Homeward Bound Part 11

Karen had never expected to sympathize with Ka.s.squit, but she did here. Trir might as well have called Ka.s.squit a n.i.g.g.e.r. In essence, she had. Ka.s.squit said, "Senior Tour Guide, I am a citizen of the Empire. If that does not happen to please you, you are welcome to stick your head even farther up your cloaca than it is already." She did not bother with an emphatic cough. The words carried plenty of emphasis by themselves.

Had Trir been a human, she would have turned red. As things were, her tailstump quivered with fury. "How dare you speak to me that way?" she snarled.

"I dare because I am right." Now Ka.s.squit did use an emphatic cough.

"Truth!" Karen said. She used another one. "Judge males and females for what they are, not for what they look like."

"I thank you," Ka.s.squit said.

"You are welcome," Karen answered. They both sounded surprised at finding themselves on the same side.

Atvar had just finished applying fresh body paint when the telephone hissed for attention. He laughed as he went to answer it. Jokes as old as the unification of Home insisted that it always hissed right when you were in the middle of the job. He felt as if he had beaten the odds.

"This is Atvar. I greet you," he said.

"I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord. I am Protocol Master Herrep," said the male on the other end of the line. "You recently pet.i.tioned for an imperial audience?"

"Yes?" Atvar made the affirmative gesture.

"Your pet.i.tion has been granted. You are ordered to appear at the imperial court tomorrow at noon so that you may be properly prepared for the ceremony." Herrep broke the connection. He did not ask if Atvar had any questions or problems. He a.s.sumed there would be none.

And he was right. When the Emperor commanded, his subjects-even subjects with rank as high as Atvar's-obeyed.

Preffilo, the imperial capital, lay halfway around the planet. That did not matter. An imperial summons took precedence over everything else. Atvar called the wild Big Uglies and canceled the session he had scheduled for the next day. Then he arranged a shuttlecraft flight to Preffilo. When he announced he was traveling to an audience with the Emperor, the usual fee was waived . . . after the shuttlecraft firm checked with the imperial court. Every so often, someone tried to steal a free flight to Preffilo.

Court officials awaited Atvar at the shuttlecraft port. "Have you enjoyed the privilege of an imperial audience before, Exalted Fleetlord?" one of them asked.

"I should hope I have," Atvar answered proudly. "It was with his Majesty's predecessor, more than two hundred years ago now, not long before I took the conquest fleet to Tosev 3."

"I see." The courtier's tone was absolutely neutral. Not the faintest quiver of tailstump or motion of eye turrets showed what he was thinking. And yet, somehow, he managed to convey reproach. Atvar should have returned to Home as Atvar the Conqueror, who had added a new world to the empire. Instead, he might have been called Atvar the Ambiguous, who had added just over half a world to the Empire, and who had left the other half full of independent, dangerous wild Big Uglies.

Atvar remained convinced he'd done the best he could under the circ.u.mstances. Conditions on Tosev 3 were nothing like the ones the conquest fleet had been led to expect. Anyone with half a brain should have been able to see that. His recall and the scorn heaped on him since he'd come back only proved a lot of males and females had less than half a brain. So he believed, anyhow-and if this courtier didn't, too bad.

"Come with us," the courtier said. "We will refresh you on the rituals as we go."

"I thank you," Atvar replied. Every youngster learned the rituals of an imperial audience in school, on the off chance they might prove useful. Unlike the vast majority of males and females, Atvar actually had used what he'd learned. But, even discounting a round trip in cold sleep, that had been a long time ago. He welcomed a chance to review. Embarra.s.sing yourself before the Emperor was as near unforgivable as made no difference.

Most of the buildings in Preffilo were the usual utilitarian boxes. Some had a little more in the way of ornament than others. None was especially out of the ordinary. The imperial palace was different. Ordinary buildings came and went. The palace went on forever. It had stood in the same spot for more than a hundred thousand years. It wasn't quite the oldest building on Home, but it was the oldest continuously inhabited one.

It looked like a fortress. In the early days, before Home was unified, it had been a fortress. It had bastions and outwalls and guard towers, all in severe gray stone with only tiny, narrow windows. Here on peaceful Home, most of the travelers who came to see the palace thought of it only as ancient, not as military. No one on Home thought of matters military on first seeing any building. Atvar had had to worry about military architecture, both that of the Race and Tosevite, on Tosev 3. He could appreciate what the builders here had done.

