Upsetting the Balance

by Harry Turtledove

  Atvar had a strong impulse to hide himself inside a floating cluster of males so Rokois could not spot his body paint. Just for once, he, like Pshing, deserved a respite from bad news. But even if he escape that, he would not be able to evade the Emperor’s eyes. Some trick of the hologram made them follow you wherever you were in the chamber. And had that trick not been there, he knew his duty too well to flee from it.

  But oh, the temptation!

  Instead of fleeing the adjutant’s assistant, Atvar pushed off the console toward him (he did carry along the bulb of hudipar-berry brandy). Rokois folded into the posture of respectful obedience and began, “Exalted Fleetlord, I regret to report that—”

  Although he had not spoken loudly, those words were plenty to bring near-silence to the festival chamber. Atvar was far from the only male to have noted his arrival and to wonder what news was urgent enough to disturb the fleetlord at the celebration. Had Britain or Nippon or some other, previously discounted, Tosevite empire or not-empire touched off an atomic bomb? Had Deutschland or the United States or even the SSSR touched off another one?

  “Tell me, Rokois,” Atvar interrupted. “What do you regret to report now?”

  “Exalted Fleetlord, the Big Uglies appear to have discovered our custom of honoring the Emperor’s hatching day,” the adjutant’s assistant answered. “Certain of them were invited to perform with their trained Tosevite beasts at observances of the day in cities on the eastern part of the main continental mass: this is in the large, populous not-empire known as China. Due to inadequate security, they were able to smuggle explosives in amongst our officers and administrators along with their beasts.”

  “They died themselves, then?” Atvar said. Defending against males willing to do that was next to impossible. Fortunately, such fanatics were rare even among the fanatical Big Uglies.

  “Exalted Fleetlord, in many instances they did,” Rokois answered. “We captured a couple of these males and disarmed their explosives before detonation. They insist they were duped, that they thought the bombs were, in fact, video equipment to allow us to record their performances.”

  A rising mutter of anger and outrage came from the shiplords. Atvar understood that; he felt it himself. If you told lies, you didn’t need to recruit fanatics without fear of death. Any race, the Race included, had its share of dupes.

  As he usually did in the face of misfortune, he tried to look on tin bright side of things. “If we have some of these beast exhibitors in custody, they may be able to lead us to the males who induced then to undertake their missions.”

  “May events prove you correct, Exalted Fleetlord,” Rokois said. “The timing devices on the captured explosives are of Nipponese manufacture, although the males unanimously insist Chinese were the intermediaries who paid them and arranged for their performances.”

  “More than one level of dupery may have been involved,” Atvar said. “Or, conversely, the timers may have been used merely to deceive us. Further investigation should shed more light on that. What else have you learned?”

  “There is one other thing to support the view that this was a Chinese blow against us,” Rokois answered. “In the areas surrounding several of our administrative centers, we have found small handbills that, if translated correctly—the Chinese write with a peculiarly abominable script—demand the return of the hatchling taken from the Big Ugly female Liu Han for purposes of research.”

  “The Big Uglies may not make demands of us,” Atvar said indignantly. Then he wondered why not. In matters military, they had earned wary attention if not full equality. “We shall have to evaluate this further.”

  “Truth, Exalted Fleetlord.” Rokois held no responsibility there, and was blithely aware of it. He disseminated policy; he did not shape it. After a moment’s hesitation, he went on, “Exalted Fleetlord, reports indicate that casualties among senior administrators and officers in China may be especially heavy. They naturally had seats closest to the Big Uglies presenting the beast shows, and so took the full brunt of the blasts.”

  “Yes, that does make sense.” Atvar sighed again. “No help for it. Some junior males will get new marks and colors for their body paint. Some of them won’t have the experience or the sense to do their jobs as well as they should. As they show that, we’ll cull them and put others in their place. We shall rule China. We shall rule Tosev 3.” And I shall drink enough hudipar-berry brandy to forget I’m orbiting above this miserable, hateful world.

