In th Balance

by neetha Napew

  The thing had sharper teeth, and more of them, than a person had any business having, and a forked tongue like a snake's to go with them. It also had eyes that reminded him of those he'd seen on a chameleon in the Pittsburgh zoo when he was a kid: each in its own little conical mounting, with one quite capable of looking north while the other looked south.

  Remembering the chameleon was the first thing that made Fiore wonder if he truly had ended up in Satan's country. The devil— or even a devil— should have looked more supernatural and less like a lizard, even an African lizard.

  Then he noticed he was still in the flipped dining car, for that matter, he had a butter knife lying on his stomach and a sesameseed roll by one shoe. He was certain hell had to have worse pangs than a dining car, no matter how bad the soup in this one was. Had been, he corrected himself.

  The— well, if it wasn't a devil, it had to be a thing— the thing, then, pointed what looked like a gun at the butter knife near Fiore's belly button. If he wasn't in hell at the moment, he realized, he could get there in a hurry. He smiled the smile a dog smiles after it's lost a fight. "You want to be careful with that," be said, and hoped he was right.

  The thing hissed something in reply. Fourteen years of playing ball all over the United States and with and against players with parents from all over Europe and Latin America left Fiore able to recognize a double handful of

  languages, and swear in several of them. This wasn't any he knew, or anything close.

  The thing spoke again, and jerked the barrel of the gun. That Fiore understood. He staggered to his feet, wondering as he did so whether his abused head would fall off. The thing made no effort to help him while he swayed. Indeed, it skittered back to make sure he couldn't reach it.

  "If you think I'm bluffing, you're outta your mind," he said. It ignored him. Considering that it came up only to the middle of his chest (and he needed shoes to make the five-eight he always claimed), maybe it had reason to be nervous of him, although he doubted he could have squashed a slug if you gave it a running start.

  At another motion of the gun barrel, he started walking forward. After three or four steps, he came to the body of the colored steward. The

  fellow had a hole in the back of his white mess jacket big enough to throw a cat through. Pieces of him poked through the hole. Fiore's stomach did a flip-flop. The gun at his back concentrated his mind remarkably, however. Gulping, he walked on.

  Only a few people had been in the dining car when it derailed. So far as Fiore could tell, he was the only person left alive (he did not count his captor as qualifying). The side of the car— actually, it served as the roof just now— was pierced in a dozen places by bullet holes that let in the warm night air. Fiore shivered. Only dumb luck had kept him from stopping a round, or more than one, while he lay unconscious.

  The thing made him scramble out of the dining car. More creatures just like it waited outside. For no good reason, that startled the ballplayer— he hadn't imagined there could be more than one of them.

  He saw he wasn't the only person being hustled toward some peculiar gadgets that sat on the ground by the train. Not until another of them thundered past overhead did he realize they were flying machines. They didn't look like any flying machines he'd seen before.

  One of the captured people tried to run. Fiore had also been thinking about that. He was glad he'd only thought about it when the things — he still didn't know what else to call them— shot the fleeing man in the back. Just as their flying machines didn't look like airplanes, their guns didn't sound like rifles. They sounded like machine guns; he'd heard machine guns once or twice, at fairs after the first World War.

  Running away from somebody— or even something— carrying a machine gun wasn't smart. So Fiore let himself be herded onto the flying machine and into a too-small seat. A good many of the scaly things joined him, but

  no people. The machine took off. His stomach gave a lurch different from the one he'd felt when he stepped over the dead steward. He'd never been off the ground before.

  The things chattered among themselves as they flew through the night. Fiore had no idea which way they were going. He kept sneaking glances at his watch. After about two hours, the darkness outside, the little window turned light, not with daytime but with spots like the ones at a ballpark.

  These spots didn't show bleachers, though. They showed— Fiore gaped for the right word. Spaceships? Rockets? They had to be something like that. Sam Yeager would know for sure, he thought, and suddenly felt ashamed at teasing his friend over that stupid science-fiction magazine... which turned out not to have been so stupid after all.

  Then he wondered if Yeager was still alive, if

  he was, he'd have found out about the Martians, too.

  The Kukuruznik's engine complained about the thin air it was breathing; at four thousand meters, it was way over its proper cruising altitude— up near its ceiling, as a matter of fact. Ludmila Gorbunova's lungs complained, too. The little biplane was not equipped with oxygen, and even sitting in the cockpit made her feel as if she'd just finished a twenty-kilometer run.

  She would have gone higher if she could, though. At such a height, the U-2 was hardly more than a speck in the sky— but the Lizards were proving even more skilled than the fascists at spotting such specks and knocking them down.

  Ludmila did not even try to fly directly over the new invaders' base. Planes that did that quite simply never came back. The base, a giant ringworm on the smooth skin of the steppe,

  was visible enough even at the greater distance an oblique view gave.

  She counted the huge flying towers that formed the perimeter of the base, shook her head, counted them again. She still got twenty-seven. That was four more than she'd spotted on her last flight, the day before yesterday. From four thousand meters, most things on the ground looked tiny as ants. The towers, though, still bulked large, their shadows darkening great strips of grassland.

