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Kirel said, “Exalted Fleetlord, he will have to learn by experience, as we also had to do Let us hope his experience proves less painful than ours”
“Indeed” Atvar let out a worried hiss His voice grew grim: “And let us hope all the Tosevites take seriously our warning to them that an attack on the colonization fleet by any of them will be construed as an attack by all of them, and that we shall do our utmost to punish all of them should any such attack occur”
“I e had not had to issue such a warning,” Kirel said
“So do I,” Atvar replied “But at least four and perhaps five of their real undersea ships-who back on Hos?”
“Oh, I understand the proble all but invites the Tosevites to co themselves”
“Diplomacy” Atvar made the word into a curse Manuals on the subject, their data gleaned froested playing the locals against one another But, to Atvar and his colleagues, such concerns were but theory, andtheotiating session with theers and toes to make sure he hadn’t inadvertently traded them away
Pshing said, “When the colonists are revived froin to turn this into a proper world of the Empire”
“I ad crouched respectfully Kirel went on, “I wonder what the colonists will make of us We are hardly properwith the Tosevites for so long has left us as addled as bad eggs”
“We have changed,” Atvar agreed Back on Hoh he had taken a long tilies would have wrecked this planet, and ould the colonization fleet have done then?”
Not a single male on Tosev 3 had found an answer to that question Atvar was sure Reffet would have no answer for it, either But he was also sure the fleetlord of the colonization fleet would have questions of his own Would he himself, would any male on Tosev 3, be able to find answers for them?
The pitcher windmilled into his delivery The runner took off froround ball to short The shortstop gobbled it up and fired it over to first The softball slapped Sa by a step and a half The umpire had hustled up from behind home plate “You’re out!” he yelled, and threw his fist in the air
“That’s the ballgauys” He tacked on an eood measure
“Nice gauess we’ll take that”
“Thanks, Eddie,” Yeager said, chuckling “I can still get around on a softball” He was in his ood shape for his mid-fifties, but he couldn’t hit a baseball for beans any hteenth season ofasinto the Army
He rolled the softball toward the chicken-wire dugout in back of first base He’d been an outfielder when he played for round out there any more, either, so nowadays he played first He could still catch and he could still throw
A couple of guys from the other tea just for the fun of playing He’d had fun, too-he wouldn’t have put on spikes if he didn’t have fun-but he’d gone out there to win Playing for rained that in him
Up in the wooden bleachers behind the wire fence, Barbara clapped her hands along with the other wives and girlfriends Sam doffed his cap and bowed His wife made a face at hih He was getting thin on top, and Southern California summer sunshine was no joke He’d sunburned his scalp a couple of tiain
“Head for Jose’s!” Win or lose, that cry rang out after a ga would make the tacos and beer even better Sam and Barbara piled into their Buick and drove over to the restaurant It was only a few blocks from the park
The Buick ran smoothly and quietly Like asoline-technology borrowed froas-burner that poured out great gray clouds of stinking exhaust “Ought to be a law against those s,” he complained
Barbara nodded “They’ve outlived their usefulness, that’s certain” She spoke with the precision of soer minded his p’s and q’s more closely than he would have had he not been married to someone like her
At Jose’s, the teaame Sam was ten years older than anybody else and the only one who’d ever played pro ball, so his opinions carried weight His opinion in other areas carried weight, too; Eddie, the pitcher, said, “You deal with the Lizards all the tiets here?”
“Can’t know for sure till it does get here,” Yeager answered “If you want to knohat I think, I think it’ll be the biggest day since the conquest fleet ca our best to make sure it isn’t the bloodiest day since the conquest fleet came down, too”
Eddie nodded, accepting that Barbara raised an eyebrow-just a little, so only Sa pitcher missed If all of mankind wanted the colonization fleet to land peacefully, that would happen But no one on this side of the Atlantic could guess what Molotov or Hiht do till he did it-if he did it And the Nazis and the Reds-and the Lizards-would be worrying about President Warren, too
After Saermeister, Barbara said, “I don’t want to rush you too ot back”
“Okay” Yeager got up, set a couple of bucks on the table to cover food and drink, and said hi
s goodbyes Everybody-including Jose from behind the counter-waved when he and Barbara took off
They lived over in Gardena, one of the suburbs on the west side of LA that had burgeoned since the end of the fighting When they got out of the car, Barbara remarked, as she often did, “Cooler here”
“It’s the sea breeze,” Sam answered, as he often did Then he plucked at his flannel unifor to hop in the shower, is what I’ to do”
“That would be a very good idea, I think,” Barbara said Yeager stuck out his tongue at her They both laughed, coht They’d been together since late 1942, only a few months after the conquest fleet arrived Had the Lizards not co about that; Barbara was the best thing that had ever happened to him
To keep froht-have-beens, he hurried into the house Photographs in the hallway that led to the bathroohts of his career: hieant to lieutenant; hi olive-drab undershirt and trousers, aboard an orbiting Lizard spaceship-overheated by human standards-as he helped dicker a truce after a flare-up; him in a spacesuit on the pitted surface of thebetween Robert Heinlein and Theodore Sturgeon
He grinned at that last one, which he so the science-fiction pulps, and especially Astounding, he never would have beco been overrun by fact, science fiction wasn’t what it had been before the Lizards came, but it still had some readers and some writers, and he’d never been a man to renounce his roots
He showered quickly, shaved even more quickly, and put on a pair of chinos and a yellow cotton short-sleeved sport shirt When he got a beer froave hirabbed another one for himself