Striking the Balance w-4 Read online

  “In the short term, though, your penchant for change without warning presents us with stresses our kind has never before faced,” Straha said. “By the standards of the Race, I am a maximalist-thus I would have been well suited to lead us against your kind.” By human standards, Straha was more mossbound than a Southern Democrat with forty-five years’ seniority, but Yeager didn’t see any good way to tell him so. The Lizard went on, “I believe in taking action, not waiting until it is forced upon me, as Atvar and his clique do. When the Soviets’ nuclear bomb showed us how disastrously we’d misjudged your kind, I tried to have Atvar the fool ousted and someone more suitable, such as myself, raised to overall command. And when that failed, I took the direct action of fleeing to you Tosevites rather than waiting for Atvar to have his revenge upon me.”

  “Truth,” Yeager said, and it was truth-maybe Straha really was a fireball by Lizard standards. “There’s more ‘direct action’ from you people these days, isn’t there? What are the mutineers in Siberia doing, anyhow?”

  “Your radio intercepts indicate they have surrendered to the Russkis,” Straha answered. “If they are treated well, that will be a signal for other disaffected units-and there must be many-to realize they, too, can make peace with Tosevites.”

  “That would be nice,” Sam said. “When will the fleetlord realize he needs to make peace with us, that he can’t conquer the whole planet, the way the Race thought it would when you set out from Home?”

  Had Straha been a cat, he would have bristled at that question. Yes, he despised Atvar. Yes, he’d defected to the Americans. Somewhere down in his heart of hearts, though, he was still loyal to the Emperor back on Tau Ceti’s second planet; the idea that a scheme the Emperor had endorsed might fail gave him the galloping collywobbles.

  But the shiplord countered gamely, asking in return, “When will you Big Uglies realize that you cannot exterminate us or drive us off your miserable, chilly planet?”

  Now Yeager grunted in turn. When the U.S.A. had been fighting the Nazis and the Japs, everybody had figured the war would go on till the bad guys got smashed flat. That was the way wars were supposed to work, wasn’t it? Somebody won, and he took stuff away from the guys who had lost. If the Lizards came down and took part of Earth away from humanity, didn’t that mean they’d won?

  When Sam said that out loud, Straha waggled both eye turrets at him, a sign of astonishment. “Truly you Big Uglies are creatures of overweening pride,” the shiplord exclaimed. “No plan of the Race has ever failed to the extent of our design for the conquest of Tosev 3 and its incorporation into the Empire. If we fail to acquire the whole of the planet. If we leave Big Ugly empires and not-empires intact and independent upon it, we suffer a humiliation whose like we have never known before.”

  “Is that so?” Yeager said. “Well. If we think letting you have anything is a mistake, and if you think letting us keep anything is an even bigger mistake, how are Lizards and people ever going to get together and settle things one way or the other? Sounds to me like we’re stuck.”

  “We might not be, were it not for Atvar’s stubbornness,” Straha said. “As I told you before, the only way he will consent to anything less than complete victory is to become convinced it is impossible.”

  “If he hasn’t gotten that idea by now-” But Sam paused and shook his head. You had to remember the Lizards’ point of view. What looked like disastrous defeats from up close might seem only bumps in the road if considered in a thousand-year context. Men prepared for the next battle, the Lizards for the next millennium.

  Straha said, “When he does get that idea-if ever he does-he will do one of two things, I think. He may fly to make peace along the lines you and I have been discussing. Or he may try to use whatever nuclear arsenal the Race has left to force you Tosevites into submission. This is what I would have done; that I proposed it may make it less likely now.”

  “Good,” Yeager said sincerely. He’d been away from the American nuclear-bomb program for a while now, but he knew the infernal devices didn’t roll off the assembly line like so many De Sotos. “The other thing holding him back is your colonization fleet, isn’t it?”

  “Truth,” Straha replied at once. “This consideration has inhibited our actions in the past, and continues to do so. Atvar may decide, however, that making peace with you will leave the Race less of the habitable surface of Tosev 3 than he could hope to obtain by damaging large portions of the planet on our behalf.”

