Down to Earth

by Harry Turtledove

  “Does that happen very often?” he asked the driver.

  “Only on days when the sun comes up in the morning,” the other male assured him. They both laughed, and spent the rest of the journey through the crowded streets swapping war stories.

  More Big Uglies threw rocks at the vehicle that took Gorppet back to the Cairo airfield the next day. “You ought to teach them manners with your machine gun,” he told the male at the wheel of this machine.

  “Orders are to hold our fire unless they start using firearms against us,” the driver answered with a resigned shrug. “If we started shooting at them for rocks, we would have riots every day.”

  “Or else they might learn they are not supposed to do things like that,” Gorppet said. The driver shrugged again, and did not reply. Gorppet outranked him—now Gorppet outranked him—but he had to do as local authority told him to do.

  No one fired at the vehicle. Gorppet carried his gear into the aircraft that would take him to this place called South Africa. He wondered what it would be like. Different from Baghdad was what he wanted. The officer back there had told him the Big Uglies in the new place were different. That was good, as far as he was concerned. The officer had also told him the weather was different. That wasn’t so good, but couldn’t be helped. After a winter in the SSSR, Gorppet doubted anything less would unduly faze him.

  Peering out the window, he saw the aircraft pass over terrain desolate even by the standards of Home. Afterwards, though, endless lush green vegetation replaced the desert. Gorppet stared down at it in revolted fascination. It seemed almost malignant in the aggressiveness of its growth. Only a few scattered river valleys and seasides back on Home even came close to such fertility.

  So much unrelieved green proved depressing. Gorppet fell asleep for a while. When he woke again, the jungle was behind him, replaced by savanna country that gave way in turn to desert once more. Then, to his surprise, more fertile country replaced the wasteland. The aircraft descended, landed, and came to a stop.

  “Welcome to South Africa,” the pilot said over the intercom to Gorppet and to the males and females who’d traveled with him. “You had better get out. Nothing but sea after this, sea and the frozen continent around the South Pole.”

  Gorppet shouldered his sack and went down the ramp black-skinned Big Uglies had wheeled over to the aircraft. He’d seen few of that race up till now. They looked different from the lighter Tosevites, but were no less ugly. When they spoke, he discovered he couldn’t understand anything they said. He sighed. Knowing what the Big Uglies back in Basra and Baghdad were talking about had helped keep him alive a couple of times. He would have to see how many languages the local Tosevites spoke and how hard they were to learn.

  Sack still shouldered, he trudged toward the airfield terminal. The weather was on the chilly side; the officer back in Baghdad hadn’t lied about that. But Gorppet didn’t see any frozen water on the ground, and even the broad, flat mountain to the east of the airfield and the nearby city was free of the nasty stuff. It will not be too bad, he told himself, and hoped he was right.

  In the terminal, as he’d expected, was a reassignment station. A female clerk turned one eye turret toward him. “How may I help you, Small-unit Group Leader?” she asked, reading his very new, very fresh body paint.

  After giving his name and pay number, Gorppet continued, “Reporting as ordered. I need quarters and a duty assignment.”

  “Let me see whether your name has gone all the way through the system,” the female said. She spoke to the computer and examined the screen. After a moment, she made the affirmative hand gesture. “Yes, we have you. You are assigned to Cape Town, as a matter of fact.”

  “And where in this subregion is Cape Town?” Gorppet asked.

  “This city here is Cape Town,” the clerk answered. “Did you not study the area to which you would be transferred?”

  “Not very much,” Gorppet admitted. “I got the order a couple of days ago, and have spent my time since either traveling or staying in transit barracks.”

  “No reason you could not have examined a terminal there,” the female clerk said primly. “I would have thought an officer would show more interest in the region to which he has been assigned.”

