Down to Earth c-2

by Harry Turtledove

  “Too bad,” Reuven said with more than a little relish. “Even after all these years, they don’t understand just how stubborn we are.”

  “Well, I know how stubborn you are,” Jane said. “I’m still willing to go out to supper with you. What time do you think you’ll be by the dormitory?”

  “About seven?” Reuven suggested. When Jane didn’t say no, he went on, “See you then,” and hung up. Maybe if he was stubborn enough, she’d be willing to do more than go out to supper with him. Maybe not, too, but he could hardly wait to find out.

  Every time Sam Yeager went to Little Rock, the new capital of the United States seemed to have grown. It also seemed as gawky as Jonathan had during the years when he was shooting up like a weed. He thought the president’s residence-the papers called it the Gray House, in memory of the White House that was, these days, slightly radioactive ruins-lacked the classic dignity of its predecessor. People said it was more comfortable to live in, though, and he supposed that counted, too.

  Posters on the telephone poles outside the Gray House shouted, REELECT WARREN amp; STASSEN! They were printed in red, white, and blue. The Democrats’ posters were black and gold. HUMPHREY FOR PRESIDENT! was their message, along with a picture of the beaky, strong-chinned governor of Minnesota. Yeager had nothing much against Hubert Humphrey or Joe Kennedy, Jr., but didn’t intend to vote for them. President Warren was a known quantity. At Sam’s stage of life, he approved of known quantities.

  A receptionist at the front entrance to the residence nodded politely to him as he came up. “May I help you, Lieutenant Colonel?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Yeager gave his name, adding, “I have an eleven o’clock appointment with the president.”

  She checked the book in front of her, then looked carefully at the identification card he showed her. When she was satisfied his image matched his face, she nodded again. “Go to the waiting room, sir. He’ll be with you as soon as he finishes with the Russian foreign commissar.”

  “Thanks,” Yeager said, and grinned in bemusement as he headed down the hall. The Russian foreign commissar, then him? He’d never expected to be mentioned in the same breath with such luminaries, not back in the days when he was bouncing around the mid- to lower minor leagues. Then his idea of big shots was fellows who’d had a cup of coffee in the majors before dropping down again.

  He grinned once more when he got to the waiting room. One of the things set out for people, along with Look and U.S. News and Interspecies Report, to read was the Sporting News. The Los Angeles Browns were two days away from squaring off with the Phillies in the World Series. His heart favored the Browns. If he’d had to put money on the Series, though, he would have bet on the Phils.

  I might have made it to the big time as a coach, he thought. I might have. If I had, I might have been standing in the first-base box two days from now. Instead, he was sitting here waiting to talk with the president of the United States. It wasn’t what he’d had in mind as a younger man, but it wasn’t so bad, either.

  Out came Andrei Gromyko. He didn’t look happy, but he had the sort of face that wasn’t made for looking happy. “Good day,” he said to Yeager in excellent English. He strode out of the room without waiting for a reply.

  In his wake, a flunky in an expensive suit emerged from President Warren’s office. He gave Sam a smile wide enough to make up for the one he hadn’t got from the Russian. It also made him want to check to be sure his wallet was still in his hip pocket. The flunky said, “The president will see you in a few minutes. He wants to finish writing up his notes first.”

  “Okay by me,” Sam answered-as if Warren needed his permission to do some work before summoning him. He returned to the Sporting News. Like Budweiser beer, it had survived the Lizard occupation of St. Louis.

  He almost went past the necrology listing for Peter Daniels, who’d caught briefly for the Cardinals before the First World War. Then his eyes snapped back. Peter Daniels, more commonly known as Mutt, had been his manager at Decatur in the I–I-I League when the Lizards invaded the USA, and had gone into the Army with him. So Mutt had made it to almost eighty. That wasn’t a bad run, not a bad run at all. Sam hoped he’d be able to match it.

  Here came the flunky again. “The president will see you now, Lieutenant Colonel.”

