AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jonathan said, “Is she ready to be a mother?”
“Nobody’s ever ready to be a mother till it happens to her.” Karen Yeager spoke with great conviction. “Some people may think they are, but they’re wrong. It’s baptism by total immersion.”
“Some people are less ready to be mothers than others, though,” Dr. Melanie Blanchard said. “No offense, Frank, but I can’t think of anybody who strikes me as less ready than Kassquit.”
Karen nodded at that. Jonathan didn’t, but he’d been thinking the same thing. Frank Coffey said, “We didn’t intend for it to happen.” He held up a hand. “Yeah, I know-nobody ever intends anything like that, but it happens all the time anyway.” He sighed. “She’s got nine months-well, most of nine months-to get used to the idea. And there will be more humans here to give her a hand.” Another sigh. “She’ll need one, heaven knows. I just hope-” He broke off.
Silence fell among the humans. Smiles faded from their faces. Jonathan knew what he’d started to say-I just hope we don’t go to war — that or something like it. If they did go to war, what was one pregnant woman? No more than one pregnant woman had ever been in all the sad and sordid history of mankind.
“The Lizards wouldn’t be that stupid, not now,” Tom said. Nobody answered. Maybe he was right. On the other hand, maybe he wasn’t. The Lizards had just got the biggest shock in their whole history. They probably didn’t know how they were going to react to it. How could any mere humans guess along with them?
On the other hand, how could humans keep from trying?
People filed out of the refectory in glum silence. Jonathan looked out of the hotel’s big plate-glass windows. He imagined the sun-bright flare of an exploding warhead right outside-and then darkness and oblivion.
“Penny for ’em,” Karen said.
He shook his head. “You don’t want to know.” She didn’t push him. Maybe she’d had thoughts like that herself.
“Ah… excuse me.” That was in the language of the Race. An untidy-looking Lizard whose body paint could have used a touch-up went on, “Are you the Big Ugly I had the honor of meeting a while ago? Forgive me, but your name has gone clean out of my head. I really am a fool about such things.”
“I greet you, Inspector Garanpo. Yes, I am Jonathan Yeager,” Jonathan said. All at once, a visit from a Lizard detective hot on the trail of ginger seemed the least of his worries. “Inspector, let me present my mate, Karen Yeager. Karen, this is Inspector Garanpo. I told you about him the last time he visited us.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Karen said. “I am pleased to meet you, Inspector.” If she wasn’t very pleased, the Lizard cop wouldn’t know it.
Garanpo bent into the posture of respect. “It is an honor to make your acquaintance, superior female. Yes, indeed-an honor. Now I have met three of you Tosevites, and you seem pretty well civilized, you truly do. Not at all the sort of creatures I thought you might be when I found out there was a connection between your kind and the ginger trade.”
“There is also a connection between members of the Race and the ginger trade,” Jonathan pointed out. “Does that turn all males and females of the Race into monsters and criminals?”
“Well, no, I would not say that it does. I certainly would not say that.” Garanpo made the negative gesture. Jonathan watched him with an odd sort of fascination. He’d never before seen a Lizard who reminded him of an unmade bed.
“Why are you here, Inspector?” Karen asked. “Has there been more ginger smuggling?”
“More? Oh, no, superior female, not that we have been able to find,” Garanpo said. “What we do have, though, is more information on the ginger smuggling that previously took place. We have detected traces of ginger aboard the Horned Akiss, where the little rocket from your starship paid a call.”
“Is that supposed to prove something, Inspector?” Jonathan said. “For all you know, there are ginger tasters in the crew.”
“Here is what I know,” Garanpo said. “I know that a shipment of ginger came down to Home not long after you Big Uglies and the Race traded little rocketships. And I know that you were going to trade them back again, but then there was a delay. After that delay, you did send back the one you got from us. There was no ginger inside it, or none to speak of, but we did detect traces of the herb inside some of the structural tubing. What have you got to say about that, superior Tosevite?” He flicked out his tongue, for all the world like one of his small Earthly namesakes.
