Harry Turtledove - Down to Earth

Before Shazzer could reply, a clanking rumble announced that the Deutsche had landcruisers in these parts, even if the Race didn’t. Gorppet stuck his head out of the hole again. The artillery barrage had moved on, and was now pounding positions farther east. Even if it hadn’t been, he needed to see what was going on. The greater the distance at which he and his comrades engaged the landcruisers, the better.

“We have to fight as a small group ourselves now,” he told Shazzer. The other male made the gesture of agreement.

And here came the landcruisers, three of them, much bigger and no doubt much more heavily armored than the ones the Big Uglies had used during the last round of fighting. A Tosevite stood up in the cupola of the closest one. Landcruiser commanders had a habit of doing that; it let them see much more than they could if they stayed buttoned up inside their machines and peered out through periscopes.

It also left them much more vulnerable. The Race had lost many fine landcruiser commanders-it was commonly the good ones who did stand up and look around-to Tosevite snipers. Now Gorppet did his best to redress the balance. He fired a quick burst from his rifle at the Big Ugly in the cupola. The Deutsch male toppled. “Got him!” Gorppet shouted.

But the rest of the landcruiser crew had spotted his muzzle flashes. The turret and the big gun it carried swung toward his hole. Before it could fire, though, a Tosevite leaped from cover, scrambled up onto the landcruiser, and threw something down through the open cupola into the turret. Flames and smoke rose. Escape hatches popped open. Big Uglies bailed out. Gorppet gleefully shot them. A moment later, the landcruiser blew up.

“One of those nasty bottles of burning hydrocarbon distillate,” Shazzer said. “Remember how they gave us fits?”

“I am not likely to forget,” Gorppet answered. “And I am not sorry to see them used against the Deutsche by Tosevites on our side.”

A second Deutsch landcruiser exploded, this one even more spectacularly-a hit from another landcruiser’s big gun. Gorppet shouted in glee. Before his shout was through, the third Tosevite landcruiser went up to flames. One of the Race’s machines rattled past the barn, heading west.

“Maybe the regiment leader was right after all,” Gorppet said. He turned his eye turrets this way and that. “Maybe he is even still alive to find out he was right after all-but I do not see him.” He shrugged. “I do not miss him very much, either. My guess is, we have a better chance against the Deutsche without him.”

Ever since the fighting stopped-in fact, since before the fighting stopped-Ttomalss had devoted himself to the exhausting task of raising a Tosevite hatchling. From all he’d gathered, the task of raising a Tosevite hatchling was difficult and exhausting even for the Big Uglies themselves. It was doubly-odds were, a lot more than doubly-difficult and exhausting for him, since he was the first male of the Race to try it. He had neither instincts nor accumulated wisdom upon which to fall back.

Years of patient work had made Kassquit into a female very nearly independent of him. He was grateful for that; it let him analyze some of the work he’d done with her so that others who came after him could do it better, and it also let him do some work unrelated to her. After so long without it, he’d rediscovered the joys of having time to himself again.

And now the war had broken out once more, confining him to the starship for the time being. That would have been annoying enough by itself, but there was worse. Because he’d raised Kassquit, he was also expected to take charge of Jonathan Yeager, the wild Big Ugly who’d been brought up to the starship to mate with her.

“This is most unfair,” he complained to the starship captain after receiving the order. “Most extremely unfair, superior sir. Wild Tosevites are only a secondary interest of mine. My main concern his been civilizing Big Uglies unspoiled by their own cultures. In that I have succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations. I cannot promise a result even remotely similar with this specimen.”

“Senior Researcher, it is a Big Ugly,” the captain said. “You have made a name for yourself as an expert on Big Uglies. If this one does not deal with you, with whom will it deal? With me? I thank you, but no. I have not the patience or the expertise to deal with it. The same holds true for my officers. You are the logical candidate for the job, and you will do it. That is an order, Senior Researcher. Do you understand me?”

“Only too well, superior sir,” Ttomalss replied with a sigh. “Very well. It shall be done. To the best of my ability, it shall be done.”

“It is not altogether wild,” the captain reminded him, softening his manner now that he’d got his way. “It speaks our language fairly well for a Tosevite, and it has some knowledge of our culture.”

“I placed greater hopes on such epiphenomena in former days than I do now,” Ttomalss said. “They are the eggshell. The egg within, I fear, remains profoundly alien.”

“You do not have to transform it into a female of the Race.”

“Male,” Ttomalss corrected.

With a shrug, the captain said, “Whichever. It could matter only to another Big Ugly. As I was trying to tell you, it does not have to become a male of the Race. All you have to do is keep it from getting under everyone else’s scales and making males and females itch while it is up here. Eventually, it will return to its not-empire, after all. Go on. Tend to it.”

“It shall be done,” Ttomalss repeated miserably, and left the captain’s office.

When he returned to his own chamber, he found Jonathan Yeager waiting in the hallway outside. The wild Big Ugly assumed the posture of respect and said, “I greet you, superior sir.”

“I greet you, Jonathan Yeager,” Ttomalss replied with no great warmth. “And what can I do for you today? Is it not something Kassquit could handle for you?” Several times, he had managed to use his Tosevite ward to keep this other Big Ugly from unduly bothering him.

But Jonathan Yeager shook his head in the Tosevite negative gesture, then remembered to shape his hand into the one the Race used. “No, superior sir, Kassquit cannot handle this. That is why I wanted to talk with you.”

“Very well,” Ttomalss said, as he had to the starship captain not long before. He opened the door. As it slid wide, he went on, “Come in and tell me what you require.” The sooner he dealt with the Big Ugly, the sooner he could return to his own concerns once more.

“I thank you,” Jonathan Yeager said. As he usually did, he wore wrappings around the area of his private parts. In a way, that marked him as a wild Big Ugly. In another way, though, it simplified his outline; his projecting reproductive organs were quite different from the unobtrusive ones Kassquit had. He sat down in the seat designed for Tosevite hindquarters that Ttomalss had installed in his office.

“What is it you want, then?” the psychological researcher asked. He was certain the Big Ugly wanted something.

And, sure enough, Jonathan Yeager said, “I would like to make an arrangement to get a gift for Kassquit, superior sir. I want it to be a surprise. That is why I cannot tell her, and why I had to come to you.”

“A gift?” Ttomalss was floundering. “What sort of gift?”

“Something to show I care for her,” the Tosevite replied. “I am not sure what sorts of things I can get for her here. That is another reason I came to you: to learn what is available in the way of such things.”

“A gift to show you care for her,” Ttomalss repeated. “Care for her in the alarmingly emotional way you Tosevites tend to care for your sexual partners? Is that what you mean?”