  They were large, too; from them poured the impossibly deadly planes and tanks that were wresting great tracts of land not only from the. Russians who owned it but from the Germans as well Ludmila still did not know how to feel about that. She hated the Germans with all her soul, but against them one could contend with hope of victory. How could mere men fight the Lizards and their marvels?

  Mere men kept trying. Even now, if the radio was to be believed, Soviet tank columns were engaging the Lizards' armor and pushing, it back in disarray. Ludmila wondered if anyone believed the radio any more. The year before, the radio had said the Germans were being pushed back from Minsk, then from Kiev, then from Smolensk...

  Such thoughts were dangerous. Ludmila knew that, too. The purges of the thirties had swept through Kiev as they had everywhere else in the Soviet Union. One day a teacher would be there, the next day vanished. You learned not to ask where he'd gone, not unless you wanted to join him there.

  Ludmila shook her head, as if to drive the worries out of it. She peered down at the ground again, squinted to sharpen her vision as much as she could. That plume of dust there in the distance— she squinted harder. "Yes, those are tanks down at the bottom of it,

  may the Devil's grandmother run away with them," she said

  The Kukuruznik had had a radio fitted when Ludmila went from night harassment to reconnaissance she did not use it. Aircraft that used radio around the Lizards generally did not last long afterward; her information, while she thought it important, didn't seem worth dying for.

  She banked away from the Lizards' base. She wondered if her own base would still be there when she landed. The new invaders, like the old, pounded every airstrip they could find. But the so-called strip had been only a length of smooth steppe, and she could find another such strip at need. The U-2 didn't need much room in which to set down.

  Even when she got to the airstrip, she had to circle twice to be sure it was there. Camouflage nettings and sod roofs disguised

  the few buildings. A couple of kilomete
rs away stood a strip camouflaged not quite so well. The Lizards had already bombed it twice. That was all right, or better than all right. The planes there were dummies, the buildings repaired every night but uninhabited.

  Her teeth clicked together as the Wheatcutter bounced to a halt. Ludmila scrambled down to the ground while the prop was still spinning. The instant it stopped, groundcrew men threw grass-covered nets over the biplane and hauled it away to hide under still more nets which concealed earthen blast barriers.

  Ludmila pulled up a corner of, the command shack's camouflage net, hurried through the doorless entrance, let the net fall behind her. With netting over all the windows, the interior of the shack was gloomy. "I return, Comrade Major," she announced.

  "So you do, Comrade Pilot," Major Yelena

  Popova said, returning her salute. "You are most skilled, or most fortunate, or both." In the space of a sentence, she went from mild greeting to pure business: "Tell me at once what you saw."

  Ludmila obeyed. Major Popova scowled when she mentioned the four new flying towers on the ground. "These— creatures— swarm onto the soil of the rodina— the motherland— like locusts."

  "Yes, Comrade Major, and they consume all before them like locusts, too." Ludmila described the column of tanks she'd observed.

  The squadron commander's frown, never pleasant, grew downright fearsome. "This is vital information. Those above us must learn of it at once. I shall use the radio. Repeat your statement to me, that I may be sure to report it accurately."

  As Ludmila obeyed, Major Popova wrote down what she said, then repeated it back. When Ludmila nodded to show it was right, the major went over to the radio. It and its battery were stowed in a wheelbarrow and covered with hay. Yelena took the wheelbarrow out through the door, started in the direction of the dummy airstrip. To anyone— say, a Lizard— in a plane, she looked like a peasant shambling along.

  Ludmila watched her slow progress across the plain. Then the tiny shape that was she disappeared into one of the Potemkin sheds. She emerged a bare minute later, moving much faster than she had on the way over.

  Seemingly out of nowhere, a rocket slammed into the empty shed. Flames leapt up from it. The deception team would have, a lot of work to do tonight, Ludmila thought. After the rocket hit, Major Popova slowed down again. Ludmila did not blame her. Weighted down by

  radio and battery, the wheelbarrow was heavy.

  "The Lizards are very good at picking up radio signals," the major said as she arrived at the real airstrip. She wiped her forehead. Her sleeve came away dark with sweat. But her eyes, narrow and black like a Tatar's, gleamed in triumph.

  Even though the breeze was chilly against his muzzle, landcruiser driver Ussmak preferred moving along unbuttoned when he could. The periscopes didn't give him nearly the view he enjoyed with his head out. Besides, being cooped up in the driver's compartment reminded him too much of the cold-sleep coffin in which he'd hibernated away the years between Home and Tosev 3.

  He had an audio button taped to one hearing diaphragm. "Better get down, Ussmak," said

  Votal, the landcruiser commander. "Airscouts report Big Ugly landcruisers ahead."

  "It shall be done," Ussmak said, and slid back down into his compartment. Even as he dogged the hatch over his head, he wondered why he was bothering. The Big Uglies, especially this set that used a red star as its emblem, had lots of landcruisers, but they weren't very good ones or used very well. But his commander had given the order, so he obeyed. That had been ingrained in him since his hatching day

  Gunner Telerep said, "What do you want to bet we don't even get in on the fun? Our air will probably take them out before they're in range for us."