And he could appreciate the gardens in which the palace was set. Almost as many males and females came to see them as came to see the palace. With multicolored sand, carefully placed rocks of different sizes, colors, and textures, and an artistic mixture of plants, they were famous on three planets. To most Big Uglies, Atvar thought, they would have been nothing special. The Tosevites had an embarra.s.sment of water on their native world. They appreciated great swaths of greenery much more than the Race did. This spare elegance would not have appealed to them.

But there were exceptions to everything. While fleetlord, he had learned that photographs of the gardens around the imperial palace were wildly popular in the Tosevite empire-and it really was an empire-of Nippon. The Nipponese Big Uglies practiced a somewhat similar gardening art of their own . . . although Atvar doubted whether the gardeners or courtiers here would have appreciated the comparison.

As soon as he entered the palace, he a.s.sumed the posture of respect. He held it till one of the courtiers gave him leave to straighten. Then he went on to the cleansing chamber, where a female known as the imperial laver removed the body paint he'd applied only the day before. He felt as bereft as an unwrapped wild Big Ugly, but only for a moment. Another court figure, the imperial limner, painted on the special pattern worn only by pet.i.tioners coming before the Emperor.

"I am not worthy," Atvar said, as ritual required.

"That is a truth: you are not," the imperial limner agreed. An emphatic cough showed how unworthy Atvar was. She continued, "You are granted an audience not because of your worth but by grace of the Emperor. Rejoice that you have been privileged to receive that grace."

"I do." Atvar used an emphatic cough of his own.

"Advance, then, and enter the throne room," the imperial limner said.

"I thank you. Like his Majesty, you are more gracious, more generous, than I deserve." Atvar a.s.sumed the posture of respect again. The imperial limner did not return the courtesy. She represented the sovereign, and so outranked any official not connected with the court.

The throne room held banners seen nowhere else on Home. After a hundred thousand years, it held reproductions of the original banners that had once hung between the tall, thin windows. Awe made Atvar suck a deep breath into his lung. He knew what those banners stood for. They were the emblems of the empires the the Empire had defeated in unifying the planet and the Race. Everywhere else on Home, they were forgotten. Here, where conquest had begun, the Emperor and those who served him remembered. There were also newer insignia from Rabotev 2 and Halless 1, and some, newer still, from Tosev 3. But other banners Atvar knew well from the Big Uglies' world were conspicuously absent. Empire had defeated in unifying the planet and the Race. Everywhere else on Home, they were forgotten. Here, where conquest had begun, the Emperor and those who served him remembered. There were also newer insignia from Rabotev 2 and Halless 1, and some, newer still, from Tosev 3. But other banners Atvar knew well from the Big Uglies' world were conspicuously absent.

All the throne room was designed to make a male or female advancing to an audience feel completely insignificant. Colonnades led the eye up to the tall, distant, shadowy ceiling. The path up to the throne lay in shadow, too, while the throne itself was gorgeous with gold and brilliantly illuminated. The spotlights glowed also from the gilding that ornamented the Emperor's chest and belly. The 37th Emperor Risson did not need ornate patterns of body paint to display his rank. He simply glowed.

In ancient days, Atvar had heard, the Emperor had been thought to represent the sun on Home. He didn't know whether it was true or simply an explanation of why the Emperor wore solid gold body paint. It sounded as if it ought to be true, which was good enough.

Two large males in gray paint as simple as the Emperor's suddenly stepped into the aisle, blocking Atvar's progress. He gestured with his left hand. "I too serve his Majesty," he declared. That sent them away; they slunk back into the shadows from which they had sprung. They represented what had once been a more rigorous test of loyalty.

At last, Atvar dropped into the posture of respect before the throne. He cast his eye turrets down to the ground. The stone floor here was highly polished. How many males and females had pet.i.tioned how many Emperors in this very spot? The numbers were large. That was as far as Atvar was willing to go.

"Arise, Fleetlord Atvar," the 37th Emperor Risson said, from somewhere up above Atvar.

"I thank your Majesty for his kindness and generosity in summoning me into his presence when I am unworthy of the honor." Atvar stuck to the words of the ritual. How many times had how many Emperors heard them?

