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re is something else, too, something that shows how different from the Empire we truly are. Here, the goal is to meet the Emperor. In the United States, the goal is to become the president. Do you see what I mean?”
Now Kassquit had to try to understand emotionally something that was plain enough intellectually. American Big Uglies could aspire to become the ruler of their not-empire. She knew those not-emperors ruled for only a limited period, and had other checks on their power. Even so…
She tried to imagine a male or female of the Race setting out to become the Emperor. The picture refused to form in her mind. Oh, such things had happened in the days of ancientest history, though they weren’t much mentioned in the lessons hatchlings learned at school. And once, even after Home was unified, a deranged male had tried to murder an Emperor (that was mentioned even less often).
But that a member of the Race, a Rabotev, a Halless, or even a Tosevite could aspire to supplant the Emperor and rule the Empire now… Automatically, her hand shaped the negative gesture. She said, “I do not believe your not-emperors have control over the afterlife as well as this life.”
“Well, no, neither do I, though some of them would probably be happy enough to claim authority like that,” Sam Yeager said. The other American Big Uglies laughed again, which was the only thing that told Kassquit he didn’t mean it. He went on, “And what you need to grasp, Researcher, is that I do not believe your Emperors have control over the afterlife, either.”
The Race’s language did not have a word precisely equivalent to blasphemy. It had never needed a word like that, because the idea of denying that the spirits of Emperors past controlled the existence yet to come had not hatched on Home. But, even without a word for it, Kassquit understood the idea as soon as she heard it.
She said, “Many billions of individuals of several different species have accepted what you reject.”
That didn’t faze Sam Yeager. He said, “A great many individuals have believed a great many things that eventually turned out not to be so.” He held up a hand before Kassquit could speak. “I do not say this is true for the spirits of Emperors past. I say it may be true. As far as I know, no one has found a way to bring certain truth back from the next world.”
“So many who have believed make a strong argument for truth all by themselves,” she said.
“No.” He shook his head before remembering and using the Race’s negative gesture. “As I said before, many can believe something that is not a truth. On Tosev 3, for centuries, most males and females-almost all, in fact-believed the planet was flat, and that the star Tosev revolved around it instead of the other way round. Belief does not make truth. Evidence makes truth. And belief does not make evidence.”
Had he been talking about anything but belief in the afterlife, Kassquit would have agreed with him without hesitation. As things were… As things were, she held that belief in a mental compartment separate from the rest of her life and the rest of her attitudes. Almost every citizen of the Empire did the same. Belief in the spirits of Emperors past and in what they could do in the world to come was deeply ingrained in the Race, the Rabotevs, the Hallessi… and Kassquit.
Angrily, she said, “How can you tell me the beliefs of many do not matter when your not-empire counts snouts to run its affairs?”
To her annoyance, that did not irritate the wild Big Uglies. It amused them. Jonathan Yeager said, “She has got you there, sire of mine.”
“Oh, no. She is sly, but she is not sly enough to trick a gamy old zisuili like me,” Sam Yeager answered. He turned back to Kassquit. “Snoutcounting is not about evidence. It is about beliefs. There is no sure evidence for the future, and providing for the future is what a government does. There are only beliefs about what is likely to happen next and what ought to happen next. When it comes to beliefs, snoutcounting is fine. But beliefs are not truths, no matter how much you might wish they were.”
“He is right,” Karen Yeager said. She, of course, could be counted on to side against Kassquit. She continued, “On Tosev 3, we have many different beliefs about what happens after we die. They cannot all be true, but how can we tell for certain which ones are false?”
Kassquit’s opinion was that they were all false, and that citizens of the Empire held the only true belief. She knew she had no evidence for that, though, not evidence of the sort that would help her in this argument. She did the best she could: “From what I have heard, a growing number of Tosevites are accepting the Empire’s beliefs. This is true not only in the regions where the Race rules but also in your own not-empire. Or is that not so?”
The wild Big Uglies started laughing again. Kassquit was confused and furious at the same time. Before she could say anything more, Tom de la Rosa said, “Some American Big Uglies want to believe in the spirits of Emperors past because they are not happy with the beliefs they had before. Some want to believe in them because they like to imitate the Race any way they can. And some want to imitate them because they are fools. Or do you have no fools in the Empire?”
