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“If it is anything I can do, I will,” Atvar replied.
“I thank you. I think you can. Send Kassquit my best, and my hatchling‘s.”
“It shall be done,” Atvar said. “Shall I also add a greeting from your hatchling’s mate?”
Sam Yeager laughed in the noisy Tosevite way. “If you like,” he answered. “But she would not send it, and Kassquit would not believe it if she got it. The two females did not get along as well as they might have.”
“This is unfortunate,” Atvar said. “Well, I think I will send it. Perhaps being light-years apart can bring peace between them.”
“Perhaps it can,” Yeager said. “I cannot think of anything else that would.”
The fleetlord endured another ride in a Tosevite-made shuttlecraft with a Big Ugly at the controls. The hop up to the orbiting Tom Edison was as smooth as it would have been going up to a ship orbiting Home. The pilot seemed perfectly capable. Atvar was nervous even so. Tosevites just didn’t take proper care in the things they made.
But they made things the Race couldn’t. The looming bulk of the Tom Edison as the shuttlecraft approached rubbed Atvar’s snout in that. “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” a uniformed American Big Ugly said when Atvar came through the air lock. “Let me take you to your room.”
“I thank you,” Atvar replied.
“It is my pleasure, Exalted Fleetlord,” the Tosevite male said. Atvar didn’t care for the way his title sounded in the Big Ugly’s mouth. Like Nicole Nichols back on Home, the male didn’t take it seriously.
Atvar stared as he followed the guide. Not being under acceleration, the ship had no gravity, and they both pulled themselves along by the handholds in the corridors. The Tom Edison struck Atvar as being better finished than the Commodore Perry. If the Race hadn’t been satisfied with the Commodore Perry, the ship never would have flown. The Big Uglies let it go out, hoped for the best, and improved the next one. Their way produced more progress-and, every now and then, disasters the Race would not have tolerated.
“Here we are,” the Tosevite said. “This room will be yours. Please stay here until we are under acceleration. You can access entertainment in your language through the computer. Food will be brought to you. If you want any special refreshments, you may request them.”
“But in the meanwhile, I am a prisoner,” Atvar said.
The Big Ugly used the negative gesture. “A guest.”
Atvar used it, too. “If I were a guest, I would be able to move freely.”
With a shrug, the American Tosevite said, “I am sorry, Exalted Fleetlord, but I have my orders.” He sounded not the least bit sorry.
When Atvar tried the door after going inside, he discovered it would open, which surprised him. He wasn’t quite a prisoner, then. That made him decide to stay where he was. He would have caused more trouble-as much as he could-if he had been locked up. Not till later did he wonder whether the Big Uglies would anticipate that.
A day and a half later, it stopped mattering. With a deep rumble he felt in his bones, the Tom Edison left its place in orbit and began the journey out to where it could leap the gap between Tosev 3’s solar system and the one of which Home was a part. Full acceleration took a while to build up. Atvar thought he was a trifle heavier than he had been aboard the Commodore Perry, but he could not be sure.
One of the first Big Uglies he saw on emerging from his chamber was Frank Coffey. His dark skin made him easy to recognize. His leaf emblem had changed color, which meant he was a lieutenant colonel now. “So you are returning to Home?” Atvar said.
“That is a truth, Exalted Fleetlord. I am,” Coffey said. “I managed to talk my government into sending me back. I would like to be with Kassquit when my hatchling comes forth-and I have more experience on Home than anyone there now.”
While the second reason would have influenced the Race, the first was exclusive to the Big Uglies. Atvar did not know who had sired him or who had laid his egg. Except for the Emperor’s line and the possibility of inherited diseases, such things mattered little to the Race.
“It will be good, I think, for the American Tosevites on Home to have someone from your generation there with them,” Atvar said. “I mean no offense-or not much, anyhow-when I say they make too much of themselves.”
