Striking the Balance

by Harry Turtledove

  He wondered if there’d be MPs inside the place. There weren’t, which probably meant it wasn’t quite official, just winked at. He didn’t care. As his foot hit the bottom of the stairway that led up to the girls, he noticed nobody was coming downstairs. They had a back exit, then. He nodded. Whether this crib was official or not, it was certainly efficient.

  At the top of the stairs sat a tough-looking woman with a cash box—and a .45, presumably to keep the wages of sin from being redistributed. “Fifty bucks,” she told Mutt. He’d heard her say that a dozen times already, all with the exact same intonation; she might have been a broken record. He dug in his hip pocket and peeled greenbacks off a roll. Like a lot of guys, he had a pretty good wad of cash. When you were up in the front lines, you couldn’t do much spending.

  A big blond GI who didn’t look a day over seventeen came out of one of the doors down the hall and headed, sure enough, toward a back stairway. “Go on,” the madam told Mutt. “That’s Number 4, ain’t it? Suzie’s in there now.”

  Anyway, I know whose sloppy seconds I’m gettin’, Mutt thought as he walked toward the door. The kid hadn’t looked like somebody with VD, but what did that prove? Not much, and who could guess who’d been in there before him, or before that guy, or before the fellow ahead of him?

  The door did have a tarnished brass 4 on it. Daniels knocked. Inside, a woman started laughing. “Come on in,” she said. “It sure as hell ain’t locked.”

  “Suzie?” Mutt said as he went into the room. The girl, dressed in a worn satin wrap, sat on the edge of the bed. She was about thirty, with short brown hair and a lot of eye makeup but no lipstick. She looked tired and bored, but not particularly mean. That relieved Mutt; some of the whores he’d met had hated men so much, he never could figure out why they’d lie down with them in the first place.

  She sized him up the same way he did her. After a couple of seconds, she nodded and tried a smile on for size. “Hello, Pops,” she said, not unkindly. “You know, maybe only one guy in four or five bothers with my name. You ready?” She pointed to a basin and a bar of soap. “Why don’t you wash yourself off first?”

  It was a polite order, but an order just the same. Mutt didn’t mind. Suzie didn’t know him from Adam, either. While he was tending to it, she shrugged the wrap off her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath it. She wasn’t a Vargas girl or anything, but she wasn’t bad. She lay back on the narrow mattress while Mutt dried himself off and got out of the rest of his clothes.

  He couldn’t tell if the moans she made while he was riding her were genuine or professional, which meant odds were good they were professional. She had hellacious hip action, but then she’d naturally try to bring him off in a hurry. He would have come pretty damn quick even if she’d just lain there like a dead fish; he’d been without for a long time.

  As soon as he was done, he rolled off her, got up, and went over to the basin to soap himself off again. He pissed in the chamber pot by the bed, too. Flush the pipes, he thought. “You don’t take chances, do you, Pops?” Suzie said. That could have come out nasty, but it didn’t; it sounded more as if she approved of him for knowing what he was doing.

  “Not a whole bunch, anyways,” he answered, reaching for his skivvies. If he hadn’t taken any chances, he wouldn’t have gone in there with her in the first place. But since he had, he didn’t want to pay any price except the one from his bankroll.

  Suzie sat up. Her breasts, tipped with large, pale nipples, bobbed as she reached for the wrap. “That Rita out there, she keeps most of what you give her, the cheap bitch,” she said, her voice calculatedly casual. “Twenty for me sure would come in handy.”

  “I’ve heard that song before,” Mutt said, and the hooker laughed, altogether unembarrassed. He gave her ten bucks even if he had heard the tune; she’d been pretty good, and friendlier than she had to be in an assembly-line operation like this. She grinned and stuck the bill under the mattress.

  Mutt had just set his hand on the doorknob when a horrible racket started outside: men shouting and cursing and bellowing, “No!” “What the hell’s goin’ on?” Mutt said. The question wasn’t rhetorical; it didn’t sound like any brawl he’d ever heard.

