Harry Turtledove - A World of Difference

“Sorry.”

She shrugged, took off her gloves, rubbed her hands together.

“I’m going to make myself some coffee. Want any?”

Maybe he was only imagining how he sounded; Sarah didn’t seem to notice anything wrong. “Sure,” he said. “Thanks.”

Sarah put two cups of water in the microwave. Pat came in. Sarah glanced up. Irv waited for the world to fall to pieces. Sarah said, “In. I’m making coffee. Shall I put another cup in for you?”

“Would you?” Pat said. “I could use some.”

“Sure.” Sarah filled a third cup. The microwave started its soft whir. Over it, Sarah said to Pat, “You sound a little better.”

Pat nodded. “I think maybe I am, finally. I’ve got to-we all have to-get on with things, no matter what’s happened. I’m sorry I’ve been so useless. I just… needed some time, I guess.”

“Of course you did,” Sarah said. The microwave chimed. She got out the boiling water, poured in instant coffee, passed around the cups. “Here you go, folks, caffeinated mud. Real coffee is another thing I’ll want lots of when we get home.”

“Amen,” Irv agreed. “Could be worse, though-don’t the Russians have instant tea?” The idea of that drew groans from everyone.

“How’s Lamra?” Pat asked.

“You are better,” Sarah said, sounding pleased. “That’s the first time in a good long while you’ve cared about what’s going on. As for Lamra, she’s very much herself, only more so, if you know what I mean. She has this new wooden toy runnerpest- maybe Reatur made it for her; I don’t know it that she carries around everywhere. Won’t let go of it for hell. She doesn’t try to mother it, though, the way a little girl would with a doll. Not much call for learning to be a mommy on Minerva.” That comment extinguished smiles from the faces of Pat and Irv. “Not much longer now,” Irv said.

“No-we have to keep those clamps and bandage packs handy,” Sarah said. “We may need ‘era any time. I just hope they’ll do some good.”

“We give it our best shot. That’s all we can do. Having Pat he did not look at her and picked his words carefully-“ feeling more like herself can’t do anything but help.” “I hope so,” Pat said.

“Irv’s right. We might make this work yet.” Sarah looked happier at the prospect than she had for a while herself.

Irv finished his coffee. Relief almost drowned guilt: evidently he didn’t have a large scarlet A tattooed on his forehead after all. He couldn’t forget those few incandescent minutes with Pat, but maybe, just maybe, he could convince himself they didn’t matter very much.

And maybe he couldn’t, too. While Sarah slept quietly beside him, her warm breath sometimes tickling his ear, he lay awake himself most of the night. “A conscience is a useless piece of baggage,” he whispered. His, however, wasn’t listening. For that matter, not even the rest of him believed it.

“They’re turning!” It was anything but the best news in the world, Reatur thought as he heard the messenger’s shout. That he had been expecting it did not make it any easier to take.

His males heard it, too. Some peered over the barricade of ice and snow on which they had been working frantically for the last few days. The Skarmer were not yet in sight. Reatur was glad the weather was staying right around the place where ice melted, so he and the males could work with both snow and water to create a sturdy barrier against the invaders. Had it been too hot to keep snow on the ground, they would have had to try to build the rampart of earth, which would have taken impossibly long.

The domain master poked an eyestalk over the barrier him self, turned another on Emmett beside him. “Soon we will see them,” Reatur said. “And then-”

The human jerked the places where his arms met his body in his kind’s gesture of uncertainty. “And then we do what we do,” he said. He had less of the Omalo tongue than the other humans.

“You will use your noiseweapon, too?” Reatur asked worriedly. It did not look like much; Emmett’s big hand almost swallowed it. But the human had demonstrated it once, with lots of Reatur’s warriors to see and hear. The roar, the flash had been much like the ones that worked such ruin on them at the edge of Ervis Gorge. “The males will be braver, knowing we can match the Skarmer.”

“Not match,” Emmett said sharply but quietly so the warriors close by would not hear. “Skarmer weapon shoot more, shoot farther.”

“Yes, I know that. You explained it before.” Reatur spoke as softly as the human. “But my males do not, so they will be braver. And the Skarmer do not, so they may take fright when you thunder at them.”

“Good plan,” Emmett agreed. That pleased Reatur; no matter how weird humans were, this one seemed to know a good deal about fighting. Now he was talking into the box that carried voices. Reatur wished he understood what Emmett was saying; he had only learned a few words of human speech. Now he had to ask, “Is all well, back beyond the castle?” “All well,” Emmett said. “They wait.”

“So do we,” Reatur said. Most times, he would sooner have acted than paused here to let the Skarmer descend on him. But if he attacked them in the open, he would be like a fat massi coming up to a male, too stupid to know it was about to be speared. The noiseweapon made that certain. Thus he waited, on ground of his own choosing.

His warriors’ babble changed tone. The eyestalk that was looking northwest over the barrier told him why. The males emerging from in back of some gentle high ground could only be the enemy.

Some of them stopped short when they saw the obstacle the Omalo had thrown up in their path. The Skarmer could not go around it: it stretched from one patch of woods to another. If they wanted to fight Reatur’s warriors, they would have to come straight at them.

More and more Skarmer came out. They began to deploy, forming into fighting clusters. The Omalo yelled abuse at them, though they did not understand the local tongue and were still too far away to hear much anyhow.

“Fralk has a funny way of arranging his warriors,” Reatur said, poking up another couple of eyestalks so he could take in the whole picture at once. “Why that gap in the center? More of his males should be there, to meet us where we are strongest. But there are only an eighteen or so.”

With one of the eyes that wasn’t looking out at the Skarmer army, the domain master saw Emmett looking over the rampart, too. The human had a gadget over his own eyes-not the noiseweapon, but something else. “Help me see farther,” Emmett explained, lowering the device. “I see human there in center.” Always deep and, to Reatur, fierce sounding, his voice was frighteningly grim now.

“A human.” After a moment’s thought, the domain master realized what that meant. “Oh. That is where the noiseweapon will be.”

“Yes.”

“And he doesn’t have his own males there so he won’t hit them with the stones or whatever it is that the noiseweapon spits.”

“Yes,” Emmett said again. He made his mouth twist into the shape humans used to show amusement. Now he had his weapon again. “We give Fralk new thing to think about, yes?”

“Yes.” The word felt good to Reatur. Fralk had been pulling him around by the eyestalks ever since the Skarmer forced their way out of Ervis Gorge. He had been reacting to what his enemy did. Let Fralk react for a change. “Go ahead, Emmett.”

The human aimed the noiseweapon over the rampart, made it roar. Having it go off next to Reatur was like taking up residence in the middle of a thunderstorm. The domain master did not care. “See how you like it coming your way, Fralk!” he yelled.