Harry Turtledove - Homeward Bound

HOMEWARD BOUND

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Harry Turtledove

Homeward Bound is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used

ficitiously.

Conventions. Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of

Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. First hardcover

edition: December 2004. Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

1

Fleetlord Atvar pressed his fingerclaw into the opening for a control. There is a last time for everything, he thought with dignity

as a holographic image sprang into being above his desk. He’d studied the image of that armed and armored Big Ugly a great

many times indeed in the sixty years—thirty of this planet’s slow revolutions around its star—since coming to Tosev 3.

The Tosevite rode a beast with a mane and a long, flowing tail. He wore chainmail that needed a good scouring to get rid

of the rust. His chief weapon was an iron-tipped spear. The spearhead also showed tiny flecks of rust, and some not so tiny.

To protect himself against similarly armed enemies, the Tosevite carried a shield with a red cross painted on it.

Another poke of the fingerclaw made the hologram disappear. Atvar’s mouth fell open in an ironic laugh. The Race had

expected to face that kind of opposition when it sent its conquest fleet from Home to Tosev 3. Why not? It had all seemed

so reasonable. The probe had shown no high technology anywhere on the planet, and the conquest fleet was only sixteen

hundred years behind—eight hundred years here. How much could technology change in eight hundred years?

Back on Home, not much. Here... Here, when the conquest fleet arrived, the Big Uglies had been fighting an immense

war among themselves, fighting not with spears and beasts and chainmail but with machine guns, with cannon-carrying

landcruisers, with killercraft that spat death from the air, with radio and telephones. They’d been working on guided missiles

and on nuclear weapons.

And so, despite battles bigger and fiercer than anyone back on Home could have imagined, the conquest fleet hadn’t quite

conquered. More than half the land area of Tosev 3 had come under its control, but several not-empires—a notion of

government that still seemed strange to Atvar—full of Big Uglies (and, not coincidentally, full of nuclear weapons) remained

independent. Atvar couldn’t afford to wreck the planet to beat the Tosevites into submission, not with the colonization fleet

on the way and only twenty local years behind the fleet he commanded. The colonists had to have somewhere to settle.

He’d never expected to need to learn to be a diplomat. Being diplomatic with the obstreperous Big Uglies wasn’t easy.

Being diplomatic with the males and females of the conquest fleet had often proved even harder. They’d expected everything

to be waiting for them and in good order when they arrived. They’d expected a conquered planet full of submissive

primitives. They’d been loudly and unhappily surprised when they didn’t get one. Here ten local years after their arrival, a lot

of them still were.

Atvar’s unhappy musings—and had he had any other kind since coming to Tosev 3?—cut off when his adjutant walked

into the room. Pshing’s body paint, like that of any adjutant, was highly distinctive. On one side, it showed his own not

particularly high rank. On the other, it matched the body paint of his principal—and Atvar’s pattern, as befit his rank, was the

most ornate and elaborate on Tosev 3.

Pshing bent into the posture of respect. Even his tailstump twitched to one side. “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” he said

in the hissing, popping language of the Race.

“And I greet you,” Atvar replied.

Straightening, Pshing said, “They are waiting for you.”

“Of course they are,” Atvar said bitterly. “Eaters of carrion always gather to feast at a juicy corpse.” His tailstump quivered

in anger.

“I am sorry, Exalted Fleetlord.” Pshing had the courtesy to sound as if he meant it. “But when the recall order came from

Home, what could you do?”

“I could obey, or I could rebel,” Atvar answered. His adjutant hissed in horror at the very idea. Among the Race, even

saying such things was shocking. There had been mutinies and rebellions here on Tosev 3. Perhaps more than anything else,

that told what sort of place this was. Atvar held up a placating hand. “I obey. I will go into cold sleep. I will return to Home.

Maybe by the time I get there, those who will sit in judgment on me will have learned more. Our signals, after all, travel twice

as fast as our starships.”

“Truth, Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing said. “Meanwhile, though, as I told you, those who wish to say farewell await you.”

“I know they do.” Atvar waggled his lower jaw back and forth as he laughed, to show he was not altogether amused.

“Some few, perhaps, will be glad to see me. The rest will be glad to see me—go.” He got to his feet and sardonically made as

if to assume the posture of respect before Pshing. “Lead on. I follow. Why not? It is a pleasant day.”

The fleetlord even meant that. Few places on Tosev 3 fully suited the Race; most of this world was cold and damp

compared to Home. But the city called Cairo was perfectly temperate, especially in summertime. Pshing held the door open

for Atvar. Only the great size of that door, like the height of the ceiling, reminded Atvar that Big Uglies had built the place

once called Shepheard’s Hotel. As the heart of the Race’s rule on Tosev 3, it had been extensively modified year after year. It

would not have made a first-class establishment back on Home, perhaps, but it would have been a decent enough

second-class place.

When Atvar strode into the meeting hall, the males and females gathered there all assumed the posture of respect—all

save Fleetlord Reffet, the commander of the colonization fleet, the only male in the room whose body paint matched Atvar’s

in complexity. Reffet confined himself to a civil nod. Civility was as much as Atvar had ever got from him. He’d usually had

worse, for Reffet had never stopped blaming him for not presenting Tosev 3 to the colonists neatly wrapped up and

decorated.