  “It wouldn’t keep us from fighting back, you know,” Sam said, and hoped he wasn’t whistling in the dark.

  Evidently Straha didn’t think he was, because the shiplord said, “We are painfully aware of this. It is one of the factors that has to this point deterred us from that course. More important, though, is our desire not to damage the planet for our colonists, as you have noted.”

  “Mm-hmm,” Sam said, tasting the irony of Earth’s safety riding more on the Lizards’ concern for their own kind than on any worries about human beings. “We’ve got what, something like eighteen years, before the rest of your people get here?”

  “No, twice that,” Straha answered. Then he made a noise like a bubbling teakettle. “My apologies-if you are using Tosevite years, you are correct.”

  “Yeah, I was-I’m a Tosevite, after all,” Yeager said with a wry grin. “What are your colonists going to think if they come to a world that isn’t completely in your hands, the way they thought it would be when they set out from Home?”

  “The starship crews will be aware of changed conditions when they intercept our signals beamed back toward Home,” Straha said. “No doubt this will fill them with consternation and confusion. Remember, we of the conquest fleet have had some time now to try to accommodate ourselves to the unanticipated conditions on Tosev 3. These will be new for them, and the Race does not adapt well. In any case, there will be little they can do. The colonization fleet is not armed; the assumption was that we of the conquest fleet would have this world all nicely pacflied before the colonists arrived. And, of course, the colonists themselves are in cold sleep and will remain ignorant of the true situation until they are revived upon the fleet’s arrival.”

  “They’ll get quite a surprise, won’t they?” Sam said, chuckling.

  “How many of them are there, anyhow?”

  “I do not know, not in precise figures,” Straha replied. “My responsibility, after all, was with the conquest fleet. But if our practice in colonizing the worlds of the Rabotevs and Hallessi was followed back on Home-as it almost certainly would have been, given our fondness for precedent-then we are sending here something between eighty and one hundred million males and females… Those coughs mean nothing in my language, Samyeager.” He pronounced Yeager’s name as if it were one word. “Have they some signflication in yours?”

  “I’m sorry, Shiplord,” Sam said when he could speak coherently again. “Must have swallowed wrong, or something.”Eighty or a hundred millioncolonists? “The Race doesn’t do things by halves, does it?”

  “Of course not,” Straha said.

  “One mortflication after another,” Atvar said in deep discontent. From where he stood, the situation down on the surface of Tosev 3 looked gloomy. “Almost better we should have expended a nuclear device on those mutineers than let them go over to the SSSR.”

  “Truth,” Kirel said. “The loss of the armaments is bad. Before long, the Big Uglies will copy whatever features they can figure out how to steal. That has happened before, and is happening again: we have recent reports that the Deutsche, for instance, are beginning to deploy armor-piercing discarding sabot ammunition against our landcruisers.”

  “I have seen these reports,” the fleetlord agreed. “They do not inspire me with delight.”

  “Nor me,” Kirel answered. “Moreover, the loss of the territory formerly controlled by the base whose garrison mutinied has given us new problems. Though weather conditions in the area remain appallingly bad, we have evidence that the SSS
R is attempting to reestablish its east-west rail link.”

  “How can they do that?” Atvar said. “Surely even Big Uglies would freeze if forced to work in such circumstances.”

  “From what we have seen in the SSSR, Exalted Fleetlord, it would appear hardly more concerned about the well-being of its laborers than is Deutschland,” Kirel said mournfully. “Getting the task done counts for more than the number of lives expended in the process.”

  “Truth,” Atvar said, and then added, “Madness,” and an emphatic cough. “The Deutsche sometimes appear to put expending lives above extracting labor. What was the name of that place where they devoted so much ingenuity to slaughter? Treblinka, that was it.” The Race had never imagined a center wholly devoted to exterminating intelligent beings. Atvar would have been as glad never to have been exposed to some of the things he’d learned on Tosev 3.

  He waited for Kirel to mention the most important reason why the fall of the Siberian base was a disaster. Kirel didn’t mention it. All too likely, Kirel hadn’t thought of it. He was a good shiplord, none better, when someone told him what to do. Even for a male of the Race, though, he lacked imagination.

