A World of Difference Read online

  “Why is that?” Now, when his words were quiet and controlled, Hogram did start to turn yellow. “Why should I not wish I had never seen any of you?”

  Tolmasov took out his radio. “Because of this, honored clanfather. From this, we learn what happen to your army long before you find out otherwise, and what we learn, we tell you.”

  “And, because of this”-Bryusov pointed to the radio, you can bargain with the Omalo on the east side of the gorge. What might Reatur do to your captive males if we, the other humans on that side of the gorge, and, through us, you did not speak up for kindness?”

  The audience chamber grew silent. All Hogram’s males were related to one another more or less closely; all felt the anguish of having so many of their kin at their enemy’s mercy. None of them, Tolmasov was sure, considered that those males would not have been in that predicament had they not invaded Reatur’s domain. Back on Earth, the Germans still whined about how their POWs were treated during the Great Patriotic War.

  Hogram was green again. Tolmasov was sure his brief show of anger had been just that, a show. When he had summoned the Russians to come before him, he had ordered them to bring a radio. He knew he would have to dicker with Reatur and needed his underlings to know it, too.

  Yes, Hogram was a wily one. How much that would help remained to be seen. Reatur held most of the cards, to say nothing of the Skarmer warriors.

  “To save our males, I will speak with the Omalo domain master, unless anyone here objects,” Hogram said. He waited. No one objected. He waved a three-fingered hand at Tolmasov.

  “Please have the other humans summon Reatur.”

  “I will try, honored clanfather,” the pilot said. He knew perfectly well that Reatur was not at the Americans’ beck and call, let alone Hogram’s. When the domain master’s summons came, he had asked Irv Levitt if Reatur would make himself available. Levitt had promised to try to arrange it. Now was the time to see if he had come through. Tolmasov spoke into the radio: “Ready with the relay, Shota Mikheilovich?”

  Rustaveli was back at the orange tent; the more powerful transmitter there could reach across Jotun Canyon. “Da. Go ahead,” he answered after a moment.

  “Soviet Minerva expedition calling Athena,” Tolmasov said in English; Bryusov translated for the Minervans.

  The reply was prompt. “Zdrast ‘ye, Sergei Konstantinovich.

  Irv Levitt here. What can I do for you?”

  Speaking English, Tolmasov did not have to try to remember Irv’s patronymic. “The domain master Hogram wishes to speak to the domain master Reatur. He-Tolmasov picked his words carefully-“seeks terms for ending the, ah, hostilities between them.”

  If Reatur didn’t even want to talk… Tolmasov preferred not to think about that. It would wreck the leverage he had on Hogram.

  “Reatur will talk with Hogram, Sergei Konstantinovich,” Irv said in Russian. As the pilot felt a relieved grin stretch across his face, Irv went on in dry English, “We managed to talk him into it, because he feels he owes us one. But your fellow better not ask for much-he’s not very happy about westerners right now.”

  The American anthropologist had style, Tolmasov thought, getting his warning across in a language none of the Skarmer could speak. Then Reatur’s contralto came from the speaker, using the trade talk Tolmasov had trouble following himself. “What have you to say for yourself, Hogram?”

  The old Skarmer domain master waddled up to Tolmasov, who held the radio near his mouth. “Only that we tried and lost, Reatur. What else can I say? You hold my males. I hope-“ He hesitated, then went on. “I hope you are treating them better than we might have treated yours had we won.”

  Some of Hogram’s advisors went blue with fear as he said that. Bryusov gave Tolmasov an appalled look. The pilot kept his face blank. He knew Hogram was gambling but thought it a good gamble. Reatur would recognize and scorn false sweetness; honesty might sway him.

  “They’re not harmed, for now,” Reatur said after a short, thoughtful pause. “It’s up to you to persuade me to keep them that way. Put it like this, Hogram-why should I go on feeding all those males who are not mine?”

  Hogram sighed. “Because I-my domain-will pay to keep them safe.”

  “How much?” That was one short word in trade talk, maybe the basic word of trade talk.

  “How much do you want?” Hogram asked.