  That took Gorppet by surprise. He wasn’t used to being an officer. He wasn’t used to thinking like an officer, either. As an infantrymale, he’d gone where he was ordered, and hadn’t worried about it past that. Fighting embarrassment, he spoke gruffly: “Well, I am here now. Let me have a printout of my billet and assignment.”

  “It shall be done,” the clerk said, and handed him the paper.

  He rapidly read the new orders. “City patrol, is it? I can do that. I have been doing it for a long time, and this is a relatively tranquil region.”

  “Is it?” the clerk said, “If you are coming from worse, I sympathize with you.” She got very insulted when Gorppet laughed at her.

  Ttomalss studied the report that had come up from the Moishe Russie Medical College. Based on our present knowledge of Tosevite physiology and of available immunizations, the physician named Shpaaka wrote, it seems possible, even probable, that the specimen may, after receiving the said immunizations, safely interact with wild Tosevites. Nothing in medicine, however, is so certain as it is in engineering.

  With a discontented mutter, Ttomalss blanked the computer screen. He’d hoped for a definitive answer. If the males down at the medical college couldn’t give him one, where would he get it? Nowhere, was the obvious answer. He recognized that Shpaaka was doing the best he could. Psychological research was also less exact than engineering. That still left Ttomalss unhappy.

  After more mutters, he telephoned Kassquit. “I greet you, superior sir,” she said. “How are you this morning?”

  “I am well, thank you,” Ttomalss answered. “And yourself?”

  “Very well,” she said. “And what is the occasion of this call?”

  She undoubtedly knew. She could hardly help knowing. That she asked had to mean she was unhappy about proceeding. Even so, Ttomalss explained the news he’d got from the physician down on the surface of Tosev 3. He finished, “Are you willing to undergo this series of immunizations so you are physically able to meet with wild Big Uglies?”

  “I do not know, superior sir,” Kassquit replied. “What are the effects of the immunizations likely to be on me?”

  “I do not suppose there will be very many effects,” Ttomalss said. “Why should there be? There are no major effects to immunizations among the Race. I had most of mine in early hatchlinghood, and scarcely remember them.”

  “I see.” Kassquit made the affirmative hand gesture to show she understood. But then she said, “Still, these would not be immunizations from the Race. They would be immunizations from the Big Uglies, for Tosevite diseases. The Big Uglies are less advanced than the Race in a great many areas, and I am certain medicine is one of them.”

  “Well, no doubt that is a truth.” Ttomalss admitted what he could hardly deny. “Let me inquire of Shpaaka. When he gives me the answer, I shall relay it to you.” He broke the connection.

  On telephoning the physician, he got a recorded message telling him Shpaaka had gone to teach and would return his call as soon as possible. His own computer had the same kind of programming, which didn’t make him any happier about being on the receiving end of it. Concealing annoyance over such things was part of good manners. He recorded his message and settled into some other work while waiting for Shpaaka to get back to him.

  After what seemed forever but really wasn’t, the physician did call back. “I greet you, Senior Researcher,” Shpaaka said. “You asked an interesting question there.”

  “I thank you, Senior Physician,” Ttomalss replied. “The question, however, does not come from me. It comes from my Tosevite ward, who is of course most intimately concerned with it.”

  “I see. That certainly makes sense,” Shpaaka said. “I had to do some research of my own before
I could give the answer: partly by asking Big Ugly students of their experience with immunizations, partly having some of them consult Tosevite medical texts so they could translate the data in those texts for me.”

  “I thank you for your diligence,” Ttomalss said. “And what conclusions did you reach?”

  “That Tosevite medicine, like so much on this planet, is primitive and sophisticated at the same time,” the physician told him. “The Big Uglies know how to stimulate the immune system to make it produce antibodies against various local diseases, but do so by brute force, without caring much about reducing symptoms from the immunizations. Some of them appear to be unpleasant, though none has any long-term consequences worthy of note.”

  “I see,” Ttomalss repeated, not altogether happily. If the immunizations were likely to make Kassquit sick, would she want to go forward with them?

