Homeward Bound Part 28

Ttomalss did his best to sink his fingerclaws into patience. "Let me ask you a different way," he said. "Is this a matter that will only matter in learned journals and computer discussion groups, or will it have practical meaning?"

"Sooner or later, a lot of what is discussed in learned journals and computer groups has practical meaning," Pesskrag said stiffly. But then she relented: "All right. I know what you mean. I would say this will have practical meaning. Just how soon, I am less certain. We will need to confirm what we think we have found, and that too will take some time. Then, a.s.suming we do confirm it, we will have to see what sort of engineering the physics leads to."

"How long do you suppose that will take?" Ttomalss asked.

"Years, certainly. I would not be surprised if it took centuries," the physicist answered. "We will have to be very careful here, after all. Everything will have to be worked out in great detail. We will have to make sure these changes do not disrupt our society, or do so to the smallest possible degree. Deciding what the safest course is will of course be the responsibility of planners, not scientists."

"Of course," Ttomalss echoed. "Tell me one thing more, if you would be so kind: how soon could something like this pa.s.s from physics to engineering if those in charge cared nothing for change or disruption?"

"What an addled notion!" Pesskrag said. Ttomalss did not argue. He only waited. She went on, "I cannot imagine the circ.u.mstances under which such a thing would be permitted. I certainly hope the males and females in charge of such things are more responsible than you seem to believe."

"If such matters were gripped by the fingerclaws of our males and females alone, I would agree with you," Ttomalss said. "Do please remember the source of your inspiration here, though. Let me ask my question in a different way: what do you suppose the Big Uglies have been doing with the data you are just now discovering?"

"The Big Uglies?" Pesskrag spoke as if she were hearing of Tosevites for the first time. After some thought, she shrugged. "I am sorry, Senior Researcher, but I have not the faintest idea. How matter and energy behave is my province. How these strange aliens act is yours."

"I will tell you how to estimate their behavior," Ttomalss said.

"Please do." The physicist sounded polite but skeptical.

"Make the most radical estimate of possibilities you have the power to invent in your own mind," Ttomalss said. He waited again. When Pesskrag made the affirmative gesture, he went on, "Once you have made that estimate, multiply its capacity for disaster by about ten. Having done that, you will find yourself somewhere close to the low end of Tosevite possibilities."

Pesskrag laughed. Ttomalss didn't. He didn't say anything at all. After a little while, Pesskrag noticed he wasn't saying anything. She exclaimed, "But surely you must be joking!"

"I wish I were," the psychologist said. "If anything, I am not giving the Big Uglies enough credit-or maybe blame is more likely to be the word I want."

"I do not understand," Pesskrag said.

"Let me show you, then. You may possibly have seen this image before." Ttomalss called up onto the screen the picture of the Tosevite warrior the Race's probe had snapped. He said, "Please believe me when I tell you this was the state of the art on Tosev 3 eighteen hundred years ago-eighteen hundred of our years, half that many by the local count."

"Oh. I see," Pesskrag said slowly. "And now . . ." Her voice trailed away.

"Yes. And now," Ttomalss said. "And now several of their not-empires have kept their independence in spite of everything the Race could do. And now they are making important discoveries in theoretical physics before we are. Do you still believe I am joking, or even exaggerating?"

"Possibly not," Pesskrag said in troubled tones. "We would not have made this this discovery for a long time, if ever. I am convinced of that. So are my colleagues. Even imagining the experiment requires a startling radicalism." discovery for a long time, if ever. I am convinced of that. So are my colleagues. Even imagining the experiment requires a startling radicalism."

"And the Race is not radical," Ttomalss said. Pesskrag hesitated, then used the affirmative gesture once more. So did the psychologist. He went on, "I need to tell you, I need to make you understand in your belly, that by our standards the Big Uglies are radical to the point of lunacy. If you do not understand that, you cannot hope to understand anything about them. Let me give you an example. During the fighting after the conquest fleet landed, they destroyed a city we held with an atomic weapon-a weapon they had not had when the fighting started. Do you know how they did it?"

"By remote control, I would a.s.sume," Pesskrag replied.

