Down to Earth

by Harry Turtledove

  Mordechai Anielewicz followed his hatchling, ready to snatch him back from danger. The younger Big Ugly, rather to Nesseref’s surprise, did what a male or female of the Race might have done: he stretched out a hand toward the tsiongi to let the beast smell him. Orbit’s tongue shot out and brushed his fleshy little fingers. The tsiongi let out a discontented hiss and deliberately turned away.

  Although Nesseref didn’t know all she might have about how Tosevites reacted, she would have bet that Heinrich Anielewicz was discontented, too. Mordechai Anielewicz spoke to his hatchling in their own language. Then he returned to the language of the Race for Nesseref’s benefit: “I told him this animal might smell on him the odor of the beffel we have at home. Some of our own animals do not like the smell that others have, either.”

  “Ah? Is that a truth? How interesting.” Nesseref saw no reason why things like that shouldn’t be so, but that they might be hadn’t occurred to her. “In some ways, then, life on Tosev 3 and life on Home are not so very different.” She turned her eye turrets toward Heinrich Anielewicz. “And how did you get a beffel of your own?”

  “I find it in the street,” he answered. Then he started speaking his own language.

  Mordechai translated: “He says he gave it something to eat and it followed him home. He says he likes it very much. And you know how the beffel helped save us when the fire started.”

  “Yes, I know that. You wrote of it,” Nesseref said. “What I find hard to imagine is having a fire starting in a building where males and females of your species live.”

  “When I see this building, I understand why you find it hard to imagine.” The larger Anielewicz used an emphatic cough. “But our buildings are not like this. And this fire was set on purpose, to try to kill me, or so I think.” He spoke quickly there, doing his best to make sure his hatchling couldn’t follow what he said.

  He succeeded in that, and, in any case, Heinrich Anielewicz seemed more interested in Orbit than in Nesseref. The shuttle-craft pilot said, “You have vicious enemies.”

  “Truth.” Mordechai’s shrug was much like one from a male of the Race. “Do you see why I would rather talk about befflem?”

  “Befflem?” Heinrich understood that word. “What about befflem?”

  “What interests me about befflem,” Nesseref said, “is that they have so quickly begun to run wild here. I hear this is true of several kinds of our animals. We begin to make Tosev 3 into a world more like Home through them.”

  Heinrich didn’t get all of that. Mordechai did. He said, “For you, this may be fine. For us, I do not think it is.”

  Before Nesseref could answer that, the timer in the kitchen hissed. “Ah, good,” she said. “That means supper is ready. I have made it from the meat of Tosevite animals, as you asked, and made sure none of it was from the one you call ‘pig.’ I do not understand why you cannot eat other meats, but I am not quarreling with you.”

  “We Jews can eat other meats, but we may not,” Mordechai Anielewicz said. “It is one of the rules of our . . . superstition, is what the Race calls it.”

  “Why have such rules?” Nesseref asked. “Do they not pose a nutritional hardship?”

  “Nor really, or not very often,” Mordechai answered. “They do help remind us that we are a special group of Tosevites. Our belief is that the one who created the universe made us his chosen group.”

  Nesseref had learned that all Big Uglies were on the prickly side when it came to their superstitions. Picking her words with care, she asked, “Chosen for what? For disagreements with your neighbors?”

  Mordechai Anielewicz translated that into his own tongue. He and Heinrich both let out yips of barking Tosevite laughter. In the language of the Race, Mordechai said, “It often seems so.”

  “Well, you and your hatchling and I are not disagreeing,” Nesseref said. “Let us sit down and eat together. I have alcohol for you, if you would care for it. Afterwards, we can talk more about these things.”

  “Good enough,” Mordechai said. “Can I do anything to help?”

  “I do not think so,” Nesseref said. “I have chairs for your kind, and I also have your style of eating utensils. Let us use them now.”

  Heinrich Anielewicz went straight through the doorway into the eating area. Mordechai Anielewicz had to duck his head to get through, as he’d had to duck his head to enter Nesseref’s apartment. She’d wondered if he would be able to stand straight inside the apartment, but his head didn’t quite brush the ceiling.

