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“Too bad,” Reuven said with more than a little relish. “Even after all these years, they don’t understand just how stubborn we are.”
“Well, I know how stubborn you are,” Jane said. “I’m still willing to go out to supper with you. What time do you think you’ll be by the dormitory?”
“About seven?” Reuven suggested. When Jane didn’t say no, he went on, “See you then,” and hung up. Maybe if he was stubborn enough, she’d be willing to do more than go out to supper with him. Maybe not, too, but he could hardly wait to find out.
Every time Sam Yeager went to Little Rock, the new capital of the United States seemed to have grown. It also seemed as gawky as Jonathan had during the years when he was shooting up like a weed. He thought the president’s residence-the papers called it the Gray House, in memory of the White House that was, these days, slightly radioactive ruins-lacked the classic dignity of its predecessor. People said it was more comfortable to live in, though, and he supposed that counted, too.
Posters on the telephone poles outside the Gray House shouted, REELECT WARREN amp; STASSEN! They were printed in red, white, and blue. The Democrats’ posters were black and gold. HUMPHREY FOR PRESIDENT! was their message, along with a picture of the beaky, strong-chinned governor of Minnesota. Yeager had nothing much against Hubert Humphrey or Joe Kennedy, Jr., but didn’t intend to vote for them. President Warren was a known quantity. At Sam’s stage of life, he approved of known quantities.
A receptionist at the front entrance to the residence nodded politely to him as he came up. “May I help you, Lieutenant Colonel?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.” Yeager gave his name, adding, “I have an eleven o’clock appointment with the president.”
She checked the book in front of her, then looked carefully at the identification card he showed her. When she was satisfied his image matched his face, she nodded again. “Go to the waiting room, sir. He’ll be with you as soon as he finishes with the Russian foreign commissar.”
“Thanks,” Yeager said, and grinned in bemusement as he headed down the hall. The Russian foreign commissar, then him? He’d never expected to be mentioned in the same breath with such luminaries, not back in the days when he was bouncing around the mid- to lower minor leagues. Then his idea of big shots was fellows who’d had a cup of coffee in the majors before dropping down again.
He grinned once more when he got to the waiting room. One of the things set out for people, along with Look and U.S. News and Interspecies Report, to read was the Sporting News. The Los Angeles Browns were two days away from squaring off with the Phillies in the World Series. His heart favored the Browns. If he’d had to put money on the Series, though, he would have bet on the Phils.
I might have made it to the big time as a coach, he thought. I might have. If I had, I might have been standing in the first-base box two days from now. Instead, he was sitting here waiting to talk with the president of the United States. It wasn’t what he’d had in mind as a younger man, but it wasn’t so bad, either.
Out came Andrei Gromyko. He didn’t look happy, but he had the sort of face that wasn’t made for looking happy. “Good day,” he said to Yeager in excellent English. He strode out of the room without waiting for a reply.
In his wake, a flunky in an expensive suit emerged from President Warren’s office. He gave Sam a smile wide enough to make up for the one he hadn’t got from the Russian. It also made him want to check to be sure his wallet was still in his hip pocket. The flunky said, “The president will see you in a few minutes. He wants to finish writing up his notes first.”
“Okay by me,” Sam answered-as if Warren needed his permission to do some work before summoning him. He returned to the Sporting News. Like Budweiser beer, it had survived the Lizard occupation of St. Louis.
He almost went past the necrology listing for Peter Daniels, who’d caught briefly for the Cardinals before the First World War. Then his eyes snapped back. Peter Daniels, more commonly known as Mutt, had been his manager at Decatur in the I–I-I League when the Lizards invaded the USA, and had gone into the Army with him. So Mutt had made it to almost eighty. That wasn’t a bad run, not a bad run at all. Sam hoped he’d be able to match it.
Here came the flunky again. “The president will see you now, Lieutenant Colonel.”
“Thanks.” Yeager got to his feet, walking into the office, and saluted his commander in chief. “Reporting as ordered, sir.”
“Sit down, Yeager.” Earl Warren didn’t believe in wasting time. “We have a couple of things to talk about today.”
“Yes, sir.” Sam sat. A houseman brought in coffee on a silver tray. When the president took a cup, Yeager did, too.
President Warren picked up a fat manila folder. “Your reports on the Lizard hatchlings-Mickey and Donald: I like that-have been fascinating. I’ve enjoyed reading them not only for what they tell me about Lizard development but also for the way they’re written. You could have been published, I think, had you chosen to try to go in that direction.”