Ttomalss made the negative gesture. "No. That is how we would do it. That is how they would do it now, I am sure. At the time, their remote-control systems were primitive and unreliable. They sailed a boat that travels underwater-one of their military inventions-carrying the bomb into this harbor. When the boat arrived, a brave male on it triggered the bomb, killing himself and the rest of the crew in the process."

"Madness!" the physicist said.

"Yes and no," Ttomalss answered. "Remember, it did us much more harm than it did the Big Uglies. And so they did not count the cost. They have a way of proceeding without counting the cost. That is why I asked where this discovery might go, and how long it might take to get there."

The way Pesskrag's eye turrets twitched told how troubled she was. "I am sorry, Senior Researcher, but I still cannot say for certain. We are going to have to modify a good deal of theory to account for the results of this experiment. We will also have to design other experiments based on this one to take into account what we have just learned. I do not know what sort of theoretical underpinnings the Big Uglies already have. If this was an experiment of confirmation for them, not an experiment of discovery . . . If that turns out to be so, they may have a bigger lead than I believe."

"And in that case?" Ttomalss always a.s.sumed the Tosevites knew more and were more advanced than the available evidence showed. He was rarely wrong about that. He did sometimes err on the conservative side even so. Since he was trying to be radical, that worried him. But no member of the Race could be as Radical as a Big Ugly. Realizing that worried him, too.

"I need to do more work before I can properly answer you," Pesskrag said. Her words proved Ttomalss' point for him. That worried him more still. A Tosevite physicist wouldn't have hesitated before answering. And that worried him most of all.

Lieutenant General Healey gave Glen Johnson a baleful stare as the two of them floated into the Admiral Peary Admiral Peary's small, cramped refectory. "Too bad sending you down to the surface of Home would kill you," the starship commandant rasped. "Otherwise, I'd do it in a red-hot minute."

"Since when has that kind of worry ever stopped you?" After a long, long pause, Johnson added, "Sir?" He didn't have to waste much time being polite to Healey. As far as he knew, the Admiral Peary Admiral Peary had no brig. He didn't need to worry about blowing a promotion, either. What difference did it make, when he never expected to see Earth again? He could say whatever he pleased-and if Healey felt like baiting him, he'd bait the commandant right back. had no brig. He didn't need to worry about blowing a promotion, either. What difference did it make, when he never expected to see Earth again? He could say whatever he pleased-and if Healey felt like baiting him, he'd bait the commandant right back.

Healey's bulldog countenance was made for glowering. But the scowl lost a lot of its force when its owner lost the power to intimidate. "You are insubordinate," the commandant rasped.

"Yes, sir, I sure am," Johnson agreed cheerfully. "You'd be doing me a favor if you sent me down to Home with the doctor, you know that? I'd be keeping company with a nice-looking woman till gravity squashed me flat. You'd be stuck up here with yourself-or should I say stuck on yourself?"

That struck a nerve. Healey turned the glowing crimson of red-hot iron. A comparable amount of heat seemed to radiate from him, too. He got himself a plastic pouch of food and spent the rest of supper ignoring Johnson.

The meal was a sort of a stew: bits of meat and vegetables and rice, all bound together with a gravy that was Oriental at least to the extent of having soy sauce as a major ingredient. A spoon with a retracting lid made a good tool for eating it.

Johnson did wonder what the meat was. It could have been chicken, or possibly pork. On the other hand, it could just as well have been lab rat. How much in the way of supplies had the starship brought from Earth? The diet.i.tians no doubt knew to the last half ounce. Johnson didn't inquire of any of them. Some questions were better left unanswered.

When he reported to the control room the next morning, Brigadier General Walter Stone greeted him with a reproachful look. "You shouldn't ride the commandant so hard," the senior pilot said.

"He started it." Johnson knew he sounded like a three-year-old. He didn't much care. "Did you tell him he should stay off my back?"

"He has reasons for being leery of you," Stone said. "We both know what they are, don't we?"

"Too bad," Johnson said. "We both know his reasons never amounted to a hill of beans, too, don't we?"

"No, we don't know that," Walter Stone said. "What we know is, n.o.body ever proved those reasons have anything to do with reality."

"There's a reason for that, too: they don't." Johnson had stuck with his story since the 1960s.

"Tell it to the Marines," said Stone, an Army man.

