Down to Earth (56 page)

And then, rereading his words, he was suddenly less pleased. The trouble was that, on Tosev 3, the short term had a way of making the long term obsolete. If the Big Uglies looked as if they were on the point of overtaking the Race technologically, the planet would go into the fire. It might go into the fire anyway, if the Deutsche or the other not-empires acted under the delusion they were stronger than they were. And the fire would swallow up the new, hopeful colonies, too. How to keep it from happening?

Slowing the Tosevites’ acquisition of technology would do the job. The only problem with that was its impossibility. The Big Uglies either came up with new inventions of their own or started using ideas pirated from the Race almost everyday. They were transforming their societies at a rate that struck Ttomalss as insanely rapid.

The only other choice he could see was making them not want to use whatever technology they ended up developing. That meant making them contented living side by side with the Race and, eventually, making them contented living under the rule of the Race. And that, he thought, meant encouraging them to produce more and more acculturated individuals like Jonathan Yeager.

Ttomalss didn’t suppose Sam Yeager’s hatchling gave reverence to the spirits of Emperors past. But maybe his hatchlings would, or their hatchlings.
We have to find ways to encourage that,
Ttomalss thought. The Race couldn’t use economic incentives in the independent not-empires, as it could in the territory it presently ruled. Cultural incentives?

“Cultural incentives.” Ttomalss spoke into the computer. “Up until now, we have observed young Tosevites imitating us. They have done this on their own, without encouragement from us. We might—we should—be able to encourage them. The more they are like us, the less interest they will have in assailing us.”

He hoped that was true. It struck him as logical. It was the basis on which he’d urged the authorities to promote reverence to the spirits of Emperors past in those areas the Race did rule. That had drawn more resistance than he’d expected, but everything on Tosev 3 proved more difficult than the Race expected.

When the telephone hissed for attention, he hissed, too, in annoyance—the noise had frightened a thought out of his head. Kassquit’s image appeared on the monitor. “I greet you, superior sir,” she said.

“I greet you, Kassquit,” he replied. “I hope you are well?”

“I am, thank you.” Kassquit touched one of her arms. “I am certainly better now that I am not being immunized. That was a distinctly unpleasant process.”

“Falling ill and possibly dying would have been even more unpleasant,” Ttomalss pointed out. “You were vulnerable to illnesses the visiting Yeagers might have brought with them.”

“I understand that. Understanding it and liking it are not the same.” Kassquit had become a far more sardonic adult than Ttomalss would have expected. She went on, “And the Yeagers appear to have brought no illness with them, for I have not fallen sick since their visit.”

“But you do not know whether you would have fallen sick had you not been immunized,” Ttomalss said.

He gave Kassquit credit; after a moment’s thought, his Tosevite ward used the affirmative gesture. She said, “No doubt you are right, superior sir. Still, now that I have proved I can safely meet them, would it be possible for them to come up here again?”

“Possible? Certainly, though we would have to make arrangements for their transport with the American Tosevites.”

“I know that.” Kassquit used the affirmative gesture again. “I hope you will begin making those arrangements, whatever they are.”

“Very well,” Ttomalss said, not without a certain pang. “May I ask why you are so eager for me to do this?” He tried not to show the worry he could hardly help feeling. Did blood call to blood more strongly than he had imagined possible? Did Kassquit wish she were an ordinary Big Ugly? On the face of it, the notion was absurd. But judging anything pertaining to Tosevites by first appearances could be deadly dangerous. The Race had learned that time and again.

Kassquit said, “Their visit will be something out of the ordinary. One day here is very much like another. This will give me something new to remember, something new to think about.”

“I see,” Ttomalss said, and Kassquit’s explanation was sensible enough. It also relieved his mind. “All right, I will see what I can do. You understand, of course, that I cannot do this without approval from my superiors.”

“Oh, yes, superior sir, that goes without saying,” Kassquit agreed. “And perhaps, if this second meeting proves a success, I might eventually visit these Big Uglies down on the surface of Tosev 3. That would truly be an adventure for me.”

