Striking the Balance Read online

  That was when Moishe remembered the submachine gun that lay on the ground beside him. So much for taking up arms, he thought. “Take the gun,” he told the Englishman. “You have us.”

  The soldier called, “Permission to take prisoners, sir?” That didn’t mean anything to Russie for a moment. Then it sank in: if the man didn’t get that permission, he was going to shoot them and go on about his business. Moishe got ready to reach for the Sten gun. If he was going to go down, he’d go down fighting.

  But a fellow with a second lieutenant’s single pips on his shoulder boards said, “Yes, take them back to the detention center. If we start murdering theirs, they’ll slaughter ours, the buggers.” He sounded weary and bitter beyond measure. Moishe hoped Rivka hadn’t followed what he said.

  The British soldier darted forward to grab the submachine gun. “On your feet!” he said. When Moishe rose, the soldier plucked the spare magazines from the waistband of his trousers. “Hands high! Those hands come down, you’re dead—you, the skirt, the brat, anybody.” Moishe said that in Yiddish so he was sure his wife and son got it. “March!” the Englishman barked.

  They marched. The soldier led them into what looked as if it had been a market square. Now barbed wire and machine-gun positions all around turned it into a prisoner camp. To one side was a tall wall of large stones that looked to have been in place forever. Atop that wall stood a mosque whose golden dome was marred by a shell hole.

  Moishe realized what that wall had to be just as the British soldier herded him and his family into the barbed-wire cage. There they stayed. The only sanitary arrangements were slop buckets by the barbed wire. Some people had blankets; most didn’t. Toward noon, the guards distributed bread and cheese. The portions were bigger than those he’d known in the Warsaw ghetto, but not much. Water barrels had a common dipper. He scowled at that; it would make disease spread faster.

  He and his family spent two miserable, chilly nights, sleeping huddled together on bare ground. Artillery shells fell all around, some alarmingly close. Had any landed inside the barbed-wire perimeter, the slaughter would have been gruesome.

  On the morning of the third day, bigger explosions rocked Jerusalem. “The British are pulling out!” exclaimed someone who sounded as if he knew what he was talking about. “They’re blowing up what they can’t take with them.” Moishe didn’t know whether the fellow was right, not then, but before long the guards deserted their posts, taking machine guns with them.

  They hadn’t been gone more than a few minutes before other men carrying guns entered the square: fighters from the Jewish underground. The prisoners cheered themselves hoarse as their comrades released them from confinement.

  But with the Jews came Lizards. Moishe stiffened: wasn’t that one there by the gate Zolraag? And, at the same time as he recognized the Lizard, Zolraag recognized him. Zolraag hissed in excitement. “We want this one,” he said, and added an emphatic cough.

  “Progress at last!” Atvar said. A pleasant breeze blew off the sea toward him. He walked along the northern shore of the little triangular peninsula that separated Egypt from Palestine. The warmth, the sand, the stones put him in mind of Home. It was very pleasant country—and yet he’d had to come here by helicopter, for the Big Uglies didn’t bother with roads leading away from their railroad.

  Kirel paced beside him for a while without speaking: perhaps the shiplord was also thinking of the world he’d left behind for the sake of the greater glory of the Emperor. A couple of feathered flying creatures glided past the two males. They were nothing like the leather-winged fliers with which Atvar had been familiar before coming to Tosev 3, and reminded him this was an alien world. Males and females hatched here after the colonization fleet arrived would find these Tosevite animals normal, unexceptional. He didn’t think he would ever grow used to them.

  He didn’t think he would ever grow used to Big Uglies, either. That didn’t keep him from hoping to conquer their world in spite of everything. “Progress!” he repeated. “The most important centers of Palestine are in our hands, the drive against Denver advances most satisfactorily on the whole . . . and we may yet triumph.”

  For Kirel not to respond then would have implied he thought the fleetlord mistaken. A male implied that at his peril these days. And so Kirel said, “Truth. In those areas, we do advance.”

  That, unfortunately, reminded Atvar of the many areas where the Race still did not advance: of Poland, where the Deutsche were being troublesome in the extreme; of China, where holding the cities and roads left the countryside a sea of rebellion—and where even control over the cities sometimes proved illusory; of the SSSR, where gains in the west were counterbalanced by Soviet advances in Siberia; of the central United States, where missiles were making starships vulnerable; of India, where Big Uglies weren’t fighting much, but showed a willingness to die rather than yielding to the commands of the Race.

