“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 done 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.