Homeward Bound

8

Glen Johnson looked down on Home from his orbital path in the Admiral Peary. He shared the control room with Mickey Flynn and Dr. Melanie Blanchard. Flynn eyed him and said, “I don’t believe the Lizards are going to want to let you aboard any more of their spacecraft. I told you bathing before you went would have been a good idea.”

“Funny. Ha, ha. I laugh,” Johnson said. “Hear me laugh?”

He glanced over toward the doctor. She smiled, but she wasn’t laughing. That left him relieved. She said, “They really are anxious about ginger, though, aren’t they?”

“Anxious about it and eager for it, both at the same time,” Johnson answered. “That one scaly bastard who went helmet-to-helmet with me…”

“Good thing you had the recorder going,” she said.

“If somebody wants to talk off the record, that’s usually the time when it’s a good idea to make sure he’s on,” Johnson said. “As soon as he told me to turn off my radio, I figured he had to have ginger on his miserable little mind. And as soon as I knew that, I knew he was liable to try to diddle me if I didn’t have any to give him.”

“Did the captain of the Lizard ship ever apologize for seizing you?” Dr. Blanchard asked.

“Ventris? Oh, hell, yes-pardon my French-finally, in a way, once I browbeat him into it. Then he made it sound like it was our fault his scooter pilot got trapped by the wicked herb. To hear him talk, it was like ginger came after that Lizard with a gun. He didn’t have anything to do with it, of course.”

“Why, heaven forfend,” Mickey Flynn said. “The very idea is ridiculous. That anything could possibly be a Lizard’s fault…?” He shook his head. “Next thing you know, there’ll be Big Uglies traveling between the stars.”

“Don’t hold your breath for that,” Johnson said.

Melanie Blanchard looked from one of them to the other. “I can see how both of you’d be welcome guests on the surface of Home.”

“Certainly,” Flynn said. “The Lizards wouldn’t kill me. They’d let their planet do it for them.” He mimed being squashed flat.

“When are you going down to the surface?” Johnson asked the doctor.

“I don’t know yet,” she answered. “I’ll have to take it easy down there for a while-I do know that. I spent too long weightless aboard the Lewis and Clark. ”

“Is it safe for you to go?” he said.

“I think so,” Dr. Blanchard answered. “If I have any doubts when the time comes, I’ll get a second opinion.”

“What if the other docs lie to you because they want to be the ones who go down there?” Johnson asked.

She looked startled, then shook her head. “No, they wouldn’t do that,” she said. “They need to know they can count on me, too.”

“Wouldn’t be so good if the doctor who was treating you might want you dead instead of better,” Flynn observed.

“Wanted-dead more than alive,” Johnson intoned solemnly.

She glared at each of them in turn. Had she been a Lizard with eye turrets that moved independently, she would have glared at both of them at the same time. “Thanks a lot, guys,” she said, mostly in jest. “Thanks a hell of a lot. Now I’ll be looking back over my shoulder whenever I see anybody else wearing a white coat.”

“Well, spread the word around,” Flynn said. “That way, the others will be looking over their shoulders at you, too.”

“Helpful,” Melanie Blanchard said. “Very goddamn helpful.” To show how helpful it was, she glided out of the control room.

“There-now look what you did,” Flynn said to Johnson. “You scared her away.”

“Me?” Johnson shook his head. “I thought it was you.”

Her voice floated up the hatchway by which she’d departed: “It was both of you, as a matter of fact.”

The two pilots looked at each other. They pointed at each other. Johnson started to laugh. Mickey Flynn, refusing to yield to such vulgar displays of emotion, looked even more impassive than before. That only made Johnson laugh harder than ever. He said, “No wonder we confuse the damned Lizards. We confuse each other, too.”

“You don’t confuse me a bit,” Flynn declared.

“That’s because you were confused to begin with,” Johnson answered. “And if you don’t believe me, ask Stone. He’ll tell you.”

Flynn shook his head. “He thinks he’s not confused, which only makes him the most confused of all.”

Johnson raised an eyebrow. “I have to think that one over.”

“I hope nothing breaks,” Flynn said helpfully. “But if it will assist in your cogitations, let me remind you that he still more than half wants to see how long you’ll last if you go out the air lock without a suit.”

Since he was right yet again, Johnson did the only thing a sensible man could do: he changed the subject. “Well,” he said, “one of these days, the Lizards are going to get in an uproar about ginger that has something behind it.”

“How can they do that?” the other pilot replied. “Everybody knows there is no ginger aboard the Admiral Peary. ”

“Yeah, and then you wake up,” Johnson said scornfully. “Missiles with bombs in their noses are weapons. We brought plenty of those. Ginger is a weapon, too. You think we don’t have any?”

Flynn shrugged. “I know about missiles. I know where they fit on the plans for the ship. I know how to arm them. I know how to launch them. I know how to tell the ship to do all that automatically in about nothing flat, so we can get the missiles away even if we’re under attack. Nobody has briefed me about ginger, which is the sum total of what I know about it. I will also point out that it’s the sum total of what you know about it, too.”

He was right again, of course. That didn’t mean Johnson wasn’t also right, not this time. “We can addle half the scaly so-and-sos down on that planet,” he insisted. “There’s got to be a way to get the herb from hither to yon.”

“You are assuming what you want to prove,” Mickey Flynn said. “If you’d gone to the same sort of school I did, the nuns would have rapped your knuckles with a steel yardstick for a breach of logic like that.”

“If I’d gone to the kind of school you did, I’d have to drop my pants if I wanted to count to twenty-one,” Johnson retorted.

Flynn eyed him with mild astonishment. “You mean you don’t? Truly, you are a fount-or at least a drip-of knowledge.”

“Thank you so much.” Johnson suddenly snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it!”

“I hope you can take something for it,” Flynn said with well-simulated concern.

Johnson ignored him. “I know where I’d put the ginger if I were designing the Admiral Peary. ” He held up a hand. “If you make that particular suggestion, I’m going to be very annoyed at you.”

With dignity, the other pilot said, “Moi? Je ne comprende pas.”

“Of course you don’t,” Johnson said. “Listen, how many people in cold sleep is this ship carrying?”

“Seventeen,” Flynn answered. “Or was it forty-six thousand? I forget.”

“Heh,” Johnson said. “Funny. But the point is, you don’t know for sure. I don’t, either. And neither do the Lizards. What looks like space for people in cold sleep could be space for the herb just as easily.”

“You have a low, nasty, suspicious mind,” Flynn told him.

“Why, thank you,” Johnson said.

“I don’t know. Why not thank me?”

Johnson scowled. “I’d throw something at you, but I might miss you and hit something valuable instead.”

Flynn assumed a look of injured innocence. By his face, his innocence had suffered enough injuries to end up on the critical list. Then he said, “You know, if you keep speculating about all these things we haven’t got, you won’t make our esteemed and benevolent commandant very happy with you.”

“Who’s going to tell him?” Johnson asked. “You?”

“Certainly not,” Mickey Flynn replied. “But the walls have ears, the ceilings have eyes, and the floors probably have kidneys or livers or something else you wouldn’t want to eat unless your stomach were rubbing up against your backbone.”

