He asked the question with real curiosity. He knew where Walter Stone stood on Yeager. He’d never been sure about the other pilot. Flynn’s deadpan wit made him hard to read.

Flynn didn’t answer right away. He didn’t seem happy about having to stand up and be counted. At last, he said, “They ought to let the man go home. They owe him that much. I wouldn’t leave a half-witted dog-or even a Marine-on Home for the rest of his days.”

“And I love you, too,” Johnson said sweetly. He was bound to be the longest-serving Marine in the history of the Corps.

“If you do, that proves you’ve been in space too long.” Yes, Flynn kept jabbing and feinting and falling back. Johnson wasn’t going to worry about it. However reluctantly, the other man had given him the answer he needed. It also happened to be the answer he’d wanted. So much the better, he thought. He hoped Yeager got back to Earth, and wondered what the place was like these days.

Two Lizards walked into the hotel in Sitneff. Sam Yeager sat in a human-style chair waiting for them. He got to his feet when they came in. “I greet you,” he called. “I greet both of you. It is good to see you again, Shiplord. And it is also good to see you again, Shuttlecraft Pilot.”

“You remember!” Nesseref said in surprise.

Yeager made the affirmative gesture. “I certainly do. You took my hatchling and me up to one of your ships in orbit around Tosev 3.”

“Truth-I did. I remembered, because I did not fly Tosevites very often, especially back then. That you should also recall the time-”

“We did not go up there all that often. Each time was interesting and exciting enough for every bit of it to be memorable.”

“Touching,” Straha said dryly, using the language of the Race. Then he switched to English: “It is very good to see you, old friend. I hope you are well.”

“As well as I can be, all things considered,” Sam answered.

“Good. I am glad to hear it. And here we are, together again: the two biggest traitors in the history of several worlds.”

“No. We did what needed doing.” Even though Sam was speaking English, he added an emphatic cough. Straha’s mouth dropped open in amusement. Sam went back to the Race’s language so Nesseref could follow, too: “And how is Tosev 3 these days? The two of you have seen much more of it than I have lately. That would be a truth even if you had come in cold sleep.”

“Since I came out of cold sleep myself, I have watched Tosevite technology change,” Nesseref said. “This is astonishing to me. I never would have expected to see the way individuals live change visibly in the course of part of a lifetime.”

Straha laughed again. “The change in the years between the coming of the conquest fleet and that of the colonization fleet was in some ways even larger, I think.”

“That may well be a truth,” Sam said. “We were adapting the Race’s technology in those first few years, and-”

“Stealing it, you mean,” Straha broke in.

“If you like.” Sam didn’t argue, not when that held so much truth. “But we did adapt it, too, and use it in ways you never thought of. You also have to remember that our technology had been changing rapidly even before the Race came to Tosev 3. If it had not been, you would have conquered us.”

“Well, that is a truth,” Straha said. “We should have conquered you, too-that is another truth. Atvar will tell you differently, but it is a truth. Had I been in command, we would have done it. But our officers were afraid of change, and so they went on doing the same old thing.” He laughed again. “Look how well that worked out.”

He’d been saying the same old thing ever since he went into exile in the United States. Maybe he was right, maybe he was wrong. Sam suspected he was wrong. To him, the only way the Race could have conquered Earth was by using enough nuclear weapons to leave it unfit for anyone to live on. With the colonization fleet already on its way, the Lizards couldn’t have done that. Sam didn’t argue with Straha. What point to it? All he said was, “No one will ever know now.”

“Atvar knows. In his liver, he knows. This is his fault, no one else‘s.” Straha spoke with a certain dour satisfaction.

Again, what point to arguing? Yeager knew Atvar would deny everything Straha said. How sincere would the fleetlord be when he did? That was hard to tell even with people, let alone with Lizards. Sam said, “Come into the refectory with me, both of you. We can eat together, and you can tell me about Tosev 3 these days-and about your trip here on the Commodore Perry. ”

“It shall be done, and on your expense account, too,” Straha said. “I shall order something expensive, something I have not tasted since before I went into cold sleep for the journey to Tosev 3.”

“Go ahead,” Sam said. “Be my guests, both of you. As a matter of fact, the imperial government is picking up the tab for us for the time being. I suspect that will not last too much longer. Banking between solar systems will become much more practical if news of transactions does not require a good-sized part of someone’s lifetime to go from one to another.”

“No doubt that is a truth, superior sir,” Nesseref said.

“I do not care whether it is a truth,” Straha declared. “All I care about is that I shall eat well-I shall eat delightfully well-and someone else will pay for it. If this is not the ideal in such affairs, I do not know what would be.”