  Through the shouts came the sound of a woman weeping as if her heart would break. “My God,” Suzie said quietly. Mutt looked back toward her. She was crossing herself. As if to explain, she went on, “That’s Rita. I didn’t think Rita would cry if you murdered whatever family she’s got right in front of her face.”

  Fists pounded, not on the door but against the wall. Mutt went out into the hallway. GIs were sobbing unashamed, tears cutting winding clean tracks through the dirt on their faces. At the cash box, Rita had her head buried in her arms. “What the hell is going on?” Mutt repeated.

  The madam looked up at him. Her face was ravaged, ancient. “He’s dead,” she said. “Somebody just brought news he’s dead.”

  By the way she said it, she might have been talking about her own father. But if she had been, none of the dogfaces would have given a damn. All they were here for was a fast fuck, same as Mutt. “Who’s dead?” he asked.

  “The President,” Rita answered, at the same time as a corporal choked out, “FDR.” Mutt felt as if he’d been kicked in the belly. He gaped for a moment, his mouth falling open like a bluegill’s out of water. Then, to his helpless horror, he started bawling like everybody else.

  “Iosef Vissarionovich, there is no reason to think the change in political leadership in the United States will necessarily bring on a change in American policy or in the continuation of the war against the Lizards,” Vyacheslav Molotov said.

  “Necessarily.” Iosef Stalin spoke the word in a nasty, mocking singsong voice. “This is a fancy way to say you haven’t the faintest idea what will happen next as far as the United States is concerned.”

  Molotov scribbled something on the pad he held in his lap. To Stalin, it would look as if he was taking notes. Actually, he was giving himself a chance to think. The trouble was, the General Secretary was right. The man who would have succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, was dead, killed in the Lizards’ nuclear bombing of Seattle. The Foreign Commissariat was, however, quite familiar with Cordell Hull, the new President of the United States.

  The foreign commissar trotted out what they did know: “As Secretary of State, Hull consistently supported Roosevelt’s fore-doomed effort to reinvigorate the oppressive structure of American monopoly capitalism, forging trade ties with Latin America and attempting financial reform. As you well know, he also strongly supported the President in his opposition to fascism and in his conduct of the war first against the Hitlerites and then against the Lizards. As I say, I think it reasonable to assume he will continue to carry out the policies his predecessor initiated.”

  “If you want someone to carry out a policy, you hire a clerk,” Stalin said, his voice dripping scorn. “What I want to know is, what sort of policies will Hull set?”

  “Only the event will tell us,” Molotov replied, reluctant to admit ignorance to Stalin but more afraid to make a guess that would prove wrong soon enough for the General Secretary to remember it. With his usual efficiency, he hid the resentment he felt at Stalin’s reminding him he was hardly more than a glorflied clerk himself.

  Stalin paused to get his pipe going. He puffed in silence for a couple of minutes. The reek of makhorka, cheap harsh Russian tobacco, filled the little room in the basement of the Kremlin. Not even the head of the Soviet Union enjoyed anything better these days. Like everyone else, Stalin and Molotov were getting by on borscht and shchi—beet soup and cabbage soup. They filled your belly and let you preserve at least the illusion that you were being nourished. If you were lucky enough to be able to put meat in them every so often, as the leaders of the Soviet Union were, illusion became reality.

  “Do you think the death of Roosevelt will affect whether the Americans send us assistance for the explosive-metal bomb project?” Stalin as
ked.

  Molotov started scribbling again. Stalin was coming up with all sorts of dangerous questions today. They were important; Molotov couldn’t very well evade them; and he couldn’t afford to be wrong, either.

  At last he said, “Comrade General Secretary, I am given to understand that the Americans had agreed to assign one of their physicists to our project. Because of the increase in Lizard attacks on shipping, however, he is coming overland, by way of Canada, Alaska, and Siberia. I do not believe he has yet entered Soviet territory, or I should have been apprised of it.”

  Stalin’s pipe emitted more smoke signals. Molotov wished he could read them. Beria claimed he could tell what Stalin was thinking by the way the General Secretary laughed, but Beria claimed a lot of things that weren’t—necessarily—so. Telling the NKVD chief as much carried its own set of risks, though.

