Homeward Bound (68 page)

His silence told its own story. Quietly, Kassquit said, “Do you see, Exalted Fleetlord? I think perhaps you do.”

“I think perhaps I do, too,” Atvar answered, also quietly. “Humility is something we have not had to worry much about lately.” He laughed, not that it was funny from anyone’s point of view except maybe a Tosevite’s. “Lately!” Another laugh, this one even more bitter. “We have not had to worry about it since Home was unified. From this, we concluded we did not have to worry about it at all.”

“Change has returned to the Race. Change has come to the Empire,” Kassquit said. “We had better embrace it, or soon there will be no more Empire.”

She was a citizen of the Empire. She was a Big Ugly. If that did not make her a symbol of change, what would? And she was right. Anyone with eye turrets in his head could see that. “It is a truth,” Atvar said. “Not a welcome truth, mind you, but a truth nonetheless.”

“You spent many years on Tosev 3. You can see this,” Kassquit said. “Will those who have lived all their lives on Home and who are not familiar with wild Big Uglies and what they can do?”

“Oh, yes.
Oh,
yes.” Atvar made the affirmative gesture. “If the Big Uglies can fly between their sun and ours in a fifth of a year while we take more than forty years to make the same journey, they will see. They will have to see.”

“For the Empire’s sake, I hope so,” Kassquit said, which could only mean she wasn’t completely convinced. “And I do thank you for speaking up for Sam Yeager, whether it did all you hoped or not. In his case, the wild Big Uglies should not be allowed to match the Race’s high-handedness.”

“We agree there,” Atvar said. “The American Tosevites from the
Admiral Peary
also agree on it. Whether we and they can persuade the newly hatched Americans from the
Commodore Perry
may be a different question.”

“Arrogance lets you think you can do great things,” Kassquit said. “To that extent, it is good. But arrogance also makes you think no one else can do anything great. That, I fear, is anything but good.”

“Again, we agree,” Atvar said. “I do not see how anyone could disagree—anyone who is not very arrogant, I mean.” Did that include the crew of the
Commodore Perry
? Did it, for that matter, include most of the Race? Atvar could pose the question. Knowing the answer was something else again. Actually, he feared he did know the answer— but it was not the one he wanted.

Jonathan Yeager and Major Nicole Nichols sat in the refectory in the Americans’ hotel in Sitneff. Jonathan was finishing an azwaca cutlet. People said every unfamiliar meat tasted like chicken. As far as he was concerned, azwaca really did. Major Nichols had ordered zisuili ribs. She had enough bones in front of her to make a good start on building a frame house. She wasn’t a big woman, and she certainly wasn’t fat; she was in the hard good shape the military encouraged. She sure could put it away, though.

A sheet of paper lay on the table between them. Jonathan tapped it with his forefinger. “You see,” he said.

Major Nichols nodded. “Yes. So I do. Very impressive.” No matter what she said, she did not sound much impressed.

“If you don’t take my father home, the rest of us don’t want to go, either,” Jonathan insisted. How readily he’d got the other Americans to put their signatures on the petition surprised and touched him. It had been much easier than he’d worried it would be when he first thought about taking the step.

She looked at the paper, then up at him. She was a strikingly attractive woman, but she had a sniper’s cold eyes. “Forgive me, Mr. Yeager, but you and your wife can’t be objective about your father.”

That only made Jonathan angry. He did his best not to show it. “I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to try to be objective about him. But you’re pretending not to see something. My signature and Karen’s aren’t the only ones there. Every American on Home has signed it. That includes Major Coffey. Anyone would expect him to be on your side, not ours, if my dad had done anything even the least little bit out of line. And Shiplord Straha and Shuttlecraft Pilot Nesseref signed it, too, and you were the ones who brought them to Home.”

“They’re Lizards,” Major Nichols said. “Of course they’d be happy enough to stay on Home.”

“Come on. We both know better than that,” Jonathan said. “Nesseref has lived on Earth for the past seventy years. Her friends are there. Friends count with Lizards the way family does with us. And Straha . . . Straha would complain no matter where he was staying.”

“In some ways, his situation is a lot like your father’s,” Nicole Nichols said. She drummed her nails on the white plastic of the tabletop. “He’s not particularly welcome no matter where he goes.”

“Looks to me as though you’re saying being right is the worst thing you can do,” Jonathan said tightly.

