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His telephone hissed. He took it off his belt. “Senior Researcher Ttomalss speaking,” he said. “I greet you.”
“And I greet you, superior sir,” Kassquit replied. Here on Home, her mushy Tosevite accent was unique, unmistakable. “Activity aboard the Tosevite starship appears to be increasing.”
“Ah?” Ttomalss said. Even here, the Big Uglies on the starship were enterprising. “Is that so?”
“It is, superior sir,” his former ward replied. “Reconnaissance video now shows Tosevites coming up into the ship’s observation dome. And our speculations back on Tosev 3 appear to have been correct.” Her voice rose in excitement.
“Ah?” Ttomalss said again. “To which speculations do you refer?”
“I have viewed magnified images from the video footage, superior sir, and one of the wild Big Uglies appears to be Sam Yeager.”
“Really? Are you certain?” Ttomalss asked.
“I am.” To show how certain she was, Kassquit used an emphatic cough.
“Well, well.” Ttomalss had to believe her. Like any male or female of the Race, he had a hard time telling Big Uglies apart, especially when facial features were all he had to go on. He hadn’t evolved to detect subtle difference between one of those alien faces and another. Kassquit had. She did it without thinking, and she was usually right.
It worked both ways, of course. She’d once told him she recognized members of the Race more by their body paint than by differences in the way they looked. And wild Big Uglies even had trouble telling males and females apart from one another. To Ttomalss, differences in scale patterns, eye-turret size, snout shape, and so on were glaringly obvious. He and his kind had evolved to notice those, not whatever different cues Big Uglies used.
Kassquit said, “I wonder whether Sam Yeager’s hatchling is also aboard the Tosevite starship.”
“Time will tell,” Ttomalss answered.
“So it will.” Kassquit sounded eager, hopeful, enthusiastic. Years before, Jonathan Yeager had introduced her to Tosevite mating practices. Ttomalss was aware he understood those, and the emotional drives that went with them, only intellectually. Kassquit sounded not the least bit intellectual.
“Perhaps I should remind you that, as of the time when I went into cold sleep, Jonathan Yeager remained in an exclusive mating contract with a Tosevite female,” Ttomalss said. “In fact, they both appear to have entered cold sleep not long before I did, though I do not know for what purpose. This being so, if he is aboard the starship, his mate is likely to be aboard as well.”
“Truth.” Now Kassquit might have hated him.
Ttomalss silently sighed. He had once more underestimated the power of mating urges to shape Tosevite behavior. Those and the bonds existing between parents and hatchlings were the strongest forces that drove Big Uglies. Even Kassquit, with the finest civilized upbringing possible on Tosev 3, was not immune to them.
The other thing Ttomalss had to remember was that, if he underestimated those forces despite his extensive experience, other alleged experts on the Big Uglies, “experts” who had never been within light-years of Tosev 3, would do far worse. It was, no doubt, fortunate that he’d been recalled to Home. However important it was that he continue his work on Tosev 3, this took priority.
“May I ask you something, superior sir?” Kassquit spoke with cold formality.
“You may always ask,” Ttomalss replied. “If the answer is one that I possess, you shall have it.”
“Very well. Was it at your instruction that I was left in cold sleep for so long after reaching Home? I do not appreciate being used as nothing more than a tool against the Big Uglies. I have the same rights and privileges as any other citizen of the Empire.”
“Of course you do,” Ttomalss said soothingly. “But how could I have done such a thing? You left Tosev 3 for Home years before I did.”
Silence followed-but not for long. Angrily, Kassquit said, “How could you have done such a thing, superior sir? Nothing simpler. As soon as I went into cold sleep, you could have arranged to have the order sent by radio from Tosev 3 to here. Radio waves travel twice as fast as our ships. The order not to revive me at once could easily have been waiting when I arrived. The question I am asking is, did you send such an order?”
In many ways, she was indeed a citizen of the Empire. She could figure out the implications of interstellar travel and communication as readily as any member of the Race. Somehow, in spite of everything, Ttomalss had not expected that.
