Down to Earth (38 page)

“I greet you, superior female,” Heinrich Anielewicz said in the language of the Race. “I learn your speech in school.”

He didn’t speak very well, even for a Big Ugly. But she could understand him. As she did with Mordechai Anielewicz’s use of the Race’s written language, she made allowances. Speaking as if to a youngster of her own species, she said, “I greet you, Heinrich Anielewicz. I am glad you are learning my speech. I think it will be useful for you later in life.”

“I also think so,” Heinrich said, whether because he really did or because that was an easy way to answer, Nesseref did not know. Then the gaze of the small Big Ugly—he was just about Nesseref’s size—fell on Orbit. “What is that?” he asked. “It is not a beffel.”

Nesseref laughed. Orbit would have been insulted had he understood. “No, he is not a beffel,” the shuttlecraft pilot agreed. “He is called a tsiongi.”

“May I . . .” Heinrich cast about for a way to say what he wanted; he plainly didn’t have much in the way of vocabulary. But he managed: “May I be friends with it?” Without waiting for a reply, he started toward the tsiongi.

“Be careful,” Nesseref said, to him and to Mordechai Anielewicz as well. “I do not know how the tsiongi will react to Tosevites coming up to him. None of your species has ever done that before.”

Mordechai Anielewicz followed his hatchling, ready to snatch him back from danger. The younger Big Ugly, rather to Nesseref’s surprise, did what a male or female of the Race might have done: he stretched out a hand toward the tsiongi to let the beast smell him. Orbit’s tongue shot out and brushed his fleshy little fingers. The tsiongi let out a discontented hiss and deliberately turned away.

Although Nesseref didn’t know all she might have about how Tosevites reacted, she would have bet that Heinrich Anielewicz was discontented, too. Mordechai Anielewicz spoke to his hatchling in their own language. Then he returned to the language of the Race for Nesseref’s benefit: “I told him this animal might smell on him the odor of the beffel we have at home. Some of our own animals do not like the smell that others have, either.”

“Ah? Is that a truth? How interesting.” Nesseref saw no reason why things like that shouldn’t be so, but that they might be hadn’t occurred to her. “In some ways, then, life on Tosev 3 and life on Home are not so very different.” She turned her eye turrets toward Heinrich Anielewicz. “And how did you get a beffel of your own?”

“I find it in the street,” he answered. Then he started speaking his own language.

Mordechai translated: “He says he gave it something to eat and it followed him home. He says he likes it very much. And you know how the beffel helped save us when the fire started.”

“Yes, I know that. You wrote of it,” Nesseref said. “What I find hard to imagine is having a fire starting in a building where males and females of your species live.”

“When I see this building, I understand why you find it hard to imagine.” The larger Anielewicz used an emphatic cough. “But our buildings are not like this. And this fire was set on purpose, to try to kill me, or so I think.” He spoke quickly there, doing his best to make sure his hatchling couldn’t follow what he said.

He succeeded in that, and, in any case, Heinrich Anielewicz seemed more interested in Orbit than in Nesseref. The shuttle-craft pilot said, “You have vicious enemies.”

“Truth.” Mordechai’s shrug was much like one from a male of the Race. “Do you see why I would rather talk about befflem?”

“Befflem?” Heinrich understood that word. “What about befflem?”

“What interests me about befflem,” Nesseref said, “is that they have so quickly begun to run wild here. I hear this is true of several kinds of our animals. We begin to make Tosev 3 into a world more like Home through them.”

Heinrich didn’t get all of that. Mordechai did. He said, “For you, this may be fine. For us, I do not think it is.”

Before Nesseref could answer that, the timer in the kitchen hissed. “Ah, good,” she said. “That means supper is ready. I have made it from the meat of Tosevite animals, as you asked, and made sure none of it was from the one you call ‘pig.’ I do not understand why you cannot eat other meats, but I am not quarreling with you.”

“We Jews can eat other meats, but we may not,” Mordechai Anielewicz said. “It is one of the rules of our . . . superstition, is what the Race calls it.”

“Why have such rules?” Nesseref asked. “Do they not pose a nutritional hardship?”

“Nor really, or not very often,” Mordechai answered. “They do help remind us that we are a special group of Tosevites. Our belief is that the one who created the universe made us his chosen group.”