Walls with ears were a cliche. Ceilings with eyes at least made sense. As for the rest… “Your mother dropped you on your head when you were little.”

“Only when I needed it,” Flynn said. “Of course, there were times when she needed to be retrained. Or was that restrained? Amazing how one’s entire childhood can revolve around a typographical error.”

“That’s not all that’s amazing,” Johnson said darkly, but Flynn took it for a compliment, which spoiled his fun.

Over the next few days, he wondered if the commandant would summon him to his office to give him a roasting. Then, when that didn’t happen, he wondered why it didn’t. Because the Admiral Peary carried no ginger, and the idea that it might was ridiculous? Or because the ship was full of ginger, and the less said about the herb, the better? The one thing that didn’t occur to Johnson was that Healey hadn’t heard his speculation. The floors did indeed have kidneys, or maybe livers.

Dr. Blanchard worked with grim intensity in the exercise chamber, doing her best to build up her strength for the trip down to the surface of Home. Johnson spent stretches on the exercise bicycle, too, but he didn’t get excited about them the way she did. He was in pretty good shape for a man who’d spent the last twenty years of his life weightless. He could exercise till everything turned blue and not be fit enough to face gravity.

He said, “I wish they’d send one of the other docs down, not you.”

“Why?” she demanded, working the bicycle harder than ever so that her sweaty hair plastered itself against the side of her face. “I’ll be damned if I want to go through all this crap for nothing.”

“Well, I can see that,” he said, pedaling along beside her at his own slower pace-one of the great advantages of a stationary bike. “But you’re a hell of a lot better looking than they are.”

“Not right now, I’m not,” she said, which wasn’t true, at least not to someone of the male persuasion. She added, “Besides, I must smell like an old goat,” which was.

Johnson denied it anyway, saying, “I’m the old goat.”

“What you are is a guy with too much time on his hands,” she said. “Exercise more. That’ll help some.”

“Thanks a lot,” he muttered. “Some problems, you know, you’re not really looking for a cure.”

“Well, you’d better be,” Dr. Blanchard said, and that was effectively that.

“I greet you, Ambassador,” Atvar told Sam Yeager when he met the Big Ugly in the hotel conference room. “And I am pleased to tell you congratulations are in order.”

“And I greet you. I also thank you. What kind of congratulations, Fleetlord?” the American Tosevite inquired.

“Your petition for an audience with the Emperor has been granted,” Atvar answered. “This news comes through me and not directly to you because I have been appointed your sponsor, so to speak.”

“That is excellent news. Excellent!” Sam Yeager not only used an emphatic cough, he also got out of his chair and bent into the posture of respect. “I am in your debt for the help you gave me. Ah… what does being a sponsor entail?”

He was pleased. Atvar knew that. But the wild Big Ugly was not overjoyed, as a proper citizen of the Empire would have been. He was just pleased-much too mild a reaction. His question, though, was reasonable enough. Atvar said, “A sponsor does about what you would expect. He trains his hatchling-that is the technical term-in responses and rituals required in the audience. If the hatchling disgraces himself, the sponsor is also disgraced. Not all those who win audiences have a sponsor. Getting one is most common among those least likely to have their petitions accepted and so least likely to be familiar with the rituals.”

“Among the poor and the ignorant, eh?” Sam Yeager laughed in the noisy fashion of his kind. “Which am I?”

“You are ignorant, of course, Ambassador. Will you deny it?” Atvar said. “I suppose I was chosen as your sponsor not only because I know you but because I am familiar with Tosevites in general and because I have had a recent audience with his Majesty. I will do my best to help you avoid the pitfalls.”

“Again, I thank you,” Sam Yeager said. “I do hope the Race will remember that I really am ignorant, that I am only a poor, stupid wild Big Ugly who knows no better. If I make a mistake, I will not be doing it on purpose.”

“I believe that is understood, yes,” Atvar said. “If the Emperor and his court did not understand it, your petition would have been rejected.”

“Good.” The Tosevite paused. “And something else occurs to me. The Emperor ought to grant Kassquit an audience.”

That took Atvar by surprise. Both his eye turrets swung sharply toward Yeager. “Interesting,” he said. “Why do you propose this?”

“For the good of the Empire-and for Kassquit’s own good,” Sam Yeager answered. “She is a citizen of the Empire, after all, and she is proud of being a citizen of the Empire. The Empire might do well to show that it is proud to have her as a citizen.”

“What an… interesting idea indeed,” Atvar said. “You realize we may do this and use it in propaganda aimed at the Tosevites under our control on Tosev 3? It would show them they can truly become part of the Empire themselves.”

“Oh, yes. I realize that,” the wild Big Ugly replied. “I will take my chances nonetheless. For one thing, it will be more than twenty of your years before those pictures arrive at Tosev 3.” He stopped.

Atvar eyed Yeager with amused scorn. The Tosevite thought of the interval signals took to go from Home to Tosev 3 as a long time. If it wasn’t happening right now, it wasn’t real for a Big Ugly. But then Atvar looked at Sam Yeager in a different way. Say what you would about him, he was not a fool. And… “You said, ‘For one thing,’ Ambassador, but you did not go on with any more after the first. What were your other points?”

“Ah, you noticed, did you?” Sam Yeager shrugged. “Well, I suppose I can tell you. My one other point would have been simply that Kassquit’s audience with the Emperor might do you less good than you would expect if you were to broadcast it widely in the areas of Tosev 3 that you rule.”

“Oh? And why do you say that?” Atvar wondered if Yeager was going to try to spout some persuasive nonsense to keep the Race from doing what was really in its best interest to do.

But the wild Big Ugly answered, “Because you will be photographing a Tosevite female without her wrappings. This will perhaps arouse some of your audience. It will scandalize a great deal more. I suspect, though, that it will have the desired effect on very few.”

Atvar’s hiss of dismay was altogether heartfelt. “I had forgotten about that,” he admitted. “You are a very clever Tosevite.”

Sam Yeager shook his head. Atvar understood the gesture. The American Big Ugly said, “Not at all, Fleetlord. But I do know my own kind. I had better, would you not agree?”

“Well, perhaps,” Atvar said, which made Sam Yeager come out with another of his noisy laughs. But then the fleetlord brightened. “I may be able to persuade her to wear wrappings for the purpose of the audience.”

“Good luck,” Sam Yeager said.

At first, Atvar thought he meant that sincerely. Then he suspected irony. Judging such things when they came from one of another species, another culture, was never easy. And then Atvar thought about how stubbornly Kassquit had refused to wear wrappings when the wild Big Uglies asked it of her. She was proud to be a citizen of the Empire, and would not want to conform to the usages common among wild Tosevites. She did not seem to notice that her stubbornness was one of the most Tosevite things about her.

“Maybe I can persuade her,” Atvar said at last. “An audience with the Emperor would be something she highly desired.”

“That is a truth,” Sam Yeager said. “But she would desire it as a citizen of the Empire. Would she desire it as nothing but a propaganda tool?”

