Harry Turtledove - Colonization 03 - Aftershocks

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt

Harry Turtledove

Colonization Book 3: Aftershocks

Continuation of the WorldWar series.

As the jet aircraft descended toward the airport outside the still slightly radioactive ruins of

Nuremberg, Pshing asked Atvar, "Exalted Fleetlord, is this visit really necessary?"

"I believe it," the commander of the Race's conquest fleet told his adjutant. "My briefings state

that a Tosevite wise in the political affairs of his kind recommended that a conqueror visit the

region he conquered as soon as he could, to make those he had defeated aware of their new

masters."

"Technically, the Greater German Reich remains independent," Pshing pointed out.

"So it does— technically. But that will remain a technicality, I assure you." Atvar used an

emphatic cough to show how strongly he felt about that. "The Deutsche did us far too much

harm in this exchange of explosive-metal weapons to let their madness ever break free again."

"A pity we had to concede them even so limited an independence," Pshing said.

"And that is also a truth," Atvar agreed with a sigh. He swiveled one eye turret toward the window

to get another look at the glassy crater that filled the center of the former capital of the

Greater German Reich. Beyond it lay a slagged wilderness of what remained of homes and factories

and public buildings. Conventional bombs had devastated the airport, too, but it was back in

service.

Pshing said, "If only we had some means of detecting their missile-carrying boats that can stay

submerged indefinitely. Without those, we could have forced unconditional surrender out of them."

"Truth," Atvar repeated. "With them, though, they could have inflicted a good deal more damage to

our colonies here on Tosev 3. They will be surrendering the submarines they have left. We shall

not allow them to build more. We shall not allow them to have anything to do with atomic power or

explosive-metal weapons henceforward."

"That is excellent. That is as it should be," Pshing said. "If only we could arrange to confiscate

the submersible boats of the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as well, we

would truly be on our way toward a definitive conquest of this miserable planet."

"I merely thank the spirits of Emperors past"— Atvar cast both his eye turrets down to the floor

of the aircraft that carried him— "that neither of the other powerful not-empires chose to join

the Deutsche against us. Together, they could have hurt us much worse than the Reich alone did."

"And now we also have the Nipponese to worry about," Pshing added. "Who knows what they will do,

now that they have learned the art of constructing explosive-metal weapons? They already have

submarines, and they already have missiles."

"We never did pay enough attention to islands and their inhabitants," Atvar said fretfully. "Small

chunks of land surrounded by sea were never important back on Home, so we have always assumed the

same would hold true here. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be so."

Before Pshing could answer, the aircraft's landing gear touched down on the runway outside

Nuremberg. The Race's engineering, slowly refined through a hundred thousand years of planetary

unity, was very fine, but not fine enough to keep Atvar from feeling some bumps as the aircraft

slowed to a stop.

"My apologies, Exalted Fleetlord." The pilot's

voice came back to him on the intercom. "I was given to understand repairs to the landing surface

were better than is in fact the case."

Peering out the window, Atvar saw Deutsch males in the cloth wrappings that singled out their

military drawn up in neat ranks to greet and honor him. They carried rifles. His security males

had flabbled about that, but the Reich remained nominally independent. If some fanatic sought to

assassinate him, his second-in-command in Cairo would do... well enough. "What was the name of the

sly Big Ugly who suggested this course?" he asked Pshing.

"Machiavelli." His adjutant pronounced the alien name with care, one syllable at a time. "He lived

and wrote about nine hundred years ago. Nine hundred of our years, I should say— half as many of

Tosev 3's."

"So he came after our probe, then?" Atvar said,

and Pshing made the affirmative gesture. The Race had studied Tosev 3 sixteen hundred years

before: again, half that many in Tosevite terms. The fleetlord went on, "Remember the sword-

swinging savage mounted on an animal the probe showed us? He was the height of Tosevite military

technology in those days."

"A pity he did not remain the height of Tosevite military technology, as we were so confident he

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt (1 of 278) [2/17/2004 10:29:46 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt

would," Pshing said. "When we understand how the Big Uglies are able to change so rapidly, we will

be able to prevent them from doing so in the future. That will help bind them to the Empire."

"So it will... if we can do it," Atvar replied. "If not, we will wreck them one not-empire at a

time. Or, if necessary, we will destroy this whole world, even our colonies on it. That will

cauterize it once for all."

One other possibility remained, a possibility that had never entered his mind when the conquest

fleet first reached Tosev 3: the Big Uglies might conquer the Race. If they did, they would next

mount an attack on Home. Atvar was as sure of it as of the fact that he'd hatched from an egg.

Wrecking the world would prevent it, as a surgeon sometimes had to prevent death by cutting out a

tumor.

With the Reich prostrate, the Big Uglies would have a much harder time of it. Atvar knew that. But

the worry never went away. The locals were quicker, more adaptable, than the Race. He knew that,

too; close to fifty of his years of experience on Tosev 3 had burned the lesson into him again and

again.

Clunks and hangings from up ahead came to his hearing diaphragm: the aircraft's door opening. He

did not go forward at once; his security males would disembark ahead of him to form what was

termed a ceremonial guard and amounted to a defensive perimeter. It would

not hold against concerted attack; it might keep a single crazed Big Ugly from murdering him.

