Atvar awaited the shuttlecraft descending from orbit around Home with a sinking feeling in his liver. He made the negative gesture. No, that wasn’t true. As a matter of fact, his liver felt as if it had already sunk all the way down to his toeclaws. Even in his wildest nightmares, he had never imagined a day like this might come.

And Straha had. Of all the males of the Race the Americans might have picked to rub Atvar’s snout in his own failings, Straha was the prize example. Did they know that? Atvar laughed bitterly. Of course they did! They had to.

Faster than light! The Big Uglies could travel faster than light! The Race had decided that was impossible even before Home was unified, and hadn’t worried much about it since. Some Tosevite physicist had come to the same conclusion, and the Big Uglies had believed him… while Atvar was on Tosev 3, anyhow. Unlike the Race, the Tosevites had kept worrying at the idea, though. The Race had got a scent of some of their earliest experiments, but…

Yes. But, Atvar thought bitterly. The difference between what the Race had and what the Big Uglies had was the difference between a scent and the beast it came from. And the Big Uglies’ beast was a starship.

Now what? the fleetlord wondered. Blasting the Commodore Perry would have been tempting-if another American starship might not be only days behind, might escape, and might bring word of war back to the United States long before the Race’s colony on Tosev 3 could hope to hear about it. That was a recipe for disaster.

Preventive war seemed to have gone up in smoke. Too late, too late, too late. Again, how could you hope to attack someone who knew the bite was coming long before your teeth sank in-and who could bite you whenever he pleased? Home, at least, could defend itself. What about Rabotev 2 and Halless 1? If the Big Uglies wanted to, they could smash the Empire’s other worlds before Home warned them they might be in danger.

Too late, too late, too late. The words tolled again, like a mournful gong inside Atvar’s head.

After a moment, he realized not all that noise was internal. Some came through his hearing diaphragms. The terminal at the shuttlecraft port was efficiently soundproofed. All the same, the braking rockets’ roar penetrated the insulating material and filled the building.

The windows facing the fire-scarred landing field were tinted. Even so, nictitating membranes flicked across Atvar’s eyes to protect them from the glare. The shuttlecraft settled smoothly onto the concrete. Crashes were vanishingly rare; computer control made sure of that. Atvar wouldn’t have minded seeing one of those rare, rare accidents now. No, he wouldn’t have minded a bit. Watching Straha cook…

Didn’t happen. The shuttlecraft’s braking rockets cut off. Silence returned to the terminal. Atvar didn’t quite let out a disappointed hiss. He hadn’t really hoped the shuttlecraft would crash-or, if he had, he hadn’t really expected it to.

Down came the landing ladder. The female who descended first wore the body paint of a shuttlecraft pilot. That would not be the pilot of this craft, but Nesseref, the traveler from Tosev 3. Behind her came a male of about Atvar’s years. Straha had at least not had the effrontery to wear a shiplord’s body paint, but rather the much plainer colors of an author. Last off the shuttlecraft was the Halless who’d brought it down from the Commodore Perry. Atvar forgot about the Halless right away; his attention was all on the newly arrived members of the Race.

Guards surrounded them and escorted them into the terminal. Straha said something to one of them. Her mouth fell open in a laugh. Straha had always been charming. That made Atvar like him no better.

Nesseref bent into the posture of respect as soon as she saw Atvar. “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord,” she said.

“And I greet you,” he replied as she rose.

“Hello, Atvar,” Straha said. “Well, now we know-it could not have turned out worse if I had been in charge.” He added a sarcastic emphatic cough.

Atvar’s fingerclaws started to shape the threat gesture one male used against another in the mating season. He forced them to relax. It wasn’t easy. Neither was keeping his tone light as he answered, “Oh, I am not so sure of that. You might have lost the war against the Big Uglies instead of managing a draw. Then we could have had this to worry about even sooner.”

Straha glared at him. “Do not project your incompetence onto me.”

“I do not need to,” Atvar said. “You have plenty of your own.”

“Excuse me, superior sirs,” Nesseref said, “but quarreling among yourselves will not help solve the problem the Race faces.”

“Neither will not quarreling among ourselves,” Straha replied, “and quarreling is much more fun.”

“No, the shuttlecraft pilot speaks truth,” Atvar said. “I thank you, Shuttlecraft Pilot. I need to know first of all how you are certain of the Big Uglies’ claims about the speed of their starship.”

“We were conscious throughout the flight,” Nesseref said.

“Could you not have been drugged while asleep, put into cold sleep, and then revived the same way?” Atvar knew he was desperately searching for any escape from the Race’s predicament.

