Striking the Balance w-4

by Harry Turtledove

  He’d also-cautiously-tried to open the eyes of some other officers, Skorzeny among them. Without exception, everybody else had stayed willfully blind, not wanting to see, not wanting to discuss. He understood that. He even sympathized with itif you refused to notice the flaws of your superiors and your country, you could go on about your daily routine a lot more easily.

  As long as he was fighting just the Lizards, Jager had no trouble suppressing his own doubts, his own worries. Nobody could doubt for even a moment that the Lizards were deadly foes not only to Germany but to all mankind. You did what you had to do to stop them. But the explosive-metal bomb in Lodz didn’t have only the Lizards in mind. It didn’t even have the Lizards primarily in mind. Skorzeny knew as much. He’d set it there after the nerve-gas bomb he’d intended for the Jews of Lodz failed. It was his-and Germany’s-revenge on the Jews for thwarting him once.

  Try as Jager would, he couldn’t stomach that.

  Skorzeny walked away, whistling. When he came back, he was wearing a pack like the one a wireless operator carried. In fact, it undoubtedly was a wireless operator’s pack. The handset that went with it, though, was anything but standard issue. It had only two elements: a bar switch and a large red button.

  “I make the time 1100 hours,” Skorzeny said after yet another glance at his watch.

  The other SS man brought his right wrist up toward his face. “I confirm the time as 1100 hours,” he said formally.

  Skorzeny giggled. “Isn’t this fun?” he said. The other SS man stared at him: that wasn’t in the script. Jager just snorted. He’d seen too many times that Skorzeny was indifferent to the script. The big SS man flipped the bar switch 180 degrees. “The transmitter is now active,” he said.

  “I confirm that the transmitter has been activated,” the other SS man droned.

  And then Skorzeny broke the rules again. He reached up and gave Jager the handset, asking, “Do you want to do the honors?”

  “Me?” Jager almost dropped it. “Are you out of your mind? Good God, no.” He handed the device back to Skorzeny. Only after he’d done so did he realize heshould have dropped it, or else contrived to smash it against the side of the panzer.

  “All right, don’t let it worry you,” Skorzeny said. “I can kill my own dog. I can kill a whole great lot of sons of bitches.” His thumb came down hard on the red button.

  XVIII

  Even had the weather been cool, Vyacheslav Molotov would have been steaming as he stood around in the lobby of the Semiramis Hotel waiting for a Lizard armored personnel carrier to convey him to Shepheard’s.

  “Idiocy,” the Soviet foreign commissar muttered to Yakov Donskoi. Where von Ribbentrop was concerned, he did not bother holding his scorn in check. “Idiocy, syphilitic paresis, or both. Probably both.”

  Von Ribbentrop, waiting for his own armored personnel carrier, might well have been in earshot, but he didn’t speak Russian. Had he spoken Russian, Molotov would have changed not a word. The interpreter glanced over to the German foreign minister, then, almost whispering himself, replied, “It is most irregular, Comrade Foreign Commissar, but-”

  Molotov waved him to silence. “But me no buts, Yakov Beniaminovich. Since we came here, the Lizards have convened all our sessions, as is only proper. For that arrogant Nazi to demand a noon meeting-” He shook his head. “I thought it was mad dogs and Englishmen who went out in the noonday sun, not a mad dog of a German.”

  Before Donskoi could say anything to that, several personnel carriers pulled up in front of the hotel. The Lizards didn’t seem happy about ferrying all the human diplomats to Shepheard’s at the same time, but von Ribbentrop hadn’t given them enough notice of this meeting upon which he insisted for them to do anything else.

  When the negotiators reached Atvar’s headquarters, Lizard guards made sure Molotov did not speak to Marshall or Eden or Togo before entering the meeting room. They also made sure he did not speak to von Ribbentrop. That was wasted labor; he had nothing to say to the German foreign minister.

  Precisely at noon, the Lizard fleetlord came into the meeting room, accompanied by his interpreter. Through that male, Atvar said, “Very well, speaker for the not-empire of Deutschland, I have agreed to your request for this special session at this special time. You will now explain why you made such a request. I listen with great attentiveness.”

