Colonization_ Aftershocks Part 44

"Much better," his wife agreed. "We'd still be in Northern Ireland if it weren't for his help, and I always thought he was rather a nice chap from what I remember of him during the first round of fighting."

"Did you?" David asked in a peculiar, toneless way.

"Yes, I did." Naomi stuck out her tongue at him. "Not like that, though." She made as if to poke him in the ribs. "What does the letter say? I've been waiting since the postman brought it."

"Curiosity killed the cat," Goldfarb said, at which his wife did did poke him in the ribs. He threw his hands in the air. "Give over! I surrender. Here, I'll read it. 'Dear David,' he says, 'I trust this finds you and your lovely wife and family well and flouris.h.i.+ng.' " poke him in the ribs. He threw his hands in the air. "Give over! I surrender. Here, I'll read it. 'Dear David,' he says, 'I trust this finds you and your lovely wife and family well and flouris.h.i.+ng.' "

"No wonder I liked him," Naomi remarked.

"Yes, he always did have a smooth line. A lot of girls fell for it," David said, which got him a dirty look. He held up the letter and went on, " 'I am doing as well as can be expected for one with such a dissolute past. You may perhaps be interested to learn that a certain unfriend of yours has had his own unsavoury past, or something of the sort, catch up with him-so it would appear, at any rate.' "

He looked up from the page. His wife made little pus.h.i.+ng motions. "Don't stop," she said. "For G.o.d's sake, go on."

"I love it when you talk to me like that," David said, which made Naomi give him a good push-exactly what he'd had in mind. "Oh," he went on. "The letter. I thought you meant something else." He glanced down at it. "Where was I? Oh, yes... 'A certain-often a very certain, by all indications-Group Captain Roundbush is in hospital and not expected to pull through, the brakes to his Bentley having failed whilst he was negotiating a curve at a high turn of speed. Signs are that his brakes were encouraged to fail. "A highly professional job," someone from Scotland Yard writes on a report that just chanced to cross my desk.' "

"I wish I could say I was sorry," Naomi said at last.

"So do I," Goldfarb agreed. "But I can't, because I'm not. There's a bit more here: 'Not everyone is altogether displeased at this development, because his faction had close ties to the Reich, Reich, and the and the Reich, Reich, being more radioactive than not these days, is no longer seen as our stalwart bulwark against the Lizards. What our stalwart bulwark against the Lizards shall be now, I have no idea, but seeing Roundbush hoisted by his own hooked-cross petard doubtless pleases you more. As ever, Jerome.' " Goldfarb kissed his wife. "And do you know what, sweetheart? He's right." He kissed her again. being more radioactive than not these days, is no longer seen as our stalwart bulwark against the Lizards. What our stalwart bulwark against the Lizards shall be now, I have no idea, but seeing Roundbush hoisted by his own hooked-cross petard doubtless pleases you more. As ever, Jerome.' " Goldfarb kissed his wife. "And do you know what, sweetheart? He's right." He kissed her again.

.16.

Ka.s.squit stooped slightly to look at herself in the mirror. She made the affirmative gesture. Maybe the wild Tosevites weren't so daft to let their hair grow after all. She liked the way it framed her face. True, it did make her look less like a female of the Race, but she worried less about that than she had before she started meeting wild Big Uglies. She no longer saw any point to denying her biological heritage. It was part of her, no matter how much she still sometimes regretted that.

She looked down at herself. She was also growing hair under her arms and at the joining of her legs. That last patch still perplexed her. In long-ago days, had such little tufts of hair helped Tosevites' semi-intelligent ancestors find one another's reproductive organs? Animals both on Home and here on Tosev 3 often used such displays. Maybe this was another one. Ka.s.squit couldn't think of any other purpose the hair might serve.

The telephone hissed, distracting her. "Junior Researcher Ka.s.squit speaking," she said. "I greet you." She sometimes startled callers who knew she was an expert on Big Uglies but were unaware she was of Tosevite descent herself.

