Upsetting the Balance w-3

by Harry Turtledove

  “Of course,” Yeager said with a sigh. “What does theftaskelkwank do with the light to change it from regular toskelkwank?”

  “It makes the light-” Ristin used another Lizard word.

  Sam turned to the fellow with the gadget. “I’ve heard that term before, too. It means something like ‘coherent.’ I don’t know what that means here, though.”

  “Coherent, yep.” Ristin liked learning new English words. “Most light, ordinary light, is of waves of all different lengths, photons-is right word? — of all different energies. Coherent light has only one length of wave, only one energy. Is all exact same color, you could say.”

  “So if I put red cellophane on top of my flashlight lens, I’d have coherent light?” Sam asked, trying to figure out what the Lizard meant.

  “Nep. I mean, nope.” Ristin’s mouth fell open: he was laughing at himself. “Not all photons of exact same energy, only close. Not all going in exact same direction. This is what coherent means.”

  The GI with the Lizardskelkwank device said, “Okay, howdo you get this, uh, coherent light?”

  “Take rod made of right kind of crystal,” Ristin answered. “Grind ends very, very flat, put on coating like mirror. Pump energy into the crystal. Coherent light will come out. Is one way. Are others.”

  For all the sense he made, he might as well have suddenly started speaking Tibetan. Yeager had seen that happen before when the Lizards talked about goodies they had and people didn’t. He said, “Never mind how. What can you do witha ftaskelkwank once you’ve got it?”

  “Aim it at, say, one of your landcruisers-no, tanks, you say.Skelkwank sight here sees that coherent light reflected, guides rocket or bomb straight to it. This is why we do not miss much when we use these sights.”

  The soldier stuck the sight under Ristin’s snout. “How does it see the coherent light and not any other kind?”

  “How?” Ristin turned one eye on the sight, the other on the soldier. He started to answer, spluttered, stopped, started over, stopped again. “I do not know how it does this. I only know that it does this.”

  “He’s just a dogface like me,” Yeager said, “or a dogface like I used to be-I’ve got three stripes when I’m not in civvies. You want more than that, friend, we’ve got a couple of Lizard technicians down here who’ll talk as long as you’ll listen.”

  The fellow with the sight stared at Sam. “You got this much out of an ordinary Lizard soldier? Holy Jesus, Sergeant, up north they’ve been beating around the bush with technicians who haven’t said as much in weeks as I just got in ten minutes here. You’re doing a hell of a job.”

  “Thanks very much,” Sam said. “Here, let me take you over to Major Houlihan. He’ll be able to fix you up with the Lizards who can tell you the most.” He patted Ristin on his scaly shoulder. “Thanks for helping us out.”

  “It is for me a pleasure, superior sir,” Ristin said.

  Yeager was still grinning when he got upstairs. He told the story to Barbara, who listened while he burbled on. When he was done, she said, “Why should you be so surprised when somebody tells you you’re good at what you do?”

  “Because it’s not anything like something I imagined I could be good at, and because I don’t have any education to speak of-you know that, honey-and because it’s important to the country,” he answered. “Suppose you got into riveting some kind of way, and after a little while on the job you riveted more wings onto B-17s than anybody else at the plant, even people who’ve been riveting for twenty years. Wouldn’t you be surprised about that?”

  “But Sam, nobody’s been talking with the Lizards for twenty years,” Barbara reminded him. “You have more experience at that than just about anyone else here. And you may not have thought you’d be good at it, but by now you should have seen that you are.” She gave him the kind of appraising look that always made him nervous, lest she see less than she wanted. “Isn’t that what you’d call bush-league thinking, thinking you’re not good enough for the big time?”

  He stared at her. “What are you doing using baseball talk on me?”

  “I’m married to you, remember?” she answered, sticking her tongue out at him. “Don’t you think I’d look for some way to get ideas through your thick head?”

  Sam walked over and gave her a big kiss. “I’m a heck of a lucky guy, you know that? When I got you, I wasn’t thinking bush league at all, not even a little bit.”