  It had better be good,was what he meant. Even through two interpreters, Molotov had no trouble figuring that out. Von Ribbentrop heard it through only one, so it should have been twice as clear to him.

  If it was, he gave no sign. “Thank you, Fleetlord,” he said as he got to his feet. From the inside pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a folded sheet of paper and, as portentously as he could, unfolded it “Fleetlord, I read to you a statement from Adolf Hitler,Fuhrer of the GermanReich.”

  When he spoke Hitler’s name, his voice took on a reverence more pious than the Pope (back before the Pope had been blown to radioactive dust) would have used in mentioning Jesus. But then, why not? Von Ribbentrop thought Hitler was infallible; when he’d made the German-Soviet nonaggression pact the fascists had so brutally violated, he’d declared to the whole world, “TheFuhrer is always right.” In such opinions, unlike diplomacy, he lacked the duplicity needed to lie well.

  Now, in pompous tones, he went on, “TheFuhrer declares that, as the Race has intolerably occupied territory rightfully German and refuses to leave such territory regardless of the illegitimacy of that occupation, theReich is fully justified in taking the strongest measure against the Race, and has now initiated those measures. We-”

  Molotov knew a sinking sensation at the pit of his stomach. So the Nazi had had a reason for summoning everyone. The fascist regime had launched another sneak attack and was now, in a pattern long familiar, offering some trumped-up rationale for whatever its latest unprovoked act of aggression had been.

  Sure enough, von Ribbentrop continued, “-have emphasized our legitimate demands by the detonation of this latest explosive-metal bomb, and by the military action following it. God will give the GermanReich the victory it deserves.” The German foreign minister refolded the paper, put it away, and shot out his right arm in the Nazi salute.“Heil Hitler!”

  Anthony Eden, Shigenori Togo, and George Marshall all looked as shaken as Molotov felt. So much for the popular front: Hitler had consulted with no one before resuming the war. He and, all too likely, everyone else would have to pay the price.

  Uotat finished hissing and popping and squeaking for Atvar. Molotov waited for the Lizard fleetlord to explode, and to threaten to rain down hideous destruction on Germany for what it had just done. The foreign commissar would have faced that prospect with considerable equanimity.

  Instead, Atvar directed only a few words to the interpreter, who said, “The exalted fleetlord tells me to tell you he is looking into this statement.” As Uotat spoke, the fleetlord left the room.

  He came back a few minutes later, and spoke several sentences to the translator. One by one, Uotat turned them into English. As he did so, Donskoi translated them into Russian for Molotov:

  “The exalted fleetlord wonders why the negotiator for the not-empire of Deutschland has had us come here to listen to a statement bearing no resemblance to any sort of reality. No atomic explosion has occurred in or near Deutschland. No atomic explosion, in fact, has occurred anywhere on Tosev 3. No unusual military activity of any sort by Deutsch forces is noted. The exalted fleetlord asks whether your brain is addled, spokesmale von Ribbentrop, or that of yourFuhrer.”

  Von Ribbentrop stared at Atvar. Along with the other human negotiators, Molotov stared at von Ribbentrop. Something had gone spectacularly wrong somewhere: that much was obvious. But what? And where?

  Otto Skorzeny pressed down on the red button till his thumbnail turned white with the pressure. Heinrich Jager waited for the southern horizon to light up with a brief new sun, and for the artillery barrage that would follow. Over the intercom, he spoke quietly to
Johannes Drucker. “Be ready to start the engine.”

  “Jawohl, Herr Oberst,”the panzer driver answered.

  But the new sun did not rise. The mild Polish summer day continued undisturbed. Skorzeny jammed his thumb down on the button again. Nothing happened. “Christ on His cross,” the SS man muttered. Then, when that proved too weak to satisfy him, he ground out, “Goddamned motherfucking son of a shit-eating bitch.” He tried the transmitter one more time before throwing it to the ground in disgust He turned to the blackshirt beside him. “Get me the backup unit.Schnell”

  “Jawohl, Herr Standartenfuhrer!”The other SS officer dashed away, to return in short order with a pack and transmitter identical to the ones that had failed.