To Atvar’s surprise, a handful of tall, erect Tosevites towered over the males and females of the Race. Because they did

not slope forward from the hips and because they had no tailstumps, their version of the posture of respect was a clumsy

makeshift. Their pale, soft skins and the cloth wrappings they wore stood out against the clean simplicity of green-brown

scales and body paint.

“Did we have to have Big Uglies here?” Atvar asked. “If it were not for the trouble the Big Uglies caused us, I would not

be going Home now.” I would be Atvar the Conqueror, remembered in history forever. I will be remembered in history, all right, but not the

way I had in mind before I set out with the conquest fleet.

“When some of them asked to attend, Exalted Fleetlord, it was difficult to say no,” Pshing replied. “That one there, for

instance—the one with the khaki wrappings and the white fur on his head—is Sam Yeager.”

“Ah.” Atvar used the affirmative hand gesture. “Well, you are right. If he wanted to be here, you could not very well have

excluded him. Despite his looks, he might as well be a member of the Race himself. He has done more for us than most of

the males and females in this room. Without him, we probably would have fought the war that annihilated the planet.”

He strode through the crowd toward the Big Ugly, ignoring his own kind. No doubt they would talk about his bad

manners later. Since this was his last appearance on Tosev 3, he didn’t care. He would do as he pleased, not as convention

dictated. “I greet you, Sam Yeager,” he said.

“And I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” Yeager replied in the language of the Race. His accent was mushy, as a Big Ugly’s

had to be. But the rhythms of his speech could almost have come from Home. More than any other Tosevite, he thought

like a male of the Race. “I wish you good fortune in your return. And I also want you to know how jealous I am of you.”

“Of me? By the Emperor, why?” When Atvar spoke of his sovereign, he swung his eye turrets so he looked down to the

ground as a token of respect and reverence. He hardly even knew he did it; such habits had been ingrained in him since

hatchlinghood.

“Why? Because you are going Home, and I wish I could see your world.”

Atvar laughed. “Believe me, Sam Yeager, some things are better wished for than actually obtained.” Would he have said

that to one of his own species? Probably not. It somehow seemed less a betrayal and more a simple truth when told to a

Tosevite.

Yeager made the affirmative gesture, though it was not one Big Uglies used among themselves. “That is often true. I am

jealous even so,” he said. “Exalted Fleetlord, may I present to you my hatchling, Jonathan Yeager, and his mate, Karen

Yeager?”

“I am pleased to meet you,” Atvar said politely.

Both of the other Big Uglies assumed the posture of respect. “We greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” they said together in the

Race’s language. The female’s voice was higher and shriller than the male‘s. Her head fur was a coppery color. Jonathan Yeager

cut off all the fur on his head except for the two strips above his small, immobile eyes; Big Uglies used those as signaling

devices. Many younger Tosevites removed their head fur in an effort to seem more like members of the Race. Little by little,

assimilation progressed.

On Tosev 3, though, assimilation was a two-way street. In colder parts of the planet, males and females of the Race wore

Tosevite-style cloth wrappings to protect themselves from the ghastly weather. And, thanks to the unfortunate effects of the

herb called ginger, the Race’s patterns of sexuality here had to some degree begun to resemble the Big Uglies’ constant and

revolting randiness. Atvar sighed. Without ginger, his life would have been simpler. Without Tosev 3, my life would have been

simpler, he thought glumly.

“Please excuse me,” he told the Yeagers, and went off to greet another Tosevite, the foreign minister—foreign commissar

was the term the not-empire preferred—of the SSSR. The male called Gromyko had features almost as immobile as if he

belonged to the Race.

He spoke in his own language. A Tosevite interpreter said, “He wishes you good fortune on your return to your native

world.”

“I thank you,” Atvar said, directly to the Tosevite diplomat. Gromyko understood the language of the Race, even if he

seldom chose to use it. His head bobbed up and down, his equivalent of the affirmative gesture.

Shiplord Kirel came up to Atvar. Kirel had commanded the 127th Emperor Hetto, the bannership of the conquest fleet. “I

am glad you are able to go Home, Exalted Fleetlord,” he said, “but this recall is undeserved. You have done everything in

your power to bring this world into the Empire.”

“We both know that,” Atvar replied. “Back on Home, what do they know? Signals take eleven local years to get there, and

another eleven to get back. And yet they think they can manage events here from there. Absurd!”

“They do it on the other two conquered planets,” Kirel said.

“Of course they do.” Atvar scornfully wiggled an eye turret. “With the Rabotevs and the Hallessi, nothing ever happens.”

Seeing that Ttomalss, the Race’s leading expert on Big Uglies, was at the reception, Atvar went over to him. “I greet you,

Exalted Fleetlord,” the senior psychologist said. “It is a pleasure to find Sam Yeager at your reception.”

“He is your corresponding fingerclaw on the other hand, is he not?” Atvar said, and Ttomalss made the affirmative

gesture. The fleetlord asked, “And how is Kassquit these days?”

“She is well. Thank you for inquiring,” Ttomalss answered. “She still presents a fascinating study on the interaction of

genetic and cultural inheritances.”