  Hoping to improve Stalin’s mood, Molotov added, “The takeover of the Lizard base near Tomsk will ease our task in transporting the physicist once he does arrive on our soil.”

  “If he does arrive on our soil,” Stalin said. “If he is still in North America, he is still subject to recall by the new regime.” Another puff of smoke rose from the pipe. “The tsars were fools, idiots, imbeciles to give away Alaska.”

  That might or might not have been true, but Molotov couldn’t do anything about it any which way. Stalin often gave the impression that he thought people were persecuting him. Given the history of the Soviet Union, given Stalin’s own personal history, he often had reason for that assumption, but often was not always. Reminding him of that was one of the more delicate tasks presenting itself to his aides. Molotov felt like a man defusing a bomb.

  Carefully, he said, “It is in the Americans’ short-term interest to help us defeat the Lizards, and when, Iosef Vissarionovich, did you ever know the capitalists to consider their long-term interest?”

  He’d picked the right line. Stalin smiled. He could, when he chose, look astonishingly benevolent. This was one of those times. “Spoken like a true Marxist-Leninist, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich. We shall triumph over the Lizards, and then we shall proceed to triumph over the Americans, too.”

  “The dialectic demands it,” Molotov agreed. He did not let his voice show relief, any more than he had permitted himself to reveal anger or fear.

  Stalin leaned forward, his face intent. “Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, have you been reading the interrogation reports from the Lizard mutineers who gave that base to us? Do you credit them? Can the creatures be so politically naive, or is this some sort of maskirovka to deceive us?”

  “I have indeed seen these reports, Comrade General Secretary.” Molotov felt relief again: at last, something upon which he could venture an opinion without the immediate risk of its blowing up in his face. “My belief is that their naïveté is genuine, not assumed. Our interrogators and other experts have learned that their history has been unitary for millennia. They have had no occasion to acquire the diplomatic skills even the most inept and feckless human government—say, for example, the quasi-fascist clique formerly administering Poland—learns as a matter of course.”

  “Marshal Zhukov and General Koniev also express this view,” Stalin said. “I have trouble believing it.” Stalin saw plots everywhere, whether they were there or not: 1937 had proved that. The only plot he hadn’t seen was Hitler’s in June 1941.

  Molotov knew that going against his chief’s opinion was risky. He’d done it once lately, and barely survived. Here, though, the stakes were smaller, and he could shade his words: “You may well be right, Iosef Vissarionovich. But if the Lizards were in fact more politically sophisticated than they have shown thus far, would they not have demonstrated it with a better diplomatic performance than they have given since launching their imperialist invasion of our world?”

  Stalin stroked his mustache. “This could be so,” he said musingly. “I had not thought of it in those terms. If it is so, it becomes all the more important for us to continue resistance and maintain our own governmental structure.”

  “Comrade General Secretary?” Now Molotov didn’t follow.

  Stalin’s eyes glowed. “So long as we do not lose the war, Comrade Foreign Commissar, do you not think it likely we will win the peace?”

  Molotov considered that. Not for nothing had Stalin kept his grip on power in the Soviet Union for more than two decades. Yes, he had shortcomings. Yes, he made mistakes. Yes, you were utterly mad if you pointed them out to him. But, most of the time, he had an uncArmy knack for finding the balance of power, for judging which side was stronger—or could become so.

  “May it be as you say,” Molotov answered.

  Atvar hadn’t known such excitement since the last time he’d smelled the pheromones of a female during mating season. Maybe ginger tasters knew something of his exhilaration. If they did, he came closer to forgiving them for their destructive addiction than he ever had before.

  He turned one eye turret toward Kirel and away from the reports and analyses still flowing across his computer screen. “At last!” he exclaimed. “Maybe I needed to come down to the surface of this planet to change our luck. That luck has been so cruel to us, it is time and past time for it to begin to even out. The death of the American not-emperor Roosevelt will surely propel our forces to victory in the northern region of the lesser continental mass.”

  “Exalted Fleetlord, may it be as you say,” Kirel answered.

