Homeward Bound (23 page)

“How could you not?” the guide asked in what sounded like genuine surprise. “The Halless said—”

“I heard what he said,” Karen broke in. “But his saying it does not have to make it a truth. He could easily have received instructions from superiors about what he was to tell us.”

“That is a shocking suggestion,” Trir exclaimed.

Karen’s husband made the negative gesture. “I do not think so,” Jonathan Yeager said. “Such things happen all the time on Tosev 3. No reason they should not happen here as well.”

“Why should we resort to such trickery?” Trir asked.

“To make us believe things in the Empire are better than they really are,” Karen said. “Do you not agree that would be to your advantage?”

Trir let out an indignant hiss. “I will not even dignify such a claim with a response. Its foolishness must be as obvious to you as it is to me.”

Was there any point to arguing more? Reluctantly, Karen decided there wasn’t. The Lizard was not going to admit anything. Maybe Trir really didn’t see there was anything to admit. Karen wouldn’t have been surprised, only saddened, to find that was so. Plenty of humans couldn’t see their superiors’ ulterior motives, either.

And the guide also seemed perturbed, saying, “Perhaps we should go back to the hotel. That way, no more unfortunate incidents can take place.”

“This was not unfortunate. This was interesting,” Tom de la Rosa said. “We learned something about the Hallessi and something about the Empire.”
And if we didn’t learn exactly what you wanted us to, well, too bad,
Karen thought. But Trir was unlikely to see things like that.

A genuinely unfortunate incident did happen not long before they got to the hotel. A Lizard skittered up to them and said, “You things are what they call Big Uglies, right? You are not Hallessi or Rabotevs? No—you cannot be. I know what they look like, and you do not look like that. You must be Big Uglies.”

“Go away. Do not bother these individuals,” Trir said sharply.

“It is not a bother,” Karen Yeager said. “Yes, we are from Tosev 3. Why do you ask?”

“Ginger!” The stranger added an emphatic cough. “You must have some of the herb. I will buy it from you. I will give you whatever you want for it. Tell me what that is, and I will pay it. I am not a poor male.” Another emphatic cough.

Such things had happened before, but never with such naked, obvious, desperate longing. “I am sorry,” Karen said, “but we have no ginger.”

“You must!” the Lizard exclaimed. “You must! I will go mad—utterly mad, I tell you—if I do not get what I need.”

“Police!” the guide shouted. Hissing out a string of curses, the Lizard who wanted drugs scurried away. Trir said, “Please ignore that male’s disgraceful conduct. It is abnormal, depraved, and altogether disgusting. You should never have been exposed to it.”

“We know about the Race and ginger,” Karen said. “The problem on Tosev 3 is far larger and far worse than it is here.”

“Impossible!” Trir declared, proving Lizards could be parochial, too.

“Not only not impossible, but a truth,” Karen said, and tacked on an emphatic cough. “Remember—on our home planet ginger is cheap and easily available. A large number of colonists there use it. In fact, it is beginning to change the entire society of the Race there.”

“A drug? What a ridiculous notion. You must be lying to me on purpose,” Trir said angrily.

“She is not.” Now Jonathan Yeager used an emphatic cough. “Remember, ginger brings females into their season. If females are continuously in season, males also come into season continuously. On Tosev 3, the Race’s sexuality has grown much more like ours.”

The guide’s tailstump quivered in agitation. “That is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard in my life.”

“Which does not mean that it is anything but a truth,” Karen said. “A little investigation on your computer network will prove as much.”

“I do not believe it,” Trir said in a voice like a slamming door. Karen did not believe the Lizard would do any investigating. Among the Race as among humans, clinging to what one was already sure of was easier and more satisfying than finding out for oneself. Trir pointed. “And here is the hotel.”
Here is where I can get rid of you and your dangerous ideas.

“There’s no place like home,” Karen said in English. Her husband and the de la Rosas laughed. Trir was bewildered. Since Karen was annoyed at her, she didn’t bother translating, and left the Lizard that way.

