Zhukov said, “For myself, I am sorry we did not think of it.” A leer spread over his broad peasant face. “I would have paid money to watch all the Lizards screwing their heads off. Serves them right for laughing at us for so long.”
Gromyko took another sip from his glass of tea. “It does disrupt them, as Lavrenti Pavlovich has said. But I wish whoever had this idea would have saved it till a critical moment instead of using it to make a nuisance of himself and no more.”
“Spoken like a good pragmatist,” Molotov said: high praise from him. He turned to Beria and Zhukov. “Would the wreckage from the missiles have given the Lizards some clues as to who did this?”
“Comrade General Secretary, anyone who would launch his own missiles at the Lizards is such a fool, he would deserve to get caught,” Beria said.
“I agree,” Zhukov said, not sounding happy about agreeing with Beria on anything. “But my colleagues in the Red Navy tell me it would not be so easy to fire a mongrel missile from a submarine. If anything went wrong, the missile might explode in its launch tube, which would destroy the ship.”
“Boat,” Gromyko said. “Submarines are called boats.”
“Submarines are toys for the devil’s grandson,” Zhukov retorted. He muttered something else. Molotov’s hearing wasn’t what it had been; he didn’t catch all of it. He did catch boats and damned civilians and a couple of new references to Satan’s near relations.
Gromyko might have heard all of Zhukov’s bad-tempered tirade, or he might have heard none of it. If he had heard, his face didn’t know about it. He said, “On the basis of geography, the Japanese are likeliest to be guilty.”
“Submarines are sneaky devils,” Zhukov said, apparently determined to disagree with the foreign commissar because Gromyko had presumed to correct him. “The new ones, the ones with atomic motors, hardly need to surface at all. And even a diesel boat ”—he gave Gromyko another sour look—“with a breathing tube could be a long, long way from Australia before it had to fuel.”
However spiteful that was, it was also true. “No evidence, then,” Molotov said. No one disagreed with him. He wished someone would have.
“Ginger bombs are not something over which the Lizards will start a war, as they would over atomic weapons.” Gromyko coughed. “No one goes to war because he is made too happy.”
Beria chuckled at that. Zhukov remained grumpy. Molotov asked, “Were the Lizards made so happy, they could not carry on? If happiness of that sort incapacitates them, they may well fight to prevent it.”
“I believe that to be so, Comrade General Secretary,” Beria said. “Signals intercepts indicate that they feared nuclear missiles following on the heels of the ones loaded with ginger.”
Zhukov nodded. If he was annoyed enough at Gromyko to take Beria’s side, Molotov would have to do something about that. Before he could speak, Zhukov added, “Intercepts also indicate that the Lizards’ fleetlord was in Australia during the ginger attack. That must have made them even jumpier than they would have been anyhow.”
“Are you certain?” Beria leaned forward. “I have received no such reports.”
Zhukov looked smug. “Sometimes military intelligence can do what ordinary spies cannot. This is why we have the GRU as well as the NKVD.”
Beria scribbled something on a notepad, then angrily tore off the sheet, ripped it to shreds, and threw it away. Molotov sat motionless. Inside, though, he was grinning from ear to ear. He hadn’t even needed to turn Zhukov and Beria against each other; they’d taken care of it for themselves. And a good thing, too, he thought. Anything he could do to keep the Red Army and the NKVD at odds with each other, he would. And if he didn’t have to . . . so much the better.
Gromyko coughed. “In another matter, I have heard that there was an attempt to hijack the nuclear bomb the Jews are said to have in Poland. I am given to understand that it failed.”
“Too bad,” Molotov said insincerely.
“Not necessarily,” Zhukov said. “Some of those Poles might want to use the bomb against us, not the Lizards.”
“That is an unpleasant thought,” Molotov said in the same tone of voice he’d used before. “Even so, the greater the instability within Poland, the greater the advantages for us.” Everyone nodded at that. Molotov added, “This merely proves the nationalists’ incompetence. Knowing them to be ineffective is valuable for us. Were they better at what they do, they would be more dangerous.”
