Aftershocks (58 page)

“We didn’t have any choice there, though,” Miriam said.

“We don’t have any choice here, either, not now,” Bertha Anielewicz said. “But be patient for a little while, and we will. If your father hadn’t tracked us down, we never would have had any choices there.”

“And if Pancer hadn’t beeped when he did, so Father heard him, he might never have tracked us down.” Heinrich scratched his pet. The scaly little animal wiggled sinuously.

Miriam rolled her eyes. “If you were a
goy,
you’d say that beffel ought to be canonized.”

“Pancer deserves it more than some saints I can think of,” Heinrich retorted.

“Enough of that,” Mordechai Anielewicz said sharply. “The
goyim
can afford to make jokes about us—they outnumber us ten to one. We can’t afford to make jokes about them. Even with the Lizards to lean on, it’s too dangerous.”

His children looked ready to argue about that, too. They were less aware of how dangerous being a small minority could prove than he was. But before the argument could get going, the telephone rang. Bertha was closest to it. “I’ll get it,” she said, and did. A moment later, she held the handset out to Anielewicz. “For you. A member of the Race.”

“Nesseref?” he asked, and his wife shrugged. He took the telephone. “I greet you,” he said in the Lizards’ language.

“And I greet you,” the Lizard replied. “I am Odottoss, liaison officer between the Race’s military and your Tosevite forces here in Poland. We have spoken before.”

“Truth,” Anielewicz agreed. “Shuttlecraft Pilot Nesseref was kind enough to give me your name. I thank you for the assistance you were able to give my mate and my hatchlings and me.”

“You are welcome,” Odottoss replied. “You and your fighters have served the Race well. It is only fair that you should have some recompense for that service.”

“Again, I thank you. And now, superior sir, what can I do for you?” He did not for a moment believe the male of the Race had called merely to throw bouquets at him.

And he was right, for Odottoss inquired, “Do you know the whereabouts of the explosive-metal bomb you Jews have claimed to have since the end of the first round of fighting?”

“At the moment, I do not know that, no,” Mordechai admitted. “Since the recent fighting against the
Reich,
I have been concerned with other things. Till now, no one has mentioned any problems with this explosive-metal bomb.”

“I do not know that there are any,” Odottoss said. “But I do not know that there are none, either. As best the Race has been able to determine, the bomb is not where we formerly thought it was. Have you ordered its transfer?”

“Have I personally? No,” Anielewicz said. “But that does not mean other Jewish fighters may not have given such an order. For that matter, we never wanted the Race to know where we keep it.”

“I understand your reasons for that,” Odottoss said. “You will understand, I hope, our reasons for seeking this knowledge.”

“I suppose so.” Anielewicz tried not to sound grudging, but it wasn’t easy.

“Very well, then,” the Lizard said. “If this bomb has been moved clandestinely, you will also understand our concern about where it is now and to what use it may be put.” Clandestinely moving the explosive-metal bomb wasn’t easy. Mordechai wondered how well Odottoss understood that. The device weighed about ten tonnes. The Germans had just been learning how to make such bombs in 1944. They’d got better since.

But even that old, primitive weapon would be devastating if it went off. Anielewicz wasn’t sure it could detonate. He also wasn’t sure it couldn’t. He realized there were too many things about which he wasn’t sure. “I shall do my best to find out what is going on here, superior sir,” he said.

“And then you will report to me?” Odottoss asked.

“I may not give you much detail,” Mordechai said. “If I find nothing much has gone wrong, but that the bomb was moved for security reasons during the fighting, I would just as soon have its whereabouts stay secret from the Race.”

“I understand,” Odottoss replied. “I do not approve, mind you, but I understand. Arrangements in Poland have been so irregular for so long, one more irregularity probably will not hurt much. But I would appreciate learning that the bomb is safe and is in responsible hands.”

“That is a bargain,” Anielewicz said. “If I learn that, I will tell you. Farewell.”

After he hung up, Bertha asked, “What was that all about? You speak the Lizards’ language a lot better than I do.” Once Mordechai had explained, she said, “You don’t know where the bomb is, either? It’s not a good thing to lose.”

“I know.” Mordechai started to reach for the phone, then checked himself. “I’d better not call from here. If the Lizards know where I am, I have to assume they’re tapping the line. Why make things easy for them?”

