He was, unfortunately, almost sure to be correct. Gorppet sent him a reproachful stare, not that any Tosevite was likely to recognize it as such. He said, “I thought we were friends, you and I.”
Drucker surprised him by using the Race’s negative hand gesture. “You and I are not enemies. That is a truth. But your folk and mine are not friends, and that is also a truth. Now I must say farewell.” He walked on down the street.
Gorppet could have gone after him. Gorppet could have raised his weapon and started shooting. Instead, with a sigh, he returned to his vehicle. No, keeping the Deutsche suppressed wouldn’t be easy, or anything close to it. As if I hadn’t known as much already, he thought bitterly.
Sam Yeager wondered why he’d been summoned to Little Rock. He hadn’t wanted to come to the capital. His wife and son hadn’t wanted him to go, either; sticking your head in the lion’s mouth was the phrase Barbara had used. But he remained an officer of the U.S. Army. Unless he wanted to resign his commission, he had to follow orders. And he didn’t want to resign it; he’d worked too hard to get where he was. Resigning would have been like admitting that everything he’d been through was something he’d somehow deserved. He was damned if he’d do that.
Don’t rub. He’d learned that code in the bush leagues. Don’t let the bastards know they hurt you. A pitcher who’d just stuck a fastball in your ribs might suspect you weren’t too happy about it. But not rubbing was all about not letting the other guys know what you were feeling, or that you were feeling anything.
And so, outwardly calm, he sat in a waiting room in the Gray House, reading a Newsweek and pretending everything was just routine. After a while, a flunky came up to him and said, “The president will see you now, Lieutenant Colonel.”
“Okay.” Yeager put down the magazine and got to his feet. The Gray House dignitary led him into the president’s office. Seeing Harold Stassen behind the big desk there was a jolt. Yeager didn’t want to show that, either. He stiffened to attention and saluted. “Reporting as ordered, sir.”
“Sit down, Lieutenant Colonel,” President Stassen said. His voice didn’t carry nearly the weight of authority Earl Warren’s had. But Warren was gone, dead and buried. The king is dead; long live the king. Stassen asked, “Would you care for coffee, or anything else?”
“No, thank you, sir,” Sam answered.
“All right.” The president looked down at what were probably notes. “I understand you and your family are responsible for raising a couple of Lizard hatchlings as though they were human beings.”
“That’s right, Mr. President.” Hope blossomed in Yeager. Maybe Stassen had called him here to talk about Mickey and Donald. They were important, no doubt about it. If he were here on account of that, maybe Warren hadn’t said anything to anybody about his role in bringing down a presidency and wiping a city off the face of the earth. Maybe I’m the only one who knows the whole story, Sam thought. Christ, I hope I am.
President Stassen said, “And how are the hatchlings now?”
“They’re fine, sir,” Sam said. “They’re toddlers right now, you know: growing like weeds and learning something new every day. They talk a lot more than regular Lizard hatchlings the same age would.”
Stassen shuffled papers-notes, sure enough. “I understand the Lizards have a long head start on us in this sort of research.”
“That’s true, but there’s nothing we could do about it,” Yeager said. “They got a hatchling-uh, a human baby-right after the first round of fighting ended. We couldn’t even think of trying the same sort of experiment till the colonization fleet brought females of the Race here.”
“Of course.” The president nodded. “Now, you’ve met the girl the Lizards are raising as one of their own.” He waited for Sam to nod, too, then asked, “What do you think of her?”
“Sir, Kassquit’s… pretty screwy, I’m afraid,” Yeager answered. “I don’t know how else to put it. Considering the way she was brought up, I don’t suppose that’s any big surprise. It’s probably God’s own miracle that she’s not even crazier than she is.”
“Does that mean…” Stassen glanced down again. “Does that mean Mickey and Donald are liable to end up disturbed, too?”
“From the point of view of the Race, do you mean, sir?” Sam sighed. “I’m afraid it does. I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t think there’s anything to be done about it. I feel bad sometimes, but it’s important for us to know just how much like people they can become.” He sighed again. “Ttomalss, the Lizard who’s raised Kassquit, probably feels the same way in reverse.”
“I see.” Stassen scribbled something on a scratch pad. “To turn to another matter, how seriously do you view the spread of plants and animals from the Lizards’ home planet here on Earth?”
Did Stassen know Yeager had been seized while investigating that very thing? If he did, he didn’t show it. Sam decided to assume he didn’t, and answered, “It’s going to be a problem, yes, Mr. President. It may not be too big a problem here in the States, because I didn’t think too many creatures from Home will be able to stand the winters in most of the country. But in the tropics, especially the deserts, I’d bet there’ll be wholesale replacements. The Lizards are going to try to make Earth over to suit themselves. We’d probably do the same thing if the shoe were on the other foot.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Stassen wrote himself another note. “Your opinion closely matches the views of other experts I’ve consulted.”
“I’m glad to hear it, sir.” Sam breathed a little easier. This was just business. With any luck at all, he’d be able to get back home and go on raising the Lizard hatchlings-and, rather more than incidentally, getting ready for Jonathan’s wedding. He shifted in his chair, getting ready to stand up. “Is there anything else?”
“Just one thing more, Lieutenant Colonel.” The president switched gears: “How do you feel about your part in everything that’s happened over the past few months?”
Yeager grunted, but did his best to pull his face straight. Don’t rub. “Sir, I did what I thought I had to do,” he said. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“And you have no trouble living with the loss of Indianapolis?” Stassen asked.
“No trouble?” Sam shook his head. “I wouldn’t say that, Mr. President. I wouldn’t say that at all. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about it. But the scales balance, as far as I’m concerned. Do you think President Warren lost any sleep over the Lizards in the colonization fleet?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Stassen said. “Until the recent tragic events, I had no idea he’d had anything to do with them.” His chuckle was mirthless. “As you may know, the vice president mostly has about as much use as the vermiform appendix.”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, you should have known what he’d done,” Yeager said. “The way things are these days, a vice president needs to be able to hit the ground running if he finds out he’s president all of a sudden. And that’s happened a couple of times lately-well, Cordell Hull wasn’t vice president when he took over, but you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean,” the president agreed. “Hull probably had an easier time taking over than I did, because he was more involved in making decisions than I was. President Warren did as he thought best. Now I have to do the same.”
He started to say something more, but checked himself. Sam had a pretty good idea of what it would have been, though. Everything would have been fine if only you hadn’t stuck your big nose into the middle of things. It was even true, for those who didn’t think of the Lizards as people. Earl Warren hadn’t, not down deep where it counted.
“Is there anything else?” Sam asked again.
This time, Harold Stassen shook his head. “That will be all, Lieutenant Colonel. I did want to meet you, though. I think you understand the reasons for my curiosity.”