The scooters aboard the
Admiral Peary
easily outdid the ones the
Lewis and Clark
had carried. The little rockets had the advantage of thirty years’ development in electronics, motors, and materials. They were lighter, stronger, faster, and better than the ones Glen Johnson had used in the asteroid belt. They carried more fuel, too, so he could travel farther.

In principle, though, they remained the same. They had identical rocket motors at front and back, and smaller maneuvering jets all around. Get one pointed the way you wanted it to go, accelerate, get near where you were going, use the nose rocket to decelerate the same amount, and there you were. Easy as pie . . . in theory.

Of course, lots of things that were easy in theory turned out to be something else again in reality. This was one of those. Even with radar, gauging distances and vectors and burn times wasn’t easy. But Johnson had started as a Marine pilot flying piston-engined fighters against the Race. He’d been shot down twice, and still carried a burn scar on his right arm as a souvenir of those insane days. If he hadn’t been recovering from his wounds when the fighting stopped, he would have gone up again—and likely got shot down again, this time permanently. Life for human pilots during the invasion had been nasty, brutish, and almost always short.

And Johnson had done as much patrol flying in Earth orbit as any man around before . . . joining the crew of the
Lewis and Clark.
And he’d taken a scooter from the
Lewis and Clark
to one rock in the asteroid belt or another, and from rock to rock as well. If any human being was qualified to fly one while orbiting Home, he was the man.

He discovered spacesuit design had changed while he was in cold sleep, too. The changes weren’t major, but the helmet was less crowded, instruments were easier to read, and there were fewer sharp edges and angles on which he could bang his head. All of this was the sort of thing the Lizards would have done automatically before they ever let anybody into a spacesuit. People didn’t work that way. If things weren’t perfect, people went ahead regardless. That was why the
Admiral Peary
had got to the Tau Ceti system—and why the Doctor hadn’t.

“Testing—one, two, three,” Johnson said into his radio mike. “Do you read?”

“Read you five by five, scooter,” a voice replied in his ear. “Do you read me?”

“Also five by five,” Johnson said. “Ready to be launched.”

“Roger.” The outer door to the air lock opened. Johnson used the maneuvering jets to ease the scooter out of the lock and away from the ship. Only after he was safely clear of the
Admiral Peary
did he fire up the rocket at the stern. It gave him a little weight, or acceleration’s simulation of weight. He guided the scooter toward the closest Lizard spaceship.

“Calling the
Horned Akiss,
” he said into his radio mike. An akiss was a legendary creature among the Race—close enough to a dragon for government work.
Horned Akiss
made a pretty good name for a military spacecraft, which that one was. “Repeat—calling the
Horned Akiss.
This is the
Admiral Peary
’s number-one scooter. Requesting permission to approach, as previously arranged.”

“Permission granted.” A Lizard’s voice sounded in his ear. “Approach air lock number three. Repeat—number three.” To guide him, red and yellow lights came on around the designated air lock. The Lizard continued, “Remember, you and your scooter will be searched before you are permitted into the ship.”

“I understand,” Johnson said. The males and females aboard the Lizards’ ship weren’t worried about weapons. If he tried a treacherous attack on the
Horned Akiss,
the rest of the Race’s ships would go after the
Admiral Peary.
What they were worried about was ginger smuggling.

The radar and computer would have told Johnson when to make his deceleration burn and for how long—if he’d paid any attention to them. He did it by eye and feel instead, and got what was for all practical purposes the same result: the scooter lay motionless relative to the air lock. When the outer door opened, he eased the scooter inside with the maneuvering jets, the same way as he’d brought it out of the
Admiral Peary
’s air lock.

Behind him, the outer door closed. The Lizard on the radio said, “You may now remove your spacesuit for search.” Before Johnson did, he checked to make sure the pressure in the air lock was adequate. The Lizard hadn’t been lying to him. Even so, he was cautious as he broke the seal on his face plate, and ready to slam it shut again if things weren’t as they seemed.

They were. The air the Race breathed had a smaller percentage of oxygen than the Earthly atmosphere, but the overall pressure was a little higher, so things evened out. He could smell the Lizards: a faint, slightly musky odor, not unpleasant. The
Horned Akiss’
crew probably didn’t even know it was there. When he got back to the
Admiral Peary,
he’d smell people the same way for a little while, till his nose got used to them again.

