Tilting The Balance (85 page)

When he got back, he discovered that a lot of his dogfaces had acquired cigarettes, too. Dracula Szabo was looking sleek and prosperous. Mutt suspected he hadn’t given his chums smokes for free. Keeping your lieutenant happy was part of the cost of doing business, but the rest of the soldiers were the guys you did business with. As long as nobody in the platoon beefed to Mutt about being gouged, he was willing to look the other way.

He sent scouts out well south of 111th Street to make sure the Lizards wouldn’t get away with pulling a fast one after darkness fell. He was sorting through ration cans to see what he’d have for supper when Lucille Potter came up.

Everyone in the platoon who saw her greeted her like an older sister or a favorite aunt or even a mom: she’d been “theirs” for a long time before the shortage of anybody who knew anything about patching up the wounded forced her out of the front line. “Got some smokes for the guys you’re taking care of, Miss Lucille,” Dracula said.

“That’s been taken care of, Bela, thank you, though you’re kind to offer.” She turned to Mutt, raised one eyebrow. “The ones you brought came from your own supply?”

“Well, yeah, Miss Lucille.” Mutt kicked at bits of broken concrete from what had been a sidewalk.

“That just makes it nicer of you,” she said, and he felt he’d done his problem on the blackboard right. “To share what Dracula passed on to you in particular – I don’t think that that many people would have done as much.”

“Wasn’t so much of a much,” he said, though under dirt and stubble he knew he was turning red. He held out a can of beef stew to Lucille. “Care to stay for some supper?”

“All right.” She pulled a can opener out of a pistol-style holster on her belt and made short work of the lid to the stew. She dug in with a spoon, then sighed. “Another cow that died of old age – and the potatoes and carrots with it.”

Mutt opened an identical can. He sighed, too, after his first taste. “You’re right about that, sure enough. But it does stick to your ribs. Better food than they gave us in France, I’ll tell you that. The trick in France was getting the Frenchies to feed you. Then you ate good. They could make horse meat taste like a T-bone.” He didn’t know what all he’d eaten Over There, but he remembered it fondly.

Before Lucille answered, Lizard artillery opened up, off to the east. Shells whistled in maybe half a mile away – not close enough to make him dive for cover. He looked over to see if they’d done any damage. At first, he didn’t notice anything new, but then he saw that the ornate water tower that had towered over the Pullman car factory wasn’t there any more.

Lucille saw that, too. She said, “I don’t think there are many people – civilian people, I mean – left in Chicago to feed us. This was the second biggest city in the United States a year ago. Now it might as well be a ghost town out West somewhere.”

“Yeah, I been by some o’ those, places like Arizona, Nevada. Whatever they used to be for isn’t around any more, and they aren’t, either. Chicago is – or was – about bringing’ things in and shippin’ ‘em out, or makin’ ‘em here and shippin’ ‘em out. What with the Lizards, that isn’t around any more, either,” Mutt said.

As if to punctuate his words, more shells thumped in, these a little closer than the ones before. “They’re working over the front line,” Lucille Potter observed. “But, Mutt, those ghost towns out West never had more than a few hundred people, a few thousand at most. Chicago had more than three million. Where is everybody?”

“A lot of ‘em are dead,” he answered bleakly, and she nodded. “A lot of ‘em run off, either scared away by the fighting or on account of their factories couldn’t go on working because of the Lizards or ‘cause nobody could get food to ‘em here. So one way or another, they ain’t here no more.”

“You’re right,” she said. “You have a sensible way of looking at things.”

“Yeah?” Mutt glanced around. None of his men was real close; they were all going about their own business. He lowered his voice even so: “I’m so all-fired sensible, how come I got stuck on you?”

“Most likely just because we lived in each other’s pockets for too long.” Lucille shook her head. “If things were different, Mutt, it might have worked both ways. Even the way things are, I sometimes wonder-” She stopped and looked unhappy, plainly thinking she’d said too much.

Mutt unwrapped a chocolate bar. Like smoking,

the simple action gave him something to do with his hands while he thought. He broke the bar in half and gave Lucille a piece. Then, ever so cautiously, he said, “You mean you might be lookin’ at – tryin’ a man?” He wasn’t sure how to phrase that to keep from offending her, but did his best.

