“I can only hope it will be enough, and done soon enough,” Nesseref said, and then paused while the server set cutlets in front of Ttomalss and her. After the male left, she continued, “I had a friend who was a Jew-a Tosevite male named Mordechai Anielewicz. He had been a guerrilla leader when the conquest fleet came, sometimes opposing the Deutsche, sometimes opposing the Race. He eventually decided he could trust us. He never trusted them. Now his grandchildren are fully mature, but they like the Deutsche no better, and I cannot blame them.”
“The Jews are unlikely to be objective,” Ttomalss pointed out after swallowing a bite of zisuili meat. It was… all right. “They have no reason to be.”
“Truth-but the behavior of the Deutsche leads me to mistrust them, too.” Nesseref also took a bite. She ate with more enthusiasm than Ttomalss felt. “Do you recall the Deutsch pilot who attacked your ship during the war between the Reich and the Race? I flew him back down to Tosev 3. His name was Drucker.”
“I did not recall the name. I recall the Big Ugly.” Ttomalss used an emphatic cough. “What about him?”
“His hatchling belonged to one of the bandit groups the Deutsche set up after their defeat to resist the Race covertly,” Nesseref said.
“Wait.” Ttomalss let out a sharp hiss. “There was a Big Ugly called Drucker who served as the Reich ’s minister for air and space when the Deutsche began to admit they had such a position again.”
“That is the same male,” Nesseref said. “He was good at what he did, and cautious about putting his fingerclaws where they did not belong. His hatchling later rose to a high rank in the military of the Reich. ”
“A pity the Deutsche never quite gave us the excuse to suppress them altogether,” Ttomalss said.
“A great pity,” Nesseref agreed. “But then, one could say the same about the rest of the Tosevites. They were trouble enough when they managed to come to Home by any means at all. Now that their technology has got ahead of ours…” She didn’t go on. She didn’t have to, either.
Ttomalss made the affirmative gesture. He said, “We are doing what we can to catch up with them.” He didn’t go on, either. The wild Big Uglies were too likely to monitor what went on in the refectory.
Nesseref might not have realized that. But she did grasp the problem facing the Race, for she asked, “Can we endure until we do?”
“I hope so,” Ttomalss answered. “As you say, the Americans do approach civilization, at any rate.” He didn’t think the Big Uglies would be offended to hear that. They already knew what he and most members of the Race thought of them. But, as Nesseref had pointed out, the Americans were not the only Big Uglies. “As for the Deutsche… well, if they attack us here on Tosev 3, our colony can strike back at them as soon as it learns of what they have done-and either the Deutsche themselves or the Americans would bring word to Tosev 3 before our signals got there. The Reich is not large. It is vulnerable. Its not-emperor must realize this.”
“ ‘Must’ is a large word to use when speaking of big Uglies,” Nesseref said. “But I dare hope you are right.”
“So do I,” Ttomalss said. “So do I.”
When the Big Uglies decided it was time for Atvar to return to his own solar system, they didn’t fly him back on the Commodore Perry. The starship setting out for Home this time was called the Tom Edison. That the United States had built more than one ship that traveled faster than light worried him. The Race would have refined the first one till it was exactly the way they wanted it before making more. Tosevites didn’t worry about refinement. They just went ahead and did things.
And… it worked.
He did ask who Tom Edison was. Learning that the Big Ugly had been an inventor came as a small relief. At least they weren’t naming all these ships for warriors. He didn’t know how much that said about their intentions, but it did say something.
Sam Yeager came to the hotel room where he’d been politely and comfortably imprisoned to say good-bye. “I am surprised they let you in to see me,” Atvar said. “Do they not fear you will relay the secret orders I do not have to Reffet and Kirel, and so touch off our colony’s attack on your not-empire?”
“Some of them were afraid of that, yes,” the white-haired Big Ugly answered. “I managed to persuade them otherwise. It was not easy, but I managed. We have known each other a long time, you and I. We are not on the same side, but we are not enemies, either. Or I hope we are not.”
“Not through my eye turrets,” Atvar said. “And who knows? Maybe we shall see each other again. Now that cold sleep is no longer necessary-for your folk, anyhow-it could happen.”
“Well, so it could,” Yeager said. “If not for cold sleep, though, I would have died a long time ago. Even with it, who knows how much time I have?” He followed the interrogative cough with a shrug. “However long it is, I aim to try to make the most of it. Will you do me a favor when you get back to Home?”
“If it is anything I can do, I will,” Atvar replied.
“I thank you. I think you can. Send Kassquit my best, and my hatchling‘s.”