  Despite that gloomy thought, his outward demeanor inspired Rokois, who exclaimed, “It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord!”

  “Yes, spirits of past Emperors aiding us, it shall.” Now Atvar paused before resuming, “When you came in here, I feared you were bringing me word the Big Uglies had touched off another nuclear device. The Emperor be praised, I was wrong.” Instead of lowering his eye turrets, he turned them toward the hologram of his ruler.

  “May it not come to pass,” Rokois burst out, also gathering strength from the image of the Emperor.

  “Indeed. May it not” The fleetlord squirted a long pull of brandy down his throat.

  Teerts’ radar gave him a new target. He didn’t have it visually, not yet. All he saw through his windscreen were clouds and, through occasional rents in them, the wave-chopped surface of the ocean that stretched between the main and lesser continental masses.

  He was just as glad not to be flying over Deutschland any more. Maybe München had deserved what the Race gave it; he was no targeting specialist or shiplord, to be able to judge such things from full knowledge. Flying over the glassy ruins of what had been a large city, though, left him glum. The sight made him think of Tokyo, which, but for him, might still be standing. To hate the Nipponese was one thing, to visit on them nuclear fire quite another.

  They would have visited the same fire on the Race, had they possessed it Teerts knew that full well. It salved his conscience, but not enough.

  He thought about tasting ginger, but decided to wait until his body’s need could no longer be denied. “I think faster with ginger,” he said, first making sure his radio was off. “I don’t think better. Or I think I don’t think better, anyhow.” He puzzled through that, finally deciding it was what he meant.

  He dove down beneath the clouds. This would be the third ship he’d attacked on his flight to the lesser continental mass. They seemed almost as thick as parasites on the water. The males with the fancy body paint were right to start paying more attention to them, as far as he was concerned. The Race had automatically discounted water and travel on it.

  “Trust the Big Uglies to do things we’d never think of,” he muttered. You could use up a lot of aircraft and a lot of munitions trying to suppress the Tosevites’ nautical commerce. If you tried shutting down all of it, would you have any aircraft left to commit to other tasks?

  That wasn’t his judgment to make. But attacking ships wasn’t like blowing cities off the face of Tosev 3. It was a real part of war, easily comprehensible to any male at all. For once, Elifrim had assigned him something he didn’t loathe.

  There! Sheet metal and wood, crude and homely, slow and wallowing, belching a trail of smoke into the cloudy sky. You didn’t need missiles for this. He’d used up his laser-guided bombs on the two previous targets, but he still had cannon and plain bombs taken from a Tosevite arsenal. They would do the job.

  The ship swelled monstrously fast. His killercraft screamed toward it in a shallow dive. The targeting computer told him to release the bombs. The aircraft’s nose tried to come up as they dropped away. He and the autopilot kept it on its proper course.

  He spotted Tosevites scrambling about on the deck of the ship. The killercraft bucked in the air as he thumbed the firing button of the cannon. He poured shells into the ship before the blasts from the bombs, and the water they kicked up, obscured it from sight “Goodbye, Big Uglies,” he said, pulling out of the dive, so he could make another pass and inspect the damage.

  He hadn’t sunk this
one. Radar told him as much, before he got a good look at it. But smoke spurted from places it hadn’t before. Some of the Big Uglies were down and motionless now, others struggling to repair the damage he’d done.

  And others—Fire spurted from the front end of the ship, again and again and again. They had an antiaircraft gun aboard, and were using it with great vim even if the shells they threw up weren’t coming very close to him.

  “Praise the Emperor’s name for that,” he said. If he was unlucky enough to get shot down twice, he wouldn’t be taken prisoner, not here. He’d go into the water and see whether he froze before he drowned or vice versa.

  This time, he fired a long burst at the Tosevite’s popgun. He knew he’d damaged their vessel some more, and had no intention of coming round again to find out how much. That antiaircraft cannon might not have been wrecked.

