Aftershocks Read online

  “Tosevite diplomatists have a phrase: balance of power,” Atvar said. “What this means is, using your less annoying neighbor to protect you from your more annoying neighbor. If the annoyance level changes, the direction of the alliance can also change, and change very quickly.”

  “I see,” Pshing said. “Yes, that is the sort of system Big Uglies would be likely to devise.”

  “You speak sarcastically, but your words hold an egg of truth,” the fleetlord said. “Because the Big Uglies have always been divided up into so many competing factions, they have naturally needed to develop means for improving their particular group’s chance for short-term success—the only kind they consider—and reducing the chances of their opponents. And now that we are a part of this competitive system, we have had to adopt or adapt these techniques ourselves. Without them, we would be at a severe disadvantage.”

  “Back in the days of ancientest history, I am certain that our ancestors were more virtuous,” Pshing said.

  “You would probably be surprised,” Atvar answered. “In preparing for this mission, I had to study a good deal more ancientest history than is commonly taught in schools. I can understand why so much of it is suppressed, as a matter of fact. Back in the days before the Empire unified Home, our ancestors were a cantankerous lot. They would likely have been better equipped to deal with the Big Uglies than we are, because they seem to have spent a good deal of their time cheating one another.”

  “Exalted Fleetlord, you shock me,” Pshing said.

  “Well, I was shocked myself,” Atvar admitted. “The trouble is, our early ancestors actually did these things and were experienced in diplomacy and duplicity. Since the Empire unified Home a hundred thousand years ago, we have forgotten such techniques. We did not really need them when we conquered the Rabotevs and Hallessi, though the fleetlords of those conquest fleets studied them, too. And, of course, our so-called experts aboard the colonization fleet studied our earlier conquests on the assumption that this one would be analogous. That is why they have been of so little use to us: false assumptions always lead to bad policy.”

  “Experts aboard the colonization fleet,” Pshing echoed. “That reminds me, Exalted Fleetlord—you will surely recall Senior Researcher Felless?”

  “Oh, yes.” Atvar made the affirmative gesture. “The alleged expert on Big Ugly psychology who decided to imitate or exceed the Tosevites’ sexual excesses. Why should I recall her, Pshing? What has she done now to draw my eye turrets in her direction? Another disgrace with ginger?”

  “I am not precisely sure, Exalted Fleetlord,” his adjutant answered. “No one appears to be precisely sure. She used her influence in France to obtain the release of a certain prisoner charged with previous collaboration—sexual collaboration—with the Deutsche. As I understand things, it does appear that the prisoner was in fact coerced into this sexual collaboration, a Tosevite crime that ginger has allowed us to discover as well.”

  “Indeed,” the fleetlord said. “What is the difficulty if Felless was acting in the interest of justice, as appears to be the case?”

  “The difficulty, Exalted Fleetlord, is that the prisoner in question also has a family connection to one of the leading Tosevite ginger smugglers in Marseille,” Pshing replied.

  “Oh. I see.” Atvar’s voice was heavy with meaning. “Did Senior Researcher Felless come to the Big Ugly’s aid from a sense of justice or from a longing for a limitless supply of the Tosevite herb, then?”

  “No one knows,” Pshing answered. “Ambassador Veffani notes that her work has been excellent of late, but he also suspects that she still tastes ginger. Judging motivation is not always simple.”

  “One could hardly disagree with that,” Atvar said. “Veffani is a more than competent male. I presume he is continuing to monitor developments in France?”

  “He is, Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing said. “If ambiguity diminishes, he will notify us, and will take the actions he deems justified.”

  “Very well.” It wasn’t very well, but Atvar couldn’t do anything about it save wait. “What other tidbits of news have we?”

  “We have received another protest from the not-empire of the United States concerning incursions of our domestic animals into their territory,” Pshing said. “They have also begun complaining that the seeds of certain of our domestic plants have spread north of the border between our territory and theirs.”

