Homeward Bound (80 page)

He dutifully lay down on his bunk when the ship neared the transition point. The warning announcement said that some people felt what it described as “unusually intense vertigo.” That didn’t sound like a whole lot of fun. What he felt when the
Tom Edison
leaped the light-years was . . . exactly nothing. He shrugged. Anyone who suffered from vertigo wasn’t going to make it as a pilot.

That evening in the refectory, he asked Flynn whether
he’d
felt anything. “Not me,” the other pilot replied. “I’m normal.”

“God help us all, in that case,” Johnson said. Flynn looked aggrieved. He did it very well. Johnson wondered if he practiced in front of a mirror.

Seeing Earth again, even if only on a video screen, brought a lump to Johnson’s throat. He’d got occasional glimpses of the home planet when he was out in the asteroid belt on the
Lewis and Clark.
But a blue star near a shrunken sun wasn’t the same as seeing oceans and clouds and continents—and there, by God, there was the United States. Clouds covered most of the eastern half of the country, but he didn’t care. He knew it was there.

When the
Tom Edison
’s shuttlecraft took him to a space station, he found a tall mound of paperwork to remind him in another way that he’d come home. He formally retired from the Marine Corps and discovered just how much money he had to draw on. “This doesn’t include the living allowance you’ll have here,” said the functionary handling his case. “This is accumulated pay and interest.”

“It’s mighty interesting,” Johnson allowed. He really could be a sugar daddy down below—if it weren’t for gravity. Up here? He wasn’t so sure about that. Finding out could also be mighty interesting, though.

The functionary looked pained. “Do all you Rip van Winkles make bad puns?”

“Ah, you’ve been dealing with Mickey Flynn,” Johnson said, and surprised the man all over again.

“Will you want to stay here in weightlessness, or would you rather settle in one of the bases on the Moon?” the modern asked.

“I don’t know yet. Do I have to decide right away?” Johnson replied.

Reluctantly, the other man shook his head. “No, not yet. But the longer you stay weightless, the harder it will be for your body to get used to the Moon’s gravity—if it can at all.”

“I’ve been weightless for years and years,” Johnson answered. “I don’t think a few days to make up my mind will kill me or my chances.”

The longer he stayed at the space station, the less inclined he was to leave. It was a much busier operation than any he’d known in space before leaving Earth orbit. Of course, that was almost seventy years ago now. In those days, space travel had been almost exclusively military. Nowadays, this place was a tourist trap.

He shopped. He spent money in stores and bars. That felt strange, after doing without cash and credit cards for so long. In one of those bars, he met a woman from Cincinnati who hadn’t been born when he went into cold sleep. Donna thought he talked a little funny (he thought everybody these days talked a little funny), but she thought he was interesting, too. One thing most enjoyably led to another.

“I’ve never done it weightless before,” she said in his chamber. “It’s different.”

“Yeah.” It had been a hell of a long time since Johnson had done it any other way. It had, in his opinion, been too damn long since he’d done it at all.

“What do you think about being back after all the things you did and all the places you went to?” she asked.

“Well, right this minute I like it fine,” he answered. That made her laugh, though he was kidding on the square. In an odd way, the encounter—which lasted only a day—made up his mind. This wasn’t Earth, but it was the next best thing. He’d stay here.

Kassquit stared down at the little female hatchling in her arms. She’d already known that Tosevite hatchlings were much less able to fend for themselves than those of the Race. In the twenty days since hers came forth, she’d seen that again and again for herself.

But the hatchling did know how to feed itself, and sucked greedily now. Kassquit’s breasts were still tender, but she was getting used to nursing. It wasn’t anything the Race would do—it wasn’t anything the Race
could
do—but it had a satisfaction of its own. And she was convinced it helped forge the emotional attachment between mother and hatchling that formed such an important part of Tosevite society.

Along with things like that, she was finally learning some English. Having a word to describe
nursing
instead of the long circumlocution she would have needed in the Race’s language came in handy. And, since the hatchling hadn’t exactly hatched,
baby
seemed more precise. Because it was female, it was a
daughter.
Had it been male, it would have been a
son.
That puzzled her, because she thought
son
was also the word for a star. Sooner or later, she hoped it would make sense. As with a lot of things that had to do with wild Big Uglies, though, she recognized that it might not.