“Indeed,” Atvar said. “I wonder what she would make of Home. A pity no one has yet developed cold-sleep techniques

for the Tosevite metabolism. As for me, I almost welcome the oblivion cold sleep will bring. The only pity is that I will have

to awaken to face the uncomprehending fools I am bound to meet on my return.”

Sam Yeager looked at the doctor across the desk from him. Jerry Kleinfeldt, who couldn’t have been above half his age,

looked back with the cocksure certainty medical men all seemed to wear these days. It wasn’t like that when I was a kid, Yeager

thought. It wasn’t just that he’d almost died as an eleven-year-old in the influenza epidemic of 1918. Back then, you could

die of any number of things that were casually treatable now. Doctors had known it, too, and shown a little humility.

Humility, though, had gone out of style with the shingle bob and the Charleston.

Kleinfeldt condescended to glance down at the papers on his desk. “Well, Colonel Yeager, I have to tell you, you’re in

damn good shape for a man of seventy. Your blood pressure’s no higher than mine, no sign of malignancy, nothing that

would obviously keep you from trying this, if you’re bound and determined to do it.”

“Oh, I am, all right,” Sam Yeager said. “Being who you are, being what you are, you’ll understand why, too, won’t you?”

“Who, me?” When Dr. Kleinfeldt grinned, it made him look even more like a kid than he did already—which, to

Yeager’s jaundiced eye, was quite a bit. The fluorescent lights overhead gleamed off his shaven scalp. Given what he

specialized in, was it surprising he’d ape the Lizards as much as a mere human being could?

But suddenly, Sam had no patience for joking questions or grins. “Cut the crap,” he said, his voice harsh. “We both

know that if the government gave a good goddamn about me, they wouldn’t let me be a guinea pig. But they’re glad to let

me give it a try, and they halfway hope it doesn’t work. More than halfway, or I miss my guess.”

Kleinfeldt steepled his fingers. Now he looked steadily back at Sam. The older man realized that, despite his youth,

despite the foolishness he affected, the doctor was highly capable. He wouldn’t have been involved with this project if he

weren’t. Picking his words with care, he said, “You exaggerate.”

“Do I?” Yeager said. “How much?”

“Some,” Kleinfeldt answered judiciously. “You’re the man who knows as much about the Race as any human living.

And you’re the man who can think like a Lizard, which isn’t the same thing at all. Having you along when this mission

eventually gets off the ground—and eventually is the operative word here—would be an asset.”

“And there are a lot of people in high places who think having me dead would be an asset, too,” Sam said.

“Not to the point of doing anything drastic—or that’s my reading of it, anyhow,” Dr. Kleinfeldt said. “Besides, even if

everything works just the way it’s supposed to, you’d be, ah, effectively dead, you might say.”

“On ice, I’d call it,” Yeager said, and Dr. Kleinfeldt nodded. With a wry chuckle, Sam added, “Four or five years ago, at

Fleetlord Atvar’s farewell reception, I told him I was jealous that he was going back to Home and I couldn’t. I didn’t realize

we’d come as far as we have on cold sleep.”

“If you see him there, maybe you can tell him so.” Kleinfeldt looked down at the papers on his desk again, then back to

Sam. “You mean we own a secret or two you haven’t managed to dig up?”

“Fuck you, Doc,” Sam said evenly. Kleinfeldt blinked. How many years had it been since somebody came right out and

said that to him? Too many, by all the signs. Yeager went on, “See, this is the kind of stuff I get from just about everybody.”

After another pause for thought, Dr. Kleinfeldt said, “I’m going to level with you, Colonel: a lot of people think you’ve

earned it.”

Sam nodded. He knew that. He couldn’t help knowing it. Because of what he’d done, Indianapolis had gone up in

radioactive fire and a president of the United States had killed himself. The hardest part was, he couldn’t make himself feel

guilty about it. Bad, yes. Guilty? No. There was a difference. He wondered if he could make Kleinfeldt understand. Worth a

try, maybe: “What we did to the colonization fleet was as bad as what the Japs did to us at Pearl Harbor. Worse, I’d say,

because we blew up innocent civilians, not soldiers and sailors. If I’d found out the Nazis or the Reds did it and told the

Lizards that, I’d be a goddamn hero. Instead, I might as well be Typhoid Mary.”

“All things considered, you can’t expect it would have turned out any different,” the doctor said. “As far as most people

are concerned, the Lizards aren’t quite—people, I mean. And it’s only natural we think of America first and everybody else

afterwards.”

“Truth—it is only natural,” Sam said in the language of the Race. He wasn’t surprised Kleinfeldt understood. Anyone

who worked on cold sleep for humans would have to know about what the Lizards did so they could fly between the stars

without getting old on the way. He went on, “It is only natural, yes. But is it right?”

“That is an argument for another time,” Kleinfeldt answered, also in the Lizards’ tongue. He returned to English: “Right

or wrong, though, it’s the attitude people have. I don’t know what you can do about it.”

“Not much, I’m afraid.” Yeager knew that too well. He also knew the main reason he remained alive after what he’d

done was that the Race had bluntly warned the United States nothing had better happen to him—or else. He asked, “What

are the odds of something going wrong with this procedure?”

“Well, we think they’re pretty slim, or we wouldn’t be trying it on people,” the doctor said. “I’ll tell you something else,

though: if you ever want to have even a chance of seeing Home, Colonel, this is your only way to get it.”

