He went over to Kassquit and put a hand on her shoulder. She squeezed him. She liked being touched. He got the idea she hadn’t been touched a whole lot before he came up to the starship. Touching was a human trait, not one the Race shared to anywhere near the same degree.

“He will be going down to his not-empire before long,” Kassquit said.

“Truth,” Jonathan agreed.

“And you will be going down to your not-empire before long,” Kassquit said.

“You knew I would,” Jonathan told her. “I cannot stay up here. This is your place, but it is not mine.”

“I understand that,” Kassquit answered. She spoke the language of the Race as well as someone with a human mouth possibly could. And why not? It was the only language she knew. She went on, “Intellectually, I understand that. But you must understand, Jonathan, that I will be sorry when you go. I will be sad.”

Jonathan sighed and squeezed her, though he didn’t know whether that made things better or worse. “I am sorry,” he said. “I do not know what to do about that. I wish there were something I could do.”

“You also have a female waiting for you on the surface of Tosev 3, even if she is not a female with whom you have arranged for permanent exclusive mating,” Kassquit said.

“Yes, I do,” Jonathan admitted. “You have known that all along. I never tried to keep it a secret from you.”

He wondered if Karen Culpepper would still be his girl when he came home. They’d been dating since high school. When he’d come up to the starship, he hadn’t expected to stay, and he hadn’t thought he would have that much explaining to do once he got back. He hadn’t really believed the Nazis would be crazy enough to attack the Lizards over Poland. But they had, and he’d been here for weeks-and he’d almost died a couple of times, too. Karen would have an excellent notion of where he was and why he’d come up here. He didn’t think she’d be very happy about it.