Part 11 (2/2)

That produced another silence, but not one aimed at Johnson. He smiled his thanks toward her. She didn't smile back. He'd got to know she was like that: she spoke the truth as she saw it.

”I think we can do it,” Lucy Vegetti said. ”I really do. Oh, we'll need more help from back home, but we'll get that. The Lewis and Clark Lewis and Clark showed that we could make constant-boost s.h.i.+ps. The next one that comes out will be better. We'll have a good start on things by then, too. Pretty soon, we'll be mining a good stretch of the asteroid belt. I think we'll find most of the metals we need, sooner or later.” showed that we could make constant-boost s.h.i.+ps. The next one that comes out will be better. We'll have a good start on things by then, too. Pretty soon, we'll be mining a good stretch of the asteroid belt. I think we'll find most of the metals we need, sooner or later.”

”What about uranium?” Miriam Rosen asked. ”Not likely we'll find much of that here, is it?”

Lucy shook her head. ”We'd have to get lucky, I think. The asteroids aren't as dense as rocks back on Earth, which means there are fewer heavy metals around. But you never can tell.”

Was she looking at Johnson when she said ”get lucky”? He wasn't sure, and he didn't want to foul up a chance for later by messing up now. The rules on the Lewis and Clark Lewis and Clark hadn't fully shaken out yet, but one thing was already clear: the ladies did the choosing. Maybe things would have been different if there'd been two gals for every guy, but there weren't. hadn't fully shaken out yet, but one thing was already clear: the ladies did the choosing. Maybe things would have been different if there'd been two gals for every guy, but there weren't.

A couple of other male optimists came floating up to join the conversation. Johnson took his squeeze bags and lidded cup now empty of pills back to the a.s.sistant diet.i.tian. Nothing got thrown away on the Lewis and Clark Lewis and Clark; everything was cleaned and reused. That included bodily waste water: one more thing the crew preferred not to think about. A s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p beat even a nuclear-powered submarine as a self-contained environment.

Swinging out of the galley, Johnson went to the gymnasium. He logged in, strapped himself onto an exercise bicycle, and grimly began pedaling away. That helped keep calcium in his bones. He wondered why he was bothering. If he wasn't going back to Earth and Earth's gravity, who cared if his bones were made of calcium or rubber bands?

But orders prescribed at least half an hour of exercise every day. He'd been in the Army too long to think orders had to make sense. They were just there, and they had to be obeyed. On he pedaled, going nowhere.

In his time in Lodz, Mordechai Anielewicz had heard a lot of strange noises coming from alleys. Once, he'd foiled a robbery, though he hadn't caught the robber: the fellow had leaped over a wall-an Olympic-quality jump-and got away. Once, he'd surprised a couple making love standing up in a doorway. He'd felt like leaping over a wall himself then; Bertha still didn't know about that.

More often than not, though, noises down alleys meant animal fights: dog-dog, cat-cat, cat-dog. These furious snarls were of that sort, and under most circ.u.mstances Mordechai would have paid them no special attention. But, as he walked past the mouth of the alley, some of the noises proved to have a stridency the likes of which he'd never heard before. Almost before he knew what he was doing, he craned his neck to see what the devil was going on.

He was surprised enough to stop in midstride, one foot off the ground, till he noticed and made it come down. The alley was just an alley: cobblestones, weeds pus.h.i.+ng up among them, a couple of dead vodka bottles. One of the beasts down it was a cat, sure enough; it was clawing at its foe like a lioness ripping the guts out of a zebra. But that foe...

”Gevalt, what is that thing?” Mordechai exclaimed, and hurried past a battered trash barrel toward the fight to find out. Whatever it was, he'd never seen anything like it. It was clawing at the cat, too, but it was also biting, and it had a very big mouth full of sharp teeth. Pretty plainly, it was getting the better of the fight, for the cat's claws and even its needle-sharp canines had trouble piercing its scaly hide. what is that thing?” Mordechai exclaimed, and hurried past a battered trash barrel toward the fight to find out. Whatever it was, he'd never seen anything like it. It was clawing at the cat, too, but it was also biting, and it had a very big mouth full of sharp teeth. Pretty plainly, it was getting the better of the fight, for the cat's claws and even its needle-sharp canines had trouble piercing its scaly hide.

