Homeward Bound (14 page)

“I would now. Maybe not in a little while, though.” Sam Yeager shrugged. “And this bench is all right, since I am not trying to get my legs under it.”

“You would still find it more congenial in an office,” Ttomalss said.

But the Big Ugly used the negative gesture again. “That is not a truth, Senior Researcher. I know what the Race’s offices are like. I have seen plenty of them back on Tosev 3. I have never seen one of your parks. I spent lots of years in cold sleep to see new things, and that is what I want to do.”

“You Tosevites are incurably addicted to novelty,” Ttomalss said.

“No doubt you are right,” Sam Yeager said placidly. “But we have fun.”

A stray beffel that was ambling along suddenly stopped in its tracks when the Big Ugly’s unfamiliar odor reached its scent receptors. It stared at him. Every line of its low-slung body said nothing that smelled like that had any business existing. It let out an indignant beep and scurried away, its short legs twinkling over the sandy ground.

“Those creatures were becoming first-class nuisances back on Tosev 3 long before I went into cold sleep,” Sam Yeager said. “They were, and so were a good many other plants and animals of yours.”

Ttomalss shrugged. “This continued after you went into cold sleep, too. But you cannot expect us to settle and not bring bits of our own ecosystem with us. We want to make Tosev 3 a world where we can truly
live,
not just dwell.”

“When your animals and plants displace the ones that were living there, you cannot expect us to be very happy about it,” the Big Ugly said.

With another shrug, Ttomalss said, “These things happen. Past that, I do not know what to tell you. Had you come to Home, you would have brought your creatures and your food crops with you. Do you doubt it?”

He waited. How would Sam Yeager respond to that? He laughed another noisy Tosevite laugh. “No, I do not doubt it, Senior Researcher. I think it is a truth. We have spread our own beasts when we colonized new land masses—including the one where I was hatched. And there are some that could easily make themselves at home here. But you will understand that we like it less when it is done to us.”

Was that irony in his voice? Or was he simply stating a fact? With a male of the Race, Ttomalss would have had no trouble telling the difference. With the Tosevite, he wasn’t quite sure. He decided to take it as seriously meant. “No doubt,” he said. “But you will understand that any group looks to its own advantage first and to the situation of others only later.”

“I wish I could say we needed the Race to teach us that,” Sam Yeager answered. “I cannot, however, and I will not attempt it. We have quite thoroughly taught ourselves that lesson.”

He was, Ttomalss judged, fundamentally honest. Was that an advantage in diplomacy or the reverse? The psychologist had trouble being sure. Had the Big Uglies’ chief negotiator been the male known as the Doctor, Ttomalss would have known what to expect. That male was notorious for doing and saying anything to advance the cause of his not-empire. Sam Yeager probably would not go to the same extremes—which did not mean he was incompetent, only that his methods were different.

A female out walking a tsiongi suddenly noticed Yeager. Both her eye turrets swiveled toward him, as if she could not believe what she was seeing. “Spirits of Emperors past!” she exclaimed. “It is one of those horrible Big Ugly things!”

“Yes, I am a Big Ugly,” Sam Yeager agreed. “On my planet, we have nicknames for the Race, too. How are you this morning?” His interrogative cough was a small masterpiece of understatement.

“It talks!” the female said, perhaps to Ttomalss, perhaps—more probably—to the tsiongi. “No matter what they said on the news, I did not really believe those things could talk.”

Sam Yeager turned to Ttomalss. The psychologist wanted to sink down into the ground. “Are you certain there is intelligent life on this planet?” the Tosevite asked.

“What does it mean?” the female squawked. “Is it being rude and crude? Come on, you with the fancy body paint! Speak up!”

“This is the ambassador from the not-empire of the United States to the Empire,” Ttomalss told her. “He is, I will note, behaving in a much more civilized fashion than you are.”

“Well!” the female said with a noisy sniff. “Some males think they are high and mighty. If you would rather take the side of a nasty thing from who knows where than a hardworking, tax-paying citizen, I hope you come down with the purple itch. Come along, Swifty.” She twitched the leash and led the tsiongi away.

“I apologize on behalf of my entire species,” Ttomalss said.