  Skorzeny flipped the activating switch and pressed the red button on the new transmitter. Again the bomb in Lodz failed to explode. “Shit,” Skorzeny said wearily, as if even creative obscenity were more trouble than it was worth. He started to smash the second transmitter, but checked himself. Shaking his head, he said, “Something’s fucked up somewhere. Go and broadcastEGGPLANT on the general-distribution frequencies.”

  “EGGPLANT?” The other SS man looked like a dog watching a juicy bone being taken away. “Must we?”

  “Bet your arse we must, Maxi,” Skorzeny answered. “If the bomb doesn’t go off, we don’t move. The bomb hasn’t gone off. Now we have to send out the signal to let the troops know the attack’s on hold. We’ll sendKNIFE as soon as it goes up. Now move, damn you! If some overeager idiot opens up because he didn’t get thehalt signal, Himmler’ll wear your guts for garters.”

  Jager had never imagined an SS officer named Maxi. He’d never imagined anybody, no matter what his name was, could move so fast. “What now?” he asked Skorzeny.

  He’d seldom seen the big, bluff Austrian indecisive, but that was the only word that fit “Damned if I know,” Skorzeny answered. “Maybe some sexton or whatever the kikes call them spotted the aerial hooked up to the grave marker and tore it loose. If that’s all it is, a simple reconnection would get things going again without much trouble. If it’s anything more than that, if the Jews have their hands on the bomb…” He shook his head. “That could be downright ugly. For some reason or other, they don’t exactly love us.” Even his laugh, usually a great fierce chortle, rang hollow now.

  For some reason or other.That was as close as Skorzeny would come to acknowledging what theReich had done to the Jews. It was closer than a lot of German officers came, but it was not close enough, not as far as Jager was concerned. He said, “What are you going to do about it?”

  Skorzeny looked at him as if he were the idiot. “What do you think I’m going to do? I’m going to shag ass down to Lodz and make that fucker work, one way or the other. Like I say, I hope the problem’s just with the aerial. But if it’s not, if the Jews really did get wind of this some kind of way, I’ll manage just fine, thank you very much.”

  “You can’t be thinking of going by yourself,” Jager exclaimed. “If the Jews do have it”-he didn’t know himself, not for sure-“they’ll turn you into ablutwurst quick as boiled asparagus.” The classics sometimes came in handy in the oddest ways.

  Skorzeny shook his head again. “You’re wrong, Jager. It’ll be a-what do the RAF bastards call it? — a piece of cake, that’s what. There’s a cease-fire on, remember? Even if the kikes have stolen the bomb, they won’t be guarding it real hard. Why should they? They won’t know we know they’ve got it, because they can’t figure we’d try and set it off in the middle of a truce.” His leer had most of its old force back. “Of course not. We’re good little boys and girls, right? Except for one thing: I’m not a good little boy.”

  “Mm, I’d noticed that,” Jager said dryly. Now Skorzeny’s laugh was full of his wicked vinegar-he recovered fast. He was also damned good at thinking on his feet; every word he said sounded reasonable. “When are you leaving?”

  “Soon as I change clothes, get some rations, and take care of a couple of things here,” the SS man answered. “If the bomb goes up, it’ll give those scaly sons of bitches a kick in the teeth they’ll remember for a long time.” In absurdly coquettish fashion, he fluttered his fingers at Jager and tramped away.

  From the cupola of the Panther, Jager stared after him. With his unit on full battle alert, how the devil was he supposed to get away and get word to Mieczyslaw so he could pass it on to Anielewicz by whatever roundabout route he used? The answer was simple, and stared Jager in the face: he couldn’t. But if he didn’t, he worried not just about thousands of Jews going up in a toadstool-shaped cloud of dust, but also about Germany. Whatwould the Lizards visit on theVaterland for touching off an atomic bomb during a truce? Jager didn’t know. He didn’t want to find out, either.

  From down in the turret of the Panther, Gunther Grillparzer said, “No show today after all, Colonel?”

  “Doesn’t look that way,” Jager answered, and then took a chance by adding, “Can’t say I’m sorry, either.”

  To his surprise, Grillparzer said, “Amen!” The gunner seemed to think some kind of explanation was needed there, for he went on, “I hold no brief for kikes, mind you, sir, but it ain’t like they’re our number-one worry right now, you know what I mean? It’s the Lizards I really want to boot in the arse, not them. They’re all going to hell anyway, so I don’t hardly have to worry about ’em.”

