Aftershocks (40 page)

“Yeah,” Johnson said again. “It’s not like we lost an important town.” The two men eyed each other in perfect understanding. They were both from Ohio, where Indianapolis was often known as Indian-no-place.

Stone said, “The one thing I do give Warren high marks for is keeping us in space. You know the concept of a fleet in being?”

“Sure.” Johnson nodded. “We’ve got enough stuff that they have to pay attention to us whether we do anything or not.”

“That’s it,” Stone agreed. “If we’d had to give up everything, what would we be? An oversized New Zealand, that’s what.”

“But now we get to go on,” Johnson said. “It cost us. It cost us like hell. But we’re still in business. And one of these days . . .” He looked out through the glare-resistant glass at the seemingly countless stars.

“One of these days.” Like him, Walter Stone spoke the words as if they were a complete sentence.

“I wonder what kind of funeral they’ve got planned for Warren,” Johnson said. “A big fancy one, or just toss him in a trash can with his feet sticking out?”

“Me, I’d take the second one, and some hobo could steal his shoes,” Stone said. “But he was the president, so odds are they’ll do it up brown.” He paused. “Dammit.”

The last place on Earth Vyacheslav Molotov wanted to be was in Little Rock, Arkansas, for a state funeral. He hated flying, but Earl Warren wasn’t going to keep till he could cross the Atlantic by ship. He’d had a measure of revenge by ordering Andrei Gromyko to come with him.

To his annoyance, the foreign commissar was reacting philosophically rather than with annoyance of his own. “Things could be worse,” he said as he and Molotov met in the Soviet embassy before heading for the gathering procession.

“How?” Molotov was irritable enough to let his irritation show. He hadn’t slept at all on the airplane that brought him to America, and even a long night in bed at the embassy left his body uncertain of what time it was supposed to be.

“If this had happened a couple of months ago, it would be forty degrees centigrade outside, with humidity fit to swim in,” the foreign commissar answered. “Washington was bad in the summertime. Little Rock is worse.”

“Bozhemoi!”
Molotov said. Good Communists weren’t supposed to mention God, but old habits were hand to break. The general secretary went on, “I am given to understand Dornberger came in person to represent the
Reich,
and Eden from England. Is Tojo here also?”

“Yes,” Gromyko answered. “If the Lizards wanted to hurt all the leading human states, they could throw a missile at Little Rock.”

“Heh,” Molotov said. “Losing Eden would probably help England. And Doriot, I notice, is conspicuous by his absence. He collaborated with the Germans so long and so well, he had no trouble collaborating with the Lizards when they became the leading foreigners in France.”

Gromyko clucked. “Such cynicism, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich. Officially, the government of the Race has sent its condolences to the government of the United States, so everything is correct on that score.”

“Correct!” Molotov turned and twisted, trying to help his back recover from sitting in the airliner seat for what felt like a month. He wasn’t a young man any more. He seldom felt his three-quarters of a century back in Moscow; thanks to iron routine, one day usually went by much like another. But when he was jerked out of his routine, he took much longer recovering than he would have twenty years before. He had to pause and remember what he’d just said before continuing, “Relations are at their most correct just before the shooting starts.”

“Warren seems to have avoided that,” Gromyko said. In a lower voice, he added, “For which we may all be thankful.”

“Yes.” Molotov nodded emphatically. “That would have been a pretty choice, wouldn’t it? We could have joined the United States in a losing war against the Race, or we could have waited for the Race to finish devouring the USA, and then faced a losing war against the Lizards.”

“By putting things off, and by keeping the USA in the game, humanity has gained a chance.” By Gromyko’s tone, he didn’t think it a very good chance.

Molotov’s private opinion was much the same, but he wouldn’t have told himself his private opinion if he could have avoided it. He kept up a bold front to Gromyko: “Moscow seemed on the point of falling first to the Germans and then to the Lizards. But the hammer and sickle still fly above it.”

Since that was nothing but the truth, the foreign commissar couldn’t very well disagree with it. Before he had the chance, the protocol officer came in and said, “Comrades, the limousine is waiting to take you to the Gray House.”

“Thank you, Mikhail Sergeyevich.” Molotov had made a point of learning the young man’s name and patronymic; by all reports, he was able, even if inclined to put form ahead of substance. Well, if ever there was a protocol officer’s failing, that was it.