He needed several days before he could get hold of Yitzkhak, one of the Jews up in Glowno who’d had charge of the bomb, on a line he reckoned secure. They spent a couple of minutes congratulating each other on being alive. Then Yitzkhak said, “I suppose you’re calling about the package.” Even on a secure line, he didn’t want to come right out and talk about an explosive-metal bomb.

Mordechai didn’t blame him. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am,” he answered. “Somebody’s worried that it might get delivered to the wrong address. The post’s gone to pot lately, and everybody knows it.”

“Well, that’s true. Actually, I’m afraid it could happen.” Yitzkhak was precise to the point of fussiness. If he said he was afraid, he meant it. “The people who took charge of it during the confusion are pretty careless, and they may try to deliver it themselves.”

“Oy!”
That was about the worst news Moishe could imagine. Who had got hold of the bomb during the fighting? Had some of David Nussboym’s NKVD henchmen spirited it off toward Russia, or would some Jewish hotheads try to give the Greater German
Reich
one last kick while it was down? Mordechai phrased the question somewhat differently: “Has it headed east or west?”

“West, I think,” Yitzkhak answered.

“Oy!”
Anielewicz repeated. If a bomb went off in Germany now, would the Nazis reckon themselves betrayed and try to retaliate? Did they have anything left with which they
could
retaliate? He suspected they would and could. With a sigh, he said, “I suppose we have to try to get it back.” He paused. “Dammit.”

Tao Sheng-Ming came up to Liu Han and Liu Mei with his shaved head gleaming and with an impudent grin on his face. “I greet you, superior female,” the devil-boy said in the language of the little scaly devils. “Give me an order. Whatsoever you may request, it shall be done.”

Liu Han stuck to Chinese: “Suppose I order you not to be so absurd?” But she shook her head. “No. That would be foolish. No good officer gives an order knowing it will be disobeyed.”

Tao bowed as if she’d paid him a great compliment. “You give me too much credit,” he said, still in the scaly devils’ tongue. “All I aim to be is the biggest nuisance possible.”

“Do you mean to the little devils or to the People’s Liberation Army?” Liu Han’s voice was dry.

“Why, both, of course,” Tao Sheng-Ming answered. “Life would be boring if we all did exactly what we were supposed to all the time.”

“That is a truth,” Liu Mei said. “A little unpredictability is an asset.” She also used the little devils’ language, as if to show solidarity with Tao Sheng-Ming.

Liu Han thought her daughter’s response entirely predictable. Liu Mei was fond of the devil-boy. Liu Han wondered what, if anything, would come of that. Nothing at all would come of it if Tao didn’t pay more attention to what came out of his mouth before he opened it. “If you do not precisely obey the orders of your superiors, you will find yourself purged as an unreliable,” she warned him. “That would be unfortunate.”

“I would certainly think so,” Tao Sheng-Ming said. He had trouble taking anything seriously, even the Chinese Communist Party.

Liu Mei might have been fond of him, but she was a dedicated revolutionary. “You must obey the dictates of the Party, Tao,” she said seriously. “It is our only hope against the unbridled imperialism of the little scaly devils.”

He drew himself up, as if affronted. “I did not come to your rooming-house to argue politics,” he said. “I came to find out how things were going, and what I could do to help them go.”

“Do you think no one will tell you when the time comes?” Liu Han demanded. “Do you think you will be left on the sidewalk standing around when the revolutionary struggle begins anew?”

“Well, no,” he admitted, using Chinese for the first time—perhaps out of embarrassment. “But I am not a mahjongg tile, to be played by somebody else. I am my own person, and I want to know what I am doing, and why.”

Liu Mei spoke to her mother: “He sounds more like an American than a proper Chinese.”

That held some truth. Liu Han chose not to acknowledge it. She said, “He sounds like a foolish young man who thinks he is more important than he is.” She didn’t want to anger Tao Sheng-Ming too much, so she tempered that by adding, “He is important to a degree, though, and he will—I assure you, he
will
—learn what he’s supposed to know when he’s supposed to know it.”

Unabashed, Tao said, “But I want to know more, and I want to know sooner.”

“I will tell you what you need to know, not what you want to know,” Liu Han said. “What you need to know is, soon we will rise against the little scaly devils. When we do, you and your fellow devil-boys will help lure them to destruction. They will trust you more than they would trust other human beings. You will make them pay for their mistake.”