Nesseref made the negative gesture. “I do not believe so, Exalted Fleetlord.”

“Forget it, Atvar,” Straha said. “For one thing, the Big Uglies already have word of things that will just be reaching Home now. Even as we speak, researchers here will be corroborating what they say. For another, when they go back to Tosev 3, they are willing to take more members of the Race along and then return them to Home. They are not willing to let them communicate with the colonists in any way, for fear you might do something foolish like order an attack, but if the males and females get there and come back here in something less than a large number of years, that should convince even the stubbornest-perhaps even you.”

Atvar had not thought his liver could sink any lower. He discovered he was mistaken. Straha’s sarcasm did not bother him. He and Straha had despised each other for many years. Each occasionally had to respect the other’s competence, but that did not and would not make them friends. But the message about the American Tosevites’ confidence that Straha delivered was daunting. They not only had this technique, they were sure it worked well.

“How do they do it?” Atvar asked. “How do they do it?”

“Neither one of us is a physicist,” Straha said. Nesseref made the affirmative gesture. Straha went on, “They talk about doing things with space-time strings, about maneuvering or maybe manipulating them so that points normally distant come into contact with each other. What this means or, to tell you the truth, whether this means anything is not for me to say.”

“Here I agree with the shiplord,” Nesseref said. “They are very glib, as Big Uglies often are. But whether they told us these things to inform us or to mislead us, I am in no position to judge.”

“I see.” Atvar thought about telling them that the Race’s physicists had begun work that might eventually let them catch up with the Big Uglies-assuming the Big Uglies hadn’t moved on still further by then, which was not necessarily a good bet. He started to, yes, but his tongue did not flutter. Nesseref and Straha might blab to the Tosevites. They might be monitored by the Tosevites. Who could guess how far the Tosevites’ electronics had come these days? Better to keep quiet.

“How is this world these days?” Straha asked. He then answered his own question, which was very much in character: “Not much different, or I miss my guess.”

“In most ways, no. That is as it should be, in my opinion,” Atvar said. “But you will see some things you would not have before you left: young males and females wearing false hair, for instance, and some of them even wearing wrappings.”

“Really? Is that a truth?” Straha laughed. “So just as the Big Uglies on Tosev 3 have imitated us, we have also begun to imitate them? I had not thought we possessed even so much imagination as a species.”

“The young are always unfathomable.” Atvar did not mean it as a compliment.

“They think the same of us. Do you not remember when you could hardly wait for the old fools ahead of you to hop on the funeral pyre so you could hatch the egg of the world? It was all out there waiting for you, and you wanted to grab with all ten fingerclaws. Is that a truth, or is it not?”

“That is… some of a truth,” Atvar answered. “I do not believe I was ever quite so vain as you show yourself to be, but I have long since suspected as much.”

Straha irked him by laughing instead of getting angry. “You are still as stuffy as you always were, I see. Well, much good it has done you.”

“This did not happen while I was in charge on Tosev 3. No one can blame me for this. The ministers here on Home decided Reffet would do better on Tosev 3 than I could,” Atvar said. “That only shows how much they knew.”

“Well, yes.” Straha made the affirmative gesture. “Next to Reffet, you are a genius. This is not necessarily praise, you understand. Next to Reffet, a beffel smashed on the highway is also a genius.” That startled a laugh out of Atvar, whose opinion of the fleetlord of the colonization fleet was not high, either. Straha went on, “You should have seen him when he learned of the Commodore Perry. He acted as if he wanted nothing more than to crawl back into his eggshell. That would be the best thing for him, if anyone wants to know what I think.”

Nesseref said, “If anyone wants to know what I think, the best thing for the Race would be to stop all this vituperation and backbiting. We will have enough trouble catching up with the Big Uglies without that.”

“No doubt you are a wise female,” Straha said, but then he spoiled it by adding, “But you take a great deal of the enjoyment out of life.”

“We have to catch up with the Big Uglies, and quickly.” Atvar used an emphatic cough. “If we do not-”

“We are at their mercy,” Straha broke in with a certain oppressive relish. “Do you suppose they might be interested in revenge for what the conquest fleet did to them?”

“Superior sir, you are not making this situation any better,” Nesseref scolded.

“Truth. I cannot make it better, not now. No one can do that except possibly our physicists, and they have not done anything along these lines in the past hundred thousand years.” Straha seemed to delight in pointing out unpleasant truths. “All I can do is bear witness to what the Big Uglies have done, the same way as you are. At that, I think I am more than good enough.”