Homeward Bound Part 38

"You're the one who brought it the last time," Stone observed.

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

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

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

"I expect the same nothing they found when I got to their s.h.i.+p." Stone sounded unperturbed, but then he usually did. He'd been a test pilot before he started flying in s.p.a.ce. It wasn't that nothing fazed him, only that he wouldn't admit it if something did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"As soon as I find them, you may rest a.s.sured I'll respect them," Flynn replied. "Now-are you going to earn your stipend, or not?"

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

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

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

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

"Yeah, sure. Now tell me another one," Johnson said.

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

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

"Don't you trust our esteemed leader?" Flynn asked.

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

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

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

"A likely story. What's your promise worth?" Flynn said.

"It's worth its weight in gold," Johnson answered.

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

"I didn't know it was against the rules," Johnson said.

"There's an old whine in a new bottle," Flynn said loftily.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I do, Exalted Fleetlord," Ttomalss replied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Are you sure, Exalted Fleetlord?" Ttomalss asked. "From all I have seen, the American amba.s.sador is about as reasonable a Tosevite as was ever hatched."

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

"How much have you yielded to him?"

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

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

"War. What else?" Atvar sounded particularly bleak.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Healey could have worked much more easily with the Doctor. n.o.body had ever questioned the Doctor's patriotism. And the Doctor would have figured Healey was a useful tool, and treated him with the respect required to keep him . . . useful. (n.o.body, Yeager was convinced, could have kept Healey happy. The capacity for happiness simply was not in the man.) But the USA was stuck with one Sam Yeager as amba.s.sador. It meant Lieutenant General Healey had to take him seriously, for his position if not for himself. And it also meant that, now and again, like it or not, Sam had to deal with Healey.