  “That’s good,” she said. “We keep on like this for another thirty or forty years and we’ll have something pretty fine.” He nodded. She pulled back a little as his beard rasped her cheek. That, unfortunately, reminded him how unlikely they were to live another thirty or forty years, or to be free if they did live so long.

  The pitching deck of a ship in the Baltic did not strike Vyacheslav Molotov as the ideal locale on which to hold diplomatic negotiations. Stalin, however, had not asked his opinion, merely sent him forth.

  Being aboard ship had one advantage: it meant he could avoid flying, an experience he heartily loathed. Molotov watched the fishing vessel approach. It flew a Danish flag, white cross on red. His own ship sported the red, gold, and green ensign of Lithuania, even though that unhappy land had first been incorporated into the USSR and then overrun by the Nazis. But the Lizards were more likely to shoot at vessels displaying German and Soviet flags than those of small, weak nations.

  A signal light blinked across the water from the fishing boat. “Comrade Foreign Minister, it is indeed the vessel of the German foreign minister,” the captain said. “They ask permission to come alongside.”

  “I am ready to meet with von Ribbentrop,” Molotov said-not eager, but ready. “As for matters of shiphandling, that is why you are here, is it not?”

  “Yes, Comrade Foreign Commissar.” The captain met icy sarcasm with wooden obedience. “I shall have them convey the foreign minister to this vessel.”

  “You had better,” Molotov answered. “Anyone who thinks I am going to board that-scow-is sadly mistaken.” The Soviet ship in Lithuanian colors was a rust-bucket freighter. Next to the fishing boat now sidling up to it, it seemed a decadent capitalist luxury liner by comparison. A strong odor of stale herring made Molotov wrinkle his nose-or perhaps, he thought, it was only Ribbentrop and his Nazi policies he was smelling.

  A couple of sailors let down a rope ladder to the deck of the fishing boat. The German foreign minister scrambled up to the Soviet ship like a monkey, closely followed by his interpreter, who rather resembled one. Molotov’s own interpreter appeared at his elbow. Each side guarded itself against twisted meaning from the other.

  Ribbentrop turned his complacent pop-eyed face, marbled with fat like expensive beef, toward the Lithuanian flag. Half sketching a salute to that banner of a country which no longer existed, he said, “I honor the brave Lithuanian people.”

  Molotov was more than a little surprised his opposite number remembered that flag represented Lithuania rather than Estonia or Latvia. He was also coldly furious, though he kept his face and voice expressionless as he replied, “If you honor them so much, why did Germany include Lithuania in the territory designated as a Soviet sphere of influence in the Soviet-German nonaggression pact of 1939, which you helped negotiate? You do recall that clause, I trust?”

  Ribbentrop coughed and spluttered and turned a mottled shade of red. Thanks to Hitler’s favor, he could bluster his way through the Nazi hierarchy, but that meant nothing to Molotov. “Well, let us speak of the present and not of the past,” Ribbentrop said with the air of a man making a great concession.

  “You would have been well-advised to do that from the beginning,” Molotov said.

  “Do not take that tone with me,” Ribbentrop snapped, the bluster returning to his voice. What was the old saying? — The German was either at your throat or at your feet.Much truth there-no middle ground. The foreign minister went on, “Just because you have managed to set off one explosive-metal bomb, you should not count yourselves little ti
n gods. We Germans are nearly to the point of being able to do that as well, and we are also deploying other new weapons in the fight against the Lizards.”

  “Your nerve gases, you mean,” Molotov said. Reluctantly, Ribbentrop nodded. Molotov remarked, “You Germans seem as reluctant to speak of your successes gassing Lizards as you were of your earlier successes gassing Jews.”

  The eyes of Molotov’s interpreter slid to him for a moment. Maybe he shaded the translation, for Ribbentrop’s man murmured into his principal’s ear afterwards. Ribbentrop said, “I am given to understand that the chemical weapon bureau of the Red Army has made inquiries as to the formula for these gases-both kinds.”

  Molotov changed the subject, the closest he would come to acknowledging the hit: “Let us detail the ways in which our two governments can cooperate in our common struggle against the imperialist aggressors.” Stalin was nervous about the Germans’ poison gas. Nuclear bombs, as yet, were too bulky to fit into any rocket mere humans could build. The same did not hold true for gas. Only the stretch of Lizard territory in what had been Poland kept the soil of the Soviet Union from being vulnerable to German rockets loaded with invisible death.