  He hadn’t come here to think about places like those, and resolutely shoved them to the back of his mind. Even with the ugly flying creatures to remind him it wasn’t quite Home, it was a place to relax, enjoy decent—better than decent—weather, and make the best of things.

  Resolutely sticking to that best, he said, “We also have the agitator Moishe Russie in custody at last, and his mate and their hatchling. We can either control him through them or take vengeance upon him for the manifold troubles he has caused us. This is also progress.”

  “Truth again, Exalted Fleetlord.” Kirel hesitated, then went on, “Before punishing him as he deserves, it might be worthwhile to interrogate him, to learn exactly why he turned against us after his initial cooperation. Despite all his subsequent propaganda, this has never been completely clear.”

  “I want him punished,” Atvar said. “Treason against the Race is the inexpiable crime.”

  That wasn’t strictly true, not on Tosev 3. The Race maintained polite relations with Big Uglies who had turned on it and then professed friendship once more: antagonizing them for good would have caused more trouble than it solved. But conditions on Tosev 3 created ambiguity and doubts in a great many areas. Why should that one be any different? Atvar had stated the letter of the law.

  Kirel said, “Punished he shall surely be, Exalted Fleetlord—but all in good time. Let us first learn all we can from him. Are we Big Uglies, to act precipitately and destroy an opportunity without first learning if we can exploit it? We shall be attempting to govern the Tosevites for thousands of years to come. What we learn from Russie may give us a clue as to how to do it better.”

  “Ah,” Atvar said. “Now my chemoreceptors also detect the scent. Yes, perhaps that could be beneficial. As you say, he is in our hands, so punishment, while certain, need not be swift. Indeed, most likely he will view our exploitation of him as punishment in its own right. This world does its best to make me hasty. I must remember, now and again, to resist.”

  X

  Mordechai Anielewicz had company as he approached the meeting with the Nazis: a squad of Jews with submachine guns and rifles. He wasn’t supposed to bring along that kind of company, but he’d long since stopped worrying about what he was supposed to do. He did what needed doing.

  He waved. His support squad vanished among the trees. If anything went wrong at the meeting, the Germans would pay. A couple of years before, Jewish fighters wouldn’t have been so smooth about moving in the woods. They’d had practice since.

  Anielewicz walked up the trail toward the clearing where he was supposed to confer with the Nazis and see what Heinrich Jäger had up his sleeve—or what he said he had up his sleeve. Since that talk with the Pole who called himself Tadeusz, Anielewicz was leery about believing anything the German might tell him. On the other hand, he would have been leery about believing Jäger without talking to Tadeusz, too.

  As he’d been instructed, he paused before entering the clearing and whistled the first few bars of Beethoven’s Fifth. He found that a curious choice for the Germans, since those bars made a
Morse V-for-victory, the symbol of the anti-Nazi underground before the Lizards came. But, when somebody whistled back, he advanced up the forest track and out into the open space.

  There stood Jäger, and beside him a tail, broad-shouldered man with a scar on his face and a glint in his eye. The scar made the big man’s expression hard to read: Mordechai couldn’t tell if that was a friendly grin or a nasty one. The German had on a private’s tunic, but if he was a private, Anielewicz was a priest.

  Jäger said, “Good day,” and offered his hand. Mordechai took it: Jäger had always dealt fairly with him. The German panzer colonel said, “Anielewicz, here is Colonel Otto Skorzeny, who’s given the Lizards more trouble than any ten men you could name.”

  Mordechai kicked himself for not recognizing Skorzeny. The German propaganda machine had pumped out plenty of material about him. If he’d done a quarter of what Göbbels claimed, he was indeed a hero on the hoof. Now he stuck out his hand and boomed, “Good to meet you, Anielewicz. From what Jäger says, you two are old friends.”

  “We know each other, yes, Standartenführer.” Mordechai shook hands, but deliberately used Skorzeny’s SS rank rather than the Wehrmacht equivalent Jäger had given. I know what you are.

  So what? Skorzeny’s eyes answered insolently. He said, “Isn’t that sweet? How do you feel about giving the Lizards a boot in the balls they haven’t got?”

