Striking the Balance (6 page)

The first letter on the pile was from the Social Activities Committee of
Kolkhoz
118: so the return address stated, at any rate. But the collective farm not far outside of Moscow was where Igor Kurchatov and his team of nuclear physicists were laboring to fabricate an explosive-metal bomb. They’d made one, out of metal stolen from the Lizards. Isolating more of the metal for themselves was proving as hard as they’d warned Molotov it would—harder than he’d wanted to believe.

Sure enough, Kurchatov now wrote, “The latest experiment, Comrade Foreign Commissar, was a success less complete than we might have hoped.” Molotov did not need his years of reading between the lines to infer that the experiment had failed. Kurchatov went on, “Certain technical aspects of the situation still present us with difficulties. Outside advice might prove useful.”

Molotov grunted softly. When Kurchatov asked for outside advice, he didn’t mean help from other Soviet physicists. Every reputable nuclear physicist in the USSR was already working with him. Molotov had put his own neck on the block by reminding Stalin of that; he shuddered to think of the risk he’d taken for the
rodina,
the motherland. What Kurchatov wanted was foreign expertise.

Humiliating,
Molotov thought. The Soviet Union should not have been so backwards. He would never ask the Germans for help. Even if they gave it, he wouldn’t trust what they gave. Stalin was just as well pleased that the Lizards in Poland separated the USSR from Hitler’s madmen, and there Molotov completely agreed with his leader.

The Americans? Molotov gnawed at his mustache. Maybe, just maybe. They were making their own explosive-metal bombs, just as the Nazis were. And if he could tempt them with some of the prizes the Lizard base near Tomsk would yield . . . 

He pulled out a pencil and a scrap of paper and began to draft a letter.

“Jesus, God, will you lookit this?” Mutt Daniels exclaimed as he led his platoon through the ruins of what had been Chicago’s North Side. “And all from one bomb, too.”

“Don’t hardly seem possible, does it, Lieutenant?” Sergeant Herman Muldoon agreed. The kids they were leading didn’t say anything. They just looked around with wide eyes and even wider mouths at their fair share of a few miles’ worth of slagged wreckage.

“I been on God’s green earth goin’ on sixty years now,” Mutt said, his Mississippi drawl flowing slow and thick as molasses in this miserable Northern winter. “I seen a whole lot o’ things in my time. I fought in two wars now, and I done traveled all over the U.S. of A. But I ain’t never seen nothin’ like this here.”

“You got that right,” Muldoon said. He was Daniels’ age, near enough, and he’d been around, too. The men alongside them in the ragged skirmish line didn’t have that kind of experience, but they’d never seen anything like this, either. Nobody had, not till the Lizards came.

Before they came, Daniels had been managing the Decatur Commodores, a Three-I League team. One of his ballplayers had liked reading pulp stories about rocketships and creatures from other planets (he wondered if Sam Yeager was still alive these days). Mutt pulled an image from that kind of story now: the North Side reminded him of the mountains of the moon.

When he said that out loud, Herman Muldoon nodded. He was tall and thick-shouldered, with a long, tough Irish mug and, at the moment, a chin full of graying stubble. “I heard that about France back in nineteen an’ eighteen, and I thought it was pretty straight then. Goes to show what I knew, don’t it?”

“Yeah,” Daniels said. He’d seen France, too. “France had more craters’n you could shake a stick at, that’s for damn sure. ‘Tween us and the frogs and the limeys and the
Boches,
we musta done fired every artillery shell in the world ’bout ten times over. But this here, it’s just the one.”

You could tell where the bomb had gone off: all the wreckage leaned away from it. If you drew a line from the direction of fallen walls and houses and uprooted trees, then went west a mile or so and did the same thing, the place where those lines met would have been around ground zero.

There were other ways of working out where that lay, though. Identfliable wreckage was getting thin on the ground now. More and more, it was just lumpy, half-shiny dirt, baked by the heat of the bomb into stuff that was almost like glass.