Anielewicz stooped and grabbed a stick-always handy to have when breaking up a fight between animals-before advancing on the cat and the... thing. He hadn't taken more than a couple of steps toward the beasts when the cat decided it had had enough. It broke free of the fight and levitated up a wooden fence, leaving only bloodstains behind to prove it had been there.

The other animal was bleeding, too, though not so badly. Now that Mordechai got a good look at it, he saw it was smaller than the cat it had just mauled. It stuck out a long, forked tongue and licked a couple of its worst wounds. It was looking at him, too; while it tended to itself, one turreted eye swung in his direction to make sure he didn't mean trouble.

Realization smote him. ”It must be from the Lizards'world!” he exclaimed: either that, or he was hallucinating. He shook his head; he couldn't have imagined anything so funny-looking. And he did remember hearing that the colonization fleet had brought along some of the Lizards' domesticated creatures. He hadn't expected his first meeting with one to be in an alley, though.

Now that it wasn't fighting, the Lizardy thing-he didn't know what else to call it-seemed to relax. When Mordechai didn't wave the stick or do anything else untoward, the animal turned both eye turrets toward him and let out an absurdly friendly squeak.

He laughed. He couldn't help himself. Snarls and hisses were one thing. He would have expected noises like those from a small creature that could take on a cat and win. He hadn't expected the thing to sound like a rubber squeeze toy.

Whatever he thought of the noises the animal made, it didn't like the ones he made. It streaked past him, nimble as a champion footballer getting past a midfielder who only stepped onto a soccer pitch as a weekend amus.e.m.e.nt. It was, he thought, even faster and more agile than a cat, though it had shown no signs of being able to climb.

Out on the street, someone exclaimed in surprise: ”What was that that?” ”What was what?” somebody else-a woman-said. ”I didn't see anything.”

Anielewicz laughed again as he threw down the stick and walked out of the alley. Some people were always unlucky enough to miss things. He wondered if this lady would ever have another chance to see an animal from another planet.

He also wondered, in a different and more urgent way this time, what an animal from another planet was doing in an alley in Lodz (besides fighting a cat, that is). He hadn't intended to go by the Bialut Market Square-Bertha was reluctant to let him anywhere near the place, too, after his fiasco with the peasant woman selling eggs-but Bunim's headquarters looked out onto it. He didn't suppose the Lizards would mind talking about the animals they'd brought to Earth.

As he started for the market square, he laughed again. He wasn't likely to have much immediate interest in animals from Home, and neither was any other Polish Jew. How likely were they to divide the hoof and chew a cud? Not very, which put them beyond the pale as far as he was concerned.

People and a few Lizards crowded the square. Since Mordechai wasn't shopping, he ignored the frantic haggling in Yiddish and Polish and, every now and then, the hisses and pops of the language of the Race. He strode up to the building from which the Lizards administered this stretch of Poland-along with the shadow governments of the Jews and Poles. The guards in front of the building were alert, as they had reason to be. ”What do you want?” one of them asked in pa.s.sable Polish.

The male didn't recognize him. Well, that was all right; he had trouble telling one Lizard from another. ”I just saw an animal...” he began, also sticking to Polish-he could do a better job of describing the creature in that tongue than in the Race's.

”Ah,” the guard said when he was through. ”That is a beffel. They will will run wild. 'Crazy as a beffel on a leash' is a saying in our language.” run wild. 'Crazy as a beffel on a leash' is a saying in our language.”

”A beffel,” Mordechai repeated-now he had a name for the beast. ”What good is it? Do you eat it, or is it just a pet?”

”Eat a beffel? What an ignorant Tosevite you are.” The guard's mouth dropped open in amus.e.m.e.nt. So did his partner's. ”No. It is only a pet, as you say.”

”All right. I am am ignorant-I'd never seen one till now. It was fighting a cat,” Anielewicz said. ”Are they going to start running loose all over the place now?” ignorant-I'd never seen one till now. It was fighting a cat,” Anielewicz said. ”Are they going to start running loose all over the place now?”

”I would not be surprised,” the guard replied. ”They get to be nuisances back on Home. So do tsiongyu.”