But this time the startlement went the other way. The image that appeared in her monitor was that of a Big Ugly-and not just any Big Ugly. "And I greet you, superior female," Jonathan Yeager said formally. Then he twisted his face into the Tosevite expression of amiability and went on, "h.e.l.lo, Ka.s.squit. How are you? It is good to see you again."

Her own face showed little. By the nature of things, it couldn't show much. Considering how she felt, that was probably just as well. Her voice, however, was another matter. She made it as cold as she could: "What do you want?"

"I wanted to say h.e.l.lo," he answered. "I wanted to say it face to face. I fear I made you unhappy when I told you I was going to enter into a permanent mating arrangement-to get married, get married, we say in English-with Karen Culpepper. I arranged this call from the Race's consulate here in Los Angeles to apologize to you." we say in English-with Karen Culpepper. I arranged this call from the Race's consulate here in Los Angeles to apologize to you."

Sudden hope leaped in her. "To apologize for entering into this arrangement with the Tosevite female?"

"No," Jonathan Yeager answered. "I am not sorry about that. But I am sorry if I did make you unhappy. I hope you will believe me when I say I did not intend to." He paused, then pointed at her from the screen. "You have let your hair grow since I was up in the stars.h.i.+p with you."

"Yes." Ka.s.squit made the affirmative gesture. She forgot-well, almost forgot-to be angry at him as she asked, "What do you think?" The opinions of members of the Race about her appearance meant little to her: they had no proper standards of comparison. Jonathan Yeager, on the other fork of the tongue, did.

"I like it," he said now, and used an emphatic cough. "Hair does usually seem to add to the attractiveness of a female-even though you were attractive before."

"But not so attractive as to keep you from seeking a permanent mating arrangement with this other female." Ka.s.squit could not-and did not bother to-hide her bitterness.

The American Big Ugly who had been her mating partner sighed. "I have known Karen Culpepper for many years. We grew to maturity together. We come from the same culture."

Ka.s.squit, of course, hadn't grown to maturity with anybody. She had no idea what doing so would mean. She suspected she was missing something because of that, but she couldn't do anything about it. For that matter, she sometimes suspected that the way she'd been raised left her missing all sorts of social and emotional development most Big Uglies took for granted, but she couldn't do anything about that, either.

She said, "Would you have found it impossible to stay up here and spend all your time with me?" She hadn't asked him that while he was aboard the stars.h.i.+p. She hadn't known how much his leaving would hurt till he'd gone-and then it was too late.

"I am afraid I would," he answered. "Would you have found it impossible to come down to Tosev 3 and spend all your time here?"

"I do not know," she said. "How can I know? I have never experienced the surface of Tosev 3." She sighed. "But I do understand the comparison you are making. It could be that you are speaking a truth."

"I thank you for that," Jonathan Yeager said. "You were, I think, always honest with me. And I did try to be honest with you."

Maybe he had. Back then, though, she hadn't understood everything he'd meant, not down in her liver she hadn't. Did she now? How could she be sure? She couldn't, and knew it. But she understood more now than she had then. She was was sure of that. With another sigh, she said, "You will do as you will do, and I shall do as I shall do. That is all I can tell you right now." sure of that. With another sigh, she said, "You will do as you will do, and I shall do as I shall do. That is all I can tell you right now."

"It is a truth," the American Big Ugly said, nodding as his kind did to agree. "I wish you well, Ka.s.squit. Please believe that."

"And I... wish you well," she replied. That was more true than otherwise-the most she would say about it. She took a deep breath. "Have we anything more to say to each other?"

"I do not think so," Jonathan Yeager said.

"Neither do I." Ka.s.squit broke the connection. Jonathan Yeager's image vanished from her monitor. She sat staring at the screen, waiting for a storm of tears to come. They didn't. Not weeping seemed somehow worse than weeping would have. After a moment, she realized why: she had finally accepted that Jonathan Yeager wouldn't be coming back.

