Aftershocks (28 page)

But nothing went wrong. Inside of a couple of minutes, the Lizard was talking with a male of the Race in Flensburg, a not too radioactive town near the Danish border from which General Dornberger was administering the broken
Reich.
A couple of minutes after that, Dornberger’s image appeared on the screen. He was older than Anielewicz had expected he would be: old and bald and, by all appearances, tired unto death.

“Ah, Drucker,” he said. “I’m glad to see you’re alive. Not many who went up into orbit came down again.”

“Sir, I was lucky, if you want to call it that,” the spaceman answered. “If I’d killed my starship instead of failing, I’m sure the Lizards would have killed me, too.”

“We need every man we have to rebuild,” Walter Dornberger said, a sentiment that struck Anielewicz as almost too sensible to come from the mouth of a German
Führer.
Dornberger went on, “Who’s that with you, Hans?”

Anielewicz spoke for himself: “I’m Mordechai Anielewicz, of Lodz.” He waited to see what reaction that brought.

All Dornberger said was, “I’ve heard of you.” Hitler would have pitched a fit at the idea of talking to a Jew. Himmler, no doubt, would have been quietly furious. Dornberger just asked, “And what can I do for the two of you?”

“We’re looking for our families,” Anielewicz answered. “Drucker’s is missing from Greifswald, and mine was kidnapped from Widawa by retreating German troops.” He’d said it so many times, it hurt less than it had before. “If anyone can order German records examined to help us find them, you’re the man.” He startled himself; he’d almost added
sir.

Dornberger’s hand disappeared from the screen for a moment. It came back with a cigar, which he puffed. “How is it that the two of you have become friends?”

“Friends?” Mordechai shrugged. “That may go too far,” he said, to which Drucker nodded. The Jewish fighting leader went on, “But we both knew, and we both liked, a panzer officer named Heinrich Jäger.”

“You knew and liked . . .” Walter Dornberger’s expressions sharpened. “Jäger. The deserter. The traitor.”

“Sir”—now Anielewicz did say it—“he saved Germany from getting in 1944 what you got in 1965. He also saved my life, but you’d probably think that was a detail.”

“That may be true,” Dornberger replied. “It doesn’t make him any less a deserter or a traitor.”

“Sir, he was a deserter,” Drucker said, “but a traitor, never.”

“Et tu, Brute?”
the German
Führer
murmured. His eyes swung back to Mordechai. “And if I don’t help you, I suppose you’ll tell your friends the Lizards on me.”

“Sir, it’s my family,” Anielewicz said tightly. “I’ll do whatever I can, whatever I have to, to get them back. Wouldn’t you?”

Dornberger sighed. “Without a doubt. Very well, gentlemen, I will do what I can. I do not know how much that will be. Things being as they are, our records are in no small degree of chaos. Good-bye.” His image vanished.

“Hope,” Mordechai said as he and Drucker left the tent from which they’d spoken with the new
Führer.

“I know,” Drucker said. “Is it a blessing or a curse?” He cocked his head to one side. “What’s that funny noise?”

Had he not asked, Anielewicz might not even have noticed the small, whistling beep. But when it came again, the hair prickled upright on his arms and at the nape of his neck. “My God,” he whispered. “That’s a beffel.”

“What’s a beffel?” Drucker asked. But Mordechai didn’t answer. He’d already started running.

Straha watched his driver take the motorcar off on an errand that would keep him gone for at least an hour. The ex-shiplord let out a hiss of satisfaction. He hurried into the bathroom and scrubbed off his body paint with rubbing alcohol, as he would have if he were going to redo it.

But instead of repainting himself as the male of third-highest rank in the conquest fleet, he chose the much simpler pattern of a shuttlecraft pilot. The job he did wasn’t of the best, but it would serve. Neither the Big Uglies nor his own kind would be likely to recognize him at once.

As he carried an attaché case of Tosevite manufacture out the front door of his house, he turned one eye turret back toward the building, wondering if he would ever see it again, and if it would still be standing in a few days’ time. A considerable portion of him wished Sam Yeager had never entrusted him with this burden.

But Yeager had, and the Big Ugly must have known the likely consequences of that. Sighing, Straha walked down to the end of the block, turned right, and walked two more blocks. In front of a small grocery store stood a public telephone in a booth of glass and aluminum.

