Homeward Bound by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online Page A

would.
    No, she wanted to go aboard the
Admiral Peary
more than anything else. She wished she could go and come back in a matter of weeks, not in a stretch of time that ran closer to the length of a man’s life. She wished that, yes, but she also understood she couldn’t have what she wished. Being unable to have it made her sad, made her wish things were different, but wouldn’t stop her.
    The day finally came when all the arrangements were made, when nothing was left to do. Richard drove Karen and Jonathan from their home in Torrance up to the heart of Los Angeles. Bruce rode along, too. Richard would, of course, drive the Buick back. Why not? He could use it. Even if everything went perfectly and Karen did come back to Earth and Southern California one day, the Buick would be long, long gone.
    Richard and Bruce might be gone, too. Karen didn’t care to think about that. It made her start to puddle up, and she didn’t want to do that in front of her sons. She squeezed them and kissed them. So did Jonathan, who was usually more standoffish. But this was a last day. Her husband knew that as well as she did. Not death, not quite—they had to hope not, anyhow—but close enough for government work. Karen laughed. It
was
government work.
    After last farewells, her sons left. If they were going to puddle up, they probably didn’t want Jonathan and her to see it. She reached for her husband’s hand. He was reaching for hers at the same time. His fingers felt chilly, not from the onset of cold sleep but from nerves. She was sure hers did, too. Her heart pounded a mile a minute.
    A man wearing a white coat over khaki uniform trousers came out from behind a closed door. “Last chance to change your mind, folks,” he said.
    Karen and Jonathan looked at each other. The temptation was there. But she said, “No.” Her husband shook his head.
    “Okay,” the Army doctor said. “First thing you need to do, then, is sign about a million forms. Once you’re done with those, we can get down to the real business.”
    He exaggerated. There couldn’t have been more than half a million forms. Karen and Jonathan signed and signed and signed. After a while, the signatures hardly looked like theirs, the way they would have at the end of a big stack of traveler’s checks.
    “Now what?” Karen asked after the doctor took away the last piece of paper with a horizontal line on it.
    “Now I get to poke holes in you,” he said, and he did. Karen hung on to Jonathan’s hand while they both felt the drugs take hold.
    “I love you,” Jonathan muttered drowsily. Karen tried to answer him. She was never quite sure if she succeeded.

A Big Ugly walked into the office at the Race’s headquarters in Cairo that Ttomalss was using. “I greet you, Senior Physician,” the psychologist said. “It was good of you to come here to talk to me.”
    “And I greet you, Senior Researcher.” Dr. Reuven Russie spoke the Race’s language about as well as a Tosevite could. The hair had receded from the top of his head, as often happened with aging male Big Uglies, and what he had left was gray.
    “Please—take a seat.” Ttomalss waved to the Tosevite-style chair he’d had brought into the office.
    “I thank you.” Russie sat. “You are, I gather, interested in the American Tosevites’ progress on cold sleep.”
    Ttomalss used the affirmative gesture. “That is correct. You will, I trust, understand why the issue is of considerable concern to us.”
    “Oh, yes.” Reuven Russie’s head went up and down. The way he nodded was a subtle compliment to Ttomalss. An ignorant Big Ugly would have used his own gesture because he did not know what the Race did. A Tosevite who knew more would have imitated the Race’s gesture. Russie, who knew more still, knew Ttomalss was an expert on Big Uglies and so of course would understand a nod even where some other member of the Race might not. The physician went on, “I think they know enough to fly