Colonization_ Aftershocks Part 15

"I can see that." Sam let out a small sigh. He'd never played in St. Paul; it belonged to the American a.s.sociation, only one jump down from the majors, and one jump up from any league where he had played. If he hadn't broken his ankle on that slide into second down in Birmingham... He sighed again. Plenty of ballplayers might have made the big leagues if they hadn't got hurt. It was more than twenty years too late to worry about that now.

He yanked his mind back to the business at hand. Something-a small-"1" lizard?-scurried away from his horse's hooves and disappeared into the shade under a cactus. When he looked up, he saw a few buzzards wheeling optimistically through the sky. Other than that, the land might have been dead: nothing but sagebrush and cacti scattered not too thickly over the pale yellow dirt. Their sharp-edged shadows seemed to etch themselves into the ground.

Somehow, the landscape didn't look quite the way Sam had thought it would. After a couple of minutes, he put his finger on why. "None of those tall cactuses," he said. "You know the kind I mean: the ones that look like a man standing there with his hands up."

Victor Watkins nodded. "Saguaros. Yeah, you don't see that many of 'em this side of the Colorado River. Over in Arizona, now, they're all over the d.a.m.n place."

"Are they?" Yeager said, and the local nodded again. Sam went on, "Hardly seems as if anything much could could live here." live here."

"Well, it's after ten in the morning," Sheriff Watkins said. "Pretty much all the critters are laying in burrows or under rocks or anywhere they can go to get out of the sun. Come here around sunup or sundown and you'll see a lot more: jackrabbits and kangaroo rats and snakes and skunks and I don't know what all. And there are owls and bobcats and coyotes"-he p.r.o.nounced it keye-oats- keye-oats-"at night, and sometimes deer down from the mountains. In spring, after we get a little rain, it's real pretty country."

"Yeah?" Yeager knew he sounded dubious. Thinking of this country as pretty any time struck him as being on the order of thinking Frankenstein handsome because he'd put on a new suit.

But Watkins said, "h.e.l.l, yes. Flowers and b.u.t.terflies all over the place. You even get toads breeding in the mud puddles and croaking away like mad."

"If you say so." Sam couldn't really argue; he hadn't been in these parts just after some rain. From what he could see, they didn't get rain any too often. Something large enough to be startling buzzed past his nose. "What was that?" he asked as it zipped away. "June bug?"

"Nope. Hummingbird." Watkins glanced over at Yeager. "Listen, remember to drink plenty of water. That's what we've got it along for. Heat like this, it just pours out of you." He swigged from one of his canteens.

Sam dutifully drank. The water had been cold back in Desert Center. It wasn't cold any more. He pointed to a small cloud of dust a couple of miles ahead. "What's that, if everything takes it easy in the middle of the day?"

"Lizard critters don't," the sheriff said. "Far as they're concerned, this is like a day in the park. They like it fine-better'n fine. Mad dogs and Englishmen and these funny-lookin' things." They rode on a little while longer, heading toward the dust. Then Watkins pointed, too, at a plant Sam might not have noticed. "There. These started growing about the same time the critters showed up."

Now that his attention was drawn to it, Yeager saw it was different from the others past which his horse had taken him. It wasn't quite the right shade of green; it put him in mind of tarnished copper. He'd never seen any leaves that looked like these: they might almost have been blades of gra.s.s growing along its branches. It didn't have flowers, but those red disks with black centers at the ends of some of the branches might have done the same job. Sam reined in. "Can I get a closer look at it?"

"That's what we're here for," Watkins said.

Sam dismounted as clumsily as he'd boarded his horse. He walked over to the plant from the Lizards' world, scuffing up dust at every step. When he reached out to touch it, he yelped and jerked his hand back in a hurry. "It's like a nettle," he said. "It's got little sharp doohickeys"-a fine scientific term, that-"in between the leaves."

"Found that out, did you?" Sheriff Watkins' voice was dry.

Rubbing his hand, Yeager asked, "You ever see anything eating these plants?"

"Nope," the sheriff answered. "Not unless you mean the Lizards' animals. Nothin' that oughta live here'll touch 'em. Haven't seen any bees go to those red things, either."