It was slippery like glass, too, especially with snow scattered over it. One of Mutt’s men had his feet go out from under him and landed on his can. “Oww!” he said, and then, “Ahh, shit!” As his comrades laughed at him, he tried to get up—and almost fell down again.

“You want to play those kind o’ games, Kurowski, you get yourself a clown suit, not the one you’re wearin’,” Mutt said.

“Sorry, Lieutenant,” Kurowski said in injured tones that had nothing to do with his sore fundament. “It ain’t like I’m doing it on purpose.”

“Yeah, I know, but you’re still doin’ it.” Mutt gave up ragging him. He recognized the big pile of brick and steel off to the left. It had come through the blast fairly well, and had shielded some of the apartment houses behind it so they weren’t badly damaged at all. But the sight of upright buildings in the midst of the wreckage wasn’t what made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. “Ain’t that Wrigley Field?” he whispered. “Gotta be, from where it’s at and what it looks like.”

He’d never played in Wrigley Field—the Cubs had still been out at old West Side Grounds when he came through as a catcher for the Cardinals before the First World War. But seeing the ballpark in ruins brought the reality of this war home to him like a kick in the teeth. Sometimes big things would do that, sometimes little ones; he remembered a doughboy breaking down and sobbing like a baby when he found some French kid’s dolly with its head blown off.

Muldoon’s eyes slid over toward Wrigley for a moment. “Gonna be a long time before the Cubs win another pennant,” he said, as good an epitaph as any for the park—and the city.

South of Wrigley Field, a big fellow with a sergeant’s stripes and a mean expression gave Daniels a perfunctory salute. “Come on, Lieutenant,” he said. “I’m supposed to get your unit into line here.”

“Well, then, go on and do it,” Mutt said. Most of his men didn’t have enough experience to wipe their asses after they went and squatted. A lot of them were going to end up casualties because of it. Sometimes all the experience in the world didn’t matter, either. Mutt had scars on his backside from a Lizard bullet—luckily, a through-and-through flesh wound that hadn’t chewed up his hipbone. A couple, three feet up, though, and it would have hit him right in the ear.

The sergeant led them out of the blast area, down through the Near North Side toward the Chicago River. The big buildings ahead stood empty and battered, as meaningless to what was happening now as so many dinosaur bones might have been—unless, of course, they had Lizard snipers in them. “We shoulda pushed ’em farther back,” the sergeant said, spitting in disgust, “but what the hell you gonna do?”

“Them Lizards, they’re hard to push,” Daniels agreed glumly. He looked around. The big bomb hadn’t leveled this part of Chicago, but any number of small bombs and artillery shells had had their way with it. So had fire and bullets. The ruins gave ideal cover for anybody who felt like picking a line and fighting it out there. “This here’s a lousy part of town for pushin’ ’em, too.”

“This here’s a lousy part of town, period—sir,” the sergeant said. “All the dagos used to live here till the Lizards ran ’em out—maybe they did somethin’ decent there, you ask me.”

“Knock off the crap about dagos,” Daniels told him. He had two in his platoon. If the sergeant turned his back on Giordano and Pinelli, he was liable to end up dead.

Now he sent Mutt an odd glance, as if wondering why he didn’t agree: no pudgy old red-faced guy who talked like a Johnny Reb could be a dago himself, so what was he doing taking their part? But Mutt was a lieutenant, so the sergeant shut up till he got the platoon to its destination: “This here’s Oak and Cleveland, sir. They call it ‘Dead Corner’ on account of the da—the Eyetalian gents got in the habit of murdering each other here during Prohibition. Somehow, there never were any witnesses. Funny how that works, ain’t it?” He saluted and took off.

The platoon leader Daniels replaced was a skinny blond guy named Rasmussen. He pointed south. “Lizard lines are about four hundred yards down that way, out past Locust. Last couple days, it’s been pretty quiet.”

“Okay.” Daniels brought field glasses up to his eyes and peered down past Locust. He spotted a couple of Lizards. Things had to be quiet, or they never would have shown themselves. They were about the size of ten-year-olds, with green-brown skin painted in patterns that meant things like rank and specialization badges and service stripes, swively eyes, and a forward-leaning, skittery gait unlike anything ever spawned on Earth.