Since Johnson had been a Marine now for something approaching ninety years, he chose to take umbrage at that-or at least to act as if he did. He got on fine with Mickey Flynn; he and Stone had been wary around each other ever since he involuntarily joined the crew of the Lewis and Clark. Lewis and Clark. They would probably stay that way as long as they both lived. They would probably stay that way as long as they both lived.

Stone wasn't obnoxious about his opinions, the way Lieutenant General Healey was. That didn't mean he didn't have them. To him, Johnson would always be below the salt, even if they'd come more than ten light-years from home.

Prig, Johnson thought, and then another word that sounded much like it. The first was fair enough. The second wasn't, and he knew as much. Stone was extremely good at what he did. Johnson knew himself to be unmatched at piloting a scooter. No human being was better than Walter Stone at making a big s.p.a.ceship behave. Johnson had seen that with both the Johnson thought, and then another word that sounded much like it. The first was fair enough. The second wasn't, and he knew as much. Stone was extremely good at what he did. Johnson knew himself to be unmatched at piloting a scooter. No human being was better than Walter Stone at making a big s.p.a.ceship behave. Johnson had seen that with both the Lewis and Clark Lewis and Clark and the and the Admiral Peary. Admiral Peary. If the other man had a personality that seemed to be made of stamped tin . . . then he did, that was all. If the other man had a personality that seemed to be made of stamped tin . . . then he did, that was all.

"h.e.l.lo!" Dr. Melanie Blanchard floated up into the control room, and Johnson forgot all about Stone's personality, if any. The doctor went on, "I'm making my good-byes. The shuttlecraft will take me down to Home tomorrow."

"We'll miss you," Johnson said, most sincerely. Stone nodded. The two of them had no quarrel about that.

Dr. Blanchard said, "No need to. The doctors aboard will be able to take care of you just fine in case anything goes wrong. They'll do better than I could, in fact. My specialty is cold-sleep medicine, and they tend to people who are actually warm and breathing to begin with."

Johnson and Stone looked at each other. Johnson could see he and the senior pilot shared the same thought. He spoke before Stone could: "We weren't exactly thinking of your doctoring."

"Oh." Melanie Blanchard laughed. "You boys say the sweetest things." She was careful to keep her tone light. She'd been careful for as long as Johnson had known her. He was sure he and Stone weren't the only men aboard the Admiral Peary Admiral Peary who thought of her not just as a physician. He was pretty sure n.o.body'd had the chance to do anything but think. The ship was big enough to fly from Earth to Home, but not big enough to keep gossip from flying if there were anything to gossip about. If anything could travel faster than light, gossip could. who thought of her not just as a physician. He was pretty sure n.o.body'd had the chance to do anything but think. The ship was big enough to fly from Earth to Home, but not big enough to keep gossip from flying if there were anything to gossip about. If anything could travel faster than light, gossip could.

No gossip had ever clung to Dr. Blanchard. Johnson wished some would have; it would have left him more hopeful. He smiled at her now. "You think we talk sweet, you should give us a chance to show you what we can do."

"Take no notice of him," Walter Stone told the doctor. "I agree with everything he says, but take no notice of him anyway." Johnson looked at Stone in surprise. Flynn wouldn't have disdained that line. Johnson hadn't thought Stone had it in him.

Melanie Blanchard laughed. "Flattery will get you-not as much as you wish it would," she said, the laugh taking any sting from the words. "Being noticed is nice. Having people make nuisances of themselves isn't." She held up a hand. "You two haven't. I could name names. I could-but I won't."

"Why not?" Johnson asked. "If you do, we'll have something interesting to talk about."

"You'll be talking about me behind my back whether I name names or not," she said. "I know how things work. If you were going down there, they'd talk about you, too. Oh, not the same way-you aren't women, after all-but they would. Will you tell me I'm wrong?"

"Sure," Johnson said. "If we were going down to Home, they'd talk about him. him." He jerked a thumb at Walter Stone.

"Me? Include me out," Stone said.

"Thank you, Mr. Goldwyn," Johnson said. Stone grimaced. He looked as if he hadn't wanted to give Johnson even that much reaction. Johnson turned back to Melanie Blanchard. "Five gets you ten your shuttlecraft pilot won't be a Lizard. Rabotevs and Hallessi don't care about ginger."

"They don't care about taking ginger," she said. "I bet they'd like the money they'd make for smuggling it-you've said that yourself. Of course, we haven't got any ginger to give them, so it doesn't matter."