“I think finding out may be worth my while,” Atvar said. “If you will excuse me…”

He rang up Kassquit on the conference-room phone. “Yes, Exalted Fleetlord, I would be pleased to see you,” she said. Her intonation when speaking the Race’s language differed only slightly from Sam Yeager‘s. He had a language of his own. She didn’t. But her Tosevite mouthparts were the most important factor in determining how she sounded.

Atvar said his farewells to Yeager and went up to her room. It had, he saw, been modified in the same ways as had the wild Big Uglies’. That made sense; biology outweighed culture when it came to comfort. “I greet you,” Atvar said. “I hope all is well?”

“As well as it can be when one is neither azwaca nor fibyen,” Kassquit replied. “How may I help you today?”

“How would you like to present yourself before the Emperor?” Atvar asked.

Kassquit’s small, narrow, immobile eyes widened. That was a sign of astonishment in Tosevites. Citizen of the Empire or not, Kassquit shared reflexes with the rest of her species. Only natural, Atvar thought. Kassquit said, “There is nothing I would like better, Exalted Fleetlord, but why would the Emperor wish to see one such as me?”

“What do you mean?” Atvar asked, though he knew perfectly well. Pretending he did not, he went on, “Are you not a citizen of the Empire like any other?”

“You know what I am,” Kassquit said bleakly. “I am a Big Ugly. I am a citizen of the Empire not like any other.”

She had reason to sound bleak. She was perfectly right. As she’d said, she was a citizen of the Empire unlike any other. She was not and could not be a wild Big Ugly. The Race had made sure of that. Atvar sounded resolutely cheerful: “That is all the more reason for his Majesty to wish to grant your petition-to show that every citizen of the Empire is like every other citizen once out of the shell.”

The cliche held good for members of the Race, for Rabotevs, and for Hallessi. It did not hold good for Tosevites, as Atvar remembered just too late. Kassquit rubbed his snout in the mistake, saying, “I remind you, Exalted Fleetlord, that I did not hatch from an egg.”

“Well, soon there will be millions of citizens who did not hatch from eggs,” Atvar said resolutely. “You are the first-truth. But you will not be the last. Far from it.” He used an emphatic cough.

“Possibly not.” Kassquit spoke with the air of one making a great concession. Then she hesitated. “Would my audience be used for propaganda purposes with the wild Big Uglies on Tosev 3?”

She might have been-she was-betwixt and between, but that did not make her a fool. Atvar reminded himself of that once more. Had she been less bright, she would have had much more trouble coping with her situation than she did in fact. Cautiously, the fleetlord answered, “It might. That would depend in part on whether you are willing to put on wrappings for the occasion. An unwrapped female might cause more, ah, controversy than approval among the wild Tosevites.”

Kassquit made the negative gesture. “Why should I accommodate myself to the prejudices of barbarians?” she demanded. “I am a citizen of the Empire. Let the wild Big Uglies see what that means.” She did not use an emphatic cough. Her words were quite emphatic enough.

Atvar answered her question, though no doubt she’d posed it rhetorically: “Why should you accommodate yourself to barbarians? Because in so doing you would serve the Empire’s interests.”

But Kassquit used the negative gesture again. “The Empire should not accommodate itself to the wild Big Uglies, either. It should find ways to get them to accommodate themselves to it.”

“Having them see another Tosevite treated as an equal here on Home would go some way toward that end,” Atvar said.

“Then let them see me treated as an equal, and not artificially wrapped,” Kassquit said firmly. “If the Emperor is willing to accept my petition under those circumstances, I will submit it. If not”-she shrugged-“not.”

“Submit it in any case,” Atvar urged. “His Majesty and the court may well accept it come what may, simply because of the services you have already rendered the Empire.” He was careful not to say, the Race.

“Well, then, it shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord, and I thank you for the suggestion,” Kassquit said.

“Sam Yeager urged me to propose this to you,” Atvar said, knowing she would hear as much from one of the wild Big Uglies if not from him. “His opinion is that your petition will probably be accepted whether or not you wear wrappings.”

“He is a clever male. I hope he is right here,” Kassquit said.

“In my opinion, he probably is,” Atvar said. “The Emperor should have a special interest in meeting a Tosevite subject, especially as he will also be meeting with the ambassador from these independent Big Uglies.”

“I would hope he might accept my petition even if I were not-” But Kassquit broke off and made the negative gesture. “That is pointless. I am a special case. I have been made into a special case, and I can do nothing about it. No matter what I hope for, there is no point to hoping for normality.”

“If I could tell you you were wrong, I would. But you are right, and telling you otherwise would be not only pointless but untrue,” Atvar said. “Since you are special, however, you should exploit that for all it is worth.”

“That, no doubt, is a truth,” Kassquit replied. “It is a truth I have been reluctant to use, however. I do want to be valued for myself, not as… as a curiosity, you might say.”

“There will be many more Tosevite citizens of the Empire in years to come,” Atvar said. “There may even be some on Tosev 3 now. But I do not think there will ever be another one as completely acculturated as you are.”

“I would disagree with you,” Kassquit said. “Some hundreds or thousands of years from now, after Tosev 3 is firmly incorporated into the Empire, all the Big Uglies there will be as I am.”

“I have my doubts about that,” Atvar said. “Thanks to ginger and to the strong native civilizations, I suspect Tosev 3 will always be something of a special case, a world apart, in the Empire. Tosevite cultures will not be subsumed to the same degree as those of the Rabotevs and Hallessi have been.”

“And, of course, I knew nothing of any Tosevite culture when I was a hatchling,” Kassquit said. “I thought of myself as a misshapen female of the Race. I kept wishing I would grow scales and eye turrets. When it did not happen, I wondered what I had done to be so bad.”

Atvar had authorized Ttomalss’ experiment with Kassquit. He’d followed it with interest. Not only had it been interesting, it had also been necessary. He’d always been convinced of that. Up till now, he’d never felt guilty about it. He wondered why not.

“Write your petition,” he said. “I fear we have done you an injustice in the past, one we cannot possibly make up to you. But what we can do, we will. By the Emperor, by the spirits of Emperors past, I promise you that.”

“Yes, of course,” Ttomalss said in some surprise, staring at Kassquit’s image in the monitor. “I would be pleased to review your petition for an audience with the Emperor. But why, if you do not mind my asking, is this the first that I have heard of your submitting such a petition?”

“Fleetlord Atvar suggested that I do so.” Kassquit’s features showed no expression, but excitement sang in her voice. “He said he had the idea from Sam Yeager. The wild Big Ugly reasoned that, if the Emperor would consent to see him, he might also consent to seeing a Tosevite citizen of the Empire-the Tosevite citizen of the Empire now living on Home.”

Ttomalss didn’t need to think that over for very long before deciding Sam Yeager was bound to be right. The propaganda value of such an audience was obvious-once someone pointed it out. Ttomalss’ tailstump quivered in agitation. “I should have thought of this for myself.”

“Truth-you should have.” Kassquit could be particularly liverless when she chose. She went on, “But, as long as someone has thought of it, who does not matter very much. May I bring you the petition now?”

“Please do,” Ttomalss said, trying his best to hide the vaguely punctured feeling he had. “I am sure you will have written it out without a flaw. After all, the language we are speaking, the language we both write, is as much yours as mine.”