To his astonishment, Sam Yeager was laughing again. “Do not let it worry you, Senior Researcher. We have plenty of males and females like that ourselves. It is interesting to learn that you have them, too.”

“I wish we did not,” Ttomalss said. “They contribute nothing.”

The Big Ugly used the negative gesture once more. “You cannot even say that. For all you know, she may be an excellent worker.”

“I doubt it.” Ttomalss was not inclined to feel charitable toward the female, who showed the Race at its worst. “She is bound to be incompetent at everything she does.”

“Do not worry,” Sam Yeager said again. “We were talking about ecosystems. You will know we do not seek to damage yours when we bring
rats
down from the
Admiral Peary.
” The name of the animals, necessarily, was in English.

“I know of rats from your planet,” Ttomalss answered cautiously. “I know they are pests there. Why did you bring them here, if not with the intent of taking a sort of vengeance on us?”

“Because this is your planet and not ours, and because some of the things on it are different from those on Tosev 3,” the Big Ugly said. “We will use the
rats
to test foods here, so that we do not make ourselves ill by accident.”

“There are few differences between Tosevites’ biochemistry and the Race‘s,” Ttomalss said. “We did not have many problems with food and drink on your world.”

“What about ginger?” Sam Yeager returned. “We do not want to get that kind of surprise, either.”

Ginger had been a surprise, all right, and a singularly nasty one. Ttomalss made the negative gesture to himself. Ginger had been a plurally nasty surprise. It had complicated the lives of the males of the conquest fleet. But it had complicated the lives of both males and females from the colonization fleet, especially those of the females. When they tasted ginger, they not only got the pleasure the males did, they also went into their mating season regardless of whether it was the right time of year. And the pheromones females released sent males into a breeding frenzy of their own.

Big Uglies had evolved to deal with continuous sexuality. The Race hadn’t. Repercussions on Tosev 3 were still sorting themselves out. Some of the males and females there had even gone so far as to seek Big Ugly–style permanent mating alliances. The first ones had been expelled for perversion from the areas of the planet the Race controlled, to live out their days in exile in the not-empire of the United States. There, no one seemed to care what anyone else did so long as it didn’t involve mayhem or murder.

But, from what Ttomalss had gathered since his awakening on Home, the colonists had begun to relent. They’d had to. Too many males and females had sought such alliances. Losing them all to the Big Uglies would have been a disaster, especially since Tosevite technology was already advancing so alarmingly fast.

“Well?” Sam Yeager scuffed his feet in the sand. Was he trying to get comfortable or just fooling around? Members of the Race liked to feel sand between their toes. But the Big Uglies covered their soft feet. How much enjoyment could you get out of playing in sand with covered feet? Yeager went on, “You do understand why we need the animals?”

Ttomalss sighed. “Yes, I suppose so. Very well. Have your way there. I will inform my superiors of the circumstances.”

“I thank you,” Sam Yeager said.

“You are welcome.” Ttomalss realized he had better clarify that: “For now, you are welcome. If these
rats
escape from captivity, you will be blamed. You will be severely blamed. We have no furry little animals here on Home. If they suddenly start appearing, we will know where they have come from, and we will take appropriate steps against you. Do I make myself clear enough?”

“You do indeed.” The Big Ugly’s mobile lips drew back from his teeth. One corner of his mouth turned up. The other didn’t. Ttomalss, who had made a particular study of Tosevite facial cues, thought that one showed wry amusement. He was pleased to be proved right, for Sam Yeager went on, “You do see the irony in your words, I hope? You will blame us for doing on a small scale what you are doing on a large scale on Tosev 3.”

“Irony? I suppose you could call it that,” Ttomalss said. “What I see is power. We are strong enough to ensure that what we desire is what occurs. Had it been otherwise, you would have discovered us, not the other way around.”

“You are frank,” Sam Yeager said.

“I want no misunderstanding,” Ttomalss replied. “Misunderstandings—especially now—can prove expensive to both sides.”

“Especially now, yes,” the Big Ugly agreed. “Before, you could reach us and we could not reach you. But things are different these days. How many starships are they building back on Tosev 3?” Ttomalss hadn’t liked thinking about one starship full of wild Tosevites. Several of them? Several of them were several orders of magnitude worse.