  “If those are the worst complaints the American Big Uglies have, they should count themselves lucky,” Atvar said with a scornful laugh. “They are fortunate. They seem not to realize how fortunate they are. I shall not personally respond to this protest. You may tell them to compare their situation to that of the Deutsche and, having done so, to decide if their sniveling—use that word—has merit.”

  “It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing replied. “In fact, I shall take considerable pleasure in doing it. The American Tosevites complain because they have lost a fingerclaw, not because they have lost fingers.”

  “Exactly so,” Atvar said. “You may also tell them that, and you need not soften it very much. And you may tell them that they are welcome to slay any of our domestic animals they find on their side of the border, and to enjoy the meat once they have slain them. Furthermore, tell them they may pull up any plants of ours they find in their land. We shall have no complaints if they do. But if they labor under the delusion that we can stop animals from wandering and plants from propagating and spreading, my opinion is and shall remain that they are deluded indeed.”

  “May I tell them that?” Pshing asked eagerly.

  “Why not?” the fleetlord said. “The Americans have self-righteousness as a common failing, as the Deutsche have arrogance and the Russkis have obfuscation. Tell Ambassador Lodge what he needs to hear, not just what he might want to hear.”

  “Again, Exalted Fleetlord, it shall be done,” his adjutant said. “And, again, I will enjoy doing it.”

  Atvar called up some maps of the northern part of the lesser continental mass. He checked climatological data, then hissed in derision. “It appears unlikely that our plants will be able to flourish in most of the regions where the American Big Uglies raise most of their food crops—their harsh winters will kill plants used to decent weather. They have not lost even a fingerclaw; they may perhaps have chipped one. The farmers in the subregion of the greater continental mass called India have a genuine grievance against us: there, our plants compete successfully against those they are used to growing.”

  “As you say, the Americans have nothing large that exercises them, so they have to get exercised over small things,” Pshing answered. “The next Tosevite we discover who cannot complain at any excuse or none will be the first.”

  “Truth!” Atvar used an emphatic cough. “I truly believe that their constant carping was what finally pushed the Deutsche into war against us. They complained so often and over so many different things, they finally persuaded themselves they were doing what was good and true and right. And so they attacked, and so they failed. I doubt it will teach them much of a lesson, but we shall do our best to make sure they lack the strength to try adventurism again.”

  “Unlike Tosevites, we have the patience for such a course,” Pshing observed.

  “Yes.” The fleetlord’s thought went down another road. “Fortunate that the SSSR, unlike the Reich, chose to see reason. Had the Russkis been determined to try to annex Finland in spite of our prohibition, life would have become more difficult.”

  “We would have beaten them,” Pshing said.

  “Of course we would have beaten them,” Atvar replied. “But beating them would have been the same as beating the Deutsche: difficult, annoying, and much more trouble than the cause of the quarrel was worth.” He paused. “And if that is not a summary of our experience on Tosev 3, I do not know what is.”

  6

  Sam Yeager swung up onto his horse with a certain amount—a certain large amount—of trepidation. “I haven’t do
ne any riding since Hector was a pup,” he said. “Hell, I haven’t done any riding since I was a pup: not since I got off the farm, anyhow. That’s more than forty years ago now.”

  His companion, a sun-blasted sheriff named Victor Watkins, let out a chuckle around a cigarette. “It’s like riding a bicycle, Lieutenant Colonel—once you figure out how to do it, you don’t forget. We could go further and faster in a Jeep, but four legs’ll take us where four wheels couldn’t, even if the wheels are on a Jeep. And I know where the critters are, and the stuff they’re grazing on.”

  “Okay.” Yeager couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard anybody actually say critters. Maybe Mutt Daniels, his manager when the Lizards came to earth, had—Mutt was from Mississippi, and had a drawl thick as the mud there. Sam went on, “Seeing them is what I came here for, so let’s do it.”

  “Right.” Sheriff Watkins urged his horse forward with knees and reins. Awkwardly, Sam followed suit. The horse didn’t give him a horse laugh, but it could have. It wasn’t like riding a bicycle. He wished he were riding a bicycle.

