Tilting The Balance (72 page)

He wondered why he was wasting so much effort on sons of bitches – and one proper bitch – who wouldn’t appreciate what he did if he went out and built a bomb singlehanded. But he’d said he’d go and he’d said he’d come back, and duty still counted for a lot with him.

“Hell, hadn’t been for duty, I’d still be married – yes, sir, I sure would,” he said. They’d asked him to take word about the Met Lab from Chicago to the government-in-hiding in West Virginia, and he’d gone and done it. But getting back hadn’t been so easy – and nobody’d bothered to ask his wife to keep her legs closed while he was gone.

So he’d do what he’d promised. He hadn’t made any promises about afterwards, though. He might take it into his head to ride east out of Denver after all.

He picked up speed and he rolled downhill. The thin air that blew against his face was spicy with the smell of the pines from the Arapaho National Forest all around.

“Or who knows?” he said. “I might even run into some Lizards on the way to Hanford. They’d listen to me, I bet. What do you think?” The breeze didn’t answer.

Kirel came crunching up beside him. “Even this northern Africa is not truly Home, though, Exalted Fleetlord,” he said. “It grows beastly cold at night – and winter here, by the reports, is almost as hideous as anywhere else on Tosev 3.”

“Not winter now.” For a moment, Atvar turned an eye turret toward the star the Race called Tosev. As always, its light struck him as too harsh, too white, not quite like the mellow, sunshine of Home. “I thought I would come down to the planet’s surface to see it at its best, not its worst.”

“It is well-suited to us here,” Kirel admitted. “Reports say the Tosevites from Europe there” – he pointed north across the blue, blue water-”who were fighting here when we arrived, spent most of their time complaining about how hot and dry this part of their planet was. Even the natives don’t care for the area during summer.”

“I have long since given up trying to fathom the Big Uglies’ tastes,” Atvar said. “I would call them revoltingly ignorant, except that, were they only a little more ignorant, our conquest would have been accomplished some time ago.”

“With the return of good – well, bearable – weather to the lands of our principal foes, the optimism I felt at the outset of our campaign here begins to return as well,” Kirel said. “We’ve gained against the Deutsche from both east and west we’re driving toward the capital of the
SSSR
, this Moskva being an important rail and transport center along with an administrative site; we continue to consolidate our hold on China despite bandits behind our lines; and the Americans fall back on the lesser continental land mass.”

“All true,” Atvar agreed, more happily than he’d spoken of the military situation on Tosev 3 for some time. “I begin to hope the colonists may yet find a pacified world awaiting their settlement. During the past winter in this hemisphere, I wouldn’t have put much credit in that.”

“Nor I, Exalted Fleetlord. But if our munitions hold out, I think we can successfully complete the conquest and settle down to administering rather than fighting.”

Atvar wished the shiplord hadn’t added that qualifying phrase. Munitions were a continuing problem. Provident as usual, the Race had given the conquest fleet far more supplies and weapons systems than it had expected the warriors to need against the animal-riding, sword-swinging savages the probes had shown inhabiting Tosev 3.

The only troubles was that, while Atvar still reckoned the Big Uglies savages, these days they made landcruisers, fired automatic weapons, and were beginning to fly jet aircraft and launch missiles. What would have been lavish supplies against primitives had to be carefully rationed to keep from running out before the Tosevites did. Atvar knew such care slowed the war effort, but he lacked the munitions to shut down all the Big Uglies’ industrial areas and keep them shut down.

“It does make things harder,” Kirel said when Atvar spoke of his concern. “Still, I count us ahead of the game in that we’ve not had to use nuclear weapons to any great degree. Wrecking the planet for the colonists would not leave our names in good odor in the annals of the Race.”

Would not leave Atvar’s name in good odor, was what he meant, though he was too polite to say so. The fleetlord won the glory – if any glory was to be won. If not, he won the blame. Atvar didn’t intend to win any blame.

“Some males – Straha, for instance,” he observed, “would destroy Tosev 3 in order to conquer it. They might as well be Big Uglies themselves, for all the care they give to the future.”

“Truth in your words, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said; he didn’t care for Straha, either. But he was also a thoroughgoing and conscientious officer, so he added, “In truth, though, sometimes the Tosevites are exasperating enough to make me wonder if we shouldn’t exterminate them to keep them from troubling us later. Take this latest trouble with – what was that Big Ugly’s name? – Moishe Russie.”

