I have had some trouble with some part of my own species, because I am dark in a not-empire dominated by pale Tosevites. That was more true when I was young than it is now.” He laughed at himself. “Than it was when I went into cold sleep, I should say. I would expect it to be better still now, but I have no data. And I was never as cut off from my own kind as you are.”

“No. You have a common language with other American Tosevites, a common set of beliefs, a common history. All I share with Tosevites are my looks and my biochemistry. There are times when I wish we could meet halfway: I could become more like a wild Big Ugly and you wild Tosevites could become more like citizens of the Empire.”

“We have changed a good deal since the Race came to Tosev 3,” Coffey said. “Maybe we will change more. But maybe the whole Empire-not just you-will need to change some to accommodate us.” The sheer arrogance of that made Kassquit start to flare up. Coffey held up a hand to forestall her. “You know that the Race has done this on Tosev 3. I admit ginger has driven some of the change, but it is no less real on account of that.”

Males and females of the Race did act differently there from the way they did here on Home. Kassquit had seen that. It wasn’t just ginger, either. On Tosev 3, the Race moved faster than it did here. It had to, to try to keep up with the surging Big Uglies.

“You may have spoken a truth,” Kassquit said slowly. “That is most interesting.”

“If you do not mind my saying so, you are most interesting,” Coffey said. “You balance between the Race and us Tosevites. I know you are loyal to the Empire. But have you ever wondered what living as an ordinary Big Ugly would be like?”

“I should say I have!” Kassquit added an emphatic cough. “I thank you for thinking to ask. I thank you very much. Sometimes, perhaps, biology can more readily lead to empathy than culture can.”

“Perhaps that is so,” Frank Coffey said.

Mating season distracted Ttomalss no less than Atvar. If anything, it distracted the psychologist more. He was younger than the fleetlord, and so more able and more inclined to distribute his genes as widely as he could. He knew he should have paid more attention to the wild Big Uglies and to Kassquit, but everything went to the befflem during mating season. The Race understood that. So did the Hallessi and Rabotevs, who had mating seasons of their own. If the Tosevites couldn’t figure it out, well, too bad for them.

At supper one day, Linda de la Rosa asked Ttomalss, “Our guide will regain her usual disposition after mating season is over?”

“Yes, yes,” he answered distractedly; pheromones in the air still left him half addled.

“Well, that is good,” the wild Tosevite said, “because Trir turned into a first-class bitch once it started.” She added an emphatic cough. The key word was not in the language of the Race, but from its tone Ttomalss had no trouble realizing that it was imperfectly complimentary.

He shrugged. “Hormonal changes can produce mood swings among us. Do you Tosevites know nothing similar?”

Tom de la Rosa looked up from his zisuili chop in herbs. “Oh, no, Senior Researcher, we are altogether unfamiliar with such things.” He laughed a raucous Tosevite laugh. His mate poked him in the ribs with her elbow. That only made him laugh harder.

The byplay puzzled Ttomalss. He studied a videotape of it several times. Only when his wits sharpened with the end of the mating season did he figure it out. Kassquit’s mood could swing considerably during her fertility cycle, and swing in a fairly regular way. The alterations were less extreme than the ones the Race went through during mating season, but they were there. (The Race’s physicians never had figured out why Tosevite females bled about once every twenty-eight days. Had that not been universal, they would have thought it pathological.)

Linda de la Rosa asked, “How much longer will your mating season last? How much longer until we can get down to serious business again?”

“Or even serious sightseeing?” Tom de la Rosa added. “As things are now, Trir is useless, and I do not suppose any other guide, male or female, would be much better.”

“About another ten days,” Ttomalss answered. “Already, things are less frenzied than they were when the season began.”

“If you say so,” Tom de la Rosa replied. Was that agreement or sarcasm? Ttomalss couldn’t tell. Being unable to tell annoyed him.

He went upstairs to his room. The air there was fairly free of pheromones. He could think, after a fashion. He knew from experience he would have to redo half the work he did at this season of the year. But if he didn’t do anything, he would have even more to catch up on once the mating madness ebbed.

When he checked his computer for messages and new data, he let out an interested hiss. A report from Senior Researcher Felless had just come in from Tosev 3. Felless had imagined herself an expert on Big Uglies before ever setting foot on their home planet. Once there, she’d promptly got addicted to ginger. She’d mated with Ttomalss, and once, in a scandalous scene, with the Race’s ambassador to the Deutsche and several officials who were visiting him.

Little by little, she had acquired real expertise on the Big Uglies. Ttomalss noted that she hadn’t been recalled to Home, though. Males and females trusted his judgment more than hers. He wondered how much she resented being stuck on a world whose only redeeming feature for her was a drug.

Of course, Felless was a contrarian by nature. Not liking a place might help set up a perverse attraction for it in her. And she was truly addicted to ginger. Here on Home, the herb was scarce and, because it was scarce, expensive. Not on Tosev 3. On the Big Uglies’ homeworld, Ttomalss sometimes thought it easier to taste ginger than not to. Felless would have agreed with him; he was sure of that.

Ginger-taster or not, though, Felless had become a keen observer of the Tosevite scene. Here was her image, with a little static hashing it from the journey across the light-years. She was saying, “I wish we would have brought more scientists with the colonization fleet, but who would have thought we would have needed them? Those we do have here are nearly unanimous in saying the wild Big Uglies have surpassed us in electronics, and are on their way to doing so in physics and the mathematics relating to physics.”

The camera cut away to a picture of a Tosevite journal, presumably one dealing with some science. Felless’ voice continued in the background: “I am also informed that the problem may be even more severe than was realized until quite recently. Our scientists have not kept close watch on the Big Uglies’ scientific and mathematical publications, not least because the Tosevites use mathematical notation different from ours. Our experts say the Big Uglies’ symbology is for the most part neither better nor worse than ours, simply different. But, because few of our experts have become familiar with their notation, some of their advances were not noted until years after they occurred.”