Straha had never used a Tosevite public phone before. He read the instructions and followed them, letting out a relieved hiss when he was rewarded with a dial tone after inserting a small coin. He dialed the number he had memorized back at the house. The phone rang three times before someone answered it. “Yellow Cab Company.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Straha spoke the best English he could: “I am at the corner of Rayen and Zelzah. I wish to go to downtown, to the consulate of the Race.”

He waited, wondering if he’d have to repeat himself. But the female on the other end of the line just echoed him: “Rayen and Zelzah. Yes, sir. About five minutes.”

“I thank you,” Straha said, and hung up.

The cab took about twice as long as the predicted time to arrive, but not so long as to make Straha much more nervous than he was already. The driver hopped out and opened a rear door for him. “Hello!” the Big Ugly said. “Don’t pick up a male of the Race every day.” When he spoke again, it was in Straha’s language: “I greet you, superior sir.”

“And I greet you,” Straha replied in the same tongue. “How much of my language do you speak?”

“Not much. Not well,” the Tosevite answered. “I like to try. Where you want to go?” His accent was indeed thick, but comprehensible.

“To the consulate.” Straha repeated it in English, to make sure he was not misunderstood, and gave the address in English, too.

“It shall be done,” the driver said, and proceeded to do it. Straha had judged his regular driver a Tosevite who cared less for safety on the road than he might have. Next to this fellow, the other male Big Ugly was a paragon of virtue. How the cab driver arrived at the consulate with his motorcar uncrumpled baffled Straha, but it was a fact. “Here we are,” he remarked cheerfully as he pulled up in front of the building.

“I thank you,” Straha answered, though he was feeling anything but thankful. He gave the Big Ugly a twenty-dollar bill, which more than covered journey and gratuity. American money had never felt quite real to him, and odds were good—one way or another—he would never have to worry about it again.

A couple of Tosevites who reminded Straha of his regular driver stood outside the consulate. They glanced at him as he walked inside, but did nothing more. He wondered if his driver had yet discovered him missing. If so, the Big Uglies would be looking for a shiplord, not a shuttlecraft pilot. Straha hurried up to the reception desk.

“Yes?” asked the male at that desk, swinging an eye turret his way. “How may I help you, Shuttlecraft Pilot?” He too saw only what he expected to see, what Straha wanted him to see.

Now, with more than a little pleasure, Straha threw off the disguise. “I am not a shuttlecraft pilot,” he replied. “I am a shiplord: Shiplord Straha, commanding—well, formerly commanding—the
206th Emperor Yower
of the conquest fleet.”

His mouth flew open in a laugh at the receptionist’s startled jerk. The other male recovered fairly quickly, saying, “If you are who you claim to be, you must know there is and has been an order for your arrest.”

“I am who I say I am,” Straha answered. “I am certain you have a database with the scale patterns of my snout and palm included in it. You are welcome to take those patterns from me and compare them.”

“To verify such an incendiary claim, we would of course have to do that,” the receptionist said. “But if you are who you say you are, why would you subject yourself to arrest and certain punishment after so many years of treason?”

Straha hefted the attaché case. “What I have in here will protect me from punishment. Once he sees it, once he understands what it means, even Atvar will recognize as much.”
He had better,
Straha thought.
Not even his malice against me could withstand this . . . could it?
Half of him wanted to flee the consulate. But he’d already come too far for that. Now he was in trouble with the Americans as well as the Race.

“I do not know anything about that.” The receptionist would not give him his proper title, but was talking into a telephone attachment to the computer. After a moment, he swung his eye turrets toward Straha. “Please go to the Security office on the second floor. Your identity will be ascertained there.”

“It shall be done,” Straha said.

When he got to the Security office, he found the males and females there almost jumping out of their hides. Their tailstumps quivered with excitement. Most of them hadn’t been anywhere near Tosev 3 when he staged his spectacular defection, but they all knew of it. “This will not take long,” the senior Security officer said, advancing on him with a couple of trays full of waxy greenish plastic. “I have to take the impressions and then scan the patterns into the computer.”

“I am familiar with the procedure, I assure you,” Straha replied. He let the officer press the plastic to his snout and left palm, then waited for him to finish the scanning and comparison. By the way the officer stiffened when the data came up on the monitor, Straha knew he’d proved he was himself. He said, “You will now please be so kind as to take me to the consul here. I believe his name is Tsaitsanx—is that not correct?”

