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And the world never would have found out the one great talent he had in him. He would have gone through life-well, not quite ordinary, because not everybody could play ball even at his level, but unfulfilled in a certain ultimate sense. Jonathan couldn’t say that about himself, and he knew it. He nodded. He smiled, too, and it didn’t take too much extra effort. “Okay, Dad,” he said. “Sure.”
Although Ttomalss had gone into cold sleep after all the Big Uglies who’d come to Home, he’d been awake longer than they had. His starship had traveled from Tosev 3 to Home faster than their less advanced craft. He called up an image of their ramshackle ship on his computer monitor. It looked as if it would fall apart if anyone breathed on it hard. That wasn’t so, of course. It had got here. It might even get back to Tosev’s solar system.
The psychologist made the image go away. Looking at it only wasted his time. What really mattered wasn’t the ship that had brought the Tosevites here. What mattered was that they were here-and everything that had happened back on Tosev 3 since they left.
He still didn’t know everything, of course-didn’t and wouldn’t. Radio took all those years to travel between Tosev’s system and this one. But, in the communications both Fleetlord Reffet, who led the colonization fleet, and Shiplord Kirel, who headed what was left of the conquest fleet after Atvar’s recall, sent back to Home, Ttomalss found a rising note of alarm.
It had been obvious even to Ttomalss, back during his time on Tosev 3, that the Big Uglies were catching up with the Race in both technology and knowledge. He’d assumed the Tosevites’ progress would plateau as time went on and they finally did pull close to even with the Race. He’d assumed, in other words, that the Race knew everything, or almost everything, there was to know.
That was turning out not to be true. Reports from both Reffet and Kirel talked about Tosevite scientific advances that had the psychologist wondering whether he fully understood the news coming from Tosev 3. He also began to wonder whether Reffet and Kirel and the males and females working under them fully understood what was happening on Tosev 3.
When he said as much to Atvar, the former fleetlord of the conquest fleet responded with the scorn Ttomalss had expected from him: “Reffet never has understood anything. He never will understand anything, and he never can understand anything. He has not got the brains of a retarded azwaca turd.”
“And Kirel?” Ttomalss asked.
“Kirel is capable enough. But Kirel is stodgy,” Atvar said. “Kirel has brains enough. What Kirel lacks is imagination. I have seen kamamadia nuts with more.” He rolled out one striking phrase after another that morning.
“What would you do, were you still in command on Tosev 3?” Ttomalss asked.
Atvar swung both eye turrets toward him. They were sitting in one of the small conference rooms in the hotel where the Big Uglies were staying. How many other conference rooms all across Home were just like this one, with its sound-absorbing ceiling tiles, its greenish brown walls-walls not far from the color of skin for the Race, a soothing color-its writing board and screen and connection to the planetwide computer network, its stout tables and not quite comfortable chairs? Only the fact that some of the chairs now accommodated Tosevite posteriors-not quite comfortably, from what the Big Uglies said-hinted at anything out of the ordinary.
After a pause, Atvar said, “Why do you not come for a walk with me? It is a nice enough day.”
“A walk?” Ttomalss responded as if he’d never heard the words before. Atvar made the affirmative gesture. With a shrug, the researcher said, “Well, why not?”
Out they went. It was a nice enough day. Atvar let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. “We were certain to be recorded in there,” he said. “Now that I am no longer in charge on Tosev 3, I do not wish to be quoted on what to do about it by anyone who could substantiate the record.”
“I see,” Ttomalss said. “Well, since I am not in a position to do that, what is your opinion on what to do in aid of Tosev 3?”
“That Reffet and Kirel are cowards.” Atvar’s voice went harsh and hard. “The Big Uglies are gaining an advantage on us. You know this is true. So do I. So does everyone else with eyes in his eye turrets. But the males allegedly leading on Tosev 3 have not the courage to draw the proper conclusion.”
“Which is?”
