His mother said, “I wonder if the hatchlings will remember you. It’s been a good-sized part of their lives since they’ve seen you.”

“Let’s go find out,” Jonathan said. He wanted to discover if Mickey and Donald still knew who he was, too. And, if he was dealing with the hatchlings, his mom wouldn’t have the chance to harass him about how he shouldn’t have gone up to the starship in the first place or about how he shouldn’t have spent all his time up there fooling around with Kassquit.

He missed the girl the Lizards had done their best to raise as one of theirs. He couldn’t help it. He’d broken off a love affair. It never would have worked, not for life, not the way his folks’ marriage had. He could see that. But it had been intense while he was up there. With him and Kassquit closed up in one little cubicle all the time, how could it have been anything else?

When he got inside the house, he dropped his bag in the middle of the living room. His mom gave him a look. His dad murmured, “It’s okay this once, Barbara.” His mother frowned, but nodded a second later.

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?”