I have to go on, she thought. she thought. Whatever I do, it will have to be in that context. If I seek another wild Big Ugly for s.e.xual pleasure, I shall have to respond to him, not to my memories of Jonathan Yeager. Whatever I do, it will have to be in that context. If I seek another wild Big Ugly for s.e.xual pleasure, I shall have to respond to him, not to my memories of Jonathan Yeager. She wondered how she could do that. She wondered if she could do it. She wondered how she could do that. She wondered if she could do it. Of course you can. You have to. You just figured that out for yourself. Have you already started to forget? Of course you can. You have to. You just figured that out for yourself. Have you already started to forget?

She probably had. Emotional issues arising from s.e.xual matters were far more complex, and far more intense, than any she'd known before Jonathan Yeager came into her life. That, she feared, was also part of her biological heritage. She'd done her best to pretend that heritage didn't exist. Now-she ran a hand across her hairy scalp-she was beginning to accept it. She wondered if that would result in any improvement. All she could do was see what happened next.

What happened next was that the telephone hissed again. "Junior Researcher Ka.s.squit speaking," she said again, seating herself in front of the monitor. "I greet you."

"And I greet you, Ka.s.squit," Ttomalss said. "How are you today?"

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, superior sir." Ka.s.squit did a token job of a.s.suming the position of respect-no more was needed while she was sitting down. Ttomalss might have asked the question as a polite commonplace, but she gave it serious consideration before answering, "All things considered, I am pretty well."

"I am glad to hear it," Ttomalss said. "I was listening to your conversation with Jonathan Yeager. I think you handled it with an emotional maturity to which many wild Big Uglies could only hope to aspire."

"I thank you," Ka.s.squit said. Then, once the words were out of her mouth, she wasn't so sure she thanked him after all. This time, she spoke with considerable care: "Superior sir, I understand why you monitored my life so closely when I was a hatchling and an adolescent: I was, after all, an experimental subject. But have I not proved your experiment largely successful?"

"There are times when I think you have," her mentor answered. "Then again, there are other times when I think I may have failed despite my best efforts. When I see you imitating wild Tosevites, I do wonder whether environment plays any role at all in shaping an individual's personality."

"I am am a Tosevite. It cannot be helped," Ka.s.squit said with a shrug. "I am having to come to terms with that myself. But have we not established that I am also a citizen of the Empire, and able to provide important and useful services for the Race? In fact, can I not provide some of those services precisely because I am at the same time a citizen of the Empire and a Big Ugly?" a Tosevite. It cannot be helped," Ka.s.squit said with a shrug. "I am having to come to terms with that myself. But have we not established that I am also a citizen of the Empire, and able to provide important and useful services for the Race? In fact, can I not provide some of those services precisely because I am at the same time a citizen of the Empire and a Big Ugly?"

She waited anxiously to hear how he would respond to that, and felt like cheering when he made the affirmative gesture. "Truth hatches from every word you speak," he replied. "I cannot tell you how delighted I am to discover how seriously you take your obligations as a citizen of the Empire."

"Of course I take them seriously," Ka.s.squit said. "Unlike a good many members of the Race-if I may speak from what I have seen-I take them seriously because I do not take them for granted."

"That is well said," Ttomalss told her. He used an emphatic cough. "Your words could be an example and an inspiration for many males and females of the Race."

"Again, superior sir, I thank you," Ka.s.squit said. "And I am also pleased to have the privileges that come with citizens.h.i.+p in the Empire."

She waited once more. Ttomalss said, "And well you might be. Say what you will for the wild Big Uglies, but you are part of an older, larger, wiser, more sophisticated society than any of theirs."

"I agree, superior sir." Ka.s.squit couldn't smile so that her face knew about it, as a wild Big Ugly could, but she was smiling inside. "And would you not agree, superior sir, that one of the privileges of citizens.h.i.+p is freedom from being arbitrarily spied upon?"

Ttomalss opened his mouth, closed it, and then tried again: "You are not an ordinary citizen of the Empire, you know."

"Am I less than ordinary?" Ka.s.squit asked. "If I am, how am I a citizen at all?"