“Oh yes – that.” Atvar stuck out his tongue, as at a bad smell. “I thought it had to be one of Skorzeny’s exploits till intelligence reminded me Russie belonged to one of the groups the Deutsche were busy slaughtering until we came to Tosev 3. Computer analysis makes it unlikely they would have tried to rescue one of their foes, and I must say I agree with the machines here.”

“As do I,” Kirel said with a hissing sigh. “But don’t you think dismissing Zolraag as governor of the province was a trifle harsh? Other than when dealing with Russie and matters concerning him, his record was good enough.”

“What he’s cost us in those matters outweighs the rest,” Atvar said. “He petitioned for a reconsideration; I denied it. We hold too much of Tosev 3 only because the locals submit to us out of fear. If we are made to look like idiots, we shall no longer be objects of fear, and we shall have to divert forces from serious fighting to hold down areas now quiet. No, Zolraag deserved sacking, and sacking he got.”

Kirel cast his eyes to the ground in obedience to the fleetlord’s will. Another male came up to him and Atvar, one whose rather drab body paint made him seem out of place in such august company. “I greet you, Exalted Fleetlord, Superb Shiplord,” he said. His words were perfectly correct, his voice held the proper deference, and yet Atvar doubted his sincerity even so.

“I greet you, Drefsab,” the fleetlord returned, swinging one eye turret toward the intelligence operative. Drefsab’s motions were quick and jerky. With another male, that might have betrayed a ginger habit, but Drefsab had moved that way even before he became addicted to the Tosevite herb; he had a Big Ugly’s restlessness trapped in a body that belonged to the Race. Atvar said, “I presume you have come to report on the progress of your project in – what is the name of that Emperorless land?”

“Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska – the Independent State of Croatia,” Drefsab answered. His clawed fingers twitched restlessly, a sure sign of disgust. “Do you know, Exalted Fleetlord, there are times when the Big Uglies are as easy to manipulate as hatchlings still wet from the juices of their eggs?”

“I wish there were more such times,” Kirel observed.

“So do we all,” Atvar said. “How have you managed to manipulate the – Croats? – then?”

“They’re subordinates of the Deutsche, of course,” Drefsab said. “The Deutsche gained their support by giving them weapons and a free hand against their local enemies, which essentially means anyone who lives nearby and is not a Croat. All I had to do was promise more and better weapons and an even freer hand, and all at once they became most cooperative.”

Atvar felt faintly sick. The guidelines on conquering Tosev 3 he’d brought from Home, tomes composed thousands of years before, after the Race subjected first the Rabotevs and then the Hallessi, suggested playing local groups against one another. That sounded clean and logical. The reality, at least on Tosev 3, was apt to be sordid and soaked in blood.

Drefsab went on, “When measured against Tosev 3 as a whole – as opposed to Tosev 3 as a hole,

which the Emperor surely knows it is – the Independent State of Croatia is of no importance whatever, being barely visible to the naked eye. But its position gives it importance to the Deutsche, who do not want us gaining influence there at their expense. And we have deliberately kept our effort there on a small scale, confining it to the coastal city of Split.”

“If you can damage the Deutsche in this Croatia place, why make only a small effort?” Kirel asked. “They are among the most dangerous, of the Tosevites.”

“To us, though, Superb Shiplord, Croatia has no great significance” Drefsab said. “And, in any case, I am seeking to elicit a specific response from the Deutsche. I don’t want them flooding the area with males; the terrain inland is mountainous and very bad for both armor and aircraft. I want them to bring in their own specialists in sabotage and destruction, and then I want to trap and destroy those specialists.”

“This is the lure you have prepared for Skorzeny,” Atvar exclaimed.

“Exalted Fleetlord, it is,” Drefsab agreed. “As you pointed out, he has embarrassed the Race too many times. Soon he will do so no more.”

“Eliminating Skorzeny will go a long way toward getting rid of a weakness you just finished discussing, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said excitedly. “Big Uglies around the world will have new reason to fear us once we take him out of play.”

“Exactly so.” Atvar turned his eye turrets back toward Drefsab. “How fares your other battle?”

“The one against the Tosevite herb, you mean?” Drefsab let out a long hiss. “I still taste now and again; that far, the addiction keeps its hold. I continue to struggle not to let it master all my thoughts. It has my body, but I work to keep my mind as free as I can.”

