Page 85 of Down to Earth (Colonization 2)

“That sounds like it makes pretty good sense,” Karen said. Jonathan automatically turned that like to as if in his mind. Karen was lucky enough not to have parents who got up in arms over grammar.

With a grin, he said, “Yeah, I know, but it’s liable to be true anyhow.” Karen started to nod, then noticed what he’d said and made a face. He made one back at her. With the air of somebody granting a great concession, he went on, “The things Dad says usually make pretty good sense.”

“I know,” Karen said. “You’re so lucky. At least your parents know we’re living in the twentieth century. My folks think we’re still back in horse-and-buggy days. Or if they don’t think so, they wish we were.”

Jonathan didn’t reckon himself particularly lucky in his choice of parents. Very few people his age did, but that never crossed his mind. He thought Mr. and Mrs. Culpepper were pretty nice, but he didn’t have to try to live with them. Pretty soon, he wouldn’t have to try to live with his own folks, either. Part of him eagerly looked forward to that. The rest of him wanted to stay right here, in the bedroom where he’d lived so long.

If he did stay, he couldn’t very well share the bedroom with Karen. That was the best argument he could think of for leaving the nest.

His mother looked in on them. “You kids are working hard,” she said. “Would you like some cookies and a couple of Cokes to keep you going?”

“Okay,” Jonathan said.

“Sure, Mrs. Yeager. Thanks,” Karen said.

The look Jonathan’s mother sent him said what she wouldn’t say in words: that he had no manners, but his girlfriend did. Getting away from looks like that was another good reason for striking out on his own.

Chocolate-chip cookies and sodas eased his annoyance. Were he living by himself, he’d have had to get up and fetch them himself. If I were married, I could ask my wife to bring them, he thought. He glanced over at Karen. Looking at her made him think of some of marriage’s other obvious advantages, too. That she might ask him to fetch Cokes and cookies didn’t cross his mind.

While Jonathan and Karen were eating cookies, Mickey came into the room. He watched them in fascination. Before he and Donald were allowed to go outside their room, they hadn’t seen the Yeagers eating. For all Jonathan knew, they might have thought they were the only ones who did.

They knew better now. They’d also had to learn that grabbing whatever they wanted off people’s plates was against the rules. That had produced some interesting and lively scenes. Now they were good-most of the time, anyhow.

Mickey was good more often than Donald. His eye turrets followed a cookie from the paper plate on the bed by Jonathan to Jonathan’s mouth. Watching, Karen snickered. “You ought to put sunglasses on him and give him a little tin cup,” she said.

“I’ll do better than that.” Jonathan snapped his fingers, the signal his family had worked out after trial and error to let the little Lizards know they could come up and have some of the food a human was eating. Mickey advanced, hand outstretched. Jonathan held out a cookie. Mickey took it with surprising delicacy. Then, delicacy forgotten, he stuffed it into his mouth.

Jonathan waited to see how he liked it. Lizards were more carnivorous than people, and Mickey and Donald were as emphatic as any human babies or toddlers about rejecting things they didn’t care for. But Mickey, after a couple of meditative smacks, gave a gulp, and the cookie was gone. He pointed to the paper plate, then rubbed his belly.

Karen giggled. “He’s saying he wants some more.”

“He sure is. And he’s not trying to steal it, either. Good boy, Mickey.” Jonathan held out another cookie. “You want this?”

Mickey’s head went up and down in an unmistakable nod. “He’s really learning,” Karen said. “The Lizards use a hand gesture when they mean yes.”

“He doesn’t know what the Lizards do, though,” Jonathan said. “He just knows what we do. That’s the idea.” He gave Mickey another cookie. This one disappeared without meditation. Mickey rubbed his belly again. Jonathan laughed. “You’re going to get fat. You give him one, Karen.”

“Okay,” she said. “That way you get to keep more of yours, huh? See, I’m on to you.” But she held out a cookie. “Here, Mickey. It’s all right. You can have it.”

