Shiplord Straha and Shuttlecraft Pilot Nesseref also boarded the bus. They would not be going back to Tosev 3. They were colonists no more. The American Tosevites could not be sure they would not deliver a message ordering Kirel and Reffet to start a last desperate war.
And Kassquit got on, too. Up till the last moment, she had not been sure whether she would. But she did. She would stretch things out to the very end. If that made the hurt that would follow worse, then it did, that was all.
Much of the talk aboard the bus was in English. Even Straha spoke the language well. I should have learned it, Kassquit thought once more. My hatchling will learn it. A Tosevite should know a Tosevite language.
After a little while, Frank Coffey told her, “I am sorry. This must be boring for you.”
“I wish it were boring,” Kassquit said. “I do not understand what you are saying, but that is not the same thing. I do not know how long it will be before I see you again. I do not know if I will ever see you again. It is hard, but it is not boring.”
“I am sorry,” he repeated. “This is a chance to go home again.”
“I understand,” Kassquit said. “I do understand. But it is not easy for me whether I understand or not.”
Atvar and Straha got into a shouting match, which distracted everyone else. They seemed to be trying to decide which of them was the bigger idiot. By the way they were behaving, it was a contest they both wanted to lose. Atvar had made it very plain he did not like Straha. Straha seemed to be doing his best to show it was mutual.
“Enough!” Nesseref exclaimed after a while. “You will scandalize the Big Uglies!”
“Truth,” Atvar said with such dignity as he could muster. “It is enough, Straha.”
Straha only laughed at that-a huge, rude, tongue-wagging laugh. “You say that because you know you are in the wrong. There is no other reason. If you thought you were right, you would tell me so.”
“I do think I am right, and in a moment I will put my toeclaws up your cloaca to prove it,” Atvar retorted.
“I am not afraid of you,” Straha said.
“Enough!” That wasn’t Nesseref-it was Sam Yeager. “Both of you are my friends, and both of you are acting like hatchlings.”
The two prominent males hadn’t really listened to the shuttlecraft pilot, any more than they’d listened to each other. They did heed the departing American ambassador. Straha said, “Perhaps this is not the ideal time or place.”
“Perhaps it is not,” Atvar agreed. “After I return…”
“After you return, I will be at your service,” Straha said. “When you get to Tosev 3, you will also see the other ways the wild Big Uglies have got ahead of us. If we had only done as I wanted-”
“Enough!” This time, all the American Tosevites shouted it together. A volley of emphatic coughs rang out.
When they got to the shuttlecraft port, the row threatened to break out anew. The American Tosevites got between the two angry males of the Race. Jonathan Yeager spoke to Atvar. “I am bigger than you are, Exalted Fleetlord, and my sire is bigger than the shiplord. Between the two of us, I hope we can keep the two of you from disgracing yourselves and the Race.”
“I think you have just called us barbarians,” Atvar said mournfully.
“What have you been acting like?” Jonathan Yeager asked.
After that, Atvar and Straha really did subside. Embarrassment was a weapon more potent than many. Females and males in the body paint of Security examined everything that would be going up on the shuttlecraft. “We cannot be too careful,” they said, over and over.
A dark-scaled Rabotev pilot awaited them, eyestalks turning this way and that. Nesseref went up to him-or perhaps her-and started talking shop. Kassquit turned to Frank Coffey. “Do you see? They still worry that a member of the Race might smuggle ginger.”
He found it less funny than she did. “If lots of our ships are going to come from Tosev 3 to Home, they are going to have to worry about it. Either that, or they will have to start to accept ginger, the way the Race has on Tosev 3.”
“More changes,” Kassquit said sadly.
“More changes,” Coffey agreed.
A male whose body paint proclaimed him a security chief bawled, “Final check! All boarding the shuttlecraft, form a line here!” He pointed, reveling in his petty power. Along with Atvar, all the Tosevites except Kassquit formed a line there. The security male’s eye turrets swung toward her. “What about you?”
“I am not going. I am a citizen of the Empire,” she answered. The male started to challenge her, but Atvar spoke quietly to him. He hissed in irritation. Then he shrugged, one of the few gestures the Race and Tosevites shared.
Frank Coffey stepped out of line. The security male hissed again. Coffey ignored him. He came up to Kassquit for one last embrace. “Take care of yourself,” he said. “I will be back if I possibly can.”
“I know. I believe you,” Kassquit said. In a way, she was lucky. She had no idea how many Tosevite males had made that same promise to gravid Tosevite females without the slightest intention of keeping it. Some, of course, did, but not all. She added, “I hope everything goes well for you.”
“So do I,” he said, and smiled what even she recognized as a tight little smile. Here he was-here all the American Big Uglies were-trusting to a technology that was anything but proved. The Race was more sensible, and would never have allowed anything so risky. That was one reason the Big Uglies now had faster-than-light travel, while the Race had never even looked for it very hard. The rest of the Americans and Atvar started out of the terminal building and toward the shuttlecraft. Frank Coffey let Kassquit go. “I have to leave.”
“I know,” she said again. I will not cry in front of him. That was her last determination. She managed to hold on to it as he let the security male wave a metal-detecting wand around him one more time. Then he hurried after the rest of the wild Big Uglies. The door to the field closed, and Kassquit dissolved in tears. The males and females of the Race in the terminal stared at her. They had no idea what to make of the display, or what to do about it.
She wished for a soft cloth to wipe her snout. It always dripped mucus when she cried; the plumbing between it and her eyes was cross-connected in some strange way. Here, the back of her forearm had to do, as it did for her eyes. When her vision finally cleared, she found Straha standing in front of her. She started to bend into the posture of respect.
Straha made the negative gesture. “No need to bother with that foolishness, not for me,” he said. “I am only a writer these days, not a shiplord. I just wanted to tell you that you have turned out better than those who took you have any right to expect.”
Kassquit did not feel better. She felt worse. She’d known she would, but knowing didn’t help. She tried to think of something that might make her less miserable. To her surprise, she did: “When you were on Tosev 3, superior sir, did you ever meet the males called, uh, Donald and Mickey?” She pronounced the strange names with care.
Now Straha used the affirmative gesture. “I did. I can see why you would want to know. They are also luckier than they might have been, but they make very strange males of the Race. Their mouthparts can form all the sounds our language uses, but they have accents anyway-they are used to speaking English. They know of you, by the way. I have heard them say they would like to meet you.”
“I would like to meet them, too,” Kassquit said. “That is why I asked.” The shuttlecraft took off, riding an almost colorless plume of hydrogen flame. Despite the soundproofing, a dull roar filled the terminal. Misery filled Kassquit’s liver. She burst into tears again.