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“What about being good Americans?” Mickey’s mouth gave his English a slightly hissing flavor. Other than that, it was pure California. “We are, aren’t we?” He sounded anxious.
“Sure you are,” Karen said, and meant it. “That’s part of the reason why somebody will help take care of you-because you’ve been so good.”
Mickey seemed reassured. Donald didn’t. “Aren’t Americans supposed to take care of themselves?” he asked. “That’s what we learned when you and Grandpa Sam taught us.”
“Well… yes.” Karen couldn’t very well deny that. “But you’re not just Americans, you know. You‘re, uh, special.”
“Why?” Donald asked. “Because we’re short?”
He laughed out loud, which showed how completely American he was: the Race didn’t do that when it was amused. Karen laughed, too. The question had come from out of the blue and hit her right in the funny bone.
She had to answer him, though. “No, not because you’re short. Because you’re you.”
“It might be interesting to see Home,” Mickey said. “Maybe we could go there, too, one of these days.”
Did he sound wistful? Karen thought so. She didn’t suppose she could blame him. Kassquit had sometimes shown a longing to come down to Earth and see what it was like. Karen wasn’t sorry Kassquit hadn’t got to indulge that longing. Worry about diseases for which she had no immunity had kept her up on an orbiting starship till she went into cold sleep. Those same worries might well apply in reverse to Mickey and Donald.
No sooner had that thought crossed Karen’s mind than Donald said, “I bet the Lizards could immunize us if we ever wanted to go.”
“Maybe they could,” Karen said, amused he called the Race that instead of its proper name. She doubted the U.S. government would ever let him and Mickey leave even if they wanted to. That wasn’t fair, but it likely was how things worked. She went on, “For now, though, till everything gets sorted out, do you think you can stay here with Bruce and Richard?” Stanford had promised her older son graduate credit for at least a year’s worth of Lizard-sitting. Where could he get better experience dealing with the Race than this?
“Sure!” Mickey said, and Donald nodded. Mickey added, “It’ll be the hottest bachelor pad in town.”
That set Karen helplessly giggling again. Until Mickey met a female of the Race in heat and giving off pheromones, his interest in the opposite sex was purely theoretical. But, because he’d been raised as a human, he didn’t think it ought to be. And Bruce and Richard would love a hot bachelor pad. Their interest in females of their species was anything but theoretical.
Doubt tore at Karen. Was this worth it, going off as if dying (and perhaps dying in truth-neither cold sleep nor the Admiral Peary could be called perfected even by human standards, let alone the sterner ones the Race used) and leaving all the people who mattered to her (in which she included both humans and Lizards) to fend for themselves? Was it?
The doubt didn’t last long. If she hadn’t wanted, hadn’t hungered, to learn as much about the Race as she could, would she have started studying it all those years ago? She shook her head. She knew she wouldn’t have, any more than Jonathan would.
No, she wanted to go aboard the Admiral Peary more than anything else. She wished she could go and come back in a matter of weeks, not in a stretch of time that ran closer to the length of a man’s life. She wished that, yes, but she also understood she couldn’t have what she wished. Being unable to have it made her sad, made her wish things were different, but wouldn’t stop her.
The day finally came when all the arrangements were made, when nothing was left to do. Richard drove Karen and Jonathan from their home in Torrance up to the heart of Los Angeles. Bruce rode along, too. Richard would, of course, drive the Buick back. Why not? He could use it. Even if everything went perfectly and Karen did come back to Earth and Southern California one day, the Buick would be long, long gone.
Richard and Bruce might be gone, too. Karen didn’t care to think about that. It made her start to puddle up, and she didn’t want to do that in front of her sons. She squeezed them and kissed them. So did Jonathan, who was usually more standoffish. But this was a last day. Her husband knew that as well as she did. Not death, not quite-they had to hope not, anyhow-but close enough for government work. Karen laughed. It was government work.