“You were there. You already know my view. We cannot afford to let the Big Uglies get ahead of us. They are already here with one ship. That is bad enough, but tolerable. All this ship can do is hurt us. If they send fleets to all our solar systems, though, they can destroy us. They can, and they might. We attacked them without warning. If they have the chance, why should they not return the favor? And so, as I proposed many years ago, our best course is to destroy them first.”
“That would also mean destroying our own colony,” Ttomalss said.
“Better a part than the whole.” Atvar used an emphatic cough. “Far better.”
“I gather Reffet and Kirel do not agree?”
“They certainly do not.” Atvar spoke with fine contempt. “They fail to see the difference between the purple itch, for which a soothing salve is all the treatment needed, and a malignancy that requires the knife.”
“You are outspoken,” Ttomalss observed.
“By the spirits of Emperors past, Senior Researcher, I feel here what Straha must have felt back on Tosev 3 before he tried to oust me,” Atvar exclaimed.
Ttomalss hissed in astonishment. Shiplord Straha had been so disgusted over the way the conquest fleet was being run that, after his attempt to supplant Atvar failed, he’d defected to the American Big Uglies. He’d later returned to the Race with news from Sam Yeager that the Americans had been the ones to attack the colonization fleet. Nothing less than news like that could have restored him to the fleetlord’s good graces, or even to a semblance of them.
Atvar made the affirmative gesture. “By the spirits of Emperors past, it is a truth. During the fighting, Straha saw how genuinely dangerous the Big Uglies were, and wanted to use radical measures against them. I, in my infinite wisdom, decided this was inappropriate-and so we did not completely defeat them. Now I am the one who sees the danger, and no one here on Home or on Tosev 3 appears willing to turn an eye turret in its direction.”
“Exalted Fleetlord, you are not the only one who sees it,” Ttomalss said. “Looking at the reports coming from Tosev 3, what strikes me is their ever more frightened tone.”
“Another truth,” Atvar said. “All the more reason for us to eliminate the menace, would you not agree? I have had an audience with the Emperor. Even he realizes we have to find some way to deal with the Big Uglies.”
“Some years ago, I think, annihilating the Big Uglies might well have been the appropriate thing to do,” Ttomalss replied. Atvar hissed angrily. He liked hearing disagreement no better than he ever had. Ttomalss said, “Listen to me, if you please.”
“Go on.” Atvar did not sound like a male who was going to listen patiently and give a reasoned judgment on what he heard. He sounded much more as if he intended to tear Ttomalss limb from limb.
All the same, the psychologist continued, “Unless I am altogether mistaken in my reading of the reports from Tosev 3, I think one reason Reffet and Kirel hesitate to apply your strategy is that they fear it will not work, and it will provoke the independent Tosevites.”
“What do you mean, it will not work?” Atvar demanded. “If we smash the not-empires, they will stay smashed. The Empire will no longer have to worry about them-and a good thing, too.”
“It might well be a good thing, if we could be sure of doing it,” Ttomalss said. “By the latest reports from Tosev 3, though, the Big Uglies are now ahead of us technologically in many areas, ahead of us to the point where Reffet and Kirel are close to despair. We are not innovators, not in the same way the Tosevites are. And we have only a small scientific community on Tosev 3 in any case. It is a colonial world. The center of the Empire is still Home. At the moment, unless I
am badly mistaken, the Big Uglies could beat back any attack we might try. Whether we could do the same if they attacked us is a different question, and likely one with a different answer.”
“Has it come to that so soon?” Atvar said. “I would have believed we had more time.”
“I am not certain, but I think it has,” Ttomalss said. “I am also not certain the Big Uglies fully realize their superiority. If they were to defeat an attack from the Race…”
“They would become sure of something they now only suspect? Is that what you are saying?”
Ttomalss paused till a female wearing blue false hair between her eye turrets got too far away to hear. Then, unhappily, he used the affirmative gesture and said, “Exalted Fleetlord, I am afraid it is. If not, then I am misreading the reports beamed here from Tosev 3.”