“Yeah,” Sam said tightly. “I already figured that out for myself, thanks.” One of these days, people—with luck, people

from the USA—would have a spaceship that could fly from the Sun to Tau Ceti, Home’s star. By the time people did,

though, one Sam Yeager, ex-minor-league ballplayer and science-fiction reader, current expert on the Race, would be pushing

up a lily unless he went in for cold sleep pretty damn quick. “All right, Doc. I’m game—and the powers that be won’t worry

about me so much if I’m either on ice or light-years from Earth. Call me Rip van Winkle.”

Dr. Kleinfeldt wrote a note on the chart. “This is what I thought you’d decide. When do you want to undergo the

procedure?”

“Let me have a couple of weeks,” Yeager answered; he’d been thinking about the same thing. “I’ve got to finish putting

my affairs in order. It’s like dying, after all. It’s just like dying, except with a little luck it isn’t permanent.”

“Yes, with a little luck,” Kleinfeldt said; he might almost have been Montresor in “The Cask of Amontillado” intoning,

Yes, for the love of God. He looked at the calendar. “Then I’ll see you here on... the twenty-seventh, at eight in the morning.

Nothing by mouth for twelve hours before that. I’ll prescribe a purgative to clean out your intestinal tract, too. It won’t be

much fun, but it’s necessary. Any questions?”

“Just one.” Sam tapped his top front teeth. “I’ve got full upper and lower plates—I’ve had ’em since my teeth rotted out

after the Spanish flu. What shall I do about those? If this does work, I don’t want to go to Home without my choppers.

That wouldn’t do me or the country much good.”

“Take them out before the procedure,” Dr. Kleinfeldt told him. “We’ll put them in your storage receptacle. You won’t

go anywhere they don’t.”

“Okay.” Yeager nodded. “Fair enough. I wanted to make sure.” He did his best not to dwell on what Kleinfeldt called a

storage receptacle. If that wasn’t a fancy name for a coffin, he’d never heard one. His wife had always insisted on looking for

the meaning behind what people said. He muttered to himself as he got up to leave. He and Barbara had had more than

thirty good years together. If he hadn’t lost her, he wondered if he would have been willing to face cold sleep. He doubted it.

He doubted it like anything, as a matter of fact.

After reclaiming his car from the parking lot, he drove south on the freeway from downtown Los Angeles to his home in

Gardena, one of the endless suburbs ringing the city on all sides but the sea. The sky was clearer and the air cleaner than he

remembered them being when he first moved to Southern California. Most cars on the road these days, like his, used

clean-burning hydrogen, a technology borrowed—well, stolen—from the Lizards. Only a few gasoline-burners still spewed

hydrocarbons into the air.

He would have rattled around his house if he’d lived there alone. But Mickey and Donald were plenty to keep him

hopping instead of rattling. He’d raised the two Lizards from eggs obtained God only knew how, raised them to be as

human as they could. They weren’t humans, of course, but they came closer to it than any other Lizards on this or any other

world.

The Race had done the same thing with a human baby, and had had a twenty-year start on the project. He’d met

Kassquit, the result of their experiment. She was very bright and very strange. He was sure the Lizards would have said exactly

the same thing about Mickey and Donald.

“Hey, Pop!” Donald shouted when Sam came in the door. He’d always been the more boisterous of the pair. He spoke

English as well as his mouth could shape it. Why not? It was as much his native tongue as Sam‘s. “What’s up?”

“Well, you know how I told you I might be going away for a while?” Yeager said. Both Lizards nodded. They were

physically full grown, which meant their heads came up to past the pit of Sam’s stomach, but they weren’t grownups, or

anything close to it. He went on, “Looks like that’s going to happen. You’ll be living with Jonathan and Karen when it

does.”

Mickey and Donald got excited enough to skitter around the front room, their tailstumps quivering. They didn’t realize

they wouldn’t be seeing him again. He didn’t intend to explain, either. His son and daughter-in-law could do that a little bit

at a time. The Lizards had taken Barbara’s death harder than he had; for all practical purposes, she’d been their mother.

Among their own kind, Lizards didn’t have families the way people did. That didn’t mean they couldn’t get attached to

those near and dear to them, though. These two had proved as much.

One of these days before too long, the Race would find out what the United States and the Yeagers had done with the

hatchlings. Or to them, Sam thought: they were as unnatural as Kassquit. But, since they’d meddled in her clay, how could

they complain if humanity returned the compliment? They couldn’t, or not too loudly. So Sam—so everybody—hoped,

anyhow.

He did put his affairs in order. That had a certain grim finality to it. At least I get to do it, and not Jonathan, he thought. He

took the Lizards over to Jonathan and Karen’s house. He said his good-byes. Everybody kissed him, even if Donald and

Mickey didn’t have proper lips. I may be the only guy ever kissed by a Lizard, was what went through his mind as he walked out

to the car.

Next morning, bright and early—why didn’t doctors keep more civilized hours?—he went back to Dr. Kleinfeldt’s.

“Nothing by mouth the past twelve hours?” Kleinfeldt asked. Sam shook his head. “You used the purgative?” the doctor

inquired.