  Shpaaka said, “I tell you this, Senior Researcher: finding your answer has been one of the more pleasant, enjoyable, and interesting things I have had to do lately.”

  “Oh?” Ttomalss said, as he was plainly meant to do. “And why is that?”

  “Because the medical college has been cast into turmoil, that is why,” the physician replied. “You may or may not know that some miserable individual who thought he was more clever than he really was devised the brilliant plan of making the Big Uglies pay for the privilege of exercising their superstitions, which has provoked disorder over wide stretches of Tosev 3.”

  “Yes, I do recall that,” Ttomalss said in faintly strangled tones. Shpaaka’s sarcasm stung. Fortunately, the other male didn’t know he was talking to the originator of the plan he scorned.

  “You do? Good,” Shpaaka said. “Well, someone then decided on the converse for the medical college: that no one who failed to give reverence to the spirits of Emperors past would be allowed to continue. What no one anticipated, however, was that many Big Uglies—including some of the most able students, and even including the hatchling of the Big Ugly for whom the medical college was named—would be so attached to their superstitions that they would withdraw instead of doing what we required of them.”

  “That is unfortunate, both for them and for relations between the Race and their species,” Ttomalss said.

  Shpaaka made the affirmative hand gesture. “It is also unfortunate for the Tosevites these half-trained individuals will eventually treat. They would have done far better by choosing to stay.”

  Ttomalss hadn’t thought about infirm Big Uglies. He’d seen plenty in China—rather fewer in the Reich, where the standards of medicine, if not high, were higher. “Well, it cannot be helped,” he said after a brief pause.

  “Oh, it could be,” Shpaaka said. “All we have to do is rescind the idiotic policy we are now following. But I do not expect that, and I shall not take up any more of your time advocating it. Good day to you.”

  “Good day,” Ttomalss answered, but he was talking to a blank screen: the physician had already gone.

  He thought about telephoning Kassquit with the news, but decided to wait and take a meal with her at the refectory so he could pass it along in person. Among the Race, males and females had a harder time saying no in person than they did over the telephone. Ttomalss idly wondered if the same held true among the Big Uglies—those of them who had telephones, that is. Eventually, the Race would get around to researching such things. He doubted the time would come while he remained alive, though.

  At the next meal, he put Shpaaka’s opinion to Kassquit. “How do you feel about the notion of bodily discomfort?” he asked.

  “I really do not know,” she answered. “I have known very little bodily discomfort in my life here. The notion of illness seems strange to me.”

  “You are fortunate—far more fortunate than the Big Uglies down on the surface of Tosev 3,” Ttomalss said. “You have never been exposed to the microorganisms that cause disease among them, and those of the Race do not seem to find you appetizing.”

  “If I were to meet with wild Big Uglies, I would need these immunizations, would I not?” Kassquit asked.

  “I would strongly recommend that you have them, at any rate,” Ttomalss said. “I would not wish to see you fall ill as a result of such a meeting.” And I certainly would not wish you to die, not after l have put so much hard work into raising you up to this point.

  Kassquit might have plucked that thought right out of his head. She said, “Yes, it would be inconvenient to you if I died in the middle of your research, would it not?” After a moment, she added, “It would also be most inconvenient to me.” She used an emphatic cough.

  “Of course it would,” Ttomalss said uncomfortably. “If you do decide to meet with these wild Tosevites in person, you would be wise to receive these immunizations first.”

  “You very much want me to meet with them, is that not so?” Without waiting for Ttomalss’ reply, Kassquit gave one herself: “It must be so. Why else would you have gone to all the trouble of raising me?” She sighed. “Well, if I am going to be an experimental animal, I had best be a good one. Is that not a truth, superior sir?” She waved a hand at the refectory full of males and females. “For all your efforts, and for all mine, I can never fully fit in here, can I?”