“Would you like to do that?” Now Kassquit knew he sounded alarmed. He couldn’t help himself. Day by day, Kassquit became a more autonomous individual. Ttomalss supposed that was inevitable; it happened with hatchlings of the Race, too. But watching it happen was acutely disconcerting.

“I would,” Kassquit said with an emphatic cough. “I have been thinking about this. How can I be a bridge between the Empire and the independent Big Uglies if I do not reach to them as they reach to me?”

“Up until now, they have done the accommodating,” Ttomalss reminded her. “If you went down there, you would have to do some of your own. They would probably require you to wear cloth wrappings, for instance, to conform to their customs.”

“That would also be something new for me,” Kassquit said, sounding as enamored of novelty as any American Big Ugly. She added, “And wrappings would help keep me warm, would they not? The surface of Tosev 3 is supposed to be a chilly place.”

“You have all the answers, I see,” Ttomalss said wryly. “Let us discover how a second meeting goes before planning a third, if that suits you.” To his relief, Kassquit didn’t argue.

Nesseref was very pleased with how smoothly she’d brought her shuttlecraft out of its suborbital trajectory; it took much less atmospheric buffeting than usual on the way down toward the port outside Cairo. As the braking rockets ignited, she was thinking about how she could enjoy the layover at the Race’s administrative center. From what she remembered of the transient barracks, she might have trouble enjoying it at all.

Her passenger, a regional subadministrator from China named Ppevel, was looking forward to the arrival. “By the spirits of Emperors past,” he said, “it will be good to come to a place where the climate is close to decent. I have been cold for what seems like forever.”

“So have I, superior sir,” Nesseref replied. “Poland in winter reminds me of nothing so much as an enormous open-air freezer.”

Ppevel started insisting China had to be colder. Before Nesseref could argue with him—and she intended to, because she had trouble imagining any place colder than Poland—a puff of black smoke and a loud bang outside the shuttlecraft distracted her. Another puff and bang, closer, were followed by metallic clatters as shell fragments struck the shuttlecraft. A warning light on the instrument panel came on.

“What is that noise?” Ppevel asked.

Ignoring him, Nesseref shouted into the radio microphone: “Cairo base! Cairo base! We are under attack, Cairo base!” She felt like a perfect target hanging up there, too; she couldn’t interrupt the computer-controlled descent sequence, not unless she wanted to try to land manually, by eye turret and by guess. She wondered if she ought to. She might pilot the shuttlecraft right into the ground. But she might also make it harder to shoot down.

Before she could hit the override switch, a voice came out of the radio speaker: “Shuttlecraft Pilot, we have the Tosevite terrorists under assault. Maintain your present trajectory.”

“It shall be done,” Nesseref said as another shell burst all too close to the shuttlecraft. More fragments struck the machine.
Another hit like that and I disobey orders,
she thought.

But only one more antiaircraft shell exploded, this one farther away. The descent after that went as well as if no one had been shooting at her. She spied helicopters racing toward the spot from which, she presumed, the antiaircraft gun was firing.

Ppevel said, “I have also been under fire in China. The more often one endures it, the easier it is to bear.”

“I have been under fire, too,” Nesseref answered. “I do not think I will ever come to enjoy it.”

She—and the computer—put the shuttlecraft down in the middle of the landing port. A vehicle hurried across the wide concrete expanse to meet the shuttlecraft. It was not the usual motorcar, but a mechanized combat vehicle. “The Big Uglies will have to work hard to destroy that machine,” Ppevel observed.

“Truth,” Nesseref said. But seeing the combat vehicle did not reassure her. If the Race sent it out to bring Ppevel—and, incidentally, herself—into Cairo, that meant there was some risk to them both.

“I thank you for a job well done,” the regional subadministrator told her.

“You are welcome, superior sir.” Nesseref didn’t say the computer had done the work, with her along as little more than an organic emergency backup. She’d almost had to take over the controls of the shuttlecraft—this was as close as she’d ever come to doing just that. Had her luck been a little worse . . . but she didn’t care to think about that. “If you like, I will go first, and attract whatever gunfire may be waiting for us.”