  Atvar said, “We now have to deal with the problem of propaganda broadcasts from the mutineers. By all they say, they are cheerful, well fed, well treated, with plenty of that pernicious herb, ginger, for amusement. Transmissions such as these are liable to touch off not only further mutinies but also desertions by individual males who cannot find partners with whom to conspire.”

  “What you say is likely to be correct,” Kirel agreed. “It is to be hoped that increased vigilance on the part of officers will help to allay the problem.”

  “It is to be hoped, indeed,” Atvar said with heavy sarcasm. “It is also to be hoped that we shall be able to keep from losing too much ground in this northern-hemisphere winter, and that guerrilla raids against our positions will ease. In some places-much of Italia springs to mind-we are unable to administer or control territory allegedly under our jurisdiction.”

  “We need more cooperation from the Tosevite authorities who yielded to us,” Kirel said. “This is true all over the planet, and especially so in Italia, where our forces might as well be at war again.”

  “Most of the Italian authorities, such as they were, went up with the atomic bomb that destroyed Roma,” Atvar answered. “Too many of the ones who are left still favor their overthrown not-emperor, that Mussolini. How I wish the Deutsch raider, that Skorzeny, hadn’t succeeded in stealing him and spiriting him off into Deutschland. His radio broadcasts, along with those of our former ally Russie and the traitor Straha, have proved most damaging of all counterpropaganda efforts against us.”

  “That Skorzeny has been a pin driven under our scales throughout the campaign of conquest,” Kirel said. “He is unpredictable even for a Tosevite, and deadly as well.”

  “I wish I could dispute it, but it is truth,” the fleetlord said sadly. “In addition to all the other harm he has inflicted on our cause, he cost me Drefsab, the one Intelligence officer we had who was both devious and energetic enough to match the Big Uglies at their own primary traits.”

  “Wherefore now, Exalted Fleetlord?” Kirel asked.

  “We carry on as best we can,” Atvar answered, a response that did not satisfy him and plainly did not satisfy Kirel. Trying to amplify it, he went on, “One thing we must do is increase security around our starships. If the Big Uglies can smuggle nuclear weapons within range of them, rather than of cities, they potentially have the ability to hurt us even worse than they have already.”

  “I shall draft an order seeking to forestall this contingency,” Kirel said. “I agree; it is a serious menace. I shall also draft procedures whose thorough implementation will make the order effective.”

  “Good,” Atvar said. “Be most detailed. Allow no conceivable loopholes through which a careless male might produce disaster.” All that was standard advice from one male of the Race to another. After a moment, though, the fleetlord added in thoughtful tones, “Before promulgating the order and procedures, consult with males who have had experience down on the surface of Tosev 3. They may possibly make your proposed procedures more leak-proof against the ingenious machinations of the Big Uglies.”

  “It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel promised. “May I respectfully suggest that none of us up here in orbit has enough firsthand experience with conditions down on the surface of Tosev 3?”

  “There is some truth in what you say,” Atvar admitted. “Perhaps we should spend more time on the planet itself-in a reasonably secure area, preferably one with a reasonably salubrious climate.” He called up a flat map of the surface of Tosev 3 on a computer screen. One set of color overlays gave a security evaluation, with categories ranging from unconquered to pacflied (though depressingly little of the planet showed that placid pink tone). Another gave climatological data. He instructed the computer to show him where both factors were at a maximum.

  Kirel pointed. “The northern coastal region of the subcontinental mass the Tosevites term Africa seems as near ideal as any region.”

  “So it does,” Atvar said. “I have visited there before. Itis pleasant; parts of it could almost be Home. Very well, Shiplord, make the requisite preparations. We shall temporarily shift headquarters to this region, the better to supervise the conduct of the conquest at close range.”

  “It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said.

  Ludmila Gorbunova wanted to kickGeneralleutnant Graf Walter von Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt right where it would do the most good. Since the damned Nazi general was in Riga and she was stuck outside Hrubieszow, that wasn’t practical. In lieu of fulfilling her desire, she kicked at the mud instead. It clung to her boots, which did nothing to improve her mood.