“Spoken like a male who has spent too much time on the lecture circuit,” Sam said.

“There is a truth!” Straha used an emphatic cough. “The only difference is, meals on the lecture circuit are usually not worth the savoring. This does not stop me from eating them, you understand, only from enjoying them as much as I might.” He hadn’t been so cheerfully mercenary when Sam first knew him. Had life in the United States changed him? Or had living as a celebrity rather than a military officer after he returned to the Race done the job? Sam didn’t know. He wondered if Straha did.

“They have made furniture for your shape, I see,” Nesseref said as she walked into the refectory with Yeager and Straha.

“They have tried,” Sam agreed. “It is not perfect, but it is better for us than what you use. Our backs and hips align differently from yours, and our fundaments have a different shape.” Lizards didn’t have much in the way of buttocks and did have tailstumps. Humans could sit in chairs made for them, but the experience wasn’t enjoyable.

A server brought menus. “Ah, plerkappi!” Straha said. “I have not had plerkappi for a very long time. No Tosevite seafood comes close to them. Have you tried them, Sam?”

“Once or twice,” Sam answered. “The flavor is a little too strong for my taste.” They reminded him of clams that had started to go bad. If Straha fancied them, he was welcome to his share and Sam’s besides.

Nesseref ordered them, too, so maybe they really were something travelers coming back after a long time away would crave. Yeager stuck to azwaca cutlets. Straha sneered. Sam didn’t care. Straha also sneered when he ordered unflavored alcohol. “All you want to do is poison yourself with it,” the Lizard said. “You should enjoy it.”

“I do not enjoy your flavorings,” Sam Yeager said. “And you were not fond of whiskey, either.”

“But that is different,” Straha said. “Who would want to drink burnt wood? You might as well drink paint or cabinet cleaner.”

Sam thought the Race’s flavorings every bit as nasty as paint. “No accounting for taste,” he said, and let it go at that.

“Well, there is a truth,” Straha agreed. The way his mouth fell open and the way his eye turrets moved were the Race’s equivalent of a sly laugh. “Look at my choices in friends, for instance.”

“I will try not to hold it against you,” Yeager said, and Straha laughed again. Sam tried for the third time: “So how is Tosev 3 these days?”

“It is a very strange place,” Straha said. Nesseref made the affirmative gesture. Straha added, “Even those parts of it ruled by the Race are strange these days.” Nesseref agreed again.

“This is interesting, but it tells me less than I might like to know,” Sam said. “In what ways is Tosev 3 strange?”

“Part of the strangeness is staying the same ourselves while we watch the Big Uglies change all around us,” Nesseref said. “This is not only strange, it is frightening.”

“She is right,” Straha said. “It is as if we are a big pot in water. When we first came to Tosev 3, the water outside was, say, halfway to the top. We had no great trouble holding it out. It has climbed up and up and up ever since. Now it is lapping over the edge, and will flood everything inside. And the Big Uglies know it, too.”

“Who was that male from the SSSR some years ago?” Nesseref asked. “ ‘We will bury you,’ he said, and he might well have been right.”

“I remember that. It was before I went into cold sleep,” Sam said. “His name was Khrushchev, and he was a nasty piece of work.”

“No doubt he was,” Straha said. “That does not necessarily mean he was wrong. Sometimes I think the nastier a Big Ugly is, the more likely he is to be right. This is not a reassuring thought for a male of the Race to have.”

“When I was first revived on Tosev 3, we could do many things you wild Tosevites could not,” Nesseref said. “Your military could come close to matching ours, but our civilian life was far richer and more pleasant. One by one, you acquired the things you did not have. Now you have things we do not.”

“And, for the most part, we are not acquiring them.” Straha made the negative gesture. “No-we are acquiring them by purchase from the Big Uglies. We are not making them ourselves. That is not good.”

“And now this,” Nesseref said. “Here we are, back on Home, and in days rather than years.”

“This, I gather, you decline to sell to us,” Straha put in.

“Well… yes,” Sam said.

“I cannot blame you,” Straha said. “If I were a Big Ugly, I would not sell this technology to the Race, either. We tried to conquer you. Thanks to Atvar, we did not quite succeed, but we tried. I would not blame you for returning the favor.”

“We do not want to conquer anyone.” Sam used an emphatic cough. The refectory was bound to be bugged. “All we want to do is live in peace with our neighbors, both the other independent Tosevites and the Empire.”

“Yes, the Empire is your neighbor now-your near neighbor,” Straha said. “It is no longer the monster down the hall that stuck a clawed paw into your room. But now, to the Race, you are the monster down the hall.”