  Up above the clouds once more, to broaden the radar’s range. He looked forward to landing in what the locals called Florida. The air-base in southern France from which he’d been flying had turned unpleasantly cold, by his standards if not by those of Tosev 3. But Florida stayed close to temperate throughout its winter season, even if the air was moist enough to make him inspect his scales for mold whenever he got up in the morning.

  He checked his fuel supply. The attack runs he’d made had left him rather low on hydrogen to make it all the way across this ridiculously wide stretch of water. The Race kept a couple of refueling aircraft flying above the ocean for such contingencies. Satellite relay quickly put him in touch with one of them. He swung north for a rendezvous.

  Guiding the prong from the refueling aircraft into his own took delicacy and concentration. He was glad he hadn’t tasted beforehand; he knew how jumpy and impatient he got with ginger in him. Unfortunately, he also knew how sad and morose he got with no ginger in him.

  He attacked one more ship on his way to Florida. The fog was so thick over the water that he carried out the run almost entirely by radar. He saw the wallowing Tosevite craft only at the last instant, just in time to add a few rounds from his cannon to the bombs he’d dropped.

  Before long, he left behind the clouds and fog. The sky above him was a deep blue, the water below an even deeper shade of the same color. For once, Tosev 3 seemed almost beautiful—if you liked blue. It was a color far less common on Home than here. A proper world, to his way of thinking, was supposed to have an abundance of yellows and reds and oranges. Blue should have been an appetizer, not a main course.

  Radar spotted the land ahead before he did—but radar was not concerned with aesthetics. Teerts didn’t think much of the low, damp terrain toward which he was flying. Its hideous humidity meant that everything not recently cleared was covered by a rank, noxious coat of vegetation. He wasn’t any too fond of green, either, though he did prefer it to blue.

  Only the sandy beaches reminded him of Home, and they should have been broad expanses, not narrow strips hemmed in by more of Tosev 3’s omnipresent water. He sighed. He wasn’t going to have to do anything complicated from here on out, so he let himself have some ginger.

  “I might as well be happy when I land,” he told the cockpit canopy as he followed the seacoast south toward his destination. Every so often, he’d fly over a little Tosevite town. Some of them had ships in their harbors. The aggressiveness the herb put in him made him want to blast those ships, as he had the ones out on the ocean. But the Race had held this territory for a long time, and any traffic was likely to be in authorized goods.

  Staying rational through that first jolt of pleasure and excitement was never easy—the ships were just sitting there, as if begging to be destroyed. But Teerts knew how to separate the urgings of the ginger from those he would have had without it. He didn’t let the herb make him as stupid as he once had.

  The radar was linked to a map that listed the names of the cities over which he flew. Coming up was Miami, and past that the landing strip the Race had taken for its own. Miami was easy to recognize, being much the largest center the Big Uglies had built hereabouts. He could see it coming up in the distance. It had a large harbor, with tens upon tens of ships. Teerts’ mouth fell open in ginger-induced amusement as he imagined the havoc he could wreak upon them with a good strafing run. It was almost—but not quite—worth braving the wrath of his superiors once he’d landed.

  Then, right before his eyes, the whole harbor—for all he could tell, the whole city—went up in a fireball.

  Ginger made you think faster. That much he knew. He swung the killercraft away from that fireball in as tight a turn as it would take. He knew what the fireball was. He’d seen one of the same sort over the Deutsch city Jisrin had incinerated. This one, in fact, wasn’t quite so large as the other, and looked to be a ground burst rather than one in the air. But nothing could be mistaken for the explosion of a nuclear bomb.

  The blast slapped the killercraft like a blow across the muzzle. For a dreadful moment, he thought he had no control. The ocean here was supposed to be warmer than it was farther east and north, but that didn’t mean he wanted to go into it. And if Miami had just exploded in radioactive fire, who would rescue him, anyhow?

  He was starting to review ejection procedures in his mind when the aircraft decided to answer the controls. He wondered how much radiation he’d picked up from being all too close to two nuclear blasts in a matter of days. Nothing he could do about that, not now.

