In th Balance

by neetha Napew

  Sudden silence clamped down on chattering friends, shouting husbands, screeching wives, even squalling children. Yi Min instinctively understood what that meant: little scaly devils close by. He was already turning toward the door when the knock came.

  He raised the inner bar (regardless of connections, no sense taking chances), pulled the door open. He bowed low. "Ah, honored Ssofeg, you do me great favor by honoring my humble dwelling with your presence," he said in Chinese, then went on in the devil's speech: "What is your will, superior of mine? Speak, and it shall be done."

  "You are dutiful," Ssofeg said in his own language. It was polite formula and praise at the same time; the scaly devils were even

  more punctilious than Chinese about respect for superiors and elders. Then Ssofeg switched to Chinese, which he used with Yi Min as the apothecary used the little devils' language with him. "You have more of what I seek?"

  "I have more, superior of mine," Yi Min said in the Lizards' speech. One of the little spicepots he'd received for his talk of women and other marvels was full of powdered ginger. He took out a tiny pinch, put it in the palm of his other hand, and held it out for Ssofeg.

  The little devil flicked out his tongue, for all the world like a kitten lapping from a bowl— although the tongue itself so much reminded Yi Min of a serpent's that he had to steel himself to keep from jerking away. Two quick licks and the ginger was gone.

  For a couple of seconds, Ssofeg simply stood where he was. Then he quivered all over and

  let out a long, slow hiss. It was the nearest approach to a man's ecstatic grunt at the moment of Clouds and Rain that Yi Min had ever heard from a little scaly devil. As if he'd forgotten Chinese, Ssofeg spoke in his own language: "You can have no idea how fine that makes me feel."

  "No doubt you are right, superior of mine," Yi Min said. He liked to get drunk; he enjoyed a pipe of opium every so often, too, though there he was very moderate for fear of permanently blunting his drive and ambition. As an apothecary, he'd come across and sampled a lot of other substances alleged to produce pleasure: everything from hemp leaves to powdered rhinoceros horn. Most, so far as he could tell, had no effect whatever. That didn't keep him from selling them, but it did keep him from trying them twice.

  But ginger? As far as he was concerned, ginger was just a condiment. Some people

  claimed it had aphrodisiac powers because ginger roots sometimes looked like gnarled little men, but it had never done anything to harden Yi Min's lance. But when Ssofeg tasted it, he might have died and gone to the heaven Christian missionaries always talked about in glowing words.

  The little scaly devil said, "Give me more. Every time I taste the pleasure, I crave it again." His bifurcated tongue went out, then in.

  "I will give you more, superior of mine, but what will you give me in return? Ginger is rare and expensive; I have had to pay much to get even this little amount for you." Yi Min was lying in his teeth, but Ssofeg didn't know that. Nor did the people from whom he got ginger know he was selling it to the scaly devils. They would eventually figure it out, of course, at which point competition would cut into his profits. But for now—

  For now, Ssofeg let out another hiss, this one redolent of distress. "Already I have given you much, very much." His tailstump lashed in agitation. "But I must know this—this delight once more. Here." He took from around his neck something that most closely resembled the field glasses Yi Min had once seen a Japanese officer using. "These see in darkness as well as light. I will report them missing. Quick, give me another taste."

  "I hope I will be able to get any kind of price for them," Yi Min said peevishly. In fact, he wondered whether the Nationalists, the Communists, or the Japanese would pay most for the new trinket. He had contacts with all three; the little scaly devils were naive if they thought mere wire cut a prison camp off from the world around it.

  Such decisions could wait. By the way Ssofeg stood swaying slightly, he couldn't Yi Min gave him another pinch of ginger. He licked it off

  the apothecary's palm. When his pleasure-filled shiver finally stopped, he said, "If I report much more gear as missing, I shall surely be called to account. Yet I must have ginger. What shall I do."

  Yi Min had been hoping for just that question. As casually as he could, keeping any trace of a chortle from his voice, he said, "I could sell you a lot of ginger now." He showed Ssofeg the spicepot full of it.

  The scaly devil's tailstump lashed again. "I must have it! But how?"

  "You buy it from me now," Yi Min repeated. "Then you keep some— enough for yourself— and sell the rest to other males of the Race. They will make up your cost and more."

  Ssofeg turned both eyes full upon the apothecary, staring as if he were the Buddha reincarnated. "I could do that, couldn't I? Then

  I could pass on to you what they convey to me, my own difficulties with inventory control would disappear, and you would gain the wherewithal to acquire still more of this marvelous herb which I desire more with each passing day. Truly you are a Big Ugly of genius, Yi Min!"

  "The superior of mine is gracious to this humble inferior," Yi Min said. He did not smile; Ssofeg was a clever little devil, and might notice and start asking questions better left unraised.

  No, on second thought, Ssofeg was unlikely to notice anything. He was caught in the gloom that always seemed to seize him when ginger's exhilaration wore off. Now he shook as if from an ague rather than with delight. He moaned, "But how can I in good conscience expose other males of the Race to this constant craving I feel myself? That would not be right."