“That will not be necessary, though I do appreciate the thought behind it,” Ppevel said. He unstrapped himself and went down the ladder with easy haste that showed he’d flown in a good many shuttlecraft before. No one shot at him; the helicopters now buzzing around the port must have suppressed that Tosevite gun.

Nesseref followed him out of the shuttlecraft. A male in helmet and body armor said, “Into the vehicle! Do not waste time.”

“I was not wasting time,” Nesseref said indignantly. “Make sure this shuttlecraft is well repaired. It took damage from the shells that exploded nearby. Had they cut a fuel or oxygen line, the craft—and my passenger, and I—would be scattered all over this port.”

“It shall be done, superior female?” The trooper lowered his voice as he went on, “Would you like a taste of ginger? That would make you feel better.”

“No!” Nesseref used an emphatic cough. “If I had a taste of ginger, you would feel better, which is what you have in mind.”

“Pheromones are in the air,” the male admitted, “but I did not mean it like that.”

“Of course you did,” Nesseref told him. “If you do not mention the herb again, I will not have to learn your name and report you.” She pushed past the male and into the mechanized combat vehicle. Glumly, he followed. She repeated her warning about the damage the shuttlecraft had taken to the driver, who relayed it by radio to the ground crew males and females at the shuttlecraft port. Nesseref relaxed a little after hearing him do that.

A couple of-rocks and a glass bottle hit the combat vehicle as it rolled through the insanely crowded streets of Cairo. Ppevel took that in stride. “The same thing happens in China.”

“Well, it does not happen in cities in Poland,” Nesseref said. “The Big Uglies there are much better behaved. Why, I even invited one of them and his hatchling to supper at my apartment, and the evening proved quite pleasant.”

“I have heard about Poland,” Ppevel answered. “I must say I believe it to be a special case. The Big Uglies in that subregion find their Tosevite neighbors more unpleasant than they find us, and so look to us to protect them against those neighbors. That does not hold true either in China or here. I wish it did. It would make our rule much easier.”

Remembering conversations with veteran administrators in Poland, Nesseref realized she had to yield the point, and did: “You are probably right, superior sir.”

Right or wrong, Ppevel got better accommodations than she did. The mechanized combat vehicle took him to the Race’s administrative center, which had been a luxurious Tosevite hotel before the conquest fleet arrived and had since been thoroughly modernized. After he went inside, the vehicle took Nesseref to the barracks for visiting males and females, some little distance away.

“You will be quartered in the hall to the left, the females’ hall,” the officer in charge of the barracks said, pointing with his tongue.

“Barracks separated by sex?” Nesseref exclaimed. “I never heard of such a thing.”

“You will hear more of it in the future, superior female,” the officer said. “Because of the Tosevite herb, we have had enough unfortunate incidents to reckon such segregation the wiser policy.”

Nesseref thought about that. If a female who tasted ginger was liable to come into season at any time, and if a male inflamed by some other female’s pheromones was liable to give a female ginger to provoke mating behavior in her . . . Nesseref made the affirmative gesture. “I see the need.”

The barracks were as depressing as such places usually were. None of the females with whom she spoke knew anyone she knew. None of them was from the same region of Home as she was. Most of them appeared more interested in watching the video on a large wall monitor than in any sort of conversation.

One who did feel like talking had a definite goal in mind: “Do you have any ginger?” she asked Nesseref.

“I do not,” Nesseref answered sharply. “I do not want any, either. Ginger is more trouble than it is worth.”

“Nonsense,” the other female said, and tacked on an emphatic cough. “Ginger is the only thing that makes this miserable, accursed planet worth inhabiting. Without it, I would just as soon have stayed in cold sleep.”

“I think your wits did stay in cold sleep,” Nesseref said. “How much trouble have you caused by broadcasting your pheromones far and wide? How many clutches of eggs have you laid because of the nasty herb?”

“Only one,” the female said, sounding altogether unconcerned. “And I placed no burden whatever on the Race in doing so.”

“Of course you did,” Nesseref told her. “Someone is now raising the hatchlings who came from those eggs.”

“No one from the Race.” The other female remained blithe. “As soon as I laid my clutch, I sold the eggs to some Big Uglies who wanted them. Those hatchlings are their worry, not the Race’s.”