Homeward Bound (43 page)

That was undoubtedly how humans seemed from the Race’s point of view—the one Kassquit naturally adopted as her own. But a lot of Lizards refused to see that changes in the way humans did things could affect them. Kassquit didn’t make that mistake, anyhow.

Frank Coffey said, “Do come sit with us, Kassquit.”

“You ask me this?” she said. “Are you certain you desire my company?”

Major Coffey made the affirmative gesture. “Of course I am,” he said, and added an emphatic cough.

Kassquit’s face still showed nothing. But she brought her plate to the table where the Americans were sitting. “Do you mind if I ask what you were talking about before?” she inquired.

“Mostly about the
rats
that were released here, and about bringing more of them down from the
Admiral Peary
so we can go on testing food,” Jonathan answered.

“Is that still necessary?” Kassquit asked. “Have the animals found many problems for you? I had no such aids when I woke up on Home, but I have eaten the food here and I am still well.”

“We would rather not take chances we do not have to take,” Dr. Melanie Blanchard said. “We would also rather avoid unpleasant surprises if we can. The Race can eat almost anything we Tosevites can eat on our world, but who would have expected the trouble ginger causes them?”

That seemed only common sense to Jonathan. He thought Kassquit would make the affirmative gesture; she was nothing if not logical. Instead, she let out an audible sniff. “How likely is this?”

Dr. Blanchard shrugged. The motion seemed easier and less of an effort than it would have right after she came down to the surface of Home. Little by little, she was getting reacquainted with gravity. She said, “Who knows? What is certain is that we would like to prevent it if possible. Do you object? Few members of the Race would, not on those grounds. The Race is more cautious than we Tosevites are.”

“I do not object on the grounds of prudence,” Kassquit said. “I do wonder if one of the reasons you wanted to bring
rats
here was in the hope that they might escape and establish themselves. That would let you pay the Race back for ecological changes caused by creatures from Home on Tosev 3.”

“Not fair,” Jonathan said. “If
we
had released the
rats,
you could accuse us of that. But members of the Race did it. We kept the animals caged. We were going to keep them caged, too. We know just what sort of pests they can be.”

Kassquit considered that. At last, reluctantly, she did use the affirmative gesture. “From you, Jonathan Yeager, I will believe this.”

“Why would you not also believe it from Dr. Blanchard?” Jonathan asked. “She knows much more about these things than I do.”

“Yes—why?” Melanie Blanchard echoed. “I mean you no harm, Researcher. In fact, I would like to examine you, if you do not mind. I probably know less about medicine as a whole than a physician from the Race, but I know a lot more about being a Tosevite. I might find something a physician from the Race would miss.”

Had Jonathan been in Kassquit’s shoes, he could have been grateful for that offer. If she got sick, what could the Lizards do about it? Not much, not that he could see. A human doctor, though, had to know how people ticked.

But Kassquit looked at Dr. Blanchard as if she’d just suggested vivisection. “I thank you, but no,” she said. “The Race’s techniques have always been adequate up until now.”

“No doubt,” Dr. Blanchard said. “But then, you have never been very ill, have you? You are still young, and you were never exposed to most Tosevite diseases. You are now beginning to reach the age where your body will show the wear it has accumulated. More regular examinations are a good idea.”

“I thank you, but no,” Kassquit repeated. “I will continue in my present way of doing things until it shows itself to be unsatisfactory.”

“This is not a good idea,” Jonathan told her. “Technicians maintain computers and other machines. You should also maintain yourself.”

“And so I do. And so I shall—with the Race,” Kassquit said. “If this proves inadequate, as I told you, I shall consider other options.”

Her determination was unmistakable. Jonathan scratched his head again. It didn’t add up—not to him, anyway. But Karen whispered in his ear in English: “She doesn’t like the doctor.”

Jonathan blinked. That hadn’t occurred to him. Once his wife pointed it out, though, it seemed so obvious that he wondered why it hadn’t. He also wondered why Kassquit didn’t like the doctor. They’d hardly had anything to do with each other.

Frank Coffey asked, “Would a member of the Race want a Tosevite doctor?”