  “Them or you, it doesn’t much matter to me.” Anielewicz kept his voice light, casual. Skorzeny impressed him more than he’d expected. The man didn’t seem to give a damn whether he lived or died. Mordechai had seen that before, but never coupled with so much relentless energy. If Skorzeny died, he’d make sure he had a lot of choice company.

  He studied Anielewicz, too, doing his best to intimidate him with his presence. Mordechai stared back. If the SS man, wanted to try something, he’d be sorry. He didn’t try. He laughed instead. “All right, Jew, let’s do business. I’ve got a little toy for the Lizards, and I could use some help getting it right into the middle of Lodz where it’ll do the most good.”

  “Sounds interesting,” Mordechai said. “So what is this toy? Tell me about it.”

  Skorzeny set a finger by the side of his nose and winked. “It’s the biggest goddamn ginger bomb you ever did see, that’s what. Not just the powdered stuff, mind you, but an aerosol that’ll get all over everything in a huge area and keep the Lizards too drugged up to get into it for a long time.” He leaned forward a little and lowered his voice. “We’ve tested it on Lizard prisoners, and it’s the straight goods. It’ll drive ’em out of their skulls.”

  “I bet it will,” Anielewicz answered. Sure it will. If he’s telling the truth. Is he? If you were a mouse, would you let a cat carry cheese down into your hole? But if Skorzeny was lying, he didn’t show it at all. And if, by some odd chance, he was telling the truth, the ginger bomb would wreak all the havoc he said it would. Mordechai could easily imagine the Lizards battling one another in the streets because they were too full of ginger to think straight, or even to do much thinking at all.

  He wanted to believe Skorzeny. Without Jäger’s obscure warning, he thought he would have believed Skorzeny. Something about the SS man made you want to go in the direction he was pushing. Anielewicz had enough of that gift himself to recognize it in others—and Skorzeny had a big dose.

  Anielewicz decided to prod a little, to see what lay behind the bluff, hearty façade. “Why the devil should I trust you?” he demanded. “When has the SS ever meant anything but trouble for Jews?”

  “The SS means trouble for all enemies of the Reich.” Pride rang in Skorzeny’ s voice. In his own way, he was—or seemed—honest. Anielewicz didn’t know whether he preferred that or the hypocrisy he’d been expecting. Skorzeny went on, “Who now is the most dangerous enemy of the Reich? You kikes?” He shook his head. “Of course not. The Lizards are the most dangerous. We worry about them first and the rest of the shit later.”

  Before the Lizards came, the Soviet Union had been the most dangerous enemy of the Reich. That hadn’t stopped the Nazis from building extermination camps in Poland, diverting resources they could have used to fight the Bolsheviks. Anielewicz said, “All right, suppose you drive the Lizards away from Lodz and Warsaw. What happens to us Jews then?”

  Skorzeny spread his big hands and shrugged. “I don’t make policy. I just kill people.” Amazing that his grin could be disarming after he said something like that, but it was. “You don’t want to be around us, though, and we don’t want you around, so maybe we could ship you somewhere. Who knows? To Madagascar, maybe; they were talking about that before the Lizards came, but we didn’t exactly own the seas.” Now that twisted grin was wry. “Or maybe even to Palestine. Like I say, who the hell knows?”

  He was glib. He was convincing. He was all the more frightening on account of that. “Why use this thing in Lodz?” Mordechai asked. “Why not at the front?”

  “Two reasons,” Skorzeny answered. “First, you get a lot more enemies in one place at concentration areas in the rear. And second, a lot of Lizards at the front have some protection against gas warfare, and that keeps the ginger out, too.” He chuckled. “Ginger is gas warfare—happy gas, but gas.”

  Anielewicz turned to Heinrich Jäger. “What do you think of this? Will it work? If it was up to you, would you do it?”

  Jäger’s face didn’t show much, but Jäger’s face, from what Mordechai had seen, seldom showed much. He half regretted his words; he was putting on the spot the nearest thing he had to a friend and ally in the Wehrmacht. Jäger coughed, then said, “I’ve been on more missions with Colonel Skorzeny than I care to remember.” Skorzeny laughed out loud at that. Ignoring him, Jäger went on, “I’ve never seen him fail when he sets himself a goal. If he says this will do the job, you’d better listen to him.”