“Give me some examples, please,” Ttomalss said, as if Felless could reply at once. Even had he been speaking into a microphone hooked up to a transmitter to Tosev 3, he would have had to wait all the years for his signal to cross between this solar system and Tosev‘s, and then just as long for her answer to come back. He knew that. Maybe the stresses of the mating season were leaving him less rational than usual. Or maybe he had realized that these journal articles amplified what had been in the public press and caught the physicist Pesskrag’s interest even then. Now maybe she would have the chance to learn more about what the Big Uglies really were up to when it came to physics.

As if listening to him even though she’d spoken years before, Felless did start giving examples. They impressed Ttomalss less than she’d plainly expected they would. Had she claimed the Big Uglies were building weapons systems the Race could not hope to match, he would have been alarmed. So would the governing bureaucrats here on Home, and so would Reffet and Kirel back on Tosev 3.

Advances in theoretical physics, though? Ttomalss was a psychologist, not a physicist; he wasn’t sure what Felless was talking about half the time. For that matter, she was a psychologist, too. He wondered how well she understood the material that had agitated her.

Again, she addressed the very point that had concerned him: “Several theoreticians will be submitting their own reports on these topics before long. They are still working to discover all the implications of the new data. They are unanimous, however, that these implications are startling.”

“If the Big Uglies want to muck around on experiments that will never have any practical use, they are welcome and more than welcome to do just that,” Ttomalss said. “It distracts them from the sort of engineering that could actually prove dangerous to us.”

When he checked to see if anyone else on Home had evaluated Felless’ latest report, he was amused but not astonished to discover that one male and two females had already submitted reports whose essence was what he’d just said. One of the females made a cautious addition to her report: “Not being familiar with the physical sciences or with Tosevite notation, I am not ideally suited to judge whether Felless’ concerns are justified.”

Ttomalss called that female and asked, “Do we have anyone here on Home who is familiar with the Tosevites’ notation?”

She shrugged. “Senior Researcher, I have not the faintest idea. Why would anyone wish to learn such things, though, when our own notation has served us well for as long as Home has been unified and probably longer?”

“A point,” the psychologist admitted. “Still, at the moment it could be relevant simply in terms of threat evaluation.”

“That is a truth-of sorts,” the female said. “If, however, there is no threat to evaluate, then the issue becomes irrelevant.” She hung up. Maybe the question did not interest her. Maybe, like Ttomalss, she was still at the tag end of the mating season, and not inclined to take anything too seriously if she didn’t have to.

At the moment, about the only ones not half addled by the urge to reproduce were the Big Uglies. Even in his present state, Ttomalss felt the irony there. One evening at supper, he approached Sam Yeager and said, “I greet you, superior Tosevite. May I ask you a few questions?”

“And I greet you, Senior Researcher,” the ambassador from the United States replied. “Go ahead and ask. I do not guarantee that I will answer. That depends on the questions. We can both find out.”

“Truth,” Ttomalss said. “What do you know of theoretical physics and Tosevite mathematical notation?”

Sam Yeager laughed. “Of theoretical physics, I know nothing. I do not even suspect anything.” He used an emphatic cough to show how very ignorant he was. “Of mathematical notation, I know our numbers and the signs for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing.” He held up a finger in a gesture the Big Uglies used when they wanted to add something. “Oh, wait. I know the sign for a square root, too, though I have not had to extract one since I got out of school, which is a very long time ago now.”

“Somehow I do not think this is what concerns our scientists on Tosev 3,” Ttomalss said.

“Well, what does concern them?” the Big Ugly asked.

“Possible Tosevite advances in theoretical physics,” Ttomalss answered. “I do not know all the details myself.”

“I do not know any of them,” Sam Yeager said with what sounded like a certain amount of pride. “I never thought theoretical physics could be important until we had to figure out how to make atomic bombs to use against the Race. Back during the fighting, I was involved in that project, because I was one of the few Tosevites who had learned enough of the Race’s language to interrogate prisoners.”

“Even if you do not know the details, then, you are aware that these theoretical advances can be important,” Ttomalss said.

The Tosevite ambassador made the affirmative gesture. “Yes, I know that. I said I knew that. But I also said I have no idea what American physicists are working on back on Tosev 3, and that too is a truth.”

“Very well,” Ttomalss said, though it was anything but.

Sam Yeager must have sensed that. Laughing again in his noisy way, he said, “Senior Researcher, I would have been ignorant about these things before I went into cold sleep. Now the scientists have worked for all these years without me. It only makes me more ignorant still.”

He sounded as if he was telling the truth about that. Ttomalss wasn’t sure how far to trust him, though. One thing worried the psychologist: the American Big Uglies were not broadcasting news of what their physicists had learned toward Home and their starship in orbit around it. Why not, if they were making such advances? Ttomalss saw one possible reason: they knew the Race would be deciphering their signals, and did not want it learning too much.

That worried him. That worried him a lot.

Mickey Flynn watched Glen Johnson climbing into his spacesuit. “Teacher’s pet,” Flynn said solemnly-the most sobersided jeer Johnson had ever heard. “Look at the teacher’s pet.”

Johnson paused long enough to flip the other pilot the bird. “The Lizards know quality when they see it.”

Flynn pondered that, then shook his head. “There must be some rational explanation instead,” he said, and then, “Why do they want to see you again so soon, anyhow? Haven’t they got sick of you by now? I would have, and they’re supposed to be an intelligent species.”

Instead of rising to that, Johnson just kept on donning the suit. As he settled the helmet on its locking ring, he said, “The one advantage of this getup is that I don’t have to pay attention to you when I’ve got it on.” With the helmet in place, he couldn’t heard Flynn any more. That much was true. But Flynn went right on talking, or at least mouthing, anyhow. He looked very urgent while he was doing it, too. Were this the first time Johnson had seen him pull a stunt like that, he would have been convinced something urgent was going on and he needed to know about it. As things were, he went on into the air lock and began checking out the scooter.

He didn’t expect to find anything wrong with the little local rocket ship, but he made all the checks anyhow. Any pilot who didn’t was a damn fool, in his biased opinion. It was, after all, his one and only neck.