"Arise, I say again," Risson returned. Atvar obeyed. The Emperor went on, "Now-enough of that nonsense for a little while. What are we going to do about these miserable Big Uglies, anyway?"

Atvar stared. The previous Emperor had not not said anything like that when the fleetlord saw him before going into cold sleep. "Your Majesty?" Atvar said, unsure whether to believe his hearing diaphragms. said anything like that when the fleetlord saw him before going into cold sleep. "Your Majesty?" Atvar said, unsure whether to believe his hearing diaphragms.

"What are we going to do about the Big Uglies?" Risson repeated. "They are here, on Home. We have never had a problem like this before. If we do not make the right choices, the Empire will have itself a lot of trouble."

"I have been saying that for a long time," Atvar said dazedly. "I did not think anyone was listening."

"I have been," the Emperor said. "Some of the males and females who serve me are . . . used to doing things as they have been done since the Empire was unified. For the situation we now have, I do not think this is adequate."

"But if you speak, your Majesty-" Atvar began.

"I will have a reign of a hundred years or so-a little more, if I am lucky," Risson said. "The bureaucracy has been here for more than a hundred thousand. It will be here at least as much longer, and knows it. Emperors give orders. We even have them obeyed. It often matters much less than you would think. A great many things go on the same old way when you cannot keep both eye turrets on them-and you cannot, not all the time. Or was your experience as fleetlord on Tosev 3 different?"

"No, your Majesty," Atvar said. "But I am only a subject, while you are the Emperor. My spirit is nothing special. Yours will help determine if your subjects have a happy afterlife. Do not the males and females who serve you remember this?"

"Some of them may," the Emperor said. "But a lot of them have worked with me and with my predecessor, and some even with his predecessor. Much more than ordinary males and females, they take their sovereigns for granted."

Atvar had heard more startling things in this brief audience than in all the time since awakening again on Home. (He'd heard plenty of startling things on Tosev 3, but everything startling seemed to hatch there.) "I would not think anyone could take your Majesty for granted," he said.

"Well, that is a fine compliment, and I thank you for it, but it does not have much to do with what is truth," Risson said. "And I tell you, Fleetlord, I want you to do everything you can to make peace with the Big Uglies. If you do not, we will have a disaster the likes of which we have never imagined. Or do you believe I am wrong?"

"I wish I did, your Majesty," Atvar replied. "With all my liver, I wish I did."

Ka.s.squit had an odd feeling when she came back to Sitneff after the excursion to the park near the South Pole. Whenever she was alone with members of the Race, she always stressed that she was a citizen of the Empire, and no different from any other citizen of the Empire. She made members of the Race believe it, too, not least because she believed it herself.

But when she found herself in the company of other Tosevites, she also found herself taking their side in arguments with males and females of the Race. Part of that, there, had hatched from Trir's outrageous rudeness. Ka.s.squit understood as much. The rest, though? She looked like a wild Big Ugly. Her biology was that of a wild Big Ugly. In evolutionary terms, the Race's body paint was only skin deep. Beneath it, she remained a Tosevite herself.

"This concerns me, superior sir," she told Ttomalss in his chamber in the hotel where the American Big Uglies also dwelt. "I wonder if my advice to the Race is adequate. I wonder if it is accurate. I have the odd feeling of being torn in two."

"Your words do not surprise me," her mentor said. Ka.s.squit was relieved to hear it. He understood her better than any other member of the Race. Sometimes, though, that was not saying much. He went on, "Since your cultural and biological backgrounds are so different, is it much of a surprise that they often conflict? I would think not. What is your view?"

"I believe you speak the truth here," Ka.s.squit said, relieved to have the discussion persist and not founder on some rock of incomprehension. "Perhaps this accounts for some of my intense curiosity whenever I find myself around wild Big Uglies."

"Perhaps it does," Ttomalss agreed. "Well, no harm indulging your curiosity. You are not likely to betray the Race by doing so. Nor are you likely to go back into cold sleep and return to Tosev 3. Or do you think I am mistaken?"

"No, superior sir, I do not. And I thank you for your patience and understanding," Ka.s.squit said. "I hope you will forgive me for saying that I still find this world strange in many ways. Living on the starship orbiting Tosev 3 prepared me for some of it, but only for some. The males and females here are different from those I knew back there."

