Free Homeward Bound by Harry Turtledove Page A

you should wonder. I had to ask Walter Stone about that one myself.”
    “Well, what is it?” Johnson said, a little irritably. Mickey Flynn’s smile got wider. Johnson’s annoyance grew with it. Then, all at once, that annoyance collapsed. He took another look at that unfamiliar yellow star. The hair stood up on his arms and the back of his neck. In a very small voice, he said, “Oh.”
    “That’s right,” Flynn said. “That’s the Sun.”
    “Lord.” Johnson sounded more reverent than he’d thought he could. “That’s . . . quite something, isn’t it?”
    “You might say so,” the other pilot answered. “Yes, you just might say so.”
    Tau Ceti, of course, remained in the same place in the sky as it had before. It was brighter now, but still seemed nothing special; it was an intrinsically dimmer star than the Sun. Before the Lizards came, no one had ever paid any attention to it or to Epsilon Eridani or to Epsilon Indi, the three stars whose inhabited planets the Race had ruled since men were still hunters and gatherers. Now everyone knew the first two; Epsilon Indi, deep in the southern sky and faintest of the three, remained obscure.
    “When we wake up again . . .” Johnson said. “When we wake up again, we’ll be there.”
    “Oh, yes.” Flynn nodded. “Pity we won’t be able to go down to Home.”
    “Well, yeah. Too much time with no gravity,” Johnson said, and Mickey Flynn nodded again. Johnson pointed back toward the Sun. “But we saw
this.
” At the moment, it seemed a fair trade.
    Kassquit swam up toward consciousness from the black depths of a sleep that might as well have been death. When she looked around, she thought at first that her eyes weren’t working the way they should. She’d lived her whole life aboard starships. Metal walls and floors and ceilings seemed normal to her. She knew stone and wood and plaster could be used for the same purposes, but the knowledge was purely theoretical.
    Focusing on the—technician?—tending her was easier. “I greet you,” Kassquit said faintly. Her voice didn’t want to obey her will.
    Even her faint croak was enough to make the female of the Race jerk in surprise. “Oh! You
do
speak our language,” the technician said. “They told me you did, but I was not sure whether to believe them.”
    “Of course I do. I am a citizen of the Empire.” Kassquit hoped she sounded indignant and not just terribly, terribly tired. “What do I look like?”
    To her, it was a rhetorical question. To the technician, it was anything but. “One of those horrible Big Uglies from that far-off star,” she said. “How can you be a citizen of the Empire if you look like them?”
    I must be on Home,
Kassquit realized.
Males and females on Tosev 3 know who and what I am.
“Never mind how I can be. I am, that is all,” she said. She looked around again. The white-painted chamber was probably part of a hospital; it looked more like a ship’s infirmary than anything else.
Home,
she thought again, and awe filled her. “I made it,” she whispered.
    “So you did.” The technician seemed none too pleased about admitting it. “How do you feel?”
    “Worn,” Kassquit answered honestly. “Am I supposed to be this weary?”
    “I do not know. I have no experience with Big Uglies.” The female of the Race never stopped to wonder if that name might bother Kassquit. She went on, “Males and females of the Race often show such symptoms upon revival, though.”
    “That is some relief,” Kassquit said.
    “Here.” The technician gave her a beaker filled with a warm, yellowish liquid. “I was told you were to drink this when you were awake enough to do so.”
    “It shall be done,” Kassquit said obediently. The stuff was salty and a little greasy and tasted very good. “I thank you.” She returned the empty beaker. “Very nice. What was it?”
    She’d succeeded in surprising the female again. “Do you not know? It must have been something from your