The limousine was a Cadillac. Seeing as much, Molotov raised an eyebrow. Gromyko said, “Impossibly expensive to import our own motorcars to all our embassies. In the
Reich,
we use—used—a Mercedes. I don’t know what we’re doing there now.”

“Did we?” Molotov hadn’t concerned himself with the point before. He shrugged as he got inside. If he was going to worry about it, he’d worry after he got back to Moscow. For the time being, he would simply relax. The automobile
was
comfortable. But he wouldn’t let it lull him into a false sense of security. To Gromyko, he said, “No substantive conversations here. Who can tell who might be listening?”

“Well, of course, Comrade General Secretary.” The foreign commissar sounded offended. “I am not a blushing virgin, you know.”

“All right, Andrei Andreyevich.” Molotov spoke soothingly. “Better to speak and not need than to need and not speak.”

Before Gromyko could reply, the limousine started to roll. The Soviet embassy was only a few blocks from the Gray House. One thing that struck Molotov was how small a city Little Rock really was, and how new all the important buildings were. Before the Lizard invasion, before it succeeded Washington as a national capital, it had been nothing to speak of, a sleepy provincial town like Kaluga or Kuibishev.

Well, had the Nazis or the Lizards broken through, Kuibishev would have had greatness thrust on it, too. “This place seems pleasant enough,” Molotov said: about as much praise as he would give any town.

“Oh, indeed—pleasant enough, barring summer,” Gromyko said. “And with air conditioning, even that is a smaller problem than it would have been twenty years ago.” Almost silently, the car pulled to a stop. The foreign commissar pointed. “There is Stassen—President Stassen, now—speaking with General Dornberger.”

“Thank you for pointing him out,” Molotov answered. “If you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have recognized him.” Like Dornberger, Stassen was bald. But the American was a younger man—probably still on the sunny side of sixty—and looked to have been formed in a softer school. He might not have had any trouble in his life from the end of the first round of fighting to Earl Warren’s suicide. Well, he would have troubles now.

The driver opened the door to let out the Russian leaders. “Shall I introduce you?” Gromyko asked. “I speak enough English for that.”

His English was actually quite good, though he preferred not to show it off. Molotov nodded. “If you would. I have never met Dornberger, either. Does he speak English?”

“I don’t know,” Gromyko said. “I’ve never had to deal with him. But we can find out.”

He and Molotov approached the American and German leaders. Stassen turned away from Dornberger and toward them. He spoke in English. “Purely conventional,” Gromyko said. “He thanks you for your presence and says it is a pleasure to meet you.”

“Tell him the same,” Molotov answered. “Express my condolences and the condolences of the Soviet people.” As Gromyko spoke in English, Molotov extended his hand. The new president of the United States shook it. His grip, firm but brief, said nothing about him save that he’d shaken a lot of hands before.

Stassen spoke in English. Gromyko translated again: “He hopes we can live in peace among ourselves and with the Race. He says staying strong will help in this.”

“Good. He is not altogether a fool, then,” Molotov said. “Translate that last into something friendly and agreeable.”

As the foreign commissar did so, the new German
Führer
came up and waited to be noticed. He was a poor man waiting for rich men to deign to see him: not a familiar position for a German leader these past ninety-five years. When Dornberger spoke, it was in English. “He says he is pleased to meet you,” Gromyko reported.

“Tell him the same.” Molotov shook hands with the Germans, too. “Tell him I am happier to meet him now that the
Reich
no longer has missiles aimed at the USSR.”

Through Gromyko, Dornberger replied, “We had those, yes, but we had more aimed at the Race.”

“Much good they did you,” Molotov said. After the
Reich’s
misfortunes, he didn’t have to worry so much about diplomacy.

Dornberger shrugged. “I did not make the war. All I did was fight it as well as I could once the people set above me made it. When no people set above me were left alive, I ended it as fast as I could.”

“That was wise. Not starting it would have been wiser.” Molotov wished more Russian generals showed the disinclination of their German counterparts to meddle in politics. Zhukov came close. But even Zhukov, though he didn’t want the title, wanted at least some of the power that went with it.

“Now I have to pick up the pieces and gather my nation’s strength as best I can,” Dornberger said. “Maybe the Soviet Union can help there, as it did after the First World War.”