“So it is, superior sir,” Kassquit said. “For better and for worse, so it is. I will be there very shortly.”

She was, as usual, as good as her word. When the door button hissed, Ttomalss let her in. “I greet you,” he said.

“And I greet you,” she replied, bending into the posture of respect. Then she handed him the papers. “Please tell me if everything is in order.”

“Certainly.” Ttomalss’ eye turrets flicked back and forth, back and forth, as he read through the petition. When he looked at it, he saw nothing that showed a Big Ugly rather than a female of the Race had written it. He occasionally raised one eye turret to look at Kassquit. She was, of course, what she had always been. Physically, she was a Tosevite. Culturally, she belonged to the Empire. “As far as I can see, this is perfect. I congratulate you.”

“I thank you,” Kassquit said.

“I am given to understand Sam Yeager had some trouble completing his petition,” Ttomalss said.

“I have spoken to him about this while I was preparing mine,” Kassquit replied. “He tells me he has some trouble with formal written composition in a language not his own. He is certainly fluent enough while speaking, and in informal postings on electronic bulletin boards.”

“Yes, that is a truth,” Ttomalss agreed. Back on Tosev 3, Sam Yeager had electronically masqueraded as a member of the Race for some time before Kassquit realized what he was. The Big Uglies, generally speaking, were better at languages than the Race. They had to be, with so many different tongues on their planet. The last time the Race had had to deal with languages other than its own was during the conquest of Halless 1, and that was ten thousand years ago now. Except for a handful of scholars, no one knew anything about the Hallessi languages any more. That of the Race had supplanted them within a few centuries after the conquest.

However much Ttomalss hoped that would happen on Tosev 3, he had his doubts about whether it would. English, in particular, was flourishing like a weed. Members of the Race had had to learn it not to administer a conquered people but to treat with equals. Conservatives balked at doing so, and more and more often were getting left behind.

Kassquit said, “Since you confirm that this petition is in proper format and correct, superior sir, I am going to give it to Fleetlord Atvar, in the hope that his name will help win approval for it.”

That jabbed a dagger of jealousy under Ttomalss’ scales. Kassquit was his protegee, not Atvar‘s. A moment’s thought made him see the sense of Kassquit’s plan. Atvar had recently earned an imperial audience himself. He was serving as Sam Yeager’s sponsor, preparing the wild Big Ugly for his encounter with the 37th Emperor Risson. That all had to mean the imperial courtiers-and perhaps even the Emperor himself-thought well of the former fleetlord of the conquest fleet.

Ttomalss had petitioned for an imperial audience not long after coming back to Home. The court had not accepted his petition. That hadn’t left him particularly downlivered; he knew how many petitions were submitted, how few accepted. Still, he had not imagined that the Big Ugly he’d raised from a hatchling might win an audience ahead of him.

She was a grown individual now. Tosevite literature was full of references to generational struggles, to young asserting their authority-no, their right to wield authority-against those who had raised them. Such conflicts were much less common among the Race, where hatchlings were physically able to care for themselves at an early age, and where those who mated to produce them were unlikely to be the ones who reared them.

Such different social structures were bound to make acculturation more difficult. That had been obvious since early in the invasion. What ginger did to the Race and its mating patterns, though, came as a rude surprise. And the Race’s adoption of Tosevite institutions on Tosev 3 reversed tens of thousands of years of precedent. Such adoptions made thoughtful observers-or perhaps just worried observers-wonder which was in fact the dominant species on Tosev 3. That had nothing to do with the Big Uglies’ rapidly advancing technology, either. It was an altogether separate concern.

Just what we need, Ttomalss thought sourly. He returned the petition to Kassquit. She left his room. He went back to trying to figure out just where the Tosevites stood in terms of technology. Were the Race’s experts right to be as alarmed as they were? Or were they even underestimating the danger because of their unfamiliarity with so much of what was being printed in Tosevite scientific journals?

And what was not being printed in those scientific journals? What were the Big Uglies trying to keep secret? Penetrating their computer networks was far harder now than it had been even when Ttomalss went into cold sleep. When the conquest fleet arrived, the Big Uglies had had no computer networks. They’d had no computers, not in the sense that the Race did.

We should have knocked them flat, Ttomalss thought, not for the first time. We almost did. We should have finished the job. I think we could have.

He laughed, not that it was really funny. Shiplord Straha had urged an all-out push against the Big Uglies. Most males in the conquest fleet had reckoned him a maniacal adventurer. He hadn’t succeeded in toppling Atvar and imposing his program. In hindsight, it didn’t look so bad.

Could things have turned out worse had Straha got his way? Ttomalss made the affirmative gesture. If Tosev 3 taught any lesson, it taught that things could always turn out worse. I Told You So would have been a good title for an autobiographical account written by the planet itself.

Ttomalss laughed again, this time at the conceit. But it wasn’t really funny, either. No one who’d left Home for Tosev 3 in the conquest fleet had dreamt the Big Uglies would be able to put up a hundredth of the fight they had. No one who’d been on Tosev 3 at the time of the invasion would have dreamt the Big Uglies would have interstellar travel within a male’s lifetime… but here they were.

Where will they be in one lifetime more? Ttomalss wondered uneasily.

That led to another question. Will they be anywhere at all? Atvar had always considered the possibility of a war of extermination against the Tosevites, to make sure they could not threaten the Empire even if they took the technological lead. He would have left his plans behind for Reffet and Kirel. He would have left those plans behind, yes, but would the current commanders have the nerve to use them? Both males struck Ttomalss as less resolute than Atvar.

Every day they waited, though, made a successful cleansing less certain. Even if we try to annihilate the Big Uglies, could we do it? Ttomalss shrugged. He was no soldier, and he had incomplete data. Thanks to the limitations light speed caused, everyone here on Home had incomplete data about Tosev 3. The trouble there was, not everyone seemed to realize it. Males and females here were used to change that stretched over centuries, and didn’t stretch very far even in such lengths of time. Tosev 3 wasn’t like that, no matter how much trouble members of the Race who’d never been there had remembering as much.

And, more and more, Ttomalss was growing convinced that even the males and females of the Race who actually lived on Tosev 3 were operating on incomplete data in their evaluation of what the Big Uglies were up to. Part of that was the Race’s trouble with languages not its own, part the different mathematical notation the Tosevites used, and part, he suspected, was a case of willful blindness. If you didn’t believe down deep in your liver that another species could come to know more than you did, how hard would you look for evidence that that was in fact coming to pass? Not very, he feared.

He checked his computer and telephone records to see whether Pesskrag had ever called him back. As he’d thought: no. He made a note to himself to call the physicist soon.

Having made the note, he looked at it and deleted it. Delay was the very thing he’d worried about, and there he was, telling himself to delay. Instead of waiting, he telephoned Pesskrag that very moment.

It did him no good. He got the female’s out-of-office announcement. He recorded a message of his own, finishing, “I hope to hear from you soon. The more time goes by, the more I am convinced this issue is urgent.”

Pesskrag did call back the next day, and found Ttomalss in his room. She said, “I apologize for not getting back to you sooner, Senior Researcher. I will blame part of the delay on the mating season, which always disrupts everything.”