Someone knocked on the door. That had to be a Tosevite; a member of the Race would have used the hisser. “Come in,” Kassquit called. “It is not locked.”

She’d hoped it would be Frank Coffey, and it was. “I greet you,” he said, and then, to the baby, “and I greet you, too, Julia.”

“And I greet you,” Kassquit answered, “and so does Yendys, even if she cannot tell you so because her mouth is full.” That wasn’t the only reason the baby couldn’t talk, of course. Coffey’s chuckle showed he knew she’d made a joke. They both agreed the baby should have two names, since it had two heritages.

“How are you feeling?” asked Julia Yendys’
father
—another English word Kassquit had come to know.

“Day by day, I get stronger,” Kassquit answered. She would much rather have laid an egg than gone through what Tosevite females did to produce an offspring. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had the choice. The Tosevite physician had seemed capable enough, but he couldn’t make the process any too delightful. And afterwards, as soon as it was finally over, she’d felt as if a herd of zisuili had trampled her. Little by little, that crushing exhaustion faded, but only little by little.

The baby swallowed wrong, choked, and started to
cry.
Having one word for the horrible noises a baby made was useful, too—not pleasant, but useful. Kassquit put a cloth on her shoulder and raised Julia Yendys to it. She patted the baby’s back till it expelled the air it had swallowed—and some sour milk. That was what the cloth was for. Bare skin didn’t do the job.

She’d got the cloth from the American Big Uglies. They used such materials much more than the Race did and were better at manufacturing them, just as the Race knew things about paint that the Tosevites hadn’t imagined. She patted Julia Yendys’ face with the cloth. “Are you done now?” she asked. As usual, the baby gave not a clue.

“Let me hold her,” Coffey said. Kassquit passed him the baby. He was bigger than she was, and could comfortably hold his daughter in the crook of his arm. He had had no offspring till this one, but he still seemed more practiced with her than Kassquit did. He crooned vaguely musical nonsense to the baby.

“What is that song?” Kassquit asked.

“We call it a
lullaby,
” he answered. “Sometimes, it helps make a baby go to sleep. Since she has just had some food and she is still dry—I stuck a finger in there to check—maybe this will be one of those times.”

And Julia Yendys’ eyes did sag shut. Coffey also had an easier time than Kassquit at getting her to go to sleep. Kassquit sometimes resented that. Right now, it came as a relief. The baby stirred when Coffey eased her down into the crib—which had made the trip from Tosev 3 on the
Tom Edison
—but did not wake.

Kassquit stared down at her. “She is halfway between the two of us in color,” she said.

“Not surprising,” Coffey said. “We both have something to do with her, you know.”

Kassquit made the affirmative gesture. “Truth. But I am used to the Race. All the subspecies that used to exist here have mixed together till it is practically uniform. I know that is not true for Tosevites, but here I see a beginning of such blending.”

Frank Coffey shrugged. “Our subspecies were mostly isolated till much more recently than those of the Race. And we are also more particular about whom we mate with than the Race is. Males and females of one Tosevite subspecies often prefer a partner from that same group.”

“Not always.” Kassquit set a hand on his arm.

He covered it with his own hand. “I did not say ‘always.’ I said ‘often.’ I know the difference between the two. But that also helps make mixing slower with us.”

“I understand,” Kassquit said. “Do you suppose Tosevites will ever become as blended as the Race is now?”

“Before the
Commodore Perry
came to Home, I would have said yes,” Coffey replied. “Now I am not so sure. Some of the groups that form colonies will all come from one kind of Tosevite or another. On their new worlds, they will breed only with themselves. Colonies are much easier to start now, which also means that isolation of subspecies is easier to preserve.”

“That is not good, especially when members of some of your subspecies think they are better than others,” Kassquit observed.

