And the world never would have found out the one great talent he had in him. He would have gone through life-well, not quite ordinary, because not everybody could play ball even at his level, but unfulfilled in a certain ultimate sense. Jonathan couldn’t say that about himself, and he knew it. He nodded. He smiled, too, and it didn’t take too much extra effort. “Okay, Dad,” he said. “Sure.”
Although Ttomalss had gone into cold sleep after all the Big Uglies who’d come to Home, he’d been awake longer than they had. His starship had traveled from Tosev 3 to Home faster than their less advanced craft. He called up an image of their ramshackle ship on his computer monitor. It looked as if it would fall apart if anyone breathed on it hard. That wasn’t so, of course. It had got here. It might even get back to Tosev’s solar system.
The psychologist made the image go away. Looking at it only wasted his time. What really mattered wasn’t the ship that had brought the Tosevites here. What mattered was that they were here-and everything that had happened back on Tosev 3 since they left.
He still didn’t know everything, of course-didn’t and wouldn’t. Radio took all those years to travel between Tosev’s system and this one. But, in the communications both Fleetlord Reffet, who led the colonization fleet, and Shiplord Kirel, who headed what was left of the conquest fleet after Atvar’s recall, sent back to Home, Ttomalss found a rising note of alarm.
It had been obvious even to Ttomalss, back during his time on Tosev 3, that the Big Uglies were catching up with the Race in both technology and knowledge. He’d assumed the Tosevites’ progress would plateau as time went on and they finally did pull close to even with the Race. He’d assumed, in other words, that the Race knew everything, or almost everything, there was to know.
That was turning out not to be true. Reports from both Reffet and Kirel talked about Tosevite scientific advances that had the psychologist wondering whether he fully understood the news coming from Tosev 3. He also began to wonder whether Reffet and Kirel and the males and females working under them fully understood what was happening on Tosev 3.
When he said as much to Atvar, the former fleetlord of the conquest fleet responded with the scorn Ttomalss had expected from him: “Reffet never has understood anything. He never will understand anything, and he never can understand anything. He has not got the brains of a retarded azwaca turd.”
“And Kirel?” Ttomalss asked.
“Kirel is capable enough. But Kirel is stodgy,” Atvar said. “Kirel has brains enough. What Kirel lacks is imagination. I have seen kamamadia nuts with more.” He rolled out one striking phrase after another that morning.
“What would you do, were you still in command on Tosev 3?” Ttomalss asked.
Atvar swung both eye turrets toward him. They were sitting in one of the small conference rooms in the hotel where the Big Uglies were staying. How many other conference rooms all across Home were just like this one, with its sound-absorbing ceiling tiles, its greenish brown walls-walls not far from the color of skin for the Race, a soothing color-its writing board and screen and connection to the planetwide computer network, its stout tables and not quite comfortable chairs? Only the fact that some of the chairs now accommodated Tosevite posteriors-not quite comfortably, from what the Big Uglies said-hinted at anything out of the ordinary.
After a pause, Atvar said, “Why do you not come for a walk with me? It is a nice enough day.”
“A walk?” Ttomalss responded as if he’d never heard the words before. Atvar made the affirmative gesture. With a shrug, the researcher said, “Well, why not?”
Out they went. It was a nice enough day. Atvar let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. “We were certain to be recorded in there,” he said. “Now that I am no longer in charge on Tosev 3, I do not wish to be quoted on what to do about it by anyone who could substantiate the record.”
“I see,” Ttomalss said. “Well, since I am not in a position to do that, what is your opinion on what to do in aid of Tosev 3?”
“That Reffet and Kirel are cowards.” Atvar’s voice went harsh and hard. “The Big Uglies are gaining an advantage on us. You know this is true. So do I. So does everyone else with eyes in his eye turrets. But the males allegedly leading on Tosev 3 have not the courage to draw the proper conclusion.”
“Which is?”
“You were there. You already know my view. We cannot afford to let the Big Uglies get ahead of us. They are already here with one ship. That is bad enough, but tolerable. All this ship can do is hurt us. If they send fleets to all our solar systems, though, they can destroy us. They can, and they might. We attacked them without warning. If they have the chance, why should they not return the favor? And so, as I proposed many years ago, our best course is to destroy them first.”
