Down to Earth

by Harry Turtledove

  “Dieter Kuhn.” Lucie spoke the name without hesitation and with great assurance: so much so that Monique wondered if Pierre and his friends—human and otherwise—had microphones in her flat, too. Lucie went on, “Perhaps that can be arranged. I do not say it surely can be, but perhaps. It depends on whether we can find a way that does not point straight back at ourselves.”

  “If you can do it, that would be wonderful,” Monique said. “If not, I will try to think of something else.”

  “Some people need killing,” Lucie said matter-of-factly. Monique found herself nodding before she wondered what she was doing associating with people who said things like that. She’d had no choice, but that wouldn’t be enough to satisfy her priest—not that she’d been to confession in a good long time. And besides, she was the one who wanted the German dead.

  But she might not be the only one who wanted him dead. “If you could arrange for the Lizards to do the job . . .”

  “It could be,” Lucie said. “They have not always the stomach for killing, but some of them do, without a doubt. They differ less, one from another, than people do, I think, but they are not all the same, either. I may know a male or two who would do better business without this nosy Nazi poking into their affairs.”

  Just then, a Lizard came by on the other side of the street. Lucie shut up with a snap. Monique wondered if he was one of the males Pierre’s companion had in mind. Before she could ask, she stared at something else: the Lizard was walking a long-necked, four-legged, scaly creature on a leash, for all the world as if it were a poodle or a greyhound. Pointing toward it, she said, “For heaven’s sake, what is that thing?”

  “It has a name. I’ve heard it, but I forget what it is,” Lucie answered. “The males of the conquest fleet were here to tend to business. The colonization fleet has also brought farm animals and pets like that one.”

  “Ugly little thing, isn’t it?” Monique said.

  “Which, the Lizard or the pet?” Lucie asked, and startled a laugh out of Monique. Her brother’s lady friend went on, “I do business with them, but that doesn’t mean I have to love them. Au contraire.” Monique nodded, and then looked thoughtfully at Lucie. That was the first confidence, no matter how small, she could remember getting from her. Was Lucie starting to trust her at last? And if Lucie was, what did that say about Monique? That she was the kind of person a drug smuggler’s woman would trust? She’d hoped she might think of herself as something better than that.

  Like what? she jeered. A Nazi’s whore? She reached out and set a hand on Lucie’s arm. All at once, being her confidante didn’t look so bad.

  With a hiss of glee, Nesseref strode into the new shop that had opened in the Race’s new town outside of Jezow. “Pets!” she exclaimed. “Now this truly makes me think I am back on Home!”

  “I am pleased I am finally able to open,” replied the female in charge of the place. “The animals, of course, were almost all brought here as frozen fertilized ova. At last, we have been able to begin thawing them and letting them come to maturity.”

  “One small step after another, we do advance on this world,” the shuttlecraft pilot said. “When I talk with males from the conquest fleet, they often seem amazed at how far we have come.”

  “When I talk to males from the conquest fleet, I am amazed at how little those ragamuffins have done,” the other female declared. “They should have delivered all of Tosev 3 to us, not just patches of the planet. And this place!” Her eye turrets waggled in exasperation. “It is so chilly and wet, I might as well be back in cold sleep.”

  “When I was first revived, I was furious to discover the conquest incomplete, too,” Nesseref said. “As I have come to see more of the Big Uglies and the things they can do, I have more sympathy for the conquest fleet.”

  “I do not care to see more of the Big Uglies,” the female said, and used an emphatic cough. “I have already seen more than I like. Not only are they barbarians, they are dangerous barbarians. The only worthwhile thing this planet produces has been made illegal, and where is the justice in that?”

  “Ginger, do you mean?” Nesseref asked, and the other female made the affirmative hand gesture. Nesseref said, “The stuff has been made illegal for good reasons. It tears up our society as nothing else has ever done.”

  “When I taste it . . . uh, that is, when I did taste it”—the female in the shop was being cagey, not knowing exactly who Nesseref was—“I did not care about the society of the Race. All I care, uh, cared about was how good I felt.”

