Oteisho and the other Lizards came up, too. They still kept their weapons aimed at Gustav Kluge. The underofficer asked Anielewicz, “Is it well? Have you found your mate and hatchlings?”
“It is very well. I thank you.” Mordechai folded himself into the posture of respect. “Yes, this is my mate. These are my hatchlings.”
Heinrich Anielewicz had been studying the Lizards’ language in school in Lodz, back when there was a school, back when there was a Lodz. He too bent into the posture of respect. “And I thank you, superior sir,” he said.
That seemed to amuse and please the infantrymales. The mouths of three or four of them dropped open in laughter. Gravely, Oteisho answered, “Tosevite hatchling, you are welcome.”
Heinrich returned to Polish, asking, “Father, do you know anything about Pancer? Is he all right?” To the Lizards, he explained, “I have a beffel. I named him for a landcruiser in my language.” That set the troopers laughing again.
Miriam said, “Don’t bother your father about that silly animal now.”
But Mordechai said, “It’s no bother. Pancer’s back at my tent, as a matter of fact. An officer of the Race had him. I heard him beeping and started asking questions about where the male had got him, and that helped lead me here.”
Heinrich let out a whoop of triumph that proved nothing was seriously wrong with him. “You see? Pancer helped save us again, even when he got lost.”
David said, “Where will we live? What will we do? Lodz is gone.”
“I don’t know,” Mordechai answered. “I’ve been in the field since before the fighting started, and I’ve been looking for you since it ended.” He shook his head. He felt dizzy, drunk, though he’d had nothing stronger than water. “And do you know what else? I don’t much care. We’re together again. That’s all that really matters.”
“Can we go someplace now where there’s real food?” David asked.
That spoke volumes about what things were like on the farm. Anielewicz shot Gustav Kluge another venomous glance. But he had to say, “There’s not a whole lot of real food anywhere in Germany right this minute. We’ll do the best we can.”
“We’re free again,” his wife said, which also spoke volumes. She went on, “Next to that, nothing else really matters.”
Mordechai put one arm around her, the other around Miriam. His sons embraced them. “Truth!” he said. They all added emphatic coughs.
Not for the first time, Kassquit was feeling neglected and left out of things. She knew she’d been on the edge of great events, but she hadn’t been able to get any closer than the edge. Only belatedly had she learned that Jonathan Yeager’s father was the wild Big Ugly who’d given the Race the information it needed to show that his not-empire had been responsible for the attack on the colonization fleet.
She sent Sam Yeager an electronic message, saying, Congratulations. Because of you, the Race was able to take the vengeance it required.
That is a truth, he wrote back, but it is a truth with a high price. A male who was a fine leader except for his attack on the colonization fleet-which was wrong-killed himself, and a large city in my not-empire was destroyed. Look at the vengeance before you gloat over it.
Calling up video images of the ruins of Indianapolis was easy enough. The Race had broadcast them widely, to show males from the conquest fleet and males and females from the colonization fleet that the Big Uglies’ attack had indeed been avenged. Smashed buildings were smashed buildings; motorcars half melted into the asphalt on which they’d been driving testified to the power of the explosive-metal bomb that had burst above the town.
Those were the images the Race had shown again and again. But there were others, of Tosevites charred dead or half charred and wishing for death, that hadn’t been broadcast so much. Kassquit understood why: they were sickening, even when of another species. And, of course, for her they were not of another species. Had she been hatched-no, born-there, the same thing could have happened to her. One moment contented, the next with a new sun in the sky… It did not repay thinking about in any great detail.
The males and females in cold sleep had not known what hit them. Many of the Big Uglies, the ones near the city center, couldn’t have known, either. But many had. That was a side of revenge the Race didn’t publicize so widely. Kassquit, observing it, could understand why.
She needed a while before she wrote to Sam Yeager again. Did you know such a thing would happen to your not-empire? she asked.
When I began searching for answers, I thought it would happen to another not-empire, he answered. I was convinced the Reich or the SSSR would deserve it. How, then, could I say my own not-empire did not?
That makes perfect logical sense, Kassquit wrote. Am I correct in guessing you are not happy with it even so?
Yes, he wrote back. A not-empire is an extension of one’s mate and hatchlings. When dreadful things happen to the members of one’s own not-empire, one is more unhappy than he would be if those dreadful things happened in a different not-empire. He used the conventional symbol for an emphatic cough.
That made Kassquit wonder just how strong an emotion he was feeling. The not-emperor of the USA had killed himself after permitting the destruction of that city. She hoped Sam Yeager would not feel similarly obliged. Asking him about it, though, might touch off the urge, and so she refrained.
And then Jonathan Yeager wrote to her: I have to let you know that I am going to enter into a permanent mating arrangement with the female named Karen Culpepper whom I mentioned from time to time while I was aboard the starship. I told you that this might happen. I am glad it finally has. I hope very much that you will be glad for me, too.
Kassquit stared at that for what seemed a very long time. At last, her fingers moving more on their own than under the guidance of her will, she wrote, I congratulate you. She stared at the words, wondering how they had got up on the screen. At least they replaced the ones Jonathan Yeager had sent her. Still not thinking very much-still trying not to think very much-she sent her message.
She had read that soldiers could be hurt in the heat of battle, sometimes badly hurt, and not notice it till later. She’d always supposed that a reaction unique to the Race, one Big Uglies didn’t share; whenever she’d been hurt, she’d always known about it. Now she began to understand. She knew she’d been wounded here, wounded to the core. Somehow, though, she felt nothing. It was as if her entire body had been dipped in refrigerant.
No, not quite her entire body. A tear slid from each eye and rolled down her cheeks. She hadn’t known the tears were there till they fell. When those first two did, it was as if they released the floodgates. Tears streamed down her face. Mucus began flowing from her small, blunt snout; she’d always hated that.
She stumbled to a tissue dispenser, grabbed one, and tried drying her face and wiping away the slimy mucus. The more she dabbed at herself, the more tears fell and the more mucus flowed. At last, she gave up and let her body do what it would till it finally decided it had had enough.
That took an amazingly long time. When the spasms finally quit wracking her, she stooped a little to look at herself in the mirror. She gasped in horrified dismay. She hadn’t really known her soft, scaleless skin could become so swollen and discolored around the eyes, or that the white part of those eyes could turn so red. She’d always been ugly compared to males and females of the Race, but now she looked extraordinarily hideous.
But Jonathan Yeager said I was not ugly, she thought. He said I was sexually attractive to wild Tosevites, and he proved it by being attracted to me.