“We have fools.” Kassquit wished she could deny it, but the language of the Race wouldn’t let her. It had the word, and the word pointed infallibly to the thing. Besides, anyone who saw a male or female of the Race topped with red or green false hair almost infallibly spotted a fool. With such dignity as she could muster, she added, “But we do not believe the word applies to those who reverence the spirits of Emperors past.”
“I do not believe it does, either, if they have been brought up in their beliefs since hatchlinghood,” de la Rosa said. “But those who change their beliefs later in life, those who change them as a Big Ugly changes his wrappings-individuals like that are often fools.”
He sounded reasonable. Kassquit cherished reason. She clung to it. Clinging to it had helped her stay as close to sane as she had. There were times when she wondered how close that was. With her cultural and biological heritages so different, was it any wonder her stability often balanced on the point of a fingerclaw? The wonder, perhaps, was that she had any stability to balance.
Here, Tom de la Rosa’s reason threatened that stability. The thought that her spirit would be sustained by the spirits of Emperors past in the world to come had also helped sustain her when things did not go well in this world. Even the slightest hint that that might not happen left her feeling threatened.
Frank Coffey said, “Pale Tosevites used to believe dark Tosevites were inferior just because they were dark. Some pale Tosevites still believe that.”
“I used to believe it,” Sam Yeager said. “It was something I was taught from hatchlinghood. But there is no evidence to support it, and I hope I know better now.”
“I hope you do, too.” Coffey sounded jocular, but he did not laugh. He nodded to Kassquit. “By your looks, I would say you are Chinese.” Sam Yeager said something in English. Coffey nodded again, then went on, “He tells me you are. Pale Tosevites have shown these misplaced beliefs against Chinese, too.”
“And Chinese against pale Tosevites,” Tom de la Rosa added. “It is not all the fault of my kind of Big Ugly. A lot of it is, but not all.”
“Believe what you will,” Kassquit said. “What I believe is, I am proud to have been granted an audience with the Emperor. And, come what may, I will go right on being proud.” And she did.
Lizards always stared at Jonathan Yeager and the other Americans when they left their hotel for any reason. Jonathan didn’t suppose he could blame them. People had done plenty of staring at Lizards when they first met them. He hadn’t. Because of what his father and mother did, he’d grown up around Lizards, and took them as much for granted as he did humans.
Being neither a mad dog nor an Englishman, he tried not to go out in Home’s noonday sun. Oh, it wouldn’t have killed him, any more than a hot summer day in Los Angeles would have. It wasn’t much over a hundred, and, as Angelenos were endlessly fond of saying, it was a dry heat. But, while that made it more or less bearable, it didn’t make it pleasant.
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sp; Early morning was pleasant. Sitneff cooled down into the seventies at night-another consequence of low humidity. Jonathan enjoyed going to the park not far from the hotel, finding a bench in the shade of the shrubby treeish things, and watching Home go by.
Lizards on the way to work drove past in cars and buses that didn’t look too different from the ones he would have seen in the United States. These were smaller, because Lizards were smaller. They had smoother lines, and the differences between one model and another seemed smaller than in the USA. Maybe he was missing subtleties. Or maybe, because the Race valued efficiency more than people did, their vehicles just deviated less from ideal designs than human machines did.
Males and females skittered by on the sidewalk, too, some of them no doubt on the way to work, others moving faster for the sake of exercise. Some of the runners would stop short when they noticed him. Others would keep one eye turret trained on him till they got out of sight. They would use the other eye to watch where they were going. There they had an advantage over mankind. It wasn’t necessarily an enormous advantage, as Jonathan saw when a Lizard watching him banged into another coming the other way. Watching didn’t just mean seeing. It also meant paying attention. Anyone of any species could fail that test.
Other males and females trotted through the park. Some were regulars, and had seen him and the other humans there before. A few would call out, “I greet you, Tosevite!” as they went by. Jonathan always waved and answered when they did. Friendly relations, one Lizard at a time, he thought.
Every so often, a Lizard would stop what he was doing and want to talk. The ones with wigs and T-shirts were more likely to do that than the ones who didn’t try to imitate people. That made sense-they’d already proved their interest in mankind. Jonathan was glad whenever it happened. It let him-he hoped it let him-get an unfiltered view of what life on Home was like. Maybe Lizards who paused and came up to talk were government plants, but Jonathan didn’t think so. In the USSR or the Reich, he would have been suspicious of what strangers told him. He didn’t think the Race was so sophisticated about propaganda.