“Have it your way, Mr. Yeager.” Major Nichols folded the petition and put it in her handbag. “Besides, with the Lizards it’s academic. They aren’t going back to Earth with us, for fear they might pass on a message to the Race’s authorities back there. And the choice about your father isn’t mine any which way. I will take this document back to the
Commodore Perry
and let my superiors decide.”

“Yeah. You do that,” Jonathan said. “It wouldn’t look so good if you came back to Earth with none of us aboard, would it?”

She only shrugged. She was a cool customer. “We’d handle it,” she said. “We can handle just about anything, Mr. Yeager.” She got to her feet. “No need to show me the way out. I already know.” Away she went.

Jonathan muttered under his breath. This younger generation struck him as a mechanical bunch. For a nickel, he would have kicked Major Nichols in the teeth. He would have tried, anyway. He suspected she could mop the floor with him, and probably with any other three people here who weren’t Frank Coffey.

He got up, too, and slowly walked out of the refectory. He’d done everything he could do. So had everybody else on Home. He saw that Major Coffey’s John Hancock didn’t much impress Major Nichols—not that anything much did impress her. But Coffey’s signature sure impressed him. Even if Frank was going to be a daddy, he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life on Home. He’d signed anyway, to keep an injustice from being done to Jonathan’s father.

A Lizard came skittering up to Jonathan. His body paint proclaimed him a reporter. Jonathan immediately grew wary. The Race’s reporters were much like those on Earth: too many of them were sensation-seeking fools. “How does it feel to travel faster than light?” this one demanded, shoving a microphone at Jonathan.

“I do not know,” Jonathan answered. “I have never done it.” The Race evidently couldn’t keep secret any longer what the
Commodore Perry
had done.

The reporter gave Jonathan what was obviously intended as a suspicious stare. “But you are a Big Ugly,” he said, as if challenging Jonathan to deny it. “How could you be here without having traveled faster than light?”

“Because I am a Tosevite from the
Admiral Peary,
not from the
Commodore Perry,
” Jonathan said resignedly. “We flew here in cold sleep slower than light, the same way your ships travel. You do remember the
Admiral Peary,
do you not?” He made his interrogative cough as sarcastic as he could.

That might have been lost on the Lizard. After some thought, the reporter used the affirmative gesture. “I think perhaps I may. But the
Admiral Peary
is old news. I am sure of that. I want new news.” He hurried away.

“Old news,” Jonathan said in English. He sighed. It wasn’t that the Lizard was wrong. In fact, there was the problem: the male was right. The Americans from the
Admiral Peary
were old news, in more ways than one. Had Major Nichols heard the reporter, she would have agreed with him.

Jonathan found himself hoping the none-too-bright Lizard did end up running into Nicole Nichols. He would infuriate her, and she would horrify him. As far as Jonathan was concerned, they deserved each other.

One of the elevators opened up. Tom de la Rosa came out. Jonathan waved to him. Tom came over. Jonathan said, “Beware of idiot Lizard reporters running around loose.”

“Sounds like a good thing to beware of,” Tom agreed. “And speaking of bewares, have you talked with the gal from the
Commodore Perry
?”

“I sure have—I just finished lunch with her, in fact. I gave her the petition, too.” Jonathan set a hand on Tom’s shoulder for a moment. “Thanks for signing it.”

De la Rosa shrugged. “Hey, what else could I do? Right is right. Those yahoos have no business marooning your old man here.”

“You know that, and I know that, but I’ll be damned if I’m sure they know that,” Jonathan said. “And you know you’re taking a chance with that thing. They’re liable to call us on it. If they do, none of us goes home from Home.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Tom shrugged again. “Linda and I hashed that one out. If they’re the kind of stiff-necked bastards who won’t bend even when they ought to, I don’t think I want to go back to the USA any more. It wouldn’t be my country, you know? The company’d be better here.”

Tears stung Jonathan’s eyes. He blinked several times; he didn’t want Tom to see that.
Pride,
he thought, and laughed at himself. “We can be expatriates sitting in the sleazy bars in Sitneff, and all the earnest young American tourists who come here can stare at us and wonder about all the nasty things we’ve done.”

“There you go!” Tom laughed out loud. “The Lost Generation. Hell, we’re already the Lost Generation. If you don’t believe me, ask anybody from the
Commodore Perry.
Those people are convinced we’ve got no business being alive any more.”