  “Yes, I understand as much.” Nesseref decided to let it go. Pretty plainly, the female in the shop was still tasting, laws or no laws. As plainly, nothing Nesseref said would make her change her mind. Nesseref hadn’t come into the shop to argue about ginger, anyhow. She said, “I want to see your tsiongyu.”

  “Most males and females are more interested in my befflem,” the other female replied. She was going to score points off Nesseref any way she could, for Nesseref had tried to score points off ginger.

  Patiently, the shuttlecraft pilot answered, “Befflem need care every day. My work can take me away from here for days at a time. Tsiongyu are better at fending for themselves when their owner is away.”

  The pet-shop keeper sighed. “I wish my work took me away from this frigid place for days at a time. I would love to go somewhere, anywhere, with decent weather.” She seemed to remember she needed to do business. “Come with me. You will have to walk past the befflem, I am afraid. I have them in front, because they are in greater demand.”

  Befflem turned their eye turrets toward Nesseref as she went by. They wanted to be bought; every line of their small, sinuous bodies proclaimed how much they wanted to be bought. They opened their mouths and squeaked endearingly. Nesseref was tempted to change her mind. No doubt about it: befflem were more friendly, more responsive, than tsiongyu.

  But a beffel without companionship from the Race would not be happy, and was liable to turn destructive. Nesseref did not want to come back to her apartment and find it torn to pieces by an animal with nothing better to do.

  “Here are the tsiongyu,” the other female said, as if she didn’t expect Nesseref to recognize them without help.

  Where the befflem were eager to make friends with any female or male who came near, the larger tsiongyu sat aloof in their cages. Each one was as proudly drawn up as if it were the Emperor. Nesseref pointed to one with striking red-brown stripes. “May I see that male, please?”

  “It shall be done,” the proprietor answered, and opened the cage. When she reached for it, the tsiongi hissed in warning, as its kind had a way of doing. Had it tried to bite and scratch, Nesseref would have asked to see another. Even after so many millennia of domestication, about one tsiongi in four remained convinced it was by rights a wild animal.

  After hissing, though, this one allowed the female to pick it up and take it out of its cage. When she set it on the floor, it stood there on all fours lashing its tail, as if to show how irate it was at being handled, but did not streak for the door, as many of its kind might have. Here and there back on Home, feral tsiongyu, no less than befflem, made pests of themselves.

  Nesseref extended a hand toward the animal. It hissed once more, not so loudly as it had before, but again did not try to bite. Instead, it extended its tongue in the direction of the hand. Nesseref waited, knowing its scent receptors were telling it what to think of her.

  “It seems to accept you,” the female from the shop said. By her tone, she might have wished the tsiongi had taken a bite out of Nesseref.

  “So it does,” Nesseref said. “I will buy it, and I will need supplies for its care. At least it will not have parasites here, which will make things easier.”

  “Truth,” the proprietor said. “You will need a leash, a container for its wastes, and absorbent for the container, at least until you train it to use your own waste-disposal unit. Will you also require a supply of food?”

  “This would come f
rom the flesh of Tosevite animals?” Nesseref asked.

  “Yes, of course,” the other female replied. “Eventually, we will use our own beasts, as we do back on Home, but that time is not yet here—like the pets, the food animals are only now coming to Tosev 3.”

  “I will feed it table scraps, then,” Nesseref decided. The pet-shop proprietor’s tailstump quivered in poorly concealed annoyance: she would get less from Nesseref than she’d hoped. Nesseref wondered how much she was spending on ginger, and how badly she needed more. Well, that, fortunately, was not the shuttlecraft pilot’s worry.

  She picked up the tsiongi, moving slowly and carefully so as not to take the animal by surprise. It stuck out its tongue again and studied her with its large eyes, very much like those of the Race. She took it up to the front of the shop, past the befflem. They tried to leap through the bars of their cages; they did not like tsiongyu. The tsiongi eyed them with lordly disdain, as if to say it knew it could dispose of three or four befflem without working very hard.

  “Here are the other things you will require,” the shopkeeper said. “If you will let me have your card, so I can make the charge against your account . . . I thank you. And here is the statement of what you have purchased.”