“Yes!” Tao Sheng-Ming said, and used an emphatic cough. His eyes glowed with anticipation.

Liu Han anticipated that most of the devil-boys assigned to mislead the little scaly devils would pay the price for their deception. She said nothing about that. If Tao Sheng-Ming didn’t see it for himself, he would perform better as a result of his ignorance.

When she thought about such tactics, she sometimes knew brief shame. But it was only brief, because she remained convinced the struggle against the imperialist little devils was more important than any individual’s fate.

“I need to tell you one other thing,” Tao said. “Some of the scaly devils are beginning to suspect that something may be going on. They are talking about making moves of some kind. My fellow devil-boys and I do not know as much about that as we would like, because they quiet down around us. They know a lot of us speak their language, and they do not want us overhearing.”

“That is not good,” Liu Mei said.

“No, it’s not,” Liu Han agreed. “The knife has two edges. The little devils trust the devil-boys because they know the devil-boys imitate their ways. But they also know the devil-boys understand what they say. We need to send out more ordinary Chinese who know their language and hope the scaly devils will be indiscreet around them.”

“You will know the people who can arrange that. I hope you will know those people, anyway,” Tao Sheng-Ming said. “I’ve tried to tell some people with higher rank than mine, but they don’t take me seriously. After all, I’m only a devil-boy. I’m funny-looking, and I have strange ideas—and if you don’t believe me, just ask anybody from the People’s Liberation Army.” He didn’t try to hide his bitterness. What he did do, a moment later, was swagger around like a pompous general who was round in the belly and empty in the head.

Liu Mei laughed and clapped her hands. Liu Han laughed, too; she couldn’t help herself. She tried to put reproof in her voice as she said, “I am from the People’s Liberation Army, Tao, and so are you.” She tried to put reproof in her voice, yes, but she heard herself failing.

“We’re with the People’s Liberation Army, yes, but we’re not old men who haven’t had a new thought since the last emperor ruled China,” Tao answered with the ready scorn of the young. Liu Mei nodded emphatically. Why not? She was young, too.

Liu Han wasn’t so young any more, as her body and sometimes her spirit kept reminding her. But she knew the kind of people Tao Sheng-Ming meant. She hoped she wasn’t one of those people. “I’m on the Central Committee,” she said. “I can make people listen to me.” She lowered her voice: “Besides, things
will
start to happen before very long.” Tao’s face lit up. That was the kind of news he wanted to hear.

Liu Han did have the rank to get Tao’s message noted. She hoped that would do the cause some good. One thing it did was get the date for the start of the operation moved forward again. That made Liu Mei clap her hands once more. She wanted action. Liu Han wanted action, too, but not at the cost of striking before the People’s Liberation Army was ready. Success was a longshot even if they struck when the People’s Liberation Army was ready. Everyone on the Central Committee understood that. No one seemed willing to admit it, not out loud.

When the Second World War started in Europe, back in the dim dark days before the little scaly devils came, the Germans had staged a border incident to give themselves an excuse to go to war against Poland. The Germans were fascists, of course, but Mao admired the stratagem: it turned the
Wehrmacht
loose exactly when its leaders wanted it to move.

Borrowing from the Germans’ book, Mao arranged for an incident in the railroad yards in the southwestern part of Peking. Liu Han wasn’t far away. When she heard the first gunshots ring out after sudden provocation from the devil-boys turned unbearable, she spoke one word into a radio: “Now.” Then she shut it off and took herself elsewhere, lest the little devils trace the transmission. That one word was the signal for riots to break out around the railroad yards, too, in carefully chosen places.

As the planners in the People’s Liberation Army had been sure they would, Chinese policemen—tools of the imperialist scaly devils—came rushing from all over Peking to quell those secondary riots. And they rushed straight into withering machine-gun fire: those emplacements had been sited and manned for a couple of days, and covered the likely routes of approach.

The Chinese police reeled back in dismay. Watching from a third-story window, Liu Han hugged herself with glee. The scaly devils’ running dogs weren’t soldiers, and couldn’t hope to hold their own in a fight against soldiers. Now that they’d discovered they couldn’t hope to put down the rioters, what would they do?
Call in the little devils themselves, of course,
Liu Han thought, and hugged herself again.