“Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer!” 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 broadcast EGGPLANT 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 send KNIFE as soon as it goes up. Now move, damn you! If some overeager idiot opens up because he didn’t get the halt signal, Himmler’ll wear your guts for garters.”
Jäger 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 the Reich 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 Jäger 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,” Jäger exclaimed. “If the Jews do have it”—he didn’t know himself, not for sure—“they’ll turn you into a blutwurst quick as boiled asparagus.” The classics sometimes came in handy in the oddest ways.
Skorzeny shook his head again. “You’re wrong, Jäger. 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,” Jäger 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 Jäger and tramped away.
From the cupola of the Panther, Jäger 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 Jäger 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. What would the Lizards visit on the Vaterland for touching off an atomic bomb during a truce? Jäger 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,” Jäger 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,” Jäger 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,” Jäger agreed, and didn’t.
The rest of the day passed in lethargic anticlimax. Jäger 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. Jäger 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? Jäger 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 Jäger, 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?” Jäger 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 Jäger’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, Jäger thought, amused. Then Maxi drew a Walther from his holster and pointed it at Jäger’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 the Reich.”
“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 Hit
ler 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.”
At Atvar’s gesture, Zolraag activated one of the little screens in the chamber. Sure enough, there stood von Ribbentrop, looking somewhere between arrogant and afraid. A Lizard the screen did not show spoke to him in hissing English. The German foreign minister’s eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, a hand groped for the edge of the table.
“Exalted Fleetlord, that is a surprised man,” Moishe declared.
“So we thought,” Atvar agreed. “This raises the following question: is the delivery of false information part of some devious scheme on Hitler’s part, or was the information intended to be true? In either case, of course, von Ribbentrop would have believed it accurate as he delivered it.”
“Yes.” Moishe scratched his head again, trying to figure out what possible benefit Hitler might have derived by deliberately deceiving his foreign minister into threatening the Lizards. For the life of him, he couldn’t come up with any. “I have to believe the Germans intended to attack you.”
“This is the conclusion we have also drawn, although we warned them they would suffer severely if they made any such attacks,” Atvar said. “It is unsettling, distinctly so: somewhere on our frontier with Hitler’s forces, or perhaps beyond that frontier, there is probably a nuclear weapon that for whatever reason has failed of ignition. We have searched for such a weapon, but have not discovered it After El Iskandariya, it is by no means certain we would discover it Now: will Hitler be willing to accept failure and resume talks, or will he seek to detonate the bomb after all?”
Being asked to peer inside Hitler’s brain was rather like being asked to debride gangrenous tissue: revolting but necessary. “If the Germans find any way to detonate the bomb, my guess is that they will,” Moishe said. “I have to say, though, that’s only a guess.”
“It accords with the predictions our researchers have made,” Atvar said. “Whether this makes it accurate, only time will show, but I believe you are giving me your best and most reasoned judgment here.”
“Truth, Exalted Fleetlord,” Moishe said in the language of the Race.
“Good,” the Lizard answered. “I am of the opinion that we previously tried to exploit you too broadly, and, as with any misused tool, this caused difficulties we would not have had if we kept you within limits appropriate to your situation. This appears to be the source of a large portion of your enmity toward us and your turning against us.”
“It’s certainly a source of some of it,” Moishe agreed. That was the closest to understanding him the Lizards had ever come, at any rate, and vastly preferable to their equating his actions with treason, as they had been doing.
“If a knife breaks because it is used as a pry bar, is that the fault of the knife?” Atvar resumed. “No, it is the fault of the operator. Because your service, Moishe Russie, has improved when you are properly used, I grow more willing to overlook past transgressions. When these negotiations between the Race and the Tosevites are completed, perhaps we shall establish you in the area where you were recaptured—”
“The exalted fleetlord means Palestine,” Zolraag put in on his own. “These names you give places have caused us considerable difficulty, especially where more than one name applies to the same place.”
Atvar resumed: “We shall establish you there, as I was saying, with your female and hatchling, and, as necessary, consult with you on Tosevite affairs. We shall do a better job of recognizing your limits henceforward, and not force you to provide information or propaganda you find distasteful. Would you accept such an arrangement?”