  “Thanks.” Yeager got to his feet, walking into the office, and saluted his commander in chief. “Reporting as ordered, sir.”

  “Sit down, Yeager.” Earl Warren didn’t believe in wasting time. “We have a couple of things to talk about today.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sam sat. A houseman brought in coffee on a silver tray. When the president took a cup, Yeager did, too.

  President Warren picked up a fat manila folder. “Your reports on the Lizard hatchlings-Mickey and Donald: I like that-have been fascinating. I’ve enjoyed reading them not only for what they tell me about Lizard development but also for the way they’re written. You could have been published, I think, had you chosen to try to go in that direction.”

  “Maybe, Mr. President, and thanks, but I hope you’ll excuse me for saying that I have my doubts,” Sam answered. He added, “I was also smart enough to marry a good editor. She makes me sound better than I would otherwise.”

  “A good editor can do that,” Warren agreed. “A bad one… But back to business. In many ways, these two hatchlings seem to be progressing far faster than human children would.”

  “They sure are, sir.” Yeager nodded. He almost added an emphatic cough, but wasn’t sure the president would understand. “Of course, they’re born-uh, hatched-able to run and grab onto things. That gives them a big head start. But they understand faster than babies do, the way puppies or kittens would.”

  “But they aren’t short-lived, as dogs and cats are,” President Warren said.

  “Oh, no, sir. They live as long as we do. Probably longer.” Yeager eyed the president with respect. Warren saw the implications of things. “The only thing they don’t do is, they don’t talk. They understand hand signals. They’re even starting to understand expressions, which is funny, because they don’t have any of their own to speak of. But no words yet. Nothing even really close.”

  “A lot of babies are just starting to say ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ at nine or ten months,” the president pointed out. His stern face softened. “It’s been a while, but I remember?”

  “I know, sir, but there isn’t anything in the noises they make that’s even close to ‘dada’ or ‘mama,’ ” Sam answered. “The one thing I will say is that there are more human-sounding noises in the babbling than there were when they first came out of their eggs. They’re listening to people, but they aren’t ready to start talking to people yet. We’ve got a ways to go before that happens.”

  “All right, Lieutenant Colonel. You sound as if you’re doing a splendid job there,” Warren said. “And all that is in accordance with what you’ve been able to learn about hatchlings from the Lizards, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yes, sir, it sure is,” Yeager said. “I’ve had to be careful about that, though. You made it clear we don’t want them finding out what we’re up to there.” He didn’t mention the hypothetical he’d offered to Kassquit. He wished he hadn’t done it, but too late now.

  “It may turn out to be a smaller problem than we believed at first,” the president replied. “That brings me to the next thing on the agenda, your upcoming meeting with this”-he opened the folder and flipped through it to find the name he needed-“this Kassquit, yes.”

  “That’s right sir?’ Sam nodded, oddly relieved to find Warren thinking about her, too. “Turns out the Lizards did unto us before we had the chance to do unto them. Kassquit is for them what Mickey and Donald will be for us in twenty years or so. She’s been raised as a Lizard, she wishes she were a Lizard, but she’s stuck with a human being’s body.”

  “Yes.” The president flipped through more pages. “I’ve read your reports on your conversations with her with great interest-e
ven if you were less than perfectly discreet, considering what you just said now.” No, Warren didn’t miss much. But he didn’t make an issue of it, continuing, “Do you think there’s any chance of teaching her she really is a human being and ought to be loyal to mankind instead of the Race?”

  “No, Mr. President.” Yeager spoke decisively. “She’s a naturalized citizen of the Empire, you might say. We’re just the old country to her, and she’d no more choose us over them than most Americans would choose Germany or Norway or what have you over the USA, especially if they came here as tiny babies. She’s made her choice-or had it made for her by the way she was brought up.”