“It shall be done,” Atvar said. “Shall I also add a greeting from your hatchling’s mate?”
Sam Yeager laughed in the noisy Tosevite way. “If you like,” he answered. “But she would not send it, and Kassquit would not believe it if she got it. The two females did not get along as well as they might have.”
“This is unfortunate,” Atvar said. “Well, I think I will send it. Perhaps being light-years apart can bring peace between them.”
“Perhaps it can,” Yeager said. “I cannot think of anything else that would.”
The fleetlord endured another ride in a Tosevite-made shuttlecraft with a Big Ugly at the controls. The hop up to the orbiting Tom Edison was as smooth as it would have been going up to a ship orbiting Home. The pilot seemed perfectly capable. Atvar was nervous even so. Tosevites just didn’t take proper care in the things they made.
But they made things the Race couldn’t. The looming bulk of the Tom Edison as the shuttlecraft approached rubbed Atvar’s snout in that. “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” a uniformed American Big Ugly said when Atvar came through the air lock. “Let me take you to your room.”
“I thank you,” Atvar replied.
“It is my pleasure, Exalted Fleetlord,” the Tosevite male said. Atvar didn’t care for the way his title sounded in the Big Ugly’s mouth. Like Nicole Nichols back on Home, the male didn’t take it seriously.
Atvar stared as he followed the guide. Not being under acceleration, the ship had no gravity, and they both pulled themselves along by the handholds in the corridors. The Tom Edison struck Atvar as being better finished than the Commodore Perry. If the Race hadn’t been satisfied with the Commodore Perry, the ship never would have flown. The Big Uglies let it go out, hoped for the best, and improved the next one. Their way produced more progress-and, every now and then, disasters the Race would not have tolerated.
“Here we are,” the Tosevite said. “This room will be yours. Please stay here until we are under acceleration. You can access entertainment in your language through the computer. Food will be brought to you. If you want any special refreshments, you may request them.”
“But in the meanwhile, I am a prisoner,” Atvar said.
The Big Ugly used the negative gesture. “A guest.”
Atvar used it, too. “If I were a guest, I would be able to move freely.”
With a shrug, the American Tosevite said, “I am sorry, Exalted Fleetlord, but I have my orders.” He sounded not the least bit sorry.
When Atvar tried the door after going inside, he discovered it would open, which surprised him. He wasn’t quite a prisoner, then. That made him decide to stay where he was. He would have caused more trouble-as much as he could-if he had been locked up. Not till later did he wonder whether the Big Uglies would anticipate that.
A day and a half later, it stopped mattering. With a deep rumble he felt in his bones, the Tom Edison left its place in orbit and began the journey out to where it could leap the gap between Tosev 3’s solar system and the one of which Home was a part. Full acceleration took a while to build up. Atvar thought he was a trifle heavier than he had been aboard the Commodore Perry, but he could not be sure.
One of the first Big Uglies he saw on emerging from his chamber was Frank Coffey. His dark skin made him easy to recognize. His leaf emblem had changed color, which meant he was a lieutenant colonel now. “So you are returning to Home?” Atvar said.
“That is a truth, Exalted Fleetlord. I am,” Coffey said. “I managed to talk my government into sending me back. I would like to be with Kassquit when my hatchling comes forth-and I have more experience on Home than anyone there now.”
While the second reason would have influenced the Race, the first was exclusive to the Big Uglies. Atvar did not know who had sired him or who had laid his egg. Except for the Emperor’s line and the possibility of inherited diseases, such things mattered little to the Race.
“It will be good, I think, for the American Tosevites on Home to have someone from your generation there with them,” Atvar said. “I mean no offense-or not much, anyhow-when I say they make too much of themselves.”
“I have no idea whether they will pay any attention to me once I get there.” Coffey sounded wryly amused. Atvar thought so, anyhow, though Big Uglies could still confuse him. The American officer went on, “My government says they are supposed to, but even with these new ships my government is a long way away.” He shrugged. “Well, we shall see what we shall see. However that works out, I am going back to Home, and I will be there when the hatchling comes forth.”
We shall see what we shall see. Atvar thought about that after he went back to his room. It was a truth, but not, for him, a comfortable one. What he feared he would see, if he lived long enough, was the ruination of his species. And he did not know what he could do to stop it.
The journey back to Home was as boring as the one to Tosev 3 had been. Part of him hoped the Tom Edison would have a mishap, even if it killed him. Then he wouldn’t have to admit to everyone on Home that he’d crossed between stars twice in much less than a year, even counting the time he’d spent on the Big Uglies’ native world waiting for them to get ready to send him back.