Second Contact c-1

by Harry Turtledove

  And he was right. When he came off duty after his second day back at the radar installation, a familiar voice called, “Welcome home, old chap!” There came Group Captain Roundbush, a broad smile on his handsome face, his right hand extended.

  Instead of clasping it, Goldfarb came to attention and saluted. “Sir,” he said.

  “Oh, my dear fellow,” Roundbush said. “You’re not going to take it that way, I hope?”

  “Sir-” Goldfarb looked around before going on. No, no one else was close enough to hear what he had to say to Basil Roundbush. He took a deep breath. “Fuck you, sir.”

  Roundbush blinked, but didn’t quite lose his smile. “I can understand why you might feel that way, old man, but really, you mustn’t.” He sounded as cheerful, as ingratiating, as ever. “Here, I’ve got a motorcar laid on. Come along with me to Robinsons. We’ll put down some Guinness, and then the world will seem a happier place.” He turned to go, confident Goldfarb would follow.

  Goldfarb didn’t. After a couple of steps, Group Captain Roundbush noticed. He turned back, puzzlement on his features. Goldfarb said, “Sir, from now on I’m not having one bloody thing to do with you that isn’t strictly required by duty. So no, I’m bloody well not going to Robinsons with you, or anywhere else, either.”

  Now Roundbush looked grave. “I’m afraid you don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I’m afraid I do-so sod off,” Goldfarb answered. “Excuse me. Sod off-sir.” His right hand slipped to the holster of his pistol. “The way I feel right now, for half a crown I’d blow your fucking head off.”

  He didn’t think he could put Roundbush in fear. The medals on the group captain’s chest said he didn’t frighten easily, if at all. But bravery and goodness didn’t necessarily go hand in hand. If the Nazis didn’t prove that, the Russians did. Still, Goldfarb wanted him to know he meant what he was saying.

  Roundbush did know it. His eyes narrowed, which left him a little less handsome and a lot more dangerous-looking. “You do want to have a care about what you’re saying, you know,” he remarked.

  “Why?” Goldfarb didn’t bother hiding his bitterness. “What kind of trouble can my big mouth get me into that’s worse than what my big nose has already done?”

  “I’d say you were doing your best to find out,” Group Captain Roundbush answered. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but-”

  “You don’t bloody know the tenth part of it,” David broke in.

  “Perhaps I don’t,” Roundbush said. “If you like, I shall be happy to admit I don’t. But what I do know”-he fixed Goldfarb with a cool and menacing stare-“is that you will find yourself in more trouble than you ever dreamt of if you don’t button your lip this very minute.”

  “I’ve already been in more trouble than I ever dreamt of,” David Goldfarb said. “I’ve been in more trouble than you and your pals could buy me in a thousand years. And so, sir, with all due respect, as far as I’m concerned, you can bend over and kiss my bleeding arse.”

  “You will regret this foolish outburst,” Roundbush said. That, David thought, was very likely to be true. But he would have regretted going along with Roundbush and the ginger smugglers even more. The senior RAF officer went on, “And I am afraid your military career has just taken a large shell to the engine.”

  “Go peddle your papers.” Goldfarb enjoyed defiance. It tingled through his veins, heady as good whiskey. He doubted the RAF could give him an assignment a great deal worse than the one he already had. He didn’t say that, though, as he was certain his former colleague and current oppressor would move heaven and earth to prove him wrong.

  Roundbush said, “Do bear in mind that your family may suffer on account of your pigheadedness.”

  “You’ve talked about my family too much,” Goldfarb answered. “Now I’m going to say something about them: If any harm-any harm at all, mind you-comes to them, something will happen to you, too. Have you got that?”

  “Your spirit does you credit,” Basil Roundbush said. “You would be better off if your good sense did, too.” He nodded to Goldfarb, then turned and walked away, shaking his head as if washing his hands of the other RAF officer.

  Goldfarb watched him go. As if after combat, reaction began to set in. Goldfarb’s knees wobbled. His hands shook. He was panting as if he’d run a long way. He began to think he’d been a fool after all.