Nesseref had learned that all Big Uglies were on the prickly side when it came to their superstitions. Picking her words with care, she asked, “Chosen for what? For disagreements with your neighbors?”

Mordechai Anielewicz translated that into his own tongue. He and Heinrich both let out yips of barking Tosevite laughter. In the language of the Race, Mordechai said, “It often seems so.”

“Well, you and your hatchling and I are not disagreeing,” Nesseref said. “Let us sit down and eat together. I have alcohol for you, if you would care for it. Afterwards, we can talk more about these things.”

“Good enough,” Mordechai said. “Can I do anything to help?”

“I do not think so,” Nesseref said. “I have chairs for your kind, and I also have your style of eating utensils. Let us use them now.”

Heinrich Anielewicz went straight through the doorway into the eating area. Mordechai Anielewicz had to duck his head to get through, as he’d had to duck his head to enter Nesseref’s apartment. She’d wondered if he would be able to stand straight inside the apartment, but his head didn’t quite brush the ceiling.

Even so, he said, “Now I understand why the Race calls us Big Uglies. In a place made for the Race, I feel very large indeed.” He spoke in his own tongue to his hatchling, who answered him in the same language. The older Tosevite translated: “Heinrich says he thinks this place is just the right size.”

“For him, it would be.” Nesseref corrected herself: “For him, it would be now. When he is full grown, it will seem cramped to him, too. Here, sit down, both of you, and I will bring the food and the alcohol.”

“Only a little alcohol for my hatchling,” Mordechai Anielewicz said. “It is not our custom to let hatchlings become intoxicated.”

“Nor ours,” Nesseref agreed, “but a little will do no harm.” The elder Anielewicz’s head went up and down, the Tosevite gesture of agreement.

After a moment, Nesseref brought bowls of stew from the kitchen to the table. Nothing in the stew would offend Mordechai and Heinrich’s sensibilities: it was of the local meat called beef, and had more vegetables in it than Nesseref would have used had she been cooking for herself. Tosevites, she’d learned, preferred more calories from carbohydrates and fewer from proteins and fats than did the Race.

As everyone began to eat, a problem developed. Mordechai Anielewicz said, “Superior female, may we please have knives as well as forks and spoons? Some of these pieces are rather large for us.”

“It shall be done.” Nesseref hurried back into the kitchen and returned with the utensils. As she handed one to each of the Tosevites, she said, “You have my apologies. I cut the meat and the vegetables in portions that would fit my mouth, forgetting that yours are smaller.”

“No harm done,” Mordechai Anielewicz said. “We have creatures called ‘snakes’ that can take very large bites, but we Tosevites cannot.”

The Big Uglies’ smaller mouthparts didn’t keep them from finishing the supper at about the same time as Nesseref did. “Is it enough?” she asked anxiously. “I do not know just how much you eat at a meal. If you are still hungry, plenty more is in the pot.”

After the elder and younger spoke back and forth, Mordechai said, “My hatchling tells me he has had enough. You gave him about what he would eat at home. I would thank you for a little more, if it is no trouble.”

“It is no trouble at all.” Nesseref used an emphatic cough. She brought the bigger Big Ugly another bowl of stew, and also took a smaller second helping for herself. To the growing hatchling, she said, “You may play with the tsiongi while we finish, if he will permit it. Please be careful, though. If he does not, just watch him. I do not want you bitten.”

Heinrich Anielewicz followed that without need for translation. “I thank you, superior female,” he said. “It shall be done.” He brought out the stock phrases more fluently than he spoke while trying to shape his own thoughts in the Race’s language. Pushing back his chair, he returned to the front room. Nesseref listened for sounds of alarm, but none came.

Mordechai Anielewicz sipped at his alcohol. He too seemed to be listening to make sure Heinrich and Orbit were getting on well. When things had stayed quiet for a little while, he said, “May I ask you a question, superior female?”

“You may ask,” Nesseref said. “I may not know the answer, or I may know and be unable to tell you. That depends on the question.”

“I understand,” the Big Ugly said. “Here it is: Do you know how close the Deutsche came to launching an attack on Poland recently?”

“Ah,” Nesseref said. “No, I do not know how close, not for a certainty. For that, you would have to talk with the males of the conquest fleet. I do know my shuttlecraft port was placed on heightened alert, and that the alert was abandoned a few days later. The Race, I would say, judges any immediate danger past.”

