Part 33 (2/2)

Johnson nodded. ”I've heard there's a second s.h.i.+p in the neighborhood, too.”

Before he could say anything else, Brigadier General Healey pounced: ”Where did you hear that, and from whom? It's not supposed to be public news.” Johnson stood-or rather, floated-mute. He wasn't about to rat on Lucy Vegetti, even if she hadn't given him a tumble yet. Healey made a sour face. ”Never mind, then. What you heard is true. We can only hope there aren't any others we haven't found.”

”Yes, sir.” Johnson considered. ”Well, if that's so, how much trouble can we give them? Blind 'em, sure, but can we jam their radar and their radio receivers? If we can't, is throwing a sack over them worth the trouble we'll get into for doing it?”

Now Healey turned the full power of that high-wattage glare on him. ”If you're yellow, Lieutenant Colonel, I can find somebody else for the job.”

”Sir, as far as I'm concerned, you can go to the devil,” Johnson said evenly.

Healey looked as if he'd just got a punch in the nose. Unless Johnson missed his guess, n.o.body'd told the commandant anything like that in a h.e.l.l of a long time. He wished he'd said something worse. G.o.dd.a.m.n military discipline, G.o.dd.a.m.n military discipline, he thought. Alter a couple of deep, angry breaths, Healey growled, ”You are insubordinate.” he thought. Alter a couple of deep, angry breaths, Healey growled, ”You are insubordinate.”

”Maybe so, sir,” Johnson replied, ”but all I was trying to do was figure the angles, and you went and called me a coward. You've got my war record, sir. If that doesn't tell you different, I don't know what would.”

Brigadier General Healey kept on glaring. Johnson floated in place, one hand securing him to the chair bolted to the floor in front of the commandant's desk, the chair in which he'd be sitting if there were gravity or a semblance of it. When he didn't buckle or beg for mercy, Healey said, ”Very well, let it go.” But it wasn't forgotten; every line of his face declared how unforgotten it was.

Trying to get back to business, Johnson asked, ”Sir, is is it worth it to do whatever we can to those s.h.i.+ps if we don't destroy them? If it is, send me. I'll go.” it worth it to do whatever we can to those s.h.i.+ps if we don't destroy them? If it is, send me. I'll go.”

”As yet, we are still evaluating that,” Healey said gruffly. ”Not all the variables are known.”

”Well, of course we can't know ahead of time what the Lizards will do if...” Johnson's voice trailed away. Healey's face had changed. He'd missed something, and the commandant was silently laughing at him on account of it. And, after a moment, he realized what it was. ”Oh. Do we know if these s.h.i.+ps are armed, sir?”

”That's one of the things we're interested in finding out,” the commandant answered, deadpan.

”Yes, sir,” Johnson said, just as deadpan. So Healey was thinking about turning him into a guinea pig, eh? That didn't surprise him, not even a little bit. ”When do you want me to go out, and which one do you want me to visit?”

”We haven't prepared the covering material yet,” Healey said. ”When we do-and if we decide to-you will be informed. Until then, dismissed.”

After saluting, Johnson launched himself out of the commandant's office. He glided straight past Captain Guilloux, then used the handholds in the corridor to pull himself back to his tiny cubicle. The only thing his bunk and the straps securing him to it did that a stretch of empty air couldn't was to make sure he didn't b.u.mp up against anything while sleeping.

He kept waiting for the order to climb into a hot rod and go blind one of the Lizards' spy s.h.i.+ps. The order kept on not coming. He didn't want to ask Brigadier General Healey why it didn't come. After a week or so, he broached the subject to Walter Stone in an oblique way.

Stone nodded. ”I know what you're talking about. I don't think you have to worry very much.”

”I wasn't worried,” Johnson said, which would do for a lie till a better one came along. ”I was curious, though; I'll say that.”

”Sure you were.” Stone grinned at him, there in the privacy of the Lewis and Clark Lewis and Clark's control room. Johnson grinned back. The s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p's chief pilot had been through the mill, even if he was an Army Air Force man and not a Marine. He knew the feeling of going out on a mission from which you didn't expect to come back. He went on, ”You don't know this officially because I don't know it officially, but we got, uh, discouraged from going on with that.”

”Oh, yeah?” Johnson leaned forward in his seat. ”I'm all ears.”

”That's not what Healey thinks-he figures you're all mouth and bra.s.s b.a.l.l.s,” Stone answered with a chuckle. ”Anyway, this is all scuttleb.u.t.t, and you haven't heard it from me.” Solemnly, Johnson crossed his heart, which made the number-one pilot laugh out loud. ”What I heard is, we did a dry run, with a hot rod under radio control. Whoever was in charge of the beast inched it up to the spy s.h.i.+p, and when it got close enough...”

”Yeah?” Johnson said. ”What happened then?” Stone had hooked him, sure as if he'd been telling a h.e.l.l of a dirty joke.

”Then the d.a.m.n thing-the spy s.h.i.+p, not the hot rod-broke radio silence, or that's what they say,” Stone told him. ”It sent out a recorded message in the Lizards' language, something like, 'You come any closer or do anything cute and we count it as an act of war.' And so they backed up the hot rod and sent it home, and n.o.body's said a word about it since.”

”Is that a fact?” Johnson said.

”d.a.m.ned if I know,” Stone answered. ”But it's what I've heard.”