”What's a tsiongi?” Mordechai asked.

”Another kind of pet, larger,” the guard said. ”You speak some of our language, to know the singular when you hear the plural.”

”Truth,” Anielewicz answered, s.h.i.+fting to the language of the Race. ”So: are we to be overrun with animals from Home?”

”If we so choose,” the Lizard replied. ”We rule this part of Tosev 3. We have the right to bring in the beasts on which we feed-and we are doing that, too-and the beasts that are our friends. What business do you have to say otherwise?”

That was a pretty good question, although the male sounded arrogant even for one of his kind. Mordechai didn't try to answer it. Instead, he asked a question of his own: ”How will your animals like the winters here in Poland?”

By the way both guards winced, he knew he'd struck a nerve. ”We cannot know that until we find out by experiment,” said the one who was doing the talking. ”The hope is that they will do well. I certainly hope this. Our beasts are better eating than your Tosevite animals.”

”Truth.” The other guard proved he could talk.

Anielewicz wondered if he needed to go inside and talk with Bunim. He decided he didn't. He'd learned everything he needed to know from the regional subadministrator's guards. Bunim wouldn't stop bringing his kinds of animals into Poland just because Mordechai asked him to. Europeans had brought cows and pigs and dogs and cats to America and Australia. Why wouldn't the Race bring its creatures to Earth? The Lizards had come to stay, after all.

And the Poles probably wouldn't mind the new domestic animals one bit. They didn't have to worry about keeping kosher. Mordechai chuckled, wondering how soon some strange meat would start turning up in Polish farmwives' pots and how soon Polish leather makers would start tanning new kinds of hide. Sooner than the Lizards expect, Sooner than the Lizards expect, he thought. Yes, the Poles were very likely to turn into-what did the Westerns imported from the United States call cattle thieves? he thought. Yes, the Poles were very likely to turn into-what did the Westerns imported from the United States call cattle thieves? Rustlers, Rustlers, that was it. And an old joke about the recipe for chicken stew floated through his mind. that was it. And an old joke about the recipe for chicken stew floated through his mind. First, steal a chicken. First, steal a chicken.

”Do you need anything else?” the first guard asked.

If that wasn't a hint for Anielewicz to clear out, he'd never heard one. ”No. I thank you for your time,” he said, and made his way back across the Bialut Market Square. These days, he was always in the habit of keeping an eye open for possible a.s.sa.s.sins: amazing what a burst of submachine-gun fire through the door would do. Now, though, he also kept an eye out for befflem and tsiongyu. He wouldn't have known a tsiongi if it walked up and bit him, not really, but any sort of alien animal that wasn't a beffel would do for one till he knew better.

No doubt because he was on the lookout for the Race's pets, he saw none as he went back to the flat. All the way there, though, he kept thinking about how the beffel had laid up that cat. Cats were tough; not many Earthly animals their size could take them on and win. What did that say about how rugged other beasts from Home were liable to be? Did it say anything at all? n.o.body could predict a cow from a cat, so why was he trying to figure out what the Race's equivalent of a cow would be like from extremely brief acquaintance with a beffel?

Then he paused, smiling in spite of himself. The Lizardy creature had squeaked most endearingly. He wondered what sort of pet a beffel would make for a human being. Would it accept a person as a master, or would it think he was a large, fearsome wild animal?

His son Heinrich would like to know the answer to that question, too. Heinrich couldn't see a stray dog without saying, ”Can we keep it?” The answer, in a flat none too big for the people who lived in it, was inevitably no, but that didn't keep him from asking.

Over supper-chicken soup with dumplings-Mordechai talked about the beffel. Sure enough, Heinrich exclaimed, ”What a great-sounding animal! I want one! Can we get one, Father?”

Before Anielewicz could answer, Heinrich's older sister Miriam said, ”A thing that looks like a little Lizard? That's disgusting! I don't want anything that looks like a Lizard here.” She made a horrible face.

”A beffel looks about as much like a Lizard as a cat or a dog looks like a person. It's about so long”-Mordechai held his hands thirty or forty centimeters apart-”and goes on all fours.”

”Like a regular lizard-not like one of the Race, I mean?” His daughter sounded no happier. ”That's even worse.”

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