  “How much do you offer?. If it’s enough, I may listen to you.

  If not-“ Reatur let the sentence trail away. Hogram sighed again. Even Tolmasov, who had had scant experience bargaining before he landed among these capitalist aliens, could see the cunning behind that ploy. Hogram could not afford to be miserly, not if he wanted to see his warriors again-and, not knowing Reatur’s price for certain, he would have to be doubly extravagant to make sure he met it.

  “First, I will give you goods enough to pay the cost of main-mining my males from now until the flood subsides in Ervis Gorge. We can work out later exactly how much that is, but I will pay it.”

  “What do I care about goods later, when I have trouble coming up with food now to keep them alive till then?”

  Hogram widened himself very slightly to Tolmasov, who dipped his head in response. The domain master spoke into the radio: “Since you now dominate the domain to your north, I trust you will be able to come up with supplies.”

  “You know that, do you?” Reatur started talking his own language, which Tolmasov did not speak at all. He heard Irv answer in the same tongue. The American sounded placating. Tolmasov chuckled, thinking, That’s what you get for bragging to me about how wonder0al your client is. The Omalo domain master returned to trade talk. “Well, what of it? Still easier for me to rid myself of my captives than go to the bother of caring for them.”

  “That was only a token of good intentions,” Hogram said, “to assure you that forbearance will not harm your domain. Above it, for my males’ safe return I will pay-curse it, Reatur, I will pay that same amount twice more. May your eyestalks rot if you try to melt more out of me.”

  “It is not a small price,” Reatur admitted. “Will you include in it, hmm, at least three eighteens of trade goods you have got from your humans, of at least, ah, nine different types?”

  Hogram turned yellow. Tolmasov did not blame him. Reatur had all too good a grip on how the arrival of humans was changing Minerva. But the Skarmer chieftain said what he had to say. “I will.”

  “Now tell me,” Reatur said, “why you want me to feed and house-and guard-your warriors until fall.”

  “Because when the flood subsides, by your leave we will stretch the bridge across Ervis Gorge once more. Our males can cross to our side, and we will send payment to you in return.”

  “Send the payment first,” Reatur said promptly.

  “I trust you no more than you trust me,” Hogram retorted.

  “Send the males first.” “No.”

  Hogram turned yellow again. He did not answer.

  “We’d best do something,” Bryusov whispered to Tolmasov.

  Tile pilot nodded. The spectacle of Russians and Americans helping Minervans fight a war had done nothing for the prestige of the Soviet Union or the United States back home. Helping Minervans make peace might possibly repair it. But the silence was getting icy-a good word for silence on Minerva, Tolmasov thought.

  “Suggest they takes turns,” Tolmasov whispered back. “Do it in trade talk, so they’ll both understand.” Bryusov, by now, was fairly fluent in the local lingua franca.

  “Honored domain masters,” the linguist said, “perhaps if some males are freed, then some of the payment made, then more males freed-”

  “Perhaps,” Hogram said thoughtfully. “A third of the males, a third of the payment, and so on.”

  “First you pay, then we release males,” Reatur said. “And we will do it in six turns, not three. If we tried it the other way round, you could cheat us out of the last third of the payment and leave us with no arm of yours to grab.”<
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  Tolmasov waited for Hogram to get angry again. Instead, the Skarmer domain master wiggled his eyestalks. He said, “You are wasted as an Omalo, Reatur; you should have been budded as one of us.”

  “No, I’m no thief, Hogram. My job is keeping thieves in line.”

  Irv Levitt quickly cut in, in English: “He’s laughing. Is your boy?”

  “Yes,” Tolmasov answered, and switched to the Skarmer tongue to let Hogram know what the American had said. Hogram waved an indulgent arm-he had known without being told. Tolmasov felt annoyed, then resigned.

  The Skarmer domain master spoke into the radio. “Do we agree?”

  “Yes, provided we can work out the cost of feeding the captives each day,” Reatur said. “If not, I suppose I can always start getting rid of them.”

  If that was humor, Tolmasov thought, it was in poor taste.

