Page 29 of Aftershocks (Colonization 3)

Mickey and Donald were in their room. When Jonathan opened the door, he gaped at how much they’d grown. Sure as hell, they were well on their way to being full-sized Lizards. But they looked funny. He needed a moment to realize why: they wore no body paint. He wanted to speak to them in the language of the Race. That wouldn’t work. They didn’t know it, any more than Kassquit knew any human tongue. As she’d been raised as a Lizard, they were being brought up as people.

“Hi, guys,” Jonathan said in English. “I’m Jonathan. Remember me?”

They came up to him, slowly, a little bit warily-he was bigger than either of his parents. Their eye turrets swiveled as they looked him up and down. Did they have any idea who he was? However much he wanted to, he couldn’t tell.

Then Mickey took another step toward him and stuck out his right hand. “Hello, Jonathan,” he said. His mouth couldn’t make all the sounds of English, any more than Jonathan’s could shape all those the Lizards’ language used. He was probably talking baby talk, too. But Jonathan understood him.

“Hello, Mickey,” he said gravely, and shook the little scaly hand. Then he nodded to Donald. “Hello, Donald. How are you?”

“Hello.” Donald was bigger and stronger than Mickey, but Mickey talked better; he-or maybe she-had always been the more clever hatchling.

Before Jonathan and the Lizards could say anything more, the telephone rang. Jonathan jumped a bit. He’d got used to hearing hisses. But then old habit took over. “I’ll get it,” he said, and hurried into the kitchen. “Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Yeager,” said the voice on the other end of the line: Karen’s voice. “Could I-”

“I’m not my dad,” Jonathan broke in, wondering what the devil would happen next. “I’m me. I’m back. Hi.”

“Oh,” Karen said. Then there was silence-quite a bit of silence. At last, Karen went on, “Hello, Jonathan. Did you… have a good time up on the starship?” She knew what he’d been doing up there, all right. He could hear it in her voice.

“Yeah, I did.” Jonathan could hardly deny it. “I didn’t expect to stay up there so long, though. Who would have thought the Germans would really start that war? I’m awful glad to be home.” His mother would have coughed at the colloquialism, but she’d stayed down at the other end of the house. He gave it his best shot: “I’d like to see you again, if you still want to see me.”

“Well…” More silence. Karen finally continued, “I do want to go on seeing Mickey and Donald, and that’ll mean seeing you, too, won’t it? But that’s not what you meant. I know it isn’t. You were doing research, yeah, but… that kind of research?” Another pause. “Maybe when I come over there for the hatchlings, we can talk about the other stuff. That’s about the best I can do, okay?”

“Okay,” Jonathan said at once-it was as much as he’d hoped for, maybe even a little more. “Do you still want to talk to my dad?”

“No, never mind-it’ll keep,” Karen said. “Good-bye.” She hung up. So did Jonathan.

Maybe the sound of the handset going onto the cradle told his father it was safe to come into the kitchen. He glanced at Jonathan and chuckled. “You’re still in one piece, I see,” he remarked.

“Yeah.” Jonathan knew he sounded relieved. “Maybe we can work things out.”

“I hope so. She’s a nice girl.” His dad pulled a couple of bottles of Lucky Lager out of the icebox and handed one to Jonathan. “Come on out to the back yard.”

That wasn’t an invitation he usually made, but Jonathan followed. “What’s up?” he asked when they were standing on the grass.

“You asked what was new when you got into the car. I didn’t want to tell you there, or in the house. Here, I think it’s okay-who’d put a microphone on a lemon tree?”

His father sounded as weary and cynical as Jonathan had ever heard him.

“What’s up?” Jonathan asked again, swigging from the bottle of beer.

And his father told him. As he listened, his eyes got wider and wider. “That’s what I’m sitting on,” his father finished. “Do I need to remind you just how important it is not to repeat it?”

