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One very ordinary, unwigged, unclothed Lizard didn’t seem sophisticated at all. After looking Jonathan over from head to foot (his moving eye turrets made the process obvious), the male said, “So you are one of those things they call Big Uglies, are you?”
Jonathan hid a smile, not that the Lizard would have known what one meant. He made the affirmative gesture. “Yes, I am a Big Ugly,” he agreed gravely.
“Do you by any chance know a male called Telerep?” the Lizard asked. “He went to Tosev 3 with the conquest fleet. He was a landcruiser gunner, and a friend of mine.”
“I am sorry, but no.” Sorry or not, Jonathan couldn’t help smiling now. “For one thing, I was hatched near the end of the fighting. For another, Tosev 3 is a planet the size of Home, even if it does have more water. Do you know where your friend served? It might have been halfway around the world from me.”
“No, I do not know that,” the male said. “Tosev 3 does not seem so big. I often wonder what happened to Telerep, and if he came through all right. He was a good fellow. We had some fine times together. I know a few males and females who have heard from friends who joined the conquest fleet, but not many. For most, well, it is a long way between here and your world.”
“That is a truth,” Jonathan said. “When I see our sun in the night sky as just another star, I realize how far it is.”
“Tosev, yes. Hard for me to think of it as anything but a star, you understand,” the Lizard said, and Jonathan made the affirmative gesture again. The Lizard went on, “We call the constellation Tosev is in the Sailing Ship. What is your name for it?”
“To us, it is the Herder,” Jonathan answered; that was as close a translation of Bootes as he could manage in the Lizards’ language. “Of course, when we see that constellation, we do not see our own sun in it.”
The Lizard drew back half a pace in surprise. Then his mouth fell open. “That is funny. I had not thought of it so, but you would not, would you? What do you call the constellation in which you see our sun?”
“That is the Whale,” Jonathan told him. He had to explain the key word, which came out in English: “A whale is a large creature that swims in our seas. Your sun is dimmer than ours. I mean no offense when I tell you it seems faint when we see it on Tosev 3.”
“I understand,” the Lizard replied. “Even if you are a wild Big Ugly, I must say you sound quite civilized.”
“I thank you,” Jonathan replied, not without irony. “So do you.”
That line drew different responses from different Lizards. This one laughed once more. “And I thank you, superior Tosevite.” His mouth dropped down yet again. “Are you a superior Tosevite or an inferior Tosevite? You have only those wrappings-no body paint to let me see what your rank is.” He straightened a little to show his own paint to Jonathan. “As you can tell, I am an optician, second grade.”
Actually, Jonathan couldn’t have told that without a chart. The Race’s system of using body paint to mark social distinctions went back to before Home was unified. It had been getting more complex since the days when men weren’t even painting mammoths on cave walls. Every seniority level in every occupation had its own distinctive pattern and colors. Lizards-and Rabotevs and Hallessi-read body paint as easily as they read the characters of their written language. Some humans were nearly that good. Jonathan wasn’t bad, but optician wasn’t one he recognized offhand.
He said, “If I had body paint, it would say I was an ambassador’s assistant.”
“Ambassador!” Another laugh came from the Lizard. “There is a very old-fashioned word, superior Tosevite. There have been no ambassadors since the days of ancientest history.”
“Again, I mean no offense, but I must tell you you are mistaken,” Jonathan said. “On Tosev 3, there have been ambassadors to and from the Race for nearly ninety years-ninety of ours, twice as many of yours. Where independent empires and not-empires meet as equals, they need ambassadors.”
“Independent empires and not-empires,” the male echoed. “What an… interesting phrase. I suppose I can imagine an independent empire; after all, you Big Uglies did not know about the Empire till we came. But what might a not-empire be? How else would you govern yourselves?”
“Well, there are several ways,” Jonathan said. “The not-empire we are from, the United States, is what we call a democracy. ” He said that word in English, then returned to the Race’s language: “That means giving all adult males and females a voice in how they are governed.” As best he could, he explained voting and representative government.
“Snoutcounting!” the optician exclaimed when Jonathan was done, and tapped his own snout with a fingerclaw. If Jonathan had had a nickel for every time he’d heard that derisive comment from a Lizard, he could have damn near bought the Admiral Peary. This male went on, “But what happens when the males and females being snoutcounted make a mistake?”