No wonder Healey isn't sending for me, Johnson thought. Then something else crossed his mind: Johnson thought. Then something else crossed his mind: I'm d.a.m.n glad I I'm d.a.m.n glad I didn't didn't open up on the lousy thing. open up on the lousy thing.

13.

Jonathan Yeager sprawled across his bed, working on the chemistry notes and problems he'd missed because he'd gone into s.p.a.ce. Karen sat in the desk chair a couple of feet away. The bedroom door remained decorously open. That was a house rule. Now that he'd finally turned twenty-one, Jonathan had proposed to his folks that they change it. They'd proposed to him that he keep his mouth shut as long as he lived under their roof.

He pointed to a stretch of Karen's notes he had trouble following. ”What was Dr. Cobb saying about stoichiometry here?”

Karen pulled the chair closer and bent over to see what he was talking about. Her red hair tickled his ear. ”Oh, that,” she said, a little sheepishly. ”I didn't quite get that myself.”

He sighed. ”Okay, I'll ask after lecture tomorrow.” He made motions that would have implied tearing his hair if he'd had any hair to tear. ”I don't think I'm ever going to get all caught up, and I was only gone a week.”

”What was it like?” Karen asked. She'd been asking that ever since he got back from Kitty Hawk. He'd tried several different ways of explaining, but none of them satisfied her-or him, really.

After some thought, he took another shot at it: ”You've read Edgar Rice Burroughs, right?” When Karen nodded, he went on, ”You know how the apes raised Tarzan but he still turned out to be a man pretty much like other men?” She nodded again. Jonathan said, ”Well, it was nothing nothing like that. I mean, nothing at all. Ka.s.squit looks like a person, but she doesn't act like a person. She acts just like a Lizard. My dad was right.” He laughed a little; that wasn't something he said every day. ”We just play at being Lizards. She's not playing. She wishes she had scales-you can tell.” like that. I mean, nothing at all. Ka.s.squit looks like a person, but she doesn't act like a person. She acts just like a Lizard. My dad was right.” He laughed a little; that wasn't something he said every day. ”We just play at being Lizards. She's not playing. She wishes she had scales-you can tell.”

Karen nodded again, this time thoughtfully. ”I can see that, I guess.” She paused, then found a different question, or maybe a different version of the same one: ”How did it feel, talking about important things with a woman who wasn't wearing any clothes?”

Was that that what she'd been getting at all along? Jonathan answered, ”For me, it felt funny at first. Ka.s.squit didn't even think about it, and I tried not to notice-you know what I mean?” He'd tried; he hadn't succeeded too well. Not wanting to admit as much, he added, ”I think it fl.u.s.tered my dad worse than it did me.” what she'd been getting at all along? Jonathan answered, ”For me, it felt funny at first. Ka.s.squit didn't even think about it, and I tried not to notice-you know what I mean?” He'd tried; he hadn't succeeded too well. Not wanting to admit as much, he added, ”I think it fl.u.s.tered my dad worse than it did me.”

”That's how it works for people that old,” she agreed with careless cruelty. Jonathan felt he'd pa.s.sed an obscure test. He'd been attracted to Liu Mei when she visited Los Angeles, so now Karen was nervous about every female he met. Here, he thought she was wasting worry. UCLA boasted tons of pretty girls, all of them far more accessible and far more like him than one raised by aliens who'd spent her whole life on a stars.h.i.+p.

Interesting, now-Ka.s.squit was certainly interesting. Fascinating, even. But attractive? He'd seen all of her, every bit; she was no more shy of herself than a Lizard was. He shook his head. No, he didn't think so.

”What?” Karen asked.

Before Jonathan could answer, one of the Lizard hatchlings skittered down the hall. He stopped in the doorway, his eye turrets swinging from Jonathan to Karen and back again. They lingered longer on Karen, not because the hatchling found her attractive-a really preposterous notion-but because he saw her less often. Jonathan waved. ”h.e.l.lo, Donald,” he called.

Donald waved back. He and Mickey had got good at gestures, though the sounds they made were nothing but hissing babbles.

”I greet you,” Karen called to him in the language of the Race.

He stared at her as if he'd never heard such noises before. And, except from himself and Mickey, he hadn't. ”Don't do that,” Jonathan told Karen. ”My dad would go through the roof if he heard you. We're supposed to raise them like people, not like Lizards. When they learn to talk, they'll learn English.”

”Okay. I'm sorry,” Karen said. ”I knew that, but I forgot. When I see a Lizard, I want to talk Lizard talk.”

”Mickey and Donald won't be Lizards, any more than Ka.s.squit is really a person,” Jonathan said. Then he paused. ”Still and all, I think there's a little part of her that wants to be a person, even if she doesn't know how.”

Karen didn't want him talking about Ka.s.squit any more. She made a point of changing the subject. She made a literal point: pointing at Donald, she said, ”He sure is getting big.”

”I know,” Jonathan said. ”He and Mickey are an awful lot bigger than human one-year-olds would be.” His mother would have flayed him if he'd said Mickey and him Mickey and him. However he said it, it was true. The baby Lizards weren't babies any more, not to look at they weren't. They'd grown almost as if inflated by CO2 cartridges, and were closer in size to adult Lizards than to what they'd been when they came out of their eggs.

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