Straha made the affirmative gesture. “I am not particularly surprised. I have been observing the Americans for a long time, and it is a truism that observer and observed affect each other. I suppose I have affected them, too, but rather less: they are many, and I only one.”
“You are not the only expatriate male of the Race there, though,” Ttomalss said. “We have examined the expatriates’ effect on pushing American technology forward. But we have not really considered their effect on the society of the not-empire as a whole. They must have some.”
“So they must.” Now Straha sounded thoughtful rather than vainglorious. “As I told you while you were interrogating me, you ask interesting questions. You could even answer that one, I think, were you interested in doing so. Most expatriates—unlike me—can freely come and go between the USA and territory the Race rules.”
But Ttomalss said, “That is not what I want, or not most of what I want. I would like to grasp the Americans’ view of the influence of the expatriates—it strikes me as being more important. And it could be that the expatriates are influencing the Americans in ways of which neither group is aware.”
“Those are all truths, every one of them,” Straha agreed. “They are all worth investigating, too, I am sure. I am not sure the Americans are doing anything similar themselves.”
That the Americans might be doing something similar hadn’t crossed Ttomalss’ mind. He said, “You have considerable respect for those Big Uglies—is that not another truth? And for Warren, their leader?”
“Yes to both,” Straha said. “Warren was a very great leader. Unlike the Deutsche, he found a way to hurt us at relatively low cost to his not-empire. Had his luck been a little better—had he not had males in his not-empire already influenced by the Race—he might have hurt us at no cost at all.”
“You sound as if you wish he had succeeded,” Ttomalss remarked.
To his horror, Straha thought that over before answering, “On the whole, no. His failure, after all, is what allowed me to return to the society of the Race, and I must admit I have longed to do so since shortly after my defection, and especially since the arrival of the colonization fleet.”
“That is the most self-centered attitude I have ever heard,” Ttomalss said. “What about the males and females aboard the ships that were destroyed?”
“They were in cold sleep, and so had no idea whatever that they had died,” Straha said. “All things considered, it is an end to be envied—a better one than you or I can expect.”
“Sophistry. Nothing but sophistry.” Ttomalss was furious, and didn’t try to hide it. “What about the Big Uglies in and around Indianapolis, many of whom are still in torment as a result of the strike?”
“They are only Big Uglies,” Straha said with chilling indifference. But then he checked himself. “No, Senior Researcher, you have a point there, and I have to admit it. Do you know what the Tosevites are apt to say about the males and females who died in the attack on the colonization fleet? ‘They are only Lizards.’ ” The last word was in English. Straha explained it: “That is the slang term the Tosevites use for us, just as we call them Big Uglies when they are not around to hear.”
“Sometimes looking at them is like looking into a mirror—we see ourselves, only backwards,” Ttomalss said, and Straha made the affirmative gesture. Ttomalss went on, “Other times, though, we see ourselves in a distorting mirror—the case of their sexuality comes to mind.”
Straha laughed. “That may be true of how things were back on Home. With ginger, it is not true of how things are here, as you know very well.”
“Prohibitions against the herb—” Ttomalss began.
“Are useless,” Straha interrupted. “In his infinite generosity, the exalted fleetlord hinted he might let me continue to use the herb in gratitude for the service I had rendered the Race, but he would not if I were not a properly obedient male. The threat alarmed me at first, but I needed about a day and a half to find my own supplier, and I am far from the only one in this complex who tastes. Have you never caught the scent of a female’s pheromones?”
“I have,” Ttomalss admitted. “I wish I could say I had not, but I have.”
“Whenever a female tastes where males can smell her, odds are she will mate,” Straha said. “Whenever a female mates out of season, whenever females incite males to mating, our sexuality becomes more like the Big Uglies’. Is that a truth, or am I lying and deceiving you?”
“That is a truth,” Ttomalss said. “Without a doubt, it is also the worst social problem the Race is facing on Tosev 3.”
“It is only a problem if we insist on calling it one,” Straha said. “If we do not, it becomes interesting, even enjoyable.”