"Those were picked males-and, later, females," Ttomalss said. "The ones you meet here are not. They are apt to be less intelligent and less sophisticated than the males and females chosen to travel to the Tosevite solar system. Would you judge all Big Uglies on the basis of the ones the not-empire of the United States chose to send to Home?"

"I suppose not," Ka.s.squit admitted. "Still, that is a far smaller sample than the one the Race sent in the conquest and colonization fleets."

"Indeed it is," Ttomalss replied. "The reason being that we can send two large fleets to Tosev 3, while the wild Big Uglies have just managed to send a single starship to Home."

"Yes, superior sir," Ka.s.squit said dutifully. But she could not resist adding, "Of course, when the Race first came to Tosev 3, the wild Big Uglies could not fly beyond their own atmosphere, or very far up into it. In what short period has the Race shown comparable growth?"

For some reason, that seemed to upset Ttomalss, who broke off the conversation. Ka.s.squit wondered why-so much for his patience and understanding. Only the next day did she figure out what had gone wrong. He had compared Tosevites to the Race in a way that slighted her biological relatives. And what had she done in response? She had compared her species and the Race-to the advantage of the wild Big Uglies.

Things were as she'd warned him. Altogether without intending to, she'd proved as much. She was more like the Race than wild Big Uglies-and she was more like wild Big Uglies than the Race.

Males and females of the Race stared at her whenever she ventured out in public. Some of them asked her if she was a wild Big Ugly. That was a reasonable question. She always denied it politely. The males and females who kept talking with her after that were often curious how a Tosevite could be a citizen of the Empire. That was reasonable, too.

But then there were the males and females who had no idea what she was. Video had been coming back from Tosev 3 for 160 of Home's years, but a good many members of the Race did not seem to know what a Big Ugly looked like. She got asked if she was a Hallessi, and even if she was a Rabotev. One of the ones who did that was wearing false hair to pretend to be a Big Ugly himself. Ka.s.squit hadn't imagined such ignorance was possible.

And males and females who did recognize her for a Tosevite kept sidling up to her and asking her if she could sell them any ginger. They got angry when she said no, too. "But you are from there!" they would say. "You must have some of the herb. You must!" Some of them were trembling in the early stages of ginger withdrawal.

At first, she tried to reason with them. "Why would I have any ginger?" she would ask. "It does nothing for my metabolism. For me, it is a spice, not a drug. And I have never tasted it; it was forbidden on the starship where I lived."

Reasoning with members of the Race who craved ginger quickly proved impractical. It wasn't Ka.s.squit's fault. She was willing, even eager, to go on reasoning. The males and females who were desperate for the herb weren't.

"I will do anything. Anything!" a female said. Her emphatic cough was the most unnecessary one Ka.s.squit had ever heard. "Just let me have some of the herb!" She would not believe Ka.s.squit had none.

After a meeting with the wild Big Uglies, Ka.s.squit asked them, "Do the males and females of Home cause you difficulties?"

They looked from one to another without answering right away. At last, the dark-skinned male, the one named Frank Coffey, said, "It is only to be expected that they are curious about us. Except for you, they have never seen a real live Big Ugly before."

"You do not seem upset at the Race's name for your folk," Ka.s.squit said.

Coffey shook his head, then remembered to use the negative hand gesture. "I am not," he said. "We have our own name for the Race, you know, which is no more flattering to them than 'Big Uglies' is to us. And besides, I have been called worse things than a Big Ugly in my time."

"Have you?" Ka.s.squit said. This time, Coffey remembered right away to use the Race's affirmative gesture. She asked him, "Do you mean as an individual? Why would anyone single you out as an individual? You do not seem much different from any other wild Tosevite I have met."

"In some ways, I am typical. In other ways, I am not." The Big Ugly tapped his bare left forearm with the first two fingers of his right hand. "I was not so much singled out as an individual. I was singled out because of this."

"Because of what? Your arm?" Ka.s.squit was confused, and did not try to hide it.

Frank Coffey laughed in the loud, uproarious Tosevite style. So did the other American Big Uglies. Coffey was so uproarious, he almost fell off the foam-rubber chair on which he was sitting. Shaped chunks of foam made a tolerable subst.i.tute for the sort of furniture Big Uglies used. The Race's stools and chairs were not only too small but also made for fundaments of fundamentally different shape.