“Maybe,” Molotov said. “I can offer no promises, even if the idea is worth exploring. The Race has espionage far better than the Entente powers did after that war.” He turned away from the German
Führer,
who no longer led a great power, and back to the American president, who still did. “President Stassen, I want to be sure you understand how brave President Warren was not to leave you at the mercy of the Lizards for the sake of a temporary political advantage.”

“I do,” Stassen replied. “I also understand that he has left me at the mercy of the Democrats because he gave the Lizards Indianapolis. I do not expect to be reelected in 1968.” He smiled. “Just for the moment, and just a little, I envy your system.”

Had he thought of it, Molotov would have envied the American tradition of peaceful succession when Beria mounted his coup against him. He would not have admitted that no matter what. Before he could say anything at all, an American started calling to the assembled dignitaries. “Their protocol officer,” Gromyko said. “He is telling us how to line up.”

The ceremony was not so grand as it would have been in the Soviet Union—as it had been when Stalin died—but it had a spare impressiveness of its own. Six white horses drew the wagon on which lay the flag-draped casket that held Earl Warren’s remains. Behind it, a nice touch, a soldier led a riderless black horse with empty boots reversed in the stirrups.

President Warren’s widow, his children, and their spouses and children walked behind the horse. Then came the new U.S. president and his family, and then the assembled foreign dignitaries, with Molotov in the first rank. Behind them marched military bands and units from the American armed forces, some on foot, some mounted.

At a slow march, the procession went east on Capitol Street—Embassy Row—for more than a mile, then turned south toward a barge church. Molotov cared little for any of that, except when his feet began to hurt. He took sardonic pleasure in the certainty that Walter Dornberger, who wore Nazi jackboots, was suffering worse than he.

What really interested him were the people who crowded the sidewalks to watch the coffin as it rolled by. Some were silent and respectful. Others called out, as they would not have done in the USSR. Gromyko murmured in Molotov’s ear: “Some of them say he should have hit the Lizards harder. Others curse him for striking them at all.”

“Someone will take the names of those people.” Molotov spoke with great certainty. The United States might boast of the freedom of speech it granted its citizens. When they criticized the government, though, he was convinced they would be fair game.

He endured a religious service in a language he did not understand. Gromyko didn’t bother translating. Molotov knew what the preacher would be saying: Warren had been important and was dead. One day, Party functionaries would say the same of Molotov. Not soon, he hoped.

 
11

Felless was about to taste ginger when the telephone hissed. She hissed, too, in frustration and annoyance. After scraping the herb off her palm and back into the vial, she touched the
accept
control and said, “I greet you.”

Ambassador Veffani’s image appeared in the screen. “And I greet you, Senior Researcher,” he replied. “I hope you are well?”

“Yes, superior sir; I thank you.” Felless was glad she hadn’t tasted before answering. Who could guess in what kind of trouble she might have found herself? Actually, the kind was easy enough to guess; the degree was a different question altogether. “And you?”

“I am well,” Veffani said. “I am calling to inform you that you are being placed on detached duty and transferred from Marseille to Cairo.”

“I . . . am being transferred to Cairo?” Felless had trouble believing her hearing diaphragms. “After the unfortunate incident with the males from the staff of the fleetlord of the conquest fleet?”

“After they all mated with you, yes, as did I.” Veffani was at pains to spell out the details Felless would sooner have avoided. “I trust you will not go there full of ginger. It would be unfortunate if you did.” He used an emphatic cough.

“That will not be a difficulty, superior sir,” Felless said, though it would have been had Veffani called a little later. “I would like to know the reason why I am being summoned to Cairo, especially in light of the impression the unfortunate incident must have created.” She wouldn’t call it anything else.

“The reason is simple,” Veffani answered. “Fleetlord Atvar is forming a commission to examine the reason the American Big Uglies sacrificed one of their cities to us.”

“I should think it would be obvious,” Felless said: “to keep us from devastating their land with warfare, as we devastated the
Reich.”

Veffani made an impatient noise. “Why did they choose to sacrifice a city rather than weaken such space installations as they possess? Superficially, that was the easier choice, and the Tosevites are nothing if not superficial. It was the choice we expected them to make. We offered the other primarily at Fleetlord Reffet’s urging. Now that they have accepted it, they remain a major power—and a major danger to us.”

