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And Yeager had done the Race the enormous service of pointing out who had attacked the colonization fleet just after it reached his home planet. He had, not surprisingly, got into trouble for that with his own authorities. Atvar asked him, “Things being as they are, why did the not-empire of the United States send you on such an important mission?”
The two of them sat alone at a refectory table in the hotel the wild Big Uglies were using as an embassy. The other Tosevites who had come to Home were on a tour of the more distant regions of Home. This was not a formal negotiating session, only a talk. Yeager used a set of Tosevite eating utensils to cut up smoked zisuili meat. He’d eaten that on Tosev 3, and knew it was safe for his kind. After chewing and swallowing a bite, he answered, “Maybe my superiors thought I would not wake up again. Maybe they thought that, as a junior member of the expedition, I would not be in a position to decide anything important. And maybe-most likely, I think-they just wanted me as far from the United States as I could go.”
“And yet, plainly, you remain loyal to your not-empire.” If Atvar sounded wistful, that was only because he was.
“I do.” Sam Yeager used an emphatic cough. “I am.”
“What do you expect these talks to yield?” Atvar asked.
“Fleetlord, the Race has never yet treated us as equals,” the Big Ugly answered, adding another emphatic cough. “You have dealt with us. We showed you you had to. But you keep on looking down your snouts at us. And that is on Tosev 3, where you have got to know us. Here on Home, things are a lot worse. I have already seen as much. Will you tell me it is not a truth?”
“No. I would not insult your intelligence,” Atvar said.
Sam Yeager made as if to go into the posture of respect, checking himself at just the right moment. “I thank you. But it is time that the United States got its due. We have also traveled between the stars now. Do I understand correctly that the Soviet Union is also going to launch a starship?”
“So I have been told. It will be called the Molotov, after the longtime ruler of that not-empire. Having met Molotov the Tosevite, I hope the ship proves less unpleasant.” Atvar vividly recalled his first dreadful encounter with the Big Ugly, who at that time did not yet rule the SSSR. Molotov had explained-had been proud to explain-how his political faction came to power by murdering the emperor who formerly ruled their land. Back then, the mere idea that an emperor (even a Big Ugly) could be murdered was enough to shake Atvar’s mental world. He’d had no idea how many more unpleasant lessons the Tosevites would teach him.
“And the Nipponese and the Deutsche are also working on them?” Sam Yeager persisted.
Reluctantly, Atvar made the affirmative gesture. “I believe this to be the case, yes.” He let out an angry hiss. “How it could be, however, I confess I do not completely understand. We defeated the Deutsche. We smashed the Deutsche. We put strict limits on what they could do. How they could return to space even around Tosev 3, let alone contemplate an interstellar spacecraft…”
“We called the war we were fighting when the Race arrived the Second World War,” Sam Yeager said. “Until you came, we did not know what a world war really was, but we thought we did. A generation earlier, we had fought the First World War. The Deutsche were on the losing side there, too. The winners disarmed them and tried to make sure they stayed weak. It did not work.”
“You are Tosevites. You are slipshod. You forget things. You might as well be hatchlings,” Atvar said. “We are the Race.”
“So you are,” Sam Yeager replied. “And, evidently, you were slipshod. You forgot things. This puts you in a poor position to mock us.”
“I was not mocking you.” Atvar checked himself. “Well, yes, perhaps I was. But I was mocking Fleetlord Reffet and Shiplord Kirel much more. For you are correct, of course. They let the advantage we held over the Deutsche slip away. They should not have done so. That they did so is mortifying.”
“If it makes you feel any better, Fleetlord, the Deutsche have more experience getting around such restrictions than the Race has imposing them.”
“This may make me feel microscopically better,” Atvar replied. “On the other hand, it may not.” His tailstump quivered with anger. “For remember, Ambassador, I was recalled for incompetence. Those who came after me were going to do a far better job. They were sure of it. And look what they accomplished!”