“Oh, yeah. After I got home yesterday.” Sam grimaced. That hadn’t been any fun.

“All right. Take off your clothes and lie down here.”

Sam obeyed. Kleinfeldt hooked him up to an IV and started giving him shots. He wondered if he would simply blank

out, the way he had during a hernia-repair operation. It didn’t work out like that. He felt himself slowing down. Dr.

Kleinfeldt seemed to talk faster and faster, though his speech rhythm probably wasn’t changing. Sam’s thoughts stretched

out and out and out. The last thing that occurred to him before he stopped thinking altogether was, Funny, I don’t feel cold.

Kassquit bent herself into the posture of respect before Ttomalss in his office in a starship orbiting Tosev 3. Since she didn’t

have a tailstump, it wasn’t quite perfect, but she did it as well as anyone of Tosevite blood could. Why not? She’d learned the

ways of the Race, of the Empire, since the days of her hatchlinghood. She knew them much better than she did those of what

was biologically her own kind.

“I greet you, superior sir,” she said.

“And I greet you, Researcher,” Ttomalss replied, an odd formality in his voice. He was the male who’d raised her. He was

also the male who’d tried, for the most part unintentionally, to keep her dependent on him even after she grew to

adulthood. That he’d failed, that she’d carved out her own place for herself, went a long way towards accounting for his

constraint.

“By now, superior sir, you will, I am sure, have read my message,” Kassquit said. She couldn’t resist tacking on an

interrogative cough at the end of the sentence, even if she claimed to be sure.

Ttomalss noticed that, as she’d intended. The way he waggled his eye turrets said he wasn’t too happy about it, either.

But he held his voice steady as he answered, “Yes, I have read it. How did you learn that the Big Uglies are experimenting

with the technology of cold sleep?”

“That is not the question, superior sir,” Kassquit said. “The question is, why was I not informed of this as soon as we

discovered it? Am I not correct in believing the wild Big Uglies have been developing their techniques for more than ten local

years now?”

“Well... yes,” the male who’d raised her admitted uncomfortably.

“And is it not also true that the Tosevite male named Sam Yeager availed himself of these techniques five local years ago,

and in fact did not die, as was publicly reported, and as I was led to believe?”

Ttomalss sounded even more uncomfortable. “I believe that to be the case, but I am not altogether sure of it,” he

replied. “The American Big Uglies are a great deal less forthcoming about their experiments, this for reasons that should be

obvious to you. What we think we know is pieced together from intelligence sources and penetrations of their computer

networks. They are, unfortunately, a good deal better at detecting, preventing, and confusing such penetrations than they

were even a few years ago.”

“And why did you prevent me from gaining access to this important—indeed, vital—information?” Kassquit

demanded.

“That should also be obvious to you,” Ttomalss said.

“What is obvious to me, superior sir, is that these techniques offer me something I never had before: a chance of visiting

Home, of seeing the world that is the source of my... my being,” Kassquit said. That wasn’t biologically true, of course.

Biologically, she was and would always be a Big Ugly. After years of shaving her entire body to try to look more like a female

of the Race—forlorn hope!—she’d acknowledged that and let her hair grow. If some reactionary scholars here didn’t care for

the way she looked, too bad. Culturally, she was as much a part of the Empire as they were. Even Ttomalss sometimes had

trouble remembering that. Kassquit continued, “Now that I have this opportunity, I will not be deprived of it.”

After a long sigh, Ttomalss said, “I feared this would be your attitude. But do you not see how likely it is that you do

not in fact have the opportunity at all, that it is in fact a snare and a delusion?”

“No.” Kassquit used the negative gesture. “I do not see that at all, superior sir. If the technique is effective, why should I

not use it?”

“If the technique were proved effective, I would not mind if you did use it,” Ttomalss replied. “But the Big Uglies are

not like us. They do not experiment and test for year after year, decade after decade, perfecting their methods before putting

them into general use. They rashly forge ahead, trying out ideas still only half hatched. If they are mad enough to risk their

lives on such foolishness, that is one thing. For you to risk yours is something else. For us to let you risk yours is a third

thing altogether. We kept these data from you as long as we could precisely because we feared you would importune us in

this fashion.”

“Superior sir, my research indicates that I have probably already lived more than half my span,” Kassquit said. “Must I

live out all my days in exile? If I wait for certain perfection of these methods, I will wait until all my days are done. For a

species, waiting and testing may be wisdom. For an individual, how can they be anything but disaster?” Tears stung her eyes.

She hated them. They were a Tosevite instinctive response over which she had imperfect control.

“If the Big Uglies’ methods fail, you could give up your entire remaining span of days,” Ttomalss pointed out. “Have

you considered that?”

Now Kassquit used the affirmative gesture. “I have indeed,” she answered. “First, the risk is in my opinion worth it.

Second, even if I should die, what better way to do so than completely unconscious and unaware? From all I gather, dying is

no more pleasant for Tosevites than for members of the Race.”

“Truth. At any rate, I believe it to be truth,” Ttomalss said. “But you have not considered one other possibility. Suppose

you are revived, but find yourself... diminished upon awakening? This too can happen.”

He was right. Kassquit hadn’t thought about that. She prided herself on her fierce, prickly intelligence. How would she,

how could she, cope with the new world of Home if she did not have every bit of that? “I am willing to take the chance,” she

declared.