Everything checked out green. Yes, he would have been surprised if it hadn’t, but life was full of surprises. Avoiding the nasty ones when you could was always a good idea.

The outer airlock door swung open. He used the scooter’s maneuvering jets to ease it out of the lock, then fired up the stern motor to take it in the direction of the nearest Lizard spacecraft, the Pterodactyl’s Wing (that wasn’t an exact translation, but it came close enough). He had no idea why the Lizards wanted to talk with him, but he was always ready to get away from the Admiral Peary for a little while.

As he crossed the double handful of kilometers between his spaceship and theirs, he got one of those surprises life was full of: a Lizard scooter came out to meet him. “Hello, scooter of the Race. I greet you,” Johnson called on the Lizards’ chief comm frequency. “What is going on?”

“I greet you, Tosevite scooter,” the Lizard pilot answered. “You are ordered to stop for inspection before approaching the Pterodactyl’s Wing. ”

“It shall be done,” Johnson said. On the radio, nobody could see him shrug. “I do not understand the need for it, but it shall be done.” He applied the same blast to the forward engine as he’d used in the rear to make his approach run to the Lizards’ ship. With his motion towards it killed, he hung in space between it and the Admiral Peary.

He watched the Lizards’ scooter approach on the radar screen and by eye. It was bigger than the one he flew. He had room for only a couple of passengers. The other scooter could carry eight or ten members of the Race. At the moment, though, it had just two aboard. Whoever was piloting it had a style very different from his. Instead of a long blast precisely canceled, the Lizard flew fussily, a little poke here, a little nudge there, his maneuvering jets constantly flaring like fireflies. Any human pilot would have been embarrassed to cozy up like that, but the Lizard got the job done. After what seemed like forever, the two scooters floated motionless relative to each other and only a few meters apart.

“I am going to cross to your scooter for the inspection,” one of the spacesuited Lizards said. The male-or possibly female-waved to show which one it was.

“Come ahead.” Johnson waved back.

The Lizard had a reaction pistol to go from yon to hither. The gas jet pushed it across to Johnson’s scooter, where it braked. “I greet you, Tosevite pilot,” resounded in Johnson’s headphones. “I am Nosred.”

“And I greet you.” Johnson gave his own name, adding, “This is unusual. Why have you changed your procedures?”

“Why? I will tell you why.” Nosred leaned toward Johnson. When their helmets touched, the Lizard spoke without benefit of radio: “Turn off your transmitter.” Direct sound conduction brought the words to Johnson’s ears.

He flipped the switch and took another precaution. If Nosred wanted a private chat, the human was willing to find out why, and the precaution wouldn’t be noticeable from the outside. Their helmets still touching, Johnson said, “Go ahead.”

“I thank you. What I want to discuss with you is the possibility of your bringing ginger out of your starship the next time you come forth,” Nosred said.

I might have known, Johnson thought. The Race figured Big Uglies were obsessed with sex. The way it looked to people, Lizards were obsessed with ginger-which sometimes led them to be obsessed with sex, but that was a different story.

Not without a certain pang, Johnson made the negative gesture. “I do not have any. The ship does not have any.”

Nosred made the negative gesture, too. “I do not believe you, Tosevite pilot. Ginger is too valuable a commodity and too valuable a weapon for you Big Uglies to have left it all in your own solar system. You must have brought some with you. Logic requires it.”

“This is your own opinion. This is not a truth,” Johnson said. He knew more than he was telling. One of the things he knew was that he couldn’t tell whether this Lizard was setting a trap for him. Till he knew that, he had no intention of trusting Nosred-or any other male or female of the Race.

“You do not think I am reliable,” Nosred said in accusing tones. “That is the truth here, that and nothing else.”

He was right. Being right wouldn’t get him any ginger. Johnson said, “It would be best if I proceeded on to the Pterodactyl’s Wing now. Your own folk will begin to wonder why we linger here without any communication they can monitor.”

With an angry hiss, Nosred pulled back. His radio came to life: “Our preliminary inspection here reveals no ginger, Tosevite pilot. You have permission to proceed on to our ship.”

“I thank you. It shall be done.” Johnson had to remember to turn his own radio back on. He used his steering jets to reorient the scooter’s nose toward the Pterodactyl’s Wing, then made his acceleration and deceleration burns by eyeball and feel. He was good at what he did. That deceleration burn left him motionless with respect to the Lizard spaceship and only a few meters from the air lock.

Nosred and his silent friend arrived several minutes later, after another series of small, finicky burns. The Lizards took them back aboard first, though, which meant Johnson had nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs till the airlock master condescended to let him into the Pterodactyl’s Wing.

“I thank you so very much,” Johnson said, and tacked on an emphatic cough so very emphatic, he sprayed the inside of his faceplate with spit. Somehow, though, he doubted whether the Lizard appreciated or even noticed the sarcasm.

His scooter and his person got the same sort of painstaking search they had the last time he went aboard one of the Race’s spacecraft. A small machine floated out of his spacesuit. He snagged it. “What is that?” the airlock master demanded suspiciously.

“A recorder,” Johnson answered. “Go ahead and examine it. You will find no hidden ginger.” The Lizard ran it through a sniffer and an X-ray machine. Only after he was satisfied did he return it to Johnson. The pilot bent into the posture of respect. “Again, you have my most deep and profound gratitude.” He used another nearly tubercular emphatic cough.

“You are welcome,” the Lizard said complacently. Johnson wondered if anything short of a kick in the snout would penetrate that unconscious arrogance. The airlock master went on, “Medium Spaceship Commander Ventris wishes to speak with you now.”

“Does he?” Johnson said. “Well, then, it shall be done, of course.” Once more, the Lizard in charge of the air lock took that for obedience, not irony.

Ventris let out a warning hiss when Johnson floated into his office. The Lizard’s tailstump twitched angrily, in anger or a good bureaucratic simulation thereof. “What is this I hear from Scooter Copilot Nosred about your trying to sell him ginger while he inspected you out beyond my ship?”

“What is it?” Johnson echoed. “Sounds like nonsense to me.”