“Truth.” Ttomalss admitted what he could hardly deny. “But it is over now. What have you and your colleagues done with the data I provided you?”

“We are still evaluating them, trying to decide if they can possibly be credible. We are making progress on the notation,” the physicist answered. “The mathematics does appear to be internally consistent, but that does not make it easy to follow or easy to believe.”

“Can you test it experimentally?” Ttomalss asked. “You were hoping to do that when we spoke last.”

“And we still hope to,” Pesskrag said. “But funds, permissions, and equipment have all proved harder to get than we expected.”

“I see,” Ttomalss said. And he did. He saw that the Race would go at its own pace. Nothing would hurry it. Normally, that was good. If it really needed to hurry… Maybe the lessons it most needed to take from the Big Uglies had nothing to do with technology.

Kassquit came down to the refectory walking on air. Several of the American Tosevites were there eating breakfast. Kassquit wished her features could match the mobility theirs had. Since they couldn’t, she had to show her happiness in other ways.

She went up to Sam Yeager and bent into the posture of respect before him. “I thank you, Ambassador,” she said, and added an emphatic cough.

“For what?” Sam Yeager asked. Before she could answer, though, he pointed to her. “They accepted your petition for an audience with the Emperor?”

“They did!” Kassquit made the affirmative gesture. “I thank you so much for suggesting it! This is probably the proudest day of my life.”

“I am pleased for you, and I congratulate you,” the white-haired Big Ugly said. “If he would see me, I thought it was likely he would see you, too. After all, you are one of his, and I am not.”

“To meet the Emperor!” Kassquit exclaimed. “To show I really am a citizen of the Empire!”

She wondered if the wild Tosevites truly understood how important and exciting this was for her. Whether they did or not, they congratulated her warmly. Frank Coffey said, “This must mean a great deal to you, even if it would not mean so much to one of us.”

“Truth. That is a truth,” Kassquit said. The dark brown Big Ugly did see what was in her liver: intellectually, at least, if not emotionally. “What could be a greater mark of acceptance than an imperial audience?”

“Ah-acceptance.” Now Coffey made the affirmative gesture. “Acceptance is something I can appreciate.” To show how much he could appreciate it, he too added an emphatic cough. “For me, Researcher, what showed I had truly been accepted by my society was getting chosen to join the crew of the Admiral Peary. ”

Tom de la Rosa laughed a loud Tosevite laugh. “Oh, yes, Frank, this does show acceptance.” He made his emphatic cough ironic at the same time. “Everyone back in the United States loved you so much, you got sent all these light-years just so you could be part of the society there.”

Even Kassquit saw the joke in that. The American Tosevites all thought it was very funny. Frank Coffey laughed as loud as any of the others. He said, “That sounds ridiculous. I know it sounds ridiculous. But the odd thing is, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, it is a truth, and an important truth. Had I been less of an equal, I would still be back on Tosev 3.”

“And you would probably be having more fun back there than you are here, too,” de la Rosa replied.

“Maybe I would. Of course, I would be old back there, and I am… not so old here,” Coffey said. “This has its compensations.”

“If not for cold sleep, I would surely be dead,” Sam Yeager said. “Given the choice, I prefer this.”

Kassquit said, “And you will also go before the Emperor.”

“Well, so I will. But I have to tell you, I know it means less to me than it does to you,” the American ambassador said. “For one thing, I have already met several of our not-emperors-presidents, we call them.”

“I have heard the word, yes,” Kassquit said coolly. Did he really imagine a Big Ugly chosen by snoutcounting was the equal to the Emperor? By all the signs, he did, however absurd she found the notion.

He said, “There is something else, too, something that shows how different from the Empire we truly are. Here, the goal is to meet the Emperor. In the United States, the goal is to become the president. Do you see what I mean?”

Now Kassquit had to try to understand emotionally something that was plain enough intellectually. American Big Uglies could aspire to become the ruler of their not-empire. She knew those not-emperors ruled for only a limited period, and had other checks on their power. Even so…

She tried to imagine a male or female of the Race setting out to become the Emperor. The picture refused to form in her mind. Oh, such things had happened in the days of ancientest history, though they weren’t much mentioned in the lessons hatchlings learned at school. And once, even after Home was unified, a deranged male had tried to murder an Emperor (that was mentioned even less often).

But that a member of the Race, a Rabotev, a Halless, or even a Tosevite could aspire to supplant the Emperor and rule the Empire now… Automatically, her hand shaped the negative gesture. She said, “I do not believe your not-emperors have control over the afterlife as well as this life.”

“Well, no, neither do I, though some of them would probably be happy enough to claim authority like that,” Sam Yeager said. The other American Big Uglies laughed again, which was the only thing that told Kassquit he didn’t mean it. He went on, “And what you need to grasp, Researcher, is that I do not believe your Emperors have control over the afterlife, either.”

The Race’s language did not have a word precisely equivalent to blasphemy. It had never needed a word like that, because the idea of denying that the spirits of Emperors past controlled the existence yet to come had not hatched on Home. But, even without a word for it, Kassquit understood the idea as soon as she heard it.

She said, “Many billions of individuals of several different species have accepted what you reject.”

That didn’t faze Sam Yeager. He said, “A great many individuals have believed a great many things that eventually turned out not to be so.” He held up a hand before Kassquit could speak. “I do not say this is true for the spirits of Emperors past. I say it may be true. As far as I know, no one has found a way to bring certain truth back from the next world.”

“So many who have believed make a strong argument for truth all by themselves,” she said.

“No.” He shook his head before remembering and using the Race’s negative gesture. “As I said before, many can believe something that is not a truth. On Tosev 3, for centuries, most males and females-almost all, in fact-believed the planet was flat, and that the star Tosev revolved around it instead of the other way round. Belief does not make truth. Evidence makes truth. And belief does not make evidence.”

Had he been talking about anything but belief in the afterlife, Kassquit would have agreed with him without hesitation. As things were… As things were, she held that belief in a mental compartment separate from the rest of her life and the rest of her attitudes. Almost every citizen of the Empire did the same. Belief in the spirits of Emperors past and in what they could do in the world to come was deeply ingrained in the Race, the Rabotevs, the Hallessi… and Kassquit.

Angrily, she said, “How can you tell me the beliefs of many do not matter when your not-empire counts snouts to run its affairs?”

To her annoyance, that did not irritate the wild Big Uglies. It amused them. Jonathan Yeager said, “She has got you there, sire of mine.”

“Oh, no. She is sly, but she is not sly enough to trick a gamy old zisuili like me,” Sam Yeager answered. He turned back to Kassquit. “Snoutcounting is not about evidence. It is about beliefs. There is no sure evidence for the future, and providing for the future is what a government does. There are only beliefs about what is likely to happen next and what ought to happen next. When it comes to beliefs, snoutcounting is fine. But beliefs are not truths, no matter how much you might wish they were.”

“He is right,” Karen Yeager said. She, of course, could be counted on to side against Kassquit. She continued, “On Tosev 3, we have many different beliefs about what happens after we die. They cannot all be true, but how can we tell for certain which ones are false?”