Atvar hoped it would.

One of those security males came back to his seat and bent into the posture of respect. "All is in

readiness, Exalted Fleetlord," he reported. "And the radioactivity level is acceptably low."

"I thank you, Diffal," Atvar said. The male had headed Security since midway through the fighting.

He wasn't so good as his predecessor, Drefsab, but Drefsab had fallen victim to Big Uglies with

even more nasty talents— or perhaps just more luck—than he'd had. Atvar turned an eye turret

toward Pshing. "Come with me."

"It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord," his adjutant said.

Atvar let out a hiss of disgust at the weather outside, which was chilly and damp. Cairo,

whence he'd come, had a reasonably decent climate. Nuremberg didn't come close. And this was

spring, heading toward summer. Winter would have been much worse. Atvar shivered at the very idea.

As he emerged from his aircraft, a Deutsch military band began braying away. The Big Uglies meant

it as an honor, not an insult, and so he endured the unmusical— at least to his hearing

diaphragms— racket. The security officials parted to let a Big Ugly through: not the Fuhrer of the

Deutsche, but a protocol aide. "If you advance to the end of the carpet, Exalted Fleetlord, the

Fuhrer will meet you there," he said, using the language of the Race about as well as a Tosevite

could.

Making the gesture of agreement, Atvar advanced to the edge of the strip of red cloth and stopped.

His security males kept him covered and kept themselves between him and

the ranks of the Deutsche. The Tosevite soldiers looked fierce and barbaric, and had proved

themselves formidable in battle. They are beaten now, Atvar reminded himself. They didn't seem

beaten, though. By their bearing, they were ready to go right back to war.

Their ranks parted slightly. Out from among them came a relatively short, rather stout Big Ugly in

wrappings related to those of the soldiers but fancier. He wore a cap on his head The hair Atvar

could see below it was white, which meant he was not young. When he took off the cap for a moment,

he showed that most of his scalp was bare, another sign of an aging male Tosevite.

As the Deutsche had parted, so, rather more reluctantly, did Atvar's security males. The Big Ugly

walked up to Atvar and shot out his arm in salute. Being still formally independent, he did not

have to assume the posture of respect. "I

greet you, Exalted Fleetlord," he said. He was less fluent in Atvar's language than his protocol

officer, but he made himself understood. "I am Walter Dornberger, Fuhrer and Chancellor of the

Greater German Reich."

"And I greet you, Fuhrer." Atvar knew he made a hash of the Deutsch word, but it didn't matter.

"Your males fought bravely. Now the fighting is over. You shall have to learn that fighting

bravely and fighting wisely are not the same."

"Had I led the Reich when this war began, it would not have begun," Dornberger replied. "But my

superiors thought differently. Now they are dead, and I have to pick up the pieces they left

behind."

That was Tosevite idiom; the Race would have spoken of putting an eggshell back together. But

Atvar understood. "You shall have fewer pieces with which to work henceforward. We intend to

make certain of that. You did too much harm to us to be trusted any longer."

"I understand," Dornberger said. "The terms you have forced me to accept are harsh. But you and

the Race have left me no other choice."

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt (2 of 278) [2/17/2004 10:29:46 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt

"Your predecessors had a choice," Atvar said coldly. "They chose the wrong path. You are obliged

to live with their decision, and with what it has left you."

"I also understand that," the Tosevite replied. "But you can hardly deny that you are wringing all

possible advantages from your victory."

"Of course we are," Atvar said. "That is what victory is for. Or do you believe it has some other

purpose?"

"By no means," Dornberger said. In tones of professional admiration, he added, "You were clever to

set France up again as an

independent not-empire. I did not expect that of you."

"I thank you." The fleetlord had not imagined he might know a certain amount of sympathy for the

Big Ugly who now led the not-empire that had done the Race so much harm. "Little by little,

through continual contact with you Tosevites, we do learn how to play your games. You should be

thankful we left you any fragments of your independence."

"I am thankful to you for that," Dornberger answered. "I suspect I should also be thankful to the

Americans and Russians, who would not have taken it kindly to see the Greater German Reich

disappear from the map."

The Tosevite was indeed professionally competent. Both the USA and the Soviet Union had made it

very clear to Atvar that their fear of the Race would increase if the Reich were

treated as an outright conquest. After what he had suffered fighting Germany, he did not want the

other not-empires excessively afraid; it might make them do something foolish. He hated having to

take their fears into account, but they were too strong to let him do anything else. His tailstump

quivered in irritation.

Pointing at Dornberger with his tongue, he said, "We no longer need to worry so much about the

opinion of the Reich. And we shall do everything possible— everything necessary— to make sure we

never have to worry about it again. Do you understand?"

"Of course, Exalted Fleetlord," Dornberger answered, and Atvar wondered how— and how soon— the

Deutsche would start trying to cheat him.

Sweat ran down Colonel Johannes Drucker's face. Everyone knew the Lizards preferred their weather

hot as the Sahara. As the German sat, a prisoner of war, in a cubicle aboard one of their

starships, he scratched his bare chest. The Lizards were scrupulous. They'd returned to him the

coveralls he'd worn aboard the upper stage of the A-45 that had lifted him into Earth orbit.