“They sure are ugly little critters,” Rasmussen said. “Little’s the word, too. How do things that size go about making so much trouble?”

“They manage, that’s a fact,” Mutt answered. “What I don’t see is, now that they’re here, how we ever gonna get rid of all of ’em? They’ve come to stay, no two ways about that a-tall.”

“Just have to kill ’em all, I guess,” Rasmussen said.

“Good luck!” Mutt said. “They’re liable to do that to us instead. Real liable. You ask me—not that you did—we got to find some other kind of way.” He rubbed his bristly chin. “Only trouble is, I ain’t got a clue what it could be. Hope somebody does. If nobody does, we better find one pretty damn quick or we’re in all kinds of trouble.”

“Like you said, I didn’t ask you,” Rasmussen told him.

II

High above Dover, a jet plane roared past. Without looking up, David Goldfarb couldn’t tell whether it was a Lizard aircraft or a British Meteor. Given the thick layer of gray clouds hanging low overhead, looking up probably wouldn’t have done him any good, either.

“That’s one of ours,” Flight Lieutenant Basil Roundbush declared.

“If you say so,” Goldfarb answered, tacking on “Sir” half a beat too late.

“I do say so,” Roundbush told him. He was tall and handsome and blond and ruddy, with a dashing mustache and a chestful of decorations, first from the Battle of Britain and then from the recent Lizard invasion. As far as Goldfarb was concerned, a pilot deserved a bloody medal just for surviving the Lizard attack. Even Meteors were easy meat against the machines the Lizards flew.

To make matters worse, Roundbush wasn’t just a fighting machine with more ballocks than brains. He’d helped Fred Hipple with improvements on the engines that powered the Meteor, he had a lively wit, and women fell all over him. Taken all in all, he gave Goldfarb an inferiority complex.

He did his best to hide it, because Roundbush, within the limits of possessing few limits, was withal a most likable chap. “I am but a mere ‘umble radarman, sir,” Goldfarb said, making as if to tug at a forelock he didn’t have. “I wouldn’t know such things, I wouldn’t.”

“You’re a mere ‘umble pile of malarkey, is what you are,” Roundbush said with a snort.

Goldfarb sighed. The pilot had the right accent, too. His own, despite studious efforts to make it more cultivated, betrayed his East End London origins every time he opened his mouth. He hadn’t had to exaggerate it much to put on his ‘umble air for Roundbush.

The pilot pointed. “The oasis lies ahead. Onward!”

They quickened their strides. The White Horse Inn lay not far from Dover Castle, in the northern part of town. It was a goodly hike from Dover College, where they both labored to turn Lizard gadgetry into devices the RAF and other British forces could use. It was also the best pub in Dover, not only for its bitter, but also for its barmaids.

Not surprisingly, it was packed. Uniforms of every sort—RAF, Army, Marines, Royal Navy—mingled with civilian tweed and flannel. The great fireplace at one end of the room threw heat all across it, as it had been doing in that building since the fourteenth century. Goldfarb sighed blissfully. The Dover College laboratories where he spent his days were clean modern—and bloody cold.

As if in a rugby scrum, he and Roundbush elbowed their way toward the bar. Roundbush held up a hand as they neared the promised land. “Two pints of best bitter darling!” he bawled to the redhead in back of the long oaken expanse.

“For you, dearie, anything,” Sylvia said with a toss of her head. All the men who heard her howled wolfishly. Goldfarb joined in, but only so as not to seem out of place. He and Sylvia had been lovers a while before. It wasn’t that he’d been mad about her; it wasn’t even that he d been her only one at the time: she was, in her own way, honest, and hadn’t tried to string him along with such stories. But seeing her now that they’d parted did sometimes sting—not least because he still craved the sweet warmth of her body.

She slid the pint pots toward them. Roundbush slapped silver on the bar. Sylvia took it. When she started to make change for him, he shook his head. She smiled a large, promising smile—she was honestly mercenary, too.