  Hogram did not seem put out. “We will work it out,” he said.

  “Are we finished, then?”

  “I think so,” Reatur answered.

  This time, Bryusov interrupted without Tolmasov’s prompting. “Honored domain masters, while you talk with each other now, why not pledge not to fight each other anymore so long as you both abide by today’s agreement?”

  “What a foolish pledge that would be,” Hogram said. “Reatur and I do not spring from the same bud. We are not friends.

  We may well go to war again, and we both know it. Why lie now?”

  “For once we agree, Skarmer,” Reatur said. “And who can say on which side of Ervis Gorge the fight may be? We can make baskets that float on water, too, you know, now that we’ve seen some.”

  Hogram made a whistling noise Tolmasov had never heard from a Minervan before, one that reminded him of a teapot coming to a boil. “None of my males grasps the importance of new things as quickly as you do, now that-now that Fralk is dead. I wish you were of my budding, Reatur; I would name you eldest-designate.”

  “Dealing with humans”-Reatur said it in English; Tolmasov put it into Russian for the Skarmer-“has taught me more about new things than I ever expected to know.”

  “Yes.” Hogram stepped away from the radio. He told Tolmasov, “That is all.”

  “Levitt, are you there?” the pilot called. When the American answered, he went on, “We have a success to report, it seems.”

  “Yes, they’ll be relieved back home,” Irv answered in English. “I don’t think people back home could stomach a cold-blooded prisoner massacre.” He let the obvious joke lie.

  Tolmasov respected him because of it; this was business. “Come to that, I’m not sure I could, either.”

  “Out,” was all Tolmasov said. He and Bryusov bowed their way out of Hogram’s presence and started back toward their big orange tent.

  “Foolish, the Americans, foolish and soft,” Bryusov said after a while. “One deals with whomever one has to deal with.”

  “They talk softer than they are, Valery Aleksandrovich. Never forget it.” Tolmasov had had that same swift flash of contempt for Irv Levitt but changed his mind after a little thought. “For one thing, as you said, Levitt would go right on dealing with Reatur no matter what Reatur did. He may not want to admit it to himself, but he would.

  “And for another, before you call them soft, remember what happened to Fralk and Oleg Lopatin. I am trained as a combat pilot, but I would not care to attack a Kalashnikov with a glorified hang glider.”

  Bryusov was very quiet for the rest of the walk. That suited Tolmasov fine.

  Emmett Bragg was hurrying up the corridor when Sarah came through the airlock into Athena. He stopped and grinned at hex with the peculiarly male grin that never failed to set her teeth on edge. “Will you stop it?” she hissed. “Anyone who sees you will know exactly what that stupid expression means.”

  The grin didn’t go away. “Nobody here but you and me.”

  “Oh.” That hadn’t happened since the day of the battle. Since then, Sarah had stayed close to Irv most of the time, partly because they both spent a lot of time with Lamra and partly because it kept her from having to think about those frantic minutes on Pat’s mattress. Irv seemed happy enough to be with her, too; they had probably spent more continuous waking time together since Lamra’s budlings dropped than in all the previous months on Minerva put together.

  Now she would have to think about those minutes. “Let it slide, Emmett, all right?” In similar circumstances Irv, she was sure, would have come back with a raunchy pun. Emmett just stood there, warrior-alert, and waited for her to go on. That her first thought was of Irv told her some of what she needed to know. “Not that it wasn’t good while it happened, but-”

  “But what?” He stepped closer.

  “Emmett!” She heard her voice get shrill. That infuriated her, but she couldn’t help it. If he went ahead regardless of whether she wanted him to, she would try to give him a dreadful surprise. But he was bigger, stronger, a trained soldier… Of all the nightmares shell had about being cooped up on Athena with too many people in too small a space for too long, this was the worst.

  Smooth as ever, he moved away from her. Then he started to laugh. “What’s so goddamn funny?” she barked, angrier than ever.

  “You, gearin’ up to kick me right where it’ll do the most good. You don’t need to do that. Have I ever gone any place I wasn’t welcome?”