Mickey hesitated. He was shier than Donald. And neither hatchling was as used to Karen as he was to the Yeagers. But the lure of chocolate chips seduced Mickey, as it had so many before him. He skittered forward, snatched the cookie out of Karen’s hand, and then scuttled away so she couldn’t grab him.

“You like that?” Karen said as he devoured the prize. “I bet you do. You want another one? I bet you do.” Mickey stood there, eye turrets riveted on the cookie in her hand. “Come on. You want it, don’t you?”

Mickey opened his mouth. That alarmed Jonathan. Was the hatchling going to take the cookie that way? He’d mostly outgrown such behavior-and Jonathan didn’t want him biting Karen. But, instead of going forward, Mickey stood there; he quivered a little, as if from intense mental effort. At last, he made a sound: “Esss.”

“Jesus,” Jonathan said softly. He sprang to his feet. “Give him the cookie, Karen. He just said, ‘Yes.’ ” He hurried past her. “I’m going to get my folks. If he’s started talking, they need to know about it.”

The motorcar pulled to a halt in front of a house not much different from the one in which Straha lived. By now, the ex-shiplord had grown used to stucco homes painted in bland pastels with swaths of grass in front of them. They seemed to be the local Tosevites’ ideal. He’d never been able to figure out why-taking care of grass struck him as a waste of both time and water-but it was so.

“Here we are,” his driver said. “You may have a more interesting time than you expect.”

“Why?” Straha asked. “Do you think someone will start shooting at the house, as happened on an earlier visit to Sam Yeager?”

“No, that is not what I meant,” the driver answered. “If that happens, I will do my best to see that no harm comes to you. But the surprise I had in mind is not likely to be dangerous.”

“What is it, then?” Straha demanded.

His driver smiled. “If I told you, Shiplord, it would not be a surprise any more. Go on. The Yeagers will be waiting for you. And who knows? You may not be surprised at all.”

“Who knows?” Straha said irritably. “I may one day have a driver who does not enjoy annoying me.” The driver laughed a loud, braying Tosevite laugh, which annoyed Straha more than ever. He got out of the motorcar and slammed the door. That only made the driver laugh louder.

Tailstump quivering with irritation he couldn’t hide, Straha went up onto the front porch and rang the bell. He could hear it chime inside the house. He never had liked bells; he thought hisses the proper way to gain attention. But this was not his world, not his species. If the American Big Uglies liked bells and pastel stucco and grass, he had to acco

mmodate himself to them, not the other way round.

The door opened. There stood Barbara Yeager. She briefly bent into the posture of respect. “I greet you, Shiplord,” she said in the language of the Race. “How are you?”

“Fine, thanks,” Straha answered in English. “And you?”

“We are also well,” Sam Yeager’s mate answered. She shifted to English, too: “Sam! Straha’s here.”

“I’m coming, hon,” Yeager called. Straha listened with mingled amusement and perplexity. Despite having lived so long among the Big Uglies, he didn’t-by the nature of things, he couldn’t-fully understand the way their family relationships worked. Neither the Race, the Rabotevs, nor the Hallessi had anything similar, so that was hardly surprising. The former shiplord found endearments like the one Yeager had used particularly hard to fathom. They struck him as informal honorifics, a contradiction in terms if ever there was one. But the Big Uglies didn’t seem to find it a contradiction; they used them all the time.

Sam Yeager came into the front room. “I greet you, Shiplord,” he said, as his mate had before. “I hope things are not too bad.”

“No, not too,” Straha answered. With Sam Yeager, he stuck to his own language; more than with any other Big Ugly, even his driver, he felt as if he were talking with another male of the Race. That I hope things are not too bad proved how well Yeager understood his predicament. Any other Tosevite would have said, I hope things are good. Things weren’t good. They couldn’t be, not in exile. They could be not too bad.

“Come on into the kitchen, then,” Yeager said. “I have a new kind of salami you might want to try. I have rum and vodka-and bourbon for Barbara and me. And I have ginger, if you care for a taste.”

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