“Were they better at what they do, they would be Nazis,” Gromyko said.
Molotov nodded. “Many of them would like to be Nazis. Many of them, in 1939, were even more reactionary than the Nazis. Spending a couple of years under German rule would have been a useful corrective for that. But they have been under Lizard control for a generation now: time enough to forget such lessons. They will cause the Lizards trouble one day before too long, and that means they will also cause trouble for the Germans and us.”
“Then why,” Beria asked, “did you authorize our operative to tell the nationalists where the Jews were hiding their bomb?”
Before answering, Molotov weighed the startled expression on Zhukov’s face and the stony one on Gromyko’s. Gromyko looked that stony only when concealing what he really thought. Here he was probably concealing horror. Molotov did not look toward Beria. Maybe the NKVD chief would prove smug, maybe he would manage to hold in what he was thinking. But, just as Molotov stirred up dissension among his advisors, so Beria was trying to rouse dissension against the General Secretary. Yes, Lavrenti Pavlovich wanted to follow Himmler to the top.
“Why?” Molotov said, letting none of that show in his face or his voice. “Because I expected the reactionaries to fail and be discredited: a bomb like this early German model weighs a good many tonnes, and is not easy to move. And even if the nationalists did succeed in stealing it, they are likelier to use it against the Lizards or the Jews or the Nazis than against us. A small risk, I thought—and I was right.”
Zhukov relaxed. Gromyko went right on showing the world nothing. And Beria—Beria fumed. Like so many from down in the Caucasus, he had trouble holding on to his temper. Stalin had been the same way. Stalin, though, had been even more frightening. Molotov used Zhukov and Gromyko to check Beria. No one had been able to check Stalin, not in anything that really mattered.
Perhaps realizing he was checked now, Beria changed the subject: “Comrade General Secretary, I am pleased to report that we have successfully delivered a sizable shipment of arms to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.”
“That is good news,” Molotov agreed. “I am given to understand, however, that Mao’s emissary to the United States still attracts a good deal of favorable notice in the American press, and that it is likely President Warren will try to get weapons through to the People’s Liberation Army.”
“If you want her assassinated, I will see what I can do,” Beria said. “Blaming it on the Lizards should not be too difficult.”
“Assassinations have dangerous and unpredictable consequences,” Gromyko said. “They are a strategy of last resort, not one of first instance. The risks here outweigh the benefits.”
“How so?” Beria said defiantly.
“America can never have the influence in China we do,” the foreign commissar replied. “Never, with geography as it is and politics as they are now. U.S. access to the mainland of Asia is too limited. The Japanese Empire and the Pacific Ocean prevent it from being anything else—especially when Japan has her own ambitions in China, which she does. We, on the other hand, can penetrate the Chinese frontier at any point of our choosing along thousands of kilometers. Let the Americans do the Lizards in China a little harm. It is all they can do.”
“A reasonable answer, I think, Lavrenti Pavlovich,” Molotov said. “Your comments? Counterarguments?”
“Never mind.” Beria turned his head to glare at Gromyko. The chandeliers overhead made the lenses of his spectacles look like opaque golden ellipses to Molotov. Yes, a barn owl
, Molotov thought. That’s what he reminds me of. Gromyko looked back at Beria, imperturbable as always.
Molotov dismissed the meeting a few minutes later. He had a better sense now of what the Soviet Union should and should not try to do. He’d also kept his subordinates divided. As he lit a cigarette, he wondered which was more important.
13
“No, I’m sorry, Karen,” Major Sam Yeager said into the telephone, “but I can tell you right now that Jonathan isn’t going to be around tomorrow night. There’s a reception scheduled downtown, and he’s got to be there with Barbara and me.”
“Oh,” Karen said in a dull voice, and then, “Is it another reception for these Chinese women? I’d thought they’d have gone home by now.”
“Not for a while yet,” Yeager answered, which, he realized too late, was probably more than he should have said.
“The one my age—” Karen began. After a moment, she sighed and said, “I’d better go. I’ve got studying to do. Goodbye, Mr. Yeager.”