“That is disgusting,” Ttomalss said with considerable dignity. Straha laughed at him. He didn’t care. He got to his feet and walked out of the conference chamber. As he opened the door, he turned an eye turret back toward the ex-shiplord and added, “When we talk again, I hope we can do so without such revolting comments.” Straha didn’t say a word, but he kept on laughing.
Ttomalss fumed as he went down the corridor and toward his own chamber—a safe haven from Straha’s depravity. He had to bank the fire of his anger to find his way through the winding maze of corridors that made up Shepheard’s Hotel. It had been a confusing place when the Big Uglies ran it, and the Race’s additions, thanks to security concerns, often made things worse rather than better.
When a certain odor reached Ttomalss’ scent receptors, he let out a soft hiss and started walking faster . . . and a little more nearly erect. He hardly noticed he was doing it till he’d reached his own corridor. By then, the scales of the crest atop his head were standing erect, too—the sure sign of a male ready to mate, and also ready to fight about mating if he had to. He wouldn’t have called Straha’s words disgusting then. Part of his mind realized that, but only a small part.
The door across the hallway from his own stood open. The delicious pheromones wafted out from in there. Ttomalss hurried inside. He almost bumped into another male who was leaving. “Go on,” the other fellow said happily. “You get no quarrel from me. I have already mated.”
Felless stood in the middle of the floor. She’d started to straighten up from the mating posture, but the sight of Ttomalss’ erect stance and crest—his mating display—sent her back down into it. Even as her tailstump twitched out of the way so his cloaca could join hers, she mumbled, “I did not intend for this to happen.”
“What you intended does not matter,” Ttomalss answered. The hiss he let out as pleasure shot through him was anything but soft. He could have mated with her again, but the drive to do so felt less urgent now. Instead, he turned away and went to his own room. Even as he left Felless’ chamber, another excited male was hurrying toward it.
In his room, the door closed behind him, he could scarcely smell the pheromones. Rational thought returned. He’d never tasted ginger, not even once. But the herb reached out and touched his life all the same. Maybe Straha hadn’t been so far wrong, no matter how crudely he put things.
Ttomalss sighed. He’d wanted to talk with the ex-shiplord about the dead leader of the United States. Somehow, the conversation had got round to sexuality. By way of ginger, he remembered. Straha seemed not at all unhappy about being addicted to it. Ttomalss would have been ashamed. Maybe Straha had been ashamed, once upon a time. But Tosev 3 eroded shame as it eroded everything else that made the Race what it was. Ttomalss reminded himself not to tell Kassquit he’d mated with Felless again.
Mordechai Anielewicz studied the farm from a low rise. He might have been an officer working out the best plan of attack. In fact, that was exactly what he was. He turned to the squad of Lizards behind him and spoke in their language: “I thank you for your help in this matter.”
Their leader, an underofficer named Oteisho, shrugged an amazingly humanlike shrug. “We are ordered to assist you. You have assisted the Race. We pay our debts.”
; So you do, Mordechai thought. You’re better about it than most people. Aloud, he said, “We had best advance in open order. I do not think this Gustav Kluge will open fire on us, but I might be wrong.”
“He will be one very sorry Deutsch male if he tries,” Oteisho remarked: half professional appraisal, half anticipation. The males of the Race who’d fought the Germans in Poland had no love for them. Oteisho turned and gave orders to the infantrymales in his squad. They spread out, weapons at the ready. Oteisho gestured to Anielewicz. “Lead us.”
“I shall.” He couldn’t say, It shall be done, not when he was in charge. He hoped he wasn’t leading them on a wild-goose chase. Briefly, he wondered what Lizards chased on Home instead of wild geese. But then he swung his rifle down off his shoulder and started toward Kluge’s farm.
People were working in the fields. That was to be expected, with harvest time on the way. What wasn’t to be expected was that other people—men, all of them—were standing guard in the fields to make sure none of the workers escaped. The guards were armed and looked alert. How many farms in Germany had used slave labor before this latest round of fighting? How many had kept right on doing it even after the Reich got smashed into the dust? Quite a few, evidently. From the farmers’ point of view, why not? Germany remained independent of the Lizards; who was going to tell them they couldn’t do that any more?