"Of course," Johnson and Stone agreed together.

Johnson didn't know for sure whether the Admiral Peary Admiral Peary carried ginger, whatever his suspicions. He could think of three people who might: Sam Yeager, Lieutenant General Healey, and Walter Stone. He didn't ask the senior pilot. He was sure of one thing-the Lizards thought the humans' starship was full of the stuff from top to bottom. carried ginger, whatever his suspicions. He could think of three people who might: Sam Yeager, Lieutenant General Healey, and Walter Stone. He didn't ask the senior pilot. He was sure of one thing-the Lizards thought the humans' starship was full of the stuff from top to bottom.

Come to think of it, Dr. Blanchard might know the truth about the herb, too. Had she just come out and told it, or was she operating on the principle that the Race might have managed to bug the Admiral Peary Admiral Peary and needed to be told what they already wanted to hear? and needed to be told what they already wanted to hear?

She said, "I'm going to go below and make sure I've got everything I'll need down on the surface of Home. In the meantime . . ." She glided over to Johnson and gave him a hug and a kiss. Then she did the same thing with Walter Stone. And then, waving impartially to both of them, she was gone.

"d.a.m.n," Johnson said: a reverent curse if ever there was one. The memory of her body pressed against his would stay with him a long time. At his age, s.e.x wasn't such an urgent business as it had been when he was younger. That didn't mean he'd forgotten what it was all about.

Walter Stone looked amazingly lifelike as he stared toward the hatchway down which Dr. Blanchard had gone. He shook himself like a man coming out of cold water. "Now that you mention it, yes," he said.

"Lot of woman there," Johnson observed. "I'd run into somebody like that, I probably would have stayed married and stayed on Earth."

He waited for Stone to point out that he'd be dead now in that case. The other man didn't. He only nodded.

With a sigh, Johnson added, "Of course, you notice she isn't married herself. Maybe she's not as nice as she seems."

"Or maybe she thinks men are a bunch of b.u.ms," Stone said. "You've got an ex-wife. Maybe she's got an ex-husband or three."

That hadn't occurred to Johnson. Before he could say anything, a Lizard's voice spoke from the radio: "Attention, the Tosevite starship. Attention, the Tosevite starship. We have launched a shuttlecraft to pick up your physician. This is the object you will discern on your radar."

Sure enough, there it was: a blip rising from Home toward the Admiral Peary. Admiral Peary. "We thank you for the alert, Ground Control," Stone said in the language of the Race. "We thank you for the alert, Ground Control," Stone said in the language of the Race.

A little later, the shuttlecraft pilot's face appeared in the monitor. As Johnson had guessed, he was (or perhaps she was) a dark-skinned, short-faced Rabotev with eyes on stalks, not in turrets. "I greet you, Tosevites," the pilot said. "Please give me docking instructions."

"Our docking apparatus is the same as the Empire uses," Stone said. He had, no doubt, almost said the same as the Race uses, the same as the Race uses, but that wouldn't do with a Rabotev. "Lights will guide you to the docking collar. Call again if you have any trouble." but that wouldn't do with a Rabotev. "Lights will guide you to the docking collar. Call again if you have any trouble."

"I thank you," the shuttlecraft pilot replied. "It shall be done."

The Rabotev was certainly capable. He-she?-docked with the Admiral Peary Admiral Peary with a smooth efficiency anyone who'd flown in s.p.a.ce had to respect. With the duty in the control room, Johnson couldn't give Dr. Blanchard another personal good-bye. He sighed again. Memory wasn't a good enough subst.i.tute for the real thing. with a smooth efficiency anyone who'd flown in s.p.a.ce had to respect. With the duty in the control room, Johnson couldn't give Dr. Blanchard another personal good-bye. He sighed again. Memory wasn't a good enough subst.i.tute for the real thing.

Karen Yeager was starting to get to know the Sitneff shuttlecraft port. It wasn't as familiar to her as Los Angeles International Air- and s.p.a.ceport, but she had some idea which turns to take to get to the waiting area. The shuttlecraft port also had one great advantage over LAX: she was a VIP here, not one more cow in a herd. She and Jonathan got whisked through security checkpoints instead of waiting in lines that often doubled back on themselves eight or ten times.