  His next query was much more urgently relevant: was his landing site still on the map? He got on the radio: “Flight Leader Teerts to south Florida airbase. Are you there?” He’d never before meant that question literally.

  To his relief, the answer came back in moments, though it was hashed with static. “Reading you clearly, Flight Leader Teerts. Were you damaged in the explosion? Was that . . .? Could that have been . . . ?”

  Teerts didn’t blame the male for not wanting to say it out loud. But the ginger in him made him impatient with subterfuge and euphemism. “That was a nuclear bomb in Miami, air base. Whatever we had in the city, it’s gone now.”

  “How could they have done that?” The male on the other end of the radio connection sounded stunned, disbelieving. “Our radar spotted no aircraft to deliver the weapon, nor missiles, either. And we’ve chased the Big Uglies out of this peninsula. They couldn’t have smuggled the weapon in by land. What does that leave?”

  Maybe ginger really did make Teerts think better, not just faster. Or maybe his mission had freed his mind from the Race’s usual patterns of thought. Without a moment’s hesitation, he replied, “Maybe they brought it in by water.”

  “By water?” The fillip the male added to his interrogative cough made him sound incredulous, not just curious. “How could they do that?”

  “I don’t know exactly how.” Teerts’ right eye turret swung back toward the capped cloud still rising above Miami. “But I’d say they seem to have managed.”

  Atvar was growing to hate the reports he got from the targeting specialists, and to hate the sessions he spent with Kirel translating the recommendations from those reports into an order that would throw another city into the fire. Kirel called up a map of the United States.

  “Once again, Exalted Fleetlord, Denver is a recommended target, along with this other, more peripheral one.”

  “There is enough radiation loose on this continental mass, thanks to the Big Uglies,” Atvar answered. Somehow, catastrophe endlessly repeated didn’t seem so catastrophic as it had the first time. One Tosevite atomic bomb had had the shiplords hissing for his skin. Now that the Big Uglies had touched off a whole string of them, the males stopped worrying about Atvar. They had a new kind of war on their hands.

  Kirel said, “The Emperor be praised we didn’t delay another generation in attacking this planet, as some of the budget-cutters proposed. Even if we’d kept our nuclear armory intact, we’d have faced more nuclear weapons than we brought along. We might not even have effected a planetfall, let alone conquest.”

  “Truth,”
Atvar said. “This device, you will note from the analysis, was prepared entirely from the Big Uglies’ own plutonium. They would have had nuclear arms all too soon in any case, even if we had not come to this miserable world. Of course, if we had come a generation later, they might also have succeeded in fighting their own full-scale atomic war, which would have solved most of our problems for us.”

  “Ours, yes, but not those of the colonization fleet,” Kirel said.

  “If the Big Uglies slagged Tosev 3 themselves, the colonization fleet could stop here just long enough to pick up reaction mass for the motors, and then honorably return Home,” Atvar answered. “But since the Big Uglies have not quite wrecked the planet, we cannot do so, either. We know limits; they seem unaware of the concept.”

  “We have spoken before of how the restraint we feel compelled to observe has been the Tosevites’ biggest single safety factor,” Kirel agreed. He illuminated the other possible bomb site the targeting specialists had chosen. “I don’t know why they reckon this place a candidate for annihilation, Exalted Fleetlord. By planetary standards, it’s far away from everything.”

  “Only if you look at matters from the perspective of a male of the Race,” Atvar said. “To the Tosevites, in its own way it is as important a nexus as Chicago.” Which they went and destroyed themselves, he added mentally.

  “You are going to choose the out-of-the-way site, then,” Kirel said, not quite in resignation, but with the clear intention of conveying that, had he been fleetlord, he would have come to a different conclusion.

  Well, he wasn’t fleetlord, and Atvar now had reason to hope he never would be. A small or medium-sized crisis agitated males; in a large one, they got behind the leaders they had. The fleetlord said, “That is my choice, yes.”