“I see.” Felless made the affirmative gesture to show she did. “Yes, that is a worthwhile subject for consideration. Who will my colleagues be?”

“I know of Senior Researcher Ttomalss and Security Chief Diffal, both from the conquest fleet,” Veffani answered. “Your inclusion with them and with whoever else will be present is a distinct compliment, as you are so recently come to Tosev 3.”

“Very well,” Felless said; for once, she could not argue with the ambassador. “When is the next flight from Marseille to Cairo?”

“Check your computer,” he told her. “Bill the administrative system, when you give your own identification number as well, it will accept the charges.”

“It shall be done, “she said. “I thank you for not holding the past against me.”

“I had nothing to do with it, “Veffani replied. “Atvar asked for you by name, and I was in no position to refuse the fleetlord. Neither are you.” His image vanished.

Felless discovered a flight was leaving that afternoon. She checked; it had seats available. As Veffani had said, she could charge her reservation to the administrative system. She was on the aircraft. No one shot at it when it landed. On any other world of the Empire, that would have been a given. On Tosev 3, Felless was willing to accept it as something of a triumph.

No one shot at her armored vehicle as it traveled to Shepheard’s Hotel, either. “The Big Uglies seem to be more accepting of our rule,” she remarked to the female sitting beside her as the second armored gate closed behind the vehicle.

“So they do,” the female replied, “at least until something else gets them bouncing like drops of oil in a hot pan.” Felless didn’t answer. By everything she could see, cynicism that had been unique to the males of the conquest fleet was now infecting the colonists, too. Maybe that would make it easier for the males of the conquest fleet to fit in. Maybe it just meant the colonists would have a harder time in their efforts to form a stable society on this world.

Ttomalss was waiting for Felless when she came into the lobby of the Race’s administrative center. “I greet you, superior female,” he said. “You could get a room number and a map from the computer terminal there, but this place is like a maze. Your room is across the corridor from mine. If you like, I will escort you there.”

“I thank you, Senior Researcher. That would be kind of you,” Felless answered. As they walked through the hallways—hallways that struck her as too wide and too tall—she asked, “Who besides Diffal will be on the commission with us?”

“The only other member who has yet been chosen is Superior Nuisance Straha,” Ttomalss said. Before Felless could remark on that, he continued, “That is his own suggested title for himself these days. From my experience in working with him, I must say it is a good one.”

“Working with a defector?” Felless started to get angry. Then she checked herself. “It may not be such a bad move after all. He has lived longer and more intimately with the Big Uglies than we have.”

“Your reaction mirrors mine, “Ttomalss said. “I have been interrogating him, as you may know. When I heard he would be a part of this commission, I was at first horrified, but then realized, as you did, that his insights would prove valuable. And so they have. He has an empirical knowledge of Tosevites few of us could match.”

“Good enough,” Felless said. “The next obvious question is, can we trust his insights? Or is he still in some degree loyal to the Big Uglies who sheltered him for so long?”

Ttomalss made the negative gesture. “He has been interrogated under truth-revealing drugs. His comments about the authorities in the United States, though less coherent than when he is undrugged, are of the same sardonic tenor. The only loyalty to a Tosevite that he does exhibit is a personal one to Sam Yeager, whom he truly reckons a friend.”

“All right. We may discount that, then,” Felless agreed. “A pity we do not have such drugs to use on the Big Uglies.”

“We tried some during the first round of fighting,” Ttomalss said. “They worked imperfectly when they worked at all. And, because males relied too much on the false results they got with them, they turned out to be worse than interrogation with no drugs at all.”

“That is unfortunate,” Felless said.

“It often turned out to be very unfortunate for the males involved,” Ttomalss said. “Most of them can explain their misfortune only to spirits of Emperors past, however.” He stopped. “Here is your room. Mine, as I told you, is across the hall. By all means let me know if you need anything. I suspect we will be meeting too often to let you taste ginger without complicating your life and everyone else’s. I do not mean that as criticism, merely as a statement of fact.”

“And as a warning,” Felless said. Ttomalss made the affirmative gesture. Felless sighed. “I thank you. The habit is hard to break.” It was especially hard to break when she didn’t want to break it. She asked, “When will the first meeting be?”