  She hadn’t thought of Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt as a damned Nazi when she was in Riga herself. Then he’d seemed a charming,kulturny general, nothing like the boorish Soviets and cold-blooded Germans it had mostly been her lot to deal with.

  “Fly me one little mission, Senior Lieutenant Gorbunova,” she muttered under her breath. “Take a couple of antipanzer mines to Hrubieszow, then come on back here and we’ll send you on to Pskov with a pat on the fanny for your trouble.”

  That wasn’t exactly what thekulturny general had said, of course, and he hadn’t tried to pat her on the fanny, which was one of the things that made himkulturny. But if he hadn’t sent her to Hrubieszow, herKukuruznik wouldn’t have tried to taxi through a tree, which would have meant she’d still be able to fly it.

  “Which would have meant I wouldn’t be stuck here outside of Hrubieszow,” she snarled, and kicked at the mud again. Some of it splashed up and hit her in the cheek. She snarled and spat.

  She’d always thought of U-2s as nearly indestructible, not least because they were too simple to be easy to break. Down in the Ukraine, she’d buried one nose-first in the mud, but that could have been fixed without much trouble if she hadn’t had to get away from the little biplane as fast as she could. Wrapping aKukuruznik around a tree, though-that was truly championship-quality ineptitude.

  “And why did the devil’s sister leave a tree in the middle of the landing strip?” she asked the God in whom she did not believe. But it hadn’t been the devil’s sister. It had been these miserable partisans. It wastheir fault.

  Of course she’d been flying at night. Of course she’d had one eye on the compass, one eye on her wristwatch, one eye on the ground and sky, one eye on the fuel gauge-she’d almost wished she was a Lizard, so she could look every which way at once. Just finding the partisans’ poorly lit landing strip had been-not a miracle, for she didn’t believe in miracles-a major achievement, that’s what it had been.

  She’d circled once. She’d brought the Wheatcutter down. She’d taxied smoothly. She’d never seen the pine sapling-no, it was more than a sapling, worse luck-till she ran into it.

  “Broken wing spars,” she said, ticking off the damage on her finge
rs. “Broken propeller.” Both of those were wood, and reparable. “Broken crankshaft.” That was of metal, and she had no idea what she was going to do about it-what shecould do about it.

  Behind her, someone coughed. She whirled around like a startled cat. Her hand flew to the grip of her Tokarev automatic. The partisan standing there jerked back in alarm. He was a weedy, bearded, nervous little Jew who went by the name Sholom. She could follow pieces of his Polish and pieces of his Yiddish, and he knew a little Russian, so they managed to make themselves understood to each other.

  “You come,” he said now. “We bring blacksmith out from Hrubieszow. He look at your machine.”

  “All right, I’ll come,” she answered dully. Yes, a U-2 was easy to work on, but she didn’t think a blacksmith could repair a machined part well enough to make the aircraft fly again.

  He was one of the largest men she’d ever seen, almost two meters tall and seemingly that wide through the shoulders, too. By the look of him, he could have bent the crankshaft back into its proper shape with his bare hands if it had been in one piece. But it wasn’t just bent; it was broken in half, too.

  The smith spoke in Polish, too fast for Ludmila to follow. Sholom turned his words into something she could understand: “Witold, he say if it made of metal, he fix it. He fix lots of wagons, he say.”

  “Has he ever fixed a motorcar?” Ludmila asked. If the answer there was yes, maybe she did have some hope of getting off the ground again after all.

  When he heard her voice, Witold blinked in surprise. Then he struck a manly pose. His already huge chest inflated like a balloon. Muscles bulged in his upper arms. Again, he spoke rapidly. Again, Sholom made what he said intelligible: “He say, of course he do. He say, for you he fix anything.”

  Ludmila studied the smith through slitted eyes. She thought he’d said more than that; some of his Polish had sounded close to what would have been a lewd suggestion in Russian. Well. If she didn’t understand it, she didn’t have to react to it. She decided that would be the wisest course for the time being.