“That would also mean destroying our own colony,” Ttomalss said.
“Better a part than the whole.” Atvar used an emphatic cough. “Far better.”
“I gather Reffet and Kirel do not agree?”
“They certainly do not.” Atvar spoke with fine contempt. “They fail to see the difference between the purple itch, for which a soothing salve is all the treatment needed, and a malignancy that requires the knife.”
“You are outspoken,” Ttomalss observed.
“By the spirits of Emperors past, Senior Researcher, I feel here what Straha must have felt back on Tosev 3 before he tried to oust me,” Atvar exclaimed.
Ttomalss hissed in astonishment. Shiplord Straha had been so disgusted over the way the conquest fleet was being run that, after his attempt to supplant Atvar failed, he’d defected to the American Big Uglies. He’d later returned to the Race with news from Sam Yeager that the Americans had been the ones to attack the colonization fleet. Nothing less than news like that could have restored him to the fleetlord’s good graces, or even to a semblance of them.
Atvar made the affirmative gesture. “By the spirits of Emperors past, it is a truth. During the fighting, Straha saw how genuinely dangerous the Big Uglies were, and wanted to use radical measures against them. I, in my infinite wisdom, decided this was inappropriate-and so we did not completely defeat them. Now I am the one who sees the danger, and no one here on Home or on Tosev 3 appears willing to turn an eye turret in its direction.”
“Exalted Fleetlord, you are not the only one who sees it,” Ttomalss said. “Looking at the reports coming from Tosev 3, what strikes me is their ever more frightened tone.”
“Another truth,” Atvar said. “All the more reason for us to eliminate the menace, would you not agree? I have had an audience with the Emperor. Even he realizes we have to find some way to deal with the Big Uglies.”
“Some years ago, I think, annihilating the Big Uglies might well have been the appropriate thing to do,” Ttomalss replied. Atvar hissed angrily. He liked hearing disagreement no better than he ever had. Ttomalss said, “Listen to me, if you please.”
“Go on.” Atvar did not sound like a male who was going to listen patiently and give a reasoned judgment on what he heard. He sounded much more as if he intended to tear Ttomalss limb from limb.
All the same, the psychologist continued, “Unless I am altogether mistaken in my reading of the reports from Tosev 3, I think one reason Reffet and Kirel hesitate to apply your strategy is that they fear it will not work, and it will provoke the independent Tosevites.”
“What do you mean, it will not work?” Atvar demanded. “If we smash the not-empires, they will stay smashed. The Empire will no longer have to worry about them-and a good thing, too.”
“It might well be a good thing, if we could be sure of doing it,” Ttomalss said. “By the latest reports from Tosev 3, though, the Big Uglies are now ahead of us technologically in many areas, ahead of us to the point where Reffet and Kirel are close to despair. We are not innovators, not in the same way the Tosevites are. And we have only a small scientific community on Tosev 3 in any case. It is a colonial world. The center of the Empire is still Home. At the moment, unless I
am badly mistaken, the Big Uglies could beat back any attack we might try. Whether we could do the same if they attacked us is a different question, and likely one with a different answer.”
“Has it come to that so soon?” Atvar said. “I would have believed we had more time.”
“I am not certain, but I think it has,” Ttomalss said. “I am also not certain the Big Uglies fully realize their superiority. If they were to defeat an attack from the Race…”
“They would become sure of something they now only suspect? Is that what you are saying?”
Ttomalss paused till a female wearing blue false hair between her eye turrets got too far away to hear. Then, unhappily, he used the affirmative gesture and said, “Exalted Fleetlord, I am afraid it is. If not, then I am misreading the reports beamed here from Tosev 3.”
“I have been reading those same reports,” Atvar said. “I did not have that impression. And yet…” He paused, then strode out ahead of Ttomalss, his tailstump twitching in agitation. The psychologist hurried to catch up with him. Atvar swung one eye turret back toward Ttomalss. With obvious reluctance, the fleetlord slowed. When Ttomalss came up beside him once more, he asked, “Have you also been reading translations of the reports the American Big Uglies have sent this way for the benefit of their starship and its crew?”
