"An Original Lander," said Jupiter proudly. "That's what's so interesting!"
At least this time he got her full attention—not only attention, but demands for explanation; not only that, but a quick consultation with the other Real-Americans. "Why didn't you tell us there were survivors?" demanded Delilah, and Jupiter only smiled.
"It was a surprise," he explained. "Besides—"
Besides, he thought, it was only sort of true that Major General Morton T. Marxman had survived. He didn't have to explain that. It was easier to show them; and as soon as Ancient Nest's Mother Sister Erica waddled out to welcome them they all went to take a peek at this last living survivor of Earth in the half-hospital, half-museum display where he lived. Or "lived," since what kept the old general alive was only the pipes and potions and plumbing of the erk biologists. Marxman was not really incredibly old—he was not much over a century, Jupiter explained, counting up for the Real-Americans—and of course other human beings had sometimes lived longer than that, hadn't they? But General Marxman had had a hard life. Especially since the stroke. After that he was really out of it, nearly all the time. The medics did, however, give him a trickle of stimulant now and then for special occasions.
"And this," smiled Mother Sister Erica proudly, "is certainly a special occasion! Do it, Lucille," she ordered, and one of the nursing sisters turned a valve and admitted a trickle of something extra into the constantly flowing liquids that had long since replaced most of the blood in Marxman's old veins.
The Real-Americans peered down at the shrunken old figure. "Nothing's happening," said Castor.
"It will take a while," said the Mother Sister and glanced at the nurse. "About half an hour? All right. Let me show you some of the interesting sights of Ancient Nest while we wait."
"Do we have to?" groaned Miranda, but the answer was yes, they did. Jupiter led the way proudly. He'd been to Ancient Nest before—well, just about every male Yank had, and a lot of the sisters, too, because visiting General Marxman was a pretty standard sort of class trip for the little ones. And when you were in Ancient Nest, naturally you visited the erk shrine. It was called the Hall of the Living Gods, and what was most interesting about it was that it wasn't just the Living Gods. "What are those damned things?" cried Miranda, her face wrinkled up in revulsion as she stared at the images ranked around the central stylized Living God.
Jupe smiled patronizingly. "Our predecessors," he said simply. "The erks have been sending out scout ships for many thousands of years, looking for survivors of the Living Gods."
"But those aren't Living Gods," Castor objected.
"No, of course not. Those are other clients. Just like us."
Castor looked indignant at that. He was staring at the niche with the tiny pale walruses, the next one with feathery-fronded sea anemones, the next one still with spiny squirrels the size of a horse, the next one still— "They're awful," said Castor. "What do you mean, our predecessors?"
"Just that they are the other races the erks have helped," Jupe explained. "That's what they do, you remember? The erks have never failed to give aid to the oppressed, in all their history. Of course, it hasn't always worked out the way you'd want it, but still—"
"But still," said the Mother Sister, getting a message from the door of the hospital, "we're ready for the general now! Oh, sisters, oh, Mr. President, what a noble experience you will have now!"
Well, it didn't seem that way. If the Real-Americans felt themselves honored, they didn't show it. They seemed if anything glummer than usual as they followed Jupe and the Governor back to the tidy green-decorated room where General Morton T. Marxman was being drawn back to the world of the living for their amusement. They didn't seem amused. "You know," Jupe whispered fiercely to the Governor, "these people aren't doing the right thing at all!"
The Governor gave him a bad look. Part of it was anger and part reprimand for daring to criticize his President ... but there was also a part that was agreement; for indeed things were not working out well. She said, "Be still for a while, Jupe. Let's get through this damned ceremonial anyway."
General Marxman had been taken out of his cocoon bed where monitors tested his blood and feces and urine and sweat and thoughtfully filtered out the bad parts from the blood and added the good parts he needed to keep what was left of his metabolism functioning, more or less. He had been reattached to the little shock-machine that reminded his heart when to beat and the gas-pipes that metered out what went into his lungs. He was reclining on his ceremonial couch, the one that propped him nearly half-sitting up and guarded him against falling.
He actually looked quite alive.
He could even talk, and he knew his lines. "Welcome," he rumbled. Some old men's voices get cracked and shrill— that's hardening collagen in their vocal cords. Some get deep and glottal, and that's better, so the medics in charge of General Marxman had selected for deep and impressive. His eyes were even open, though it was hard to tell what they were seeing, if anything. Taken all in all, he looked about as much as a living general should as any museum reconstruction of an extinct species.
He even impressed the President, thought Jupiter proudly. At least Castor was clearly fumbling about for some appropriate statement. He glanced at Delilah for help, got none, took a deep breath, and improvised:
"Ah, General Marxman," he said, "we, uh, have come here to pay our respects to a great American hero. You," he added, to clarify the matter.
He paused for a response. He got none. The general appeared to be thinking that over.
That was normal enough, of course. Stimulants or none, since his stroke, the general did not move very rapidly, but Jupe knew that the best medical opinion believed that inside that head a brain still frequently functioned. He wondered what it was like to be trapped and helpless in a dying old body. He looked on the recumbent figure with pity and contempt; how could anybody let himself get old? Was it really possible that the general had once been a boy, a youth, a second lieutenant desperate to be admired, an astronaut, a colonel? (The general's rank Marxman had finally bestowed on himself—reasonably enough, as the only commissioned member of the United States Armed Forces within nearly forty light-years.)
Belatedly Jupe heard a suppressed gasp from the Governor, and then he saw what she had seen.
There was a light in the general's eyes. He was looking as though he was seeing, and what he was looking at was not the President.
He was staring, with mounting emotion, at Tsoong Delilah and Feng Miranda, and the emotion was neither awe nor joy.
It was rage!
The nursing sisters saw what Castor saw. They understood as little as he, but they knew that something bad was happening inside the paralyzed head of General Morton Marxman. They came quickly forward to check pulse and breathing and vital signs, but the general squawked and croaked inarticulate sounds to warn them away. The eyes still glittered fiercely at Delilah and Miranda. He tried to move a wasted arm to pull the breathing tube out of the corner of his mouth; the arm would not move. He tried to push himself erect, but there were no muscles left in his wasted body that were capable of so Herculean a task. Indomitable, he did not surrender to the limitations of the corpse he lived in. He coughed. He gagged. He squawked and dribbled. And finally he spat the tube out, into the hands of the helplessly fluttering nursing sisters. "Treason!" he bawled, eyes flaming, glaring the sisters away. "Treachery! We've been betrayed! Arrest those two women at once—they're Chinks!"
III
So for the second time in a matter of days Jupiter's world turned upside down, but this one was no happy occasion. The hideous opposite of a happy one, it was an occasion for outrage and confusion. Chinks? The President had brought the enemy with him? How could such things be?