Kassquit’s opinion was that they were all false, and that citizens of the Empire held the only true belief. She knew she had no evidence for that, though, not evidence of the sort that would help her in this argument. She did the best she could: “From what I have heard, a growing number of Tosevites are accepting the Empire’s beliefs. This is true not only in the regions where the Race rules but also in your own not-empire. Or is that not so?”

The wild Big Uglies started laughing again. Kassquit was confused and furious at the same time. Before she could say anything more, Tom de la Rosa said, “Some American Big Uglies want to believe in the spirits of Emperors past because they are not happy with the beliefs they had before. Some want to believe in them because they like to imitate the Race any way they can. And some want to imitate them because they are fools. Or do you have no fools in the Empire?”

“We have fools.” Kassquit wished she could deny it, but the language of the Race wouldn’t let her. It had the word, and the word pointed infallibly to the thing. Besides, anyone who saw a male or female of the Race topped with red or green false hair almost infallibly spotted a fool. With such dignity as she could muster, she added, “But we do not believe the word applies to those who reverence the spirits of Emperors past.”

“I do not believe it does, either, if they have been brought up in their beliefs since hatchlinghood,” de la Rosa said. “But those who change their beliefs later in life, those who change them as a Big Ugly changes his wrappings-individuals like that are often fools.”

He sounded reasonable. Kassquit cherished reason. She clung to it. Clinging to it had helped her stay as close to sane as she had. There were times when she wondered how close that was. With her cultural and biological heritages so different, was it any wonder her stability often balanced on the point of a fingerclaw? The wonder, perhaps, was that she had any stability to balance.

Here, Tom de la Rosa’s reason threatened that stability. The thought that her spirit would be sustained by the spirits of Emperors past in the world to come had also helped sustain her when things did not go well in this world. Even the slightest hint that that might not happen left her feeling threatened.

Frank Coffey said, “Pale Tosevites used to believe dark Tosevites were inferior just because they were dark. Some pale Tosevites still believe that.”

“I used to believe it,” Sam Yeager said. “It was something I was taught from hatchlinghood. But there is no evidence to support it, and I hope I know better now.”

“I hope you do, too.” Coffey sounded jocular, but he did not laugh. He nodded to Kassquit. “By your looks, I would say you are Chinese.” Sam Yeager said something in English. Coffey nodded again, then went on, “He tells me you are. Pale Tosevites have shown these misplaced beliefs against Chinese, too.”

“And Chinese against pale Tosevites,” Tom de la Rosa added. “It is not all the fault of my kind of Big Ugly. A lot of it is, but not all.”

“Believe what you will,” Kassquit said. “What I believe is, I am proud to have been granted an audience with the Emperor. And, come what may, I will go right on being proud.” And she did.

Lizards always stared at Jonathan Yeager and the other Americans when they left their hotel for any reason. Jonathan didn’t suppose he could blame them. People had done plenty of staring at Lizards when they first met them. He hadn’t. Because of what his father and mother did, he’d grown up around Lizards, and took them as much for granted as he did humans.

Being neither a mad dog nor an Englishman, he tried not to go out in Home’s noonday sun. Oh, it wouldn’t have killed him, any more than a hot summer day in Los Angeles would have. It wasn’t much over a hundred, and, as Angelenos were endlessly fond of saying, it was a dry heat. But, while that made it more or less bearable, it didn’t make it pleasant.

Early morning was pleasant. Sitneff cooled down into the seventies at night-another consequence of low humidity. Jonathan enjoyed going to the park not far from the hotel, finding a bench in the shade of the shrubby treeish things, and watching Home go by.

Lizards on the way to work drove past in cars and buses that didn’t look too different from the ones he would have seen in the United States. These were smaller, because Lizards were smaller. They had smoother lines, and the differences between one model and another seemed smaller than in the USA. Maybe he was missing subtleties. Or maybe, because the Race valued efficiency more than people did, their vehicles just deviated less from ideal designs than human machines did.

Males and females skittered by on the sidewalk, too, some of them no doubt on the way to work, others moving faster for the sake of exercise. Some of the runners would stop short when they noticed him. Others would keep one eye turret trained on him till they got out of sight. They would use the other eye to watch where they were going. There they had an advantage over mankind. It wasn’t necessarily an enormous advantage, as Jonathan saw when a Lizard watching him banged into another coming the other way. Watching didn’t just mean seeing. It also meant paying attention. Anyone of any species could fail that test.

Other males and females trotted through the park. Some were regulars, and had seen him and the other humans there before. A few would call out, “I greet you, Tosevite!” as they went by. Jonathan always waved and answered when they did. Friendly relations, one Lizard at a time, he thought.

Every so often, a Lizard would stop what he was doing and want to talk. The ones with wigs and T-shirts were more likely to do that than the ones who didn’t try to imitate people. That made sense-they’d already proved their interest in mankind. Jonathan was glad whenever it happened. It let him-he hoped it let him-get an unfiltered view of what life on Home was like. Maybe Lizards who paused and came up to talk were government plants, but Jonathan didn’t think so. In the USSR or the Reich, he would have been suspicious of what strangers told him. He didn’t think the Race was so sophisticated about propaganda.

One very ordinary, unwigged, unclothed Lizard didn’t seem sophisticated at all. After looking Jonathan over from head to foot (his moving eye turrets made the process obvious), the male said, “So you are one of those things they call Big Uglies, are you?”

Jonathan hid a smile, not that the Lizard would have known what one meant. He made the affirmative gesture. “Yes, I am a Big Ugly,” he agreed gravely.

“Do you by any chance know a male called Telerep?” the Lizard asked. “He went to Tosev 3 with the conquest fleet. He was a landcruiser gunner, and a friend of mine.”

“I am sorry, but no.” Sorry or not, Jonathan couldn’t help smiling now. “For one thing, I was hatched near the end of the fighting. For another, Tosev 3 is a planet the size of Home, even if it does have more water. Do you know where your friend served? It might have been halfway around the world from me.”

“No, I do not know that,” the male said. “Tosev 3 does not seem so big. I often wonder what happened to Telerep, and if he came through all right. He was a good fellow. We had some fine times together. I know a few males and females who have heard from friends who joined the conquest fleet, but not many. For most, well, it is a long way between here and your world.”

“That is a truth,” Jonathan said. “When I see our sun in the night sky as just another star, I realize how far it is.”

“Tosev, yes. Hard for me to think of it as anything but a star, you understand,” the Lizard said, and Jonathan made the affirmative gesture again. The Lizard went on, “We call the constellation Tosev is in the Sailing Ship. What is your name for it?”

“To us, it is the Herder,” Jonathan answered; that was as close a translation of Bootes as he could manage in the Lizards’ language. “Of course, when we see that constellation, we do not see our own sun in it.”

The Lizard drew back half a pace in surprise. Then his mouth fell open. “That is funny. I had not thought of it so, but you would not, would you? What do you call the constellation in which you see our sun?”

“That is the Whale,” Jonathan told him. He had to explain the key word, which came out in English: “A whale is a large creature that swims in our seas. Your sun is dimmer than ours. I mean no offense when I tell you it seems faint when we see it on Tosev 3.”