“I have seen some of those translations,” Ttomalss said cautiously. “I do not know how reliable they are.”
“Well, that is always a concern,” the fleetlord admitted. “We have sent back an enormous amount of data on Tosev 3, including video and audio. But none of the so-called experts here has ever seen a real live Big Ugly before now except possibly Kassquit, the irony being that she speaks only the language of the Race.”
“Kassquit is… what she is. I often marvel that she has as much stability as she does,” Ttomalss said. “Hoping for more would no doubt be excessive. But I am sorry. You were saying?”
“I was saying that, having read the translations, I was struck by how confident the American Big Uglies seem,” Atvar said. “They appear to respect the Race’s power on Tosev 3-as who not utterly addled would not? — but they do not appear to be in the least afraid of it.” His tailstump trembled some more. “This may support your view.”
“Are any officials who have never been to Tosev 3 aware of these concerns?” Ttomalss asked. “The ones pertaining to conditions on the planet, I mean, not those involving the American Big Uglies here.”
Atvar’s mouth fell open in a laugh. He waggled his lower jaw back and forth, which meant the laugh was sardonic. “Officials here who have never been to Tosev 3 are not aware of anything, Senior Researcher,” he said. “Anything, do you hear me? Why do you suppose they have you and me and even Kassquit negotiating with the wild Big Uglies? They are not competent.”
“At least they know that much,” Ttomalss said. As reassurances went, that one fell remarkably flat.
Colonel Glen Johnson floated in the Admiral Peary ’s control room, watching Home go round below him. That was an illusion, of course; the starship revolved around the planet, not the reverse. But his habits and his way of thinking were shaped by a language that had reached maturity hundreds of years before anyone who spoke it knew about or even imagined spaceflight.
He shared the control room with Mickey Flynn. “Exciting, isn’t it?” Flynn remarked. He yawned to show just how exciting it was.
“Now that you mention it, no.” Johnson peered out through the coated glass. There might have been nothing between him and the surface of Home. The Lizards’ world had less in the way of cloud cover than Earth, too, so he could see much more of the surface. Grasslands, mountains, forests, seas, and lots and lots of what looked like desert to a merely human eye rolled past. On the night side of the planet, the Race’s cities shone like patches of phosphorescence. He said, “I used to love the view from up high when I was in a plane or a ship in Earth orbit. Hell, I still do. But…” He yawned, too.
“I never thought I would know how Moses felt,” Flynn said.
“Moses?” Johnson contemplated his fellow pilot instead of the ever-changing landscape down below. “I hate to tell you this, but you don’t look one goddamn bit Jewish.”
“No, eh? I’m shocked and aggrieved to hear it. But I wasn’t thinking of looks.” Flynn pointed down to Tau Ceti 2. “We’ve brought our people to the Promised Land, but we can’t go into it ourselves.”
“Oh.” Johnson thought that over, then slowly nodded. “Yeah. I’ve had that same thought myself, as a matter of fact, even though it’s been a hell of a long time since I went to Sunday school.” It was a pretty fair comparison, no matter who made it. He wondered how long he’d last under full gravity. Not long-he was sure of that. And he wouldn’t have much fun till the end finally came, either.
Mickey Flynn said, “I wonder if God reaches this far, or if the spirits of Emperors past have a monopoly here.”
“The Lizards are sure their spirits reach to Earth, so God better be paying attention here just to even things out,” Johnson said.
When he was a kid, even when he was a young man, he’d really believed in the things the preacher talked about in Sunday sermons. He wondered where that belief had gone. He didn’t quite know. All he knew was, he didn’t have it any more. Part of him missed it. The rest? The rest didn’t much care. He supposed that, had he cared more, he wouldn’t have lost his belief in the first place.
His gaze went from the ever-unrolling surface of Home to the radar screen. As always, the Lizards had a lot of traffic in orbit around their homeworld. The radar also tracked several suborbital shuttlecraft flights. Those looked a lot like missile launches, so he noticed them whenever they went off. As long as the alarm that said something was aimed at the Admiral Peary didn’t go off, though, he didn’t get too excited.