“Another lonely battle, and a brave one,” Atvar said. “So many yield both to ginger.”

“As free as I can, I said,” Drefsab answered. Dropping his eyes in. deference, he went on, “Emperor knows the craving never leaves, not altogether. Under the worst circumstances, who knows what I might do for a taste? For that very reason, I attempt to avoid placing myself in those circumstances.”

Atvar and Kirel also looked down at the yellow-brown sand. When the fleetlord raised his eyes once more, he said, “Your discipline in the face of this adversity does you great credit. Because of it, I am all the more certain you will succeed in eliminating that menace, Skorzeny.”

“Exalted Fleetlord, it shall be done,” Drefsab said.

Vyacheslav Molotov peered between the backs of Stalin and his generals to study the map pinned down on the table in front of them. From the way things looked, Soviet forces were effectively pinned down, too.

“Comrade General Secretary, if Moscow is to be held, we need more men, more armor, more aircraft, and above all more time to place our assets in proper position,” Marshal Georgi Zhukov said. “Absent these, I do not see how we are to prevail.”

Few men dared speak so boldly to Stalin; Zhukov had won the right by his successes first in Mongolia against the Japanese, then defending Moscow from the Germans, and finally in holding the Lizards at bay through the winter just past. Stalin sucked on his pipe. It was empty; not even he could get tobacco these days. He said, “Georgi Konstantinovich, you saved this city once. Can you not do it again?”

“Then I had fresh troops from Siberia, and the fascists were at the end of their tether,” Zhukov answered. “Neither applies here. Without some special miracle, we shall be defeated – and the dialectic does not allow for miracles.”

Stalin grunted. Like so many revolutionaries, especially Georgian ones, he’d had seminary training. Now he said, “The dialectic may not allow for miracles, Comrade Marshal, but nevertheless I think I may be able to furnish you with one.”

Zhukov scratched his head. He was a blocky, round-faced man, much more typically Russian in looks than the slender Molotov “What sort of miracle do you have in mind?” he asked.

Molotov had wondered the same thing, but all at once he knew. Fear coursed through him. “losef Vissarionovich, we have discussed the reasons for not using this weapon,” he said urgently. “As far as I can see, they remain valid.”

That was as close as he’d come in years to criticizing Stalin.

The general secretary whirled around in surprise, the pipe jumping in his mouth. “If the choice is between going down to defeat after using every weapon we have and yielding tamely without making every effort to hit back at the enemy, I prefer the former.”

Zhukov didn’t say anything. Ivan Koniev asked, “What weapon is this? If we have a weapon that will let us hurt the Lizards, I say we use it – and to the devil’s grandmother with the consequences.”

After Zhukov, Koniev was the best general Stalin had. If he didn’t know about the explosive-metal bomb project, the secrecy was even more extraordinary than Molotov had imagined. He asked Stalin, “May we speak freely of this weapon?”

The pipe waggled again. “The time has come when we must speak freely of this weapon,” Stalin answered. He turned to Koniev. “We have, Ivan Stepanovich, a bomb of the sort the Lizards used on Berlin and Washington. If they breakthrough at Kaluga and advance on Moscow, I propose to use it against them.”

With his crooked front teeth, Koniev looked even more like a middle-aged peasant than Zhukov did. “Bozhemoi,” he said softly. “If we have such-you are right, Comrade General Secretary: if we have such bombs, we should use them against the foe.”

“We have one such bomb,” Molotov said, “and no prospect of getting more for some time. No one knows how many of these bombs the Lizards have – but we may be about to find out by experiment.”

“Oh,” Koniev said, and then again, in a whisper, “Bozhemoi.”Glancing nervously at Stalin, he went on, “This is a choice we must face with great seriousness. One of these bombs, by report, can devastate a city as thoroughly as several weeks of unchallenged bombardment by an ordinary air force.” Now the pipe worked angrily in Stalin’s mouth. Before he could speak, Molotov said, “These reports are true, Comrade General. I have seen photographs of both Washington and Berlin. The melted stump of the Washington Monument-” He did not go on, both from the remembered horror of the photographs and for fear of further antagonizing Stalin. But he was too afraid of what would happen if explosive-metal bombs began to be used freely to keep silent.