“Certainly not.” Kassquit didn’t use an emphatic cough, but her tone of voice left no doubt about how she felt.

“All right, then.” Coffey was unperturbed. “Why would you want to use a physician of a different species when you have another choice?”

Kassquit looked at him. “You too would recommend that I trust myself to Dr. Blanchard?” She had a little trouble pronouncing the name, but less than a Lizard would have. When Coffey made the affirmative gesture, Kassquit sprang to her feet. “You are all against me!” she exclaimed, and stormed out of the refectory. The only reason she didn’t slam the glass door behind her was that its mechanism wouldn’t let her.

“What was that all about?” Linda de la Rosa asked in English.

“Is it me she doesn’t want to deal with, or is it because I’m a human being and not a Lizard?” Melanie Blanchard asked in the same language.

I think it may be you,
went through Jonathan’s mind. He glanced at his wife, and would have bet she was thinking the same thing. Neither he nor Karen said anything, though. They might have been wrong. Even if they turned out to be right, who could guess why Kassquit felt the way she did? She was a riddle—sometimes, Jonathan suspected, even to herself.

His father said the same thing a different way: “Kassquit takes some getting used to. It’s not her fault she is the way she is, God knows. I do think she’s got a good heart.”

Jonathan nodded. Karen let out a distinct sniff. Among the Americans, though, she found herself outvoted.
Snoutcounting,
Jonathan thought. He was amused, but knew neither his wife nor Kassquit would have been.

Kassquit wanted nothing more than to avoid the wild Big Uglies. She wished she could have nothing to do with them. They did not understand her, they mocked her. . . . So it seemed from her point of view, at any rate.

No matter what she wanted, though, she had to deal with the Tosevites. She’d been brought to Home to deal with them. No matter how revolting they acted, she couldn’t just walk away from her work with them. More than once, she thought,
If I were a female of the Race, I could.
Being what she was, she had fewer choices. She could not abandon the wild big Uglies. Half the time—more than half the time—members of the Race couldn’t tell her apart from them anyway.

She tried to avoid them at mealtimes. That didn’t always work, because they didn’t all eat at the same times every day. She stayed as far from them in the refectory as she could. That probably would have sufficed with the Race, whose members were sophisticated enough to recognize a good sulk. The Big Uglies, though, were as nosy as so many befflem, and just about as enthusiastic.

Because the American Tosevites usually ate breakfast early, Kassquit had started eating late. She didn’t like that, because she got hungry. She did it even so. But when Frank Coffey came in for a snack, he found her there. She hoped he would take care of what he wanted and leave her alone.

He didn’t. He came over to the table where she was sitting and said, “May I join you?”

“If you insist,” Kassquit said coldly.

A male of the Race would have taken the hint. She would have thought the Big Ugly might also; she hadn’t been subtle. But Coffey just said, “I thank you,” and sat down. Then he asked, “Why are you angry at Dr. Blanchard? What has she done to you? How could she have done anything to you? She just got here.”

“I am not angry at Dr. Blanchard!” Kassquit said—angrily. The wild Big Ugly sitting across the table from her did not respond. He just let the words hang in the air. They seemed so manifestly false, Kassquit felt she had to modify them: “She has not done anything to me—not directly.”

“Ah?” Yes, Frank Coffey was like a beffel that had taken a scent. “What has she done indirectly, then?”

“You ought to know.” Kassquit did not bother to hide the bitterness she felt.

“I do not have any idea what you are talking about,” the American Big Ugly said.

“A likely story,” Kassquit said. “You do not need to lie to me, you know. That is nothing but a waste of time on your part.”

“Lie about what?” Coffey asked. “You have completely confused me. I am sorry, but that is a truth. I wish I believed in the spirits of Emperors past. I would swear by them to convince you. What oath would you like me to use?”

“For a truthful person, oaths do not matter. For one who is not truthful, they do not help,” Kassquit snapped.

The Big Ugly made the affirmative gesture. “That is well said. You have known me since I came down to the surface of Home. I have been here most of a year now. What is your opinion of me? Have you believed me to be a truthful person, or one of the other sort?”

“Up until now, I believed you to be truthful,” Kassquit said. “Your behavior here, though, makes me doubt it very much.”