"All right." That had been Sam's next question. He took a notebook from his pocket and scribbled in it. If bees wouldn't visit these things, how did they get pollinated? Could they get pollinated-or whatever they used as an equivalent-here on Earth? Evidently, or this one wouldn't be here.

Watkins said, "You put on leather gloves and try and yank that thing out, you'll find out it's got roots that go clear to China."

"Why am I not surprised?" Yeager wrote another note. Back on Home, plants would have to suck up all the water they possibly could. It made sense for them to have roots like that. A lot of Earthly plants did, too. Sam suspected these would prove very efficient indeed.

Sheriff Watkins said, "Come on. These things are just the sideshow. You really want to see the animals, right?"

"I don't know," Sam said thoughtfully. "Do I? If these things start crowding out the stuff that used to grow here, what'll the bugs and the kangaroo rats and the jackrabbits eat? If they don't eat anything, what'll the lizards and the bobcats eat? The more you look at things like this, the more complicated they get." Remounting his horse proved pretty complicated, too, but he managed not to fall off the other side.

"Supposing you're right," Watkins said as they rode on toward the animals from Home. "Isn't that reason enough to give the Lizards h.e.l.l for what they're doing to us? What they're doing to Earth, I mean, not just to the USA."

"They don't want to listen," Yeager answered. "They say we've got cows and sheep and dogs and cats and wheat and corn, and that's what these things are to them: only natural they've brought 'em along."

"Natural, my a.s.s." Watkins spat. "These critters are about the most unnatural-looking things I've seen in all my born days." He pointed ahead. "Look for yourself. We're close enough now."

Sure enough, Sam could peer through the dust now and see what raised it. The Lizards' domestic animals made him feel he'd been yanked back through seventy million years and was staring at a herd of dinosaurs. They weren't as big as dinosaurs, and they had the Lizards' turreted eyes, but that was the general impression. They were low-slung, went on all fours, and had, instead of horns, bony clubs on the ends of their tails. One of them whacked another in the side. The one that had been whacked bawled and trotted away.

"Those are zisuili," Sam said. "The Lizards use them for meat and for their hides. Zisuili leather is top of the line, as far as they're concerned."

"Hot d.a.m.n," Watkins said sourly. "What do we do about 'em? Look how they eat everything right down to the ground. Worse'n goats, for Christ's sake. There's nothing but bare dirt left once they've gone through somewhere, and this land won't take a whole h.e.l.l of a lot of that."

"I see what you're saying," Yeager answered. "It's probably why they kick up so much dust." He clicked his tongue between his teeth. "You were right, Sheriff-this is what I came to find out about, sure enough."

"I've already found out more than I want," Victor Watkins said. "Question is, like I said, what do we do about the G.o.dd.a.m.n things?"

The two men had no trouble getting close to the zisuili, though their horses didn't much care for the alien animals' smell. Neither odors nor sight of Earthly creatures and people bothered the beasts from Home. Noting that, Yeager said, "We shoot 'em whenever we see 'em. They aren't shy of us, are they?"

"No, but when the shooting starts they run like h.e.l.l," Watkins replied. "A guy with a machine gun would get a lot more done than a guy with a rifle. Desert Center's a rugged kind of place, but machine guns don't exactly grow on trees around here."

"Some machine guns can probably be arranged," Sam said, but he wondered how many machine guns the USA would need from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, and for how many miles north of the border. And machine guns couldn't do anything about plants from Home. What could? Nothing he saw, short of an army of people pulling them up by the roots.

The Lizards were making themselves at home on Earth. Sam had read plenty of science-fiction stories about people reshaping other planets to suit themselves, but never one about aliens reshaping Earth for their convenience. He didn't need to read a story about that. By all the signs, he was living it.

Neither he nor Watkins had much to say as they rode back to Desert Center. They pa.s.sed another couple of plants from Home. However the things propagated, they'd sure as h.e.l.l got here.

"We'll do everything we can," Sam promised as he got down from his horse and, with more than a little relief, headed for his car.

"You'd better," the sheriff said. He walked off toward his office, not looking back.

Another car was parked by the Buick. It hadn't been there before. A couple of men in business suits came out of the little cafe across the street and walked briskly toward Sam. "Lieutenant Colonel Yeager?" one of them called. When Sam nodded, both men produced revolvers and pointed them at him. "You'd better come along with us, sir," the first one said. "Orders. Sorry, pal, but that's how it is."