When he did not answer right away, Kassquit said, “I might have known. And yet I am supposed to work with you. By the spirits of Emperors past, superior sir, why should I?”
For that, Ttomalss did have an answer ready: “For the sake of the Race. For the sake of the Empire.”
“What about my sake?” Kassquit demanded. Despite her upbringing, parts of her were Tosevite through and through. By the standards of the Race, she was a pronounced individualist, putting her own needs above those of the community.
“In the larger scheme of things, which carries the greater weight?” Ttomalss asked.
“If the larger scheme of things is built on lies, what difference does it make?” Kassquit retorted.
That charge had fangs-or it would have, had it held truth. “I never told you I would not send such a request to Home,” Ttomalss said. “While you may put your own interests first, I am obliged to give precedence to the Race as a whole. So are the males and females here who concurred in my judgment.”
Now Kassquit was the one who needed some time to think about how she would reply. At last, she said, “Had you asked if I would accept the delay in revival, I probably would have said yes. I recognize the needs of the Empire, too, superior sir, regardless of what you may think. But it was presumptuous of you to believe you could decide this matter for me without consulting me. That is what gets under my scales.”
She had no scales, of course, but that was the Race’s idiom. She did have a point… of sorts. Remembering that he would have to try to work with her, Ttomalss yielded to the degree he could: “I apologize for my presumption. I should have asked you, as you say. I will not make such an error again. I will also try to keep any other member of the Race from doing so.”
Another pause from Kassquit. At the end of it, she said, “Thank you, superior sir. That is better than nothing. It is also better than anything I expected to hear you say.”
Ttomalss sighed. “You are not fully happy among us.”
“That is a truth, superior sir.” Kassquit used another emphatic cough.
“Do you believe you would be happier among the wild Big Uglies?” he asked. “That can in large measure be arranged if you so desire, now that they have come to Home.”
But Kassquit said, “No,” with yet another emphatic cough. “I am betwixt and between, one thing biologically, something very different culturally. This is your doing. There have been times when I was grateful to you. There have been times when I loathed you beyond all measure. There have been times when I felt both those things at once, which was very confusing.”
“I believe you,” Ttomalss said. “What do you feel now?”
“Are you still working on your research, superior sir?” Kassquit gibed.
“Of course I am. I always will be, till my dying day,” the male answered. He said nothing about Kassquit’s dying day, which was liable to occur first. “But I also want to know for my own sake-and for yours. Your welfare matters to me. It matters very much.” Now he let out an emphatic cough of his own.
Maybe his sentiment helped disarm Kassquit. Maybe that emphatic cough convinced her he was sincere. Slowly, she said, “These days, what I feel is that what I feel does not matter so much. You did what you did. Neither of us can change it these days. Far too much time has passed for that to be possible. I have to make the best of things as they are.”
“That strikes me as a sensible attitude,” Ttomalss said.
“It strikes me as a sensible attitude, too
,” Kassquit said. “That is why I strive to hold on to it, but holding on to it is not always easy.”
Just before he asked why not, Ttomalss checked himself. Males and females of the Race were full of irrational behavior. The Big Uglies, from all he’d seen, were even fuller. Their hormonal drives operated all the time, not only during mating season. He sighed again. At bottom, the Race and the Big Uglies were both evolved animals. That they behaved like animals was no wonder. That they sometimes didn’t behave like animals might have been.
And now the Big Uglies were here. Ttomalss looked up into the night sky again. No, he couldn’t tell which moving star was in fact their spaceship. Which it was didn’t matter, anyhow. That they were here at all meant one thing and one thing only: trouble. And when had dealing with Tosevites ever meant anything else?
3
“Hey, son. Do you hear me?”
Jonathan Yeager heard the words, sure enough, the words and the familiar voice. At first, in the confusion of returning consciousness, the voice mattered for more. A slow smile stretched across his face, though his eyes hadn’t opened yet. “Dad,” he whispered. “Hi, Dad.”