“I think not,” Ventris said. “I think you Big Uglies are involved in more of your nefarious schemes.”

“I think it is nonsense,” Johnson repeated. “What is more, superior sir, I think you are a fool for believing it. And what is still more, I can prove what I say. I would like to see Nosred do the same.”

When Ventris’ tailstump twitched now, it was in genuine fury. “Big talk comes easy to Big Uglies,” he said.

Johnson pulled the little recorder from the front pocket of his shorts. Ventris stared at it as if he’d never seen anything like it before. He probably hadn’t. It was an American design, not one taken directly from the Race. “Here. Your own hearing diaphragms will tell you what you need to know.” He punched the PLAY button. The recorder gave back a somewhat muffled version of the conversation Johnson and Nosred had had while their helmet radios were off. When the recording ended, Johnson shut off the machine and put it back in his pocket. “You see?”

“I see that Scooter Copilot Nosred will soon regret that he was ever hatched,” Ventris said heavily.

“Good,” Johnson said. “But do you also see that you owe me an apology? Do you see you owe my entire species an apology?”

“You are either joking or addled,” Ventris said with a scornful hiss.

“Shall I take a recording of your remarks about Big Uglies and nefarious schemes to our ambassador, superior sir?” Johnson had no such recording, but Ventris didn’t need to know that.

By the way Ventris looked, he might have stepped in a large pile of azwaca droppings. “I am sorry… that you Big Uglies are here. I am sorry… that I have to have anything to do with you. I apologize… that Nosred has been corrupted by a vile Tosevite herb. If your ambassador is unhappy about these sentiments, too bad. Let him start a war.”

Sam Yeager wouldn’t start a war on account of a male who couldn’t stand Big Uglies. Johnson knew it. And Ventris was only saying what a lot of Lizards felt. Johnson knew that, too. He said, “Well, superior sir, I just think there is something you ought to know.”

“And that is?” Ventris asked icily.

“We love you, too.”

“Good,” Ventris said. He got the irony there with no trouble at all. “Here is a basis for understanding.” Johnson had tried talking about friendship with Henrep, the commandant of the Horned Akiss. It hadn’t worked. Maybe mutual loathing would.

Sam Yeager misspelled a word. He muttered something disgusted, wadded up the paper, and flung it in the direction of the wastebasket. It didn’t go in. He got up, walked over, grabbed it, and dropped it in. Then he went back to the table, got a fresh sheet, and started over. A petition for an audience with the Emperor had to be written by hand, and it had to be perfect. If you didn’t care enough to do it right, you didn’t deserve to see the sovereign. That was how the Lizards saw it, and he was in no position to persuade them they were wrong.

Writing such a petition was easy for them. They learned how in school. Even though their writing system was perfectly phonetic, it wasn’t the one Yeager had grown up with-and some of the language required for the petition was so old-fashioned, it wasn’t used on anything but petitions to the Emperor. So Sam had already made errors on four sheets of paper.

After some more muttering, he started writing again. At least half the petition involved proclaiming his own unworthiness, over and over again. He laughed as he went through that part. Males and females of the Race probably felt their own unworthiness as they wrote. This was a much bigger deal for them than it was for him. He wondered what would happen to him after he died. When you got to be seventy, you couldn’t very well help wondering. In the not too indefinite future, you’d find out. But unlike the Lizards, he didn’t believe spirits of Emperors past were likely to be involved.

Then he laughed again, this time on a more sour note. The Lizards had run up temples to spirits of Emperors past in their own territory on Earth and wherever independent countries would let them. Thanks to the First Amendment, the United States hadn’t tried to stop them, and human reverence for the spirits of Emperors past was stronger in the USA-and especially in California, and most especially in Los Angeles-than anywhere else in the world. That so many years of so many crude jokes had been so solidly confirmed never failed to irk an adopted Angeleno like him.

He went back to the petition. Only a few lines to go now. He felt like a pitcher working on a no-hitter. Nobody would mention it, for fear of putting in the jinx. Here it came, the last line. No mistakes yet. Three more words, two more words, one more word-done! Sam felt like cheering. He waited for his infielders to come up and slap him on the back.

They didn’t, of course. Nobody else knew he’d finished the petition. Jonathan and Karen knew he was working on it. So did Atvar. But here it was, done, all in the form the Race required. He didn’t see how the most finicky protocol master could turn him down.

Trouble was, the Lizardly equivalent of dotting every i and crossing every t might not be enough. The protocol masters might turn him down because he wasn’t scaly enough to satisfy them. Or they might turn him down for the hell of it-after all, they turned down most Lizards who petitioned for an audience with the Emperor.

He still hoped they wouldn’t. When was the last time a foreign ambassador had come before an Emperor? Before Home was unified, surely. That was a long time ago now, back when Neanderthals still squatted in caves in Europe. Since then, Rabotevs and Hallessi had come to Home to pay their respects to the rulers of the folk who’d conquered them, but that was different. That didn’t count. They’d already been conquered. A subject’s greetings weren’t worth as much as an equal‘s.

So Sam thought, anyway. The Lizards were liable to have different ideas. Equality didn’t mean to them what it did back in the United States. Back home, it was an excuse to let everybody run like hell, aiming at the top. Here on Home? Here on Home, equality meant everybody staying in place and being content to stay in place. The USA had been a growing concern for 250 Earth years. Home had been unified for two hundred times that long.

Two hundred U.S. histories, all laid end to end… Say what you pleased about the Lizards, but this society worked. No human culture had been around long enough to make that claim-which didn’t stop any number of human cultures from proclaiming their magnificent wonderfulness at the top of their lungs.

But in the space of one U.S. history, people had gone from sailing ships to starships. How long had the Race needed to make the same jump? A hell of a lot longer; of that Sam was sure.

He telephoned Atvar. Would the fleetlord answer, or was he out enjoying the last little stretch of the mating season? His image appeared on the monitor. “I greet you, Fleetlord,” Sam said.

“And I greet you, Ambassador,” Atvar answered. “What is the occasion for this call?”