Walter Stone stared out through the window of the Lewis and Clark's Lewis and Clark's control room in considerable satisfaction. "Amazing what you can do with aluminized plastic, isn't it?" he said. control room in considerable satisfaction. "Amazing what you can do with aluminized plastic, isn't it?" he said.

"Not so bad," Glen Johnson agreed. "You put out a big enough mirror, you pick up plenty of sunshine for power and for heat and for I don't know what all else."

Stone looked sly. "Are you sure you don't?"

Johnson looked sly, too. "Who, me?" They both grinned. A mirror that focused a lot of light down to one small point was a splendid tool. It was also a weapon. If that point of light ever suddenly swung across a Lizard spy ship...

With a sigh, Stone said, "The only trouble is, that would mean war back home, which we can't afford."

"I know." Johnson grimaced. "It's not just that we can't afford it, either. We'd d.a.m.n well lose."

"Are you sure?" the senior pilot asked.

"You bet your a.s.s I am," Johnson said, and tacked on an emphatic cough. "Don't forget, I'm the guy who flew all those orbital missions. I know what the Race has got out there; h.e.l.l, I know half that hardware by its first name. Push comes to shove, we get shoved."

"Okay, okay." Half to Glen's relief, half to his disappointment, Stone didn't want to argue with him. He liked arguments he wouldn't have any trouble winning. Stone waved at the mirror again. "One of the reasons we're out here is to complicate the Lizards' lives in all sorts of ways they haven't even thought about yet. Having plenty of power and energy available is a long step in that direction."

"Did I say you were wrong?" Johnson asked, and then, "Say, what's this I hear about another ship heading this way before too long?"

Walter Stone suddenly looked a lot less like a buddy and a lot more like a p.i.s.sed-off colonel. "G.o.dd.a.m.n radio room here leaks like a G.o.dd.a.m.n sieve," he growled. "They open their mouths any wider, they'll fall right in."

"Yeah, well, probably," answered Johnson, who hadn't heard the rumor from any of the radio operators. "But come on. Now that I've got some of the word, give me the rest of it. It's not like I'm going to send the Race a postcard or anything."

"Bad security," Stone said. Johnson gave him a look. It must have been an effective look, because the senior pilot turned red and muttered under his breath. At last, with very poor grace, he went on, "Yeah, it's true. They're building it out in orbit now. Next opposition, or somewhere fairly close to then, it'll head out here, and we'll see some new faces."

"Good," Johnson said. "I'm sick of seeing your old face." That earned him a glare from Stone's old face. Grinning, he probed some more: "How many people will they be sending out?"

"All I know is, the complement is supposed to be larger than the crew of the Lewis and Clark," Lewis and Clark," Stone answered. Johnson nodded, glad of the news; that was more than he'd known. Stone went on, "Two reasons. First, they won't have as long a trip, so they can bring more people with the same resources. And second, they'll have improved the design of the new ship." Stone answered. Johnson nodded, glad of the news; that was more than he'd known. Stone went on, "Two reasons. First, they won't have as long a trip, so they can bring more people with the same resources. And second, they'll have improved the design of the new ship."

"How?" Johnson asked eagerly. This was the stuff he wanted to hear, all right.

But Stone said, "How? How the devil should I know? Matter of fact, I don't know that for a fact." He paused, listened to himself, and shook his head in annoyance before continuing, "I'm just a.s.suming there will be. We're not Lizards, after all; we don't think our designs are set in cement."

"Neither do they, not exactly," Johnson said. "It's just that we've been refining our designs for fifty years-a hundred, tops-and they've been doing it for fifty thousand. After that long, they don't find the need to make a whole lot of changes."

"Don't teach your grandma to suck eggs," Stone said irritably. "I know all that as well as you do, and you know I know it, too."

"Yeah, but you're cute when you're angry," Johnson said, which won him another glare from the senior pilot. He grinned again and went on, "With more people, we'll be able to spread out a lot farther. The Lizards won't be able to keep an eye on us so easy."

"Which is the point of the exercise," Stone said, as if to an idiot.