“The Race, I would say, is too optimistic,” Anielewicz answered. “But I thank you for the information. It confirms other things I have learned. We may have been very lucky there.”

Nesseref asked a question of her own: “And if we had not been? What would you have done with your explosive-metal bomb then?” She still didn’t know if he had one, but she thought he might.

“Do you know the Tosevite story of Samson in the, uh, house of superstition?” Anielewicz asked. When the shuttlecraft pilot made the negative hand gesture, the Big Ugly said, “Count yourself lucky.” He added an emphatic cough.

Atvar turned an eye turret toward Pshing with more than a little annoyance.
“Must
I see the accursed Tosevite now?” he said.

“Exalted Fleetlord, it
is
a scheduled appointment,” his adjutant answered. “Having conceded these not-empires their independence, we seem to have little choice but to treat them as if we meant it.”

“I am painfully aware of that,” Atvar answered. “If you will recall, I recently suffered through a harangue from the American ambassador, who seemed shocked we would presume to swing an eye turret in the direction of what his not-empire is doing with its spaceship. Truculent, arrogant . . . Maybe I should retire and let Reffet see how he likes taking on this whole burden.”

“Please do not do that, Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing said earnestly. “You would leave us at the mercy of the colonists. They still show little true understanding of the realities of Tosev 3.”

“Well, there you have spoken a truth,” Atvar said, flattered. “But it is a temptation, nonetheless. I have done too much for too long. Kirel might manage as well—or as poorly—as I have.”

In Atvar’s opinion, the thing most likely to limit Kirel’s effectiveness was Kirel himself. He kept that to himself; he would not cast aspersions on the senior shiplord of the conquest fleet to amuse his adjutant. “Send in the Deutsch ambassador,” he said. “The sooner I have heard his absurd, outlandish complaints, the sooner I can dispose of them.”

“It shall be done.” Pshing went out into an antechamber and returned with a Big Ugly named Ludwig Bieberback.

Atvar preferred dealing with Bieberback to trying to deal with his predecessor, Ribbentrop. This Tosevite had some elementary understanding of the world around him. He also spoke the language of the Race; going through interpreters had often been enough to give Atvar the itch.

“I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” the Deutsch male said now, assuming the posture of respect.

“And I greet you, Ambassador,” Atvar replied. “Please be seated.” He waved the Big Ugly to a chair made for his kind.

“I thank you.” After Bieberback had sat down, he said, “Exalted Fleetlord, I am here to protest the arrogant and highhanded way in which the Race’s ambassador to the
Reich
presumed to pass judgment on our movements of soldiers within our own territory.”

“He did so at my express order,” Atvar said; he had learned from painful experience that rudeness worked better with the Deutsche than tact, which they took for weakness. “If you try to attack Poland, we will smash you flat. Is that plain enough for you to understand?”

“We deny that the
Reich
intended to do any such thing,” Ludwig Bieberback said. “We have a legitimate right of self-defense, and we were exercising it in a nonprovocative manner.”

“No, you were not, or I would not have had my warning delivered to you,” Atvar said. “And we do not find your denials credible. The
Reich
has carried on a covert conflict with the Race since the fighting stopped. To have that break into open war would not surprise us in the least, and you would not find us unprepared to take the harshest measures against your not-empire.”

“This presumption of yours is intolerable,” Bieberback said. “Is it any wonder so many Tosevites seek to be free of your rule?”

“Nothing Tosevites do is much of a wonder,” Atvar said. “Is it any wonder that the Race has to keep both eye turrets toward all Tosevite not-empires at all times, to make sure we are not treacherously assailed?”

“That is not how the Race operates in practice,” Bieberback answered, a whine coming into his mushy voice. “In practice, you persecute the
Reich
more than all others put together.”

“You have spoken an untruth,” the fleetlord told him. “And if we do keep a particularly close watch on the
Reich,
it is because the
Reich
has shown itself to be particularly untrustworthy.”

“Now you have spoken an untruth,” Ludwig Bieberback said, a discourtesy no one from the Race except Reffet would have presumed to offer Atvar. “If we cannot live in peace, we will have to see how else the Deutsche can obtain their legitimate rights from you.”