Second Contact (78 page)

But the noise outside today was anything but ordinary. Nearby small-arms fire and helicopters roaring low overhead provided constant background racket, now louder, now softer. Even the most efficient soundproofing in the world couldn’t keep out the deep, thunderous roars of exploding bombs. And some of those bombs burst close enough to shake the whole building, as if from an earthquake. Reuven had been through a few quakes. The shaking here wasn’t so strong as in a bad one, but he kept wondering what would happen if a bomb happened to hit the medical college square. It wasn’t the sort of thought that helped him pay attention to Shpaaka, the male of the Race who went on lecturing as if it were an ordinary day.

After a miss that sounded and felt nearer than any of the others, Jane Archibald leaned toward him and whispered, “This is bloody awful.”

“Oh, good,” he whispered back. “I thought I was the only one scared out of my wits.”

Blond curls flipped back and forth as she shook her head. “I don’t know how anybody stands it,” she said. “It takes me back to the days when I was a tiny little girl and the Lizards were mopping up Australia after they’d bombed Sydney and Melbourne.”

Reuven nodded. “I remember the fighting in Poland and in England and here, too.”

He might have known that Shpaaka would notice he wasn’t paying so much attention as he should. “Student Russie,” the Lizard said, “are you prepared to repeat back to me my remarks on hormonal function?”

Before Reuven could answer, another bomb burst even closer to the building. It almost threw him out of his seat. He had to fight the urge to dive for cover. In a shaky voice, he answered, “No, superior sir. I am sorry.”

He waited for Shpaaka to read him the riot act about insolence and insubordination. Instead, the male let out a very human-sounding sigh and said, “Perhaps, under the circumstances, this is forgivable. I must note, I find these circumstances unfortunate.”

No one argued with him. People who were liable to stand up and scream
“Allahu akbar!”
or even “Lizards go home!” were unlikely to enroll in the Moishe Russie Medical College. As far as Reuven was concerned, the Race did a better job of ruling its territory than the
Reich
or the Soviet Union did theirs. He glanced over toward Jane, which he enjoyed doing every so often any day of the week. She had a different opinion of the Lizards’ rule, but she couldn’t enjoy watching—or rather, listening to—Jerusalem going up in flames.

Shpaaka said, “I hope you will forgive me, but I really feel I must speak on something other than the assigned lecture topic for a little while. I trust I hear no objections?” His eye turrets swiveled so he could look at all of his students. Again, no one said anything. “I thank you,” he told them. “I merely wanted to state my opinion that, in view of the factional strife so prevalent among you Tosevites, the coming of the Race to Tosev 3 may well prove a boon to you, not the disaster so many of your kind perceive it to be.”

Reuven started to nod, then checked himself. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t agree: much more that he didn’t want Jane seeing him agree. He knew she wouldn’t, no matter how eloquently Shpaaka spoke. He didn’t blame her for having a view different from his, but wished she wouldn’t.

“I say this even if the Race should eventually incorporate all Tosevites into the Empire,” Shpaaka continued. “You value independence very highly: more so than any other species we know. But unity and security also have their value, and in the long run—a concept I admit seems alien to Tosev 3—that value may well prove greater. We have found it so, at any rate.”

Now Reuven wasn’t so sure he agreed. He was content to live under the Lizards’ rule because all other choices for Palestine looked worse. He didn’t think that was true all over the world, nor even in all parts of the world where the Race presently ruled.

He glanced over toward Jane again. She surely didn’t think that was true all over the world, either.

“Let us live in peace together, as far as we can,” Shpaaka said. “Let us learn in settings like this one to extend the boundaries of peaceful living, and let us—” He had to break off, for the lights flickered and the floor shook from another near miss.

“So much for peaceful living,” somebody behind Reuven said.

A telephone on the wall behind Shpaaka hissed for attention. He answered it, spoke briefly, and then hung up. Turning back to the class, he said, “I am told to dismiss you early. Armored vehicles are on the way to take you all back to the dormitory, which has a strong perimeter around it.”

Reuven threw up his hand. When Shpaaka recognized him, he said, “But, superior sir, I do not live in the dormitory.”

