Homeward Bound Read online

  Dr. Blanchard came floating up into the control room. One look at her face told Sam all he needed to know. Back when he was a minor-league baseball player, he’d worn that same expression after grounding into a game-ending double play with the tying run at third. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  “We did everything we knew how to do.” Dr. Blanchard might have been trying to convince herself as well as Yeager. “We did everything we knew how to do, but his heart just wouldn’t get going. Hard to revive a man if you can’t give him a heartbeat.”

  “Cool him down again, then?” Sam asked. “Maybe they’ll have better techniques when we get back to Earth.” If we ever get back to Earth.

  “Kaplan and Garvey are doing that,” Blanchard said. “I wouldn’t bet the farm on it, though. If we can’t revive him, he’s probably been dead—dead in slow motion, but dead—for a long time.”

  “Dead in slow motion. There’s a hell of a phrase,” Glen Johnson said. “Reminds me of my ex-wife.” By the way Dr. Blanchard laughed, she might have had an ex-husband to be reminded of. But then Johnson’s face clouded. “She’s dead for real now. Everybody I knew back on Earth is probably dead now.”

  “I’ve got two grandsons,” Sam said. “They were little boys when I went under. They’re middle-aged now—hell, if you’re not talking about clock time, they’re older than their dad and mom. I wonder if they remember me at all. Maybe a little.”

  “Most of the people here don’t have a lot of ties back home,” Blanchard said. “I’ve got cousins and nieces and nephews there, but nobody I was real close to. Some of them are bound to be around now. But when we get back again?” She spread her hands and shook her head. “Cold sleep’s a funny business.”

  “The Lizards have a whole little subsociety, I guess you’d call it, of males and females who spend a lot of time in cold sleep,” Sam said. “They keep one another company, because they’re the only ones who know what it’s like being cut off that way from the time they were hatched in. And they live longer than we do, and they’ve got faster starships, and their culture doesn’t change as fast as ours.”

  “So you think we’ll do the same?” Johnson asked.

  “You bet I do,” Sam said. “You ever see Joe DiMaggio play?”

  “Sure.” The pilot nodded. “In Cleveland. I may even have seen you once or twice. I used to go to bush-league games now and then.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Yeager said without rancor. “Forget about me. Remember DiMaggio. Suppose we come back in 2070-something and you start going on about Joltin’ Joe. Who’s going to know what you’re talking about, or if you’re talking through your hat? Nobody except a guy who’s spent a lot of years on ice.”

  “I never saw DiMaggio play,” said Melanie Blanchard, who looked to be in her mid-forties. “He retired about the time I was born.”

  “You at least know about him, though,” Sam said. “By the time we get home, he’ll be ancient history.” They went on talking about it, none of them getting too excited. It hurt less than talking about losing the Doctor would have.

  The next three revivals went well, which helped make people feel better about things. Then Sam got summoned to the commandant’s quarters. He hadn’t had much to do with Lieutenant General Healey, and hadn’t wanted much to do with him, either. Healey was Army through and through, even more so than Stone. Sam wasn’t, and doubted very much whether the commandant approved of him.

  Approve or not, General Healey was polite enough, waving Sam to a chair and waiting till he’d buckled himself in. He owned a round bulldog face and eyebrows that seemed to have a life of their own. They twitched now: twitched unhappily, if Sam was any judge. The commandant said, “We have communicated our unfortunate failure to revive the Doctor to the Race.”

  “Yes, sir.” Sam nodded. “Unfortunate is right, but you had to do it.”

  “Their response was . . . unexpected.” Healey looked unhappier yet.

  “Yes, sir,” Sam repeated; that was always safe. “Do you need my advice about whatever it was they said?”

  “In a manner of speaking, but only in a manner of speaking,” Healey replied. “They were disturbed to learn they would not be negotiating with the Doctor. Everything they had heard about him from Earth was favorable.”

  “I can see how it would have been,” Sam said.

  “There is one other person aboard this ship about whom they said the same thing,” Healey went on, each word seeming to taste worse than the one before. “In the Doctor’s absence, they insist that we negotiate through you, Colonel.”