Goldfarb raised his mug. “To Group Captain Hipple!” he said.

He and Roundbush both drank. If it hadn’t been for Fred Hipple, the RAF would have had to go on fighting the Lizards with Hurricanes and Spitfires, not jets. But Hipple had been missing since the Lizards attacked the Bruntingthorpe research station during their invasion. The toast was all, too likely to be the only memorial he’d ever get.

Roundbush peered with respect at the deep golden brew he was quaffing. “That’s
bloody
good,” he said. “These handmade bitters often turn out better than what the brewers sold all across the country.”

“You’re right about that,” Goldfarb said, thoughtfully smacking his lips. He fancied himself a connoisseur of bitter. “Well hopped, nutty—” He took another pull, to remind himself of what he was talking about.

The pint pots quickly emptied. Goldfarb raised a hand to order another round. He looked around for Sylvia, didn’t see her for a moment, then he did; she was carrying a tray of mugs over to a table by the fire.

As if by magic, another woman materialized behind the bar while his head was turned. “You want a fresh pint?” she asked.

“Two pints—one for my friend here,” he answered automatically. Then he looked at her. “Hullo! You’re new here.”

She nodded as she poured beer from the pitcher into the pint pots. “Yes—my name’s Naomi.” She wore her dark hair pulled back from her face. It made her look thoughtful. She had delicate features: skin pale without being pink, narrow chin, wide cheekbones, large gray eyes, elegantly arched nose.

Goldfarb paid for the bitter, all the while studying her. At last, he risked a word not in English:
“Yehudeh?”

Those eyes fixed on him, sharply. He knew she was searching his features—and knew what she’d find. His brown, curly hair and formidable nose had not sprung from native English stock. After a moment, she relaxed and said, “Yes, I’m Jewish—and you, unless I’m wrong.” Now that he heard more than a sentence from her, he caught her accent—like the one his parents had, though not nearly so strong.

He nodded. “Guilty as charged,” he said, which won a cautious smile from her. He left her a tip as large as the one Basil Roundbush had given Sylvia, though he could afford it less well. He raised his mug to her before he drank, then asked, “What are you doing here?”

“In England, do you mean?” she asked, wiping the bar with a bit of rag. “My parents were lucky enough, smart enough—whatever you like—to get out of Germany in 1937.I came with them; I was fourteen then.”

That made her twenty or twenty-one now:
a fine age,
Goldfarb thought reverently. He said, “My parents came from Poland before the First World War, so I was born here.” He wondered if he should have told her that; German Jews sometimes looked down their noses at their Polish cousins.

But she said, “You were very lucky, then. What we went through . . .  and we were gone before the worst. And in Poland, they say, it was even worse.”

“Everything they say is true, too,” David answered. “Have you ever heard Moishe Russie broadcast? We’re cousins; I’ve talked with him after he escaped from Poland. If it hadn’t been for the Lizards, there wouldn’t be any Jews left there by now. I hate being grateful to them, but there you are.”

“Yes, I have heard him,” Naomi said. “Terrible things there—but there, at least, they’re over. In Germany, they go on.”

“I know,” Goldfarb said, and took along pull at his bitter. “And the Nazis have hit the Lizards as many licks as anyone else, maybe more. The world’s gone crazy, it bloody well has.”

Basil Roundbush had been talking with a sandy-haired Royal Navy commander. Now he turned-back to find a fresh pint at his elbow—and Naomi behind the bar. He pulled himself straight; he could turn on two hundred watts of charm the way most men flicked on a light switch. “Well, well,” he said with a toothy smile. “Our publican’s taste has gone up, it has indeed. Where did he find you?”

Not sporting,
Goldfarb thought. He waited for Naomi to sigh or giggle or do whatever she did to show she was smitten. He hadn’t seen Roundbush fail yet. But the barmaid just answered, coolly enough, “I was looking for work, and he was kind enough to think I might do. Now if you will excuse me—” She hurried off to minister to other thirst-stricken patrons.