“I am, by God,” Mordechai muttered. Oteisho turned one eye turret his way. When he said nothing more, the Lizard underofficer relaxed and kept his attention on his males. They were veterans; Anielewicz could see as much by the way they handled themselves. Even so, he wondered if he’d brought as much firepower with him as Gustav Kluge had on the farm. Kluge’s men were liable to be veterans, too: demobilized soldiers looking for work that would keep them fed.
One of the guards, in a civilian shirt and, sure enough, field-gray Wehrmacht trousers, strolled toward Anielewicz and the Lizards. He had a cigarette in a corner of his mouth and an assault rifle slung on his back. Keeping his hands well away from the weapon, he asked the inevitable question: “Was ist los?”
“We’re looking for some people,” Anielewicz answered. He was careful to speak German, not Yiddish. Kluge’s men wouldn’t love him anyhow; they’d love him even less if—no, when—they found out he was a Jew.
“Lots of people are, these days.” The guard leaned forward a little bit, the picture of insolence. “Why should we let ’em go, even if you find ’em? If they’ve got labor contracts, buddy, they’re here for the duration, and if you don’t like that, you can take it to court.”
“They’re my wife and children,” Anielewicz said tightly. “Bertha, Miriam, David, and Heinrich are the names.” He didn’t give his surname; it would have told too much.
“And who the devil are you?” the guard asked. The question didn’t come out so nastily as it might have. The next sentence explained why: “You must be somebody, if you’ve brought tame Lizards along.”
One of the infantrymales turned out to speak some German. “We are not tame,” he said. “Move wrong. You will see how not tame we are.” He sounded as if he hoped the guard would make a false move.
Up from the farmhouse came a burly, gray-haired man who walked with a cane and a peculiar, rolling gait that meant he’d lost a leg above the knee. The guard turned back to him with something like relief. “Here’s Herr Kluge, the boss. You can tell him your story.” He stepped aside and let the farmer do his own talking.
Kluge had some of the coldest gray eyes Anielewicz had ever seen. “Who are you, and what are you doing coming onto my land with Lizard soldiers at your back?”
“I’m looking for my wife and children,” Mordechai replied, and gave their names as he had to the guard.
“I don’t have any workers by those names.” Kluge spoke with complete confidence—but then, as a slavemaster, he would.
“I’m going to look,” Anielewicz said. “If I find them after you tell me they’re not here, I’m going to kill you. No one will say a word about it. You can take that to the bank—or to the Pearly Gates. Do you understand me? Do you believe me?”
A German is either at your throat or at your feet. So the saying went. Mordechai watched the farmer crumble before his eyes. Kluge had been on top for a generation—probably ever since he recovered from the wound that had cost him his leg. He wasn’t on top any more, and he didn’t need long to figure it out. In a voice gone suddenly hoarse, he said, “Who are you, anyhow?”
Now was the time to drop the mask. Mordechai smiled a smile that was all pointed teeth. “Who am I?” he echoed, letting himself slide out of German and into Yiddish. “I’m Mordechai Anielewicz of Lodz, that’s who I am. And if you think I wouldn’t shoot you as soon as look at you, you’re out of your goddamn mind.”
“A kike!” the guard exclaimed, which almost got him killed on the spot.
Instead, Anielewicz just smiled again. “Yes, I’m a kike. And how much do you think I owe the Third Reich after all this time? I can take back a little piece of it right now. Talk, Kluge, if you ever want to see your Frau again.”
If his wife and children weren’t here, that thunderous bluster would do Mordechai no good. Even if Kluge had nerve, it might not do him any good. But the farmer pointed past the big house where his wife and children no doubt lived in comfort despite the disaster that had overwhelmed their nation. “There, in that field of rye. Putting families together helps me get the most out of them, I’ve found.”
“Have you?” Mordechai said tonelessly. “What a swell fellow you are. Lead me to them. If you’re lying, somebody else will have to swing the whip for you from here on out. Now get moving, and tell your pals with the rifles not to get cute, or they’ll have themselves one overventilated boss.”