The inner airlock door opened. Two Lizards glided in, moving at least as smoothly weightless as humans did. “We greet you,” one of them said. “Now—out of that suit.” He added an emphatic cough.

“I obey,” Johnson said. Under the suit, he wore a T-shirt and shorts. He could have gone naked, for all the Race cared. The Lizards in charge of security had long wands they used to sniff out ginger. One went over the spacesuit, the other Johnson and the scooter. Only after no alarm lights came on did Johnson ask, “Are you satisfied now?”

“Moderately so,” answered the one who’d examined him. “We will still X-ray the scooter, to make sure you have not secreted away some of the herb in the tubing. But, for now, you may enter the
Horned Akiss.
If you prove to be smuggling, you will not be allowed to leave.”

“I thank you so much!” Johnson exclaimed, and used an emphatic cough. “And I greet you, too.”

Both Lizards’ mouths fell open in silent, toothy laughs. Johnson was laughing, too. He’d visited the Race’s spacecraft before. Their searches were always as thorough as this one. They didn’t know whether the
Admiral Peary
had ginger aboard. They didn’t believe in taking chances, though.

Together, they said, “We greet you. We like you. If you are carrying the herb, we will like you too well to let you leave, as we have said. Otherwise, welcome.”

Except for that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?
Johnson thought wryly. “I thank you so very much!” he repeated, tacking on another emphatic cough. For good measure, he also bent into the posture of respect.

That made the Lizards laugh again. “You are more sarcastic than you have any business being,” one of them said.

“Oh, no.” Johnson used the Race’s negative gesture. “You are mistaken. This is normal for Big Uglies.”

They laughed one more time. “No wonder your species is so much trouble,” said the one who’d spoken before.

“No wonder at all,” Johnson agreed. “Now, come on—take me to your leader.” He did some laughing of his own. “I always wanted to say that.”

Neither of the Lizards got the joke. But they understood irony as well as he did. Both of them assumed the posture of respect. They chorused, “It shall be done, superior Big Ugly!”

As a matter of fact, by their body paint and his own eagles, Johnson did outrank them. It was pretty damn funny any which way. And they
did
take him to their leader.

The corridors in the
Horned Akiss
were narrower and lower than those aboard the
Admiral Peary.
Not surprising, not when Lizards were smaller than people. The handholds were of a slightly different shape and set at distances Johnson found oddly inconvenient. But he managed with minimal difficulty. The laws of the universe operated in the same way for the Lizards as they did for mankind. The differences between spacecraft were in the details. The broad brush strokes remained the same.

Medium Spaceship Commander Henrep’s office even reminded Johnson of Lieutenant General Charles Healey‘s. It had the same sense of carefully constrained order. Henrep looked even more like a snapping turtle than Healey did, too, but he couldn’t help it—he was hatched that way. Fixing Johnson with both eyes, he asked, “What is the real purpose of this visit?”

“Friendship,” Johnson answered. “Nothing but friendship.”

“An overrated concept,” Henrep declared—yes, he did have a good deal in common with Healey.

Johnson used the negative gesture again. “I think you are mistaken, superior sir. The Race is going to have to learn to get along with wild Tosevites, and wild Tosevites are going to have to learn to get along with the Race. If we do not, we will destroy each other, and neither side would benefit from that.”

Henrep remained unimpressed. “The Race can certainly destroy your species. Just as certainly, you cannot destroy us. You can, no doubt, ruin Tosev 3. You can, perhaps, damage Home. You cannot harm Halless 1 or Rabotev 2. The Empire would be wounded, yes. But even at the worst it would go on.”

“That is the situation as we here know it now, yes,” Johnson replied. “But how do you know my not-empire has not sent starships to Rabotev and Halless to attack their inhabited planets in case of trouble elsewhere between your kind and mine? Are you sure that is not so?”

By the way Henrep glowered, the only thing he was sure of was that he couldn’t stand the human floating in front of him. His tailstump quivering with anger, he said, “That would be vicious and brutal beyond belief.”

“So it would. So would destroying us,” Johnson said. “We can do each other a lot of damage. That is why it would be better to live as friends.”