"I could get used to this," she said as they took their seats in the waiting area. If the seats weren't perfectly comfortable-well, they wouldn't be here very long.

Her husband nodded. "Could be worse." In English, he added, "Only drawback is everybody staring at us."

"Well, yes, there is that," Karen said. She too felt as if every eye turret in the waiting area were turned her way. That wasn't quite true, but it wasn't far wrong, either. Lizards attracted much less attention at airports back on Earth. Of course, there were millions of Lizards on Earth, and only a handful of humans here on Home.

She shifted in her seat. No, it wasn't comfortable at all. Back on Earth, some airports had special seating areas for the Race. Karen didn't plan on holding her breath till the Lizards returned the favor here.

A shuttlecraft landed. Its braking rockets roared. The Race was better at soundproofing than mere humans were, but she still felt that noise in her bones. Three Lizards got out of the shuttlecraft. Their friends or business colleagues or whatever they were greeted them when they came into the terminal.

After glancing at his watch, one of the Americans' guards said, "Your fellow Tosevite should be grounding next."

"I thank you." Karen and Jonathan said the same thing at the same time. As couples who've been married for a long time will, they smiled at each other.

The guard was right. The groundcrew at the port moved the last shuttlecraft off the flame-scarred tarmac. A few minutes later, another one landed a hundred yards off to the left. This time, the pilot who emerged was a Rabotev. The Lizards in the waiting area paid no particular attention to him (or her); they were used to Rabotevs. But they exclaimed and pointed when Dr. Melanie Blanchard came down the landing ladder after him.

"She's moving as if she's got the weight of the world on her shoulders, isn't she?" Jonathan said.

"She probably feels that way, too," Karen said. "She's been out of gravity for quite a while now."

Dr. Blanchard trudged across the concrete toward the waiting area. Lifting each foot and then putting it down took an obvious effort. A Lizard scurried into the shuttlecraft and came out with a pair of suitcases of Earthly manufacture. He hurried after the human. Carrying her luggage wasn't very hard for him. By the way things looked, it might have killed her.

Turning to the guards, Karen said, "Can you please keep the reporters away from her? She is too tired to answer questions right away."

"It shall be done, superior sir." The Lizards still had as much trouble telling humans' s.e.xes apart as people did with them. Karen couldn't get too annoyed, though, because the guards did do what she'd asked. The reporters shouted their questions anyhow, but they had to do it from a distance.

Dr. Blanchard waved to them. That took effort, too. "I am glad to be here," she called in the language of the Race. She didn't look or sound glad. She looked as if she wanted to fall over. And when she got to Karen and Jonathan, she sank into one of the seats by them regardless of how uncomfortable it was. "Whew!" she said. Sweat gleamed on her face. "Can I rest for a little while before we go on?"

"Sure," Jonathan said. "How are you?"

"Hammered," she answered frankly. "I remember I used to take gravity for granted. What I don't remember is how. I feel like I've got two great big football players strapped to my back."

"You'll get used to it again," Karen said.

Melanie Blanchard nodded. Even that looked anything but easy for her. "I suppose I will," she said. "In the meantime, though, I'm a shambling wreck-only I can't shamble for beans, either."

One of the Lizard guards came up to her and bent into the posture of respect. "I greet you, superior female. Shall we now return to the hotel where your species stays?"

"I thank you, but please let me rest first," she replied. "I have been weightless for a very long time, and I need a little while to get used to being back in gravity again."

The guard made the affirmative gesture. "As you say, so shall it be." He went back to holding off the reporters.

"I wish it were, 'As you say, so shall it be,' " Dr. Blanchard said in English. "Then I'd tell myself everything was fine, and it would be-'physician, heal thyself.' I'd love to. Only problem is, I can't."

"When we do go back to the hotel, you can stretch out on a sleeping mat," Karen said. "Then come over to our room, if you've got the energy. We've got ice cubes. As near as I can tell, they're the only ones on the planet." She spoke with what she hoped was pardonable pride.

"And we've got the Race's equivalent of vodka," Jonathan added. "What they use for flavored liquor is amazingly nasty-of course, they think the same thing about scotch and bourbon. But this is just ethyl alcohol cut with water. You can drink it warm, but Karen's right-it's better cold."