“We try to fix it,” Jonathan answered. “We can choose a new set of representatives if we are not happy with the ones in power. What happens when your government makes a mistake? You are stuck with it-is that not a truth?”
“Our government makes very few mistakes,” the Lizard said. On Earth, that would have been a boast with no truth behind it, a boast the USSR or the Reich would have made. Here on Home, it might well have been true.
But very few mistakes were different from no mistakes at all. Jonathan said, “I can think of one mistake your government made.”
“Speak. What could that be?” the male asked, plainly doubting it was anything of much weight.
“Trying to conquer Tosev 3,” Jonathan answered.
The Lizard said, “Well, that may be a truth, superior Big Ugly. Yes, it may be. Actually, I would say trying was not the difficulty. I would say the difficulty was failing.”
“A nice point.” Jonathan smiled again. “Are you sure you are not an attorney?”
One of the optician’s eye turrets rolled downward, as if he were examining his own body paint. “No, I seem to be what I am. So you Tosevites make jokes about attorneys, too, do you? We say they are the only males and females who can go into a revolving door behind someone else and come out ahead.”
He and Jonathan spent the next ten minutes trading lawyer jokes. Jonathan had to explain what a shark was before the one about professional courtesy made sense to the Lizard. Once the male got it, his mouth opened enormously wide-the Race’s equivalent of a belly laugh.
He said, “If you Big Uglies tell stories like those, you really will convince me you are civilized.”
“I thank you, though I was not worrying about it very much,” Jonathan answered. “Back on Tosev 3, we have stayed independent of the Race. We have come to Home in our own starship. If things like that do not make us civilized, can a few silly jokes do the job?”
“You never can tell,” the Lizard answered. “That is a truth, superior Big Ugly: you never can tell. Those other things may prove you are strong. Jokes, though, jokes show you can enjoy yourselves. And if being able to enjoy yourself is not a part of civilization, what is?”
Jonathan thought that over. Then he got off the bench and bent into the posture of respect before the startled Lizard. He got sand on his knees, but he didn’t care. “That is also a truth, and a very important one,” he said. “I thank you for reminding me of it.”
“Happy to be a help,” the Lizard said. As Jonathan straightened, the male added, “And now, if you will excuse me, I must be on my way.” He skittered off down the path.
Had he been an ordinary Lizard in the street, or had the government sent him by? After thinking that over, Jonathan slowly nodded to himself. A plant, he judged, would have been more likely to call him a Tosevite all the time, simply for politeness’ sake. This male either hadn’t known or more probably hadn’t cared that Big Ugly might be insulting. That argued that he was genuine. Jonathan hoped so. He’d liked him. He went back to the hotel room to write up the encounter while it was still fresh in his memory.
> In the room they shared, Karen Yeager read her husband’s notes. “Get into a revolving door in back of you and come out in front of you?” she said. “We tell that one.”
“I know,” Jonathan answered. “We can’t swap dirty jokes with the Lizards. We-”
“Too bad,” Karen broke in. “I can just see a bunch of guys and a bunch of males standing around in a bar, smoking cigarettes, and trading smut. Men!”
“Tell me gals don’t talk dirty when guys aren’t around to listen to it,” Jonathan said. Karen gave him a sour look, because she couldn’t. He laughed. “Told you so. Anyway, we can’t swap dirty jokes with the Race, because they don’t work the way we do, not for that. But jokes about the way society goes along-those are different.”
“I see.” Karen went a little farther in the notes. “So he liked the one about professional courtesy, did he?”
“I thought he’d bust a gut,” Jonathan answered. “I bet he’ll be telling it all over Sitneff today, changing the shark to one of their dangerous animals. They don’t have a lawyer joke just like that one, the way they do with some of the others.”
“They don’t have as many dangerous animals as we do, either,” Karen answered. “Maybe that’s why.”
“Maybe they don’t have as many dangerous lawyers.” With pretty good timing, her husband shook his head. “Nah, not likely.”
Karen made a horrible face. “If you want to tell dumb jokes with the Lizards, that’s fine. Kindly spare me.”
“It shall be done, superior female,” Jonathan said, dropping into the language of the Race. He didn’t bother returning to English as he went on, “When my father goes to see the Emperor, I wonder what we will be doing.”