  “Me?” Sam yelped. “I’m no striped-pants diplomat. I’m a behind-the-scenes kind of guy.”

  “Not any more, you’re not,” Lieutenant General Healey said grimly. “They don’t want anything to do with anybody else. We’re in no position to make demands here, unfortunately. They are. As of now, Colonel, the fate of mankind may well ride on your shoulders. Congratulations, if that’s the word I want.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Sam said. And that wasn’t half of what they’d say back in the USA more than ten years from now when speed-of-light radio told them what had happened. The fate of mankind on my shoulders? He wished he’d never heard of science fiction in his life.

  “Is this the Tosevite ship Admiral Peary? Do you read me, Admiral Peary?” The shuttlecraft pilot on the other end of the line made a mess of the U.S. starship’s name. Glen Johnson didn’t suppose he could have expected anything different.

  “That is correct, Shuttlecraft Pilot,” he answered in the language of the Race. “I have you on radar. Your trajectory matches the course reported to me. You may proceed to docking. Our docking collar is produced to match those manufactured by the Race.”

  “Of course it is,” Mickey Flynn interjected in English. “We stole the design from them.”

  “Hush,” Johnson said, also in English. “It’s useful to have parts that fit together no matter who made ’em. That’s why most railroads have the same gauge.”

  “I am proceeding.” The shuttlecraft pilot sounded dubious. “I hope you have the same high standards as the Race.”

  Humanity didn’t. Johnson knew it. He was damned if he’d admit as much here. He said, “We crossed the space between the star Tosev and your sun. We have arrived safely. That must say something about our capabilities.”

  “Something, yes,” the shuttlecraft pilot replied. “It may well also say something about your foolhardiness.”

  So there, Johnson thought. Had he been crazy to come aboard the Admiral Peary? Maybe not, but it sure hadn’t hurt. He watched the shuttlecraft’s approach, first on the radar screen and then with the Mark One eyeball. After a little while, he keyed the radio again. “You can fly that thing, I will say. I have flown in-atmosphere aircraft and craft not too different from that one. I know what I am talking about.”

  “I thank you for the compliment,” the shuttlecraft pilot replied. “If I were not capable, would they have chosen me for this mission?”

  “I don’t know. You never can tell,” Johnson said, but in English and without transmitting the words. Flynn let out what sounded suspiciously like a snort.

  The pilot docked with the shuttlecraft. To Johnson’s relief, the docking collar worked exactly the way it was supposed to. He went down to the corridor outside the air lock to say good-bye to the Yeagers and the others who were going down to the surface of Home.

  “I’m jealous,” he told Sam Yeager once more. “If I could take one gee’s worth of gravity after going without for so long . . .”

  “A likely story,” Yeager said. “No girls to chase down there, and the weather’s always hot. You’d do better staying here.”

  Lights on the wall showed that the outer airlock door was opening and the shuttlecraft pilot was moving his ship into the lock. The Race had wanted to inspect people’s baggage before they went down to the surface of Home. Sam Yeager had said no. The Lizards didn’t seem worried about weapons, at least not in the usual sense of the word.
They were worried about ginger.

  Just how worried they were, Johnson discovered when Karen Yeager, who was looking through the window set into the inner airlock door, squeaked in surprise. “It’s not a Lizard!” she exclaimed. “It’s a Rabotev.”

  That set everybody pushing off toward the window, trying to get a first look at one of the other two races in the Empire. Johnson’s weightlessness-weakened muscles were at a disadvantage there, but he eventually got a turn. The Rabotev—what amazing news!—looked like the pictures the Lizards had brought to Earth.

  It was a little taller, a little skinnier, a little straighter than a Lizard. Its scales were bigger and looked thicker than a Lizard‘s. They were a gray close to black, not a greenish brown. On its chest, the Rabotev wore a shuttlecraft pilot’s body paint. Its hands were strange. They had four digits each; the outer two were both set at an angle from the middle two, and could both work as thumbs. Two digits on its feet pointed forward, two to the rear.