“May I come to your room?” Yeager asked. “I have prepared my petition for an imperial audience, and I would like a member of the Race to check it for mistakes before I submit it.”

“I will gladly do this,” Atvar said, “though I doubt it will be necessary. You use our language very well. Even when you do not speak just as we do, you often speak as we would if we were a little more interesting.”

“I thank you.” Sam hoped that was a compliment. “I thank you, but I would still like you to look the petition over. I speak your language pretty well, yes, but it is not the one I learned from hatchlinghood. And I have to try to write it much less often than I speak it, and the language of this petition is different from what the Race usually uses. All these things being so…”

“Well, come ahead,” Atvar said. “I still think you are worrying about having your clutch of eggs stolen by a beast that is not there, but you are right that it is better to be too careful than not careful enough.”

“See you very soon, then.” Sam broke the connection. His guards waited in the hall outside the door. “I am only going to visit Fleetlord Atvar, two floors down,” he told them.

“We have our orders, superior Tosevite,” one of the guards replied. That sentence implied even more blind obedience among the Lizards than it would have in the most spit-and-polish military outfit back on Earth. Arguing would have been pointless. Sam didn’t try. He just walked down the hall. The guards accompanied him.

The floor was hard. With their scaly feet, the Lizards had never seen as much need for carpets as people did. The walls were painted a muddy greenish brown that never would have passed muster on Earth. The ceiling was too low; Sam had to duck whenever he walked by a lighting fixture. But it was unmistakably a hotel. The rows of identical doors with numbers on them, the indifferent paintings on the walls (some of them all the more indifferent to his eyes because the Race saw two colors in what was the near infrared to him)-what else could it be?

He went down the stairway. The steps weren’t quite the right size and spacing for his legs, and the handrail was too low, but he got down without a stumble. One of the guards skittered ahead of him. The other followed.

More guards stood outside Atvar’s door. They bent into the posture of respect. “We greet you, superior Tosevite,” they said.

“And I greet you,” Sam answered. “The fleetlord is expecting me.”

As if to prove him right, Atvar opened the door just then. The U.S. ambassador and the Lizard exchanged polite greetings. Atvar said, “Please come in.” Yeager did. His guards, for a wonder, didn’t follow. Even they could see no assassins were likely to lurk in Atvar’s room.

Atvar had a human-style chair in the room. He waved Sam to it. “I thank you,” Sam said. He handed the petition to the fleetlord. “Is everything as it ought to be? If it is not, I will copy it over again.” Or maybe I’ll just jump out a window, depending, he thought.

“Let me have a look at this. As you know, it must be perfect,” Atvar said. Sam made the affirmative gesture. He knew that all too well. Atvar went on, “Your handwriting is not bad. It is not particularly fluid, but it is clear. I have seen plenty of males and females with worse. They are in a hurry, and they scribble. You obviously took pains over this.”

“I should hope I did!” Sam used an emphatic cough. “When I did not take enough pains, I made mistakes and had to start over.”

“The process is not supposed to be easy,” Atvar said. “It is designed to weed out those who seek an audience for only frivolous reasons. Let me see here… I do believe, Ambassador, that everything is as it should be. I cannot see how the protocol masters could reject this petition on any stylistic grounds.”

At first, that so delighted Sam, he thought Atvar had said the petition was sure to be approved. After a moment, though, he realized Atvar hadn’t said any such thing. “What other reasons are there for rejecting it?” he asked. He’d come up with a few of his own-what would the fleetlord find?

“If the Emperor does not care to see you, there is no more to be said,” Atvar answered. “I do not believe this to be the case, but it may be. If certain courtiers do not wish you to see the Emperor, that is also a difficulty. But in that case, there may be ways around it.”

“Such as?” Sam asked. Lizard politics at this intimate level was a closed book to humans. How did members of the Race get what they wanted in the face of opposition?

“If we are able to learn who has set out to addle your egg, perhaps we can appeal to a higher-ranking opponent,” Atvar answered. “Such ploys are not guaranteed to succeed, but they are not hopeless.”

“This is very much the same sort of thing I would do in a Tosevite factional squabble,” Sam said. “In some ways, our two species are not so very different.”

“In some ways, possibly not,” the fleetlord said. “In others… In others, the difference is as large as the distance between our sun and the star Tosev.”

“It could be.” Something occurred to Sam. “I have a question,” he said. Atvar made the affirmative gesture. Sam asked, “Since I do not wear body paint, how will the imperial laver and the imperial limner deal with me?”

Atvar started to answer, then stopped short. “How do you know about the imperial laver and the imperial limner? Have you been researching imperial audiences on the computer network?”

Sam made the negative gesture. “No. As a matter of fact, I have been reading Gone with the Wind. Have you ever read it?”

Atvar’s mouth dropped open in a startled laugh. “That old kwaffa berry? By the spirits of Emperors past, I had to go through it in a college literature course. I have hardly thought about it from that day to this, either. How did you ever get your fingerclaws on it?”

“I found it in a secondhand bookstore,” Yeager answered. “I do not suppose imperial ceremonial would have changed much from that time to this.” There was one area where humanity and the Race differed widely.

“No, probably not,” Atvar agreed. He took endless millennia of unchanging ceremonial for granted. “Gone with the Wind?” He laughed again. “And how do you like it?”

“Quite a bit, actually,” Sam answered. “What did you think of it?” They spent the next hour happily picking the novel to pieces.

The Race’s cooks were willing to scramble eggs for the Americans, though they didn’t eat eggs themselves. Karen Yeager worked hard not to remind herself that the creatures these eggs came from would have scared the hell out of a chicken. The flavor was about three-quarters of what it should have been. Put enough salt on them and they weren’t bad. Speaking of salt, she also had a couple of slices of aasson on her plate. Aasson was smoked and salt-cured zisuili meat. It came closer to bacon than the eggs did to hen’s eggs, but it was salty as the devil.