  If he ran after Roundbush and begged forgiveness, he was sure he would get it. Why not? He remained useful to the group captain and his ginger-smuggling pals. They were, and prided themselves on being, businessmen. Personal animosity? They’d wave it aside.

  He stayed where he was. He didn’t want Roundbush and his associates to forgive him. He wanted them to leave him alone. Maybe, if he wasn’t useful to them, they’d do just that. Maybe they wouldn’t, too. Again, his hand glided toward his holster. If Group Captain Roundbush thought he’d been kidding when he made his warning, the much-decorated officer was badly mistaken.

  The motorcar in which Roundbush would have taken him to the pub rolled away. Goldfarb sighed and headed for his bicycle. It was the sort of transportation he was more used to, anyhow.

  When he got back to the quarters he shared with his family, his first words were, “Pour me a whiskey, darling, would you please?”

  “Of course,” Naomi said, and did. The request was unusual from him, but not unheard of. The way he knocked back the smoky amber liquid, though, made her raise an eyebrow. “You had a bad day?”

  “I had about the worst day a man could have, as a matter of fact.” He held out the glass to her. “Fill me up again. I’m going to get drunk and beat you, the way my father said the Poles would do to their wives.”

  His wife got him another drink. When he sipped it instead of gulping it down, she nodded in approval and relief; maybe, even after all these years of marriage, she’d taken him literally when she shouldn’t have. She let him get about halfway down the glass before she said, “Don’t you think you should tell me about it? The children are all out doing one thing or another. You don’t have to be shy.”

  “Good,” he answered. “I told Basil Roundbush to go fly a kite in a thunderstorm, is what I did.” As best he could, bowdlerizing only slightly, he recounted the conversation he’d had with the group captain. When he was finished, he sighed and said, “I should have played along, shouldn’t I?”

  Naomi took the glass out of his hand and set it on the counter by the icebox. Then she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed the breath out of him. “I’m proud of you,” she said.

  “You are?” He reached for his drink again. “Why? I’m not particularly proud of myself, and you’re liable to suffer for what I did.”

  “I don’t think so,” Naomi said. “They will not get you to help them like that-and I think Roundbush knows you were not joking.”

  “I’ll tell you what I think.” Goldfarb spoke more positively than usual: the whiskey talking through him, no doubt. “I think we ought to emigrate as fast as we can… if they’ll let us out.”

  “The United States?” Naomi asked. “I would not mind going to the United States at all.” By her voice, that was an understatement.

  But Goldfarb shook his head. “Canada, I think. Fewer formalities getting into Canada.” Seeing how disappointed his wife looked, he added, “We could go to the States later, you know.”

  “I suppose so.” Naomi brightened. “That wouldn’t be bad. And you’re right-Canada wouldn’t be bad, either. If you think it’s easier to go to Canada than to the USA, that’s what we ought to do. If my family had waited till they could get into the United States in 1938, we’d still be waiting.”

  “Except you wouldn’t be waiting,” Goldfarb said, “not when you were trying to get out of Germany. You’d be…” He let his voice trail off. He was very glad when Naomi took the point and nodded. He went on, “Sometimes, the idea is to be able to get out when you have to; you can worry about where you end up later.”

  “All
right,” she said. “See the Canadian consul tomorrow. If you want to see the American consul, too, that’s all right.”

  “Fair enough.” David finished the second whiskey. It was a hefty tot; he could feel it. “If I went out now, they could nick me for drunken cycling.” Naomi laughed, but he remembered how many times over the years he’d pedaled back to his bed somewhat, or more than somewhat, the worse for wear.

  He was sober when he cycled over to the Canadian consulate after his next tour in front of the radar. When he explained what he wanted, a clerk there said, “I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t accept serving officers.”

  “If you accept me, I won’t be a serving officer,” David answered. “If you accept me, I’ll resign my commission like that.” He snapped his fingers. “Will you give me the forms on that basis?” The clerk nodded and handed him a set. He filled them out on the spot and gave them back. They seemed straightforward enough.

