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The Tosevite ambassador made the affirmative gesture. “Yes, I know that. I said I knew that. But I also said I have no idea what American physicists are working on back on Tosev 3, and that too is a truth.”
“Very well,” Ttomalss said, though it was anything but.
Sam Yeager must have sensed that. Laughing again in his noisy way, he said, “Senior Researcher, I would have been ignorant about these things before I went into cold sleep. Now the scientists have worked for all these years without me. It only makes me more ignorant still.”
He sounded as if he was telling the truth about that. Ttomalss wasn’t sure how far to trust him, though. One thing worried the psychologist: the American Big Uglies were not broadcasting news of what their physicists had learned toward Home and their starship in orbit around it. Why not, if they were making such advances? Ttomalss saw one possible reason: they knew the Race would be deciphering their signals, and did not want it learning too much.
That worried him. That worried him a lot.
Mickey Flynn watched Glen Johnson climbing into his spacesuit. “Teacher’s pet,” Flynn said solemnly-the most sobersided jeer Johnson had ever heard. “Look at the teacher’s pet.”
Johnson paused long enough to flip the other pilot the bird. “The Lizards know quality when they see it.”
Flynn pondered that, then shook his head. “There must be some rational explanation instead,” he said, and then, “Why do they want to see you again so soon, anyhow? Haven’t they got sick of you by now? I would have, and they’re supposed to be an intelligent species.”
Instead of rising to that, Johnson just kept on donning the suit. As he settled the helmet on its locking ring, he said, “The one advantage of this getup is that I don’t have to pay attention to you when I’ve got it on.” With the helmet in place, he couldn’t heard Flynn any more. That much was true. But Flynn went right on talking, or at least mouthing, anyhow. He looked very urgent while he was doing it, too. Were this the first time Johnson had seen him pull a stunt like that, he would have been convinced something urgent was going on and he needed to know about it. As things were, he went on into the air lock and began checking out the scooter.
He didn’t expect to find anything wrong with the little local rocket ship, but he made all the checks anyhow. Any pilot who didn’t was a damn fool, in his biased opinion. It was, after all, his one and only neck.
Everything checked out green. Yes, he would have been surprised if it hadn’t, but life was full of surprises. Avoiding the nasty ones when you could was always a good idea.
The outer airlock door swung open. He used the scooter’s maneuvering jets to ease it out of the lock, then fired up the stern motor to take it in the direction of the nearest Lizard spacecraft, the Pterodactyl’s Wing (that wasn’t an exact translation, but it came close enough). He had no idea why the Lizards wanted to talk with him, but he was always ready to get away from the Admiral Peary for a little while.
As he crossed the double handful of kilometers between his spaceship and theirs, he got one of those surprises life was full of: a Lizard scooter came out to meet him. “Hello, scooter of the Race. I greet you,” Johnson called on the Lizards’ chief comm frequency. “What is going on?”
“I greet you, Tosevite scooter,” the Lizard pilot answered. “You are ordered to stop for inspection before approaching the Pterodactyl’s Wing. ”
“It shall be done,” Johnson said. On the radio, nobody could see him shrug. “I do not understand the need for it, but it shall be done.” He applied the same blast to the forward engine as he’d used in the rear to make his approach run to the Lizards’ ship. With his motion towards it killed, he hung in space between it and the Admiral Peary.
He watched the Lizards’ scooter approach on the radar screen and by eye. It was bigger than the one he flew. He had room for only a couple of passengers. The other scooter could carry eight or ten members of the Race. At the moment, though, it had just two aboard. Whoever was piloting it had a style very different from his. Instead of a long blast precisely canceled, the Lizard flew fussily, a little poke here, a little nudge there, his maneuvering jets constantly flaring like fireflies. Any human pilot would have been embarrassed to cozy up like that, but the Lizard got the job done. After what seemed like forever, the two scooters floated motionless relative to each other and only a few meters apart.