The wild Big Ugly laughed, though he did not seem amused. “Members of
all
our subspecies think they are better than others,” he said, and added an emphatic cough. “I think that is too bad, but I have no idea what to do about it.”

“How will it affect the Empire?” Kassquit asked.

“I have no idea about that, either,” he told her. “Anyone who says he knows now is lying. We can only wait and see. It depends on many things.”

“How soon the Race learns to travel that way,” Kassquit said. “How soon the Deutsche do, too. Whether you Americans decide on a preventive war against us.”

“And whether the Race decides to try to destroy Tosev 3,” Coffey added. Kassquit made the affirmative gesture; that did also enter in. The American went on, “Too many variables, not enough data. We have to find out. I already said that.”

Kassquit wanted certainty. She’d learned that from the Race. She couldn’t have it. Every time Tosevites touched her life, certainty exploded. Every time the wild Big Uglies touched the Race, its certainties from millennia past exploded.

She looked down at Julia Yendys, who’d exploded the certainty that she would never breed. She still didn’t know what to think about that. Raising a Tosevite hatchling was an astonishing amount of work. She began to understand why family groupings loomed so large among the wild Big Uglies. Without them, hatchlings—
babies
—would die. It was as simple as that.

“Wait until the baby begins to
smile,
” Frank Coffey said. “It will not be too much longer. That is a day to remember.”

“Maybe. But I cannot return the smile. I never learned how.” Kassquit imagined herself as a hatchling, trying again and again to bond with Ttomalss through facial expressions. But Ttomalss wasn’t biologically programmed to respond, and so her own ability to form those expressions had atrophied. She didn’t want that to happen to Julia Yendys. Her own baby should be a citizen of the Empire, yes, but should also be a complete and perfect Tosevite.

“Do not worry too much,” Coffey said. “I promise I will smile lots and lots for my daughter.” After an emphatic cough, he pulled back his lips and showed his teeth in a big grin. “And there will be plenty of other wild Big Uglies to show her how to make funny faces.” He made a very funny one, crossing his eyes and sticking out his tongue.

It startled Kassquit into a laugh. “That is good,” she said. “I was just thinking the baby should have more of its Tosevite heritage than I do.”

That made the American Big Ugly serious again. “Well, you were raised to be as much like a member of the Race as possible. I would not want that for Julia Yendys, and I am glad you do not, either.”

“What I want for her is the chance to grow up and live out her life in peace and happiness. How likely do you think that is?”

Frank Coffey sighed and shrugged. “Kassquit, I already told you—I have no better way to judge that than you do. I just do not know. All we can do is go on and hope and do all we can to make that happen, even if we know it may not. If we do not try—if the United States and the Race do not try—then we are much too likely to fail.”

“What would you do if there were a war?” Kassquit asked.

“Probably die,” he answered. She gave back an exasperated hiss, one that might have sprung from the throat of either a Tosevite or a member of the Race. He shrugged again. “I do not know what else to say. It would depend on what happened, on where I was, on a thousand other things. I cannot know ahead of time.”

That was reasonable. Kassquit had hoped for a ringing declaration that he would never fight no matter what, but a little thought told her that was too much to expect. He served the United States with as much dedication as she served the Empire, and he was a military male. If his not-empire required him to fight, fight he would.

He said, “You should have the baby immunized against as many of our diseases as you can. She will meet many more wild Tosevites at an earlier age than you did.”

“I have already talked about this with the new doctor,” Kassquit said. “He agrees with you that this would be good. I will follow his advice. He also urges me to get more immunizations, for the reason you mentioned. Faster-than-light travel will mean more Tosevites coming to Home, which will mean more chances for disease to spread.”

“Good. Not good that disease may spread—good that you and the doctor have thought about it,” Coffey said. “He does seem to know what he is doing. Call me old-fashioned—I cannot help it, considering when I was hatched—but a lot of the moderns get under my scales and make me itch.” He had no scales to get under, but used the Race’s phrase all the same.

Kassquit made the affirmative gesture. “This doctor knows much more than Melanie Blanchard did. I am sure of that. But I liked her, while when I see him it is all business.”