They'd even washed them. But he couldn't bear the thought of putting them on, not when he felt

about ready to have an apple stuck in his mouth even naked.

He sighed, longing for the fogs and chill of Peenemunde, the Reich's rocket base on the Baltic.

But Peenemunde was radioactive rubble now. His family lived in Greifswald, not far to the west. He

sighed again, on a different, grimmer note. He prayed that they weren't radioactive dust, but he

had no way of knowing.

The chair on which he sat was too small for

him, and shaped for a backside proportioned differently from his. The sleeping mat on the floor

was also too small, and too hard to boot. The Lizards fed him canned goods imported from the lands

they ruled and from the USA, most of which were not to his taste.

It could have been worse. He'd tried to blow up this starship. Its anti-missiles had knocked out

one of the warheads he'd launched from his upper stage, its close-in weapons system the other. The

Race had still accepted his surrender afterwards. Few humans would have been so generous.

He got up and used the head. Every so often, Lizard technicians came in and fiddled with the

plumbing. It wasn't made for liquid waste; the Race, like real lizards, excreted only solids. From

trying to blow the starship to a cloud of radioactive gas, he'd been reduced to causing problems

in its pipes. That was funny, if you looked at it the right way.

Without warning, the door to his cubicle slid open. He was glad he'd finished pissing; getting

caught in the act would have embarrassed him, even if it wouldn't have flustered the Lizard who

caught him. He'd seen this fellow before: he recognized the body paint. "I greet you, superior

sir," he said. Anyone who flew in space had to know the Lizards' language.

"I greet you, Johannes Drucker," the Lizard named Ttomalss answered. "I am here to inform you that

you will soon be released."

"That is good news. I thank you, superior sir," Drucker said. But then his mouth twisted. "It

would be better news if it did not mean my not-empire had been defeated."

"I understand. I sympathize," Ttomalss said. Perhaps he even did; he showed more knowledge of the

way people worked that any other Lizard the German had met. Drucker wondered how he'd acquired it.

Ttomalss

continued, "But you will have the opportunity to help repair the damage."

/'// have the opportunity to see the damage, Drucker thought. He could have done without that

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt (3 of 278) [2/17/2004 10:29:46 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt

opportunity. He'd been a panzer driver, not a spaceman, when the Reich detonated an explosive-

metal bomb to derail a Lizard attack on Breslau. He'd cheered then. He wouldn't be cheering now.

"Can you drop me near Peenemunde land?" he asked. "That is where my... mate and my hatchlings

live— if they live anywhere at all."

But Ttomalss made the Race's negative hand gesture. "Captives are being exchanged outside

Nuremberg, nowhere else."

"Very well," Drucker said, since he couldn't say anything else. From Bavaria to Pomerania through

a war-ravaged landscape? Not a

journey to look forward to, but one he would have to make.

"Eventually, a shuttlecraft will take you back to the surface of Tosev 3," the Lizard told him.

"In the meantime, now that hostilities have concluded, I have gained permission to inform you that

you are not the only Tosevite presently aboard this starship. Are you interested in meeting

another member of your species?"

After weeks with nobody but Lizards to talk to? What do you think? Aloud, Drucker said, "Yes,

superior sir, I would very interested be." He used an emphatic cough, then added, "I thank you."

Did the Lizards have a beautiful spy waiting to try to charm secrets out of him? Not likely— not

that he'd be much interested anyhow, not when he hadn't the faintest idea whether Kathe was alive

or dead. Had he watched too many bad films and read too many trashy novels? That struck him as

very likely

indeed.

Ttomalss said, "The other male is from the not-empire of the United States. He is here on a...

research mission, I suppose you would describe it."

Something in the way he hesitated didn't quite ring true to Drucker, but the German was hardly in

a position to call him on it. And the Lizard had used the masculine pronoun. So much for beautiful

spies. Drucker laughed at himself. "All right," he said. "No matter who he is or where he is from,

I look forward to meeting him."

"Wait here," Ttomalss told him, as if he were liable to wait somewhere else. The Lizard left the

cubicle. Ttomalss could leave. Drucker couldn't.

After about forty-five minutes— his captors had let him keep his watch— the door slid open. In

came a young man with a shaved head and with body paint on his chest. He nodded to Drucker,

ignoring his nakedness (he wore only denim shorts himself), and stuck out his hand. "Hello. Do you

speak English?" he said in that language.

"Some," Drucker answered in English. Then he shifted: "I must tell you, though, I am better in the

language of the Race."

"That suits me fine," the American said, also in the Lizards' tongue. He's very young, Drucker

realized— the shaved head had disguised his age. He went on, "My name is Jonathan Yeager. I greet

you."

"And I greet you." Drucker shook the proffered hand and gave his own name. Then he eyed the

American. "Yeager? It is a German name. It means 'hunter.'" The last word was in English.

"Yes, my father's father's father came from Germany," Jonathan Yeager said.

In musing tones, Drucker said, "I knew an officer named Jager, Heinrich Jager. He was a

landcruiser commander. One of the best officers I ever served under— I named my oldest hatchling

for him. I wonder if there is a relationship. From what part of Germany did your ancestor come?"

"I am sorry, but I do not know," the young American answered. "Maybe my father does, but I am not

sure of that. Many, when they came to America, tried to forget where they came from so they could

become Americans."