Atvar was a frustrated male. That was nothing new for him. He’d spent much of his time on Tosev 3 frustrated. But he’d dared hope such conditions would get better when he returned to Home. There, he’d proved optimistic.

The Race had known for years that a Tosevite starship was on its way. It had adapted spacecraft for use in combat, should that become necessary: the first time since Home was unified that military spacecraft operated within this solar system rather than going out to conquer others.

But no one seemed in charge of the spacecraft. The Emperor had not declared a new Soldiers’ Time. There was no formal military authority for defending Home. No one had ever imagined such a thing would be necessary. Along with the Ministry of Transportation, those of Police, Trade, and even Science claimed jurisdiction over the armed spaceships. Where everybody was in charge, nobody was in charge.

When Atvar tried to point that out, no one wanted to listen to him. That didn’t astonish him. It did irk him, though. He’d come back to Home under a cloud because he hadn’t completely conquered Tosev 3. Then they’d called him out of retirement on the grounds that he was an expert on the Big Uglies and on matters military—the greatest expert on matters military on Home, in fact. Having praised him to the skies when they decided they needed him, they then decided they didn’t need him badly enough to take his advice.

He’d petitioned for an audience with the Emperor to try to get a rescript to make the various ministers pay attention to him. When he submitted the request (written by hand, as tradition required), the subassistant junior steward who took it from him warned, “While many petitions are offered, only a handful are selected for imperial action. Do not be disappointed if yours is not heard.”

“I understand,” Atvar replied. “I am of the opinion, however, that my petition is more important than most.”

“As who is not?” the subassistant junior steward sniffed.

Atvar wanted to claw him. The only thing restraining the fleetlord was the certainty that that would get his petition rejected. Instead, he said, “The Emperor will know my name.” The subassistant junior steward plainly didn’t. He, no doubt, had been hatched long after the conquest fleet left for Tosev 3, and after the fighting stopped there as well. To him, the fleetlord was ancient history. “See that your superiors read my words,” Atvar told him. They, with luck, would have some notion of what he was talking about.

He got on better with Sam Yeager than he did with most of the males and females allegedly on his side. He and the Big Ugly had more common experience than he did with the comfortable bureaucrats who’d never gone beyond the atmosphere of Home. Even though Yeager had been in cold sleep for many years, he still understood the uneasy balance of the relationship between the Race and the Tosevites back on Tosev 3.

And Yeager had done the Race the enormous service of pointing out who had attacked the colonization fleet just after it reached his home planet. He had, not surprisingly, got into trouble for that with his own authorities. Atvar asked him, “Things being as they are, why did the not-empire of the United States send you on such an important mission?”

The two of them sat alone at a refectory table in the hotel the wild Big Uglies were using as an embassy. The other Tosevites who had come to Home were on a tour of the more distant regions of Home. This was not a formal negotiating session, only a talk. Yeager used a set of Tosevite eating utensils to cut up smoked zisuili meat. He’d eaten that on Tosev 3, and knew it was safe for his kind. After chewing and swallowing a bite, he answered, “Maybe my superiors thought I would not wake up again. Maybe they thought that, as a junior member of the expedition, I would not be in a position to decide anything important. And maybe—most likely, I think—they just wanted me as far from the United States as I could go.”

“And yet, plainly, you remain loyal to your not-empire.” If Atvar sounded wistful, that was only because he was.

“I do.” Sam Yeager used an emphatic cough. “I am.”

“What do you expect these talks to yield?” Atvar asked.

“Fleetlord, the Race has never yet treated us as equals,” the Big Ugly answered, adding another emphatic cough. “You have dealt with us. We showed you you had to. But you keep on looking down your snouts at us. And that is on Tosev 3, where you have got to know us. Here on Home, things are a lot worse. I have already seen as much. Will you tell me it is not a truth?”

“No. I would not insult your intelligence,” Atvar said.

Sam Yeager made as if to go into the posture of respect, checking himself at just the right moment. “I thank you. But it is time that the United States got its due. We have also traveled between the stars now. Do I understand correctly that the Soviet Union is also going to launch a starship?”