Roundbush dug an elbow into Goldfarb’s ribs. “Not sporting, old man. You have an unfair advantage there, unless I’m much mistaken.”

Damn it, he
was
sharp, to have identflied the accent or placed her looks so quickly. “Me?” Goldfarb said. “You’re a fine one to talk of advantages, when you’ve got everything in a skirt from here halfway to the Isle of Wight going all soppy over you.”

“Whatever could you be talking about, my dear fellow?” Roundbush said, and stuck his tongue in his cheek to show he was not to be taken seriously. He gulped down his pint, then waved the pot at Sylvia, who had at last come back. “Another round of these for David and me. If you please, darling.”

“Coming up,” she said.

Roundbush turned back to the Royal Navy man. Goldfarb asked Sylvia, “When did she start here?” His eyes slid toward Naomi.

“A few days ago,” Sylvia answered. “You ask me, she’s liable to be too fine to make a go of it. You have to be able to put up with the drunken, randy sods who want anything they can get out of you—or into you.”

“Thanks,” Goldfarb said. “You’ve just made me feel about two inches high.”

“Blimey, you’re a gent, you are, next to a lot of these bastards,” Sylvia said, praising with faint damn. She went on, “Naomi, her way looks to be pretending she doesn’t notice the pushy ones, or understand what they want from her. That’s only good for so long. Sooner or later—likely sooner—somebody’s going to try reaching down her blouse or up her dress. Then we’ll—”

Before she could say “see,” the rifle-crack of a slap cut through the chatter in the White Horse Inn. A Marine captain raised a hand to his cheek. Naomi, quite unperturbed, set a pint of beer in front of him and went about her business.

“Timed that well, I did, though I say so my own self,” Sylvia remarked with more than a little pride.

“That you did,” Goldfarb agreed. He glanced over toward Naomi. Their eyes met for a moment. He smiled. She shrugged, as if to say,
All in a day’s work.
He turned back to Sylvia. “Good for her,” he said.

Liu Han was nervous. She shook her head. No, she was more than nervous. She was terrflied. The idea of meeting the little scaly devils face-to-face made her shiver inside. She’d been a creature under their control for too long: first in their airplane that never came down, where they made her submit to one man after another so they could learn how people behaved in matters of the pillow; and then, after she’d got pregnant, down in their prison camp not far from Shanghai. After she’d had her baby, they’d stolen it from her. She wanted her child back, even if it was only a girl.

With all that in her past, she had trouble believing the scaly devils would treat her like someone worth consideration now. And she was a woman herself, which did nothing to ease her confidence. The doctrine of the People’s Liberation Army said women were, and should be, equal to men. In the top part of her mind, she was beginning to believe that. Down deep, though, a lifetime of teachings of the opposite lesson still shaped her thoughts—and her fears.

Perhaps sensing that, Nieh Ho-T’ing said, “It will be all right. They won’t do anything to you, not at this parley. They know we hold prisoners of theirs, and what will happen to those prisoners if anything bad happens to us.”

“Yes, I understand,” she said, but she shot him a grateful glance anyhow. In matters military, he knew what he was talking about. He’d served as political commissar in the first detachment of Mao’s revolutionary army, commanded a division in the Long March, and been an army chief of staff. After the Lizards came, he’d led resistance against them—and against the Japanese, and against the counterrevolutionary Kuomintang clique—first in Shanghai and then here in Peking. And he was her lover.

Though she’d been born a peasant, her wits and her burning eagerness for revenge on the little devils for all they’d done to her had made her a revolutionary herself, and one who’d risen quickly in the ranks.

A scaly devil emerged from the tent that his kind had built in the middle of the
Pan Jo Hsiang Tai—
the Fragrant Terrace of Wisdom. The tent looked more like a bubble blown from some opaque orange shiny stuff than an honest erection of canvas or silk. It clashed dreadfully not only with the terrace and the walls and the elegant staircases to either side, but also with everything on the
Ch’iung Hua Tao,
the White Pagoda Island.