  At a slow walk, they went south out of Desert Center, California, toward the Chuckwalla Mountains. Desert Center lived up to its name: it was a tiny town, no more than a couple of hundred people, on U.S. 70, a place for folks on the way to somewhere else to stop and buy gas and take a leak. Yeager couldn’t imagine living there; it was ever so much more isolated than the farm where he’d grown up.

  He wiped sweat from his face before putting back on the broad-brimmed Stetson Watkins had lent him. “I can see how Desert Center got its name,” he said. “Weather only a Lizard could love.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” the sheriff said. “I like it pretty well myself—I’ve lived in these parts more than thirty years. Of course, I was born up in St. Paul, so I got sick and tired of snow in a big fat hurry.”

  “I can see that.” Sam let out a small sigh. He’d never played in St. Paul; it belonged to the American Association, only one jump down from the majors, and one jump up from any league where he had played. If he hadn’t broken his ankle on that slide into second down in Birmingham . . . He sighed again. Plenty of ballplayers might have made the big leagues if they hadn’t got hurt. It was more than twenty years too late to worry about that now.

  He yanked his mind back to the business at hand. Something—a small-“1” lizard?—scurried away from his horse’s hooves and disappeared into the shade under a cactus. When he looked up, he saw a few buzzards wheeling optimistically through the sky. Other than that, the land might have been dead: nothing but sagebrush and cacti scattered not too thickly over the pale yellow dirt. Their sharp-edged shadows seemed to etch themselves into the ground.

  Somehow, the landscape didn’t look quite the way Sam had thought it would. After a couple of minutes, he put his finger on why. “None of those tall cactuses,” he said. “You know the kind I mean: the ones that look like a man standing there with his hands up.”

  Victor Watkins nodded. “Saguaros. Yeah, you don’t see that many of ’em this side of the Colorado River. Over in Arizona, now, they’re all over the damn place.”

  “Are they?” Yeager said, and the local nodded again. Sam went on, “Hardly seems as if anything much could live here.”

  “Well, it’s after ten in the morning,” Sheriff Watkins said. “Pretty much all the critters are laying in burrows or under rocks or anywhere they can go to get out of the sun. Come here around sunup or sundown and you’ll see a lot more: jackrabbits and kangaroo rats and snakes and skunks and I don’t know what all. And there are owls and bobcats and coyotes”—he pronounced it keye-oats—“at night, and sometimes deer down from the mountains. In spring, after we get a little rain, it’s real pretty country.”

  “Yeah?” Yeager knew he sounded dubious. Thinking of this country as pretty any time struck him as being on the order of thinking Frankenstein handsome because he’d put on a new suit.

  But Watkins said, “Hell, yes. Flowers and butterflies all over the place. You even get toads breeding in the mud puddles and croaking away like mad.”

  “If you say so.” Sam couldn’t really argue; he hadn’t been in these parts just after some rain. From what he could see, they didn’t get rain any too often. Something large enough to be startling buzzed past his nose. “What was that?” he asked as it zipped away. “June bug?”

  “Nope. Hummingbird.” Watkins glanced over at Yeager. “Listen, remember to drink plenty of water. That’s what we’ve got it along for. Heat like this, it just pours out of you.” He swigged from one of his canteens.

  Sam dutifully drank. The water had been cold back in Desert Center. It wasn’t cold any more. He pointed to a small cloud of dust a couple of miles ahead. “What’s that, if everything takes it easy in the middle of the day?”

  “Lizard critters don’t,” the sheriff said. “Far as they’re concerned, this is like a day in the park. They like it fine—better’n fine. Mad dogs and Englishmen and these funny-lookin’ things.” They rode on a little while longer, heading toward the dust. Then Watkins pointed, too, at a plant Sam might not have noticed. “There. These started growing about the same time the critters showed up.”

  Now that his attention was drawn to it, Yeager saw it was different from the others past which his horse had taken him. It wasn’t quite the right shade of green; it put him in mind of tarnished copper. He’d never seen any leaves that looked like these: they might almost have been blades of grass growing along its branches. It didn’t have flowers, but those red disks with black centers at the ends of some of the branches might have done the same job. Sam reined in. “Can I get a closer look at it?”