  Even so, he said, “Now I understand why the Race calls us Big Uglies. In a place made for the Race, I feel very large indeed.” He spoke in his own tongue to his hatchling, who answered him in the same language. The older Tosevite translated: “Heinrich says he thinks this place is just the right size.”

  “For him, it would be.” Nesseref corrected herself: “For him, it would be now. When he is full grown, it will seem cramped to him, too. Here, sit down, both of you, and I will bring the food and the alcohol.”

  “Only a little alcohol for my hatchling,” Mordechai Anielewicz said. “It is not our custom to let hatchlings become intoxicated.”

  “Nor ours,” Nesseref agreed, “but a little will do no harm.” The elder Anielewicz’s head went up and down, the Tosevite gesture of agreement.

  After a moment, Nesseref brought bowls of stew from the kitchen to the table. Nothing in the stew would offend Mordechai and Heinrich’s sensibilities: it was of the local meat called beef, and had more vegetables in it than Nesseref would have used had she been cooking for herself. Tosevites, she’d learned, preferred more calories from carbohydrates and fewer from proteins and fats than did the Race.

  As everyone began to eat, a problem developed. Mordechai Anielewicz said, “Superior female, may we please have knives as well as forks and spoons? Some of these pieces are rather large for us.”

  “It shall be done.” Nesseref hurried back into the kitchen and returned with the utensils. As she handed one to each of the Tosevites, she said, “You have my apologies. I cut the meat and the vegetables in portions that would fit my mouth, forgetting that yours are smaller.”

  “No harm done,” Mordechai Anielewicz said. “We have creatures called ‘snakes’ that can take very large bites, but we Tosevites cannot.”

  The Big Uglies’ smaller mouthparts didn’t keep them from finishing the supper at about the same time as Nesseref did. “Is it enough?” she asked anxiously. “I do not know just how much you eat at a meal. If you are still hungry, plenty more is in the pot.”

  After the elder and younger spoke back and forth, Mordechai said, “My hatchling tells me he has had enough. You gave him about what he would eat at home. I would thank you for a little more, if it is no trouble.”

  “It is no trouble at all.” Nesseref used an emphatic cough. She brought the bigger Big Ugly another bowl of stew, and also took a smaller second helping for herself. To the growing hatchling, she said, “You may play with the tsiongi while we finish, if he will permit it. Please be careful, though. If he does not, just watch him. I do not want you bitten.”

  Heinrich Anielewicz followed that without need for translation. “I thank you, superior female,” he said. “It shall be done.” He brought out the stock phrases more fluently than he spoke while trying to shape his own thoughts in the Race’s language. Pushing back his chair, he returned to the front room. Nesseref listened for sounds of alarm, but none came.

  Mordechai Anielewicz sipped at his alcohol. He too seemed to be listening to make sure Heinrich and Orbit were getting on well. When things had stayed quiet for a little while, he said, “May I ask you a question, superior female?”

  “You may ask,” Nesseref said. “I may not know the answer, or I may know and be unable to tell you. That depends on the question.”

  “I understand,” the Big Ugly said. “Here it is: Do you know how close the Deutsche came to launching an attack on Poland recently?”

  “Ah,” Nesseref said. “No, I do not kn
ow how close, not for a certainty. For that, you would have to talk with the males of the conquest fleet. I do know my shuttlecraft port was placed on heightened alert, and that the alert was abandoned a few days later. The Race, I would say, judges any immediate danger past.”

  “The Race, I would say, is too optimistic,” Anielewicz answered. “But I thank you for the information. It confirms other things I have learned. We may have been very lucky there.”

  Nesseref asked a question of her own: “And if we had not been? What would you have done with your explosive-metal bomb then?” She still didn’t know if he had one, but she thought he might.

  “Do you know the Tosevite story of Samson in the, uh, house of superstition?” Anielewicz asked. When the shuttlecraft pilot made the negative hand gesture, the Big Ugly said, “Count yourself lucky.” He added an emphatic cough.