  The Rabotev’s head was a little more erect on its neck than a Lizard‘s, less so than a man‘s. It had its eyes mounted atop short, muscular stalks, not in eye turrets. They moved all the time; sometimes, it seemed, independently of each other. Johnson wondered if the shuttlecraft pilot had a snail somewhere way up his—her?—family tree. The Rabotev’s snout was shorter than a Lizard‘s. When the alien opened its—that did seem the safest pronoun, in the absence of visible evidence one way or the other—mouth, it displayed a lot of sharp, yellow-orange teeth.

  Sam Yeager said what Johnson had already thought: “They probably don’t have to worry about getting this one high on ginger. Odds are it doesn’t do anything for him.”

  “Would you let him in, Colonel Johnson?” Karen Yeager asked. “This is a first contact, in a way.”

  “Okay,” Johnson said, and opened the inner airlock door. “I greet you,” he called to the Rabotev in the language of the Race. “I am the pilot with whom you were speaking on the radio.” He gave his name.

  “I am Raatiil,” the Rabotev said, pronouncing each vowel separately. “And I greet you.” He sounded like a Lizard; try as Johnson would, he couldn’t detect any distinctive accent, the way he could when a human spoke the Lizards’ language. “You are the first Tosevites I have ever seen.” His eyestalks wiggled. They weren’t long enough to tie in knots, which was probably a good thing.

  “You are the first Rabotev any Tosevite has ever seen in person,” Sam Yeager said. “We recognize you, of course, from pictures, but none of your kind has come to Tosev 3.”

  “Some are on the way now, I believe, in cold sleep,” Raatiil said.

  Johnson wondered if the Race hadn’t used Rabotevs and Hallessi in the conquest fleet because it feared they might be unreliable. He doubted he would get a straight answer if he asked the question that way. Instead, he inquired, “What do you think of the Race?”

  “They took us out of barbarism,” the shuttlecraft pilot said simply. “They gave us the freedom of the stars. They cured diseases on our home planet. We are never hungry any more, the way we used to be. And the spirits of Emperors past watch over those of our folk, the same as they watch over those of the Race.” The Rabotev’s eyestalks set its large green eyes staring at its own feet for a moment.

  Raatiil sounded altogether sincere. If it was, there went any chance of even thinking about raising rebellions in the subject species. Johnson had always figured that chance was pretty slim. The Lizards had held the Empire together for a long time.

  Jonathan Yeager asked, “What did your people used to reverence before the Race came to your planet?”

  Raatiil opened and closed both hands. That must have been the Rabotev’s equivalent of a shrug, for the alien answered, “These days, only scholars know. What difference does it make? Those other things could not have been as strong as the spirits of Emperors past, or we would have learned to fly between the stars and brought the Race into our empire instead of the other way round.”

  Was that what the Lizards had been teaching ever since they conquered what humans called Epsilon Eridani 2? Or had the Rabotevs come up with it themselves, to explain why they’d lost and the Lizards had won? After all these thousands of years, did anyone still remember how the story had got started?

  “May I ask a question without causing offense?” Sam Yeager said. “As I told you, I am ignorant of your kind.”

  Raatiil made the affirmative gesture. With the Rabotev’s two-thumbed hand, it looked odd, but it was understandable. “Ask,” the shuttlecraft pilot said.

  “I thank you,” Yeager replied. “Are you male or female?”

  “They predicted you would ask me this,” Raatiil said. “As it happens, I am a male. The sand in which my egg was incubated was warm. But, except during mating season, it matters not at all to us. I am told it is different with you Tosevites, and I see this is so.”

  In English, Johnson said, “They’ve been studying up on us.”

  “Well, good,” Jonathan Yeager replied in the same language. “I hope that means they take us seriously.”

  “Oh, they take us seriously, all right,” Sam Yeager said. “We’re here, so they have to take us seriously. Whether we can get anywhere when we talk to them—well, that’s liable to be a different story.”

  The Rabotev’s eyestalks kept swinging toward whoever was talking. Does he understand English? Johnson wondered. Or is he just surprised to hear any language that isn’t the Race‘s? The Race was nothing if not thoroughgoing. Signals from Earth had been coming Home for almost eighty years now. Could the Lizards have taught some of the folk of the Empire the human tongue? No doubt about it.