“You might be well advised to go there in any case,” the Lizard said. “Doing so will be far safer for you than attempting to traverse the city while it is in such a state of disarray. Assuming the telephone system is still operational, you may contact whomever you require from there.” He paused, then went on, “I do not have so many students as to be able to contemplate with equanimity the loss of any of them.”

“But my family . . .” Reuven began.

“Don’t be silly,” Jane hissed at him. “Your father advises the fleetlord. Do you think the Race will let anything happen to him?”

He started to answer that, then realized he couldn’t—she was right. The Lizards took such obligations far more seriously than most people did. And so, instead, he spoke to Shpaaka: “I thank you, superior sir. I will go to the dormitory with my fellow students.”

“It is good,” the male said. “And now, until the vehicles arrive, I resume my remarks on hormone functions . . .”

He did not get to lecture long. A male wearing the body paint of a mechanized combat vehicle commander burst into the chamber and called, “You Tosevites going to the dormitory, come with me at once.”

Along with everyone else, Reuven rose and hurried out to the entranceway. The air outside was thick with smoke, smoke nasty with the scents of burning paint and burning rubber and burning meat. He plunged into one of the waiting combat vehicles—not altogether by accident, the one Jane Archibald also chose. The seats in the back were made for Lizards, which meant they were cramped for humans. He didn’t mind being knee to knee with her, not at all.

A male scrambled in after them and slammed the rear doors shut. The mechanized combat vehicle rattled forward on its treads. It hadn’t gone far before bullets started slamming into it. Its own machine gun and males at the firing ports shot back. The noise inside was deafening.

Rioters kept shooting at the mechanized combat vehicle all through the short trip from the college to the dormitory. None of the hits penetrated, which Reuven took as a tribute to the Race’s engineering. One of the Lizards inside with him and Jane turned an eye turret their way and said, “We make them pay.”

He was talking about human beings, people like Reuven. They were, unfortunately, also people doing their best to kill him. He couldn’t work up much sympathy for them. What came out of his mouth was, “Good.”

The mechanized combat vehicle spun, backed, and stopped. The Lizard, who could see out, said, “We are just in front of your building. I will open the doors. When I do, you run inside.”

“It shall be done,” Reuven and Jane said together. The doors flew open. Ducking low to keep from banging their heads on a roof made for shorter beings, they jumped out and ran. No bullets smote them. As soon as they were inside the dormitory, students who’d got there before them slammed the building’s doors shut again.

“Are the telephones working?” Reuven asked. When somebody told him they were, he called his parents’ house. He got one of his twin sisters. “I’m at the dormitory. I’m going to spend the night here,” he said. “How are things around the house?”

“Quieter here than last time,” Esther or Judith—he thought it was Judith—answered. “Getting home wouldn’t have been easy for you, though, I don’t suppose. I’m glad you’re all right.” She said that last with the air of someone granting a great concession.

“I’m glad all of you are safe, too,” Reuven answered. “I’ll be home as soon as I can. Take care.” He hung up.

“We have no vacant bedrooms,” one of the dormitory workers told him. “I will set up a cot for you in the hall.”

Reuven hadn’t thought there would be any empty rooms. He’d dreamt of sharing a bedroom with Jane Archibald. By the way she’d kissed him every now and then, he’d dared hope he wasn’t the only one dreaming of such things. Whether he was or not, he wouldn’t find out tonight.

She handed him a chicken sandwich and a bottle of Coca-Cola. She had a sandwich and a soda of her own, too. “Thanks,” he said, realizing how hungry he was. He gulped down an enormous bite, then went on, “That’s . . . almost as good as what I hoped for.”

Her eyes widened a little; she could hardly misunderstand him. Then she said, “Not tonight, Reuven.” He nodded—he’d already figured that out for himself. But she was smiling, she wasn’t angry, and she didn’t say anything more. All of a sudden, the whole hellish day didn’t look so bad.

Nieh Ho-T’ing was normally perhaps the most self-contained man Liu Han knew. Today, though, he seemed as bouncy as a sixteen-year-old who imagined himself in love for the first time. “We have more weapons than we know what to do with,” he said jubilantly. “We have weapons from the Americans—thanks to you, Comrade.” He grinned at Liu Han. They weren’t lovers any more, but seeing that grin reminded her of why they had been.