  “Oh, I’m listening,” Anielewicz said. He gave his attention back to Otto Skorzeny. “Well, Herr Standartenführer, what will you do if I tell you we don’t want anything to do with this? Will you try to get it into Lodz anyhow?”

  “Aber natürlich.” Skorzeny’s Austrian accent made him sound like an aristocrat from fin de siècle Vienna rather than a Nazi thug. “We don’t give up easily. We’ll do this with you or without you. It would be easier with you, maybe, and you Jews can put yourselves in our good graces by going along. Since we’re going to win the war and rule Poland, doesn’t that strike you as a good idea?”

  Come on. Collaborate with us. Skorzeny wasn’t subtle. Mordechai wondered if he had it in him to be subtle. He sighed. “Since you put it that way—”

  Skorzeny slapped him on the back, hard enough to make him stagger. “Ha! I knew you were a smart Jew. I—”

  Noise from the woods made him break off. Anielewicz quickly figured out what it was. “So you brought some friends along to the meeting, too? They must have bumped up against mine.”

  “I said you were a smart Jew, didn’t I?” Skorzeny answered. “How soon can we get this moving? I don’t like waiting around with my thumb up my arse.”

  “Let me get back to Lodz and make the arrangements to bring in your little package,” Mordechai said. “I know how to get in touch with Colonel Jäger here, and he probably knows how to get in touch with you.”

  “Yes, probably.” Jäger’s voice was dry.

  “Good enough,” Skorzeny said. “Just don’t take too damn long, that’s all I have to tell you. Remember, with you or without you, this is going to happen. Those Lizards will be sorry about the day they crawled out of their eggs.”

  “You’ll hear from me soon,” Mordechai promised. He didn’t want Skorzeny doing whatever he had in mind all by himself. The SS man was altogether too likely to succeed at it, whatever it was. It might make the Lizards sorry, but Anielewicz wouldn’t have bet the Jews would care for it, either.

  He whistled loudly, a cue for his men to head toward Lodz, then nodded to Jäger and Skorzeny and left the clearing. He was very thoughtful all the way back dow
n there.

  “How far do we trust the Germans?” he asked back at the fire station on Lutomierska Street. “How far can we trust the Germans, especially when one of them has told us not to?”

  “Timeo Danaos et donas ferentes,” Bertha Fleishman said. Mordechai nodded; he’d had a secular education, with Latin a good part of it. For those who didn’t know their Virgil, Bertha translated: “I fear the Greeks, even bearing gifts.”

  “That’s it exactly,” Solomon Gruver said. The fireman was a battered, blunt-faced fellow who looked like a prizefighter and had been a sergeant in the Polish Army in 1939. He’d managed to conceal that from the Nazis, who probably would have liquidated him for it. It made him enormously useful to the Jewish underground: unlike most of its members, he hadn’t had to learn matters military from scratch. He tugged at his bushy, gray-streaked beard. “Sometimes I think Nussboym had the right idea after all: better to live under the Lizards than with these Nazi mamzrim cracking the whip.”

  “Either way, we get the short end of the stick,” Mordechai said. Heads bobbed up and down along the length of the table. “With the Nazis, it’s just us who get the short end, but it’s bloody short. With the Lizards, everybody gets it, but maybe not so bad as the Germans give it to us.” He chuckled ruefully. “Some bargain, isn’t it?”

  “So what do we do?” Gruver demanded. This wasn’t a military matter, or not strictly so. He let others lead—sometimes made others lead—in policy decisions, then weighed in with his own opinion, but was oddly shy about taking the lead himself.

  Everybody looked at Anielewicz. Partly that was because he’d met the Germans, partly because people were used to looking at him. He said, “I don’t think we have any choice but to take the thing from Skorzeny. That way, we have some control over it, no matter what it ends up being.”

  “The Trojan Horse,” Bertha Fleishman suggested.

  Mordechai nodded. “That’s right. That’s just what it’s liable to be. But Skorzeny said he’d do it with us or without us. I believe him. We’d be making a big mistake if we ever took that man less than seriously. We’ll take it now, we’ll do our best to find out what it is, and go from there. Otherwise, he’d find some other way to sneak it into Lodz without our knowing—”