  Atvar turned an eye turret toward Pshing with more than a little annoyance. “Must I see the accursed Tosevite now?” he said.

  “Exalted Fleetlord, it is a scheduled appointment,” his adjutant answered. “Having conceded these not-empires their independence, we seem to have little choice but to treat them as if we meant it.”

  “I am painfully aware of that,” Atvar answered. “If you will recall, I recently suffered through a harangue from the American ambassador, who seemed shocked we would presume to swing an eye turret in the direction of what his not-empire is doing with its spaceship. Truculent, arrogant . . . Maybe I should retire and let Reffet see how he likes taking on this whole burden.”

  “Please do not do that, Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing said earnestly. “You would leave us at the mercy of the colonists. They still show little true understanding of the realities of Tosev 3.”

  “Well, there you have spoken a truth,” Atvar said, flattered. “But it is a temptation, nonetheless. I have done too much for too long. Kirel might manage as well—or as poorly—as I have.”

  In Atvar’s opinion, the thing most likely to limit Kirel’s effectiveness was Kirel himself. He kept that to himself; he would not cast aspersions on the senior shiplord of the conquest fleet to amuse his adjutant. “Send in the Deutsch ambassador,” he said. “The sooner I have heard his absurd, outlandish complaints, the sooner I can dispose of them.”

  “It shall be done.” Pshing went out into an antechamber and returned with a Big Ugly named Ludwig Bieberback.

  Atvar preferred dealing with Bieberback to trying to deal with his predecessor, Ribbentrop. This Tosevite had some elementary understanding of the world around him. He also spoke the language of the Race; going through interpreters had often been enough to give Atvar the itch.

  “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” the Deutsch male said now, assuming the posture of respect.

  “And I greet you, Ambassador,” Atvar replied. “Please be seated.” He waved the Big Ugly to a chair made for his kind.

  “I thank you.” After Bieberback had sat down, he said, “Exalted Fleetlord, I am here to protest the arrogant and highhanded way in which the Race’s ambassador to the Reich presumed to pass judgment on our movements of soldiers within our own territory.”

  “He did so at my express order,” Atvar said; he had learned from painful experience that rudeness worked better with the Deutsche than tact, which they took for weakness. “If you try to attack Poland, we will smash you flat. Is that plain enough for you to understand?”

  “We deny that the Reich intended to do any such thing,” Ludwig Bieberback said. “We have a legitimate right of self-defense, and we were exercising it in a nonprovocative manner.”

  “No, you were not, or I would not have had my warning delivered to you,” Atvar said. “And we do not find your denials credible. The Reich has carried on a covert conflict with the Race since the fighting stopped. To have that break into open war would not surprise us in the least, and you would not find us unprepared to take the harshest measures against your not-empire.”

  “This presumption of yours is intolerable,” Bieberback said. “Is it any wonder so many Tosevites seek to be free of your rule?”

  “Nothing Tosevites do is much of a wonder,” Atvar said. “Is it any wonder that the Race has to keep both eye turrets toward all Tosevite not-empires at all times, to make sure we are not treacherously assailed?”

  “That is not how the Race operates in practice,” Bieberback answered, a whine coming into his mushy voice. “In practice, you persecute the Reich more than all others put together.”

  “You have spoken an untruth,” the fleetlord told him. “And if we do keep a particularly close watch on the Reich, it is because the Reich has shown itself to be particularly untrustworthy.”

  “Now you have spoken an untruth,” Ludwig Bieberback said, a discourtesy no one from the Race except Reffet would have presumed to offer Atvar. “If we cannot live in peace, we will have to see how else the Deutsche can obtain their legitimate rights from you.”

  “If you try to take what you imagine to be your legitimate rights by force, you will discover how easy your not-empire is to devastate,” Atvar said.

  “What gives you the right to make such threats?” Bieberback demanded.

  “The power to make them good,” Atvar replied. “You and your not-emperor would be wise to remember it.”

  Bieberback rose and bowed, the Tosevite equivalent of assuming the posture of respect. “I think there is little point to continuing these discussions,” he said. “The Reich will act in accordance to its interests.”