  “Perhaps not fully, but as much as a Rabotev or a Hallessi.” Ttomalss spoke with care. As Kassquit reached maturity, so did her sense of judgment.

  She proved that by making the negative hand gesture. “I believe you are mistaken, superior sir. From all I have been able to learn—and I have done my best to learn all I could, since the matter so urgently concerns me—the Hallessi and Rabotevs are far more like the Race than Tosevites are. Would you agree with that, or not?”

  “I would have to agree,” Ttomalss said, wishing he could do anything but, yet knowing he would forfeit her confidence forever if he lied. “But I would also have to tell you that, when the day comes when all Tosevites are as acculturated to the ways of the Empire as you are now, the Race will have no difficulty in ruling this planet.”

  “May it be so,” Kassquit said. “And you need me to help you make it so, is that not also a truth?”

  “You know it is,” Ttomalss answered. “You have known it ever since you grew old enough to understand such things.”

  Kassquit sighed again. “Truth, superior sir: I have known that. And the best way for me to make it so is for me to begin meeting with Big Uglies in person. You have wanted me to do so since my first telephone conversation with Sam Yeager, and you were surely planning such a thing even before the Big Ugly precipitated matters. Can you truthfully tell me I am mistaken?”

  “No,” Ttomalss said. “I cannot tell you that. But I can tell you I have not tried to force you onto this course, and I shall not do so. If you do not wish it, it shall not be done.”

  “For which I thank you—but it needs to be done, does it not?” Kassquit asked bleakly. Again, she did not wait for Ttomalss to reply, but answered her own question: “It does indeed need to be done. Very well, superior sir. I shall do it.”

  There in the crowded refectory, Ttomalss rose from his seat and assumed the posture of respect before Kassquit. His Tosevite ward exclaimed in surprise. So did a good many males and females, who also stared and pointed. He didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, what he’d done was altogether appropriate. As he rose once more, he said, “I thank you.”

  “You are welcome,” Kassquit answered. “You may give whatever orders are necessary to begin the immunization process.”

  “I shall do that,” Ttomalss said. He’d almost answered, It shall be done. Kassquit was not his superior. Somehow, though, she’d made him feel as if she were. He wondered how she’d managed to do that.

  11

  In her life aboard the Race’s starship, Kassquit had known little bodily discomfort. Oh, she’d had her share of bumps and bruises and cuts—more than her share, as she saw things, for her skin was softer and more vulnerable than the scaly hides of the Race—but none of them had been bad.
And, since her body reached maturity, she’d also had to deal with the cyclic nature of Tosevite female physiology. It made her resent her origins—the Race certainly had no such problems—but, with the passage of time, she’d grown resigned to it.

  These immunizations brought a whole different order of unpleasantness. One of them raised a nasty pustule on her arm. Up till then, her knowledge of infections had been purely theoretical. For a while, as the afflicted region swelled and hurt, she wondered if her immune system could cope with the microorganisms from the planet on which her kind had evolved. But, after a few days, the pustule did scab over, even though the scar it left behind looked as if it was liable to be permanent.

  Other injections proved almost as unpleasant as that one. They made her arm or her buttock sore for a couple of days at a time. Some of them raised her body temperature as her immune system fought the germs that stimulated it. She’d never known fever before, and didn’t enjoy the feeling of lassitude and stupidity it brought.

  As a physician readied yet another hypodermic, she asked, “By the Emperor, how many diseases are there down on Tosev 3?”

  “A great many,” the male answered, casting down his eyes for a moment. “Even more than there are on Home, by all indications—or perhaps it is just that the Big Uglies can cure or prevent so few of them. This one is called cholera, I believe. It is not an illness you would want to have, and that is a truth.” He used an emphatic cough. “This immunization does not confer perfect resistance to the causative organism, but it is the best the Tosevites can do. Now you will give me your arm?”

  “It shall be done,” Kassquit said with a sigh. She did not flinch as the needle penetrated her.