What have I got to say? That we’re lucky their scooter only had traces of ginger in it, and not enough to choke a horse. Those people upstairs came close as could be into walking into a buzz saw.
None of that seemed like anything the Lizard detective needed to hear. Jonathan put the best face on things he could: “I am sorry, Inspector, but this proves exactly nothing. Can you tell how old those traces of ginger are? How long has the Horned Akiss orbited Home? How many of your starships has it met? How long has ginger smuggling been going on?”
He could even have been right with his guesses, too. He didn’t think he was, but he could have been. A lawyer would have called it creating a reasonable doubt. He wasn’t sure the Race’s law had ever heard of the idea.
“Well, there has been ginger smuggling ever since starships started coming back from Tosev 3,” Garanpo admitted. “But there has never been any so closely connected with the source of supply, you might say, until now.”
“You do not know there is any such thing now,” Jonathan said sharply. “You assume it, but you do not know it.”
“We would, except that the officers on your ship refuse to let us do a thorough search and analysis of their little rocketship,” Garanpo said. “That suggests a guilty conscience to me.”
It suggested the same thing to Jonathan. Again, he wasn’t about to say so. What he did say was, “Why should they? You yourself have told me that this little rocketship was in the Race’s hands for some length of time. If you wanted to discredit us, you had the chance to do it.”
Inspector Garanpo’s eye turrets swiveled every which way before finally coming to rest on him again. “How are we supposed to show guilt when all you have to do is deny it?” the Lizard asked grouchily.
“How are we supposed to show innocence when all you have to do is claim we are guilty?” Jonathan asked in return.
Garanpo’s eye turrets started swiveling again. He turned and skittered off, muttering to himself. “You did that very well,” Karen said.
“Thanks,” Jonathan said. “I wish I didn’t have to. And you know what else I wish? I wish like hell I had a cold bottle of beer right now.” The Race, unfortunately, had never heard of beer.
Karen said, “You can get their vodka at the bar. Or if you want it cold, we’ve got a bottle and ice cubes in the room.”
Jonathan shook his head. “Thanks, hon, but it’s not the same.”
“Did that strange, shabby L
izard have any idea what he was talking about?”
“Of course not,” Jonathan said, a little louder than he needed to. He cupped a hand behind his ear to remind Karen that they were in the lobby and the Lizards could monitor whatever they said. Her mouth shaped a silent okay to show she got the point. Jonathan went on, “On second thought, maybe vodka over ice isn’t such a bad idea after all. You want to fix me one?”
“Sure,” Karen answered. “I may even make one for myself while I’m at it.”
They rode up to their room. As soon as Jonathan got inside, he checked the bug suppressors. When he was convinced they were working the way they were supposed to, he said, “You’d better believe we were smuggling ginger. If you want all the gory details, you can ask Dad.”
“Good way to start a war,” Karen observed.
She made him the drink. Once it was in his hand, he was damn glad to have it. Karen did fix one for herself, too. After a long pull at his, Jonathan coughed once or twice. It didn’t taste like much-vodka never did-but it was strong enough to put hair on his chest. He said, “There have been wars like that-the Opium Wars in China, for instance. Opium was just about the only thing England had that the Chinese wanted. And when the Chinese government tried to cut off the trade, England went to war to make sure it went on.”
“We wouldn’t do anything like that,” Karen said. Jonathan would have been happier if he hadn’t heard the question mark in her voice. It wasn’t quite an interrogative cough, but it came close.
“I hope we wouldn’t,” he said. “But it’s a weapon, no two ways about it. The Admiral Peary wouldn’t have carried it if it weren’t. And if we’re going to be able to start going back and forth between Earth and home every few weeks instead of taking years and years to do it… Well, the chances for smuggling go up like a rocket.”
“And if we smuggle lots of ginger, and the Empire decides it doesn’t like that…” Karen’s voice trailed away. She got outside of a lot of her drink. As Jonathan had, she coughed a couple of times. “We could see the Opium Wars all over again, couldn’t we?”
