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Turning to the guards, Karen said, “Can you please keep the reporters away from her? She is too tired to answer questions right away.”
“It shall be done, superior sir.” The Lizards still had as much trouble telling humans’ sexes apart as people did with them. Karen couldn’t get too annoyed, though, because the guards did do what she’d asked. The reporters shouted their questions anyhow, but they had to do it from a distance.
Dr. Blanchard waved to them. That took effort, too. “I am glad to be here,” she called in the language of the Race. She didn’t look or sound glad. She looked as if she wanted to fall over. And when she got to Karen and Jonathan, she sank into one of the seats by them regardless of how uncomfortable it was. “Whew!” she said. Sweat gleamed on her face. “Can I rest for a little while before we go on?”
“Sure,” Jonathan said. “How are you?”
“Hammered,” she answered frankly. “I remember I used to take gravity for granted. What I don’t remember is how. I feel like I’ve got two great big football players strapped to my back.”
“You’ll get used to it again,” Karen said.
Melanie Blanchard nodded. Even that looked anything but easy for her. “I suppose I will,” she said. “In the meantime, though, I’m a shambling wreck-only I can’t shamble for beans, either.”
One of the Lizard guards came up to her and bent into the posture of respect. “I greet you, superior female. Shall we now return to the hotel where your species stays?”
“I thank you, but please let me rest first,” she replied. “I have been weightless for a very long time, and I need a little while to get used to being back in gravity again.”
The guard made the affirmative gesture. “As you say, so shall it be.” He went back to holding off the reporters.
“I wish it were, ‘As you say, so shall it be,’ ” Dr. Blanchard said in English. “Then I’d tell myself everything was fine, and it would be-‘physician, heal thyself.’ I’d love to. Only problem is, I can’t.”
“When we do go back to the hotel, you can stretch out on a sleeping mat,” Karen said. “Then come over to our room, if you’ve got the energy. We’ve got ice cubes. As near as I can tell, they’re the only ones on the planet.” She spoke with what she hoped was pardonable pride.
“And we’ve got the Race’s equivalent of vodka,” Jonathan added. “What they use for flavored liquor is amazingly nasty-of course, they think the same thing about scotch and bourbon. But this is just ethyl alcohol cut with water. You can drink it warm, but Karen’s right-it’s better cold.”
“Vodka over ice sounds wonderful. Getting up off the sleeping mat and going to your room…” Dr. Blanchard laughed ruefully and shook her head. “Maybe if I say pretty please, you’ll bring me a drink instead?”
“That might be arranged,” Karen said.
“We’ll be friends forever if it can,” Melanie Blanchard said. “Is the car back to the hotel very far from here?”
“About as far as it was from the shuttlecraft to where you are,” Jonathan answered.
The doctor heaved herself to her feet. She wobbled for a moment. Jonathan held out his arm. She took it, but then steadied and stood on her own. To the guard, she called, “I am ready to go to the car now, as long as I do not have to move too fast.”
“Set whatever pace you please, superior female,” the Lizard replied. “Our orders are to accommodate ourselves to your needs.”
“I thank you. That is very kind.” Dr. Blanchard dropped back into English to tell Karen and Jonathan, “Why don’t you lead the way? You know where you’re going, and I haven’t got the faintest idea.”
“I don’t think we’ll lead. I think we’ll go one on each side of you, in case you need propping up,” Jonathan said. That turned out to be a good idea. Dr. Blanchard walked as if she were a St. Bernard plowing through thick snow. Home’s gravity field seemed harder for her than drifts after a blizzard were for a dog. The Lizard carrying her suitcases followed, while the guards spread out on all sides.
When they reached the car, she sank down into a seat with a groan of pleasure. “This one even fits my butt,” she said happily. “All the time in the world on an exercise bike up there isn’t the same as ten minutes in gravity, believe you me it isn’t.”
She seemed a little better by the time they got back to the hotel. That relieved Karen; she’d feared the doctor would be in no shape to take care of herself, let alone anybody else. But Melanie Blanchard walked more easily than she had before, and even paused briefly to talk with reporters waiting outside. She might need a while to do a thorough job of adjusting, but it seemed likely she would.
When the humans went into the lobby, Karen’s father-in-law met them with an expression she found hard to fathom. Was it grim, or was he swallowing a belly laugh? He sounded grim when he said, “We have a… situation here.”
“What’s up, Dad?” Jonathan asked.
“A cleaning crew went into your room while you were out meeting Dr. Blanchard,” Sam Yeager answered. “They were fooling with the rats’ cages. We’ve had an escape.”
“Oh, dear,” Melanie Blanchard said. “I was hoping to do some work with them.”
“That’s not the problem,” Karen said, which was, if anything, an understatement.
Sam Yeager nodded. “No, it’s not. The Race told us they’d raise holy hell if anything of ours got loose on Home. We promised on a stack of Bibles we wouldn’t let the critters loose-and we didn’t.”
“They don’t care what they’ve done to Earth’s ecology,” Karen said. “They claim that’s not their worry. But if we return the favor, it’s a different story. How many got away?”
“Eight or ten, I think,” her father-in-law answered. “You’ll know better than I do when you see your room, because you have a better notion of how the cages were laid out. But as of now, I’m open to suggestions.”
“Why should we worry?” Karen said. “It’s the Lizards’ own fault. If they want to catch the rats, tell ’em to buy a cat.”
Everybody laughed. Dr. Blanchard said, “Excuse me,” and sat down on the edge of a table. That was probably more comfortable than perching in what the Race used for chairs. The table was flat, not curved the wrong way for a human fundament.
“They are setting traps,” Sam Yeager said. “I have no idea how much good that will do
. Can they find something rats really want to eat? Can the rats find something to eat and drink on their own?” He spread his hands. “I don’t know about that, either. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode, and we’ll find out.”
“They’ll have vermin of their own.” Dr. Blanchard looked and sounded happier sitting down. “They’ll have creatures that hunt vermin, too. The next interesting question may be whether those creatures feel like hunting rats.”
“Befflem, tsiongyu, and their wild cousins, I’d expect,” Jonathan said. “Yes, that could be mighty interesting. Befflem have turned into godawful nuisances back on Earth. There’d be a sort of poetic justice if rats did the same thing here.”
“I doubt the Race would appreciate it,” his father said dryly. “But they can’t blame us for the escape. They did it themselves. I wouldn’t want to be one of those cleaners right now, not for all the tea in China I wouldn’t.”
“If I wake up and find myself nose to nose with a rat, I’ll probably scream,” Karen said.
“If I wake up and find myself nose to nose with a rat, I’ll probably scream, too,” Sam Yeager said. “That’ll scare the rat out of a year’s growth, but I don’t suppose it’ll do much else.”
“If anything Earthly can establish itself on Home, I’d bet on rats,” Dr. Blanchard said thoughtfully. “They’ve evolved to live anywhere and eat anything. And they’ve evolved to live in cities alongside people. They might feel right at home here on Home.”
“That occurred to me, too,” Sam Yeager said. “I don’t know if it’s fully occurred to the Race yet. You have to have lived on Earth for a while before you understand just what pests rats can be, and there aren’t that many Lizards here who have.”
“If they don’t get it now, they will pretty soon,” Karen said.
“They may, anyhow,” Jonathan said. “Maybe rats can’t make it here. Maybe they won’t find anything to eat. Maybe the exterminators will get ’em. Maybe something local will think they’re delicious.”