After last farewells, her sons left. If they were going to puddle up, they probably didn’t want Jonathan and her to see it. She reached for her husband’s hand. He was reaching for hers at the same time. His fingers felt chilly, not from the onset of cold sleep but from nerves. She was sure hers did, too. Her heart pounded a mile a minute.
A man wearing a white coat over khaki uniform trousers came out from behind a closed door. “Last chance to change your mind, folks,” he said.
Karen and Jonathan looked at each other. The temptation was there. But she said, “No.” Her husband shook his head.
“Okay,” the Army doctor said. “First thing you need to do, then, is sign about a million forms. Once you’re done with those, we can get down to the real business.”
He exaggerated. There couldn’t have been more than half a million forms. Karen and Jonathan signed and signed and signed. After a while, the signatures hardly looked like theirs, the way they would have at the end of a big stack of traveler’s checks.
“Now what?” Karen asked after the doctor took away the last piece of paper with a horizontal line on it.
“Now I get to poke holes in you,” he said, and he did. Karen hung on to Jonathan’s hand while they both felt the drugs take hold.
“I love you,” Jonathan muttered drowsily. Karen tried to answer him. She was never quite sure if she succeeded.
2
A Big Ugly walked into the office at the Race’s headquarters in Cairo that Ttomalss was using. “I greet you, Senior Physician,” the psychologist said. “It was good of you to come here to talk to me.”
“And I greet you, Senior Researcher.” Dr. Reuven Russie spoke the Race’s language about as well as a Tosevite could. The hair had receded from the top of his head, as often happened with aging male Big Uglies, and what he had left was gray.
“Please-take a seat.” Ttomalss waved to the Tosevite-style chair he’d had brought into the office.
“I thank you.” Russie sat. “You are, I gather, interested in the American Tosevites’ progress on cold sleep.”
Ttomalss used the affirmative gesture. “That is correct. You will, I trust, understand why the issue is of considerable concern to us.”
“Oh, yes.” Reuven Russie’s head went up and down. The way he nodded was a subtle compliment to Ttomalss. An ignorant Big Ugly would have used his own gesture because he did not know what the Race did. A Tosevite who knew more would have imitated the Race’s gesture. Russie, who knew more still, knew Ttomalss was an expert on Big Uglies and so of course would understand a nod even where some other member of the Race might not. The
physician went on, “I think they know enough to fly between the stars. That is what concerns you, is it not?”
“Truth.” Ttomalss’ tailstump twitched in agitation. “But how can this be so? It is only a little more than fifty local years since we came to Tosev 3. Before then, neither the Americans nor any other Tosevites would have had the least interest in cold sleep. And they have had to adapt our techniques to their biochemistry, which is far from identical to ours.”
“Every word you say is true,” Reuven Russie replied. “I do not know the details of their techniques. They keep them secret. But I can infer what they know by what they do not talk about. Lately, they do not talk about a great many things, enough so the silence is likely to cover all they need to know of this art.”
“I had arrived at a similar conclusion,” Ttomalss said unhappily. “I was hoping you would tell me I was wrong. When trying to figure out what Tosevites are capable of, the worst conclusion a male of the Race can draw is usually not bad enough.”
“I do not know what to do about that,” the Big Ugly said. “But I can tell you where some of the differences arise. How long has the Race known cold sleep?”
“More than thirty-two thousand of our years-half as many of yours,” Ttomalss answered. “We developed it when we knew we would send out our first conquest fleet, the one that brought Rabotev 2 into the Empire. That was twenty-eight thousand years ago.”
“You started working on it… four thousand of your years before you needed it.” Russie let out a soft, shrill whistle. Ttomalss had heard that sound before; it meant bemusement. Gathering himself, the Big Ugly said, “That is even longer than I had thought. And now, of course, you take it completely for granted.”
“Yes, of course,” Ttomalss said, wondering where Russie was going with this. “Why should we not? We had it largely perfected for the first conquest fleet, and have made small improvements in the process from time to time ever since. We want things to work as well as they possibly can.”