“Whether we are willing for you to take it may be another question,” Ttomalss said.

“Oh, yes. I know.” Kassquit did not bother to hide her bitterness. By the way Ttomalss’ eye turrets twitched

uncomfortably, he understood what she felt. She went on, “Even so, I am going to try. And you are going to do everything

you can to support me.” She used an emphatic cough to stress her words.

The male who’d raised her jerked in surprise. “I am? Why do you say that?”

“Why? Because you owe it to me,” Kassquit answered fiercely. “You have made me into something neither scale nor

bone. You treated me as an experimental animal—an interesting experimental animal, but an experimental animal even

so—for all the first half of my life. Thanks to you, I think of myself at least as much as a female of the Race as I do of myself

as a Tosevite.”

“You are a citizen of the Empire,” Ttomalss said. “Does that not please you?”

“By the Emperor, it does,” Kassquit said, and used another emphatic cough. Ttomalss automatically cast his eye turrets

down toward the metal floor at the mention of the sovereign. Kassquit had to move her whole head to make the ritual

gesture of respect. She did it. She’d been trained to do it. As she usually wasn’t, she was consciously aware she’d been trained

to do it. She continued, “It pleases me so much, I want to see the real Empire of which I am supposed to be a part. And

there is one other thing you do not seem to have considered.”

“What is that?” Ttomalss asked cautiously—or perhaps fearfully was the better word.

“If the Big Uglies are working on cold sleep, what are they likely to do with it?” Kassquit asked. Her facial features stayed

immobile. She had never learned the expressions most Big Uglies used to show emotion. Those cues required echoes during

early hatchlinghood, echoes Ttomalss had been unable to give her. If she could have, though, she would have smiled a nasty

smile. “What else but try to fly from star to star? If they reach Home, would it not be well to have someone there with at

least some understanding and firsthand experience of them?”

She waited. Ttomalss made small, unhappy hissing noises. “I had not considered that,” he admitted at last. “I do not

believe anyone on Tosev 3 has considered it—not in that context, at any rate. You may well be right. If the Big Uglies do

reach Home, we would be better off having individuals there who are familiar with them from something other than data

transmissions across light-years of space. The males and females back on Home at present plainly do not qualify.”

“Then you agree to support my petition to travel to Home?” Kassquit asked, eagerness in her voice if not on her face.

“If—I repeat, if—the Big Uglies’ techniques for cold sleep prove both effective and safe, then perhaps this may be a

justifiable risk.” Ttomalss did not sound as if he wanted to commit himself to anything.

Kassquit knew she had to pin him down if she possibly could. “You will support my petition?” she asked again, more

sharply this time. “Please come straight out and tell me what you will do, superior sir.”

That was plainly the last thing Ttomalss wanted to do. At last, with obvious reluctance, he made the affirmative gesture.

“Very well. I will do this. But you must see that I do it much more for the sake of the Race and for Home than for your

personal, petty—I might even say selfish—reasons.”

“Of course, superior sir.” Kassquit didn’t care why Ttomalss was doing as she wanted. She only cared that he was doing

it. “Whatever your reasons, I thank you.”

“Make your petition. It will have my full endorsement,” Ttomalss said. “Is there anything else?”

“No, superior sir.” Kassquit knew a dismissal when she heard one. She hurried out of Ttomalss’ office. Inside, her liver

was singing. The Big Uglies spoke of the heart as the center of emotion, but she was too much under the influence of the

Race’s language—the only one she spoke—to worry about that foolish conceit.

Even after she submitted her petition, wheels turned slowly. More than a year of the Race went by before it was finally

approved. She watched Tosev 3 from orbit. She had never visited the planet on which she’d been hatched. She did not think

she ever would. Because she’d been exposed to so few Tosevite illnesses when young, her body had inadequate defenses

against them. What would have been a trivial illness or no illness at all for the average wild Big Ugly might have killed her.

Another snag developed when the American Big Uglies proved reluctant to send a physician up to her starship to give her

the treatment she needed. At last, though, they were persuaded. Kassquit didn’t know what went into the process of

persuasion, but it finally worked.

“So you will be going to Home, will you?” the Tosevite asked. Even in the warmth of the starship—the Race naturally

heated the interior to their standards of comfort, which were hotter than most Tosevites cared for—he wore white cloth

wrappings. He also wore a cloth mask, to keep from infecting her with microorganisms. He spoke the language of the Race

reasonably well. These days, most educated Tosevites did.

“I hope so, yes,” she answered.

“All right.” He bobbed his head up and down, the Big Uglies’ equivalent of the affirmative gesture. “Our treatment is

based on the one the Race uses. I will leave detailed instructions with the Race on how to care for you, what injections to give

you when you are revived, the proper temperature at which to store you, and so on. And I will wish you luck. I hope this

works. We are still learning, you know.”

“Yes, I understand that,” Kassquit said. “To see Home, I would take almost any risk. I am not afraid. Do what you need

to do.” She lay down on the sleeping mat.

The Race gave injections with a high-pressure spray that painlessly penetrated scaly hides. Big Uglies used hollow needles.