Nothing on Home took the place of coffee. Instant came down from the Admiral Peary. The Lizards thought the stuff was nasty, but they-mostly-stayed polite about it. Karen and Jonathan wouldn’t have been polite if they couldn’t have it. They both drank it without cream: Jonathan plain, Karen with sugar. The Race used sugar, though less than people did. Tom and Linda de la Rosa liked their coffee light. That they couldn’t have. Except for the Americans’ lab rats, they were the only mammals on the planet. To the Lizards, the very idea of milk was revolting.

“Nasty,” Tom said, not for the first time. “But I’d be even nastier without my caffeine fix. Might as well be ginger for me.” He sipped from his mug, made a horrible face, and then sipped again.

Trir came into the hotel refectory. “I greet you, Tosevites,” she said cheerfully. “Today we are going to go for a bus ride out into the country. Does that not sound pleasant?” She couldn’t smile and simper the way human tour guides did; her face wasn’t made for it. But she did the best with what she had.

In English, Jonathan murmured, “Has she forgotten how snotty she acted when mating season was just getting started?”

“She probably has,” Karen answered. “I don’t think she had any control over that.”

Her husband made the sort of face Tom de la Rosa had. “I didn’t have much control over the urge to kick her in the teeth,” he muttered.

“What is that you are saying?” Trir asked. She didn’t sound angry or contemptuous, the way she had before when she heard English. She just seemed curious.

The humans in the refectory all looked at one another. Karen knew what everybody else had to be thinking: how do we tell her what a monster she was, and do we tell her anything at all? The best diplomacy might have been just to keep quiet. Try as she would, though, Karen couldn’t stomach that. She said, “We could not help but notice how much friendlier you are now than you were when your mating season began.”

“Oh, that.” Trir fluttered her fingers in what couldn’t have been anything but embarrassment. “Take no notice of it. Mating season is a time when ordinary rules and ordinary behavior go running out the door.” A human would have said they flew out the window. It came down to the same thing. The guide went on, “If I did or said anything to offend, please accept my apologies.” She bent into the posture of respect.

If she’d done or said anything to offend? For a little while there, she hadn’t done or said anything that didn’t offend. But she didn’t seem to remember how nasty she’d been, and she did seem sorry for it.

“Let it go, then,” Karen said. Jonathan and Linda de la Rosa made the affirmative gesture. What else could you do, short of kicking the guide in the teeth as Jonathan had wanted?

“I thank you,” Trir said. “Now, as I was telling you, we are going to go out into the country this morning, out to a zisuili ranch. Zisuili are domestic animals valuable for their meat and hides, and they-”

“We know something about zisuili,” Linda de la Rosa broke in. “The colonization fleet brought them to Tosev 3.”

“Ah, yes, of course-it would have,” Trir agreed brightly. “They are some of our most important meat animals.” She pointed to Karen’s aasson. “As you see.”

“They have also caused some of the most important environmental damage on our planet,” said Tom de la Rosa, who’d made a career out of the environmental effects Home’s imported plants and animals were having on Earth. “They eat everything, and they eat it right down to the ground.”

“They are efficient feeders,” Trir agreed, which meant the same thing but sounded a lot better.

“I want to go see the zisuili,” Jonathan said in English. “I’ve seen Lizards with wigs, by God. Now I want to see them riding around on whatever they use for horses. I want to see them with ten-gallon hats on their heads and with six-shooters in their holsters. I want to hear them hissing, ‘Yippee!’ and playing zisuiliboy music around their campfires.”

That produced a pretty good stunned silence. After half a minute or so, Karen broke it: “I want to see you committed to an asylum for the terminally silly.” Jonathan didn’t come out with quite so many absurd remarks as his father did, but the ones he turned loose were doozies.

“What is a zisuiliboy?” Trir asked. She must have recognized the word-or, here, part of a word-from her language in the midst of the English.

“Believe me, you do not want to know,” Karen told her. Trir plainly believed nothing of the sort. Karen sighed and went on, “It is nothing but a joke-and a foolish joke at that.” She sent Jonathan a severe look. He seemed notably deficient in anything resembling a sense of shame.

About forty-five minutes later, all the Americans rode with Trir toward the zisuili ranch. Kassquit came along, too. She hadn’t seen much more of Home than the Americans had, and she was bound to be at least as curious.

The bus had windows that were easy to see out of but hard to see into. That kept members of the Race from gawking, and possibly from causing accidents. The ride out to the ranch took a little more than an hour. The border between city and country was not abrupt. Buildings gradually got farther and father apart. The countryside looked not too different from the way it did in the rural areas outside of Los Angeles. It was scrubland and chaparral, with bushes giving way here and there to patches of what Home used for trees.

And then Karen almost fell off her seat. She pointed out the window. Sure as hell, there was a Lizard mounted on something that looked like a cross between a zebra and a duckbilled dinosaur. The creature was striped in a pattern of gold and dark brown that probably helped it fade into the background at any distance. To her vast relief, the Lizard on its back sported neither cowboy hat nor Colt revolver, nor even a wig. Even so, when she glanced over to Jonathan she saw him looking almost unbearably smug.

“What is the name of that riding beast?” she asked Trir. If she sounded slightly strangled, well, who could blame her?

“That is an eppori,” the guide answered. “Epporyu still have their uses, even after all these years of mechanical civilization. They require no fuel, and they can go places where wheeled vehicles would have difficulties. And some males and females enjoy riding them, though the attraction has always been beyond me.”

“We have animals like that back on Tosev 3,” Sam Yeager said. “When I was a hatchling, I lived on a farm. Back then, many more animals were in use than powered vehicles. I learned to ride-I had to.”

“Would you care to ride an eppori?” Trir asked.

“Maybe briefly,” he answered. “I was never one who enjoyed riding animals much. Vehicles are much more comfortable.”

“This is also my attitude,” Trir said. Her eye turrets swiveled over the other humans. “Perhaps some of your colleagues-or even you, Kassquit-would be interested in trying this.”

Kassquit promptly made the negative gesture. “I thank you, but no. I am happy enough with mechanical civilization. I do not have any of these atavistic impulses you mentioned.”

