He had to give Pesskrag credit. She did try to imagine that, though it was alien to all her thinking patterns. “We would have to be completely addled to work in that way,” she said. “You do understand as much?”
Ttomalss used the affirmative gesture. “Oh, yes. That is part of the assumption I am asking you to make.”
“Very well.” Pesskrag’s eye turrets both turned up toward the ceiling. Ttomalss had seen that gesture in many males and females who were thinking hard. He used it himself, in fact. After a little while, the physicist’s eyes swung toward him again. “You understand my estimate is highly provisional?”
Now Ttomalss had all he could do not to laugh. However wild Pesskrag was trying to be, she remained a typical, conservative female of the Race. He could not hold it against her. “Yes, I understand that,” he said gently. “I am only looking for an estimate, not a statement of fact.”
“Very well,” she said. “Always bearing that in mind, if I were as wild as a wild Big Ugly-for that is what you have in mind, is it not? — I might find something useful within, oh, a hundred fifty years. This assumes no disasters in the engineering and no major setbacks.”
“I see. I thank you.” Ttomalss was willing to bet the Tosevites would be faster than that. The question was, how much faster than that would they be? Pesskrag was pretending to a wildness she did not have. The Big Uglies did not have a great many things, but they had never lacked for wildness. She’d given Ttomalss an upper limit. He had to figure out the lower limit for himself.
She said, “I thought I would shock you. I see I do not.”
“No, you do not,” Ttomalss agreed. “Your expertise is in physics. Mine is in matters pertaining to the wild Big Uglies. I admit the field lacks the quantitative rigor yours enjoys. Even so, what I do know of the Tosevites persuades me that your answer is believable.”
“That is truly frightening,” Pesskrag said. “I have trouble taking my own estimate seriously, and yet it fazes you not at all.”
“Oh, it fazes me, but not quite in the way you mean,” Ttomalss said. How long had the Big Uglies been working on this line of experiments before Felless noticed they were doing it? How much of their research had never got into the published literature for fear of drawing the Race’s notice-or, come to that, for fear of drawing rival Tosevites’ notice? Those were all relevant questions. He had answers to none of them. He found another question for Pesskrag: “If the Big Uglies do succeed within the timeframe you outline, could we quickly match them?”
“Maybe.” Her voice was troubled. “If so, though, we would have to abandon the caution and restraint we have come to take for granted. That would produce even more change than I have outlined.”
“I know,” Ttomalss said.
Pesskrag said, “If we are forced to change as rapidly as the Big Uglies, will we become as unstable as they are?”
“I doubt it. I doubt we could. But we would have to become more changeable than we are, I think. To some degree, this has already happened with the colonists on Tosev 3,” Ttomalss answered.
“As far as I am concerned, that is not a recommendation,” Pesskrag said. “I have read of the colonists’ strange perversions inspired by Tosevite drugs. I have even read that some of them prefer living among the wild Big Uglies to staying with their own kind. Can such things be true?”
“They can. They are,” Ttomalss said. “As is often true when examining social phenomena, though, causation is more complex than it is in the purely physical world.”
“I do not care,” Pesskrag said stoutly. “Why would any sensible male or female want to live among alien barbarians? Anyone who does such a thing cannot possibly be worthwhile, in my opinion.”
“Why? Some males and females who were good friends beforehand become addicted to ginger together. They formed mating bonds like those common among the Big Uglies,” Ttomalss said. Pesskrag let out a disgusted hiss. Ttomalss shrugged. “Like them or not, these things have happened on Tosev 3. For a long time, we reckoned such mated pairs perverts, as you say, and were glad to see them go-”
“As well we should have been!” Pesskrag broke in.
“Perhaps. We certainly thought so when these pairs first came to our attention,” Ttomalss said. “But ginger is widespread on Tosev 3, and a surprising number of close friends of opposite sexes have become more or less permanent mating partners: so many that we saw we were losing valuable males and females to the Big Uglies by driving all such pairs into exile. These days, there is a sort of tacit tolerance for them on Tosev 3, as long as they do not behave too blatantly in public.”