They stung. Kassquit started to tell the physician as much, but the world around her slowed down and it no longer seemed

important. The fluorescent lights overhead blurred and then went dark.

Glen Johnson and Mickey Flynn floated in the Lewis and Clark’s control room. The glass in the broad view windows had

been treated to kill reflections, leaving them with a splendid view of the local asteroids—quite a few of which now sported

American installations, or at least motors adequate to swing them out of orbit—and of far more stars than they would have

seen from beneath Earth’s thick mantle of air. The sky was black—not just blue-black, but sable absolute.

“We’ve spent a hell of a lot of time out here,” Johnson remarked, apropos of nothing in particular. He was a lean man of

not quite sixty; because he’d spent the past twenty years weightless, his skin hadn’t wrinkled and sagged the way it would

have in a gravity field. Of course, everything came at a price. If he had to endure much in the way of gravity now, it would kill

him in short order.

“We volunteered,” Flynn replied. He’d been round under gravity; he was rounder now, but he also did not sag so much.

With dignity, he corrected himself: “I volunteered, anyhow. You stowed away.”

“I was shanghaied.” Johnson had been saying that ever since he boarded the Lewis and Clark. The ship had still been in

Earth orbit then, and he’d faked a malfunction in his orbital patrol craft to give himself a plausible excuse for finding out

what was going on with it. The only trouble was, the commandant had thought he was a spy, had kept him aboard to make

sure he couldn’t possibly report to anyone, and hadn’t trusted him from that day to this.

Flynn sent him a bland, Buddhalike stare—except the Buddha had surely had a lot less original sin dancing in his eyes

than Mickey Flynn did. “And what would you have done if you hadn’t been?” he inquired. “Something honest, perhaps?

Give me leave to doubt.”

Before Johnson could muster the high dudgeon such a remark demanded, the intercom in the ceiling blared out,

“Colonel Johnson, report to the commandant’s office immediately! Colonel Glen Johnson, report to the commandant’s

office immediately!”

“There, you see?” Flynn said. “He’s finally caught you with your hand in the cookie jar. Out the air lock you go, without

benefit of spacesuit or scooter. It’s been nice knowing you. Can I have that pint of bourbon you’ve got stashed away?”

“Ha! Don’t I wish!” Johnson exclaimed. Ships from Earth were few and far between. He couldn’t remember the last

time he’d tasted whiskey. Every so often, someone did cook up some unofficial alcohol—highly against regulations—aboard

the Lewis and Clark. It was good, but it wasn’t the same.

“Colonel Johnson, report to Lieutenant General Healey’s office immediately!” The intercom wasn’t going to let up.

“Colonel Glen Johnson, report to Lieutenant General Healey’s office immediately!”

“Well, I’m off,” Johnson said resignedly.

“I knew that,” Flynn replied, imperturbable as usual.

With a snort, Johnson glided out of the control room and toward the commandant’s lair near the heart of the ship. The

corridors had handholds to let crewfolk brachiate along them. The Lewis and Clark had never carried bananas, which struck

Johnson as a shame. Mirrors where corridors intersected helped stop collisions, a good thing—you could swing along at

quite a clip, fast enough to make running into somebody else also going at top speed no joke at all.

“Colonel Johnson, report to...” The intercom kept right on bellowing till Johnson zoomed into the commandant’s

office. He’d slowed down by then, enough so that he didn’t sprain his wrists when he stopped by grabbing the far edge of

Lieutenant General Healey’s desk.

He saluted. The commandant remained a stickler for military courtesy out here in space, where it didn’t matter a dime’s

worth to anybody else. “Reporting as ordered, sir,” Johnson said sweetly.

“Yes.” Lieutenant General Charles Healey returned the salute. Johnson hadn’t liked him at first sight, and familiarity

hadn’t made the commandant any more lovable. Healey had a face only a snapping turtle could love: round, pugnacious, and

wattled. He had a snapping turtle’s attitude, too. He bit often, he bit hard, and he didn’t like to let go. Glaring at Johnson,

he demanded, “When an American starship flies, how would you like to be one of the pilots aboard her?”

Johnson stared back. Healey wasn’t joking. He never joked. As far as Johnson could tell, he’d had his sense of humor

surgically removed at birth, and the operation had been a smashing success. Logically, that meant he wasn’t joking now.

Considering all the trouble he and Johnson had had, the pilot still had trouble believing his ears. “My God, sir,” he blurted,

“who do I have to kill to get the job?”

“Yourself,” Healey answered, still in the hard, flat, take-it-or-leave-it voice he usually used. By all the signs, he wasn’t

kidding about that, either.

“Sir?” That was as much of a question as Johnson was going to ask, no matter how badly he wanted to know more.

“Yourself—maybe.” Healey sounded as if he didn’t want to unbend even that much. More grudgingly still, he explained,

“Cold sleep. If you’re not going to be too old by the time the ship finally flies, you’d better go under now. It’s still a new

technique—nobody’s quite sure you’ll wake up by the time you get to where you’re needed.” He spoke with a certain somber

relish.

“Why me, sir?” Johnson asked. “Why not Flynn or Stone? They’re both senior to me.” Nobody had intended the Lewis

and Clark to have three pilots. If he hadn’t involuntarily joined the crew, the ship wouldn’t have.