“I will try, unless my odor frightens the epporyu,” Tom de la Rosa said. “I have ridden back on Tosev 3, for most of the reasons you mentioned. Riding animals find their own fuel, and they can travel almost anywhere-certainly anywhere the larger animals from Home that I study are likely to go.”

One by one, the rest of the Americans agreed to make the effort. Karen was anything but enthusiastic. She hadn’t been on a horse for at least twenty years before going into cold sleep. Jonathan also looked dubious. The things we’ll do to keep from letting our friends down, Karen thought.

The zisuili were not a problem. They looked like ankylosaurs with turreted eyes. All the Americans had seen them in person before, and knew they paid no particular attention to people. What the epporyu would do when they met humans might be a different story. People weren’t just going to look at them. They were going to try to get on their backs-if the animals would put up with it.

Sam tried to be the first human on an eppori. Everybody had been willing to let him set foot on Home first. And everyone was just as unanimous in telling him he couldn’t ride first now. “You’re the one we can’t afford to lose,” Frank Coffey said in English, and added an emphatic cough. “Let ’em run away with one of us or trample him, but not you.” The other Americans nodded.

“I’m outvoted,” Karen’s father-in-law said.

“You bet you are, Dad,” Jonathan told him.

Tom de la Rosa tried to claim first ride by saying he was the best horseman among them. The others-including Linda-pointedly observed that being able to ride a horse might not have thing one to do with riding an eppori. They settled who would ride first by a method that fascinated Trir-stone, paper, scissors. And when Karen’s stone smashed Frank Coffey’s scissors, she won the prize.

Once she had it, she wasn’t sure she wanted it. “If it weren’t for the honor of the thing, I’d rather walk,” she said. But she walked toward the eppori that a zisuiliboy named Gatemp was holding for her.

When she started to go to the creature’s left side, Gatemp made the negative gesture. “We mount from the right,” he said.

“You would,” Karen muttered. The eppori swiveled an eye turret her way as she came up beside it. It made a snuffling noise that might have meant anything. She set a hand on its scaly hide. It felt like living, breathing crocodile leather. She asked Gatemp, “Is it all right to get up?”

“I think so,” he answered. “Why not find out?”

“Yes, why not?” Karen said grimly. She would have been awkward mounting from the left side. She was worse than awkward from the right. Gatemp’s mouth fell open in a laugh. She would have bet it would. A Lizard stirrup had only a bar on the bottom. Members of the Race could grip it with their toes. Karen couldn’t, but her foot did fit on it.

Fortunately, the eppori seemed good-natured. It snuffled again, but didn’t buck or jump or do anything else too very horrifying. It plodded forward for a couple of strides, then turned one eye turret back toward her as if asking, Well, what do you want me to do now?

The saddle was uncomfortable as could be. She ignored that; she wouldn’t be on long. “How do I control it?” she asked Gatemp.

“With the reins, and with your legs, and with your voice.” He might have been talking about a horse, sure enough. After he gave her the basic instructions, he said, “Now you try. Make the eppori walk and go to the left.”

“It shall be done,” she said, and hoped it would. She squeezed the scaly body with her knees and twitched the reins as he’d told her. The eppori walked. Karen felt like cheering. She tugged the reins to the left. The animal turned in that direction. She hadn’t come more than ten light-years to go riding, but by God she could!

On the bus on the way back to Sitneff, Jonathan Yeager turned to his wife and said, “You smell like an eppori.”

“So do you,” Karen answered. “We all do.”

“Well, no,” Jonathan said. “Tom smells more like zisuili. But then, he was the one who stepped in it.”

“You guys are never going to let me live that down, are you?” Tom de la Rosa’s voice rose in mock anger.

“You’ll be famous on four planets, once the word gets around,” Jonathan’s father said. They’d been speaking English. He translated for Kassquit and Trir.

“Being around animals larger than I am makes me nervous,” Kassquit said. “Who knows what they will do next? They are animals, after all.” By the way she spoke, that should have been obvious to anybody.

Jonathan, who’d grown up in the city, had a certain amount of sympathy for her point of view. But Kassquit had never even seen an animal in person, not till she got to Home. No wonder she was hinky about them now. Jonathan didn’t say any of that, though. The less he said that involved agreeing with Kassquit, the less trouble he’d have with Karen.

Frank Coffey said, “Animals-most animals, I should say; I do not mean large carnivores or anything of the sort-are not so bad once you get to know them and to know what they are likely to do. Until that happens, though, it is only natural to be wary near them.”

“Truth,” Sam Yeager said. “As I told you, I grew up on a farm, so I ought to know. We had the meanest mule in the county. A mule is a work animal and can be a riding animal, and is often stubborn. I was very careful around him until I figured out what he would put up with and what made him angry. After that, we got along well enough.”

“I never heard that story before,” Jonathan said.

“No? Well, maybe it is because you are stubborn as a mule yourself, and would not listen even if I told it.”

Karen snickered. Jonathan gave her a dirty look, which only made her snicker again. But when he turned around and glanced at his father, Sam Yeager tipped him a wink. What was that supposed to mean? It wasn’t anything either Kassquit or Trir would notice. Was his old man making up the story about the mule so Kassquit would feel better? That would have been Jonathan’s guess, but he couldn’t prove it.

They came to the outskirts of Sitneff just in time for the evening rush hour. It was crowded on the highway, but things didn’t coagulate the way they did in Los Angeles. The roads were adequate for the number of cars that used them. Jonathan sighed. There were times when seeing how smoothly the Lizards managed things made him feel very much the barbarian.

When the bus stopped in front of the hotel, some small flying things were making small, rather sweet-sounding chirps from the shrubbery in front of the building. Jonathan listened with interest. He hadn’t heard many animals with even remotely musical calls on Home. Birdsong was unknown here. Till this moment, he hadn’t realized how much he missed it.

The chirping went on. “What are those creatures making that noise?” he asked Trir.

“Those are called evening sevod,” the guide answered. “They are related to squazeffi and other such fliers. They always call about the time the sun goes down.”

“Evening sevod.” Jonathan repeated the name so he’d remember it. “I thank you. They sound very pleasant.”