  “And I thank you.” Nesseref examined it to make sure the other female hadn’t charged her for tsiongi food or anything else she hadn’t bought. Satisfied, she tucked the bit of paper into one of the pouches she wore on her belt. Then she set the tsiongi on the floor and fastened the leash onto its long, flexible neck. It endured the indignity of being leashed with the air of a prisoner enduring interrogation from the Deutsche or some equally fierce Big Uglies. But when Nesseref started out of the shop, the tsiongi trotted along at her heels.

  When she got to the door, she turned back and said to the shopkeeper, “If I had bought a couple of befflem, they would already have tangled their leashes around my legs three different times.”

  “Befflem are not hatched to be led on leashes,” the other female replied. “Their free spirits are what make them enjoyable.”

  “Their free spirits are what make them nuisances,” Nesseref said. “If they had any brains and weren’t so friendly, they’d be Tosevites.” The female in the pet shop drew back, obviously insulted. Nesseref left before that female found anything to say. The tsiongi stayed right with her. The wild ancestors of tsiongyu had hunted in pairs, a leader and a follower. In domesticating them, the Race had in effect turned its own males and females into pair leaders.

  Nesseref proudly led her new pet through the streets of the new town. Several males and females exclaimed over it; a couple of them asked where she’d bought it. She told them about the pet shop. The tsiongi, meanwhile, accepted the attention as nothing less than its due.

  Its air of restrained nobility lasted till it caught sight of a feathered Tosevite flying creature, a plump beast with a metallic green head and a grayish body, walking along looking for, tidbits. The tsiongi turned an eye turret toward Nesseref, plainly expecting her to attack this thing that could only be prey. When she didn’t, when she just kept walking, the tsiongi gave what sounded like a male or female’s hiss of irritation. Then it sprang for the flying creature itself.

  The leash, which Nesseref hung on to, brought the tsiongi up short. The Tosevite creature flew away with a whir and a flutter of wings. The tsiongi stared as if it couldn’t believe its eye turrets. Maybe it couldn’t; fewer animals flew back on Home than here on Tosev 3, and tsiongyu didn’t hunt flying creatures there. It had probably thought this one couldn’t do anything but slowly walk along. The feathered creature had given it a surprise, as all manner of Tosevite creatures had given the Race unpleasant surprises.

  “Come along,” Nesseref told it. “I will feed you something, even if you could not catch that animal.” Still looking as if it thought it had been cheated, the tsiongi reluctantly followed.

  Half a block farther on, it saw another bird. Again, it tried to attack. Again, the bird flew away. Again, the tsiongi seemed astonished. That happened twice more before Nesseref got back to her apartment building. By then, she was laughing at the tsiongi—all the more so because the beast’s native dignity seemed so frazzled.

  She had got the tsiongi almost back to the apartment building when a beffel—naturally, not on a leash—ran past. The male to whom it more or less belonged called, “Careful there, Goldenscale!” Goldenscale didn’t feel like being careful. It infuriated Nesseref’s tsiongi in a way the birds hadn’t. And the beffel wanted to fight, too. Nesseref had to drag her pet the rest of the way to the entrance.

  “You had better be careful,” she called to the male with the beffel. “Your little friend there will be someone’s supper if you are not.”

  “Befflem do what befflem do,” the male answered with a shrug, which had some truth to it. He raised his voice: “Come, Goldenscale! Come!” Despite his emphatic cough, the beffel went on doing what it did, which in this case involved antagonizing Nesseref’s tsiongi.

  The tsiongi tried to slam through the glass entryway door to get at the obnoxious beffel. It slammed into the glass instead, and looked even more bewildered than it had when the birds flew away. Nesseref took it to the elevator. Once the tsiongi couldn’t see the beffel any more, it regained its dignity. Even so, Nesseref wondered if she would ever be able to take it out on the street for a walk.

  Flight Lieutenant David Goldfarb was going through the motions, and he knew it. The Canadian consulate in Belfast had lost interest in having him as an immigrant once he proved unable to retire from the RAF. Officials at the American consulate hadn’t formally told him no yet, but they hadn’t shown any signs of saying yes, either.