"I have this heard," Drucker said. "It strikes me as strange." Maybe that made him a reactionary

European. Even if it did, though, he was a wild-eyed radical when measured against the Lizards. He

asked, "What sort of research are you engaged in here?" The unspoken question

behind that one was, Why would the Americans send a puppy instead of a seasoned man ?

To Drucker's surprise, Jonathan Yeager blushed all the way to the top of his shaved crown. He

coughed and spluttered a couple of times before answering, "I guess you could call it a

sociological project."

"That sounds interesting," Drucker said, hoping Yeager would go on and tell him more about it.

Instead, the American pointed an accusing finger his way and said, "And I know why you are here."

"I have no doubt that you do," Drucker said. "If my attack had been a little more fortunate, we

would not be having this talk now."

"That is a truth." Jonathan Yeager sounded surprisingly calm. Maybe he was too young to

take seriously the possibility of his own demise. Or maybe not; he went on, "My father is an

officer in the U.S. Army. He would talk that way, too, I think."

"Professionals do." Drucker started to say something else, but checked himself. "Is your father by

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt (4 of 278) [2/17/2004 10:29:46 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt

any chance the male who understands the Race so well? If he is, I have some of his work in

translation read. I should have of him thought when I heard the name."

"Yes, that is my father," Jonathan Yeager said with what sounded like pardonable pride.

"He does good work," Drucker said. "He is the only Tosevite who ever made me believe he could

think like a male of the Race. Why are you here instead of him?"

"He has been here," the younger Yeager answered. "I first came here with him, as his assistant— I

still wear the body paint of an

assistant psychological researcher. But I am... better suited to the research for this part of the

project than he is."

"Can you tell me why?" Drucker asked. Jonathan Yeager shook his head. Seeing that gesture instead

of one from a scaly hand made Drucker feel at home, even though the American had told him no.

Yeager said, "I am told you will be able to go home soon."

"Yes, if I have any home left," Drucker answered. "I do not know whether my kin are alive or

dead."

"I hope they are well," Jonathan Yeager said. "I look forward to going home myself. I have been up

here since the war began. The Race judged it was not safe for me to leave."

"I would say that was likely to be true," Drucker

agreed. "We fought hard."

"I know," Yeager said. "But did you really think you could win?"

"Did I think so?" Drucker shook his head. "I did not think we had a chance. But what could I do?

When your leaders tell you to go to war, you go to war. They must have thought we could win, or

they would not have started fighting."

"They were—" Jonathan Yeager broke off, shaking his head.

He'd been about to say something like, They were pretty stupid if they did. Drucker would have

argued with him if he hadn't felt the same way. The crisis had started while Himmler was F uhrer,

and Kaltenbrunner hadn't done anything to make it go away. On the contrary— he'd charged right

ahead. Fools rush in, Drucker thought. He wondered how General Dornberger

would shape up as the new leader of the Reich. He also wondered how much trouble the SS would give

the new Fuhrer. Dornberger hadn't come up through the ranks of the blackshirts; he'd been

soldiering since the First World War. The secret policemen might not like him very well.

Drucker had no sympathy for the SS, not after they'd tried to get rid of his wife on the grounds

that she had a Jewish grandmother. If all the black-shirts suffered unfortunate accidents, he

wouldn't shed a tear. With SS men in charge of things, his country had suffered an unfortunate

accident— except it hadn't been an accident. Kaltenbrunner had started the war on purpose.

Something else occurred to him: "Is it true what some males of the Race have told me? That France

is to be made independent again, I mean?"

"Yes, that is true," Jonathan Yeager told him. "From the news reports I have seen, the French are

happy about it, too." He sounded pretty happy himself. He was, after all, an American, and the USA

and Germany had been at war when the Lizards came. They still didn't get along very well, and

gloating at a rival's misfortune was a constant all over the world, and probably among the Race as

well.

"I do not care whether they are happy or not," Drucker said. "It will mean a weaker Germany, and a

weaker Germany means a stronger Race." He was sure the Lizards were recording every word he said.

He didn't much care. They'd captured him. They'd beaten his country. If they thought he loved them

because of it, they were crazy.

Back in the cubicle Jonathan Yeager shared with Kassquit, he said, "Strange to think I was

just talking with a male who could have killed both of us."

When Kassquit made the affirmative gesture, she almost poked him in the nose. As far as Jonathan

was concerned, the cubicle would have been cramped for her alone; being smaller than people,

Lizards built smaller, too. But she was used to it. She'd lived in a cubicle like this her whole

life. She said, "You can take off those foolish wrappings now. You do not need them any more."

"No, I suppose not. I certainly do not need them to keep me warm." Jonathan used an emphatic cough

as he kicked off the shorts. The Lizards kept the starship at a temperature comfortable for them,

one that matched a hot summer's day in Los Angeles. Even shorts made him sweat more than he would

have without them.

Kassquit was naked, too. She'd never worn clothes, not after she'd got out of diapers. The

Lizards— Ttomalss in particular— had raised her ever since she was a newborn. They'd wanted to see

how close they could come to turning a human into a female of the Race.