"No kidding." Johnson grinned once more, refusing to let the other man get his goat. Then he let his imagination run away with him. "One of these days, maybe, we'll have a regular fleet of ships going back and forth between Earth and the asteroid belt." His eyes and voice went far away. "Maybe, one of these days, we will will be able to go home again." be able to go home again."

But Walter Stone shook his head again, this time in flat negation. "Forget about it." His tone brooked no contradiction. "If a ship comes out here, it'll stay out here for good. We haven't got enough to let us afford to send anything back, especially not a big ship. Nice to dream about, yeah, but it won't happen."

Johnson thought it over and discovered he had to nod. "Might have done poor Liz Brock some good, though," he said.

"No." Again, Stone wasn't taking any arguments. "For one thing, you die with cancer of the liver back on Earth, too. And for another, the point is to make it so we don't need to go back to Earth for anything. We're supposed to be figuring out how to do everything we need here without going back to Earth. That's the plan, and we're going to make it work."

"It's only part of the plan," Johnson said.

"Well, of course." Stone sounded surprised he had to mention that.

A chime from the ship's PA system announced the hour. Johnson said, "I'm off." His shift was done. Stone's still had two hours to go. Adding, "Don't let anybody steal the chairs while I'm gone," Johnson glided out of the control room.

Since the chairs, like all the furniture, were bolted down, that didn't seem likely. As a parting shot, though, it could have been worse. Johnson brachiated to the galley. He ate strawberries, beans, potatoes-plants from the ever-growing hydroponics section. He also gulped vitamin pills. Not a whole lot of food that had come up from Earth was left; it was mostly reserved for celebrations. He missed meat, but less than he'd thought he would when it disappeared from the menu.

Some people were still complaining about that. The diet.i.tian fixed one of them with a fishy stare and said, "It's healthy. It'll help you lose weight."

"I'm already weightless," the irate technician answered. "If I lose any more, I'll invent antigravity."

"There, you see?" said the diet.i.tian, who didn't realize her leg was being pulled. "That would be worthwhile, wouldn't it?"

"That would be impossible, is what it would be," the technician snarled. "Christ, I'd eat a lab rat by now, but we haven't got any more of those left, either." He took his food and glided off in high dudgeon.

Johnson was dutifully chewing his beans and wondering if the methane they made people generate was put to good use-he supposed he could ask somebody from the life-support staff about that-when Lucy Vegetti came floating into the galley. When the geologist saw Glen, she smiled and waved. So did he. He would have flown over and given her a big hug, but men didn't make moves like that, not by the rules that had sprung up, for the most part informally, aboard the Lewis and Clark. Lewis and Clark. Since men outnumbered women about two to one, women had all the choice. Johnson didn't necessarily like it, but he knew better than to fight city hall. Since men outnumbered women about two to one, women had all the choice. Johnson didn't necessarily like it, but he knew better than to fight city hall.

After Lucy got her food, she came over to him and gave him a hug. That was in the rules. "How you doing?" he asked. "I didn't know you'd gotten back from Ceres."

"They don't need me down there, not for a while," she answered. She was short and stocky and very definitely looked Italian. On Earth, she might have been dumpy, but n.o.body sagged in s.p.a.ce. She ate some potato and sighed. "G.o.d, I miss b.u.t.ter. But anyhow, I'm here for a while. The ice miners are a going concern on the asteroid, so pretty soon they'll send me out prospecting somewhere else. Meanwhile, I get to come back to the big city and look at the bright lights for a while." Her wave encompa.s.sed the Lewis and Clark. Lewis and Clark.

"G.o.d help you," Johnson said. "All that time away has softened your brain." They both laughed. But he knew what she meant. There were more people aboard the Lewis and Clark Lewis and Clark than anywhere else for millions of miles. Seeing faces she hadn't set eyes on for a while-not seeing the faces she'd been cooped up with for weeks-had to feel pretty good. Glen added, "You need somebody to drive your hot rod for you, just let me know." than anywhere else for millions of miles. Seeing faces she hadn't set eyes on for a while-not seeing the faces she'd been cooped up with for weeks-had to feel pretty good. Glen added, "You need somebody to drive your hot rod for you, just let me know."