Actually, by comparison with the orbital traffic around Earth, Home was pretty tidy. The Lizards were neat and well organized. They didn’t let satellites that had worn out and gone dead stay in orbit. They cleaned up spent rocket stages, too. And they didn’t have any missile-launching satellites cunningly disguised as spent rocket stages, either. Home wasn’t nearly so well defended as Earth. The Lizards hadn’t seen the need. Why should they have seen it? They were unified and peaceful. No other species had ever paid them a call in its own starships. Till now…
“In the circus of life, do you know what we are?” Flynn said out of the blue.
“The clowns?” Johnson suggested.
“You would look charming in a big red rubber nose,” the other pilot said, examining him as if to decide just how charming he would look. Flynn seemed dissatisfied-perhaps not charming enough. After that once-over, he went on with his own train of thought: “No, we are the freaks of the midway. ‘Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and see the amazing, astonishing, and altogether unique floating men! They glide! They slide! They sometimes collide! And after one touch-one slight touch-of gravity, they will have died! One thin dime, one tenth part of a dollar, to see these marvels of science perform for you!’ ” He pointed straight at Johnson.
“If I had a dime, I’d give it to you,” Johnson said. “I remember the carnival barkers back before the war. Sweet Jesus Christ, that’s more than ninety years ago now. But you sound just like ’em.”
Mickey Flynn looked pained. “ ‘Talkers.’ The word is ‘talkers,’ ” he said with what seemed exaggerated patience. “Only the marks call them ‘barkers.’ ”
“How do you know that?” Johnson asked. After so long living in each other’s pockets on the Lewis and Clark, he thought he’d heard all the other pilot’s stories. Maybe he was wrong. He hoped he was. Good stories were worth their weight in gold.
“Me?” Flynn said. “Simple enough. Until I was three years old, I was a pickled punk, living in a bottle of formaldehyde on a sideshow shelf. It gave me a unique perspective-and very bad breath.”
He spoke with the same straight-faced seriousness he would have used to report the course of
a Lizard shuttlecraft. He had no other tone of voice. It left Glen Johnson very little to take hold of. “Anyone ever tell you you were out of your tree?” he asked at last.
“Oh yes. But they’re all mad save me and thee-and I have my doubts about thee,” Flynn said.
“I’ve had my doubts about you-thee-a lot longer than the other way round, I’ll bet,” Johnson said.
“Not likely,” the other pilot replied. “When you came aboard the Lewis and Clark, I doubted you would live long enough to doubt me or anything else ever again. I thought Healey would throw you right out the air lock-and keep your spacesuit.”
Since Johnson had wondered about the same thing, he couldn’t very well argue with Mickey Flynn. He did say, “Nobody believes I had electrical problems at just the wrong time.”
“Healey believed you-or he wasn’t quite sure you were lying, anyhow,” Flynn said. “If you hadn’t done such a good job of faking your troubles, he would have spaced you, and you can take that to the bank.” He eyed Johnson once more. It made his expression look odd, since they floated more or less at right angles to each other. “Don’t you think you can ’fess up now? It was more than ten light-years and almost seventy years ago.”
Johnson might have confessed to Mickey Flynn. Flynn was right; what he’d done in Earth orbit hardly mattered here in orbit around Home. But Brigadier General Walter Stone chose that moment to come into the control room. Johnson was damned if he would admit anything to the dour senior pilot. He had the feeling that Stone wouldn’t have minded spacing him, either. And so he said, “I told you-I had wiring troubles at the worst possible time, that’s all. There is such a thing as coincidence, you know.”
Stone had no trouble figuring out what the other two pilots were talking about. With a snort, he said, “There is such a thing as bullshit, too, and you’ve got it all over your shoes.”
“Thank you very much-sir.” If Johnson was going to keep up the charade of innocent curiosity, he had to act offended now. “If you will excuse me…” He reached for a handhold, found it, and pulled himself from one to another and out of the control room.
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