  He stared hungrily at the spicepot full of ginger. Fear bubbled through Yi Min. Some opium addicts would kill to keep from being separated from their drug, and ginger seemed to hit Ssofeg far harder than opium did its human users. The apothecary said, "If you take this from me now, superior of mine, where will you get more when you have used it all?"

  The little devil made a noise like a boiling kettle. "Plan for tomorrow, plan for next year, plan for the generations yet to come," he said, sounding as if he were repeating a lesson learned long ago in school. He resumed, "You are right, of course. Thievery would in the long run prove futile. What then is your price for the pot of precious herb you hold here?"

  Yi Min had an answer ready: "I want one of the picture-taking machines the Race has made, the ones that take pictures you can look at from all around. I want also a supply of

  whatever it is the machine takes the pictures on." He remembered how— interesting—the pictures the devils had taken of Liu Han and him were. Many men in the camp would pay well to watch such pictures... while he could give the young men and girls who would perform in them next to nothing.

  But Ssofeg said, "I myself cannot get you one of these machines. Give me the ginger now, and I will use it to find a male who has access to them and can abstract it so it will not be missed."

  Yi Min laughed scornfully. "You called me wise before. Do you all at once think me a fool?" Hard bargaining followed. In the end, the apothecary surrendered a quarter of the ginger to Ssofeg, the rest to remain with him until payment was forthcoming. The little scaly devil reverently enclosed the ground spice in a transparent envelope, put that envelope into one of the pouches he wore on the belt round

  his waist, and hurried out of Yi Min's hut. The devils' gait always struck Yi Min as skittery, but Ssofeg's movements seemed downright furtive.

  Well they might, the apothecary thought. The Japanese had strict laws against selling equipment to the Chinese; since the little devils' gear was so much better than that of the Japanese, it only stood to reason that their regulations would be harsher. If Ssofeg got caught by his people's inspectors, he would probably be in even bigger trouble than he thought.

  Well, that was his lookout. Yi Min had been certain almost from the day the scaly devils landed that they would make his fortune. At first he'd thought it would be as an interpreter. Now, though, ginger and— with luck— interesting films looked likely to prov
e even more profitable. He wasn't fussy about how he got rich, as long as he did.

  I'm on my way, he thought.

  Sweat trickled through Bobby Fiore's beard, dripped down onto the smooth, shiny surface of the mat on which he sat. When he got up to walk over to the faucet, his buttocks made rude squelching noises as they pulled free from the mat. The water that came when he pushed a button was warmer than luke- and had a faint chemical tang. He made himself drink anyhow. In heat like this, you had to drink.

  He wished he had some salt tablets. He'd spent a couple of seasons playing ball in west Texas and New Mexico; the weather there hadn't been a lot cooler than the Lizards kept their spaceship. Every team in that part of the country kept a bowl of salt tablets by the bat rack. He thought they did some good: without them, how were you supposed to replace

  what you sweated away?

  The door to his cubicle silently slid open. A Lizard brought in some rations for him, and a magazine as well. "Thank you, superior of mine," Fiore hissed politely. The Lizard did not deign to reply. It got out of the cubicle in a hurry. The door closed behind it.

  The rations, as usual, were Earthly canned goods: this time, a can of pork and beans and one of stewed tomatoes. Fiore sighed. The Lizards seemed to pull cans off the shelf at random. The meal before had been fruit salad and condensed milk, the one before that chicken noodle soup (cold, undiluted, and still in the can) and chocolate syrup. After weeks on such fare, he would have killed for a green salad, fresh meat, or a scrambled egg.

  The magazine, however, was a treat, even if it did date from 1941. When he wasn't with Liu Han, he was here by himself and had to make

  his own amusement. Something new to look at would keep him interested for several meals. The title— Signal— even let him hope it would be in English.

  He found out it wasn't as soon as he opened it. Just what the language was, he couldn't tell, his formal education having stopped in the tenth grade. Something Scandinavian, he guessed: he'd seen o's with lines through them like these on Minnesota shopfronts in towns where everybody seemed to be blond and blue-eyed.

  He didn't need to be able to read the Signal to figure out what it was— a Nazi propaganda magazine. Here was Goebbels smiling from behind his desk, here were Russians surrendering to men in coalscuttle helmets, here were a rather beefy cabaret dancer and her soldier boyfriend. Here was the world that had been before the Lizards came. He

  clenched his teeth; tears stung his eyes. Being reminded of that world also reminded him how much things had changed.

  One thing fifteen years of playing minor-league ball had taught him was how to roll with the punches. That meant eating pork and beans and stewed tomatoes when the Lizards gave them to him, lest his next meal be worse or fail to come at all. It meant looking at the pictures in the Signal when he couldn't read the words. And it meant hoping he could see Liu Han some time soon, but not letting himself get downhearted when he had to stay in his cubicle alone.

  He was washing molasses and tomato juice off his fingers and trying to rinse his beard clean when the door opened again. The Lizard that had brought in the cans now carried them away. Fiore looked at the Signal a while longer, then lay down on the mat and went to sleep.