  “You’d know better than I would.” But that wasn’t fair, either. “Not with me,” Sarah admitted.

  “All right, then. Probably better this way, anyhow.” That cool calculation of risk was Emmett to the core.

  She did her best to imitate him. “I think you’re right. For the ship and for-everything else.”

  “Suppose so.” He cocked his head, studied her. “Do you really think you could’ve stopped me?”

  “No,” she answered honestly. “But I was going to give it my best shot.”

  “I noticed. Okay-can’t ask for more than that. Now I’m gonna get back to work.” He headed toward the control room, never looking back. For all he showed, he and Sarah might have been at the office water cooler, talking about the weather. She envied his detachment and had no idea how to duplicate it.

  “Come on, Peri, throw me the ball!” Lamra shouted. “Throw it to me! It’s my turn this time! I want to play, too!”

  Peri threw the ball to another mate. Lamra hurried over toward that one, still trying to get into the game. “No, you can’t have it!” the mate said. She threw the ball to someone else. “You can’t play with us anymore, Lamra. You’re too ugly.”

  “That’s right,” Peri said. “You’ve got holes in you from where your budlings fell out, and with them falling out, you shouldn’t even be here. You should have ended, like mates are supposed to do. Who ever heard of an old mate?”

  “Who ever heard of an old mate? Who ever heard of an old mate?” A bunch of mates, maybe even an eighteen of them, formed a jeering ring around Lamra. Sun-yellow with fury, she rushed at them, but they skipped aside, jeering still. And even if she had managed to catch one, what good would it have done? The rest would all pile on her before she could get any of her own back.

  Sometimes she wondered if letting the humans save her had been a good idea. Down deep, she hadn’t really expected them to do it. Before, when she had thought about what would come after, she just thought about going on as she always had, about running around and playing with the other mates without the big budling bulges getting in her way.

  But the others didn’t want to play with her, not anymore. “Who ever heard of an old mate? Who ever heard of an old mate?”

  They were so busy making fun of Lamra, they hardly noticed the door to the mates’ chambers opening. “What’s going on here?” Reatur shouted. He was as yellow as Lamra, but his rage was not helpless like hers.

  Some of the mates turned blue and ran away. Others held their ground. “We don’t want her here,” Peri yelled at the domain master. “She should go away.”

  “You go away, right
now,” Reatur cried in a terrible voice. He turned all his eyestalks toward the wall three arms away from Peri. Her bravado collapsed. She went from yellow to blue so fast she wasn’t even green between, then tled with a squeak.

  Reatur let his eyes look all around again. “That doesn’t help, you know,” Lamra said sadly. “You can’t make them like me, Reatur. As soon as you’re gone, this will just start again.”

  “Will it?” Reatur said. “Does it?”

  “Every time.” Lamra hesitated, then went on, “I thought it would get better. I mean, I’m not as odd-looking as I used to be. I don’t have tape all over me, and I don’t have those big bandages stuck where the budlings came out. But it isn’t any better, not with the other mates. I guess I’m still too strange. I think my runnerpest is the only thing that likes me anymore.” She opened a hand and looked down at the toy Reatur had given her.

  “That is not true,” the domain master said. “I like you, you know.”

  “Yes, of course I know that,” Lamra said. “After all, you made the runnerpest, and-and-“ She stopped when she realized the size of the compliment he had paid her. Widening herself was the least she could do, and she did it. Then she blurted, “But you’re not here to like me very often.”

  “That is also true,” Reatur said slowly. “I cannot be here all the time, though, not if I intend to run the domain, too.” He paused a while in thought. “Shall I gather all the mates together and tell them they have to treat you just like anyone else?”

  For a moment, hope tingled through Lamra. She wondered if that would work. “I don’t think so,” she said at last, sadly. “They’ll just be angry at me for getting them into trouble. And-I’m not just like them anymore, am I? I’m only like me, and I’m lonesome.”

  “I know you are. There’s never been a mate like you before.” Reatur thought again himself, then went on, “Which means the laws that hold other mates don’t necessarily put fingerclaws on you.”