"No, not on account of my arm," Coffey said when at last he stopped gasping and wheezing. "Because of the color of the skin on it."

He was a darker brown than the other wild Big Uglies on Home, who had a good deal more pale tan and pink in their complexions. Ka.s.squit was darker than they were, too, though not to the same degree as Frank Coffey. She said, "Ah. I have heard about that, yes. But I must say it puzzles me. Why would anyone do such an irrational thing?"

"How much time do you have?" Coffey asked. "I could tell you stories that would make your hair as curly as mine." The rest of the wild Big Uglies took their leave, one by one. Maybe they had heard his stories before, or maybe they didn't need to.

Ka.s.squit's hair was straight. She had never thought about it much one way or the other. The dark brown Big Ugly's hair, by contrast, grew in tight ringlets on his head. She had noticed that before, but, again, hadn't attached any importance to it. Now she wondered if she should. "Why would a story make my hair curl?" she asked. Then a possible answer occurred to her: "Did you translate one of your idioms literally into this language?"

Coffey made the affirmative gesture. "I did, and I apologize. Stories that would appall you, I should have said."

"But why?" Ka.s.squit asked. Then she held up a hand in a gesture both the Race and the Big Uglies used. "Wait. During the fighting, the Race tried to recruit dark-skinned Big Uglies in your not-empire. I know that."

"Truth," Coffey said. Ka.s.squit was not expert at reading tone among Big Uglies, but she thought he sounded grim. His next words pleased her, for they showed she hadn't been wrong: "They were able to do that because Tosevites of that race-that subspecies, you might say-had been so badly treated by the dominant lighter group."

"But the experiment failed, did it not?" Ka.s.squit said. "Most of the dark Tosevites preferred to stay loyal to their own not-empire."

"Oh, yes. They decided being Tosevite counted most of all, or the large majority of them did, and they deserted the Race when combat began," Frank Coffey said. "But that they joined the Race at all says a lot about how desperate they were. And, although we in the United States do not like to remember it, some of them did stay on the Race's side, and they fought against my not-empire harder than the soldiers from your species did."

Was he praising or condemning them? Ka.s.squit couldn't tell. She asked, "Why did they do that?"

Coffey's expression was-quizzical? That would have been Ka.s.squit's guess, again from limited experience. He said, "You have never heard the word 'n.i.g.g.e.r,' have you?"

"n.i.g.g.e.r?" Ka.s.squit p.r.o.nounced the unfamiliar word as well as she could. She made the negative gesture. "No, I never have. It must be from your language. What does it mean?"

"It means a dark-skinned Tosevite," Coffey answered. "It is an insult, a strong insult. Next to it, something like 'Big Ugly' seems a compliment by comparison."

"Why is there a special insulting term for a dark-skinned Tosevite?" Ka.s.squit asked.

"There are special insulting terms for many different kinds of Tosevites," Frank Coffey said. "There are terms for those with different beliefs about the spirit. And there are terms based on what language we speak, and those based on how we look. The one for dark-skinned Tosevites . . . One way to subject a group is to convince yourself-and maybe that group, too-that they are not fully intelligent creatures, that they do not deserve to share what you have. That is what 'n.i.g.g.e.r' does."

"I see." Ka.s.squit wondered if she did. She pointed to him. "Yet you are here, in spite of those insults."

"So I am," the wild Tosevite said. "We have made some progress-not enough, but some. And I am very glad to be here, too."

"I am also glad you are here," Ka.s.squit said politely.

Though Sam Yeager had not gone to the South Pole, there were times when he wanted to see more of Home than the Race felt like showing him. Because the Lizards had insisted on him as amba.s.sador when the Doctor didn't wake up, they had a hard time refusing him outright. They did do their best to make matters difficult.

Guards accompanied him wherever he went. "There are many males and females here who lost young friends on Tosev 3," one of the guards told him. "That they should seek revenge is not impossible."

He wished he could afford to laugh at the guard. But the female had a point. Friendship ties were stronger among the Race than in mankind, family ties far weaker. Save in the imperial family, kinship was not closely noted. In a species with a mating season, that was perhaps unsurprising.