“Disgusting!” Pesskrag added an emphatic cough. “Bad enough that the Big Uglies have revolting habits. But they are as they have evolved to be, and so I suppose they cannot help it. If our own males and females on that planet are no longer fit to associate with decent members of the Race, though, we have a real problem.”
“Tosev 3 has presented us with nothing but problems ever since the conquest fleet got there,” Ttomalss said. “And yes, I think our society on that world will be different from the way it is elsewhere in the Empire-unless ginger becomes so widespread here and on our other worlds that we begin to match patterns first seen there.”
“I hope with all my liver that this does not happen,” Pesskrag said.
“So do I. I am a conservative myself, as any sensible male past his middle years should be,” Ttomalss said. “But you were the one who said we would see change in the relatively near future. Is it a surprise that some of this change would be social as well as technological?”
“I understand technological change. I understand how to manage it,” Pesskrag said. “I am not sure anyone knows how to manage social change. Why should anyone? The Race has little experience with it, and has not had any to speak of since Home was unified.”
“Do you know who has experience managing social change?” Ttomalss asked.
Pesskrag made the negative gesture, but then said, “The colonists on Tosev 3?”
“That is astute, but it is not quite what I meant. Close, but not quite,” the psychologist said. “As a matter of fact, I had in mind the Tosevites themselves. Their whole history over the past thousand of our years has involved managing major social changes. They have gone from slave-owning agrarians to possessors of a technical civilization that rivals our own, and they have not destroyed themselves in the process.”
“Too bad,” the physicist said.
“You may be right. If we had stayed away for another few hundred years, they might have solved our problem for us,” Ttomalss said. “Then again, if we had stayed away for another few hundred years, they might have come to Home anyway. In that case, all the problems we have with them now would seem trivial by comparison.”
“All the problems we have now, yes,” Pesskrag said. “The problems on the horizon are not small. Believe me, superior sir-they are not.”
“Please give me a written report, in language as nontechnical as you can make it,” Ttomalss said.
“As things are, I would rather not put any of this in writing until my colleagues and I are ready to publish,” the physicist said.
“Do you believe others will steal your work? I am sure we can discourage that,” Ttomalss said.
“Until we know more, I am afraid to let this information out at all,” Pesskrag said, and Ttomalss could not make her change her mind.
“Excuse me.” The Lizard who spoke to Jonathan Yeager in the lobby of the hotel in Sitneff was not one he had seen before. The male was evidently unfamiliar with his kind, too, continuing, “You would be one of the creatures called Big Uglies, would you not?”
“Yes, that is a truth.” Jonathan’s amusement faded as he got a look at the Lizard’s rather sloppily applied body paint. “And you would be a police officer, would you not?”
“Yes, that is also a truth.” The Lizard had a quiet, almost hangdog air. He seemed embarrassed to make the affirmative gesture. “I am Inspector Second Grade Garanpo
. I have a few questions to ask you, if you would be so kind.”
“Questions about what?” Jonathan asked.
“Well, about the ginger trade, superior sir, if you really want to know,” Garanpo answered. “Ginger comes from your world, does it not?”
“Yes, of course it does,” Jonathan said. “But I do not know why you need to ask me about it. I have been here ever since the American diplomatic party came down to the surface of Home. We had no ginger with us then, and we have none now.”
“Which of the Tosevites would you be? Meaning no offense, but you all look alike to me,” the inspector said. Jonathan gave his name. Garanpo sketched the posture of respect without fully assuming it. “I thank you. I want to know because when there is ginger, one naturally thinks of you Tosevites.”
“Why?” Jonathan asked. “Unless I am mistaken, there has been ginger on Home for many years. It must have been brought here by males and females of the Race, because this is the first Tosevite starship to come here. Perhaps you should be looking closer to home, so to speak, than you are.”