"No, you are not less than ordinary," Ttomalss said.

Before he could add anything to that, Ka.s.squit pounced: "Then why do you have the right to continue to listen to my conversations?"

"Because you are different from an ordinary citizen of the Empire," Ttomalss answered. "You can hardly deny that difference."

"I do not deny it," she said. "But I do think the time is coming, if it has not already come, when it will not outweigh my need to be able to lead my life as I see fit, not as you reckon best for me."

"Here you are, trying to wound me again," Ttomalss said.

"By no means." Ka.s.squit used the negative gesture. "You are the male who raised me. You have taught me most of what I know. But I have hatched from the egg of immaturity now. If I am a citizen, if I am an adult, I have the right to some life of my own."

"But think of the data the Race would lose!" Ttomalss exclaimed in dismay.

"Am I important to you as an individual, or because of the data you can gain from me?" Even as Ka.s.squit asked the question, she wondered if she wanted to hear the answer.

"Both," Ttomalss replied, and she reflected that he could have said something considerably worse. But even that wasn't good enough, not any more.

"Superior sir," she said, "unless we can reach an understanding, I am going to take a citizen's privilege and seek to gain my privacy, or more of it, through legal means. And, should I learn I am in truth more nearly experimental animal than citizen, I shall have other choices to make. Is that not a truth?" She ended the conversation before Ttomalss could tell her whether he thought it was a truth or not.

"I think we're in business," Glen Johnson said. "By G.o.d, I really do think we're in business. We got away with it clean as a whistle."

"Congratulations," Mickey Flynn said. "You've just squeezed maximum mileage from a series of one case."

"Oh, ye of little faith," Johnson said.

"I have a great deal of faith-faith in the capacity of things to go wrong at the worst possible moment," Flynn replied. "Always remember, O'Reilly insisted that Murphy was an optimist."

"He usually is," Johnson agreed. "Usually, but not always."

Flynn shrugged. "If you think you're going to make me give way to unbridled optimism, you can think again. Either that, or you can put on a bridle and go horse around somewhere else."

With a snort more than a little horselike, Johnson said, "I wonder what will happen when the Lizards do find out."

"That depends," Mickey Flynn said gravely.

"Thank you so much." Johnson tacked on not an emphatic cough but another snort. "And on what, pray tell, does it depend, O sage of the age?"

"Vocative case," the other pilot said in something like wonder. "I haven't heard a vocative case, a real, living, breathing vocative case, since I escaped my last Latin cla.s.s lo these many years ago." Johnson had never heard of the vocative case, but he was d.a.m.ned if he would admit it. Flynn went on, "Well, it could depend on a lot of different things."

"Really? I never would have guessed."

"Hush." Flynn brushed aside his sarcasm like an adult brus.h.i.+ng off a five-year-old. He started ticking points off on his fingers: "First off, it depends on how soon the Race does figure out what's going on."

"Okay. That makes sense." Johnson nodded. "If they work that out day after tomorrow, they have a better chance of doing something about it than if they work it out year after next."

"Exactly." Flynn beamed. "You can see after all."

Now Johnson ignored him, persisting in his own train of thought: "And things will be different depending on whether they find out on their own or if we have to rub their snouts in it."

"This is also true," Flynn agreed. "If the latter, they will probably be trying to rub our noses in things at the same time. That creates the need for a lot of face-was.h.i.+ng, or else a mudbath-I mean, a bloodbath. See, for example, the late, not particularly lamented Greater German Reich." Reich."

Johnson s.h.i.+vered, though the temperature in the Lewis and Clark Lewis and Clark never changed. He felt as if a goose had walked over his grave. "What happened to the never changed. He felt as if a goose had walked over his grave. "What happened to the Hermann Goring Hermann Goring could have happened to us this past summer, too. The Lizards made d.a.m.n sure the n.a.z.is weren't going to get themselves a toehold in the asteroid belt." could have happened to us this past summer, too. The Lizards made d.a.m.n sure the n.a.z.is weren't going to get themselves a toehold in the asteroid belt."

