Larry Niven - Footfall

“Very good,” Wade Curtis said. His voice was loud in the quiet.

Fuck him, he’s staring at the walls. “Centauries. Alpha Centauries.”

Joe Ransom said, “They let him get away with a lot. You caught that, at the end? There’s no backup. What they’ve got, we’ve seen. And they can’t go home, I was right there—”

“-Uses his tone of voice like a fine working tool. ‘By their standards.” Sherry mused, “I wonder if they’ll want us to follow their mating seasons? And of course the fithp won’t catch any of that.”

The President and the Navy men watched in evident surprise. The Dreamer Fithp were all over that speech like dogs on a stag.

“Monogamy, anyway, Sherry. He made quite a point of it. I wonder if they saw some X-rated movie.”

“Whatever,” Curtis said. “Dawson is one smart son of a bitch. Can we hear that again?”

The air-duct pipes narrowed. Alice felt trapped, and for a moment she thought of turning back. Then she set her jaw, hard, and went on.

She rounded a turn. He was there.

Wes Dawson was curled into a small ball. Fetal position. The really sick ones do that. In the movies they always go violent. The therapists would love it if they could get that much action on the closed wards.

Dawson didn’t move as she came closer to him.

He didn’t answer.

“Wes, it’s Alice—”

“I ate shit for the sake of that Don’t-Bomb-Me symbol.”

She said nothing. Didn’t I used to do that? Try to blow the therapist’s mind by using dirty words? And Mrs. Fitzpatrick caught me at it.

“Well, I’m going to be famous.”

“You were wonderful! You told them all about the horrors— God, the way you used your voice! And the snouts didn’t even suspect—”

He started to uncoil. Alice moved away slightly.

“But you already know what I was trying to do,” Wes said. Half uncoiled, he still wouldn’t look at her. “They won’t. Wes Dawson. Now they can forget Quisling.”

“We all agreed,” Alice said. “We all thought you should do it.”

“Yeah. Just like fithp. Everybody does everything together. Look, it’s all right, Alice, I’ll be all right.” He faced her at last “Thanks for finding me. I’ll be okay.” He smiled, and damn, I looked real, but she’d seen so many phony smiles. “See? I’m fine.”

Maybe he is. He didn’t look helpless now. Alice took a deep breath. I am not a freemartin! She moved closer to Dawson.

Abruptly he launched himself at her. She couldn’t move fast enough to get away, and he wrapped his arms around her and drove her against him. She felt panic. If I fight him now, he’ll never get over this. She felt him draw her closer still. She felt smothered and wanted to flee. She tucked her head down, nose below his armpit, to breathe. She didn’t struggle.

He curled against her and was still, except for his jerky breathing. He held her, but he wasn’t moving. Slowly she relaxed the tension in her muscles as she’d been taught, beginning with her toes, ankles, then calves…

His tears soaked through her hair and wet her scalp. Almost without volition her arms went around him, and she held him, “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s all right.”

“I needed a hug. My God, I needed to be hugged. Alice. thanks.”

“It’s all right.”

Nat was measuring ingredients into a blender. He moved briskly. Lime juice, sugar, rum, scoop out half a Crenshaw melon, add ice. Low setting. The blades tended to break on the ice at higher settings. In defense against the godawful noise he moved up alongside Harpanet’s head and raised his voice.

“You’re used to long wars.”

“There are records from the homeworld. The Shape Wars lasted five generations. There were others.” Harpanet paused for thought, then: “I cannot comment from the loser’s point of view. I never wondered until you taught me. For the winning fithp, wars are long. Losers cease to be a fithp. The Traveler Fithp did not taste war until now.”

“Was the taste to your liking?” Nat hit the button that ended the howl of the blender.

Digits swiped at thin air: How can I know? “I fell from the sky, I lost my fithp, I tried to surrender. No human knew how to take my surrender. You have warriors from Kansas, isn’t it? Ask them.”

“They’re not sane.” Curtis joined the group. “Left alone too long, maybe.”

Harpanet let his digits and lower eyelids droop in the gesture they’d learned to interpret as sadness.

Ransom held his glass out for Reynolds to fill. “I sure feel sorry for Dawson.”

Curtis nodded. “Yeah. Poor bastard risks his arse to give u some information, and a lot of nerds think he’s turned traitor What worries me are the ones who think he meant it and want to take his advice.”

“Maybe we should,” Sherry said. “But it wouldn’t work. There are too many like you and Ransom.”

“You ought to be glad of that.”

“Hey.” Reynolds moved between them. “Have a drink.” Hi poured. “Sherry, you don’t want to surrender.”

“No, but I don’t want to fight, either!”

“Wasn’t you we asked to fight,” Curtis said.

“Enough,” Ransom said. “The question is, what will the President do? He sure didn’t take it very well. Maybe he’d want to quit.”

“Nah,” Curtis said. “He’s not my favorite choice, but he’s go more guts than that.”

“Sure?”

“He damned well better have.”

Harpanet spoke insistently. “What are you leading me to?”

“Eh?”

“You speak of challenging your herdmaster.”

Sherry laid her hand across Harpatiet’s brow. “It’s not what it sounds like,” she said.

“But they said—”

“We are the Dreamer Fithp,” Reynolds said. “We say anything. But we’re not going to challenge the President. Wade wasn’t ever thinking that way.” He put an edge to his voice. “Were you, Wade?”

“No, of course not.” Curtis grinned wolfishly. “Besides, it wouldn’t work.”

Nat filled a sizable mug with what remained in the blender: about half. “Swim?”

“Ssshure.”

“Yeah,” Ransom said. “Only I want a real drink, not that slop. Wade? Sherry?”

“Thank you, yes,” Curtis said. After a moment Sherry Atkinson nodded and followed them out.

Reynolds and Harpanet walked into the mudroom, and into the mud-filled pool, without interrupting their conversation. It faltered when they noticed the near stranger. The President of the United States floated in the warm mud with his eyes closed.

Harpanet dipped his nostril. Nat said, “Not in the face. He looks too tired to play.”

“I heard that,” the President said. “I am.”

Harpanet shimmied. The wall of his flank sent warm, muddy water sloshing gently across President Coffey. The President smiled. “Heating just one end of the pool,” he asked, “who thought that up?”

“Human fithp need it too warm. Too much surface for volume. Shed heat too fast.”

Nat said, “The guy who thought of that was the curator of the San Diego Zoo, George Pournelle. He had some very rare rhinos, and he didn’t know what kind of temperature they liked. So he put a temperature gradient across the cage and let them make their own decisions.”

The President nodded. He was in the hottest part of the pool. He looked very relaxed. He opened one eye and fixed it on Harpanet. “You’ve hit us hard.”