“Perhaps we should. Perhaps we are. You are a very clever fellow, to make a joke in our language.” Garanpo’s mouth dropped open in what was obviously a polite laugh. “But perhaps we should also come to the source, you might say.”
“Why?” Jonathan asked again. “Whatever your latest problem with ginger is, why do you think it has anything to do with me?”
“With you personally, superior sir? I never said a thing about that,” Garanpo said. “I never said it, and I do not mean it. But I think it does have something to do with you Big Uglies, and that is a truth.”
“For the third time, Inspector, what is your evidence?”
“Oh, my evidence? I thank you for reminding me.” The police officer made as if to assume the posture of respect again, then checked himself. “Well, my evidence is that the price of ginger on the streets lately has fallen right on its snout, if you understand what I am saying.”
“I understand what you mean, yes, Inspector,” Jonathan answered. “I do not understand why you think this has anything to do with us Big Uglies, though. One of your starships is much more likely to have done the smuggling.”
“But we did not have any new ships come in from Tosev 3 just before the price of the herb tumbled,” Garanpo said.
Damn, Jonathan thought. But he said, “You have not had any new Tosevite ships come in, either. Why blame the Admiral Peary? Our ship has been peacefully orbiting Home for some time now.”
“There was recently contact between your ship and one of ours. This was shortly before the price change in ginger,” Garanpo said. “No one has found ginger on the Horned Akiss — which is the name of our ship-and no one can prove it got from the Horned Akiss to the surface of Home, but that is the way things look. No one can prove it yet, I should say. Yes, I should say that. But we are working on it, which is also a truth.”
Damn, Jonathan thought again. This time, he said, “I think you had better tell my sire, the ambassador, what you have just told me. I think you had better tell him the abridged version of it, too.”
“Do you know, superior Tosevite, my supervisor often says the very same thing to me,” the Lizard replied. “ ‘Abridge it, Garanpo,’ he says, and so I do my best, but somehow I find myself pining for the details. Have you ever had that feeling, where you are pining to tell all you know because some little part of it may turn out to be the important part? And of course you never know which part ahead of time, so…”
He went on for some time. The feeling Jonathan had was guilt at inflicting him on his father. However unpleasant that might be, though, he feared it was necessary. Garanpo had some circumstantial evidence, anyhow.
“Your sire, you tell me?” Garanpo said as he and Jonathan rode up the elevator together. “Now that is interesting, very interesting. I cannot think of many members of the Race who could name their own sires. I am sure I cannot. Are you sure you can?”
He doesn’t know he’s just insulted me and my mother, Jonathan reminded himself. He made the affirmative gesture and said, “Yes, Inspector, I am sure. Our mating customs differ from yours.”
“Well, they must,” Garanpo said. “I do not know much about you Big Uglies, I admit.” If he was like any human cop Jonathan had ever met, he was sandbagging like a mad bastard. He went on, “Do you really choose your leaders by snoutcounting? It does not strike me as a very efficient system.”
“We really do. It seems to work for us,” Jonathan answered. The elevator stopped. The door slid open. Jonathan got out. Without being told, Garanpo turned left, the direction in which Sam Yeager’s room lay. Jonathan nodded to himself. Yes, the Lizard knew a good deal more than he was letting on.
After a couple of strides, Garanpo seemed to realize Jonathan wasn’t following. One of his eye turrets swung back toward the American. “I do need you to show me the way, you know,” he said testily.
“Yes, of course, Inspector,” Jonathan said. If Garanpo didn’t know his father’s room number-and probably his hat size, too-he would have been amazed.
“Hello, son,” Sam Yeager said in English after he let Jonathan and Garanpo in. He switched to the language of the Race to ask, “Who is your friend?” Jonathan introduced the policemale. His father said, “I greet you, Inspector. I am pleased to meet you. And what can I do for you today?”
Garanpo did a better job of summing up the ginger situation than Jonathan had thought he could. He finished, “And so, your, uh, Ambassadorship-that is a funny word, is it not? — now you know why I think some of the Big Uglies up in space may have been involved in all this.”