"It didn't happen to us because it happened to Indianapolis," Mickey Flynn said. "Thanksgiving is coming before long. Do we give thanks for that, or not?"

"d.a.m.ned if I know," Johnson said. "But I'll tell you something I heard. Don't know whether it's true, but I'll pa.s.s it along anyhow."

"Speak," Flynn urged. "Give forth."

"I've heard," Glen Johnson said in low, conspiratorial tones, "I've heard that the Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus has some turkeys in the deep freeze, to cook up for a proper Thanksgiving. Turkey." His gaze went reverently heavenward-which gave him nothing but a glimpse of the light fixtures and aluminum paneling on the ceiling of the has some turkeys in the deep freeze, to cook up for a proper Thanksgiving. Turkey." His gaze went reverently heavenward-which gave him nothing but a glimpse of the light fixtures and aluminum paneling on the ceiling of the Lewis and Clark's Lewis and Clark's control room. "Do you remember what it tastes like? I control room. "Do you remember what it tastes like? I think think I do." I do."

"I think I do, too, but I wouldn't mind testing my hypothesis experimentally." Flynn raised an eyebrow at Johnson. "If you'd known you'd spend the rest of your days eating beans and beets and barley, you wouldn't have been so eager to stow away, would you?"

"I didn't intend to stow away, G.o.d d.a.m.n it," Johnson said, for about the five hundredth time. "All I wanted to do was get my upper stage repaired and go home, and our beloved commandant hijacked me." He stuck to his story like glue.

"Anyone would think he'd had some reason to be concerned about security," Flynn said. "A preposterous notion, on the face of it."

"I wasn't going to tell anybody, for Christ's sake." That was also part of Johnson's story, and might even have been true.

"Brigadier General Healey, in his infinite wisdom, thought otherwise," Flynn replied. "Who am I, a mere mortal, to imagine that the commandant could ever be mistaken?"

"Who are you, one Irishman, to give another one a hard time?" Johnson shot back.

"Shows what you know," Flynn said. "Quarreling among ourselves is the Irish national sport. Of course, we have been known to put it by-every now and again, mind-when a Sa.s.senach comes along." He fixed Johnson with a mild and speculative gaze, then sighed. "And we've also been known not not to put it by when a Sa.s.senach comes along. If it weren't for that, I suspect the history of Ireland would have been a good deal happier. A good deal more Irish, too, and less English." to put it by when a Sa.s.senach comes along. If it weren't for that, I suspect the history of Ireland would have been a good deal happier. A good deal more Irish, too, and less English."

Johnson didn't know much about the history of Ireland or, for that matter, the history of England. He knew the history of the United States from the patriotic lessons drilled into him in high school and from reading in military history since. He said, "The Irish aren't the only ones to quarrel among themselves. My great-grandfathers wore blue. You listen to some of the folks here from Texas or the Carolinas and you'll think the Civil War ended week before last."

"My great-grandfathers wore blue, too," Flynn said. "The Army was the only place that would give them anything close to a fair shake in those days. But over the past hundred years, America's been a dull place. Every time we've fought, it's been against somebody else."

Before Johnson could answer that, the intercom started blaring his name: "Lieutenant Colonel Johnson! Lieutenant Colonel Glen Johnson! Report to the commandant's office immediately!"

"There, you see?" he said, unstrapping himself. "Healey's been spying on us again." He thought he was joking, but he wasn't quite sure.

After swinging his way through the corridors of the Lewis and Clark Lewis and Clark and gliding past Brigadier General Healey's adjutant, he caught himself on the chair across from the commandant's desk, saluted, and said, "Reporting as ordered, sir." and gliding past Brigadier General Healey's adjutant, he caught himself on the chair across from the commandant's desk, saluted, and said, "Reporting as ordered, sir."

"Yes." Healey's bulldog countenance seldom looked as if it approved of anything. So far as Johnson could remember, the commandant had never looked as if he approved of him. Healey went on, "Have you ever heard of an officer named Sam Yeager?"