They wanted to set him up in Palestine—in the Holy Land—with his family? They’d use him as an expert on humanity without coercing him or humiliating him? Cautiously, he said, “Exalted Fleetlord, my only worry is that it sounds too good to be true.”
“It is truth,” the fleetlord answered. “Have you not seen, Moishe Russie, that when the Race makes an agreement, it abides by what it agrees?”
“I have seen this,” Moishe admitted. “But I’ve also seen the Race ordering rather than trying to agree.”
The fleetlord’s sigh sounded surprisingly human. “This has proved far less effective on Tosev 3 than we would have desired. We are, accordingly, trying new methods here, however distasteful innovation is for us. When the males and females of the colonization fleet arrive, they will undoubtedly have a great many sharp things to say about our practices, but we shall be able to offer them a large portion of a viable planet on which to settle. Considering what might have happened here, this strikes me as an acceptable resolution.”
“I don’t see how I could disagree, Exalted Fleetlord,” Moishe said. “Sometimes not everyone can get everything he wants from a situation.”
“This has never before happened to the Race,” Atvar said with another sigh.
Moishe went from the world-bestriding to the personal in the space of a sentence: “When you settle me and my family in Palestine, there is one other thing I would like.”
“And what is this?” the fleetlord asked.
Russie wondered if he was pushing his luck too far, but pressed ahead anyhow: “You know I was studying to become a doctor before the Germans invaded Poland. I’d like to take up those studies again, not just with humans but with males of the Race. If there is peace, we’ll have so much to learn from you . . . ”
“One of my principal concerns in making a peace with you Big Uglies is how much you will learn from us, and what sorts of things,” Atvar said. “You have learned too much already. But in medicine I do not suppose you will become a great danger to us. Very well, Moishe Russie, let it be as you say.”
“Thank you, Exalted Fleetlord,” Moishe said. Some American in a film had once used an expression that sounded so odd when dubbed literally into Polish, Moishe had never forgotten it: come up smelling like a rose. If Atvar stayed by the terms of the agreement, he’d somehow managed to do exactly that. “A rose,” he muttered. “Just like a rose.”
“Moishe Russie?” Atvar asked, with an interrogative cough: Zolraag hadn’t been able to make sense of the words.
“It is a bargain, Exalted Fleetlord,” Moishe said, and hoped the rose didn’t prove to have too many thorns.
Straha leaned away from the microphone and took off his earphones, which didn’t fit well over his hearing diaphragms anyhow. “Another broadcast,” he said, turning an eye turret toward Sam Yeager. “I do not see the necessity for many more, not with talks between the Race and you Big Uglies progressing so well. You cannot imagine how you must have horrified stodgy old Atvar, to get him to talk with you at all.”
“I’m glad he did, finally,” Sam said. “I’ve had a bellyful of war. This whole world has had a bellyful—tw
o bellyfuls—of war.”
“Half measures of any sort do not appear to succeed on Tosev 3,” Straha agreed. “Had it been I in the fleetlord’s body paint, we would have tried sooner and harder to batter you Tosevites into submission.”
“I know that.” Yeager nodded. The refugee shiplord had never made any great secret of his preference for the stick over the carrot. Sam remembered the American atomic bomb sitting somewhere here in Hot Springs, surely no more than a few hundred yards from this stuffy little studio. He couldn’t tell Straha about the bomb, of course; General Donovan would nail his scalp to the wall if he pulled a boner like that. What he did say was, “With three not-empires making atomic bombs, you’d have had a hard time stopping all of them.”
“Truth there, too, of course.” Straha sighed. “When peace comes—if peace comes—what becomes of me?”
“We won’t give you back for the Race to take vengeance on you,” Sam told him. “We’ve already said as much to your people in Cairo. They didn’t much like it, but they’ve agreed.”
“Of this much I am already aware,” Straha answered. “So I shall live out my life among you, the Tosevites of the U.S.A. And how am I to pass my time while I am doing this?”
“Oh.” Sam started to see what the refugee was driving at. “Some males of the Race fit in fine with us. Vesstil’s taught us an amazing lot about rocket engineering, and Ristin—”
“Has for all practical purposes turned into a Big Ugly,” Straha said with acid in his voice.
“When you think about where he is, what’s he supposed to do?” Sam asked.
“He is a male of the Race. He should have the dignity to remember that fact,” Straha replied.
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