  “Corporal, as far as I’m concerned, they can sew red stripes on your trousers and put you on the General Staff,” Jager told him. “I think you’ve got better strategic sense than most of our top planners, and that’s a fact.”

  “If I do, then God help Germany,” Grillparzer said, and laughed.

  “God help Germany,” Jager agreed, and didn’t.

  The rest of the day passed in lethargic anticlimax. Jager and his crew climbed out of their Panther with nothing but relief: you rolled the dice every time you went up against the Lizards, and sooner or later snake eyes stared back at you. Sometime during the afternoon, Otto Skorzeny disappeared. Jager pictured him slouching toward Lodz, a pack on his back, and very likely makeup over the famous scar. Could he hide that devilish gleam in his eye with makeup, too? Jager had his doubts.

  Johannes Drucker disappeared for a while, too, but he came back in triumph, with enough kielbasa for everybody’s supper that night. “Give that man a Knight’s Cross!” Gunther Grillparzer exclaimed. Turning to Jager, he said with a grin, “If you’re going to put me on the General Staff, sir, I might as well enjoy myself,nicht wahr?”

  “Warum denn nicht?”Jager said. “Why not?”

  As twilight deepened, they got a fire going and stuck a pot over it to boil the sausage. The savory steam rising from the pot made Jager’s mouth water. When he heard approaching footsteps, he expected them to come from the crew of another panzer, drawn by the smell and hoping to get their share of meat.

  But the men coming up to the cookfire weren’t in panzer black, they were in SS black.So Maxi and his friends aren’t above scrounging, Jager thought, amused. Then Maxi drew a Walther from his holster and pointed it at Jager’s midsection. The SS men with him also took out their pistols, covering the rest of the startled panzer crewmen.

  “You will come with me immediately, Colonel, or I will shoot you down on the spot,” Maxi said. “You are under arrest for treason against theReich.”

  “Exalted Fleetlord,” Moishe Russie said. He was getting used to these sessions with Atvar. He was even coming to look forward to them. The more useful Atvar thought him now, the less likely he and his family were to have to pay for his earlier strokes against the Lizards. And guessing with the diplomats of the great powers was a game that made chess look puerile. He was, apparently, a better guesser than most of the Lizards. That kept the questions coming, and let him find out how the negotiations fared, which had a fascination of its own: he was privy to knowledge only a handful of humans possessed.

  Atvar spoke in his own language. Zolraag turned these words into the usual mix of German
and Polish: “You are of course familiar with the Tosevite not-emperor Hitler, and hold no good opinion of him-I take it this remains correct?”

  “Yes, Exalted Fleetlord.” Moishe added an emphatic cough.

  “Good,” Atvar said. “I judge you more likely, then, to give me an honest opinion of his actions than you would those of, say, Churchill: solidarity with your fellow Big Uglies will be less of an issue in Hitler’s case. Is this also correct?”

  “Yes, Exalted Fleetlord,” Moishe repeated. Thinking of Hitler as his fellow human being did not fill him with delight. Whatever you had to say against them, the Lizards had shown themselves to be far better people than Adolf Hitler.

  “Very well,” Atvar said through Zolraag. “Here is my question: how do you judge the conduct of Hitler and von Ribbentrop when the latter summoned me to announce the detonation of an atomic bomb and the resumption of warfare by Deutschland against the Race, when in fact no such detonation and no such warfare-barring a few more cease-fire violations than usual-in fact took place?”

  Moishe stared. “This really happened, Exalted Fleetlord?”

  “Truth,” Atvar said, a word Russie understood in the Lizards’ language.

  He scratched his head as he thought. For all he knew, that might have made him uncouth in Atvar’s eyes. But then, he was a Big Ugly, so was he not uncouth in Atvar’s eyes by assumption? Slowly, he said, “I have trouble believing von Ribbentrop would make such a claim knowing it to be untrue and knowing you could easily learn it was untrue.”

  “That is perceptive of you,” the fleetlord said. “When the spokesmale for Hitler did make the claim, I immediately investigated it and, finding it false, returned to inform him of the fact. The unanimous opinion of our psychologists is that my statement took him by surprise. Here: observe him for yourself.”