“I can see why you think so, yes,” Sam Yeager replied. “I can also see that you have nothing resembling proof. Members of the Race out in space might have held ginger to release it at a time when the price was to their liking, too, you know.”
“Oh, yes. That is a truth, your Ambassadorship,” Garanpo said. “They might have. But they might not have, too. The timing makes me think they did not. And if they did not, what do you propose to do about it?”
“I am not going to answer a hypothetical question. If you have proof Tosevites are involved in this business, by all means come and see me again,” Jonathan’s father said. “I do want to point out, though, that possession and sale of ginger are not illegal for us. Among Tosevites, it is only a spice, not a drug.”
“Is conspiracy illegal?” Garanpo asked, and then waved away his own question. “Never mind. Forget I said that. I will do just what you say, your Ambassadorship, and I thank you for your time. A pleasure to meet you as well, Jonathan Yeager.” He sketched the posture of respect to both Americans-a little more deeply to Jonathan’s father-and left the room.
“What do you think, Dad?” Jonathan asked.
“I don’t know.” Sam Yeager checked the antibugging gadgetry on the table between them, then nodded to himself. “Okay. Inspector Garanpo didn’t manage to plant anything new in here. That’s a relief. I guess we can talk pretty freely. What do I think? I think somebody upstairs screwed up. I think whoever it is better not screw up again, or we’ll have trouble diplomatic immunity won’t even start to get us out of. What do you think?”
“I’ve got the feeling you’re right,” Jonathan said in a troubled voice. “I’d be surprised if the Admiral Peary didn’t have ginger along.”
“I’d be amazed if the Admiral Peary didn’t have ginger along,” his father agreed. “It’s not just a weapon-it’s a can opener, too. It can help us find out all kinds of things we wouldn’t know about otherwise.”
“It can get us into all kinds of trouble we wouldn’t know about otherwise, too,” Jonathan said.
“Oh, you bet it can.” His father added an emphatic cough even though they were speaking English. “It can, and I’d say it just has.”
“What are we going to do about it?” Jonathan asked.
Sam Yeager made a sour face. “Only one thing I can think of to do: I’ve got to have a littl
e heart-to-heart with Lieutenant General Healey. All things considered, I’d rather have a drunk tree surgeon yank my appendix without anesthetic.”
Jonathan winced. He couldn’t help himself. “You don’t like Lieutenant General Healey, do you?”
“What gave you that impression?” his father said. They grinned at each other. Sam Yeager went on, “Why, I think the commander is a Swell Old Boy.” The capital letters thudded into place. He dropped his voice. When he muttered, “Brass hat,” Jonathan wasn’t sure he was supposed to hear. But evidently he was, for his father continued, “Healey’s the sort of guy who would have cheered his head off when we blew up Lizard colonists in cold sleep. He’s the sort of guy who-” He broke off.
By his expression, though, Jonathan had a good notion of what was in his mind. His father probably figured Healey was the sort of guy who would have locked him up and lost the key after he let the Lizards know what the USA had done. There were a lot of people like that. Quite a few of them, understandably, held high military rank.
With a sigh, Sam Yeager said, “Well, it’s just got to be done. I don’t think the Race can unscramble our communications. Our gear was state of the art in 1994, and better than anything they had on Earth. I wonder what we’ve got now. Probably walks the message up to the ship and whispers in Healey’s ear.”
“I’d like to be a fly on the wall when you do talk to him,” Jonathan said.
“Nope. No flies. This has got to be between him and me,” his father said. “Officially, I don’t know anything. Officially, I don’t even suspect anything. I’m just calling to check. That’s how it’s got to be… officially. The rest is… officially… off the record.”
There were times, Jonathan knew, when arguing with his father was useless. He could tell this was one of those times. Since his hint hadn’t worked, he just said, “Okay, Dad. You know what you’re doing.” He hoped his father would let him know how things had gone somewhere later on.
Homeward Bound (colonization) Page 45
