Harry Turtledove - Homeward Bound

“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.”