“I am going to cross to your scooter for the inspection,” one of the spacesuited Lizards said. The male-or possibly female-waved to show which one it was.
“Come ahead.” Johnson waved back.
The Lizard had a reaction pistol to go from yon to hither. The gas jet pushed it across to Johnson’s scooter, where it braked. “I greet you, Tosevite pilot,” resounded in Johnson’s headphones. “I am Nosred.”
“And I greet you.” Johnson gave his own name, adding, “This is unusual. Why have you changed your procedures?”
“Why? I will tell you why.” Nosred leaned toward Johnson. When their helmets touched, the Lizard spoke without benefit of radio: “Turn off your transmitter.” Direct sound conduction brought the words to Johnson’s ears.
He flipped the switch and took another precaution. If Nosred wanted a private chat, the human was willing to find out why, and the precaution wouldn’t be noticeable from the outside. Their helmets still touching, Johnson said, “Go ahead.”
“I thank you. What I want to discuss with you is the possibility of your bringing ginger out of your starship the next time you come forth,” Nosred said.
I might have known, Johnson thought. The Race figured Big Uglies were obsessed with sex. The way it looked to people, Lizards were obsessed with ginger-which sometimes led them to be obsessed with sex, but that was a different story.
Not without a certain pang, Johnson made the negative gesture. “I do not have any. The ship does not have any.”
Nosred made the negative gesture, too. “I do not believe you, Tosevite pilot. Ginger is too valuable a commodity and too valuable a weapon for you Big Uglies to have left it all in your own solar system. You must have brought some with you. Logic requires it.”
“This is your own opinion. This is not a truth,” Johnson said. He knew more than he was telling. One of the things he knew was that he couldn’t tell whether this Lizard was setting a trap for him. Till he knew that, he had no intention of trusting Nosred-or any other male or female of the Race.
“You do not think I am reliable,” Nosred said in accusing tones. “That is the truth here, that and nothing else.”
He was right. Being right wouldn’t get him any ginger. Johnson said, “It would be best if I proceeded on to the Pterodactyl’s Wing now. Your own folk will begin to wonder why we linger here without any communication they can monitor.”
With an angry hiss, Nosred pulled back. His radio came to life: “Our preliminary inspection here reveals no ginger, Tosevite pilot. You have permission to proceed on to our ship.”
“I thank you. It shall be done.” Johnson had to remember to turn his own radio back on. He used his steering jets to reorient the scooter’s nose toward the Pterodactyl’s Wing, then made his acceleration and deceleration burns by eyeball and feel. He was good at what he did. That deceleration burn left him motionless with respect to the Lizard spaceship and only a few meters from the air lock.
Nosred and his silent friend arrived several minutes later, after another series of small, finicky burns. The Lizards took them back aboard first, though, which meant Johnson had nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs till the airlock master condescended to let him into the Pterodactyl’s Wing.
“I thank you so very much,” Johnson said, and tacked on an emphatic cough so very emphatic, he sprayed the inside of his faceplate with spit. Somehow, though, he doubted whether the Lizard appreciated or even noticed the sarcasm.
His scooter and his person got the same sort of painstaking search they had the last time he went aboard one of the Race’s spacecraft. A small machine floated out
of his spacesuit. He snagged it. “What is that?” the airlock master demanded suspiciously.
“A recorder,” Johnson answered. “Go ahead and examine it. You will find no hidden ginger.” The Lizard ran it through a sniffer and an X-ray machine. Only after he was satisfied did he return it to Johnson. The pilot bent into the posture of respect. “Again, you have my most deep and profound gratitude.” He used another nearly tubercular emphatic cough.
“You are welcome,” the Lizard said complacently. Johnson wondered if anything short of a kick in the snout would penetrate that unconscious arrogance. The airlock master went on, “Medium Spaceship Commander Ventris wishes to speak with you now.”
“Does he?” Johnson said. “Well, then, it shall be done, of course.” Once more, the Lizard in charge of the air lock took that for obedience, not irony.