“I understand,” the Lizard replied. “Even if you are a wild Big Ugly, I must say you sound quite civilized.”

“I thank you,” Jonathan replied, not without irony. “So do you.”

That line drew different responses from different Lizards. This one laughed once more. “And I thank you, superior Tosevite.” His mouth dropped down yet again. “Are you a superior Tosevite or an inferior Tosevite? You have only those wrappings-no body paint to let me see what your rank is.” He straightened a little to show his own paint to Jonathan. “As you can tell, I am an optician, second grade.”

Actually, Jonathan couldn’t have told that without a chart. The Race’s system of using body paint to mark social distinctions went back to before Home was unified. It had been getting more complex since the days when men weren’t even painting mammoths on cave walls. Every seniority level in every occupation had its own distinctive pattern and colors. Lizards-and Rabotevs and Hallessi-read body paint as easily as they read the characters of their written language. Some humans were nearly that good. Jonathan wasn’t bad, but optician wasn’t one he recognized offhand.

He said, “If I had body paint, it would say I was an ambassador’s assistant.”

“Ambassador!” Another laugh came from the Lizard. “There is a very old-fashioned word, superior Tosevite. There have been no ambassadors since the days of ancientest history.”

“Again, I mean no offense, but I must tell you you are mistaken,” Jonathan said. “On Tosev 3, there have been ambassadors to and from the Race for nearly ninety years-ninety of ours, twice as many of yours. Where independent empires and not-empires meet as equals, they need ambassadors.”

“Independent empires and not-empires,” the male echoed. “What an… interesting phrase. I suppose I can imagine an independent empire; after all, you Big Uglies did not know about the Empire till we came. But what might a not-empire be? How else would you govern yourselves?”

“Well, there are several ways,” Jonathan said. “The not-empire we are from, the United States, is what we call a democracy. ” He said that word in English, then returned to the Race’s language: “That means giving all adult males and females a voice in how they are governed.” As best he could, he explained voting and representative government.

“Snoutcounting!” the optician exclaimed when Jonathan was done, and tapped his own snout with a fingerclaw. If Jonathan had had a nickel for every time he’d heard that derisive comment from a Lizard, he could have damn near bought the Admiral Peary. This male went on, “But what happens when the males and females being snoutcounted make a mistake?”

“We try to fix it,” Jonathan answered. “We can choose a new set of representatives if we are not happy with the ones in power. What happens when your government makes a mistake? You are stuck with it-is that not a truth?”

“Our government makes very few mistakes,” the Lizard said. On Earth, that would have been a boast with no truth behind it, a boast the USSR or the Reich would have made. Here on Home, it might well have been true.

But very few mistakes were different from no mistakes at all. Jonathan said, “I can think of one mistake your government made.”

“Speak. What could that be?” the male asked, plainly doubting it was anything of much weight.

“Trying to conquer Tosev 3,” Jonathan answered.

The Lizard said, “Well, that may be a truth, superior Big Ugly. Yes, it may be. Actually, I would say trying was not the difficulty. I would say the difficulty was failing.”

“A nice point.” Jonathan smiled again. “Are you sure you are not an attorney?”

One of the optician’s eye turrets rolled downward, as if he were examining his own body paint. “No, I seem to be what I am. So you Tosevites make jokes about attorneys, too, do you? We say they are the only males and females who can go into a revolving door behind someone else and come out ahead.”

He and Jonathan spent the next ten minutes trading lawyer jokes. Jonathan had to explain what a shark was before the one about professional courtesy made sense to the Lizard. Once the male got it, his mouth opened enormously wide-the Race’s equivalent of a belly laugh.

He said, “If you Big Uglies tell stories like those, you really will convince me you are civilized.”

“I thank you, though I was not worrying about it very much,” Jonathan answered. “Back on Tosev 3, we have stayed independent of the Race. We have come to Home in our own starship. If things like that do not make us civilized, can a few silly jokes do the job?”

“You never can tell,” the Lizard answered. “That is a truth, superior Big Ugly: you never can tell. Those other things may prove you are strong. Jokes, though, jokes show you can enjoy yourselves. And if being able to enjoy yourself is not a part of civilization, what is?”

Jonathan thought that over. Then he got off the bench and bent into the posture of respect before the startled Lizard. He got sand on his knees, but he didn’t care. “That is also a truth, and a very important one,” he said. “I thank you for reminding me of it.”

“Happy to be a help,” the Lizard said. As Jonathan straightened, the male added, “And now, if you will excuse me, I must be on my way.” He skittered off down the path.

Had he been an ordinary Lizard in the street, or had the government sent him by? After thinking that over, Jonathan slowly nodded to himself. A plant, he judged, would have been more likely to call him a Tosevite all the time, simply for politeness’ sake. This male either hadn’t known or more probably hadn’t cared that Big Ugly might be insulting. That argued that he was genuine. Jonathan hoped so. He’d liked him. He went back to the hotel room to write up the encounter while it was still fresh in his memory.

In the room they shared, Karen Yeager read her husband’s notes. “Get into a revolving door in back of you and come out in front of you?” she said. “We tell that one.”

“I know,” Jonathan answered. “We can’t swap dirty jokes with the Lizards. We-”

“Too bad,” Karen broke in. “I can just see a bunch of guys and a bunch of males standing around in a bar, smoking cigarettes, and trading smut. Men!”

“Tell me gals don’t talk dirty when guys aren’t around to listen to it,” Jonathan said. Karen gave him a sour look, because she couldn’t. He laughed. “Told you so. Anyway, we can’t swap dirty jokes with the Race, because they don’t work the way we do, not for that. But jokes about the way society goes along-those are different.”

“I see.” Karen went a little farther in the notes. “So he liked the one about professional courtesy, did he?”

“I thought he’d bust a gut,” Jonathan answered. “I bet he’ll be telling it all over Sitneff today, changing the shark to one of their dangerous animals. They don’t have a lawyer joke just like that one, the way they do with some of the others.”

“They don’t have as many dangerous animals as we do, either,” Karen answered. “Maybe that’s why.”

“Maybe they don’t have as many dangerous lawyers.” With pretty good timing, her husband shook his head. “Nah, not likely.”

Karen made a horrible face. “If you want to tell dumb jokes with the Lizards, that’s fine. Kindly spare me.”

“It shall be done, superior female,” Jonathan said, dropping into the language of the Race. He didn’t bother returning to English as he went on, “When my father goes to see the Emperor, I wonder what we will be doing.”

“Probably seeing the rest of the capital with Trir or some other guide.” Karen stuck to English. Perhaps incautiously, she added, “We may not have Kassquit with us for a while, either. She’ll be studying for her audience, too.”

Jonathan nodded. “That’s true. I had nothing to do with it, either. Dad suggested it to Atvar and Atvar suggested it to Kassquit, and it went from there.”

“I know. Did I say anything else?” Karen knew her voice had an edge to it.

“No, you didn’t say anything.” Jonathan had heard it, too. “But would you say anything if she were going to walk off a cliff?”