Kluge turned and started shouting at the top of his lungs. After that, Anielewicz’s one big worry was that a guard would try to take out a few Lizards and wouldn’t give a damn about what happened to the fellow who paid his salary. But it didn’t happen. At Kluge’s slow, ponderous pace, they headed down a path toward that field of rye.
Mordechai’s heart thudded faster and faster. Before they’d gone very far, he started shouting his wife’s name and those of his children. He didn’t have lungs to match those of the German farmer. But he didn’t have to shout more than a couple of times before heads came up in the field. And then four figures, three pretty much of a size and one smaller, were running through the field toward him.
“The grain . . .” Kluge said in pained tones. He could have died right there; Anielewicz started to swing the muzzle of his rifle toward him. But the Jewish fighting leader checked the motion, and the German went on, “You will see they have not been mistreated.”
“I’d better,” Mordechai growled. Then he started running, too.
His first thought was that his wife and sons and daughter were painfully thin. His next was that they were wearing rags. After that, he stopped thinking for a while. He hugged them and kissed them and said as many foolish things as needed saying and listened with delight while they said foolish things, too. The watching Lizards undoubtedly didn’t understand at all.
And then, as bits of rationality returned, he asked, “Are you all right?”
“It could have been worse,” his wife answered. Bertha Anielewicz nodded to David and Heinrich. “He knew we were Jews, of course. But he still fed us—he needed work from us.”
“He bought us,” David said indignantly. “He bought us for a big pile of bread from the soldiers who had us. He looked at Mother’s teeth first. I swear he did. She might have been a horse, for all he cared.”
Gustav Kluge came up to them. “It is as I told you,” he said to Anielewicz, as near a direct challenge as made no difference. “They are here. They are well. They have not been mistreated. I have treated them the same as all the others who work for me.”
Even though they’re Jews. It hung in the air, though he hadn’t said it. Mordechai couldn’t resist a dig of his own
: “I’m not sure those last two things are the same—I’m not sure at all.” But the German farmer—plantation owner, Anielewicz thought, remembering Gone with the Wind—hadn’t lied too extravagantly.
“Take them. If they are your kin, take them.” Kluge made pushing motions with the hand not gripping his cane, as if to say he wanted Mordechai’s family off his farm as fast as they could go.
Oteisho and the other Lizards came up, too. They still kept their weapons aimed at Gustav Kluge. The underofficer asked Anielewicz, “Is it well? Have you found your mate and hatchlings?”
“It is very well. I thank you.” Mordechai folded himself into the posture of respect. “Yes, this is my mate. These are my hatchlings.”
Heinrich Anielewicz had been studying the Lizards’ language in school in Lodz, back when there was a school, back when there was a Lodz. He too bent into the posture of respect. “And I thank you, superior sir,” he said.
That seemed to amuse and please the infantrymales. The mouths of three or four of them dropped open in laughter. Gravely, Oteisho answered, “Tosevite hatchling, you are welcome.”
Heinrich returned to Polish, asking, “Father, do you know anything about Pancer? Is he all right?” To the Lizards, he explained, “I have a beffel. I named him for a landcruiser in my language.” That set the troopers laughing again.
Miriam said, “Don’t bother your father about that silly animal now.”
But Mordechai said, “It’s no bother. Pancer’s back at my tent, as a matter of fact. An officer of the Race had him. I heard him beeping and started asking questions about where the male had got him, and that helped lead me here.”
Heinrich let out a whoop of triumph that proved nothing was seriously wrong with him. “You see? Pancer helped save us again, even when he got lost.”
David said, “Where will we live? What will we do? Lodz is gone.”
“I don’t know,” Mordechai answered. “I’ve been in the field since before the fighting started, and I’ve been looking for you since it ended.” He shook his head. He felt dizzy, drunk, though he’d had nothing stronger than water. “And do you know what else? I don’t much care. We’re together again. That’s all that really matters.”
Aftershocks Page 38