“Thanks to the Americans, too, for trying till they got a ship-ment past the Japanese and the little scaly devils and their Chinese lackeys at the customs houses,” Liu Han said.

Nieh brushed that aside. His mind was on other things. “And we have weapons from our Socialist brethren in the Soviet Union,” he burbled. “Theirs got through, too”—which might have meant he’d been listening to her after all. “And with all these toys in our hands, we ought to find something worthwhile to do with them.”

“Something that will make the little scaly devils wish they’d never been hatched, you mean,” Liu Han said.

“Well, of course,” Nieh Ho-T’ing replied in some surprise. “What other worthwhile use for weapons is there?”

“The Kuomintang,” she said.

“They are a small enemy,” Nieh said with a scornful wave. “The scaly devils are the great enemy. So it was before the scaly devils came: the Japanese were the great enemy, the Kuomintang the small. They cannot destroy us. The scaly devils might, if they had the will and the skill.”

“Their will is considerable,” Liu Han said. “Never think too little of them.”

“They have not the dialectic, which means their will won’t endure,” Nieh said sharply. “And they have little in the way of skill.”

Liu Han could not disagree with that. Talking quietly over a couple of bowls of noodles in a neighborhood eatery on the west side of Peking, she and Nieh Ho-T’ing might have been deciding when to hold a party for a neighbor, not how best to visit death and destruction on the imperialist little devils. “What have you got in mind?” she asked.

He slurped up another mouthful of noodles with his chopsticks before answering, “The Forbidden City. I think we have a chance to take it, or at least to wreck it so the little scaly devils cannot use it any more.”

“Eee, wouldn’t that be something!” Liu Han exclaimed. “The Chinese Emperors kept the people out of it, and now the little devils do the same.” She’d seen some of the marvels at the heart of Peking when serving as an emissary to the little devils. Thinking of them in ruins hurt, but thinking of striking a blow against the little scaly devils made the hurt go away. She turned practical: “We should strike the little devils somewhere else first, so they will not be thinking about an assault on the Forbidden City.”

Nieh Ho-T’ing nodded respectfully. “That is part of the plan, yes. You see things the way a general would.” As he was a general himself, that was not the sort of compliment he gave lightly.

“Good.” Liu Han nodded, too. “Now, you have talked the Muslims into joining the first attack, the one that won’t go anywhere?”

This time, Nieh stopped with a load of noodles halfway to his mouth. “I’ve dealt with the Muslims of Peking every now and then—you know that,” he said slowly, and waited for Liu Han to nod. When she did, he went on, “Why would you want me—why would you want us—to involve them now?”

“Ah.” Liu Han smiled. She’d seen something he hadn’t—she’d seen something the rest of the Central Committee hadn’t. “Because the Muslims farther west are rebelling against the scaly devils. If we have an uprising here, why shouldn’t our Muslims get the blame, or part of it?”

Nieh stared at her. The noodles, forgotten on the chopsticks, dripped broth down onto the tabletop. After a moment, he shook his head and started to laugh. “Do you know what a terror you would have been if you’d stayed a peasant in a little village?” he said. “You would be running that village by now—no one would dare sell a duck, let alone a pig, without asking what you thought first. And if you had daughters-in-law . . . Eee, if you had daughters-in-law, they wouldn’t dare breathe without asking you first.”

Liu Han thought about it. After a moment, she laughed, too. “Maybe you’re right. That’s what mothers-in-law are for—making life miserable for daughters-in-law, I mean. Mine did. But it hasn’t got anything to do with anything now. Will you talk to the Muslims, or won’t you?”

“Oh, I will—you’ve convinced me,” Nieh said. “I wish I’d thought of it myself, as a matter of fact. It’s good to have you back in China.”

“It’s good to be back,” Liu Han said from the bottom of her heart. “If you know some of the things they eat in the United States . . . But never mind that. Why wasn’t I involved in planning the attack on the Forbidden City as soon as someone got the idea?”

Suddenly, Nieh Ho-T’ing looked uncomfortable. “Oh, you know how Mao is about these things,” he said at last.

“Ah.” Liu Han did indeed. “He thinks women are better in bed than at the council table. Hsia Shou-Tao thinks the same way. How much self-criticism has he had to give over the years because of it? Maybe Mao should criticize himself, too.”