"I'd do better to let Brigadier General Healey know," she said, and he nodded with regret altogether unfeigned. His opinion of the s.p.a.ceship's commandant was not high; the commandant's opinion of him was, if anything, even lower. Had Healey had his druthers, he would have flung Johnson out the air lock when he came aboard the Lewis and Clark. Lewis and Clark. Unlike the others here, Johnson hadn't intended to come out to the asteroid belt in the first place. He'd just been curious about what was going on at the orbital s.p.a.ce station. He'd found out, all right. Lucy's smile changed. She lowered her voice and went on, "I like riding with you." Unlike the others here, Johnson hadn't intended to come out to the asteroid belt in the first place. He'd just been curious about what was going on at the orbital s.p.a.ce station. He'd found out, all right. Lucy's smile changed. She lowered her voice and went on, "I like riding with you."

His ears heated. So did certain other relevant parts. He and Lucy had been lovers before the water-mining project took her away. Now that she was back, he hadn't known whether she would be interested again. All a guy on the Lewis and Clark Lewis and Clark could do was wait and hope and look cute. He snorted when that crossed his mind. He'd never been real good at cute. could do was wait and hope and look cute. He snorted when that crossed his mind. He'd never been real good at cute.

But Lucy had made the first move, so he could make the next one: "Any time, babe. More fun than the exercise bike-I sure as h.e.l.l hope."

She laughed again. "Now that you mention it, yes. Not that it's the highest praise in the world, you know." Later, in the privacy of his tiny cubicle, she gave him praise of a more substantial nature. Weightlessness wasn't bad for such things, except that the people involved had to hang on to each other to keep from coming apart: no gravity a.s.sist there. Johnson found nothing at all wrong with holding Lucy tightly.

When he peeled off his rubber afterwards, though, he had a thought foolish and serious at the same time. "What the devil will we do when we run out of these things?" he asked.

Lucy gave him a practical answer: "Anything but the real thing. We can't afford to have any pregnancies till we build a spinning station to simulate gravity, and we can't stand the drain on our medical supplies that a lot of abortions would cause."

"I hear they've already had one or two," he said, not much liking the idea. But none of the animal research suggested that getting pregnant while weightless was a good idea for people.

"I've heard the same thing," Lucy said, nodding. "But n.o.body's named names, which is probably just as well."

"Yeah." Johnson reached out and caressed her. Sure as h.e.l.l, in the absence of gravity nothing sagged. Pretty soon, Lucy was caressing him, too. He wasn't so young as he had been, but he wasn't so old as he would be, either. He rose to the occasion, and he and Lucy spent the next little while trying not to get her pregnant again.

Straha woke one morning to find the weather exasperatingly chilly. "It is going to be autumn again before long," he said to his driver at breakfast, as if the Big Ugly could do something about that. "I shall have to endure the worst of this planet's weather."

"In Los Angeles? No such thing, Shiplord," the driver replied, shaking his head. As an afterthought, he used the Race's negative gesture, too. "If you wanted to go to Siberia, now..."

"I thank you, but no," Straha said with dignity. "This is quite bad enough; I do not require worse."

"And remember," his driver went on after another forkful of scrambled eggs, "winter here only comes half as often as it does on Home."

"That is a truth," Straha admitted. "The inverse truths are that it lasts twice as long and is more than twice as bad, even here."

His driver let out several yips of Tosevite laughter. "We would call this weather perfect, or close enough. You really need to go to someplace like Arabia to make you happy. That is one place the Race is welcome to."

"Although the Race may be welcome to Arabia, I am not welcome in in Arabia," Straha said. "That will be true for as long as Atvar lives, and our medical care is quite good." Arabia," Straha said. "That will be true for as long as Atvar lives, and our medical care is quite good."

"Then go out to the desert here," his driver said. "It will be cooler than it was in high summer, but not so cool as it is here."

"Now that," Straha said, "that is almost tempting. And have I heard that certain of our animals and plants have begun making homes for themselves in that area?"

"That is a truth, Shiplord," the Big Ugly agreed. "It is not a truth we are very happy about, but I do not know what we can do about it."

"Is not Sam Yeager investigating this truth you find so unfortunate?" Straha enjoyed mentioning Yeager's name every now and again, for no better reason than to make his driver jumpy.