“What behavior here? What have I done?” Frank Coffey asked. “As I say, I confess that you have baffled me.”

Kassquit took a deep breath. “Your pretending not to know why I dislike Dr. Blanchard and what grievance I hold against her.”

“I do not know that. I do not understand it.” He used an emphatic cough. “That is a truth, Kassquit. For the sake of your own health, I think you would be wise to let her examine you. If you do not like her, I can see how you might be reluctant, but I do not know why you do not like her. She seems friendly enough, and she is a capable physician.”

“Friendly enough.
Friendly
enough!” Kassquit all but spat the words. “Yes, I can see why you would say so. I certainly can.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Did the American Tosevite make his interrogative cough sound sarcastic, or was that just a trick of Kassquit’s overheated imagination? She recognized the possibility, but she didn’t think so.

“As if you do not know,” she said furiously. “You all got along fine down here without the services of a physician. None of you has needed a physician.” Coffey started to say something—probably that you never could tell when someone
would
need a physician. She overrode him: “The real reason she came down to Home is obvious enough.”

“Not to me,” he said. “You had better tell me what this ‘real reason’ is.”

“Why, to provide you with a mating partner from among your fellow wild Big Uglies, of course,” Kassquit said.

Frank Coffey stared at her. Again, he started to say something. Kassquit didn’t stop him this time. He stopped himself—by starting to laugh. And once he started, he could not stop. Raucous Tosevite mirth poured out of him. Kassquit thought it would never end. Finally, after what seemed like forever, the torrent slowed.

“I see nothing funny about it,” Kassquit said in icy tones.

That only started the wild Tosevite laughing again. This time, the fit did not last quite so long. But when it ended, tears left bright streaks down Coffey’s cheeks. “Oh, dear,” he said, wheezing and gasping for breath. “I think I hurt myself. But I could not help it. I am very sorry, Kassquit, but you packed an impressive amount of misunderstanding into one sentence there.”

“I do not believe I misunderstood anything,” Kassquit said. “You had better explain to me why you think I did.”

“It shall be done, superior female.” Coffey began ticking off points on his fingers. “Dr. Blanchard did
not
come down here to become my mating partner. The two of us have
not
mated. We have never discussed mating, not even once. We have not made advances at each other. I have no idea whether she would be interested in mating with me. If I had to guess, I would doubt it. I know for a fact that I am not particularly interested in mating with her.”

“So you say,” Kassquit jeered.

Coffey nodded. Then he used the Race’s affirmative gesture. “Yes. So I say. And it is a truth, too. I see you
are
a citizen of the Empire. You certainly do not understand how things work among wild Big Uglies. And I ought to ask you a question of my own: why do you care about what Dr. Blanchard and I may or may not do?”

“Because I was hoping to mate with you myself,” Kassquit answered. Had she been raised as a wild Big Ugly, she might not have been so blunt. But then, had she been raised as a wild Big Ugly, she would have been different in so many ways, the question wouldn’t have arisen in that form.

“Oh,” Frank Coffey said, and then, “Oh,” again in an altogether different tone of voice.

When he didn’t say anything else for some little while, Kassquit asked, “Well? What do you think of that?”

He wasn’t laughing any more. Kassquit didn’t think she could have borne it if he were. Despite her prodding, he didn’t answer right away. When he did, he spoke slowly and thoughtfully: “I think you know I would be lying if I said the idea of mating with you had never crossed my mind.”

“I had
thought
that, yes,” Kassquit agreed. “That was why I was so upset when Dr. Blanchard came down from your starship. She is one of your kind in a way that I cannot be. I thought—I feared—she would make a better partner for you.”

The brown Big Ugly did laugh then, but, Kassquit judged, much more at himself than at her. He said, “I have trouble believing anyone named Melanie could make a good partner for me—but to understand that you would need to know the American
Gone with the Wind,
not the Race’s book of the same name.”

Kassquit
didn’t
understand; the American
Gone with the Wind
meant nothing to her. She did finally start to believe that he wasn’t eager to mate with Dr. Blanchard. And if he wasn’t . . . “This idea had crossed your mind, then, you say? And what did you think of it when it did?”