  “May it be? May it be?” Atvar said indignantly. The air of this place called Egypt tasted strange in his mouth, but it was warm enough and dry enough to suit him—quite different from that of so much of this miserable world. “Of course it will be. It must be. The Big Uglies are so politically naive that events cannot but transpire as we wish.”

  “We have been disappointed in our hopes here so many times, Exalted Fleetlord, that I hesitate to rejoice before a desired event actually does take place,” Kirel said.

  “Sensible conservatism is good for the Race,” Atvar said, a truism if ever there was one. He needed Kirel’s conservatism; if Kirel had been a wild radical like Straha, he wouldn’t be fleetlord now. But he went on, “Consider the obvious, Shiplord: the United States is not an empire, is it?”

  “Indeed not,” Kirel said; that was indisputable.

  Atvar said, “And because it is not an empire, it by definition cannot have the stable political arrangements we enjoy, now can it?”

  “That would seem to follow from the first,” Kirel admitted, caution in his voice.

  “Just so!” Atvar said joyfully. “And this United States has fallen under the rule of the not-emperor called Roosevelt. Thanks in part to him, the American Tosevites have maintained a steadfast resistance to our forces. Truth?”

  “Truth,” Kirel said.

  “And what follows from this truth does so as inevitably as a statement in a geometric proof springs from its immediate predecessor,” Atvar said. “Roosevelt is now dead. Can his successor take his place as smoothly as one Emperor succeeds another? Can his successor’s authority be quickly and smoothly recognized as legitimate? Without a preordained imperial succession, how is this possible? My answer is that it is impossible, that the American Tosevites are likely to undergo some severe disorders before this Hull, the Big Ugly who claims authority, is able to exercise it. If he ever is. So also state our political analysts who have been studying Tosevite societies since the beginning of our campaign here.”

  “This does seem to be reasonable,” Kirel said, “but reason is not always a governing factor in Tosevite affairs. For instance, do I not remember that the American Big Uglies are among the minority who attempt to govern their affairs by counting the snouts of those for and against various matters of interest to them?”

  Atvar had to glance back through the reports to see whether the shiplord was right When he had checked, he said, “Yes, that appears to be so. What of it?”

  “Some of these not-empires use snoutcounting to confer legitimacy on leaders in the same wa
y we use the imperial succession,” Kirel answered. “This may tend to minimize the disruption that will arise in the United States as a result of the loss of Roosevelt.”

  “Ah, I see your point,” Atvar said. “Here, though, it is not valid; Roosevelt’s viceregent, a male named Wallace, also chosen through the snoutcounting farce, has predeceased him: he died in our bombing of Seattle. No not-empirewide snoutcounting has ever been perpetrated for this Hull. He must surely be reckoned an illegitimate usurper. Perhaps other would-be rulers of America will rise in various regions of the not-empire to contest his claim.”

  “If that comes to pass, it would indeed be excellent,” Kirel said. “I admit, it does fit with what we know of Tosevite history and behavior patterns. But we have been disappointed so often with regard to the Big Uglies, I find optimism hard to muster these days.”

  “I understand, and I agree,” Atvar said. “In this case, though, as you note, the Big Uglies’ irksome proclivities work with us, not against us as they do on most occasions. My opinion is that we may reasonably expect control over major areas of the not-empire of the United States to fall away from its unsnoutcounted leader, and that we may even be able to use the rebels who arise for our own purposes. Cooperating with the Big Uglies galls me, but the potential profit in this case seems worthwhile.”

  “Considering the use the Big Uglies have got out of Straha, using their leaders against them strikes me as fitting revenge,” Kirel said.

  Atvar wished Kirel hadn’t mentioned Straha; every time he thought of the shiplord who’d escaped his just punishment by fleeing to the American Tosevites, it was as if he got an itch down under his scales where he couldn’t scratch it Despite that, though, he had to admit the comparison was fair.

  “At last,” he said, “we shall find where the limits of Tosevite resilience lie. Surely no agglomeration of Big Uglies lacking the stability of the imperial form can pass from one rule to another in the midst of the stress of warfare. Why, we would be hard-pressed ourselves if, during such a crisis, the Emperor happened to die and a less experienced male took the throne.” He cast down his eyes, then asked, “Truth?”