I’d say good-bye. But that wasn’t what Jonathan wanted to hear, and would only start trouble. She might have wanted to start trouble if he’d sniffed after Kassquit like a male Lizard smelling a female’s pheromones. But he really hadn’t, even if Kassquit went right on showing everything she had-and even if, thanks to cold sleep, she literally was better preserved than she had any business being.

All that went through Karen’s head in something less than a second. Jonathan probably didn’t even notice the hesitation before she said, “Kassquit isn’t my worry here. She’s playing on the Race’s team.”

She wondered if her husband would push it any further. He just said, “Okay.” There were reasons they’d stayed married for thirty years. Not the smallest of them was that they both knew when they shouldn’t push it too far.

“I wonder what’s happening back on Earth right now,” Karen said. “I wonder what the boys are doing. They’re older than we are. That seems very strange.”

“Tell me about it!” Jonathan said, and she knew he wasn’t thinking about Kassquit any more. “Their kids may have kids by now. I don’t think I’m ready to be a great-grandfather yet.”

“If we ever do make it back to Earth, you may be able to tack another great onto that,” Karen said. Her husband nodded. She got up from the foam-rubber seat and looked out the window. When she first came down from the Admiral Peary, she’d marveled at the cityscape every time she saw it. Why not, when her eyes told her she was on a brand new world? Now, though, she took the view for granted, as she’d take the view from the front window of her house back in Torrance for granted. It was just what she saw from the place where she lived. Familiarity could be a terrible thing.

When she said that to Jonathan, he looked relieved. “Oh, good,” he said. “I was afraid I was the only one who felt that way.”

“I doubt it. I doubt it like anything,” Karen said. “We can ask Frank and the de la Rosas at lunch, if you want to. I bet they’ll all say the same thing.”

“Probably,” Jonathan said. “Dad, too, I bet. He’s seen more different things out of windows than all of us put together.” He blinked. “If we make it back to Earth, he’s liable to be a great-great-great-grandfather. You don’t see that every day.”

“We’re going to be a bunch of Rip van Winkles when we get back to Earth,” Karen said. “If we’d fallen asleep when your father was born and woke up when the colonization fleet got there, we’d think we’d gone nuts.”

Jonathan excitedly snapped his fingers. “There were people like that, remember? A few who’d gone into comas in the twenties and thirties, and then they figured out how to revive them all those years later. They didn’t think they’d gone nuts-they thought everybody around them had. Invaders from another planet? Not likely! Then they saw Lizards, and they had to change their minds.”

“They made a movie out of that, didn’t they?” Karen said. “With what’s-his-name in it… Now that’s going to bother me.”

“I know the guy you mean,” her husband said. “I can see his face, plain as if he were standing in front of me. But I can’t think of his name, either.”

“Gee, thanks a lot,” Karen said.

“Somebody down here will remember it,” Jonathan said. “Or else somebody on the Admiral Peary will.”

“And if they don’t, we can radio back to Earth and find out-if we don’t mind waiting a little more than twenty years.”

Jonathan grinned. “You’re cute when you’re sarcastic.”

“Cute, am I?” She made a face at him. He laughed at her. She made another face. They both laughed this time. Their marriage had its strains and creaks, but they got along pretty well.

Karen forgot to ask about the actor at lunch, which only annoyed her more. She remembered to try at dinner. “I saw that movie on TV,” Linda de la Rosa said. “It was pretty good.”

“Who was the guy?” Karen asked.

“Beats me,” Linda said.

Sam Yeager said, “I remember that one, too. My old friends, Ristin and Ullhass, played a couple of the Lizards. They did all kinds of funny things to make a living once they decided they liked staying with us and didn’t want to go back to the Race.”

Karen knew Ristin and Ullhass, too. She hadn’t recalled that they were in that movie. She said, “But who the devil played the lead? You know, the doctor who was bringing those people out of their comas after all those years?”

“Darned if I know.” Her father-in-law shrugged.

Tom de la Rosa and Frank Coffey couldn’t come up with it, either. Tom did say, “The guy had that TV show for a while…” He frowned, trying to dredge up the name of the show. When he couldn’t, he looked disgusted. “That’s going to itch me till I come up with it.”

“It’s been itching me all day,” Karen said. “I was hoping one of you would be able to scratch it.” She threw her hands in the air in frustration.

They’d been speaking English. They were talking about things that had to do with the USA, not with the Race-with the exception of Sam Yeager’s two Lizard friends. They went on in English even after Kassquit came into the refectory. Karen didn’t know about the others, but she thought of Kassquit as more Lizard than human… most ways.

As usual, Kassquit sat apart from the Americans. But when they kept trying and failing to remember that actor’s name, she got up and walked over to them. “Excuse me for asking,” she said, “but what is this commotion about?”

“Something monumentally unimportant,” Sam Yeager answered. “We would not get so excited about it if it really mattered.”

“Is it a riddle?” she said.

“No, just a frustration,” he told her. “There was an actor in a motion picture back on Tosev 3 whose name none of us can recall. We know the film. It would have come out some time not long before I went into cold sleep, because I saw it. This is like having food stuck between the teeth-it keeps on being annoying.”

“Did this film involve the Race?” Kassquit asked.

“Only a little.” Sam Yeager explained the plot in three sentences. “Why?”

Kassquit didn’t answer. She went back to her supper and ate quickly. Queer thing, Karen thought. She really isn’t very human. I just wish she’d wear clothes. She gave a mental shrug and started eating again herself. She hardly noticed when Kassquit left the refectory, though she did notice Jonathan noticing.

She was a little surprised when Kassquit not only came back a few minutes later but also came over to the Americans again. “James Dean,” Kassquit said, pronouncing the name with exaggerated care.

Everybody exclaimed. She was right. As soon as Karen heard it, she knew that. Frank Coffey bent into the posture of respect. “How did you find out?” he asked.

“It was in the computer network,” Kassquit answered. “The Race has a good deal of information on Tosevite art and entertainment that concern it. How wild Tosevites view the Race is obviously a matter of interest to males and females on Tosev 3, and also to officials here on Home. I hoped it might be so when I checked.”

“Good for you,” Linda said. “We thank you.”

“Truth,” Sam Yeager said. “James Dean. Yes, that is the name. When he first started out, I could not stand him as an actor. I thought he was all good looks and not much else. I have to say I was wrong. He kept getting better and better.”

Karen thought her father-in-law’s age was showing. She’d always admired Dean’s looks-along with most of the other women in the English-speaking world-but she’d always thought he had talent, too. It was raw talent at first. She wouldn’t deny that. Maybe that was why he didn’t appeal so much to the older generation, the generation that had Cary Grant and Clark Gable as its ideals. But it was real, and the rawness of it only made it seem more real. And Sam Yeager was right about one thing: he’d got even better with age.

“Too bad you did not get to see some of the films he had after you went into cold sleep,” she said. “Rescuing Private Renfall is particularly good.”

“The computer network mentions that film,” Kassquit said. “It was set during the Race’s invasion, was it not?” She waited for agreement, then went on, “It has been transmitted to Home for study. You could probably arrange to see it, if you cared to.”

“Films from our home?” Sam Yeager said. “That is good news!” He used an emphatic cough. Karen and the other Americans all made the gesture of agreement.