He didn't say no. He only laughed and gave her one of the fierce military expressions because she knew the answer as well as he. Jupiter did not want to wait for anything... except, of course, his mandatory interview with the Mother Sister before departure.
And that he was putting off as long as possible.
When at last Jupiter had the entire nest organized to the task of getting him ready for his trip, he allowed the kitchen sisters to feed him. There was an inkling steak— not from the beast he had brought home to the nest, but one out of the freezer. There were crisp vegetables from the garden and a chilled glass of fruit wine. Jupe's nest was one of the oldest and, all other nestlings thought, one of the best—particularly as to the splendid way it fed its members.
Of course, every nest thought it was special in some way. That wasn't unreasonable of them. There were not so many of them that each could not claim some special distinction; there were not that many humans on World, even after half a century of intensive child breeding.
The places where the Yankees lived on World were usually right outside one of the huge old erk cities. Humans seldom lived in the cities themselves. The cities were too hot and muggy, too much trouble to air-condition against the steamy air of World. The air in the nest was not really any cooler than the ambient outside. The Americans had got used to a steady eighty-some degrees over the generations, and the erks, of course, had been evolved to thrive on it. The big difference was that the inside air was a good deal dryer than out. Little bags of hygroscopic salts in the nest's ventilators sopped a lot of the water vapor out of the air. When the bags were saturated, the dumb erks took them out and dried them in ovens—or in their own body heat, as they clustered in sleep or companionship or sex. None of the erks, dumb or smart, minded being wet.
The other reason the Americans lived in nests rather than in the half-empty cities was that the smart erks didn't want them there. And, after all, it was their planet.
Sort of.
Lunch over, Jupiter squared his military jaw and faced his interview with Mother Sister Nancy-R. He couldn't postpone it any longer. So as soon as his uniform was ready for him to carry out and the handlers reported that his carry-bird, Flash, was eating its dinner nicely, Jupe left the big nest for the pleasant little cottage under the Joe tree that belonged to the Mother Sister and her wife.
Mother Sister Nancy-R was a woman of fifty and some. She was still strikingly beautiful. All of the women of Jupiter's nest were above-average good-looking; when brothers from other nests decided to wander for a time, they often tarried a week or two there, sampling a different sister each night. They were always politely enthusiastic about their beauty when they left. A dozen or more brothers had offered bedding to Nancy-R, age notwithstanding, but she was wholeheartedly les. Monogamous les. She and Suzi had been mated for thirty years, proud parents of fifteen children already and another on the way. And every one of them their own—no implants out of the freezer for the wife of Nancy-R!
Between Jupe and Nancy-R there had always been a jockeying for position. Jupe was The Male. Nancy-R was The Mother Sister.
Nancy-R's own host-mother had been one of the Original Landers. That did not mean one of the original flight crew. Those women had been well past even the age for bringing implanted embryos to term, much less conceiving their own, by the time they landed on World in the year 2047. Not surprisingly, Nancy-R had inherited her mother's life-style. She was a little old-fashioned. Spottily old-fashioned, anyway—her decision not to bear a child elevated a lot of well-shaped eyebrows when she reached menarche-plus-four and all her age-cohorts were starting their first pregnancies. Not Nancy-R. She was radical about that if nothing else. She did not want to become pregnant except through love. Of all things! But you could tell her old-fashioned ways just by looking around her cottage. Item, Old Glory waving on a wall screen. Item, signed pictures on every flat surface, pictures of most of the Original Landers, personally autographed to her. Item, in her dooryard, as a bow to their hosts, a figure of one of the long-necked, tadpole-bodied, two-legged Living Gods of the erks. "So you're here at last," she called to Jupe as he came swinging through the Joe tree archway, his uniform bag over his shoulder.
"I didn't know!" he snapped. He nodded to the Living God and impatiently waited for Nancy-R to get out of the way so he could enter her cottage.
Between the nest's senior female and only male there was a permanent jockeying for position. Jupe won his rounds by staying out of her sight when he was doing things he thought she would disapprove of. Nancy-R won hers by outguessing him when she could. She knew what he was there for. Even the nest's male needed permission to leave the territory. Of course he wanted to go to Space City! Hell, what American didn't want to see her—or his—President? And she knew what storms would follow if she didn't give permission. So her first strategy was to make it her idea: "Why are you still here, Jupe? I want you to greet the President at once!"
Jupe's tentatively sullen expression melted immediately. "Oh, thanks, Nancy," he said, sliding out of his breechclout and beginning to pull on his uniform pants. He had a fine body, Nancy-R thought with aesthetic appreciation. A fine body for a man, of course. He added, "The erks are getting my kit together—I'll be set to leave in ten minutes."
"Good, dear. Are you taking Flash? But she's ready to come into heat. She'll be chasing birds all the way." The smile-corners drooped down, the eyelids went to half-mast. Nancy-R added quickly, "But of course you can handle her if anybody can, Jupe. Would you like to give your report before you go?"
"That's what I came in for," he said. He waited good-humoredly enough while Nancy-R called for her wife, Suzi, and Suzi, belly protruding far before her, waddled in to handle the recorder. Jupe patted her belly amiably. "Lucky Nancy still has a viable ovum at her age," he commented, and Suzi giggled as she dropped the needle in the machine and nodded for them to go ahead.
What Jupe had been doing was scouting a new nest site. (The detour to hunt inklings was an afterthought.) With a hundred and thirty-one sisters over the age of eight in their nest, it was ripe to fission. Everybody wanted a new nest when possible. A new nest meant one of the seniors could become a Mother Sister without waiting for Nancy-R to die. It meant even more that another male could be born, without upsetting the established 170-to-1 ratio. It meant most of all that America was alive and well on World, and growing!
Jupe's report was quick. The lakeside site had good farmland. It was near an erk city in good repair. There were plenty of dumb erks in the vicinity for stoop labor and quite a few smart ones for company. There was water from the lake—samples already delivered for testing— there was drainage, there was even pretty scenery, with soft hills on the horizon and the lake clean and broad. "So we can fiss whenever you like, Nancy-R," he finished, and was startled to see her purse her lips. "What's the matter?" he demanded.
"I'm only wondering if we want to," she said.
"Want to? Of course we'll want to! Why wouldn't we want to?"
Nancy-R winked at Suzi. A point won! Obviously Jupe had not thought the thing through. "Because we might all go back to Earth now instead," she said, and enjoyed the shocked rapture that flooded Jupe's face.