  The clerk glanced at them. He looked up at Goldfarb. “Your government would be idiotic to let you go.”

  “Perhaps you didn’t notice I’m a Jew,” Goldfarb said. Then, seeing the surprise on the clerk’s face, he realized the fellow hadn’t noticed. Such indifference was rare in the United Kingdom of 1963. He hoped it was common in Canada.

  He rode to the American consulate a few blocks away. The clerk there was female and pretty. The forms, however, were much longer and uglier than the ones the Canadians used. Goldfarb slogged through them, too, and turned them in.

  “Thank you, Flight Lieutenant,” the clerk said. She, too, looked over the papers. “The USA can pick and choose whom we let in, you know, but by these I’d say-unofficially, of course-you have a fair chance. Better than fair, in fact.”

  He grinned all the way back to his flat. The Canadians wanted him. So did the Americans. He wasn’t used to that, not in Britain these days he wasn’t. “I ought to be,” he said, careless of the looks he might get for talking to himself. “By God, I bloody well ought to be.”

  18

  “I remain of the opinion that you are making too much of this,” Ttomalss said.

  Kassquit glared at him out of his computer screen. “My investigation shows otherwise, superior sir,” she replied, deferential but unyielding, “and I remain of the opinion that you make too little of it. It is a serious matter.”

  “It may be,” Ttomalss said. “You have no real proof.”

  “Superior sir, are you being deliberately blind?” Kassquit asked. “There is no such title as senior tube specialist. This Regeya, whoever he may be, does not write like any member of the Race whose words are familiar to me. I think-as you yourself suggested-he really must be a Big Ugly.”

  Hearing that come from one Tosevite’s mouth to describe another amused Ttomalss. He didn’t let that show, not wanting to offend Kassquit. He did say, “I have done a little investigating of my own.” And he had-a very little. “It would not be easy for a Tosevite to gain access to our network from the outside, so to speak.”

  “You have always told me how the wild Big Uglies succeed in doing what seems most difficult to us,” Kassquit said. “If we can gain access to their computers-and I assume we can and do-they may be able to do the same to us.”

  Ttomalss knew the Race did just that; his conversation with the embassy’s science officer would have told him as much had he been naive enough to believe otherwise. But he did not fancy having his own words thrown back in his snout. “We can do things to them that they cannot do to us in return.”

  “Can you be sure computer spying is one of those things?” Kassquit asked. “If I were a Big Ugly”-she paused in momentary confusion, for in biological terms she was a Big Ugly-“I would try my best to reach the Race’s computers.”

  “Well, so would I,” Ttomalss agreed, “but I have since spoken with Slomikk, the science officer here”-his research, a casual conversation-“and he does not think the Tosevites have this ability regardless of what they may desire.”

  “No one will listen to me!” Kassquit said angrily. “I have tried and tried to persuade males and females involved in computer security to investigate this Regeya, and they ignore me, because to them I am nothing but a Big Ugly myself. I had hoped they would take me seriously, but now I discover that even you do not take me seriously. Farewell, then.” She broke the connection.

  “Foolishness,” Ttomalss muttered. Kassquit was surely seeing things that were not there. Big Uglies seemed far more susceptible to wild imaginings than did males and females of the Race.

  And yet, as the senior researcher had to admit, his Tosevite ward did make a sort of circumstantial case. He could not imagine what sort of body paint a senior tube technician would wear. Checking a data store, he found Kassquit was right: no such classification existed. And Regeya was an unusual name. But not all males and females used their true names under all circumstances. When aiming criticism at a superior, for instance, anonymity came in handy.

  With a sigh, Ttomalss began sifting through computer records in search of the elusive Regeya, whoever he might be. Because the fellow had that unusual name, his messages were easy to track, even without knowing his pay number. And, Ttomalss discovered, Kassquit was right: Regeya did have an unusual turn of phrase. But did that make him a Big Ugly, or just a male with a mind of his own?