  “Your point is well taken,” Warren said. “I still judge the meeting worthwhile, and I’m glad you and your son are going forward with it. Even if we have no hope of turning her, we can learn a lot from her.” He went back to the manila folder, which apparently held copies of all of Sam’s reports for quite some time. “Now-you raised another interesting point here: this note about the possibility of the Lizards’ domestic animals making themselves more at home on Earth than we wish they would.”

  “I got to thinking about rabbits in Australia,” Sam answered. “There are other cases, too. Starlings, for instance. There weren’t any starlings in America seventy-five years ago. Somebody turned loose a few dozen of them in New York City in 1890, and now they’re all over the country.”

  “The year before I was born,” Warren said musingly. “I see we may have a problem here. I don’t see what to do about it, though. We can hardly go to war with the Race over the equivalents of dogs and cows and goats.”

  “I wouldn’t think so, sir,” Yeager agreed. “But these creatures are liable to damage big chunks of the world.”

  “From the reports that have come in from certain areas-our desert southwest among them-that may already be starting to happen,” the president replied. “As I say, it may be a problem, and it may well get worse. But not all problems have neat, tidy solutions, however much we wish they would.”

  “I used to think they did,” Yeager said. “The older I get, though, the more it looks as if you’re right.”

  “You’ve had some problems of your own,” President Warren observed. “If you weren’t fast with a pistol, I suspect I’d be talking with someone else right now.”

  “Somebody tried to take a shot at me, sure enough?’ Sam shrugged. “I still don’t have the faintest idea why.”

  “One thing you keep doing, Lieutenant Colonel, is looking into matters that aren’t really any of your concern,” Warren answered. “I’ve had to mention this to you before. If you didn’t, you might not have had such difficulties.”

  Sam Yeager started to say something, then stopped and studied the president. Was Warren trying to tell him something? Was it what it sounded like? Had that punk tried to punch his ticket because he’d shown he was too interested in the space station that became the Lewis and Clark or in the data store that held information about the night the colonization fleet was attacked?

  This is the United States, he thought. Things like that don’t happen here…do they? They can’t happen here… can they?

  “Do you understand what I’m telling you?” the president asked, sounding like the kindly, concerned grandfather he also looked like.

  “Yes, sir, I’m afraid I do,” Sam said. He wished he hadn’t put it like that, but that did him as much good as wishing he hadn’t swung at a curve down in the dirt.

  “Nothing to be afraid of,” President Warren said easily. “You’re doing a wonderful job. I’ve said so all along. Keep right on doing it, and everything will be fine.” He closed the manila folder, an obvious gesture of dismissal.

  Yeager got to his feet. “Okay, sir, I’ll do that,” he said. But, as he turned to go, he knew damn well it wasn’t okay. And he knew something else. It wouldn’t matter for beans come November, but he’d just changed his mind: he’d vote for Hubert Humphrey anyway.

  When the telephone rang, Straha answered it in the language of the Race: “I greet you.” He enjoyed the confused splutters that commonly caused among Big Uglies. Most of them hung up without further ado. He also enjoyed that.

  This time, though, he got an answer in the same tongue: “And I greet you, Shiplord. Sam Yeager here. How are you today?”

  “I thank you-I am well,” Straha said. “I telephoned your home the other day, but learned you were out of the city.”

  “I have returned,” the Tosevite said. Straha thought he sounded unhappy, but had trouble figuring out why. Any male should have been glad to complete a mission and come home once more. In that, the Big Uglies were similar to the Race.

  Or maybe, Straha thought, I am simply misreading his tone. Although he had lived among the Big Uglies since defecting from the conquest fleet, he did not always accurately gauge their emotions. He felt no small pride at reading them as well as he did: his diligence had, in most instances, overcome billions of years of separate evolution.

  “And what do you want from me today?” he asked. He assumed Yeager wanted something. Few if any Big Uglies were in the habit of calling him simply to pass the time of day. As a defector, he understood that. He was likelier to be a source of information than a friend. And yet, among the Tosevites, Sam Yeager was as close to a friend as he had. He sighed sadly, even though he despised self-pity.

