A large bird with a blue back and wings and a gray belly landed near one of the cacti. It turned its head toward Straha and Yeager. “Jeep!” it screeched. “Jeep! Jeep!” It hopped a couple of paces, then pecked at something in the dirt.
“Scrub jay,” Yeager remarked in English.
“Is that what you call it?” Straha said in the same language. Birds were alien to him, too. Back on Home, flying creatures-of which there were fewer than on Tosev 3-had membranous wings, something like Tosevite bats. But their bodies were scaly like the Race’s, not hairy like the Big Uglies’. No beasts back on Home had hair or feathers; they needed less insulation than Tosevite creatures.
Another bird, a smaller one with a glistening green back and purple-red throat and crown, buzzed into the yard and hovered above the scrub jay, letting out a series of small, squeaky, indignant chirps. Its wings beat so fast, they were only a blur. Straha could hear the buzz they made. The jay paid no attention to the smaller bird, but went on looking for seeds and crawling things.
“Hummingbirds don’t like jays,” Yeager said, again in English. “I suppose jays will eat their eggs and babies if they get a chance. Jays will eat just about anything if they get a chance.”
The hummingbird finished cursing the jay and darted away. One instant it was there, the next it was gone, or so it seemed to Straha. The scrub jay pecked for a little longer, then flew off at a much more sedate pace.
“You Big Uglies are hummingbirds, now here, now there, moving faster than the eye turret can follow,” Straha said. “We of the Race are more like the jay. We are steady. We are sure. If you know where we are at one moment, you may predict where we will be for some time to come.”
Yeager’s mouth corners twisted upward in the expression Tosevites used to show amusement. Still speaking English, he said, “And you of the Race will eat just about any planet if you get a chance. We didn’t give you as much of a chance as you thought you’d have.”
“That I can scarcely deny,” Straha said. He swung his eye turrets away from the jay, which had perched in a tree in a neighbor’s yard and was screeching again. Giving Yeager his full attention, he went on, “You realize my investigations, if I make them, will have to be indirect? You also realize I may alert not only your not-empire to wrongdoing, but also the Race? I ask you these things before proceeding as you requested. If you like, I will forget the request you have made.” He could not think of another Tosevite to whom he would have made that offer.
“No, go ahead,” Yeager said. “I cannot imagine anything at the space station that would endanger your ships more than other, more secret, installations we already have in space.”
“Indeed,” Straha said. “Since you put it in those terms, neither can I. It would be easier if I could safely have a more active presence on our computer network, but I will do what I can by scanning and searching out messages pertaining to this subject, and by using surrogates to plant questions that may lead to interesting and informative answers.”
“I thank you,” Yeager said. “More than that I cannot ask. Very likely, you understand, all of this will prove to be of no consequence.”
“Of course,” Straha replied. “But then, most of my life since defecting to the United States has proved to be of no consequence, so this is not of any great concern to me.” He could not think of another Tosevite-for that matter, he could not think of a male of the Race-to whom he would have exposed his bitterness thus. He longed for a taste of ginger.
Yeager said, “Shiplord, that is not true. Your presence here has meant a great deal to my not-empire and to all Tosevites. Thanks in no small part to you and to what we learned from you, we were able to make and for the most part to keep our armistice with the Race.” He held up a hand. “I know this may only make you think of yourself as a tremendous traitor, but that is not so. You have helped save everyone on Tosev 3: males of the conquest fleet, males and females of the colonization fleet, and Big Uglies.” He used the Race’s nickname for his kind without self-consciousness.
“I wish I could believe everything you tell me,” Straha said slowly. “I also try to tell it to myself, but I do not believe it from my own mouth, either.”
“Well, you should,” Yeager said, like one male encouraging another to go forward in combat. “You should, for it is truth.”
Straha had never imagined he could be so preposterously grateful to a Big Ugly. He wondered if Yeager understood his own kind as well as he understood the Race. “You are a friend,” he said, and sounded surprised after the words came out: the idea of a Tosevite friend seemed very strange to him. But that he had one was also truth. “You are a friend,” he repeated, “and I will help you as one friend helps another.”
17
Kassquit pondered the computer screen in front of her. She often kept one eye turret turned toward discussions about objects in orbit around Tosev 3 (so she thought of it, though she, of course, had no eye turrets and usually had to turn her whole head to see something). This was, after all, the environment in which she’d spent her whole life. It was the environment in which she would likely spend the rest of her life. Tracking what went on here mattered to her.
After the disaster that befell the colonization fleet, Kassquit paid more attention than she had to discussions about Tosevite space objects. Before that attack, she’d wanted nothing to do with the species of which she was biologically a part. She still didn’t, not really, but she’d had to realize the wild Tosevites were dangerous to her. Their missiles could have vaporized her ship as easily as one from the colonization fleet. Only chance had put her on the opposite side of the planet from the ships that were destroyed. Chance, to a member of the Race (or even to a Tosevite trained to act like a member of the Race), did not seem protection enough.
Little by little and then more and more, the messages of a male named Regeya drew her notice. They stood out for a couple of reasons: Regeya seemed quite well informed about the doings of the not-empire called the United States, and he wrote oddly. Most males and females sounded very much alike, but he spiced his messages with peculiar turns of phrase and hardly seemed to notice he was doing it.
Those qualities finally prompted her to send him a private message. Who are you? she wrote. What is your rank? How have you become so knowledgeable about these Big Uglies? She did not ask him why he wrote strangely. She was strange herself, in ways more intimate than writing quirks. But, in writing, her strangeness didn’t show. That was another reason she cherished computer discussions: males and females who couldn’t see her assumed she was normal.
Regeya took his time about answering. Just when Kassquit began to wonder if he would answer at all-he would have been within his rights, though on the abrupt side, to ignore her-he did send a reply: I am a senior tube technician. The American Big Uglies taught me, and were so interesting, I got hooked on them. She admired the phrase for a moment before reading his last sentence: Other than that, I am an ordinary male. What about you?
“What about me?” Kassquit asked rhetorically. She wrote, I am a junior researcher in Tosevite psychology, which comes close to addling me. That was all true, and proved truth could be the best deception. She added, You have an interesting way of writing, and sent the message.
Wondering just what a senior tube technician did and what his body paint looked like, she checked a data store. The answer came back in moments: there was no such classification as senior tube technician. As usual, her face showed little expression, but she found that puzzling. She checked the computer to see how many Regeyas had come to Tosev 3 with the conquest fleet: the male showed too much knowledge of American Tosevites to belong to the colonization fleet, or so it seemed to her.