“Goodbye,” Sam said, but he was talking into a dead telephone. With a sigh of his own, he hung up. Sitting on the bed beside him, Barbara gave him a quizzical look. He shook his head. “Karen’s jealous of Liu Mei, that’s what it is.”
“Oh, dear.” Barbara raised an eyebrow. “Does she have reason to be jealous, do you think?”
“Why are you asking me? The one you need to ask is Jonathan.” Yeager held up a hasty hand. “I know, I know—he’ll say, ‘None of your business.’ I probably would have said the same thing when I was his age—but when I was nineteen, I was out on the road playing ball, making my own living.”
“Not so easy to do that nowadays,” Barbara said.
“No, especially if you can’t hit a curveball,” Sam said, a little sadly. Jonathan wasn’t a terrible sandlot player, but he’d never make a pro, not in a million years.
Barbara said, “Maybe he is sweet on Liu Mei. You used to have to drag him to these receptions. Now he goes without any fuss, and the two of them do spend a lot of time together.”
“I know. Wouldn’t that be something, though?” Yeager shook his head in slow wonder. “Bobby Fiore’s kid . . .”
“Who is half Chinese,” Barbara said with brisk feminine practicality. “Who was raised in China—except when she was raised by the Lizards—who doesn’t speak much English, and who’s going back to China some time in the not too indefinite future.”
“You know all that,” Sam said. “I know all that. Jonathan knows all that, too. Question is, does he care?”
He got another chance to find out the next evening, when he and Barbara and Jonathan piled into the Buick to go up to the reception at City Hall. The building dominated the Los Angeles skyline, being the only one permitted to exceed the twelve-story limit enforced from fear of earthquakes.
People still turned out to meet and be seen with Liu Han and Liu Mei: the local Chinese community, politicians, military men, and the kind of people Sam had come to think of as prominent gawkers. He’d been astonished to meet John Wayne at one of these bashes. Barbara’s only comment was, “Why couldn’t it have been Cary Grant?”
Here and now, Sam got a drink, made a run at the buffet, and dutifully circulated through the crowd. If he ended up in a knot of men in uniform, that was no great surprise. The officers’ wives formed a similar knot a few feet away.
After a while, Liu Han gave a little speech about how much China in general and the People’s Liberation Army in particular needed American help. Her English was better than it had been when she got to the USA the summer before. When she sat down, the mayor of Los Angeles got up and made a much longer speech covering the same points.
Actually, Sam only thought it covered the same points, for he soon stopped listening. Turning to the colonel next to him, he murmured, “Sir, isn’t there something against this in the Geneva Convention?”
The colonel snorted. “We’re not prisoners of war,” he said, and then paused. “It does seem that way, though, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” Yeager answered. “And to think: I could be at the dentist’s office now.”
That won him another snort from the colonel, a big, bluff fellow with pilot’s wings and the rocket that showed he’d flown in space. “You’re a dangerous man—though not half as dangerous as the windbag up there.”
“He’ll shut up sooner or later,” Sam said. “He has to . . . doesn’t he?”
Eventually, the mayor did descend from the podium. He got a heartfelt round of applause, and looked delighted. Sam shook his head. The damn fool couldn’t tell the audience was cheering not because of anything he’d said but because he’d finally stopped saying it.
“That calls for a drink, Major,” the colonel said. “I never thought we ought to get hazardous-duty pay for these affairs, but I may just change my mind.” He stuck out a hand. “Name’s Eli Hollins.”
Yeager shook it. “Pleased to meet you, sir.” He gave his own name.
“Oh, the alien-liaison fellow.” Hollins nodded. “I’ve heard of you. Read some of your reports, too. Solid stuff in there; I used pieces of it when I was talking with the Lizards up in orbit.” He cocked his head to one side. “You get right inside ’em, seems like. How do you do that?”
A grin stretched across Yeager’s face. He was no more immune to praise than anybody else. “Thank you very much, sir,” he said. “How? I don’t know. You try to see things from a Lizard’s point of view, that’s all. You see what makes him tick, and then reason from that the way he would.”