“No, sir,” Jonathan said at once, still shocked-maybe more shocked than he’d ever been in his life. “Besides, who’d believe me?”

5

Everything Kassquit and Jonathan Yeager had done together on the starship-everything from mating to cleaning their teeth-was recorded. Ttomalss studied the video and audio records with great attention: how better to learn about the interactions between a civilized Tosevite and one of the wild Big Uglies from the surface of Tosev 3?

What he found distressed him in a number of ways. He had spent Kassquit’s entire lifetime shaping her as he thought she should go. When she was with him even now, she behaved as a civilized being ought to behave. But when she was with Jonathan Yeager…

When Kassquit was with Jonathan Yeager, she behaved much as a wild Big Ugly did. She learned to imitate him far more quickly than she had learned to imitate Ttomalss-and she’d startled Ttomalss with how fast she’d learned to imitate him while she was a hatchling.

Also infuriating to the senior researcher was how quickly and accurately Jonathan Yeager could divine what was in Kassquit’s mind. Blood will tell, the male thought unhappily. That was not the conclusion he would have wanted as a culmination of his long-running experimental project.

He was so distressed about what he found, he called Felless to talk about it. “I greet you, Senior Researcher,” she said when she saw his image in the video screen. “I am glad to speak with you.”

“And I greet you, superior female.” Ttomalss wondered if his hearing diaphragms were working as they should. Felless only rarely admitted to being glad to speak with anyone, and most especially not with him.

A moment later, she explained why she was: “After so much time spent dealing with the Francais, it is good to talk shop with a member of my own species.”

“Ah,” Ttomalss said. “Yes, I can certainly understand that.”

“And why are you interested in speaking with me?” Felless asked.

?

?For your insights, of course,” Ttomalss answered, which was even more or less true. He told her of the disturbing data about Kassquit.

“Why does this surprise you?” she asked, sounding surprised herself. “A common law of psychological development states that hatchlings are more influenced by their peers than by the previous generation. This holds for the Race, it holds for the Rabotevs, and it holds for the Hallessi, too. Why should it not also hold for the Big Uglies?”

“I had assumed it would be different as a result of the prolonged parental care they receive, which makes them unlike the species-the other species, I should say-of the Empire,” Ttomalss replied. “I might also note that the leading Tosevite psychological theories stress the primacy of the relationship between parents and hatchlings.”

Felless’ mouth opened wide in hearty, unabashed laughter. “Why in the name of the Emperor do you take Tosevite psychological theories seriously?” she asked. “I have examined a few of them. For one thing, they strike me as preposterous. For another, they contradict one another in any number of ways, demonstrating that they cannot all be true and that, very likely, none of them is true.”

“I do understand that,” Ttomalss said stiffly. “I have been examining Tosevite psychological theories a good deal longer than you have, I might add. And one point where they are in unanimity is on the vital importance of this bond.”

“But it makes no logical sense!” Felless exclaimed. “Even in Tosevite terms, it makes no logical sense.”

“There I might well disagree with you, superior female,” Ttomalss said. “Some of the Big Uglies appear to have very persuasive arguments for the nurturing influence of parents upon hatchlings. Given their biological patterns, I have no trouble finding these arguments plausible.”

“Plausibility and truth hatch from different eggs,” Felless said, something Ttomalss could hardly deny. The female from the colonization fleet went on, “Consider, Senior Researcher. Where will even a Big Ugly end up spending most of his time? With his parents and their other hatchlings, or with his peers? With his peers, of course. Whom will he have to work harder to accommodate, his parents and their other hatchlings, or his peers? Again, his peers, of course. His parents and close kin are biologically programmed to be accommodating to him. If they were not, they probably could not stand him at all, Big Uglies being what they are. If, however, he acts as if he has his head up his cloaca among his peers, are they not likely to inform him of this in no uncertain terms? No male or female of the Race with whom I am familiar has ever composed songs of praise for the Tosevites’ kindness or gentle manners.”

---