Even before I put down the money on the used Dearman Electric, I knew I was making a mistake going home. I felt the need of a home, but the one I had left at the age of eighteen wasn't it. But I headed there because there was nowhere else to go.
I drove alone in the dark, using only the old roads, the quiet hum of the Dearman's motor the only sound. The December midnight was clear, and I could see the stars through the car's bubble canopy. Fyrine IV drifted into my thoughts, the raging ocean, the endless winds. I pulled off the road onto the shoulder and killed the lights. In a few minutes, my eyes adjusted to the dark and I stepped outside and shut the door. Kansas has a big sky, and the stars seemed close enough to touch. Snow crunched under my feet as I looked up, trying to pick Fyrine out of the thousands of visible stars.
Fyrine is in the constellation Pegasus, but my eyes were not practiced enough to pick the winged horse out from the surrounding stars. I shrugged, felt a chill, and decided to get back in the car. As I put my hand on the doorlatch, I saw a constellation that I did recognize, north, hanging just above the horizon: Draco. The Dragon, its tail twisted around Ursa Minor, hung upside down in the sky. Eltanin, the Dragon's nose, is the homestar of the Dracs. Its second planet, Draco, was Zammis's home.
Headlights from an approaching car blinded me, and I turned toward the car as it pulled to a stop. The window on the driver's side opened and someone spoke from the darkness.
"You need some help?"
I shook my head. "No, thank you." I held up a hand. "I was just looking at the stars."
"Quite a night, isn't it?"
"Sure is."
"Sure you don't need any help?"
I shook my head. "Thanks . . . wait. Where is the nearest commercial spaceport?"
"About an hour ahead in Salina."
"Thanks." I saw a hand wave from the window, then the other car pulled away. I took another look at Eltanin, then got back in my car.
Nine weeks later I stood before the little gray man who ran Lone Star Publishing, Inc. He looked up at me and frowned. "So, what do you want? I thought you quit."
I threw a thousand-page manuscript on his desk. "This."
He poked it with a finger. "What is it?"
"The Drac bible; it's called the Talman."
"So what?"
"So it's the only book translated from Drac into English; so it's the explanation for how every Drac conducts itself; so it'll make you a bundle of credits."
He leaned forward, scanned several pages, then looked up at me. "You know, Davidge, I don't like you worth a damn."
I shrugged. "I don't like you either."
He returned to the manuscript. "Why now?"
"Now is when I need money."
He shrugged. "The best I can offer would be around eight or ten thousand.
This is untried stuff."
"I need twenty-four thousand. You want to go for less than that, I'll take it to someone else."
He looked at me and frowned. "What makes you think anyone else would be interested?"
"Let's quit playing around. There are a lot of survivors of the war—both military and civilian— who would like to understand what happened." I leaned forward and tapped the manuscript. "That's what's in there."
"Twenty-four thousand is lot for a first manuscript."
I gathered up the pages. "I'll find someone who has some coin to invest in a sure thing."
He placed his hand on the manuscript. "Hold on, Davidge." He frowned.
"Twenty-four thousand?"
"Not a quarter-note less."
He pursed his lips, then glanced at me. "I suppose you'll be Hell on wheels regarding final approval."
I shook my head. "All I want is the money. You can do whatever you want with the manuscript."
He leaned back in his chair, looked at the manuscript, then back at me.
"The money. What're you going to do with it?"
"None of your business."
He leaned forward, then leafed through a few more pages. His eyebrows notched up, then he looked back at me. "You aren't picky about the contract?"
"As long as I get the money, you can turn that into Mein Kampf you want to."
He leafed through a few more pages. "This is some pretty radical stuff."
"It sure is. And you can find the same stuff in Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, James, Freud, Szasz, Nortmyer, and the Declaration of Independence."
He leaned back in his chair. "What does this mean to you?"
"Twenty-four thousand credits."
He leafed through a few more pages, then a few more. In twelve hours I had purchased passage to Draco.
Six months later, I stood in front of an ancient cut-stone gate wondering what in the hell I was doing. The trip to Draco, with nothing but Dracs as companions on the last leg, showed me the truth in Namvaac's words.
"Peace is often only war without fighting." The accords, on paper, gave me the right to travel to the planet, but the Drac bureaucrats and their paperwork wizards had perfected the big stall long before the first human step into space. It took threats, bribes, and long days of filling out forms, being checked and rechecked for disease, contraband, reason for visit, filling out more forms, refilling out the forms I had already filled out, more bribes, waiting, waiting, waiting . . .
On the ship, I spent most of my time in my cabin, but since the Drac stewards refused to serve me, I went to the ship's lounge for my meals. I sat alone, listening to the comments about me from other booths. I had figured the path of least resistance was to pretend I didn't understand what they were saying. It is always assumed that humans do not speak Drac.
"Must we eat in the same compartment with the Irkmaan slime?"
"Look at it, how its pale skin blotches—and that evil-smelling thatch on top.
Feh! The smell!" I ground my teeth a little and kept my glance riveted to my plate. "It defies the Talman that the universe's laws could be so corrupt as to produce a creature such as that."
I turned and faced the three Dracs sitting in the booth across the aisle from mine. In Drac, I replied: "If your line's elders had seen fit to teach the village kiz to use contraceptives, you wouldn't even exist." I returned to my food while the two Dracs struggled to hold the third Drac down.
On Draco, it was no problem finding the Jeriba estate. The problem was getting in. A high stone wall enclosed the property, and from the gate, I could see the huge stone mansion that Jerry had described to me. I told the guard at the gate that I wanted to see Jeriba Zammis. The guard stared at me, then went into an alcove behind the gate. In a few moments, another Drac emerged from the mansion and walked quickly across the wide lawn to the gate. The Drac nodded at the guard, then stopped and faced me. It was a dead ringer for Jerry.
"You are the Irkmaan that asked to see Jeriba Zammis?"
I nodded. "Zammis must have told you about me. I'm Willis Davidge."
The Drac studied me. "I am Estone Nev, Jeriba Shigan's sibling. My parent, Jeriba Gothig, wishes to see you." The Drac turned abruptly and walked back to the mansion. I followed, feeling heady at the thought of seeing Zammis again. I paid little attention to my surroundings until I was ushered into a large room with a vaulted stone ceiling. Jerry had told me that the house was four thousand years old. I believed it. As I entered, another Drac stood and walked over to me. It was old, but I knew who it was.
"You are Gothig, Shigan's parent".
The yellow eyes studied me. "Who are you, Irkmaan?" It held out a wrinkled, three-fingered hand. "What do you know of Jeriba Zammis, and why do you speak the Drac tongue with the style and accent of my child Shigan? What are you here for?"