Jonathan shaved his head. Plenty of kids of his generation— girls as well as boys, though not so

many— did that, aping the Lizards and incidentally annoying their parents. Kassquit shaved not

only her head— including her eyebrows— but all the hair on her body in an effort to make herself

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt (5 of 278) [2/17/2004 10:29:46 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt

as much like a Lizard as she could. She'd told him once that she'd thought about having her ears

removed to make her head look more like a Lizard's, and had decided against it only because she

didn't think it would help enough.

She said, "I wonder if I will be allowed to meet him before he returns to the surface of Tosev 3.

I should learn more about wild Tosevites."

With a chuckle, Jonathan said, "I think he would

be glad to meet you, especially without wrappings." The Lizards' language had no specific term for

clothes, which the Race didn't use, but could and did go into enormous detail about body paint.

"What do you mean?" By Earthly standards, Kassquit had a remorselessly literal mind. "Do you mean

he might want to mate with me? Would he find me attractive enough to want to mate with?"

"Of course he would. I certainly do." Jonathan used another emphatic cough. He always praised

Kassquit as extravagantly as he could. She unfolded like a flower when he did. He got the idea the

Lizards hadn't bothered— or maybe they just hadn't known people needed such things. Whenever he

thought Kassquit acted strangely, he had to step back and remind himself it was a wonder she got

even to within shouting distance of sanity.

And he hadn't been lying. She was of Oriental descent; living in Gardena, California, which had a

large Japanese-American population, he'd got used to Asian standards of beauty. And by them she

was more than pretty enough. Her shaved head didn't put him off, either; he knew plenty of girls

at UCLA who shaved theirs. The only thing truly odd about her was her expression, or lack of

expression. Her face was almost masklike. She hadn't learned to smile when she was a baby— Lizards

could hardly smile back at her— and it was evidently too late after that.

She asked, "Would you be upset if I decided to mate with him?" She didn't have much in the way of

tact, either.

To keep from examining his own feelings right away, Jonathan answered, "Even if he finds you

attractive, I am not sure he would want to mate with you. He is concerned with his own mate down

in the Reich, and does not know her fate."

"I see," Kassquit said slowly.

Jonathan wondered if she really did. She hadn't known anything about the emotional attachments men

and women could form... till she started making love with me, he thought. He hadn't wanted to

explain to the German spaceman the sort of sociological research project in which he was engaged.

It was really more the Lizards' project, not his. He was just along for the ride.

He chuckled. They brought me up here and put me out to stud. He wondered how much they'd learned.

He'd certainly learned a lot.

He went over to Kassquit and put a hand on her shoulder. She squeezed him. She liked being

touched. He got the idea she hadn't been touched a whole lot before he came up to the starship.

Touching was a human trait, not one the Race shared to anywhere near the same

degree.

"He will be going down to his not-empire before long," Kassquit said.

"Truth," Jonathan agreed.

"And you will be going down to your not-empire before long," Kassquit said.

"You knew I would," Jonathan told her. "I cannot stay up here. This is your place, but it is not

mine."

"I understand that," Kassquit answered. She spoke the language of the Race as well as someone with

a human mouth possibly could. And why not? It was the only language she knew. She went on,

"Intellectually, I understand that. But you must understand, Jonathan, that I will be sorry when

you go. I will be sad."

Jonathan sighed and squeezed her, though he

didn't know whether that made things better or worse. "I am sorry," he said. "I do not know what

to do about that. I wish there were something I could do."

"You also have a female waiting for you on the surface of Tosev 3, even if she is not a female

with whom you have arranged for permanent exclusive mating," Kassquit said.

"Yes, I do," Jonathan admitted. "You have known that all along. I never tried to keep it a secret

from you."

He wondered if Karen Culpepper would still be his girl when he came home. They'd been dating since

high school. When he'd come up to the starship, he hadn't expected to stay, and he hadn't thought

he would have that much explaining to do once he got back. He hadn't really believed the Nazis

would be crazy enough to attack the Lizards over Poland. But they had, and he'd been here for

weeks— and he'd

almost died a couple of times, too. Karen would have an excellent notion of where he was and why

he'd come up here. He didn't think she'd be very happy about it.

"You will go back to her. You will mate with her. You will forget about me," Kassquit said.

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt (6 of 278) [2/17/2004 10:29:46 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt

She didn't know it, but she was reinventing the lines everyone who'd ever lost a lover used. "I

will never forget you," Jonathan said, which was the truth. But even if it was, he doubted it

consoled her much. Had someone told him the same thing, it wouldn't have consoled him, either.

"Can that really be so?" she asked. "You know many other Tosevites. To you, I am only one of many.

To me, you are the most important Tosevite I have ever known." She let her mouth fall open,

mimicking the way Lizards laughed. "The size of the sample is small, I admit, but it is not likely

to increase to any great degree

soon. Why, if I meet the Deutsch male before he leaves the ship, it will go up from two to three."

She wasn't trying to make him feel sorry for her. He was sure of that. She didn't have the guile

to do any such thing. No doubt because of the way she'd been raised, she was devastatingly frank.

He said, "You could make it larger if you came down to visit the United States. You would be most

welcome in my... city."

