“You could take a coastal route,” said Roy, studying it.
“This one doesn’t put us more than eight hundred nautical miles from land at the midpoint between the continents.”
“Well, it’s your neck,” said Roy, with a lightheartedness as ominous as the noise of the standby burners. “Oh, by the way, guess who we’ve got here? Just landed. Your uncle, Member Wagnall.”
Aha! said Chuck. But he said it to himself.
“Tommy?” he said aloud. “Is he handy, there?”
“Right here,” answered Roy, and backed out of the screen to allow a heavy, graying-haired man with a kind, broad face to take his place.
“Chuck, boy, how are you?” said the man.
“Never better, Tommy,” said Chuck. “How’s politicking?”
“The appropriations committee’s got me out on a one-man junket to check up on you lads,” said Earth District Member 439 Thomas L. Wagnall. “I promised your mother I’d say hello to you if I got to this Base. What’s all this about having this project named after you?”
“Oh, not after me,” said Chuck. “Its full name isn’t Project Charlie, it’s Project Big Brother Charlie. With us humans as Big Brother.”
“I don’t seem to know the reference.”
“Didn’t you ever hear that story?” said Chuck. “About three brothers—the youngest were twins and fought all the time. The only thing that stopped them was their big brother Charlie coming on the scene.”
“I see,” said Tommy. “With the Tomah and the Lugh as the two twins. Very apt. Let’s just hope Big Brother can be as successful in this instance.”
“Amen,” said Chuck. “They’re a couple of touchy peoples.”
“Well,” said Tommy. “I was going to run out where you are now and surprise you, but I understand you’ve got the only atmosphere pot of the outfit.”
“You see?” said Chuck. “That proves we need more funds and equipment. Talk it up for us when you get back, Tommy. Those little airfoils you saw on the field when you came in have no range at all.”
“Well, we’ll see,” said Tommy. “When do you expect to get here?”
“I’ll be taking off in a few minutes. Say four hours.”
“Good. I’ll buy you a drink of diplomatic scotch when you get in.”
Chuck grinned.
“Bless the governmental special supply. And you. See you, Tommy.”
“I’ll be waiting,” said the Member. “You want to talk to your chief, again?”
He looked away outside the screen range. “He says nothing more. So long, Chuck.”
“So long.”
They cut connections. Chuck drew a deep breath. “Hold Seventy-nine,” he murmured to his memory, and went back to check that item on his list.
He had barely completed his full check when a roll of drums from outside the ship, penetrating even over the sound of the burners, announced that the Tomah envoy was entering the ship. Chuck got up and went back through the door that separated the cockpit from the passenger and freight sections.
The envoy had just entered through the lock and was standing with his great claw almost in salute. He most nearly resembled, like all the Tomah, a very large ant with the front pair of legs developed into arms with six fingers each and double-opposed thumbs. In addition, however, a large, lobsterlike claw was hinged just behind and above the waist. When standing erect, as now, he measured about four feet from mandibles to the point where his rear pair of legs rested on the ground, although the great claw, fully extended, could have lifted something off a shelf a good foot or more above Chuck’s head—and Chuck was over six feet in height. Completely unadorned as he was, this Tomah weighed possibly ninety to a hundred and ten Earth-pounds.
Chuck supplied him with a small throat-mike translator.
“Bright seasons,” said the Tomah, as soon as this was adjusted. The translator supplied him with a measured, if uninflected, voice.
“Bright seasons,” responded Chuck. “And welcome aboard, as we humans say. Now, if you’ll just come over here—”
He went about the process of assisting the envoy into the bin across the aisle from the Lugh, Binichi. The Tomah had completely ignored the other; and all through the process of strapping in the envoy, Binichi neither stirred, nor spoke.
“There you are,” said Chuck, when he was finished, looking down at the reclining form of the envoy. “Comfortable?”
“Pardon me,” said the envoy. “Your throat-talker did not express itself.”
“I said, comfortable?”
“You will excuse me,” said the envoy. “You appear to be saying something I don’t understand.”
“Are you suffering any pain, no matter how slight, from the harness and bin I put you in?”
“Thank you,” said the envoy. “My health is perfect.”
He saluted Chuck from the reclining position. Chuck saluted back and turned to his other passenger. The similarity here was the throat-translator, that little miracle of engineering, which the Lugh, in common with the envoy and Chuck, wore as close as possible to his larynx.
“How about you?” said Chuck. “Still comfortable?”
“Like sleeping on a ground-swell,” said Binichi. He grinned up at Chuck. Or perhaps he did not grin—like that of the dolphin he so much resembled, the mouth of the Lugh had a built-in upward twist at the corners. He lay. Extended at length in the bin he measured a few inches over five feet and weighed most undoubtedly over two hundred pounds. His wide-spreading tail was folded up like a fan into something resembling a club and his four short limbs were tucked in close to the short snowy fur of his belly. “I would like to see what the ocean looks like from high up.”
“I can manage that for you,” said Chuck. He went up front, unplugged one of the extra screens and brought it back. “When you look into this,” he said, plugging it in above the bin, “it’ll be like looking down through a hole in the ship’s bottom.”
“I will feel upside down,” said Binichi. “That should be something new, too.” He bubbled in his throat, an odd sound that the throat-box made no attempt to translate. Human sociologists had tried to equate this Lugh noise with laughter, but without much success. The difficulty lay in understanding what might be funny and what might not, to a different race. “You’ve got my opposite number tied down over there?”
“He’s in harness,” said Chuck.
“Good.” Binichi bubbled again. “No point in putting temptation in my way.”
He closed his eyes. Chuck went back to the cockpit, closed the door behind him, and sat down at the controls. The field had been cleared. He fired up and took off.
When the pot was safely airborne, he set the course on autopilot and leaned back to light a cigarette. For the first time he felt the tension in his neck and shoulder blades and stretched, to break its grip. Now was no time to be tightening up. But what had Binichi meant by this last remark? He certainly wouldn’t be fool enough to attack the Tomah on dry footing?
Chuck shook off the ridiculous notion. Not that it was entirely ridiculous—the Lugh were individualists from the first moment of birth, and liable to do anything. But in this case both sides had given the humans their words (Binichi his personal word and the nameless Tomah their collective word) that there would be no trouble between the representatives of the two races. The envoy, Chuck was sure, would not violate the word of his people, if only for the reason that he would weigh his own life as nothing in comparison to the breaking of a promise. Binichi, on the other hand…
The Lugh were impeccably honest. The strange and difficult thing was, however, that they were much harder to understand than the Tomah, in spite of the fact that being warm-blooded and practically mammalian they appeared much more like the human race than the chitinous land-dwellers. Subtle shades and differences of meaning crept into every contact with the Lugh. They were a proud, strong, free, and oddly artistic people; in contradistinction to the intricately organized, highly logical Tomah, who took their pleasure in spectacle and group action.