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“We see nothing wrong in manipulating the environment for our own benefit,” the fleetlord said. “That is one of the hallmarks of an intelligent species, would you not agree?”
“Manipulation is one thing, destruction something else altogether,” the American ambassador insisted.
“Very often, the difference lies in the point of view,” Atvar said. “Or will you tell me I am mistaken?” He waited. Sam Yeager used the negative gesture. Atvar respected his honesty. He went on, “This being so, you accuse us of being strong enough to make ourselves comfortable on a new world. To this I must plead guilty.”
“Who gave you the right to do that?” Sam Yeager asked.
“We gave it to ourselves, by being strong enough to do it,” Atvar replied.
Yeager studied him. “You say these words, Fleetlord, and you seem pleased with them. And I suppose you have reason to be pleased with them-now. But I tell you this: when I hear them, they are to me nothing to be pleased with. They are a judgment on your kind, a judgment on the whole Race. And judgments like that have a way of being fulfilled.”
Atvar stared at him in astonishment. He sounded more like one of the mullahs who’d made life so unpleasant for the Race on Tosev 3’s main continental mass than the highly civilized being the fleetlord knew him to be. “Do you threaten me, Ambassador?” Atvar demanded.
“No, Fleetlord,” the wild Big Ugly replied. “I do not threaten you if I say the sun will rise tomorrow, either. I simply observe.”
“If that is the sort of observation you are going to make, you would do better to keep it to yourself,” Atvar said coldly.
“As you wish, Fleetlord,” Sam Yeager said. “But have you not seen that the truth will come and find you regardless of whether anyone points it out to you ahead of time?”
Yes, he did sound like a mullah. “What I have not seen, in this particular instance, is that you are speaking truth,” Atvar said. Sam Yeager only shrugged. He spread his hands, as if to say, You will find out. Atvar deliberately turned his eye turrets away from those hands. To his annoyance, the American ambassador only laughed-a loud, grating Tosevite laugh.
At supper in the refectory that evening, Jonathan Yeager listened to his father’s account of the conversation with Atvar. Sam Yeager was speaking English: “I tell you, I felt like Daniel in the Old Testament. I was doing everything but shouting and waving my arms and yelling, ‘Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.’ ”
“How did he take it?” Dr. Melanie Blanchard asked.
“He got mad,” Sam answered. “I would have got mad, too, if somebody talked to me like that. But I still don’t think I’m wrong. If you’re that arrogant, it usually comes back and bites you.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you handled it just right,” Tom de la Rosa said. “What they’ve done to ecosystems back on Earth is a shame and a disgrace. They’d better not think we’re happy about it.”
“But now the shoe is on the other foot,” Jonathan said. “Now they’re worried about rats here, not zisuili and azwaca and befflem and all their plants back on Earth. The shoe pinches more when it’s on their foot.”
“Oh. The rats.” Dad snapped his fingers. “Almost forgot. We do have permission to bring down replacements.”
“You insulted Atvar, and you still got away with that?” Frank Coffey said. “Not bad, Ambassador. Not bad at all.” He clapped his hands together.
“I didn’t insult him till after he’d agreed.” Sam Yeager grinned. “Aren’t I sly?”
Everybody laughed. Jonathan said, “He didn’t change his mind afterwards?”
“Nope,” his father answered. “Or if he did, he didn’t tell me. If they shoot down the shuttlecraft with the rats in it, then we’ll know he was really angry.” That drew more laughs. Tom de la Rosa hoisted his glass of more-or-less vodka in salute. All the Americans drank.
A couple of tables away, Kassquit sat by herself. Sometimes she joined the other humans when they ate, sometimes she didn’t. That seemed to fit her betwixt-and-between nature: stuck between what she’d been born and what she’d been raised as. Having watched Mickey and Donald grow from their eggs into… fair copies of human beings, Jonathan thought he understood that better than most.
He scratched his head, which reminded him he needed to shave it again soon. Was he wrong, or had Kassquit been more standoffish than usual lately? After a moment’s thought, he nodded to himself. Unless he was wrong, she hadn’t eaten with the Americans since Dr. Blanchard came down from the Admiral Peary.
He switched to the language of the Race, calling, “Say, Researcher, will you not come over and eat with us?”
Karen gave him a hard look. He pretended not to notice. This had nothing to do with the fact that he and Kassquit had been lovers up on her starship in the early 1960s. He and Karen hadn’t been married yet, or even engaged. They had been going together, though, and his… research had almost spelled the end of that. This was just social. Jonathan really meant that. Because of what she was, Kassquit was to a certain degree isolated from everyone around her, humans and Lizards alike. Getting her to mingle wasn’t just diplomacy; it also felt like psychotherapy.
As usual, Kassquit’s face showed nothing. She might have been joyful, furious, gloomy-you couldn’t tell by looking. She said, “I did not think you would want me there, not when you were so busy using your own language.”
“We will speak yours if you do join us.” That wasn’t Jonathan-it was Melanie Blanchard. “We have no problem speaking the Race’s language, even if we are a little more comfortable with our own. The familiar is often welcome, especially when one is far from home.”
“Well, I suppose that could be a truth, if one had known anything resembling a home in one’s past,” Kassquit said. “I have concluded that a cubicle in a starship makes an inadequate substitute.”
“No doubt you are right,” Sam Yeager said, trying to smooth things over. “But if you join us, you may make a closer approach to something homelike than you would with the Race. Or, of course, you may not. But how will you know unless you try the experiment?”
“I do not think I can have a true home either with the Race or with you wild Tosevites,” Kassquit said unhappily. “If there were more Tosevite citizens of the Empire-not Tosevites raised as I was, necessarily, but those who live in the Empire’s culture despite their species-I might find more in common with them than I do with you or the Race.”
“There are probably a fair number of such persons on Tosev 3 now,” Jonathan’s father said. “This, of cour
se, does you no good at all here.”
“Truth,” Kassquit said. “And if I were to go back into cold sleep and seek them out on Tosev 3, who knows how things would change there by the time I arrived? Variability, I think, is the key to Tosevites generally.”
That was undoubtedly how humans seemed from the Race’s point of view-the one Kassquit naturally adopted as her own. But a lot of Lizards refused to see that changes in the way humans did things could affect them. Kassquit didn’t make that mistake, anyhow.
Frank Coffey said, “Do come sit with us, Kassquit.”
“You ask me this?” she said. “Are you certain you desire my company?”
Major Coffey made the affirmative gesture. “Of course I am,” he said, and added an emphatic cough.
Kassquit’s face still showed nothing. But she brought her plate to the table where the Americans were sitting. “Do you mind if I ask what you were talking about before?” she inquired.
“Mostly about the rats that were released here, and about bringing more of them down from the Admiral Peary so we can go on testing food,” Jonathan answered.
“Is that still necessary?” Kassquit asked. “Have the animals found many problems for you? I had no such aids when I woke up on Home, but I have eaten the food here and I am still well.”
“We would rather not take chances we do not have to take,” Dr. Melanie Blanchard said. “We would also rather avoid unpleasant surprises if we can. The Race can eat almost anything we Tosevites can eat on our world, but who would have expected the trouble ginger causes them?”
That seemed only common sense to Jonathan. He thought Kassquit would make the affirmative gesture; she was nothing if not logical. Instead, she let out an audible sniff. “How likely is this?”
Dr. Blanchard shrugged. The motion seemed easier and less of an effort than it would have right after she came down to the surface of Home. Little by little, she was getting reacquainted with gravity. She said, “Who knows? What is certain is that we would like to prevent it if possible. Do you object? Few members of the Race would, not on those grounds. The Race is more cautious than we Tosevites are.”