He'd started to say in my house. But Kassquit wouldn't be welcome in his house. His father and

mother— and he, too, when he was there— were raising a couple of Lizard hatchlings who were

Kassquit's exact inverses: Mickey and Donald were being brought up as much like human beings as

possible. The Race wouldn't be delighted to learn about that, and Kassquit's first loyalty was

inevitably to the Lizards.

"I may do that," she said. "On the other fork of the tongue, I may not, too. Is it not a truth

that there are Tosevite diseases for which your physicians have as yet developed no vaccines?"

"Yes, that is a truth," Jonathan admitted.

Kassquit continued, "From the Race's research, it appears that some of these diseases are more

severe for an adult than they would be for a hatchling. I do not wish to risk my health— my life—

for the sake of a visit to Tosev 3, interesting as it might otherwise be."

"Well, I understand that." Jonathan made the affirmative gesture. "But surely other Tosevites will

be coming here to the starship." Getting away from the personal, getting away from guilt he

couldn't help feeling at leaving someone with whom he'd been making love as often as he could, was

something of a relief.

"I suppose so," Kassquit answered. "But still,

you must understand, you will be the standard of comparison. I will judge every other Tosevite I

meet, every other male with whom I mate, by what I have learned from and about you."

So he couldn't get away from the personal after all. Stammering a little, he said, "That is a

large responsibility for me."

"I think you set a high standard," Kassquit told him. "If I thought otherwise, I would not want to

share this compartment with you and I would not want to go on mating with you, would I? And I do."

She put her arms around him. She was as frank about what she liked as about what she didn't. He

kissed the top of her head. An American girl would have tilted her face up for a kiss. Kassquit

didn't. Kisses on the mouth, and especially French kisses, alarmed rather than exciting her.

They made love on the sleeping mat. It was harder than a bed would have been, but far softer than

the metal flooring. Afterwards, Jonathan peeled off the rubber he'd worn and tossed it in the

trash. He didn't flush such things; he had no idea what latex would do to the Lizards' plumbing,

and didn't care to find out the hard way.

Kassquit said, "I think I begin to understand something of Tosevite sexual jealousy. It must be

close to what I felt when, after the colonization fleet arrived, Ttomalss began paying much less

attention to me because he was paying much more attention to Felless, a researcher newly revived

from cold sleep."

"Maybe," Jonathan said. He didn't know what Kassquit had felt then. He supposed it was something

strong, though, because Ttomalss had been— still was— as close to a mother and a father as

Kassquit had.

"I think it must be," Kassquit said earnestly, "for I know much of that same feeling when I think

of you mating with that other female down on the surface of Tosev 3.1 understand that this is not

rational, but it does not appear to be anything I can help, either."

Jonathan wasn't nearly sure Karen would want to mate with him after he got back to Gardena. But if

she didn't, some other girl— some other girl who not only was but wanted to be a human

being—would. He had no doubt of that. While Kassquit... Now she knew more of what being human was

all about, and she would go back to hiving among the Lizards.

"I am sorry," Jonathan said. "I never meant to cause you pain or jealousy. You were the one who

wanted to know what Tosevite sexuality was like, and all I ever wanted to do was please you while

I showed you."

"I understand that. And you have pleased me."

Kassquit used an emphatic cough. But then she went on, "You have also shown me that there are

times when the pleasure cannot come unmixed with pain and jealousy. From everything I gather about

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt (7 of 278) [2/17/2004 10:29:46 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt

the behavior of wild Tosevites, this is not uncommon among you."

However alien her background and viewpoint, she wasn't a fool. She was anything but a fool.

Jonathan had discovered that before, and now got his nose rubbed in it. She'd just told him

something about the way love worked that he'd never quite figured out for himself. He assumed the

posture of respect before her, and then had a devil of a time explaining why.

Armed guards stood outside the compartment housing the Deutsch captive. Kassquit hoped the males

would never have to use their weapons; the thought of bullets tearing through walls, through

electronics, through hydraulics,

through spirits of Emperors past only knew what all, was genuinely terrifying.

She used an artificial fingerclaw to press the recessed button in the wall that opened the door.

After it slid aside, she stepped into the cubicle. "I greet you, Johannes Drucker," she said,

pronouncing the alien name as carefully as she could.

"And I greet you, superior female." The wild Big Ugly stood very straight and shot out his right

arm. From what Jonathan Yeager had told her, that was his equivalent of the Race's posture of

respect.

The strange gesture made him seem wilder than Jonathan Yeager. He looked wilder, too. He was hairy

all over, with short, thick, brown hair streaked with gray growing on his cheeks and chin as well

as the top of his head. No one had given him a razor. And he spoke the Race's language with an

accent different from, and

thicker than, Jonathan Yeager's.

He seemed to be trying not to study her body, which was covered only by the body paint of a

psychological researcher's assistant. Kassquit remembered both Jonathan and Sam Yeager behaving

the same way at their first meeting. Coming right out and staring was evidently impolite but

difficult to avoid.

He said, "They told me I would another Tosevite visitor be having. They did not bother telling me

you would a female be."

"Tosevite sexes and sexuality are matters of amusement and alarm to the Race, but seldom matters

of importance," Kassquit answered. "And, though I am of Tosevite ancestry, I am not precisely a

Tosevite myself. I am a citizen of the Empire." Pride rang in her voice.

Johannes Drucker said, "I understand the words, but I do not think I understand the

meaning behind them."