  “I was just wondering if anything new about Kassquit had bounced off your hearing diaphragms,” Yeager said. “You remember: the Big Ugly being raised as a female of the Race.”

  “Of course,” Straha said, though he was glad Sam Yeager had reminded him who Kassquit was. “I regret to have to tell you, I have heard nothing.”

  “Too bad,” Yeager said. “Anything I can find out would help a lot. If we can work things out with the Race, my hatchling and I will be going up into space to meet her. The more we know, the better off we will be.”

  “If I hear anything of interest, you may rest assured I will inform you of it,” Straha said. “But I cannot tell you what I do not know.”

  “Truth,” Yeager admitted. “It would make things a lot easier if you could. Well, I thank you for your time.” He shifted into English for two words-“So long”-and hung up.

  Not altogether by chance-very likely not at all by chance-Straha’s driver strolled into the kitchen a moment later. “That was Sam Yeager, wasn’t it?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Straha answered shortly.

  “What did he want?” the driver asked.

  Straha turned both eye turrets toward him. “Why are you so curious whenever Yeager calls?” he asked in return.

  The driver folded his arms across his chest and replied, “My job is being curious.” Your job is giving me the answers I need, was his unspoken corollary.

  And, by the rules under which Straha had to live, the driver was right. With a sigh, he said, “He was making inquiries about Kassquit?”

  Unlike the ex-shiplord, his driver didn’t need to be reminded who that was. “Oh. The female Tosevite up in space?” He relaxed. “All right. No problem there.”

  That roused Straha to indignation: “If you Big Uglies have problems with your finest expert on the Race, my opinion is that you have severe problems indeed.”

  As usual, he failed to irk his driver. The fellow shifted into the language of the Race to drive home his point: “Shiplord, you were one of the best officers the conquest fleet had. That did not mean you always got on well with your colleagues. If you had, you and I would not be talking like this now, would we?”

  “It seems unlikely,” Straha admitted. “Very well. I see what you mean. But if Yeager is as great a nuisance to his colleagues as I was to mine, he is a very considerable nuisance indeed” He spoke in tones of fond reminiscence; if he hadn’t made Atvar’s blood boil, it wasn’t for lack of effort.

  His driver said, “He is,” and used an emphatic cough.

  “I see,” Straha said slowly. He’d known Yeager had occasional trouble with the American authoritie
s, but hadn’t really believed they were of that magnitude. No wonder I sometimes feel as if he and I were hatched from the same egg, he thought.

  “Kassquit, though, is legitimate business for him,” the driver said. “He should stick to legitimate business. He would do better if he did.” With that, he turned on his heel and strode away.

  Arrogant, egg-addled… But Straha cursed the driver only mentally, and even then the curse broke down half formed. The Big Ugly was anything but addled, and the ex-shiplord knew it. Indeed, his effortless competence was one of the most oppressive things about him.

  When the driver had gone round the corner, Straha opened a drawer, took out a vial of ginger, poured some into the palm of his hand, and tasted. Even as pleasure surged through him, he carefully put the vial back and closed the drawer. The driver knew he tasted, of course. The driver got ginger for him. But he did not like to taste in front of the Big Ugly. He treated the Tosevite as he would have treated one of his own aides: no high-ranking officer cared to do something unseemly while his subordinates were watching.

  Tasting ginger, of course, was legal under the laws of the United States. But those laws mattered only so much to Straha. He lived under them, yes, but they weren’t his. The whole snout-counting process by which the Big Uglies in the USA chose their lawmakers had never failed to strike him as absurd. Emotionally, he still adhered to the regulations of the conquest fleet, and under them tasting ginger was a punishable offense.

  With the herb blazing in him, he followed the driver out to the front room. The Big Ugly had just settled down with a magazine, and seemed somewhat surprised to have to deal with Straha again so soon. “Can I help you with something, Shiplord?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Straha answered. “You can tell me whose snout you intend to choose in the upcoming snoutcounting for the leader of your not-empire?”