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“You do not-do these things?’ Tashayamp asked.

Jeri smothered a laugh. Came Woodward’s face turned beet red. “My Lord, no, we don’t do that, no one really does that.”

Well, in your world, maybe. My turn to blush…

“This is true? No one does these things?”

“Some do,” John Woodward admitted. “Decent people don’t. They sure don’t put it on film!”

“The word. Decent. Means what?” Tashayamp demanded.

“Means right-thinking people,” Carrie Woodward said. “People who think and act like they’re supposed to, not like some people I know.”

Tashayamp translated. There was more discussion among the fithp.

“We’ve got to be careful,” Wes Dawson said. “Lord knows what ideas they’re getting—”

“None they shouldn’t have, Congressman,” Carrie Woodward said firmly.

“They don’t think like us. You’ve seen the toilets, haven’t you? Look, we all have to give them the same story,” Dawson insisted.

“Say little.” Dmitri said in Russian. Jeri was surprised that she could still understand. It has been a long time…

Evidently Dawson had understood that, too. “Right. Best they don’t find out too much.”

Find out what? That we don’t act the way we want to? That’s the very definition of human — “you explain this,” Tashayamp demanded. “How many humans do bad things?”

“All of them,” Jeri blurted. “Capitalists,” Dmitri said. “Commies,” Woodward retorted.

“All humans do bad things?” Tashayainp demanded. “All do what they know they must not do? Tell me this.”

They all began speaking at once.

Jeri sat against the wall with Melissa. She wasn’t really part of the discussion Wes Dawson was having with the Russians, but she was too close to ignore it.

“Perhaps we have told them too much,” Dmitri said.

Dawson said, “It’s better if they understand us—”

“What you call understanding a military man would call intelligence information,” Arvid Rogachev said.

“What can it hurt? Arvid, you’ve been helping them with their maps!”

“They show me maps and globes. I nod my head, and tell them names for places. This is not your concern.”

“It’s my concern if you side with the fithp. Look, Arvid, you’ve seen what they’ve done. Destruction and murder—”

“I understand war. I—”

“But do you understand what they could have done? They came here with a mucking great asteroid, and we’re still moored to it. Suppose they’d come with the same size asteroid, but a metal one. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of metals. Now they negotiate. Trade metals for land, for concessions, for information, anything they want. They could buy themselves a country. If we won’t play, even if we buy the metals and don’t pay their bills, they’ve still got their mucking great asteroid to drop!”

Dmitri Grushin was nodding, gri

And who cares? They’re going to smash the Earth. At least they decided they wouldn’t make the children watch Deep Throat and those other tapes. Jeri recalled going to a theater to see Deep Throat. Stupid. But they’ve put us all together, and now there are three more men to watch me use the toilet.

John and Carrie Woodward stayed near Jeri, as far from the Russians as possible, but it wasn’t far enough. They could still hear. They kept Gary with them.

They’ve got a problem. But we’re going to have to get along with the Russkis—

Jeri said, “Carrie, did you notice that you and John sounded a lot like the Russians?”

“Yeah,” John Woodward said. “I noticed. They’re for decency. Not like Dawson. He’d excuse anything—”





“No, he wouldn’t.”

“There are things people can do, and things they can’t do,” Carrie Woodward said. “Isn’t that what insanity means? Can’t tell right from wrong?”

“No.” Alice was across the room, far enough away that they’d nearly forgotten her. “It wasn’t why I was in Me

“Why were you there?”

“None of your business. I was afraid all the time.”

“Of what?’ Carrie Woodward asked.

Alice looked away.

Dawson looked over at them. The Woodwards wouldn’t meet his eyes. Carrie continued to talk to Jeri as if Dawson were not there.

“Don’t tell me you never wanted to be better than you are,” Carrie Woodward said. “Everyone wants to be better than they are. Jt’s what it means to be human.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Jeri said. “We don’t do the things we think we should, and we do things we’re ashamed of-what was it, in the Book of Common Prayer? We have done those things we ought not to have done, and we have left undone those things we ought to have done, and there is no health in us.’ People have wanted to do the right thing for most of history.”

“But nobody really knows what right and wrong are,” Dawson protested.

“Sure they do,” Jeri said. “C. S. Lewis saw that well enough. Most of us know what’s the right thing, at least most of the time. The problem is we don’t do it. That’s how we’re different from rocks. They don’t have any choice about obeying the laws. They do what they have to do. We do what we want. We sound like an undergraduate bull session.”

“Perhaps this is true,” Arvid said. “But we would not say laws, but—”

“Moral principle,” Dmitri said firmly. “Established by Marxist science.”

“Commies don’t have morals,” Carrie Woodward protested.

“This is unfair. It is also not true,” Arvid said. “Come, we do not so much disagree, you and I. It is your leader, your congressman who protests.”

Carrie looked to her husband. They didn’t say anything.

An hour later they were summoned to the theater again. This time the fithp stood in formal arrays, Herdmaster and mate at the top, others on steps below him, most with mates. Tashayamp stood near him. She trumpeted for silence.

The Herdmaster spoke at length.

Finally Tashayamp translated. “You are a race of rogues. You say you wish to live by your laws, but you do not do it. You say you have always wanted to live by your rules and you do not. Now you will. You will become part of Traveler Herd, live as fithp live, but under your rules. This we will give you. This we promise.

“You will teach us your laws. Then you will live by them.

“You go now.”

27. THE PHONY WAR

“Let us remember,” Lord Tweedsmuir had told a wartime audience in a ringing phrase, “that in this fight we arc God’s chivalry”

The British people, far from remembering they were God’s chivalry began to show such a detachment from what was variously called the Bore or the Phoney War that the government became seriously worried.

High fleecy clouds hung over the San Fernando Valley. The temperature stretched toward a hundred degrees, with a hot wind sweeping down to shrivel any vegetation not protected from it,

Ken Dutton carefully closed the door to his greenhouse. Once inside he dipped water from a bucket and threw it around, wetting down the lush growth. Then he hastened outside to turn the handle on the makeshift fan, drawing fresh hot dry air through the greenhouse.

When that was done, he went inside. The house had thick walls and cooled rapidly at night, so that it was tolerable in the daytime. Dutton lifted the phone and listened.

There was a dial tone. There often was. He took a list from the telephone drawer and began to make his calls.

“I’m still the chef,” he told Con Donaldson, “but I can use some help. Can you get here around noon? Bring whatever you can find in the way of food, and tell me what I can count on now.”