"I have been raised in this starship by the Race from earliest hatchlinghood," Kassquit said.

"Until quite recently, I never so much as met wild Big Uglies." She hardly ever said Big Uglies

around Jonathan Yeager. When speaking to this much wilder Tosevite, it came out naturally.

"I... see," the captive said. His mouth twisted up at the corners: the Tosevite expression of

amusement. "Now that you have started us meeting, what do you think?"

Kassquit couldn't imitate that expression, try as she would. She answered, "The ones I have met

are somewhat less barbarous than I would have expected."

With a loud, barking laugh, the Deutsch captive said, "Danke schon." Seeing that Kassquit didn't

understand, he returned to the language of the

Race: "That means, I thank you very much."

"You are welcome," Kassquit answered. Only after the words were out of her mouth did she stop and

wonder whether he'd been sarcastic. To cover her confusion, she changed the subject, saying, "I am

told you came close to destroying this starship."

"Yes, that is a truth, superior female," he agreed

"Why?" she asked. War, whether carried on by the Race or by Big Uglies, still seemed very strange

to her. "No one aboard this ship was trying to do the Reich any particular harm. Most males and

females here are researchers, not combatants."

She thought that a paralyzingly effective comment. The wild Big Ugly only shrugged. "Do you think

all of the Tosevites in the Deutsch cities on which you dropped explosive-metal

bombs were doing nothing but fighting the Race?"

Kassquit hadn't really thought about that at all. To her, the Deutsche had been nothing but the

enemy. Now that Johannes Drucker pointed it out, though, she supposed most of them had just been

going on with their lives. That made her examine her own side in a way she hadn't before. "Why?"

she said again.

"Anything that the enemy serves a fair target is," Johannes Drucker replied. "That is how we fight

wars. And we have seen that the Race is not very different. No one invited the Race to come here

and try to conquer Tosev 3. Do you think it is any wonder that we as hard as we could fought

back?"

"I suppose not," admitted Kassquit, who hadn't tried to look at things from the Tosevite point of

view. "Do you not think that you would be using explosive-metal bombs on one another if we

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt (8 of 278) [2/17/2004 10:29:46 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt

had not come?"

"We?" The wild Big Ugly raised an eyebrow in what she'd come to recognize as a gesture of irony.

"Superior female, you have no scales that I can see."

"I am still a citizen of the Empire," Kassquit replied with dignity. "I would rather be a citizen

of the Empire than a Tosevite peasant, which I surely would have been had the Race not chosen me."

"How do you know?" Johannes Drucker asked. "Are you happy here aboard this starship, living with

nothing but males and females of the Race? Would you not be happier among your own kind, even as a

peasant?"

Kassquit wished he hadn't asked the question that particular way. The older and the more conscious

of her alienness she'd become, the less happy she'd grown. Some of the males and

females of the Race were only too willing to rub her snout in that alienness, too. She answered,

"How can I know? How does one find an answer to a counterfactual question?"

"Carefully," the wild Tosevite said. For a moment, Kassquit thought he hadn't understood. Then she

realized he was making a joke. She let her mouth drop open for a moment to show she'd got it. He

went on, "Everyone's life is full of counterfactuals. Suppose I this had done. Suppose I that had

not done. What would I be now? Dealing with the things that are real is hard enough."

That was also a truth. Kassquit made the affirmative gesture. She said, "I am told you do not know

what has happened to your mate and your hatchlings. I hope they are well."

"I thank you," Johannes Drucker answered. "I wish I knew, one way or the other. Then I would also

how to go ahead know. Now I can only at

the same time hope and worry."

"What will you do if they are dead?" Kassquit asked. Not until the question was out did she think

to wonder whether she should have asked it. By then, of course, it was too late.

Though still imperfectly familiar with the facial expressions wild Big Uglies used, she was sure

Johannes Drucker's did not show delight. He said, "The only thing I can do then is try to put my

life back together one piece at a time. It is not easy, but it happens all the time. It is

certainly all the time in the Reich happening now."

"Males and females of the Race are also having to rebuild their lives," Kassquit pointed out. "And

the Race did not start this war. The Reich did."

"No matter who started it, it is over now," the wild Big Ugly said. "The Race won. The Reich

lost. Putting the pieces back together is always easier for the winners."

Was that a truth or only an opinion? Since Kassquit wasn't sure, she didn't challenge it. She

asked, "If your mate is dead, will you seek another one?"

"You have all sorts of awkward questions, is it not so?" Johannes Drucker laughed a loud Tosevite

laugh, but still did not seem amused. Kassquit did not think he would answer, but he did: "I

cannot tell you that now. It depends on how I feel, and it also depends on whether I meet a female

I find interesting."

"And what makes a female interesting?" Kassquit asked.

The wild Big Ugly laughed again. "Not only awkward questions, but questions different from the

ones the males of the Race, the military males, have asked. What makes a female

interesting? Ask a thousand male Tosevites and you will have a thousand answers. Maybe two

thousand."

"I did not ask a thousand male Tosevites. I asked you," Kassquit said.

"So you did." Instead of mocking her, Johannes Drucker paused and thought. "What makes a female

interesting? Partly the way she looks, partly the way she acts. And part of it, of course, depends

on whether she me interesting finds, too. Sometimes a male will find a female interesting, but not

the other way round. And sometimes a female will want a male who does not want her."