“Well, so they do,” Trir said. “Several of our musical composers have used their calls as thematic models.”

“Really?” he said. “Musicians on Tosev 3 sometimes do the same thing with the sounds of our animals.”

“That is interesting,” Trir said. “Forgive me, but I had not thought you Tosevites would know anything of music.”

Jonathan laughed at himself. I’m not the only one who thinks we’re a bunch of barbarians. “We do,” he said. “If you want details, I am sure Senior Researcher Ttomalss can give them to you. I have no idea whether any of our music would please you. We have many different styles.”

“You are more diverse than we are. I have noticed that in my research on Tosev 3,” Trir said.

“Home has been unified for a long time. That means the Race has been homogenized for a long time,” Jonathan said. “Back on Tosev 3, our different cultures are still very different from one another.”

“I know from my research on your species that this is a truth. It strikes me as very strange even so,” Trir said.

“No stranger than tens of thousands of years of sameness seem to a Tosevite,” Jonathan replied. The evening sevod kept piping in the bushes. Finally, one of them flew out. He’d never imagined a robin-sized pterodactyl. If not for the light streaming out of the hotel lobby, he wouldn’t have got more than the faintest fleeting glimpse. The little creature made one more musical squeak and then disappeared.

Trir said, “But unity is natural. Unity is inevitable. Seeing what a species is like before the inevitable occurs is unusual.”

Was she right? Jonathan started to make the negative gesture, but checked himself. Even before the Lizards came, cultures based on ideas and technology from Western Europe had become the strongest ones on Earth. To stay independent, other countries had had to adopt Western European techniques. If they didn’t, they would go under, as Africa and India had done. China had struggled with Western ideas as it now struggled against the Race. Japan had succeeded in holding its own after Commodore Perry made it open up to the wider world, but it had done so by adopting Western methods-and it might have failed, too.

“Technology, I think, is more important than culture,” Jonathan’s father said-the two Yeagers had been thinking along with each other.

“But would you not agree that in large measure technology dictates culture?” Trir asked.

“In large measure, but not completely,” Sam Yeager replied. “Different cultures and different species can use the same technology in different ways. We Big Uglies, by now, have access to almost the same technology as the Race does, but I do not think we are quite the same.”

His grin meant nothing to Trir, but she did catch his ironic tone. “That is a truth,” she said, “but you and we are biologically distinct. This is not the case with various cultures belonging to the same species.”

She had a point. She could be annoying, but she wasn’t stupid. Jonathan said, “You have to understand that it has only been a little more than a thousand of your years since we first went all the way around Tosev 3. It has only been half that time since one culture on our world got ahead of the others technologically to any great degree. And, of course, it has been less than two hundred of your years since the Race came. Maybe we will grow more alike as time goes by. But not enough time has passed yet for that to happen.”

“Only a thousand years since you circumnavigated your world…” Trir let out a soft hiss full of wonder. “I had read this, mind you. In the abstract, I knew it. But to be reminded of it in that way…” She hissed again.

Kassquit said, “Is there any possibility that we could circumnavigate the refectory? I am very hungry.”

“I am not so sure about circumnavigating it,” Frank Coffey said. “We could probably sit down in it.”

“That might do,” Kassquit said.

Trir’s eye turrets went from one of them to the other. It was a shame, Jonathan thought, that Lizards didn’t play tennis. The crowds on Home could have followed the action without moving their heads back and forth. While he woolgathered, the guide said, at least half to herself, “Tosevites are very peculiar.”

Since he’d just been thinking about tennis, of all the useless things, he could hardly quarrel with her. His father didn’t even try. “Truth-we are peculiar,” Sam Yeager said. “And the Race is peculiar. And when we get to know Rabotevs and Hallessi better, I am sure we will find they are peculiar, too.”

Trir probably hadn’t been thinking about the idiosyncracies of the different intelligent species. She’d been thinking Big Uglies were bizarre. But all she said now was, “Supper does seem a good idea.”

The refectory featured krellepem from the Ssurpyk Sea. Finding out what krellepem were took some work. Jonathan finally gathered they were something like crabs or lobsters. He ordered them. So did the rest of the humans, Kassquit included.

Trir wanted nothing to do with them. “When we evolved, we left the seas and came up on land,” she said. “I am not interested in eating anything that did not bother to evolve.”

Jonathan had heard all sorts of excuses for not eating all sorts of things-quite a few of them from his sons when they were little-but never one that Darwin would have approved of. He admired Trir’s creativity.

When the krellepem came, they looked more like trilobites than anything else Jonathan had ever seen. They’d evolved even less than he’d expected. The servers brought special tools for eating them-tools that put him in mind of a hammer and chisel. Each segment of shell had its own chunk of meat inside.

“This is a savage way of feeding oneself,” Kassquit said as the pile of broken bits of krellep shell in front of her grew taller.

“Possibly,” Frank Coffey said. “But the results are worth it.”

“Truth,” Jonathan agreed. The krellepem tasted something like oysters, something like scallops. He discovered they had meat inside their skinny little legs, too, and sucked it out one leg at a time. The others started imitating him.

“How do you do that?” Trir asked, watching them. Jonathan demonstrated. Trir said, “We would have to use tools to get at that meat. Our mouthparts are not flexible enough to do what you are doing.”

She was right, though Jonathan hadn’t thought about it till that moment. Lizards didn’t have lips, not the way humans did. The edges of their mouths were hard. They couldn’t suck meat out of a tubular leg, they couldn’t kiss… They can’t make fart jokes, Jonathan thought, and realized he was even tireder than he’d suspected.

“What is funny?” Karen asked when he snorted. He told her.

“What is a fart joke?” Trir asked; the relevant phrase had been in English.

“Something that proves my mate is seriously deranged,” Karen told her.

“I thank you. I thank you very much.” Jonathan used an emphatic cough.

“You Tosevites can be most confusing,” Trir said.

All the Americans chorused, “We thank you. We thank you very much.” They all used emphatic coughs. Trir was… most confused.