“After breakfast tomorrow morning,” Ttomalss answered. “That will give you a chance to relax and recover from your flight.”

“Good enough,” Felless said again. “I thank you for your help.” She went into the room and closed the door behind her. Her eye turrets swiveled. Like the hall, the room had been built for Tosevites, and so struck her as outsized. Some of the plumbing fixtures were also left over from the days when Big Uglies had come here. But the rest had been modernized, and the appointments suited her well enough.

When she made her way to the refectory, she found the food quite good. Then she noticed the fleetlord of the conquest fleet at a table in one corner of the room, in animated discussion with a shiplord whose body paint was almost as complex as his. If the fleetlord ate here, the food
would
be good, or someone would hear about it in short order.

Breakfast the next morning was good, too. She used a map of the complex to find the meeting room. Diffal and Ttomalss were already there. A male with the body paint of a shuttlecraft pilot came in right behind her. Ttomalss said, “Senior Researcher, I present to you the returned defector and former shiplord, Straha.”

“I greet you,” Felless said.

“And I greet you, Senior Researcher,” Straha said easily. “The paint is the pattern I used to escape the United States. I have been ordered not to wear that of my former rank. It would upset too many males and females, Atvar chief among them. Call me whatever you please. A lot of males have called me a lot of things over the years.” He seemed perversely proud of that.

“Let us get down to business,” Ttomalss said. “We have been assembled here to analyze why an apparently successful leader like Earl Warren, after being discovered in his treachery, would sacrifice a city rather than the weaponry we expected him to give up.”

“His actions do not show any failure of intelligence on our part,” Diffal said. The male from Security went on, “He made the decision on his own, consulting no one. He offered us no trail of signals to intercept.”

“No one here is criticizing you,” Felless said.

“My opinion is simple,” Straha said. “He never expected to be caught for the attack on the colonization fleet. When he was, he chose the option that hurt the United States least. End of story.”

“It cannot be so simple,” Diffal said.

“Why not?” Straha asked. “That is not something Drefsab, your predecessor, would have said.”

“Drefsab had a gift for thinking like a Big Ugly. I lack it. I admit as much,” Diffal said. “But what did his gift get him? It got him killed in a worthless skirmish, and nothing more. I am still here to do the best I can.”

“You are a Security male, so you see complications everywhere,” Straha jeered.

“Complications
are
everywhere,” Diffal said.

“You said as much to me, Superior Nuisance.” Ttomalss seemed to enjoy using the title Straha had given himself.

“I said ambiguities are everywhere,” Straha said. “There is a difference.”

“Perhaps,” Ttomalss said.

Felless would not have yielded the point so readily. She said, “Let us return to the issue we are supposed to grasp with our fingerclaws. Was Warren a male with a complex personality, or was he one who could be relied upon to do the obvious thing?”

“Having met him several times, I can state without fear of contradiction that he was one of the most obvious males ever hatched,” Straha said.

But Diffal made the negative gesture. “He wished to be seen as obvious: that is a truth. But no male who truly was obvious could have ordered the attack on the colonization fleet and successfully concealed it for so long. No male who was obvious could have refused our demand to weaken his not-empire and sacrificed a city instead. We seek the subtleties under his scales.”

“Any male who is able to keep a secret, to keep his mouth shut, always seems a prodigy to someone from Security,” Straha said.

“Any male who is able to keep a secret should certainly seem a prodigy to you,” Diffal retorted. “You have value only when your mouth is open.”

Straha hissed in fury. “Enough, both of you!” Felless shouted. “Too much, in fact. The only thing this commission is showing is our own foibles, not those of the Tosevite we are supposed to be investigating.” She thought she was speaking an obvious truth, but the others stared at her as if she’d just hatched a miracle of wisdom. The way things were going, maybe she had.

By the time the Warren commission had been meeting for a few days, Ttomalss had learned more about the foibles of his colleagues than he’d ever wanted to know. Straha thought he knew everything about everything. Diffal was convinced nobody knew anything about anything. And Felless was convinced she could reconcile the other two males no matter how ferociously they disagreed.

What were they learning about him? If anything, he inclined toward Diffal. “To imagine that we are going to be certain of the reasons for any Big Ugly’s behavior is an exercise in presumption,” he said one morning when they were more rancorous than usual.