  “That’s what we’re here for,” Watkins said.

  Sam dismounted as clumsily as he’d boarded his horse. He walked over to the plant from the Lizards’ world, scuffing up dust at every step. When he reached out to touch it, he yelped and jerked his hand back in a hurry. “It’s like a nettle,” he said. “It’s got little sharp doohickeys”—a fine scientific term, that—“in between the leaves.”

  “Found that out, did you?” Sheriff Watkins’ voice was dry.

  Rubbing his hand, Yeager asked, “You ever see anything eating these plants?”

  “Nope,” the sheriff answered. “Not unless you mean the Lizards’ animals. Nothin’ that oughta live here’ll touch ’em. Haven’t seen any bees go to those red things, either.”

  “All right.” That had been Sam’s next question. He took a notebook from his pocket and scribbled in it. If bees wouldn’t visit these things, how did they get pollinated? Could they get pollinated—or whatever they used as an equivalent—here on Earth? Evidently, or this one wouldn’t be here.

  Watkins said, “You put on leather gloves and try and yank that thing out, you’ll find out it’s got roots that go clear to China.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Yeager wrote another note. Back on Home, plants would have to suck up all the water they possibly could. It made sense for them to have roots like that. A lot of Earthly plants did, too. Sam suspected these would prove very efficient indeed.

  Sheriff Watkins said, “Come on. These things are just the sideshow. You really want to see the animals, right?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said thoughtfully. “Do I? If these things start crowding out the stuff that used to grow here, what’ll the bugs and the kangaroo rats and the jackrabbits eat? If they don’t eat anything, what’ll the lizards and the bobcats eat? The more you look at things like this, the more complicated they get.” Remounting his horse proved pretty complicated, too, but he managed not to fall off the other side.

  “Supposing you’re right,” Watkins said as they rode on toward the animals from Home. “Isn’t that reason enough to give the Lizards hell for what they’re doing to us? What they’re doing to Earth, I mean, not just to the USA.”

  “They don’t want to listen,” Yeager answered. “They say we’ve got cows and sheep and dogs and cats and wheat and corn, and that’s what these th
ings are to them: only natural they’ve brought ’em along.”

  “Natural, my ass.” Watkins spat. “These critters are about the most unnatural-looking things I’ve seen in all my born days.” He pointed ahead. “Look for yourself. We’re close enough now.”

  Sure enough, Sam could peer through the dust now and see what raised it. The Lizards’ domestic animals made him feel he’d been yanked back through seventy million years and was staring at a herd of dinosaurs. They weren’t as big as dinosaurs, and they had the Lizards’ turreted eyes, but that was the general impression. They were low-slung, went on all fours, and had, instead of horns, bony clubs on the ends of their tails. One of them whacked another in the side. The one that had been whacked bawled and trotted away.

  “Those are zisuili,” Sam said. “The Lizards use them for meat and for their hides. Zisuili leather is top of the line, as far as they’re concerned.”

  “Hot damn,” Watkins said sourly. “What do we do about ’em? Look how they eat everything right down to the ground. Worse’n goats, for Christ’s sake. There’s nothing but bare dirt left once they’ve gone through somewhere, and this land won’t take a whole hell of a lot of that.”

  “I see what you’re saying,” Yeager answered. “It’s probably why they kick up so much dust.” He clicked his tongue between his teeth. “You were right, Sheriff—this is what I came to find out about, sure enough.”

  “I’ve already found out more than I want,” Victor Watkins said. “Question is, like I said, what do we do about the goddamn things?”

  The two men had no trouble getting close to the zisuili, though their horses didn’t much care for the alien animals’ smell. Neither odors nor sight of Earthly creatures and people bothered the beasts from Home. Noting that, Yeager said, “We shoot ’em whenever we see ’em. They aren’t shy of us, are they?”

  “No, but when the shooting starts they run like hell,” Watkins replied. “A guy with a machine gun would get a lot more done than a guy with a rifle. Desert Center’s a rugged kind of place, but machine guns don’t exactly grow on trees around here.”