“Maybe, Mr. President, and thanks, but I hope you’ll excuse me for saying that I have my doubts,” Sam answered. He added, “I was also smart enough to marry a good editor. She makes me sound better than I would otherwise.”
“A good editor can do that,” Warren agreed. “A bad one… But back to business. In many ways, these two hatchlings seem to be progressing far faster than human children would.”
“They sure are, sir.” Yeager nodded. He almost added an emphatic cough, but wasn’t sure the president would understand. “Of course, they’re born-uh, hatched-able to run and grab onto things. That gives them a big head start. But they understand faster than babies do, the way puppies or kittens would.”
“But they aren’t short-lived, as dogs and cats are,” President Warren said.
“Oh, no, sir. They live as long as we do. Probably longer.” Yeager eyed the president with respect. Warren saw the implications of things. “The only thing they don’t do is, they don’t talk. They understand hand signals. They’re even starting to understand expressions, which is funny, because they don’t have any of their own to speak of. But no words yet. Nothing even really close.”
“A lot of babies are just starting to say ‘mama’ and ‘dada’ at nine or ten months,” the president pointed out. His stern face softened. “It’s been a while, but I remember?”
“I know, sir, but there isn’t anything in the noises they make that’s even close to ‘dada’ or ‘mama,’ ” Sam answered. “The one thing I will say is that there are more human-sounding noises in the babbling than there were when they first came out of their eggs. They’re listening to people, but they aren’t ready to start talking to people yet. We’ve got a ways to go before that happens.”
“All right, Lieutenant Colonel. You sound as if you’re doing a splendid job there,” Warren said. “And all that is in accordance with what you’ve been able to learn about hatchlings from the Lizards, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, sir, it sure is,” Yeager said. “I’ve had to be careful about that, though. You made it clear we don’t want them finding out what we’re up to there.” He didn’t mention the hypothetical he’d offered to Kassquit. He wished he hadn’t done it, but too late now.
“It may turn out to be a smaller problem than we believed at first,” the president replied. “That brings me to the next thing on the agenda, your upcoming meeting with this”-he opened the folder and flipped through it to find the name he needed-“this Kassquit, yes.”
“That’s right sir?’ Sam nodded, oddly relieved to find Warren thinking about her, too. “Turns out the Lizards did unto us before we had the chance to do unto them. Kassquit is for them what Mickey and Donald will be for us in twenty years or so. She’s been raised as a Lizard, she wishes she were a Lizard, but she’s stuck with a human being’s body.”
“Yes.” The president flipped through more pages. “I’ve read your reports on your conversations with her with great interest-e
ven if you were less than perfectly discreet, considering what you just said now.” No, Warren didn’t miss much. But he didn’t make an issue of it, continuing, “Do you think there’s any chance of teaching her she really is a human being and ought to be loyal to mankind instead of the Race?”
“No, Mr. President.” Yeager spoke decisively. “She’s a naturalized citizen of the Empire, you might say. We’re just the old country to her, and she’d no more choose us over them than most Americans would choose Germany or Norway or what have you over the USA, especially if they came here as tiny babies. She’s made her choice-or had it made for her by the way she was brought up.”
“Your point is well taken,” Warren said. “I still judge the meeting worthwhile, and I’m glad you and your son are going forward with it. Even if we have no hope of turning her, we can learn a lot from her.” He went back to the manila folder, which apparently held copies of all of Sam’s reports for quite some time. “Now-you raised another interesting point here: this note about the possibility of the Lizards’ domestic animals making themselves more at home on Earth than we wish they would.”
“I got to thinking about rabbits in Australia,” Sam answered. “There are other cases, too. Starlings, for instance. There weren’t any starlings in America seventy-five years ago. Somebody turned loose a few dozen of them in New York City in 1890, and now they’re all over the country.”
“The year before I was born,” Warren said musingly. “I see we may have a problem here. I don’t see what to do about it, though. We can hardly go to war with the Race over the equivalents of dogs and cows and goats.”
“I wouldn’t think so, sir,” Yeager agreed. “But these creatures are liable to damage big chunks of the world.”
“From the reports that have come in from certain areas-our desert southwest among them-that may already be starting to happen,” the president replied. “As I say, it may be a problem, and it may well get worse. But not all problems have neat, tidy solutions, however much we wish they would.”
“I used to think they did,” Yeager said. “The older I get, though, the more it looks as if you’re right.”