“You’d better believe it!” Jonathan used the catch phrase with sour glee. “Major Nichols told Dad they tried to get here before we did. Wouldn’t that have been a kick in the nuts for us?”

“Oh, yeah. Sweet Jesus, yeah.” De la Rosa made a horrible face. “We’d’ve been like the dead atheist decked out in a suit: all dressed up with no place to go.”

“As it is, we get into the history books whether our ungrateful grandchildren like it or not,” Jonathan said, and Tom nodded. Jonathan’s thoughts traveled the light-years far faster than the
Commodore Perry
could hope to. “I do wonder what things are like back on Earth.”

“Well, from what I’ve been able to pick up, the politics are the same old yak-yak-yak,” de la Rosa said. “The ecology . . .” He looked revolted. “It’s about as bad as we figured it would be. Lots and lots of species from Home crowding out ours wherever it’s hot and dry. Earth isn’t the place it was when we left.”

Jonathan sighed. “Like you say, it’s not a hot headline. I don’t know how we’re going to be able to put that genie back in the bottle again. The place I feel sorry for is Australia.” He used an emphatic cough. “It’s had its ecology turned upside down twice in two hundred years.”

“Isn’t that the sad and sorry truth?” Tom said. “You hate to see something like that, because there’s just no way in hell to repair the damage. Too many native species have already gone extinct, and more are going all the time. When you add in rabbits and rats and cats and cane toads and cattle and azwaca and zisuili and befflem . . . And plants are just as bad, or maybe worse.”

“I know. I don’t know the way you do—you’re the expert—but I’ve got the basic idea,” Jonathan said, and de la Rosa nodded. “I hope we get to see for ourselves, that’s all.”

“Me, too.” De la Rosa looked fierce. His piratical mustache helped. “If we don’t, I’m going to blame you. And I’ll have all the time in the world to do it, too, because we’ll both be stuck here for the rest of our lives.”

“Well, if we start throwing missiles back and forth with the Lizards, that won’t be real long,” Jonathan said. Tom looked unhappy, not because he was wrong but because he was right. He went on, “Of course, that’s liable to be just as true back on Earth as it is here.”

“You think the Lizards can still hurt us back on Earth?” Tom asked. “People from the
Commodore Perry
don’t seem to.”

“I’m not sure. I’m not sure anybody else is sure, either,” Jonathan answered. “I’ll tell you this, though, for whatever you think it’s worth: the last time Major Nichols came out of a meeting with Atvar, she’d had some of that up-yours knocked out of her. Whatever he told her, it didn’t make her very happy. Maybe the Race has figured out how to do something, even if they’ve got to do it in slow motion.”

“I almost wouldn’t mind—almost,” Tom emphasized. “Where one side figures it can lick the other one easy as pie, that’s where your wars come from. If both sides figure they’ll get hurt, they’re more likely to take it easy on each other.”

Jonathan nodded. “That makes more sense than I wish it did.” He thought back to Earth again. “Before too long, maybe it won’t matter so much. We’ll have colonies all over the place. Eggs and baskets, you know what I mean?”

“Oh, hell, yes,” Tom de la Rosa said. “We will, and one of these days maybe the Lizards will, too, if we don’t kill each other off first. And the Germans will, and the Russians, and the Japanese. . . .”

“Lord!” That took some more contemplating. Jonathan said, “I hope the Nazis and the Reds don’t end up with colonies on the same planet. They’d start banging away at each other, same as they were doing when the conquest fleet came.”

“Yeah, that’d be fun, wouldn’t it?” Tom said.

Jonathan nodded, though fun wasn’t what either of them had in mind. He said, “The Nazis owe the Race one, too. If I were a Lizard, I’d worry about that.”

“If you were a Lizard, you’d have other things to worry about, like not looking right,” Tom pointed out. Jonathan made a face at him. People had much more mobile features than Lizards did. The Race used hand gestures to get across a lot of things humans did with their faces and heads. De la Rosa went on, “I wonder how Kassquit feels about being pregnant now. This isn’t the best time to bring a kid into the world—any world.”

“She#x2019;ll do okay, I think,” Jonathan said. “There#x2019;s always been more to her than meets the eye.”
And even if she is knocked up, I had nothing to do with it, and Karen can’t say I did,
he thought.