  Easiest way to find out might be to grab the bull by the horns. “Do you speak English, Shuttlecraft Pilot?” Johnson asked, in that language.

  Raatiil froze for a moment. Surprise? Evidently, for after that freeze he made the affirmative gesture again. “I have learned it,” he answered, also in English. “Do you understand when I speak?”

  “Yes. You speak well,” Johnson said. That Raatiil could be understood at all meant he spoke well, but Johnson had known plenty of Lizards who were worse. Still in an experimental mood, he told that to the Rabotev.

  He got back another shrug-equivalent. “Some males and females are better than others at learning strange things,” Raatiil said.

  So much for that, Johnson thought. He’d been curious to see whether Raatiil enjoyed getting praise for doing something better than members of the Race. If he did, he didn’t show it. Maybe that meant there really wasn’t any friction among the different species in the Empire. Maybe it only meant Raatiil was too well trained to show much.

  Sam Yeager caught Johnson’s eye and nodded slightly. Johnson nodded back. Sure as hell, Sam had known what he was up to. No flies on him, no indeed. Everybody on the ship had been gloomy because the Doctor didn’t make it. Johnson was sorry they couldn’t revive the Doctor, too. He didn’t think the diplomacy would suffer on that account, though. It might even go better. The Doctor was clever, but he’d always liked to show off just how clever he was. Sam Yeager was more likely to do what needed doing and not make any kind of fuss about it.

  Raatiil said, “Those Tosevites going down to the surface of Home, please accompany me to the shuttlecraft. It has been fitted with pads that will accommodate your physiques.”

  One by one, the humans boarded the shuttlecraft. Sam Yeager was the last. “Wish us luck,” he told Johnson.

  “Break a leg,” Johnson said solemnly. Yeager grinned and pushed himself into the air lock.

  Johnson closed the inner door. Yeager went through the outer door and into the shuttlecraft. Johnson pressed the button that closed the outer door. He waited by the air lock to make sure the shuttlecraft’s docking collar disengaged as smoothly as it had caught. It did. He headed back to the control room. From now on, most of the action would be down on the planet.

  Deceleration pressed Jonathan Yeager into the foam pad that did duty for a seat on the Lizards’
shuttlecraft. Rationally, he knew it wasn’t that bad, but it felt as if he were at the bottom of a pileup on a football field.

  He looked over his shoulder at his father, who was older and had been weightless longer. “How you doing, Dad?” he asked.

  “I’ll be fine as soon as they take the locomotive off my chest,” Sam Yeager answered.

  “Landing soon,” Raatiil said—in English. He’d never seen a human before in his life, but he spoke fairly well. Would he have admitted it if the pilot hadn’t asked? There was an interesting question.

  The shuttlecraft touched down. The landing jets fell silent. It was already hot inside the craft. The Lizards liked it that way; they were comfortable at temperatures like those of a hot summer day in Los Angeles. They found Arabia and the Sahara delightful. They also found them temperate, an alarming thought. Jonathan asked, “What season of the year is it here?”

  “Spring,” Raatiil answered. “But do not worry. It will be warmer soon.” That spoke volumes about the kind of weather Rabotevs preferred.

  It also drew several involuntary groans from the humans on the shuttlecraft. Karen Yeager said, “Our world is cooler than Home. I hope you will arrange to cool our quarters.”

  “I do not know anything about this,” Raatiil said. “Now that you remind me, I remember in my briefing that Tosevites prefer weather we would find unpleasantly cold. But I have no control over your quarters.”

  It’s not my job. That was what he meant, all right. Some things didn’t change across species lines. Jonathan had seen that back on Earth with the Lizards. It obviously applied here, too. Then Raatiil opened the hatchway, and Jonathan forgot about everything but that he’d momentarily be stepping out onto the ground of a planet that spun round another sun.

  “You Tosevites may go down,” Raatiil said. “The descent ladder is deployed. Go with some caution, if you please. The ladder is not made for your species.”

  “Many of us have flown in the Race’s shuttlecraft on Tosev 3,” Jonathan said. “We know these ladders.”