“I have no idea whether they will pay any attention to me once I get there.” Coffey sounded wryly amused. Atvar thought so, anyhow, though Big Uglies could still confuse him. The American officer went on, “My government says they are supposed to, but even with these new ships my government is a long way away.” He shrugged. “Well, we shall see what we shall see. However that works out, I am going back to Home, and I will be there when the hatchling comes forth.”
We shall see what we shall see. Atvar thought about that after he went back to his room. It was a truth, but not, for him, a comfortable one. What he feared he would see, if he lived long enough, was the ruination of his species. And he did not know what he could do to stop it.
The journey back to Home was as boring as the one to Tosev 3 had been. Part of him hoped the Tom Edison would have a mishap, even if it killed him. Then he wouldn’t have to admit to everyone on Home that he’d crossed between stars twice in much less than a year, even counting the time he’d spent on the Big Uglies’ native world waiting for them to get ready to send him back.
Was it five and a half weeks till the starship got ready to jump the light-years? Again, Atvar thought not, but he wasn’t quite sure. He had to translate the awkward Tosevite term into the Race’s rational chronology to have any feel for how long it truly was. He hadn’t kept exact track on the journey to Tosev 3, so he couldn’t properly compare now. Not keeping track had been a mistake. He realized as much, but he didn’t see how he could have avoided it. He’d assumed he would go back on the same starship, not a revised model. As the Race so often was in its dealings with the Big Uglies, he’d been wrong.
When the time for the crossing came, the captain warned everyone in the ship to take a seat: first in English, then in the Race’s language. Atvar obeyed. For most of the travelers, it wouldn’t matter. Most Tosevites felt nothing. That seemed to be true for the Race, too; at least, neither Straha nor Nesseref had reported anything out of the ordinary.
Then that turned-inside-out feeling interrupted his thoughts. It lasted for a timeless instant that seemed to stretch out longer than the history of the Empire. He was everything and nothing, nowhere and everywhere, all at once. And then it ended-if it had ever really begun-and he was nothing but himself again. He didn’t know whether to be sorry or glad.
The captain spoke in English. Atvar waited for the translation: “We are inside Home’s solar system. Everything performed the way it should have. We expect a normal approach to the Race’s planet.”
Two ships. No-at least two ships. How many more did the Big Uglies have? They surely knew. Just as surely, Atvar didn’t. Were they visiting Rabotev 2 or Halless 1 even now? If they were, they would outrun news of their coming. They would find the Empire’s other two worlds undefended. They could do whatever they wanted. Home wouldn’t learn of it for years, not unless the Tosevites themselves chose to talk about it.
We shall see what we shall see, he thought again. Whatever it was, he couldn’t do anything about it now.
He knew when the Tom Edison went into orbit around Home, because he went weightless. Before long, a Tosevite female came to escort him to the air lock. “We will take you down to Sitneff now, Exalted Fleetlord,” she said.
“I thank you so very much,” Atvar replied.
If she heard his sarcasm, she didn’t show it. “You are welcome,” she said. “I hope you had a pleasant flight.” Atvar didn’t dignify that with an answer. A hundred thousand years of peace, security, and dominance shattering like glass-and she hoped he had a pleasant flight? Not likely!
His shuttlecraft trip down to the surface of Home was routine in every way, and also less than pleasant. So was the discovery that Straha
waited for him in the shuttlecraft terminal. “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” Straha said, and bent into a mocking posture of respect. “I trust you enjoyed yourself on Tosev 3?”
“Then you are a trusting fool,” Atvar snapped. “I knew you were a fool, but not one of that sort.”
Straha only laughed at him. “Still charming as ever, I see. Any residual doubts remaining? The signals arriving from Tosev 3 would kill them, if there are.”
“No, no residual doubts,” Atvar said. “They can do as they claim.”
“And that means?”
Hating him, Atvar said, “It means you are not only a trusting fool but a gloating fool.” Straha just laughed again.
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