  "We may have some work," Votal said. "The farther away from base we move the thinner our air cover gets. And—" His voice rose to a sudden shout. "Big Ugly airplane!" In his audio

  button Ussmak heard the commander dive down in the landcruiser s turret A roar overhead a couple of shells bouncing off metal and ceramic armor and the natives craft sped away its belly almost scraping the grass.

  Two landcruisers in the formation fired missiles after it. However fast it was, they were faster. It tumbled to the ground; dust flew from the brown track it plowed through the green. Brave, Ussmak thought, brave but stupid. The Tosevites seemed like that.

  "Tosevite landcruisers!" Telerep said. "Looks like you were right, commander."

  "I see them," Votal answered. Ussmak still didn't, being down low in the hull rather than up in the turret. That didn't matter. Votal told him what to do: "Steer 22, Ussmak."

  Ussmak started turning from north to west. Yes, there they were. Being big and clumsy

  themselves, the Tosevites built big and clumsy, though these landcruisers didn't have a bad ballistic shape compared to some others the crews had been briefed about. At least their turret armor sloped... not that that would help them now.

  "Gunner!" Votal said loudly. He'd picked a target, then, one from among the several that sought to bar his path. A moment later, he added, "Sabot!"

  "Sabot!" Telerep repeated. The automatic loader cranked a round into the breech of the cannon. Ussmak heard it not only in his audio button but also through his whole body— clang-clang! Another metallic noise announced that the breech had closed. Telerep said, "Up and ready."

  "Landcruiser— front!" That meant Votal had the target Tosevite in his sights.

  "Identified." Telerep saw it, too. Over Ussmak's head, the gun tube swung slightly as it moved toward the enemy's center of mass.

  "Fire!"

  Through his periscopes, Ussmak saw flame leap from the muzzle of the gun. Armor shielded him from the roar of the report. Recoil made the landcruiser seem to hesitate for an instant. The aluminum sabots fell away from the tungsten penetrator arrow. Ussmak did not see that, of course. A heartbeat later, he did see the turret leap off a Tosevite landcruiser. "Hit!" he yelled, along with Votal and Telerep.

  Another Tosevite was killed, this one in a pyrotechnic display of exploding ammunition. The Big Uglies lost whatever formation they were trying to keep. Some of them stopped, as they had to if they hoped to fire accurately.

  Their eggs are broken now. Ussmak thought with cold glee. They were easy enough to kill on the move. Stopped... "Landcruiser—front!" Votal said.

  "Identified," Telerep answered.

  As the automatic loader clattered into action, a Tosevite landcruiser spat fire. Ussmak's jaw opened in a laugh. Another one down, he thought, and wondered which of the other landcruisers in his unit had scored the kill. Then— wham! Something smote the glacis plate like a kick in the teeth.

  "Ussmak!" Votal said. "You all right?"

  "Y-yes," the driver answered, still more than a little shaken. "Didn't penetrate, the Emperor be praised." Or I'd be splashed all over the inside of the compartment, he added to himself. The Big Uglies were doing their best

  to fight back. Their best, fortunately for Ussmak, was not good enough.

  He must have been too stunned to listen to the whole command sequence, for the big gun fired then. He had the satisfaction of watching the landcruiser that had almost killed him start to burn. He wondered if any of the crew got out. In a way, they were guildmates of his, and so deserving of respect. On the other hand, they were only Big Uglies, and knew not the Emperor's name.

  When most of the Tosevite landcruisers were dead, some of the survivors turned tailstump and started to run. Ussmak laughed again. They couldn't outrun cannon shells.

  A funny noise in his audio button, sort of a wet splat. Then a cry of disbelief and rage from Telerep: "Votal! Vo— They've killed the commander!"

  Ussmak's belly went strange and empty, as if he'd suddenly been dropped into free-fall. "How could they?" he demanded of the gunner. "We're slaughtering their landcruisers. They're hardly fighting back any more."

  "Sniper, or I miss my guess," Telerep said. "They can't meet us in honest battle, so they lie in wait instead."

  "We'll make
them pay," Ussmak said fiercely. "The past Emperors have learned Votal's name. He is with them now."

  "Of course he is," the gunner answered. "Now shut up and drive will you? I'm going to conn this landcruiser and run the gun, too, so I'm too busy to chatter. I'm going to be busier than a one-handed male with the underscale itch, as a matter of fact."

  Ussmak drove. When he'd stepped into the

  starship and slung his gear down beside his cold sleep coffin he'd expected the Race to overrun Tosev 3 without losing a male. It wasn't turning out to be so simple, not with the Big Uglies knowing more than anyone had suspected they did. But they didn't know enough. The Race could still drive them as easily as Ussmak drove his landcruiser.

  A pinng off the turret—"Steer 25, Ussmak!" Telerep shouted. "I saw the flash!"