Then, to his surprise, he found what had to be a Tosevite transmission, but one where the broadcaster not only spoke his language but was plainly a male of the Race: no Tosevite was free of accent either annoying or amusing. This fellow was not just one of his own but, by the way he spoke, a male of considerable status:
“-tell you again, this war is being conducted by idiots with fancy body paint. They anticipated none of the difficulties the Race would confront in trying to conquer Tosev 3, and, when they found those difficulties, what did they do about them? Not much, by the Emperor! No, not Atvar and his clique of cloaca-licking fools. They just pressed on as if the Big Uglies were the sword-swinging savages we’d presumed them to be when we set out from Home. And how many good, brave, and obedient males have died on account of their stupidity? Think on it, you who still live.”
“Truth!” Ussmak exclaimed. Whoever this male was, he understood what was what. He had a grasp of the big picture, too. Ussmak had heard captive males broadcasting before. Most of them just sounded pathetic, repeating the phrases the Tosevites ordered them to say. It made for bad, unconvincing propaganda. This fellow, though, sounded as if he’d prepared his own material and was enjoying every insult he hurled at the fleetlord.
Ussmak wished he’d caught the beginning of this transmission, so he could have learned the broadcaster’s name and rank. The fellow went on, “Here and there on Tosev 3, males are getting the idea that continuing this futile, bloody conflict is a dreadful mistake. Many have thrown down their weapons and yielded to the Tosevite empire or not-empire controlling the area in which they were assigned. Most Tosevite empires and not-empires treat prisoners well. I, Straha, shiplord of the206th Emperor Yower, can personally attest to this. Atvar the brain-addled fool was going to destroy me for daring to oppose his senseless policies, but I escaped to the United States, and have never regretted it even for an instant.”
Straha! Ussmak swung both eye turrets to focus sharply on the radio. Straha had been the third-ranking male in the conquest fleet. Ussmak knew he’d fled to the Big Uglies, but hadn’t known much about why: he hadn’t caught any of the shiplord’s earlier broadcasts. He clawed at a sheet of paper, slicing it into strips. Straha had told the truth and, instead of being rewarded as was proper, had suffered for it.
The refugee shiplord went on, “Nor is yielding to the Tosevites your only choice. I have heard reports of brave males in Siberia who, tired at last of endless orders to do the impossible, struck a blow for freedom against their own misguided commanders, and who now rule their base independent of foolish plans formulated by males who float in comfort high above Tosev 3 and who think that makes them wise. You who hear my voice, ignore orders whose senselessness you can see with one eye turret and with the nictitating membrane over that eye. Remonstrate with your officers. If all else fails, imitate the brave Siberians and reclaim liberty for yourselves. I, Straha, have spoken.”
Static replaced the shiplord’s voice. Ussmak felt stronger, more alive, than even ginger could make him. However much he enjoyed that intoxication, he knew it was artflicial. What Straha had said, though, was real, every word of it. Males on the ground had been treated shabbily, had been sacrfliced for no good purpose-for no purpose at all, as far as Ussmak could tell.
Straha had also told him something he badly needed to know. When he’d spoken with the males up in orbit, he’d threatened to surrender the base to the local Big Uglies if the Race didn’t meet his demands or attacked him. He’d hesitated about doing anything more than threatening, since he didn’t know how the Soviets would treat males they captured. But Straha had set his mind at ease. He didn’t know much about Tosevite geography, but he did know the United States and the SSSR were two of the biggest, strongest not-empires on Tosev 3.
If the United States treated its captured males well, no doubt the SSSR would do the same. Ussmak hissed in satisfaction. “We now have a new weapon against you,” he said, and turned both eye turrets up toward the starships still in orbit around Tosev 3.
His mouth dropped open. Those males up there certainly didn’t know much about the Big Uglies.
Sam Yeager looked at the rocket motor painfully assembled from parts made in small-town machine shops all over Arkansas and southern Missouri. It looked-well,crude was the politest word that came to mind. He sighed. “Once you see what the Lizards can do, anything people turn out is small potatoes alongside it. No offense, sir,” he added hastily.
“None taken,” Robert Goddard answered. “As a matter of fact, I agree with you. We do the best we can, that’s all.” His gray, worn face said he was doing more than that: he was busy working himself to death. Yeager worried about him.
He walked around the motor. If you set it alongside the pieces of the one from the Lizard shuttlecraft that had brought Straha down to exile, it was a kid’s toy. He took off his service cap, scratched at his blond hair. “You think it’ll fly, sir?”
“The only way to find out is to light it up and see what happens,” Goddard answered. “If we’re lucky, we’ll get to test-fire it on the ground before we wrap sheet metal around it and stick some explosives on top. The trouble is, test-firing a rocket motor isn’t what you’d call inconspicuous, and we’d probably have a visit from the Lizards in short order.”
“It’s a straight scaledown from the motor in the Lizard shuttlecraft,” Yeager said. “Vesstil thinks that should be a pretty good guarantee it’ll work the right way.”
“Vesstil knows more about flying rockets than anyone human,” Goddard said with a weary smile. “Seeing as he flew Straha down from his starship when he defected, that goes without saying. But Vesstil doesn’t know beans about engineering, at least the cut-and-try kind. Everything else changes when you scale up or down, and you have to try the new model to see what the devil you’ve got.” He chuckled wryly. “And it’s notquite a straight scaledown anyhow, Sergeant: we’ve had to adapt the design to what we like to do and what we’re able to do.”
“Well, yes, sir.” Sam felt his ears heat with embarrassment. Since his skin was very fair, he feared Goddard could watch him flush. “Hell of a thing for me to even think of arguing with you.” Goddard had more experience with rockets than anybody who wasn’t a Lizard or a German, and he was gaining on the Germans. Yeager went on, “If I hadn’t read the pulps before the war, I wouldn’t be here working with you now.”
“You’ve taken advantage of what you read,” Goddard answered. “If you hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t be of any use to me.”
“You spend as much time bouncing around as I’ve done, sir, and you know that if you see a chance, you’d better grab for it with both hands, ’cause odds are you’ll never see it again.” Yeager scratched his head once more. He’d spent his whole adult life, up till the Lizards came, playing minor-league ball. A broken ankle ten years before had effectively ended whatever chance he’d had of making the majors, but he’d hung in there anyhow. And on the endless bus and train trips from one small or medium-sized town to the next, he’d killed time withAstounding and any other science-fiction magazines he’d found on the newsstands. His teammates had laughed at him for reading about bug-eyed monsters from another planet. NowNow Robert Goddard said, “I’m glad you grabbed this one, Sergeant. I don’t think I could have gotten nearly so much information out of Vesstil with a different interpreter. It’s not just that you know his language; you have a real feel for what he’s trying to get across.”