  The lights in the cubicle never dimmed, but that didn't bother him. The heat gave him a harder time. Still, he managed. Anyone who could sleep on a bus rattling between Clovis and Lubbock in the middle of July could sleep damn near anywhere. He'd never realized how rough life was in the bush leagues until he found all the rugged things for which it had prepared him.

  As usual, he woke slick with sweat. He splashed water over himself to get some of the greasy feel off his skin. For a little while, as it evaporated, he felt almost cool. Then he started sweating again. At least it was dry heat, he told himself. Had it been humid, he would have cooked long since.

  He was glancing through the Signal again, trying to figure out what some of the Norwegian (or were they Danish?) words meant, when the door opened. He wondered what the Lizards wanted. He wasn't hungry

  yet; the pork and beans still felt like a medicine ball in his stomach. But instead of a Lizard with canned goods, in walked Liu Han.

  "Your mate," said one of the Lizards escorting her. His mouth fell open. Fiore thought that meant he was laughing. That was all right He laughed at the Lizard, too, for not being able to mate.

  He gave Liu Han a hug. Neither of them wore anything; they stuck to each other wherever they touched. "How are you?" he said, letting her go. "It's good to see you." It was good to see anyone human, but he didn't say that aloud.

  "Good also to see you," Liu Han said, adding the Lizards' emphatic cough to end the sentence. They spoke to each other in a jargon they invented and expanded each time they were together, one no other two people could have followed: English, Chinese, and

  the Lizards' language pasted together to yield ever-growing meaning.

  She said, "I am glad the scaly devils do not force us to mate"— she used the Lizards' word for that—"each time we see each other now."

  "You're glad?" He laughed. "I can only do so much." He flicked his tongue against the inside of his upper lip as he blew air out through his mouth, making a noise like a window shade rolling up— and him with it.

  He'd done that often enough for her to understand it. She smiled at his foolishness. "Not that I don't like what you do when we mate"— again she used the Lizards' emotionless word, which let her avoid choosing a human term with more flavor to it—"but I do not like having to do it at their order."

  "Yeah, I know," he said. Being a specimen didn't appeal to him, either. Then he wondered what they ought to do instead. Besides their bodies, the only thing they had in common was that the Lizards had shanghaied both of them.

  Since Liu Han plainly didn't feel like screwing to pass the time, he went through the Signal with her. He'd decided a while ago that she was anything but stupid, but he found how little she knew of the world outside the village from which she'd come.

  He couldn't read the text of the magazine, but he recognized faces and places in the pictures: Goebbels, Marshal Retain, Paris, North Africa. To Liu Han, they were all strange. He wondered if she'd even heard of Germany.

  "Germany and Japan are friends," he told her, only to discover that Japan wasn't Japan in

  Chinese. He tried again: "Japan fights"—that in pantomime—"America and fights China, too."

  "Oh, the eastern devils," she exclaimed. "Eastern devils kill my man, my child, just before little scaly devils come. This Germany friends with eastern devils? Must be bad."

  "Probably," he said. He'd been sure the Germans were the bad guys when they declared war on the United States. Since then, though, he'd heard they had done a better job of fighting the Lizards than most. Did that all of a sudden turn them back into good guys? He had trouble figuring out where loyalty to his own country stopped and loyalty to— to his planet, would it be?— started. He wished Sam Yeager were around. Yeager was more used to thinking in terms like those.

  He also noticed, not for the first time but more strongly than ever before, that anything not

  Chinese was somehow devilish to Liu Han. The Lizards were scaly devils; he himself, when he wasn't Bobbyfiore pronounced all as one word, was a foreign devil; and now the Japs were eastern devils. Given what they'd done to her family, he couldn't blame her for thinking of them like that, but he was pretty sure she would have hung the same label on them no matter what.

  He asked her about it, using multilingual circumlocutions. When she finally understood, she nodded, surprised he needed to put the question to her. "If you are not Chinese, of course you are a devil," she said, as if stating a law of nature.

  "That's not how it is," Fiore told her; but she didn't look convinced. Then he remembered that, till he'd started playing ball and meeting all sorts of people instead of just the ones from his neighborhood, he'd been sure everybody who wasn't Catholic would burn in

  hell forever. Maybe t
his devil business was something like that.

  They went back to looking at the Signal. The high-kicking nightclub dancer in her skimpy satin outfit made Liu Han laugh. "How can she show herself, wearing so little?" she asked, forgetting for the moment that she herself wore nothing. Fiore laughed in turn. Except when he stuck to the mat, he often forgot he was naked, too. Amazing what you got used to.

  Liu Han pointed to an advertisement for an Olympia typewriter. "What?" she said in English, adding the Lizard interrogative cough.

  Fiore had more trouble explaining it than he'd expected. After a while, he figured out that she couldn't read or write. He'd known a few ballplayers, mostly from the South, who had the same trouble, but it wasn't something that automatically occurred to him.

  Now he wished more than ever that the Signal was in English; he would have started teaching her on the spot. He thought about showing her the alphabet— despite crossed o's and a's with little circles above them, the ABCs didn't change much. But if he didn't understand what he was reading, how was she supposed to? He gave it up as a bad job and turned to the next page.