  Ribbentrop said, “This is why we were to meet here in this way. The rudeness that has gone on is distracting.” He seemed blithely unaware he had begun the rudeness himself. That probably was no affectation, either. The Nazis had a remarkable knack for ignoring their own flaws.

  “Let us try to be polite to each other for the rest of this meeting, then.” Molotov was not sure that was possible, but he would make the effort. “Since theFuhrer requested this meeting of General Secretary Stalin, I presume you will enlighten me as to what he intended to accomplish by it.”

  Ribbentrop gave a fishy stare, as if suspecting sarcasm. Molotov doubted he would recognize it till-or perhaps even after-it chewed out the seat of his pants. The German foreign minister said, “Indeed yes. TheFuhrer wishes to discuss with you the possibilities of coordinating our future use of explosive-metal bombs against the Lizards.”

  “Does he?” Molotov had a good reason to stall for time: having nearly exhausted its store of explosive metal with its first blast, the Soviet Union, despite frantic work, was nowhere near ready to loose another one. Hearing that the Nazis were close enough to having a weapon of their own to want to talk with the USSR about how best to use it was disquieting, to say the least.

  But Ribbentrop nodded, his pop eyes bulging like a netted bream’s. “That is his purpose, yes. Between these explosive-metal bombs and our poison gas, we are in a position to make this world a very unpleasant place for the invaders.”

  “And for ourselves,” Molotov said. “The last time I discussed with Hitler the use of explosive-metal bombs, his principal aim was to level Poland with them, and to use the poisons that spread from them to wreck the Soviet Union as well. To this we could not possibly agree. I hope also that your engineers and scientists are more careful than they were earlier at producing explosive metal without wrecking themselves in the process.”

  He wondered if Ribbentrop would resent any of that. It sounded sardonic, but every word of it was true. The German foreign minister said, “Production problems seem well on their way to solution.”

  “That is good news,” Molotov lied.

  “Is it not?” Ribbentrop agreed, not noticing the lie at all.Like a fat puppy, Molotov thought scornfully.And then he wonders why he gets kicked. Ribbentrop went on, “We were fortunate when the Lizards diverted forces from their offensive against us to assail England. That let us stop them at the Rhine. They had come uncomfortably close to our research facilities.”

  “How fortunate for you that they were halted,” Molotov agreed tonelessly, if he’d been Himmler, he would have had Ribbentrop’s interpreter reporting back to him. And, if he’d been Himmler, he’d have had some sharp things to say to Ribbentrop about talking too much. Molotov knew better than to reveal, even in the most general terms, where the Soviet nuclear weapons project was based.

  “Yes, wasn’t it?” Ribbentrop said without a shred of guile. “TheFuhrer still is of the opinion that punishing the Lizards and the Jews in Poland is the best strategic course to take. It would open up that blocked passage between Germany and the Soviet Union and permit direct communications between our two great countries once more. This could be vital in carrying on the war.”

  “The war against whom?” Molotov asked. “General Secretary Stalin views the Lizard presence in Poland, at least for the time being, as a useful buffer between us. If we do not touch, we cannot fight.”And you cannot resupply your troops inside the Soviet Union. As they exhaust their stores, they become mare and more dependent on us-and vulnerable to us.

  Ribbentrop looked so innocent, Molotov expected a halo to spring into being above his head at any moment. “TheReich has no intention of continuing its former campaign against the Soviet Union. Circumstances have changed.”

  “Circumstances changed, as you put it, in 1939, and then changed again in 1941. They could change yet again at a moment’s notice,” Molotov said. “Thus the value of the buffer.”

  “If we do not cooperate against the Lizards, we shall never have the chance to pursue our private grievances,” Ribbentrop answered.

  That was the first sensible thing he’d said since he boarded the Russian freighter. Molotov eyed him warily. “True enough, but cooperation must run both ways. If you enjoy all the advantages, you must not expect us to be your dupes.”

  “If we did not honestly cooperate with you, you would not have got the explosive metal from which to make your bomb,” Ribbentrop said. “Do remember that half the team which took the metal was made up of German soldiers, who supplied all the heavy weapons for the raid.”

  “True enough,” Molotov said, and then paused to think. Ribbentrop had now made sense twice running, which, as far as the foreign commissar knew, equaled his all-time record. Was the jumped-up champagne salesman actually developing competence in his old age? An alarming notion, if true. More cautiously than he’d spoken before, Molotov asked, “When will your country have its own explosive-metal bombs? We cannot very well coordinate our strategy if we do not know when that strategy becomes effective.”

  “Ja,”Ribbentrop said, not very happily. He paced up and down along the deck, his interpreter an obsequious half pace behind and to his left. At last he said,“Gott mit uns, we shall have our first bomb next spring, with others following quickly on its heels. What of Soviet Russia? When will you be ready to give the Lizards another dose of their own medicine?”

  “Our timetable is tightly similar to yours,” Molotov answered. For years, he had trained himself to reveal nothing with his face, with his voice, with his stance. That training served him in good stead now. The Soviet program would not produce a bomb of its own next spring, and probably not for a couple of years thereafter.

  Molotov wished he could pace. What to do, what to do? If Ribbentrop was telling the truth, the Nazis had not only recovered from the disaster their nuclear program had suffered but were also ready to produce their own explosive metal in large amounts.

  What to do? Ribbentrop had let slip that the heart of the German effort lay somewhere not far from the Rhine. Word ever so discreetly leaked to the Lizards would mean they-and the Soviet Union-might be freed of the threat of explosive-metal bombs in the hands of a madman like Hitler.

  But the Nazis were also putting up a stubborn resistance against the Lizards. If they collapsed under a cloud of nuclear fire, the imperialist aggressors from the stars would be able to turn more force on the peaceloving people of the Soviet Union. They were already giving signs of realizing the USSR was not in a position to deploy more nuclear weapons against them. Keeping Germany in the fight might keep the Soviet Union alive, too.

  It was a delicate calculation. Molotov knew the final decision would not be his. Only Stalin would make it. Stalin’s cult of personality maintained that the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet U
nion was never wrong. Molotov knew better, but this time Stalin had to be right.

  Nieh Ho-T’ing maneuvered his pedicab through the streets of Peking. He swerved to avoid a horse-drawn wagon, then again to keep from being run down by a lorry full of Lizards with guns. He wished he could fling a grenade into the back of the truck, but no, not now. If you couldn’t be patient, you didn’t deserve to win.

  Men on foot got out of the way for Nieh. When they didn’t move fast enough to suit him, he screamed at them: “Move, you stupid wooden-headed sons of a turtle mother!” The men he abused shouted insults back at him. They also grinned and waved, as did he. It was all good fun, and helped pass the time.

  Nieh did not swear at men afoot who were dressed in Western-style clothes. Instead, he called out to them in beseeching tones: “Ride, noble sir?” Sometimes he varied that by using the little scaly devils’ phrasing: “Ride, superior sir?” Other pedicab drivers also loudly solicited the little devils’ running dogs. So did rickshaw men, who toiled between the shafts of their carts like bullocks. Anyone rich enough to dress like a foreign devil was also rich enough to pay for a ride.

  Little scaly devils patrolled the streets on foot. No one asked them if they wanted a ride: people knew better. The scaly devils skittered along in squad-sized packs. They didn’t go out in Peking by ones and twos: they knew better.

  “Ride, superior sirs?” Nieh Ho-T’ing called to a couple of men in white shirts and ties who walked along with jackets slung over their shoulders. They looked tired, the poor running dogs.

  They climbed into the back of the pedicab. “Take us to theCh’i Nien Tien,” one of them said. “Go fast, too; we need to be there quickly.”

  “Yes, sir.” Nieh Ho-T’ing started to pedal. “The Hall of Annual Prayers it is. You pay me five dollars Mex, all right?”

  “Stop the cab. We will get out,” the man answered. “We do not need to ride with a thief. If you asked for two dollars Mex, that would still be too much.”