  “Yes, the Reich would be wise to do that,” Atvar agreed. “It would also be wise to bear in mind that antagonizing the Race is not in its interest. Antagonize the Race enough and the Reich will abruptly cease to be.”

  With another bow, the Big Ugly said, “We shall defend ourselves against your aggression to the best of our ability. Good day.” Without waiting for the fleetlord’s leave, he walked out of the office.

  Atvar let out a long sigh. Pshing came in a moment later. The fleetlord said, “We shall have to keep ourselves at increased alert against the Reich. Plainly, the Deutsche have belligerent intentions.”

  “Shall I prepare orders to that effect?” Pshing asked.

  “Yes, do so,” Atvar answered. “So long as these Big Uglies see they cannot take us by surprise, they are unlikely to attack us. If we ignore them, we put ourselves in danger.”

  “Truth,” Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing said. “I shall draft the orders for your approval.”

  “Very good.” Atvar made the affirmative hand gesture. “And when you transmit them to the males of the conquest fleet in Poland and in space, do not do so over the channels with the greatest security.”

  His adjutant let out a startled hiss. “Exalted Fleetlord? If I follow that order, the Deutsche are only too likely to intercept our transmission. Much as I hate to say it, they are beginning to gain the technology required to defeat some of our less sophisticated scrambler circuits.”

  “Yes, so I understand from some of the reports reaching us from the part of the Reich known as France,” Atvar replied. “In most circumstances, this is a nuisance—worse than a nuisance, in fact. But here, I want them to intercept the order. I want them to know we are alerted to the possibility of unprovoked attack from them. I want them to know that they will pay dearly if they make such an attack.”

  “Ah.” Pshing assumed the posture of respect. “Exalted Fleetlord, I congratulate you. That is deviousness worthy of a Big Ugly.”

  “I thank you,” Atvar said, even if the form of the compliment was not what he might have liked. “The Deutsche will feel they have genuinely important information if they think they are stealing it from us. If we give it to them, on the other fork of the tongue, they will think we want them to have it, and so will discount it.”

  “Ah,” Pshing repeated. He turned an eye turret toward the fleetlord. “No one from the colonization fleet could possibly have such a deep understanding of the way Big Uglies think.”

  That was a compliment Atvar could
appreciate in full. “And I thank you once more,” he said. “By now, we of the conquest fleet have more experience of the Tosevites than anyone could want.”

  “Even so,” Pshing said with an emphatic cough. “In aid of which, have you yet decided what we ought to do with the rabble-rouser named Khomeini now that he is finally in our hands?”

  “Not yet,” Atvar said. “By the Emperor, though, having his hateful voice silenced is a relief. He is far from the only fanatical agitator in this part of the main continental mass, but he was among the most virulent and the most effective.”

  “His followers are among the most virulent, too, even among those who follow the Muslim superstition,” Pshing said. “If he remains imprisoned, they are liable to stop at nothing in their efforts to free him.”

  “I am painfully aware of this,” Atvar said. “We have, to our sorrow, seen too many such efforts—and too many of them have succeeded. I have made matters more difficult for the Big Uglies by ordering Khomeini transferred to a prison in the southern region of the lesser continental mass. The Big Uglies there speak a different language and follow the Christian superstition, so his influence among them should be much less than it would were we to have kept him incarcerated locally.”

  “This also shows considerable understanding of Tosevite psychology,” his adjutant remarked.

  “So it does, but I cannot take full credit for it,” Atvar said. “Moishe Russie suggested it to me. This Khomeini is almost as antithetical to the Big Uglies of the Jewish superstition as he is to us, so, as against the Deutsche, Russie was able to make the suggestion in good conscience.”

  “Excellent,” Pshing said. “We do our best when we can turn the Tosevites’ differences among themselves to our advantage.”

  “The only trouble being, too often they abandon those differences to unite against us,” Atvar said. “They might even do that in the case of Khomeini, which is the main reason why I am considering ordering his execution.”