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“No, sir,” Johnson said again. Leering at Healey for any reason was a really scary thought.
“Then keep your eyes to yourself,” the commandant snapped. “The only other reason you’d stare at me that way is to figure out where to stick the knife.” He took a big bite of his sandwich.
But Johnson shook his head. “Oh, no, sir.”
“Ha!” Healey jeered. “A likely story.”
“It’s true, sir,” Johnson insisted. “I don’t need to figure it out. I’ve known for a long time.” They eyed each other in perfect mutual loathing.
No matter what Kassquit had told Ttomalss about her emotional state, she clung to Frank Coffey now. “I hope you come back!” she said, and used an emphatic cough.
“So do I,” he answered, and used one of his own. “I will do everything I can. I want to see you again, and I want to see our hatchling. And if I have trouble coming back for any reason, perhaps you and the hatchling can come to Tosev 3. You and that little male or female are bridges between the Empire and Tosevites.”
“Truth,” Kassquit said. Tears ran down her cheeks. “I wish you were not going!”
“We both knew I would, sooner or later,” Coffey said. “The coming of the Commodore Perry has made it sooner, that is all.” He shook his head. “I did not think I would be leaving as a sire, though. I will say that. It makes things more difficult… Do something for me?”
“If I can,” she said. “What is it?”
“Try not to hate me after I am gone.”
“I would not do that!” she said.
“I hope not,” he said. “Sometimes, though, after these things end, it happens. It is a way of telling yourself, He is gone, so he could not have been any good while he was here. ”
Remembering how she’d felt after Jonathan Yeager returned to the surface of Tosev 3, and especially after he formed his permanent mating alliance with Karen, Kassquit made the affirmative gesture. She saw how doing as Frank Coffey said might make her feel better. In a small voice, she told him, “I will try not to.”
“Good,” Coffey said. “And one other thing. When the hatchling comes, try to let it get to know both members of the Race and wild Tosevites. There will be a good many males and females from the Commodore Perry here. Their physician no doubt did not expect to take care of a hatchling, but I think he will do a good job. He probably knows more than Dr. Blanchard does, just because the state of the art has moved forward since she went into cold sleep.”
He said such things as if they were as natural as sunrise or as stars coming out at night. (Even as Kassquit had that thought, she made the negative gesture. She’d grown up in space. There, the stars were always out. She’d had to get used to their being gone during the day.) To the wild Big Uglies, change and technical advances were natural. Were that untrue, they never would have built the Commodore Perry. For a whole swarm of reasons, Kassquit wished they hadn’t.
“I will do that,” she said. “The hatchling will be a citizen of the Empire, but it will know more of its biological heritage than I ever did. And I will do my best to make sure that it does not become an experimental animal, the way I did.” She added an emphatic cough to her words.
“Good.” Frank Coffey caressed her and kissed her. “Believe me, I like your biological heritage.” He had a way of showing enthusiasm without an emphatic cough. They lay down together. The last time, Kassquit thought. She did her best to make the most of it.
The next morning, the American Tosevites from the Admiral Peary got into the bus that would take them to the shuttlecraft port. Atvar got on the bus, too; he was going to Tosev 3 as final proof that the Commodore Perry was what the wild big Uglies claimed it was. No one on Home really doubted it any more. The Tosevites on the new starship already knew about things speed-of-light transmission from Tosev 3 was just now revealing here. But the Race wanted to see for itself, and the Big Uglies had agreed.
Shiplord Straha and Shuttlecraft Pilot Nesseref also boarded the bus. They would not be going back to Tosev 3. They were colonists no more. The American Tosevites could not be sure they would not deliver a message ordering Kirel and Reffet to start a last desperate war.
And Kassquit got on, too. Up till the last moment, she had not been sure whether she would. But she did. She would stretch things out to the very end. If that made the hurt that would follow worse, then it did, that was all.
Much of the talk aboard the bus was in English. Even Straha spoke the language well. I should have learned it, Kassquit thought once more. My hatchling will learn it. A Tosevite should know a Tosevite language.
After a little while, Frank Coffey told her, “I am sorry. This must be boring for you.”
“I wish it were boring,” Kassquit said. “I do not understand what you are saying, but that is not the same thing. I do not know how long it will be before I see you again. I do not know if I will ever see you again. It is hard, but it is not boring.”
“I am sorry,” he repeated. “This is a chance to go home again.”
“I understand,” Kassquit said. “I do understand. But it is not easy for me whether I understand or not.”
Atvar and Straha got into a shouting match, which distracted everyone else. They seemed to be trying to decide which of them was the bigger idiot. By the way they were behaving, it was a contest they both wanted to lose. Atvar had made it very plain he did not like Straha. Straha seemed to be doing his best to show it was mutual.
“Enough!” Nesseref exclaimed after a while. “You will scandalize the Big Uglies!”
“Truth,” Atvar said with such dignity as he could muster. “It is enough, Straha.”
Straha only laughed at that-a huge, rude, tongue-wagging laugh. “You say that because you know you are in the wrong. There is no other reason. If you thought you were right, you would tell me so.”
“I do think I am right, and in a moment I will put my toeclaws up your cloaca to prove it,” Atvar retorted.
“I am not afraid of you,” Straha said.
“Enough!” That wasn’t Nesseref-it was Sam Yeager. “Both of you are my friends, and both of you are acting like hatchlings.”
The two prominent males hadn’t really listened to the shuttlecraft pilot, any more than they’d listened to each other. They did heed the departing American ambassador. Straha said, “Perhaps this is not the ideal time or place.”
“Perhaps it is not,” Atvar agreed. “After I return…”
“After you return, I will be at your service,” Straha said. “When you get to Tosev 3, you will also see the other ways the wild Big Uglies have got ahead of us. If we had only done as I wanted-”
“Enough!” This time, all the American Tosevites shouted it together. A volley of emphatic coughs rang out.
When they got to the shuttlecraft port, the row threatened to break out anew. The American Tosevites got between the two angry males of the Race. Jonathan Yeager spoke to Atvar. “I am bigger than you are, Exalted Fleetlord, and my sire is bigger than the shiplord. Between the two of us, I hope we can keep the two of you from disgracing yourselves and the Race.”
“I think you have just called us barbarians,” Atvar said mournfully.