  The more Ttomalss read of Regeya’s messages, the more he doubted the fellow whose phosphors he followed was a Tosevite. He did not believe any Big Ugly could have such insight into the way the Race thought and felt. No, Regeya might be eccentric, but Ttomalss felt nearly certain he was a male of the Race.

  Being in Nuremberg and concerned with the Deutsche, Ttomalss had paid no attention to the American space station and to whatever the Big Uglies from the lesser continental mass were doing to it. Whatever it was, it struck him as suspicious. He did not seem to be the only one who thought it was, either. By all the signs, this Regeya did, too.

  Because of that more than because of Regeya, whoever the individual behind the messages under the name might be, Ttomalss did send a message of his own to Security, asking what was known about the American space station.

  Nothing that can be released to unauthorized personnel. The answer, sharp and stinging, came back almost at once.

  It infuriated Ttomalss, who, unlike Kassquit, wasn’t used to being ignored. He did what he almost certainly would not have done otherwise: he wrote back, saying, Are you aware that a possible Tosevite under an assumed identity as a male of the Race is also seeking information about this space station?

  Again, the response was very prompt. A Tosevite? Impossible.

  To his bemusement, Ttomalss found himself using with Security all the arguments Kassquit had used with him. And Security was little more impressed with them than he had been. Tell me the individual named Regeya is demonstrably a male of the Race, and I will be convinced there is no need for concern here, he wrote.

  This time, he waited a long time for an answer. He waited, and waited, and waited, and no answer came. At last, when he’d almost given up, he did get one last message. Your continued interest in the security of the Race is appreciated, it said: only that, and nothing more.

  He stared at the screen. “Well, what does that mean?” he asked. “Did I make them think of something that had not occurred to them before, or are they just trying to get rid of me?” The words displayed gave him no answer.

  He did not get long to wonder, for he had just turned away to try to do some other work when Felless telephoned. He guessed that meant she’d been tasting ginger; otherwise, she would have come to his office. “Those idiots!” she exclaimed. “Those treacherous, lying, double-dealing idiots!”

  “What have the Deutsche done now?” Ttomalss asked. He did not think the Race could have infuriated her so.

  He turned out to be right. “They have released from imprisonment the ginger smuggler Dutourd,” she blazed. That incensed reply almost made him laugh, considering how fond of the Tosevite herb she was. She went on,
“They promised he would stay imprisoned for a long time. They promised, and they lied.”

  “This is unfortunate, but hardly unique in our experience on Tosev 3,” Ttomalss said. “Big Uglies, I sometimes think, lie for the sport of it.”

  “So I gather,” Felless answered. “Rather more than the sport of it is involved here, however. The Deutsch minister of justice, a male named Dietrich, all but said-I thought he did say-to Ambassador Veffani that this Dutourd would remain imprisoned for a long time to come. I was there. I heard him.”

  “Ah,” Ttomalss said. “That does put things in a different light.”

  “I should say so!” Felless said. “The ambassador is furious. He has already begun composing a memorandum of protest to the justice minister and another one to the ruler of this not-empire: to Himmler, whatever his title may be.”

  “Reichs Chancellor,” Ttomalss supplied.

  “Reichs Chancellor, General Secretary, President-what difference does it make?” Felless said impatiently. “All these titles are only fancy names pasted over emptiness. But this one has the nerve to defy the Race. I cannot believe his duplicity will stand.”

  “Is making Himmler and, ah, Dietrich change their minds worth a possible nuclear exchange with the Reich?” Ttomalss asked. “That is the question the fleetlord will have to answer for himself before proceeding.”

  “If we do not persuade the Big Uglies that they must keep their word, they will promise us peace one day and then begin a nuclear exchange themselves the next,” Felless said.

  “This is likely to be truth,” Ttomalss agreed. “It is also my point: we should not let their lies take us by surprise.”

  “They yielded on all other matters pertaining to this incident,” Felless said. “They released the American Tosevites who were acting as our agents. Despite protests, they even released a Tosevite in some way related to a Big Ugly who advises the fleetlord of the conquest fleet. And then they defy us about this smuggler-defy us after saying they would not.”