“This would be in addition to them, not instead of,” Healey said. “Two reasons for having you along at all. First one is,

you’re the best at fine maneuvering we’ve got. All that time in orbital missions and trundling back and forth on the scooter

means you have to be. Do you say otherwise?” He scowled a challenge.

“No, sir.” Johnson didn’t point out that piloting a starship was different from anything he’d done before. Piloting a

starship was different from anything anybody had done before.

Healey went on, “Second reason is, you’ll be on ice and out of everybody’s hair from the time you go under till you wake

up again—if you wake up again. And then you’ll be a good many light-years from home—too many for even you to get

yourself into much trouble.” The scowl got deeper. “I hope.”

“Sir, the only place I’ve ever made trouble is inside your mind.” Johnson had been insisting on that ever since he came

aboard the Lewis and Clark. While it wasn’t strictly true, it was his ticket to keep on breathing.

By the way Lieutenant General Healey eyed him, he wondered how much that ticket was worth. “You are a lying son of a

bitch,” Healey said crisply. “Do you think I believe your capsule had a genuine electrical failure? Do you think I don’t know

you were talking with Sam Yeager before you poked your snoot into our business here?”

Ice that had nothing to do with cold sleep walked up Johnson’s back. “Why shouldn’t I have talked with him?” he

asked, since denying it was plainly pointless. “He’s only the best expert on the Lizards we’ve got. When I was doing orbital

patrol, I needed that kind of information.”

“He was such an expert on the goddamn Lizards, he turned Judas for them,” Healey said savagely. “For all I know, you

would have done the same. Indianapolis’ blood is on his hands.”

How much of the Lizards’ blood is on our hands? Johnson wondered to himself. We pulled a Jap on them, attacked without

warning—and we attacked colonists in cold sleep, not a naval base. He started to point that out to Healey, then saved his breath.

What point? The commandant wouldn’t listen to him. Healey never listened to anybody.

After a deep, angry breath, the three-star general went on, “And I’ll tell you something else, Johnson. Your precious

Yeager is on ice these days, too.”

“On ice? As in cold sleep?” Glen Johnson knew the question was foolish as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

“Yes, as in cold sleep.” Healey nodded. “If he hadn’t decided to do that, he might have ended up on ice some other

way.” His eyes were cold as ice themselves—or maybe a little colder.

He didn’t say anything more than that. He just waited. What’s he waiting for? Johnson wondered. He didn’t have to

wonder long. He’s waiting to make sure I know exactly what he’s talking about. Figuring that out didn’t take long, either. Slowly,

Johnson asked, “Sir, are you saying I’m liable to end up on ice some other way if I don’t go into cold sleep?”

“I didn’t say that,” Healey answered. “I wouldn’t say that. You said that. But now that you have said it, you’d better

think about it. You’d better not think about it very long, either.”

Lots of ways to have an unfortunate accident back on Earth. Even more ways to have one out here in space. Would people

on the crew be willing to help me have an unfortunate accident? Johnson didn’t even need to wonder about that. Lieutenant General

Healey had plenty of people aboard who would obey orders just because they were orders. Johnson was damn good at what

he did and he had some friends, but he couldn’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He couldn’t keep an

eye on all the equipment he might have to use all the time. If Healey wanted him dead, dead he would be, and in short order.

Which meant... “You talked me into it,” he said. “You’re persuasive as hell, sir, you know that?”

“So glad you’re pleased,” Healey said with a nasty grin. “And just think of all the interesting things you’ll see eleven

light-years from here.”

“I’m thinking of all the things I’ll never see again,” Johnson answered. Healey smirked, an expression particularly

revolting on his hard, suspicious face. Johnson went on, “The one I’ll be gladdest never to see again, I think, is you. Sir.” He

pushed off and glided out of the commandant’s office. If they were going to hang him tomorrow anyway, what difference

did what he said today make?

It turned out not to be tomorrow. A doctor came out from Earth to do the dirty work. Calculating the cost of that,

Johnson realized just how badly they wanted him on ice and on his way to Tau Ceti. All that sprang to mind was, If it weren’t

for the honor of the thing, I’d rather walk.

“Are you ready?” asked the doctor, an attractive woman named Blanchard.

“If I say no, will you turn around and go back?” Johnson asked.

She shook her head. “Not me. I’ll just hold you down and give you the treatment anyhow.” She could do it, too. All the

work in the ship’s gymnasium and on the exercise bike couldn’t make up for Johnson’s being out of a gravity field the past

twenty years. Dr. Blanchard was undoubtedly stronger than he was.

He rolled up a sleeve and bared his arm. “Do your worst.”

She did. He felt hot first, then nauseated, then dizzy. His heart slowed in his chest; his thoughts slowed in his head. This

must be what dying is like, he realized. Had something gone wrong—or right? He stopped thinking altogether before he could

finish shaping the question.

Jonathan Yeager had started shaving his head when he was a teenager. It made him look more like a Lizard, and he’d wanted

nothing so much as to be as much like a male of the Race as he could. He still shaved his head here in 1994, though he wasn’t

a teenager any more; he’d had his fiftieth birthday the December before. The Race still fascinated him, too. He’d built a good

career out of that fascination.

Harry Turtledove - Homeward Bound

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