  And the Lizards, on whom he’d pinned such a great part of his hopes, had let him down. From what Cousin Moishe said, he’d done his best to get the fleetlord interested in the plight of an oppressed British Jew, but his best hadn’t been good enough. Goldfarb believed Moishe had indeed done his best. He just wished that best had been better.

  Since it hadn’t been, he was left to keep an eye on the radar screens that watched the sky and space above Belfast. He was doing just that, and trying not to doze off inside the darkened room that housed the radar displays, when an aircraftman first class came in and said, “Telephone call for you, sir.”

  “Thanks,” Goldfarb replied, and the enlisted man saluted. Goldfarb turned to Sergeant Jack McDowell, his partner on the shift. “Will you keep an eye on things, Jack? I doubt I’ll be long.”

  “Aye, sir, I’ll do it,” McDowell replied in his rich burr. He didn’t look down his nose at Goldfarb for being Jewish—or if he did, he kept it to himself. He didn’t even have to do that; his place in the RAF was odds-on to be more secure than Goldfarb’s.

  Not caring to dwell on such things, David tapped the aircraftman on the shoulder. “Lead on, Macduff,” he misquoted, and followed the youngster down the hall and into an office where a telephone lay with the handset off the hook. Goldfarb eyed it with the warm affection a bird gave a snake. It was, he feared, all too likely to be Basil Roundbush trying to get him into fresh trouble—as if he didn’t have enough already. With a sigh, he picked up the telephone. “Goldfarb here.”

  “Hullo, old man,” said a cheerful voice on the other end of the line. Three words were plenty to tell Goldfarb the owner of that voice had gone to Oxford or Cambridge, and to one of the best public schools before that. Roundbush, his tormentor, had done all those things, but this wasn’t Roundbush’s voice. It wasn’t any voice with which David was immediately familiar. Its owner went on, “Haven’t seen you in a long time—not since we went trolling for barmaids together back in Dover, eh?”

  “Jerome Jones, by God!” Goldfarb burst out. They’d worked side by side on radar sets through the Battle of Britain, and then during the onslaught of the Lizards—till radar-seeking missiles had taken out their sets and reduced them to using field glasses and field telephones right out of the First World War. “What the devil are you
doing with yourself these days?”

  “I’m in the import-export business,” Jones answered, and David’s heart sank. If that wasn’t a euphemism for smuggling ginger, he would have been astonished. And if Jones wasn’t going to try to use him some way or other, he would have been more astonished still. Sure enough, his former comrade went on, “I hear you’ve come on a spot of trouble lately.”

  “What if I have?” Goldfarb asked tightly. Jerome Jones wasn’t in Her Majesty’s forces; David could tell him where to head in without worrying about getting court-martialed—not that he’d let that bother him when he’d finally told Roundbush where to go and how to get there. Even though Jones’ father had headed up a bank, dear Jerome would be hard-pressed to land Goldfarb in worse trouble than he’d already found for himself.

  “Why, I wanted to lend you a hand, if I possibly could,” Jones said, sounding surprised David would have to ask.

  “What sort of hand?” Goldfarb remained deeply suspicious. He knew the kind of answer he expected. If you need to put a few hundred quid in your pocket, Jones would say, you can take this little shipment to Buenos Aires for me. Or maybe it would be to Warsaw or to Cairo or even, God help us, to Nuremberg.

  Jerome Jones said, “Unless the little bird I’ve been listening to has it altogether wrong, there are some people giving you a bit of difficulty about leaving the country.”

  “That’s true.” Goldfarb kept on answering in monosyllables, waiting for the sales pitch. He remained sure it was coming. What would he do if good old Jerome promised to help him emigrate after he did his former pal one little favor that would, undoubtedly, turn out not to be so little? Also undoubtedly, good old Jerome had the clout, if he could be persuaded to use it.

  “It’s bloody awful, is what it is.” Jones sounded indignant. How smooth was he these days? Back when Goldfarb had known him, he’d been distinctly callow. But he was a captain of industry these days, not a puppy still wet behind the ears. “You’ve done more for Britain than Britain wants to do for you. We’re still a free country, by God.”