Absently, the Security officer made the affirmative gesture. “It shall be done.” He sounded dazed. “Although perhaps I should formally place you under arrest first.”

“No. Not while I have this.” Straha waved the attaché case. “If Tsaitsanx is not fluent in written English, it would be wise to have a male or female—I suppose a male from the conquest fleet—who is fluent with us.”

“The consul does read the local language, yes,” the Security male said. He ordered a couple of his subordinates to escort Straha to Tsaitsanx’s office, as if afraid the former shiplord would do something nefarious if allowed to walk the corridors unattended.

Tsaitsanx proved to have come with the conquest fleet, though Straha had not known him. The consul said, “I always knew you lived in my area: indeed, I have spoken with males and females who met you at functions given by, ah, more legitimate expatriates. But I never expected to make your acquaintance here, and I do not know whether to greet you or not.”

“You had better greet me.” Straha opened the attaché case and pulled out the papers Sam Yeager had given him. “Examine these, if you would be so kind. I assure you, they are genuine. I would not be here if they were not. They were given to me by one of those rare creatures, a Tosevite with a conscience.”

“Examine them I shall,” Tsaitsanx replied. “What have we here . . .” He read with great attention for a little while. Then, as if of their own accord, his eye turrets lifted from the papers in front of him and focused intently on Straha. “By the Emperor, Shiplord, do you know what these papers mean?”

“I know exactly what they mean, Consul. Exactly,” Straha said. “I would not be here if I did not.”

“I believe that.” Tsaitsanx returned to his reading, but not for long. “Have I your permission to scan these documents and transmit them to Cairo?”

“You have.” Straha was sure the consul would have done so without his permission had he withheld it, but he did appreciate being asked.

After sending the papers on their electronic way, Tsaitsanx said, “That brings me to the next question: what to do about you, Shiplord. I cannot scan you and transmit you to Cairo.”

“It would be convenient if you could,” Straha said. “Before long, the Big Uglies will realize I have gone missing. They may not know why. On the other fork of the tongue, they may. And this is bound to be one of the first places they search.”

 
8

By now, Nesseref had flown into Los Angeles several times. It was, in her view, one of the better Tosevite facilities for receiving shuttlecraft. For that matter, she would rather have landed there than at Cairo. No one had ever shot at her when she descended toward the Los Angeles airport that also did duty as a shuttlecraft port.

“Shuttlecraft, your descent is nominal in all respects,” a Big Ugly at the local control center radioed to her. “Continue on trajectory and land in the usual area.”

“It shall be done,” Nesseref answered. “I hope the ambulance is waiting to bring the sick male directly to the shuttlecraft.” Had she been dealing with her own kind, she would have assumed that to be the case. With Big Uglies, you never could tell.

But the Tosevite on the other end of the radio link said, “Shuttlecraft Pilot, that ambulance is waiting at the terminal here. So are the hydrogen and oxygen for your next burn. As soon as you are refueled, you are cleared for launch, so you can get that male to proper medical facilities for your kind. I hope he makes a full recovery.”

“I thank you,” Nesseref said, “both for your kind wishes and for the well-organized preparations you have made to assist one of my species.”

Braking rockets fired. Deceleration pressed Nesseref into her seat. She eyed the radar and her velocity. The Race’s engineering was good, very good. Most shuttlecraft pilots—almost all, in fact—went through their whole careers without ever coming close to using a manual override. But the pilot who wasn’t alert to the possibility was the one who might come to grief.

Not this time. Electronics and rocket motor functioned with their usual perfection. Landing legs deployed. The shuttlecraft gently touched down on the concrete of the Los Angeles airport. Three vehicles immediately rolled toward it: the hydrogen and oxygen trucks, and another one with flashing lights and with red crosses painted on it in several places. Nesseref had seen vehicles with such symbols in Poland, and recognized this one as a Tosevite ambulance.

“Will the male require aid to board the shuttlecraft?” she asked, releasing the landing ladder so that its extensible segment reached the concrete.

“I am given to understand that he will not,” replied the Tosevite in the control tower. “He is said to be weak but capable of moving on his own.”

“Very well,” Nesseref said. “I await him.” She didn’t have to wait long. Her external camera showed the male leaving the ambulance by the rear doors and moving toward the landing ladder at a startlingly brisk clip. Noting his body paint, she let out a small hiss of surprise as he scrambled up toward the cabin—nobody had bothered to tell her he was a shuttlecraft pilot, too.

