We Install by Harry Turtledove Page B

asked.
    â€œSure,” Jack said. “Let me check the headlight to make certain it’s not up too bright.” In the human part of Latimer, people needed headlights when they drove at night. The kind of light levels humans preferred would have blinded Snarre’t, though. When the aliens had to go out by day, they wore sun goggles even more elaborate than the IR jobs humans needed to see at night without raising havoc among the Snarre’t.
    â€œThank you for your courtesy,” both aliens chorused, and he could hope they meant it.
    The headlight was okay. Cravath asked, “Whichever one of you is driving is allowed to use a scooter? You are of the proper age and know how?”
    â€œOh, yes,” the Snarre’t said together. The taller one pulled what looked like a caterpillar out of its fur and breathed on the thing, which glowed a faint pink. “You see?” When a Snarre’ asked if a human saw, the alien always sounded doubtful. To them, humans didn’t see very well, and being adapted to do best in daylight didn’t count.
    But Jack Cravath nodded. That response on that thing meant the same as a green light on a human computer reader scanning a driver’s license. He didn’t know why, but he knew it did.
    â€œShall we try it, then?” the shorter one said. “Our drof is yours if we fail to return the scooter.”
    Jack wanted a drof like a hole in the head. But what could he say? “Go ahead,” he answered. “Come back in twenty minutes.”
    â€œAgreed,” the two Snarre’t said. The taller one got on the scooter in front. The shorter one sat behind. Jack held the door open for them. Out they went. They turned the headlight on. The orange glow was just bright enough to warn humans who weren’t wearing IR goggles. That was what interspecies law required, and they lived up to it … barely.
    Out on the street, the drof’s big eyes—much like those of the Snarre’t themselves—swung to follow the scooter as it purred away. How smart were drofs? Humans had acquired a good many, just as the Snarre’t had a fair number of scooters by now. It remained an open question, though. Some scientists maintained they were only bundles of reflexes; others insisted more was going on.
    As for the Snarre’t, they weren’t talking. Nobody human was even sure the question meant anything to them.
    Jack pulled his phone off his belt to warn Bev he’d be late. “What? You’ve got Furballs in the office?” she said.
    â€œWell, they’re taking a test drive now.” Jack was glad the two Snarre’t were, too. If their translator picked up what his wife said, they could nail her on a racism charge—or threaten to, and screw him to the wall on the scooter deal. The two races sharing Lacanth C didn’t have to love each other, but they did have to make nice where the other guys were listening. Cravath continued, “Anyway, I’ll get back as soon as I can. Go ahead and eat. I’ll nuke mine when I come in.”
    â€œOkay,” Beverly said. She was so freshly pregnant, she hadn’t even started morning sickness yet. Her appetite was still fine. “Don’t be too long.”
    â€œI’ll try not to. It isn’t just up to me. Love you, babe. ’Bye.” Jack stowed the phone.
    He looked at his watch. Naturally, the Snarre’t didn’t use hours and minutes; they had their own time units. Translators were usually pretty good about going back and forth with those. But if this one had screwed up …
    Nineteen minutes and forty-one seconds after they left, the two aliens drove back into the showroom. “It is a very different sort of conveyance,” the taller one said. “Less responsive than a drof—you cannot deny that.”
    â€œBut peppier,” the shorter one said. “Definitely peppier.”
    The taller Snarre’s big googly eyes