Homeward Bound (colonization)

by Harry Turtledove

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “What is that song?” Kassquit asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “He is a better technician, but a poorer person,” Coffey said.

  “Truth! That is what I was trying to say.”

  “You do what you can with what you have. I do not know what else there is to do,” Coffey said. “The other choice is not doing what you can with what you have, and that is worse. If you do not make the most of what you have, why live?”

  “Truth,” Kassquit said once more.

  Have I made the most of what I have? she wondered. Looking back, she didn’t see how she could have done much more. Some things she did not have, and never would. She could rail at Ttomalss for that, but what was the point? Her upbringing was what it was. She couldn’t change it now. She remained bright. Even by Tosevite standards, she remained within hissing distance of sanity. And she’d had-she’d really had-an audience with the Emperor!

  She looked down at Julia Yendys once more. Now she also had a chance to make her baby’s life better than hers had been. That was a chance members of the Race didn’t get, not in the same way. She intended to make the most of it.

  When the telephone rang, Sam Yeager jumped like a startled cat. He’d been deep in work-deeper than he’d thought, obviously. Well, it wasn’t going anywhere. He walked over to the phone. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Dad. What are you up to?”

  “Oh, hello, Jonathan. I was reading the galleys for Safe at Home, as a matter of fact. They’ve got a tight deadline, and I want to make sure I get ’em done on time.”

  “Good for you,” his son said. “Catch any juicy mistakes?”

  “I think the best one was when ‘American helmet’ came out as ‘American Hamlet.’ That would have spread confusion far and wide if it got through.”

  Jonathan laughed. “You’re not kidding. Are you too busy to come over for dinner tonight? I hope not-Karen’s got some mighty nice steaks.”

  “Twist my arm,” Sam said, and then, “What time?”

  “About six,” Jonathan answered.

  “See you then.” Sam hung up. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter past four. He worked on the galleys for a little while longer, spotting nothing more entertaining than “form” for “from.” Like the one he’d told Jonathan about, that passed muster on a computerized spelling program. Most of the errors he found were of that sort. The rest came on words and place names from the Lizards’ language: terms that weren’t in spelling programs to being with. With those, typesetters could inflict butchery as they had in years gone by.

  He set down the red pen, put on a pair of slacks instead of the ratty jeans he’d been wearing, and went down to his car. On the way to Jonathan and Karen’s place, he stopped in a liquor store for a six-pack of beer. He remembered being disappointed with Budweiser ninety years ago, when it started reousting local beers after the first round of fighting between humans and Lizards ended. Things hadn’t got better up till he went into cold sleep. Bud and Miller and Schlitz and a couple of others had swept all before them. They were available, they were standardized, they were cheap… and they weren’t very interesting.

  But while he’d been on ice, beer had had a renaissance. Oh, the national brands were still around. Even their packaging hadn’t changed much. But, to make up for it, swarms of little breweries turned out beer that cost more but made up for it by not only tasting good but by tasting good in a bunch of different ways. Who wanted to drink fizzy water with a little alcohol in it when porter and steam beer and barley wine were out there, too?

  Jonathan laughed when Sam handed him the mix-and-match six-pack. “It’ll go with what I went out and bought,” he said.

  “Fine. If I get smashed, you can put me on the couch tonight,” Sam said.

  “If I get smashed, Karen’ll put me on the couch tonight,” his son said. “You can sleep on the floor.”

  “If I’m smashed enough, I won’t care.” Sam sniffed. “Besides, I’ll be full of good food.” He pitched his voice to carry into the kitchen.

  “You’re a nice man,” Karen called from that direction.

  The steaks were as good as promised, butter-tender and rare enough to moo.

  “What we had on Home wasn’t bad,” Sam said after doing some serious damage to the slab of cow in front of him. “It wasn’t bad at all. We didn’t have any trouble living on it. But this tastes right in a way that never could.”

  “I’ve heard Lizards say the same thing, but with the opposite twist,” Jonathan said. “They don’t mind what they get here, but to them the good stuff is back on Home.”

  “I’m not convinced,” Karen said. “Put us in Japan and we’ll think Japanese food is weird, too. Japanese people feel the same way about what we eat. A lot of it has to do with cooking styles and spices, not with the basic meat and vegetables. A lot more has to do with whether we’re used to eating what’s in front of us. Sometimes different is just different, not better or worse or right or wrong.”

  Sam thought about that. After a few seconds, he nodded. “I’ve been used to eating my words for years, so they don’t taste bad at all. You’re right. I’m sure of it.”

  No matter what he’d said to Jonathan, he didn’t get drunk. Back when he was a kid, he’d thought tying one on was fun. He wondered why. Part of it, he supposed, was coming to manhood during Prohibition. He was one of the last men alive who remembered it, and wondered if they even bothered teaching about it in U.S. history these days. It would be ancient history to kids growing up now, the way the presidency of John Quincy Adams had been for him.

  But he’d gone right on getting smashed after drinking became legal again. A lot of his teammates had been hard drinkers. That wasn’t enough of an excuse for him, though, and he knew it. He’d enjoyed getting loaded. He hadn’t enjoyed it so much the morning after, but that was later. He wondered why he’d enjoyed it. Because it gave him an excuse to get stupid? That didn’t seem reason enough, not looking back on it.

  Jonathan and Karen also held it to a couple of beers. He knew they’d done their share of drinking before he went on ice and stopped being able to keep an eye on them. He laughed at h
imself. No doubt they’d missed that a lot-just the way a frog missed a saxophone. They’d done fine without him, which was, of course, the way things were supposed to work.

  He drove home with no trouble at all. His head was clear enough to work on the manuscript for a while before he went to bed. When he got up the next morning, he didn’t have a headache. He didn’t have any memories of stupidity or, worse, holes where he needed to find memories.

  Aren’t I smug and superior? he thought as he sipped his morning coffee the next day. He was more sober than he had been once upon a time. So what? All over the world, people by the millions needed no excuse at all to drink as much as they could hold, or a little more than that.

  He’d just come out of the shower when the phone rang. That made him smile: whoever‘d tried to catch him in there had missed. “Hello?”

  “Yes. Is this Sam Yeager that I have the honor to be addressing?”

  Alertness tingled through Sam. Though speaking English, that was a Lizard on the other end of the line.

  “Yes, this is Sam Yeager. Who’s calling, please?”

  Talking to members of the Race, once one of Sam’s greatest pleasures, was fraught with risk these days. They still hoped he might have a message from Home for them. The American government still feared he did. He didn’t, and wouldn’t have delivered it if he had. Nobody-not Lizards, not American officials-wanted to believe him when he said so.

  “I am Tsaisanx, the Race’s consul in Los Angeles.”

  Sam whistled softly. Tsaisanx should have known better. He’d been consul here for a human lifetime, and was a veteran of the conquest fleet. If he didn’t know better than to call here… maybe it was a mark of desperation. “I greet you, Consul,” Sam said, using the Race’s formula but sticking to English. “You do know, I hope, that anything we say will be monitored? You had better tell me very plainly what you want.”

  Tsaisanx let out a hissing sigh. “I would rather talk in greater privacy…”

  “I wouldn’t.” Sam used an emphatic cough. “I have nothing to say that others can’t hear. Nothing-do you understand me?”