Straha’s mouth fell open in startled laughter. He swung an eye turret away from the monitor and back toward Prevod. “Do you see what I mean?”
The writer’s tailstump was twitching more than ever. “If you care for his writing so much, Shiplord”-now she used the title as one of reproach, not respect; he could hear the difference in her voice-“maybe you ought to get him to compose your memoirs with you.”
“Do you know,” Straha said slowly, “that is not the worst idea I have ever heard. Of course, most of the worst ideas I have ever heard have come straight from Atvar’s mouth.”
He meant the joke to soften what he’d said just before. It didn’t do the job. Prevod sprang to her feet. “Whomever you use to help you write your memoirs, I shall not be that female,” she said. “As far as I can see, the Race was right to keep you far away-you fit in better with the Tosevite barbarians than you do with us.” She punctuated that with an emphatic cough. And, before Straha could say anything, she stormed out of his chamber in Shepheard’s Hotel and slammed the door behind her.
“Oh, dear,” Straha said aloud. Then he started to laugh. He went back to the computer and wrote, Are you still there, Sam Yeager?
No, I am not here, Yeager replied. I expect to be back pretty soon, though.
That was, on the face of it, absurd. No male of the Race would have thought to write any such self-contradictory sentences. And yet, as an answer to a rhetorical question, why wasn’t no as good as yes? Straha returned to the keyboard and wrote, How would you like to help me put my memoirs together?
What happened to the writer you were working with? the Tosevite asked.
You did, Straha answered.
This time, the only symbol Sam Yeager sent was the one the Race used as a written equivalent of an interrogative cough.
It is, unfortunately, a truth, Straha told him. I made an invidious comparison between her writing ability and yours, and, for some reason or other, she took offense. I now find myself without a collaborator. Are you interested in becoming one? You know the story I aim to tell. You should: you have interrogated me about a good deal of it.
The Big Ugly didn’t reply for some little while. When he did, he wrote, Sorry for the delay. I had to find out what “invidious” meant. You must be joking, Shiplord.
By no means, Straha wrote, and used the symbol for an emphatic cough.
Well, if you are not, you ought to be, Sam Yeager wrote back. I do not write your language well enough for males and females of the Race to want to read my words. They would be able to tell I am a Big Ugly. Your computers figured out that I was, because I sound as if I am writing English.
Computers do not read. Readers read, Straha insisted. Your way of writing is interesting and unusual, whatever makes it so.
I thank you, Shiplord, Sam Yeager replied. I thank you very much. You have paid me a great compliment. But I cannot do this. And your chances of getting your memoir published go up if you have a member of the Race writing with you, and go down with me. You cannot say that is not a truth.
If any Tosevite is a hero among the Race, you are that male, Straha wrote. Your name would help the memoir, not hurt it.
Maybe-but maybe not, too, his friend responded. And having my name on your memoir would not help me here in the United States. I may be a hero to the Race, but many Americans still think I am a traitor.
Straha hadn’t considered that. He realized he should have. Very well, then, he wrote. Farewell for nowFarewell, Sam Yeager wrote back. Barbara has just called me to supper. Good luck finding another male or female to work with.
“Good luck,” Straha said mournfully. “I will need more than luck. I will need a miracle. Several miracles, very likely. And I do not believe in miracles. I have been in exile too long to believe in miracles.”
He’d been an exile from the Race, and now he was an exile among the Race. He hadn’t been at home in the United States, and he didn’t feel at home now that he’d managed to return to the society the Race was building on Tosev 3. I probably would not feel at home if I went into cold sleep and flew back to Home. If he didn’t fit in among the Race here, how would the smug and stifling society back on the homeworld seem to him?
He went over to the ginger jar Atvar had let him have. He took a big taste. As euphoria filled him, he patted the jar with an affectionate hand. With ginger, if nowhere else, he found himself at home.
David Goldfarb took a last long look at the notes he’d been fooling with for the past few months. The time for fooling was over. Now he had to get to work. He wasn’t going to refine his concept any further on paper. He would have to see what he got when he turned scribbles and sketches into something real.
Part of him was nervous, heart-poundingly nervous. When he started working for real instead of on paper, he might turn out not to be able to make anything worth having. But the rest of him, the larger part, was eager. He’d learned electronics-or what people knew of electronics before the Lizards came-by tinkering. He still sometimes felt he thought better with his hands than with his head.
He got up from his table. “I’m going out for a bit,” he told Hal Walsh. “I need to pick up a couple of things we haven’t got here.”
His boss nodded. “Okay. Bring the receipts back, too, and I’ll reimburse you.”
“Thanks,” Goldfarb said. “I’m not sure you’ll want to when you see what I’ve got, but…” He shrugged.
“I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” Walsh said, but he was grinning.
Jack Devereaux looked up from the circuit he was soldering. “I’m almost sure I don’t,” he said, which made Walsh laugh. Goldfarb was grinning as he put on his overcoat. Hal was a pretty good chap to work for, no doubt about it.
His grin slipped when he went outside. Edmonton in late November was raw and blustery, with the wind feeling as if there were nothing at all between the North Pole and the street down which he was walking. People seemed to take it in stride. David didn’t think he ever would. The British Isles lay this far north, too, but the Gulf Stream moderated their climate. Nothing Goldfarb had seen moderated the climate here.
Fortunately, the shop he wanted was only a couple of blocks from the Saskatchewan River Widget Works. He bought what he needed and went back to the Widget Works with his purchases in a big paper sack. Before he headed back, though, he made sure he took the receipt out of the sack and stuck it in his pocket. If things went the way he hoped, Hal Walsh would pay him back. If they didn’t, his boss would laugh at him.
He shook his head. Hal wouldn’t laugh. Not everything worked out, and Walsh was smart enough to understand as much. But if this didn’t work, it would fail rather more spectacularly than other failed projects at the Widget Works. And, Goldfarb suspected, Jack Devereaux would never let him forget about it, even if his boss did.
Devereaux and Walsh both looked up when David came in carrying the big sack. “Doughnuts?” Devereaux asked hopefully.
“That would be a lot of doughnuts,” Hal Walsh observed. Devereaux nodded, as if to say that the prospect of a lot of doughnuts didn’t bother him a bit.
“Sorry, blokes.” Goldfarb upended the sack on his work table. Four large, fuzzy teddy bears spilled out. One spilled a little too far, and ended on the floor. He picked it up and put it with the others.