“I greet you,” he said as he slid down into the compartment with her. He got into his seat and fastened the safety harness with a practiced ease that showed he was indeed familiar with shuttlecraft.

“And I greet you, comrade,” Nesseref answered. “Are you in pain? I have analgesics in the first-aid kit, and will be happy to give you whatever you may need.”

“I thank you, but I am not suffering in the least, except from anxiety,” the male said. “When this shuttlecraft lifts off, I shall be the happiest male on—or rather, above—the surface of Tosev 3.”

He certainly didn’t seem infirm. Nesseref wondered why she’d been summoned halfway around the planet to take him to Cairo. For that matter, she wondered why she wasn’t taking him to the nearby city of Jerusalem, which boasted more specialized medical facilities. What sort of pull did he have? She was astonished to discover a shuttlecraft pilot with any pull at all.

She said, “We cannot go anywhere till the Big Uglies give us hydrogen and oxygen.”

“I understand that,” he said, a touch of asperity in his voice.

Who do you think you are?
Nesseref thought in some annoyance. Before she could call him on it, the Tosevite in the tower radioed, “Please open the port to your hydrogen tank. I say again, to your hydrogen tank.”

“It shall be done,” Nesseref said. “I am opening the port to my hydrogen tank. I repeat, to my hydrogen tank.” The Tosevites had sensibly adopted the Race’s refueling procedures, which minimized the possibility of error. Nesseref’s fingerclaws entered the proper control slot. The hydrogen tank rolled forward and delivered its liquefied contents. As soon as Nesseref said, “I am full,” the hose uncoupled and the truck withdrew.

“Now open the port to your oxygen tank. I say again, to your oxygen tank,” the Big Ugly in the control tower told her.

“It shall be done,” Nesseref repeated. She went through the ritual once more. The control activating that port was nowhere near the one for the hydrogen port, again to make sure the two were not mistaken for each other. After the oxygen truck finished refilling her tank, it also disengaged and drove away from the shuttlecraft.

“Am I now cleared for takeoff?” Nesseref asked. “I want to get this male to treatment as quickly as possible.”

“I understand, Shuttlecraft Pilot,” replied the Big Ugly in the control tower. “There will be a five-minute delay. Do you understand five minutes, or shall I convert it to your time system?”

“I understand,” Nesseref said, as the male beside her let out a loud hiss of dismay. “What is the difficulty?”

“We have an airliner coming in for a landing a little low on fuel,” the Tosevite answered. “Due to the short notice given for your arrival, we could not divert it to another airport. As soon as it is down, you will be cleared.”

“Very well. I understand.” Nesseref didn’t see what else she could say. The other shuttlecraft pilot, the male, was twisting and wriggling as if he had the purple itch. Nesseref turned an anxious eye turret toward him. She hoped he didn’t. The purple itch was highly infectious; she didn’t want to have to have the cabin here sterilized.

“Hurry,” the male kept muttering under his breath. “Please hurry.”

After what wasn’t a very long delay for Nesseref—but one that must have seemed an eternity to that male—the Big Ugly in the control tower radioed, “Shuttlecraft, you are cleared for takeoff. Again, apologies for the delay, and I hope your patient makes a full recovery.”

“I thank you, Los Angeles Control.” Nesseref’s eye turrets swiveled as she gave the instruments one last check. After satisfying herself that everything read as it should, she said, “Control, I am beginning my countdown from one hundred. I shall launch at zero.”

The countdown, of course, was electronic. As it neared the zero mark, her fingerclaw hovered over the ignition control. If the computer didn’t trigger the shuttlecraft’s motor, she would. But, again, everything went as it should. Ignition began precisely on schedule. Acceleration squashed her.

It squashed the other shuttlecraft pilot, too. Even so, he let out an exultant shout through the roar of the rocket: “Praise the Emperor and spirits of Emperors past, I am finally free!”

Nesseref asked him no questions till acceleration cut off and left them weightless and the shuttlecraft quiet. Then she said, “Can you tell me how you can sound so delighted in spite of an illness?”

“Shuttlecraft Pilot, I have no illness,” the male answered, which, by then, wasn’t the greatest surprise Nesseref had ever had. He went on, “Changes in my appearance are from makeup, which makes me look infirm and also disguises me. Nor, I must confess, do I share your rank. My name is Straha. Perhaps you will have heard of me.”