“It does show your people that you were not to blame,” Sam Yeager said.
“I already knew as much,” Atvar said acidly. “That others also do is a matter of some gratification, but not much. I know I could have done better. I doubt I could have kept your not-empire from launching a starship. But the Deutsche, by the spirits of Emperors past, would not be a problem now if I still headed administration on Tosev 3.”
He cast down his eye turrets. Any citizen of the Empire, whether belonging to the Race, the Rabotevs, or the Hallessi, would have looked down at the ground at the mention of Emperors past or present. Sam Yeager did not. However well he behaved, however well he understood the Race, he was an alien and would always remain one.
Yeager said, “What we wanted with this mission, Fleetlord, was respect.”
“Well, you have that. I do not know precisely what you will do with it, but you have it,” Atvar said. “Along with it, you also have hatched a considerable amount of fear. Is that what you had in mind?”
To his surprise, Sam Yeager made the affirmative gesture. “As a matter of fact, yes,” he replied. “We have feared the Race now for ninety years-ninety of ours, twice as many of yours. Mutual fear is not the worst thing in the world. It may keep both sides from doing anything irrevocably stupid.”
Atvar’s mouth fell open in a laugh. “I see you look on the bright side of things. My guess would be that nothing is sure to keep both sides from doing anything irrevocably stupid.”
“My guess would be that you are right,” the Big Ugly replied. “I am still allowed to hope, though.”
“There I cannot disagree,” Atvar said. “If we did not hope, one side or the other would have destroyed Tosev 3 by now.”
“Truth,” Yeager said. “Now you of the Race have to remember that all the time, as we have had to do since the year we call 1942. And you have to remember it can apply to your planets, not just to the one we live on.”
That, no doubt, was part of what he meant by respect. To Atvar, it seemed perilously close to arrogance. That the Race had the same feeling never entered his mind. His mental horizon had expanded a great deal since he first came to Tosev 3, but he remained a part of his culture. For the Race to pressure other species seemed natural to him. For others to do the same to his kind did not.
He had the sense to see a change of subject might be a good idea. “Why did you not go sightseeing with the other Tosevites?” he asked.
“Please do not misunderstand me,” the Big Ugly replied. “I will be pleased to see as muc
h of your planet as I can. If the Doctor were in charge now, I would be out with the others. But I have more responsibility than I thought I would. I need to talk with you-with your government-about how we can all get along now that things have changed and you really need to recognize our fundamental equality.”
Atvar laughed again. “You assume what you wish to prove, something I have seen a great many Tosevites do. We have sent fleets to Tosev 3. You have sent one ship here, and a slow one at that. This, to me, does not argue in favor of fundamental equality. The balance has changed. There is a new weight on your side of the scale. But the two sides do not match.”
“Maybe not.” The corners of Sam Yeager’s mouth turned up. That could be a gesture of amiability or of something else masquerading as amiability. “When we do fly a fleet here, are you sure you will want to meet us? You will know I mean no disrespect when I tell you our technology changes much faster than yours.” That said what sort of gesture the upturned mouth corners were, all right.
“You have been stealing from us since we first came to Tosev 3, you mean,” Atvar said.
“Truth,” Sam Yeager said again, surprising Atvar, but he also made the negative hand gesture. “But what we know for ourselves and what we have discovered has also grown, and we have already started doing things with what we have learned from you that you never thought of.”
He told another truth there. The fleetlord wished he hadn’t. Reports that came in at light speed kept talking about Tosevite advances in electronics, in biochemistry, and in many other areas. It was indeed worrisome. Why could you not have gone sightseeing? the fleetlord thought resentfully.
Karen Yeager found herself enjoying a winter day near the South Pole of Home. It felt like an April day in Los Angeles: a little chilly for the T-shirt and shorts she had on, but not bad. The guide, a female named Trir, seemed more interested in the Tosevites she had charge of than in the scenery around her. Her eye turrets kept going every which way, staring at the Big Uglies.
