Homeward Bound by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online

American-raised Lizards. “What do you guys think? Are you ready to try living on your own?”
    “Hell, yes.” To her surprise, that wasn’t Donald. It was Mickey, the smaller and most of the time the more diffident of the pair. He went on, “We can do it, as long as we have money.”
    “We can work, if we have to,” Donald said. “We aren’t stupid or lazy. We’re good Americans.”
    “Nobody ever said you were stupid or lazy. Nobody ever thought so,” Karen answered. Some Lizards
were
stupid. Others didn’t do any more than they had to, and sometimes not all of that. But her scaly foster children had always been plenty sharp and plenty active.
    “What about being good Americans?” Mickey’s mouth gave his English a slightly hissing flavor. Other than that, it was pure California. “We are, aren’t we?” He sounded anxious.
    “Sure you are,” Karen said, and meant it. “That’s part of the reason why somebody will help take care of you—because you’ve been so good.”
    Mickey seemed reassured. Donald didn’t. “Aren’t Americans supposed to take care of themselves?” he asked. “That’s what we learned when you and Grandpa Sam taught us.”
    “Well . . . yes.” Karen couldn’t very well deny that. “But you’re not just Americans, you know. you’re, uh, special.”
    “Why?” Donald asked. “Because we’re short?”
    He laughed out loud, which showed how completely American he was: the Race didn’t do that when it was amused. Karen laughed, too. The question had come from out of the blue and hit her right in the funny bone.
    She had to answer him, though. “No, not because you’re short. Because you’re you.”
    “It might be interesting to see Home,” Mickey said. “Maybe we could go there, too, one of these days.”
    Did he sound wistful? Karen thought so. She didn’t suppose she could blame him. Kassquit had sometimes shown a longing to come down to Earth and see what it was like. Karen wasn’t sorry Kassquit hadn’t got to indulge that longing. Worry about diseases for which she had no immunity had kept her up on an orbiting starship till she went into cold sleep. Those same worries might well apply in reverse to Mickey and Donald.
    No sooner had that thought crossed Karen’s mind than Donald said, “I bet the Lizards could immunize us if we ever wanted to go.”
    “Maybe they could,” Karen said, amused he called the Race that instead of its proper name. She doubted the U.S. government would ever let him and Mickey leave even if they wanted to. That wasn’t fair, but it likely was how things worked. She went on, “For now, though, till everything gets sorted out, do you think you can stay here with Bruce and Richard?” Stanford had promised her older son graduate credit for at least a year’s worth of Lizard-sitting. Where could he get better experience dealing with the Race than this?
    “Sure!” Mickey said, and Donald nodded. Mickey added, “It’ll be the hottest bachelor pad in town.”
    That set Karen helplessly giggling again. Until Mickey met a female of the Race in heat and giving off pheromones, his interest in the opposite sex was purely theoretical. But, because he’d been raised as a human, he didn’t think it ought to be. And Bruce and Richard would love a hot bachelor pad. Their interest in females of their species was anything but theoretical.
    Doubt tore at Karen. Was this worth it, going off as if dying (and perhaps dying in truth—neither cold sleep nor the
Admiral Peary
could be called perfected even by human standards, let alone the sterner ones the Race used) and leaving all the people who mattered to her (in which she included both humans and Lizards) to fend for themselves? Was it?
    The doubt didn’t last long. If she hadn’t wanted, hadn’t hungered, to learn as much about the Race as she could, would she have started studying it all those years ago? She shook her head. She knew she wouldn’t have, any more than Jonathan