Had Nesseref not kept her harness on, her startled jerk would have sent her floating around the cabin. “Straha the traitor?” she blurted.

“So they call me,” the male replied. No, he was no shuttlecraft pilot; he’d been a shiplord, and a high-ranking one, before going over to the Big Uglies. He continued, “No—so, they called me. I have redeemed myself now.”

“How?” Nesseref asked in genuine astonishment, wondering what could have made the Race welcome Straha once more. Something must have, or she wouldn’t have been ordered to Los Angeles, and no one there would have helped him disguise himself to get to the shuttlecraft.

He answered, “I am sorry, but I had better not tell you that. Until the authorities decide what to do with this information, it should not be widely spread about.”

“Is it as sensitive as that?” Nesseref asked, and Straha made the affirmative gesture. Once more, she wasn’t very surprised. If he hadn’t learned something important, the Race
wouldn’t
have done anything for him.

Cairo Control came on the radio then, to report that the shuttlecraft’s trajectory accorded with calculations. “But your departure was late,” the control officer said in some annoyance. “We have had to put two aircraft in a holding pattern to accommodate your landing.”

“My apologies,” Nesseref said. “The Big Uglies held me up, because one of their aircraft was landing at the facility and lacked the fuel to go into a holding pattern.”

“Inefficiency,” the control officer said. “It is the Tosevites’ besetting flaw. The only thing in which they are efficient is addling us.”

“Truth,” Nesseref said, while Straha’s mouth opened wide in amusement. Even though it hadn’t been her fault, Nesseref felt bad about inconveniencing the aircraft her landing was delaying. Since she couldn’t do anything about it, though, she put it out of her mind and concentrated on making sure the landing went perfectly. On her radar, she spotted not only those two aircraft but also helicopter gunships on patrol around the landing area.

Straha saw them, too, and understood what they meant. “I should be honored,” he said. “Atvar does not want this shuttlecraft shot out of the sky.”

“I too am thoroughly glad the fleetlord feels that way,” Nesseref replied. “I have taken gunfire from the Big Uglies a couple of times while landing here, and I do not wish to do it again. There are too many parts of this planet where our rule is far less secure than it should be.”

“If
I
had succeeded in overturning Atvar during the first round of fighting—” Straha began, but then he checked himself and laughed again, this time with a waggle in the lower jaw that showed wry amusement. He finished, “It is entirely possible that things might look no different, save that you would be flying Atvar here to see me and not the other way round. I like to think that would not be so, but I have no guarantee that what I like to think would be a truth.”

Braking rockets roared. The shuttlecraft approached the concrete landing area. To Nesseref’s vast relief, no fanatical Big Uglies opened fire on it. It settled to the surface of Tosev 3 as smoothly as it might have on a training video.

No mere mechanized combat vehicle came out to meet the shuttlecraft, but a clanking, slab-sided landcruiser. “The fleetlord takes your safety very seriously,” Nesseref said to Straha. “I have not been met by a landcruiser here since my first descent to this city.”

“Perhaps he worries about my security,” Straha replied, “and perhaps he just wants to secure me.” He sighed. “I have no choice but to find out. You, at least, Shuttlecraft Pilot, are sure to remain free.” Nesseref pondered that as she and the renegade shiplord left the shuttlecraft and headed for the massive armored vehicle awaiting them.

Inside the Race’s administrative center in what had once been known as Shepheard’s Hotel, Atvar awaited the arrival of the landcruiser coming through Cairo from the shuttlecraft with all the delighted anticipation with which he would have faced a trip to the hospital for major surgery. “I hoped Straha would stay in the United States forever,” he said to Kirel and Pshing. “As long as he remained out of my jurisdiction, I could pretend he did not exist. Believe me, such pretense left me not in the least unhappy.”

“That is understandable, Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing answered. “Straha’s defection, his treason, hurt us far more than any of the mutinies ordinary soldiers raised during the first round of fighting against the Big Uglies.”

“Truth.” Atvar sent his adjutant a grateful look. “And now, with what he has given us, I am not altogether sure I can punish him at all, let alone as he deserves for that treachery.”

“What he has given us,” Kirel said, “is, in a word, trouble. I would not have been altogether dismayed had that knowledge, like Straha himself, stayed far, far away. We shall have to calculate our response most carefully.”