“You make it sound easy,” Hollins said. “Any ten-year-old kid can fly a fighter plane—with about thirty years of practice.” He and Yeager finally made it through the crowd to the bar; after the mayor at last fell silent, a lot of people had decided they needed refreshing. Hollins ordered scotch for himself, then raised an eyebrow at Sam. “What’ll it be?”
“Let me have a Lucky Lager,” Yeager told the barkeep. Hollins covered both drinks. “Thanks again, sir,” Sam said. “Next round’s mine.”
“That’s a deal,” the flier said equably. He raised his glass. “Confusion to the Lizards—may we cause plenty of it.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Sam said, and did. “And we do cause ’em plenty. We have, ever since they got here. They figured they’d be knocking over savages, but we were already geared up for a hell of a big war. They’re still trying to figure that out. They’ll be trying to figure it out ten thousand years from now. That’s how they work: slow, patient, thorough.” He took another swig from his Lucky. “I’m going on like His Honor.”
“Yeah, but there’s a difference: you make sense, and he didn’t.” Eli Hollins studied Yeager. “The Lizards’ll still be figuring us out ten thousand years from now—if we don’t lick ’em first. Am I right or am I wrong?”
“Sir, you’re right,” Sam answered. “No question about it: you’re right. Sooner or later, we’ll have the edge on them. We come up with new things faster than they do, and they know it. Question is, do they give us the chance to use what we’ve got when we do start sliding past them?”
“Once we’re ahead of them, they won’t stop us.” Hollins had a fighter pilot’s arrogance, all right. He was fifteen years younger than Yeager, too. That also probably had something to do with it.
Yeager said, “If they think we can go after Home, sir, they’re liable to try to wreck Earth, destroy us as a species. I know they’ve talked about it. They’ve seen how dangerous we are now, and they aren’t stupid. They may have a better idea of where we’ll be a hundred years from now than we do.”
“That’s . . . interesting,” Hollins said. “Cold-blooded little bastards, aren’t they?”
“They don’t want to do it,” Sam said. “I think they’re more squeamish about mass murder than we are. The Nazis’ death camps almost made them turn up their toes. That’s one of the reasons they’ll go on hunting whoever blew up the ships from the colonization fleet till they catch ’em. I wouldn’t want to be in Himm
ler or Molotov’s shoes when that happens, either.”
“Makes sense to me.” Colonel Hollins finished his drink. “But steer on back to what you were saying before, why don’t you? If the Lizards are squeamish about mass murder, how come they’re thinking about wiping out Earth?”
“I asked Straha about that once.” Sam looked around, but didn’t see the shiplord here. “What he said was, ‘If you have a leg with a cancer in it, sometimes you have to cut it off to save the body.’ ” Yeager paused for effect, then added, “Can I get you that other drink now?”
“Don’t mind if I do—don’t mind if you do,” Hollins said, and Sam bought him another scotch. His own beer had some mileage left.
Sipping it, he looked around the City Hall reception room again. Barbara was talking with the mayor’s wife. Maybe that didn’t rate hazard pay; Sam hoped the lady was less dull than her husband. And Jonathan was having an animated conversation with Liu Mei. It was animated on his side, anyhow; her face never changed expression much.
Yeager turned back to Hollins; nobody in his family looked eager to flee, as sometimes happened. He polished off his beer, then said, “I’ve been poking around a little, trying to see what I can find out. If I can whisper something into a Lizard’s hearing diaphragm, maybe the Race will come down on the Russians or the Germans, and that’ll be the end of it. Nobody will have to look over his shoulder any more, and nobody will ever try such a dumb stunt again.”
Hollins’ voice was dry: “Tell you what, Major—you tend to your knitting and let the Lizards tend to theirs.”
“Well, yeah, sure,” Sam said. “Even Molotov’s a human being. Even Himmler’s a human being . . . I suppose. But I can think of a hell of a lot of Lizards I’d sooner have living next door to me than either one of them.”
“Damned if I’ll argue with you there,” Hollins said with a chuckle, “but there’s a hell of a lot of people I’d sooner have living next door to me than those guys, too. Like all the rest of the human race, for instance.”
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