"I think the Race's mating season is a much tidier, much less stressful way of handling

reproduction," Kassquit said.

"I am sure it is— for the Race," the wild Big Ugly said. "But it is not how Tosevites do things.

We

can only what we are be."

Confronting her own differences from the Race, Kassquit had seen that, too. Culture went a long

way toward minimizing those differences, but could not delete them. She wondered whether to ask

Johannes Drucker if he found her attractive, and whether to use an affirmative answer, if she got

one, to initiate mating. In the end, she decided not to ask. None of his words showed he might be

interested. Neither did his reproductive organ, which was liable to be a more accurate— or at

least less deceitful— indicator. As she left the compartment, she wondered if her decision would

please Jonathan Yeager.

He was quiet when she returned to the compartment. He did not ask her whether she'd mated with the

Deutsch captive. It was as if he did not want to know. He did not have much to say about anything

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt (9 of 278) [2/17/2004 10:29:46 AM]

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt

else, either. Kassquit didn't care for that. She'd grown used to talking with

the wild— but not too wild— Tosevite about almost everything. She felt empty, alone, when he

responded so little.

At last, she decided to confront things directly. "I did not mate with Johannes Drucker," she

said.

"All right," Jonathan Yeager answered, still not showing much animation. But then he asked, "Why

not?"

"He did not show much interest," Kassquit replied, "and I did not want to make you unhappy."

"I thank you for that," he said. "I thank you for thinking of me." He hesitated, then went on,

"You ought to think of yourself, too, you know."

Kassquit had thought of herself— as a member of the Race, or as close an approximation to a member

of the Race as she could be. She'd given little thought to herself as an individual.

She hadn't been encouraged to give much thought to herself as an individual. She said, "Does it

not seem that wild Tosevites— especially wild American Tosevites— concern themselves too much with

their individual concerns and not enough with the concerns of their society?"

He shrugged. "I do not know anything about that. But if the individuals are happy, how can the

society be unhappy?"

Big Uglies had a knack for turning things on their head. The Race always thought of society first:

if society was well ordered, then individuals would be happy. To look at individuals first... was

probably the mark of American Tosevites, with their mania for snoutcounting. "Do you know that you

are subversive?" she asked Jonathan Yeager.

When his eyes narrowed and the corners of his mouth turned up, she responded to his

amusement, even if she couldn't duplicate the expression. Genetic programming, she thought. It

couldn't be anything else.

He said, "I hope so. As far as we Tosevites are concerned, a lot about the Race could use

subverting."

Had he said that when he first came up to the starship, she would have been furious. But now she

had seen that he had his own way of looking at things, different from hers. From his sense of

perspective, she was beginning to get one of her own. She said, "Well, you are halfway to

subverting me." They both laughed.

* *

As a senior researcher, Ttomalss stayed busy on a wide variety of projects, some his own, others

assigned him by his superiors. Staying busy was what he got for being an expert on the

Big Uglies. Of course, his research on Kassquit remained an important part of his work. Now that

she was an adult, though, he did not have to give her constant attention, as he had when she was a

hatchling.

He still recorded everything that went on in her compartment. He would do that as long as she

lived (unless she chanced to outlive him, in which case whoever succeeded him would continue the

recording). She was far too valuable a specimen to let any data go to waste. Even if Ttomalss

couldn't evaluate all of it, some other analyst would in years or generations to come. The Race

would be a long time figuring out what made the Tosevites respond as they did.

Because he had been involved in her life so long and so closely, Ttomalss still evaluated as much

of the raw data as he could. Kassquit's interactions with Jonathan Yeager had taught him as much

about the Big Uglies' sexual

dynamics as he'd learned anywhere else. Those interactions had also taught him a great deal about

the limits of cultural indoctrination for Tosevites.

"Well, you are halfway to subverting me," Kassquit had told the wild Big Ugly a couple of days

before Ttomalss reviewed the audio and video. Both Tosevites had used their barking laughter, so

Ttomalss presumed she was making a joke.

Hearing it hurt even so, because he feared truth lay beneath it. You cannot hatch a beffel out of

a tsiongi's egg was a proverb older than the unification of Home. He'd done his best with

Kassquit, and had improved his chances of turning her into something close to a female of the Race

by not allowing her any contact with wild Big Uglies till she was an adult.

As he pondered, the recording kept playing in

his monitor. Before long, Kassquit and Jonathan Yeager were mating. Watching them, Ttomalss let

out a small, irritated hiss. He'd known how corrosive a force Tosevite sexuality was. Now he was

seeing it again.

He moved the recording back to Kassquit's telling Jonathan Yeager she had not mated with the other

Big Ugly aboard the starship. Ttomalss had wondered whether she would; he'd made a point of not

mentioning the subject so he could avoid influencing her actions. Since she'd become acquainted

with the pleasures of mating, he had rather expected that she would indulge herself. But no.

file:///G|/rah/Harry%20Turtledove%20-%20Colonization%2003%20-%20Aftershocks.txt (10 of 278) [2/17/2004 10:29:46 AM]

Harry Turtledove - Colonization 03 - Aftershocks

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: