Striking the Balance

by Harry Turtledove

  Then his paradigm shifted. That wasn’t an aircraft, like the rocket-powered killercraft the Deutsche had started using. It was an out-and-out rocket, a missile. The Deutsche had those, too, but he hadn’t known the Americans did. From his briefings, he didn’t think Intelligence knew it, either.

  He flicked on his radio transmitter. “Flight Leader Teerts calling Florida base Intelligence,” he said.

  Satellite relay connected him almost as quickly as if he’d been in the next room. “Intelligence, Florida base, Aaatos speaking. Your report, Flight Leader Teerts?”

  Teerts gave the particulars of what his radar had picked up, then said, “If you like, I have fuel enough to reach the launch site, attack any launcher or Tosevite installation visible, and still return to base.”

  “You are a male of initiative,” Aaatos said. Among the Race, the phrase was not necessarily a compliment, though Teerts chose to take it as one. Aaatos resumed: “Please wait while I consult my superiors.” Teerts waited, though every moment increased the likelihood that he would have to refuel in the air. But Aaatos was not gone long. “Flight Leader Teerts, your attack against the Tosevite installation is authorized. Punish the Big Uglies for their arrogance.”

  “It shall be done,” Teerts said. The computers aboard the killercraft held the memory of where radar had first picked up the missile. They linked to the Satellite mappers the Race had orbiting Tosev 3 and guided Teerts toward the launch site.

  He knew the Race was desperately low on antimissile missiles. They’d expended a lot of them against the rockets the Deutsche hurled at Poland and France. Teerts had no idea how many—if any—were left, but he didn’t need to wear the fleetlord’s body paint to figure out that. If the Race had to start using them here in the United States, whatever remaining reserves there were would vanish all the sooner.

  He skimmed low over the woods west of the great river, and over a clearing where. If his instruments didn’t lie, the American missile had begun its flight. And, sure enough, he spotted a burned place in the dead grass of the clearing. But that was all he saw.

  Whatever launcher or guide rails the Big Uglies had used, they’d already got them under cover of the trees.

  Had he had an unlimited supply of munitions, Teerts would have shot up the area around the clearing on the off chance of hitting worthwhile. As things were . . . He radioed the situation back to the Florida air base. Aaatos said, “Return here for full debriefing, Flight Leader Teerts. We shall have other opportunities to make the Big Uglies look back in sorrow upon the course they have chosen.”

  “Returning to base,” Teerts acknowledged. If the American Tosevites were starting to use missiles, the Race would have plenty of chances to attack their launchers in the future, anyhow. Whether that was just what Aaatos had meant, Teerts didn’t know.

  Holding his white flag of truce high, George Bagnall moved out into the clearing in the pine woods south of Pskov. His valenki made little scrunching noises as he walked through the packed snow. The big, floppy boots put him in mind of Wellingtons made of felt; however ugly they were, though, they did a marvelous job of keeping his feet warm. For the rest of him, he wore his RAF fur-and-leather flying suit. Anything that kept him from freezing above Angels Twenty was just about up to the rigors of a Russian winter.

  On the far side of the clearing, a Lizard came into sight. The alien creature also carried a swatch of white cloth tied to a stick. It too wore a pair of valenki, no doubt plundered from a dead Russian soldier; in spite of them, in spite of layers of clothes topped by a Wehrmacht greatcoat that fit it like a tent, it looked miserably cold.

  “Gavoritye li-vui po russki?” it said with a hissing accent. “Oder sprechen Sie deutsch?”

  “Ich spreche deutsch besser,” Bagnall answered, and then, to see if he was lucky, added, “Do you speak English?”

  “Ich verstehe nicht,” the Lizard said, and went on in German, “My name is Nikeaa. I am authorized to speak for the Race in these matters.”

  Bagnall gave his name. “I am a flight engineer of the British Royal Air Force. I am authorized to speak for the German and Soviet soldiers defending Pskov and its neighborhood.”

  “I thought the Britainish were far from here,” Nikeaa said. “But it could be I do not know as much of Tosevite geography as I thought.”

  What Tosevite meant came through from context “Britain is not close to Pskov,” Bagnall agreed. “But most human countries have allied against your kind, and so I am here.” And I bloody well wish I weren’t. His Lancaster bomber had flown in a radar set and a radarman to explain its workings to the Russians, and then been destroyed on the ground before he could get back to England. He and his comrades had been here a year now; even if they had established a place for themselves as mediators between the Reds and the Nazis—who still hated each other as much as either group hated the Lizards—it was a place he would just as soon not have had.

  Nikeaa said, “Very well. You are authorized. You may speak. Your commanders asked this truce of us. We have agreed to it for now, to learn what the reason is for the asking. You will tell me this sofort—immediately.” He made sofort come out as a long, menacing hiss.

  “We have prisoners captured over a long time fighting here,” Bagnall answered. “Some of them are wounded. We have done what we can for them, but your doctors will know better what to do with them and how to treat them.”

  “Truth,” Nikeaa said. He moved his head up and down in a nod. For a moment, Bagnall took that for granted. Then he realized the Lizard had probably had to learn the gesture along with the German and Russian languages. His respect for Nikeaa’s accomplishments went up a peg.

  What he’d told the Lizard was indeed true. From everything he’d heard, the troops around Pskov treated Lizard prisoners far better than the Germans had treated their Russian captives, or vice versa. Being hard to come by, Lizard prisoners were valuable. The Nazis and Reds had had plenty of chances to take each other’s measure.

  “In return for giving these wounded males back to the Race, you want what?” Nikeaa asked, and made a queer coughing noise that sounded like something left over from his own language. “We also have captives, Germans and Russians. We have no Britainish here, this I tell you. We do not harm these captured ones after we have them. We give them for yours. We give ten for one. If you like.”

  “Not enough,” Bagnall said.

  “Then we give twenty for one,” Nikeaa said. Bagnall had heard from others who’d dealt with the Lizards that they were not good bargainers. Now he saw what they’d meant. Human negotiators would not have backpedaled so readily.

  “Still not enough,” he said. “Along with the soldiers, we want a hundred of your books or films, and two of your machines that play the films, along with working batteries for them.”

  Nikeaa drew back in alarm. “You want us to give you our secrets?” He made that coughing noise again. “It cannot be.”

  “No, no. You misunderstand,” Bagnall said hastily. “We know you will not give us any military manuals or things of that sort. We want your novels, your stories, whatever science you have that will not let us build weapons with what we learn from it. Give us these things and we will be content.”

  “If you cannot use them immediately, why do you want them?” Reading tone into a Lizard’s voice probably told you more about yourself than about the Lizard, but Bagnall thought Nikeaa sounded suspicious. The alien went on, “This is not how Tosevites usually behave.” Yes, he was suspicious.

  “We want to learn more about your kind,” Bagnall answered. “Eventually, this war will end, and your people and mine will live side by side.”

  “Yes. You will be our subjects,” Nikeaa said flatly.

  But Bagnall shook his head. “Not necessarily. If your conquest were as easy as you’d thought it was going to be, it would have been finished by now. You’ll need to be dealing with us more nearly as equals at least until the end of the war, and maybe afterwards as well. And we with you
—the same does apply. I gather you’ve been studying us for a long time. We’re just beginning to learn about you.” And most of what we have learned I don’t fancy.

  “I have not the authority to decide this on my own,” Nikeaa said. “It is not a demand we were prepared for, and so I must consult with my superiors before replying.”

  “If you must, then you must,” Bagnall said; he’d already noted—and he was sure he was far from the only one who had—that the Lizards were not good at deciding things on the spur of the moment.

  He’d tried to put disappointment in his own voice when he replied, though he doubted whether Nikeaa recognized it. Even inserting it wasn’t easy. If the Lizards did come up with the books and films and readers, they wouldn’t stay in Pskov. Half of them would go to Moscow, the other half to . . . no, not to Berlin, which was ruined, but to some town in Germany. The NKVD, no doubt, would pore over one set, and the Gestapo over the other. No matter how much he wanted mankind to defeat the Lizards, Bagnall had a devil of a time finding much enthusiasm for the notion of the Bolsheviks and Nazis getting a leg up on England and the United States in understanding the alien invaders. He’d seen Hitler and Stalin’s men in action, and had more often been horrflied than impressed.

  Nikeaa said, “I will report this condition of yours and will make my reply when my superiors determine what the correct response should be. Shall we meet again in fifteen days? I hope to have their decision by that time.”

  “I had not expected so long a delay,” Bagnall said.

  “Decisions should not be made hastily, especially those of such importance,” Nikeaa said. Was that reproach he was trying to convey? Bagnall had trouble being sure. The Lizard added, “We are not Tosevites, after all, to rush into everything.” Yes, reproach, or perhaps just scorn.

  “Fifteen days, then,” Bagnall said, and made for the woods where his escort—a mixed party, or rather two separate parties, one German, the other Russian—awaited his return. He glanced back over his shoulder. Nikeaa was hurrying away toward his own folk. Bagnall’s sigh sent a plume of fog out ahead of him. But for Ken Embry the pilot and Jerome Jones the radarman, his folk were far from Pskov.

  Captain Martin Borcke was holding Bagnall’s horse. The Wehrmacht man spoke fluent English; Bagnall thought he was in Intelligence, but wasn’t certain. In English, he asked, “Have we got the exchange agreement?”

  Bagnall wished Borcke hadn’t used English, as if expecting a reply in the same tongue—one the Russians did not know. Keeping the two alleged allies from each other’s throats was anything but easy. The RAF man answered in German, which many of the Red Army men could follow: “No, we have no agreement yet. The Lizards need to talk to their superiors before they decide whether they can give us the books we want.”

  The Russians accepted that as a matter of course. To their way of thinking, moving an inch past the orders you had was dangerous. If anything went wrong, the blame landed squarely on you. Borcke snorted in contempt; the Wehrmacht let people do more thinking for themselves. “Well, it can’t be helped,” he said, and then turned that into Russian: “Nichevo.”

  “Nichevo, da,” Bagnall said, and swung up onto the horse. Riding it wasn’t as pleasant as being in a heated motorcar, but it did keep his legs and thighs warm. That was something. He hadn’t been on horseback above half a dozen times before he came to Pskov. Now he sometimes felt ready to ride in the Derby. Intellectually, he knew that wasn’t so, but the strides he had made in equitation encouraged him in the fancy.

  After a cold night encampment, he got back into Pskov the next afternoon. He went over to the Krom, the medieval stone castle, to report the delay to Lieutenant General Kurt Chill and to Brigadiers Nikolai Vasiliev and Aleksandr German, the German and Russian officers commanding in the city. With them, as he’d expected, he found Ken Embry. The RAF men, being relatively disinterested, served as lubricant between Wehrmacht and Red Army personnel.

  After Bagnall made his report, he and Embry headed back to the wooden house they shared with Jerome Jones. When they drew near, they heard a dish shatter with a crash, and then angry voices, two men’s and a woman’s, shouting loudly.

  “Oh, bugger, that’s Tatiana!” Ken Embry exclaimed.

  “You’re right,” Bagnall said. They both started to run. Panting, Bagnall added, “Why the devil couldn’t she leave Jones alone after she took up with that Jerry?”

  “Because that would have been convenient,” Embry answered. Ever since he’d been pilot and Bagnall flight engineer aboard their Lancaster, they’d had a contest to see who could come up with the most casually cynical understatements. For the moment, Embry had taken the lead.

  Bagnall, though, was a better runner, and got to the door a couple of strides ahead of his comrade. He would willingly have forgone the honor. All the same, he threw the door open and rushed inside, Embry right behind him.

  Georg Schultz and Jerome Jones stood almost nose-to-nose, screaming at each other. Off to one side, Tatiana Pirogova had a plate in her hand, ready to fling. By the shards, she’d thrown the last one at Jones. That didn’t mean this one wouldn’t fly at Schultz’s head. At that, Bagnall was glad Tatiana was still flinging crockery instead of reaching for the scope-sighted Mosin-Nagant sniper’s rifle she wore slung on her back.

  She was a striking woman: blond, blue-eyed, shapely—altogether lovely. If face and body were all you cared about. She’d made advances to Bagnall, not so long ago. That she’d been Jones’ lover at the time hadn’t been the only reason he’d declined. It would have been like bedding a she-leopard—probably fun while it lasted, but you could never afford to turn your back afterward.

  “Shut up, all of you!” he shouted now, first in English, then in German, and finally in Russian. The three squabblers didn’t shut up, of course; they started yelling at him instead. He thought the fair Tatiana was going to let fly with that plate, but she didn’t, not quite. Good sign, he thought. Having them scream at him was another good sign. Since he wasn’t (thank God!) sleeping with any of them, they might be slower to get lethally angry at him.

  Behind him, Ken Embry said, “What the devil is going on here?” He used the same mixture of Russian and German he did with Lieutenant General Chill and the Russian partisan brigadiers. Their squabbles sometimes came near to blows, too.

  “This bastard’s still fucking my woman!” Georg Schultz shouted, pointing at Jerome Jones.

  “I am not your woman. I give my body to whom I please,” Tatiana answered, just as hotly.

  “I don’t want your body,” Jerome Jones yelled in pretty fluent Russian; he’d studied the language in his undergraduate days at Cambridge. He was a thin, clever-looking fellow in his early twenties, about as tall as Schultz but not nearly so solidly made. He went on, “Christ and the saints, how many times do I have to tell you that?”

  His picturesque oath meant nothing to Tatiana, or even less. She spat on the floorboards. “That for Christ and the saints! I am a Soviet woman, free of such superstitious twaddle. And if I want you again, little man, I will have you.”

  “What about me?” Schultz said, like the others conducting the argument at the top of his lungs.

  “This will be even more delightful to mediate than the generals’ brawls,” Bagnall murmured in an aside to Ken Embry.

  Embry nodded, then grinned impudently. “It’s rather more entertaining to listen to, though, isn’t it?”

  “—have been sleeping with you,” Tatiana was saying, “so you have no cause for complaint. I do this even though, last time you got on top of me, you called me Ludmila instead of my own name.”

  “I what?” Schultz said. “I never—”

  “You did,” Tatiana said with a certainty that could not be denied—and an obvious malicious pleasure in that certainty. “You can still think about that soft little Red Air Force pilot you pined for like a puppy with its tongue hanging out, but if I think of anyone else, it’s like you think your poor mistreated cock will fall off. If yo
u think I mistreat your cock when it’s in there, it can stay out.” She turned to Jones, swinging her hips a little and running her tongue over her lips to make them fuller and redder. Bagnall could see exactly what she was doing, but that didn’t mean he was immune to it.

  Neither was the British radarman. He took half a step toward Tatiana, then stopped with a very visible effort. “No, dammit!” he yelled. “This is how I got into trouble in the first place.” He paused and looked thoughtful, so well that Bagnall wondered if the expression was altogether spontaneous. And when Jones spoke again, he made a deliberate effort to turn the subject: “Haven’t seen Ludmila about for the past few days. She’s overdue from her last flight, isn’t she?”

  “Ja,” Schultz said. His head bobbed up and down. “She flew last to Riga, and should have been back soon.”

  “No, not necessarily,” Bagnall said. “General Chill got a message answering whatever query he’d sent with her, and saying also that the soldier commanding in Riga was taking advantage of her light airplane for some mission of his own.” Now he had trouble keeping his face straight. He’d been interested in Ludmila Gorbunova, too, but she hadn’t been interested back.

  “Ah, that is good; that is very good,” Schultz said. “I had not heard it.”

  Tatiana started to smash the plate over his head. He was fast; he knocked it out of her hand so that it flew across the room, hit the timbers of the wall, and broke there. Tatiana cursed him in Russian and in the bad German she’d picked up. When she’d run through all her invective once—and the choicer bits twice—she shouted, “Since no one cares about me, to the devil’s uncle with the lot of you.” She stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind her loud enough, probably, to make the neighbors think an artillery round had hit it there.

  Georg Schultz surprised Bagnall by starting to laugh. Then Schultz, a farmerly type, surprised him again by quoting Goethe: “Die ewige Weibliche—the eternal feminine.” The German shook his head. “I don’t know why I get myself into such a state over her, but I do.”