Lucille’s face was wary, but she nodded. “Might be looking at it is about right, Mutt. I’m closer to it, I think, than I’ve ever been in my life, but I’d be lying if I said I was ready yet. I hope you can understand that and be patient.”

“Miss Lucille, you get as old as I am, some things you ain’t in a hurry about like you was when you were younger. It’s just that-” Mutt was going to say something about the uncertainty of war arguing against delay, but he never got the chance: the uncertainty of war came to him.

The hideous whistle in the air rose to a banshee shriek. His body realized the Lizard shells were aimed straight at him before his mind did. Without conscious thought, he flattened out just as they landed.

The cluster of explosions – three in all – left him stunned. They picked him up from the ground and threw him back down as if a professional wrestler had body-slammed him. The blast tore at his ears and at his insides; somebody might have been reaching in through his nose and trying to rip out his lungs. Shell fragments whistled and whined all around him.

More shells crashed home, these not quite so close. Through the ringing in his ears and the crazy hammering of his heart, Mutt heard somebody scream. Somebody else – was that Dracula’s voice? – shouted, “Miss Lucille!”

Mutt dug his face out of the dirt. “Aw, heck,” he said. “They tagged somebody.”

Lucille Potter didn’t answer. She didn’t move. One of those shell fragments that missed Mutt had neatly clipped off the top of her head. He could see her brain in there. Blood ran down into her graying hair. Her eyes were wide and staring. She’d never known what hit her, anyhow.

“Miss Lucille?” Yeah, that was Dracula calling. “We need you over here.”

Mutt didn’t say anything. He looked at her body, at the ruined Chicago neighborhood that had just had a little more ruin rained onto it. Without intending to, he started to cry. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that. The tears rolled down his cheeks and made tiny damp spots on the chewed-up ground. Then they soaked in and were gone as if they’d never existed.

Just like Lucille, he thought, and cried even harder.

“Assembled shiplords, I am pleased to report to you that progress in the conquest of Tosev 3, while slower than we hoped when we reached this planet, is nonetheless accelerating,” Atvar told the throng of high-ranking males aboard the 127th Emperor Hetto. After some time down on Tosev 3, being back on his bannership felt good.

“Some details would be appreciated,” Shiplord Straha called out.

“I have assembled the shiplords here this day to give those details,” Atvar said. He did not show Straha the dislike he felt. Straha was waiting for him to get into trouble, for the campaign to fail. If enough went wrong, the shiplords might turn Atvar out of power and set someone in his place. Straha wanted to be that someone.

Kirel had had such ambitions, too, but Kirel was a good male – he put the cause of the Race ahead of personal ambition. All Straha cared about was himself and the moment. For all the forethought and restraint he showed, he might as well we been a Big Ugly.

To Kirel, Atvar murmured, “The first situation map, please.”

“It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel replied. He touched a button on the podium. A large hologram sprang into being behind the two males.

“This is the big northern land area of the main continental mass,” Atvar said by way of explanation. “As you will see, we have smashed through the line of defense centered on the town of Kaluga which the
SSSR
threw, up in a last desperate attempt to hold our forces away from their capital, Moskva.”

“The fall of this capital will give me, particular satisfaction, and not just from the military and strategic perspective,” Kirel said. The regime currently ruling the
SSSR
came to power, assembled shiplords, as many of you know, after murdering their emperor.”

Although most of the males in the hall did know that, a murmur of horror ran through it just the same. Impericide was not a crime the Race had imagined until the Big Uglies brought it to their notice.

“The military and strategic considerations are not to be taken lightly, either,” Atvar said. “Moskva being not only an administrative but also a communications hub, its capture will go a long way toward taking the
SSSR
out of the war. That accomplished, we shall be able to devote more of our resources to the defeat of Deutschland, and shall be able to attack the Deutsche from improved positions.”

He enjoyed the buzz of approval that rose from the shiplords; he had not heard that sound often enough while discussing Tosevite affairs. At his hand signal, Kirel pressed the button again and brought up another map.

Atvar said, “This is the island of Britain, which lies off the northwestern coast of Tosev 3’s main continental mass. The British have also made themselves into unmitigated nuisances to us. Because the island was so small, we did not reckon it of major significance in our opening attacks. We made the same error with the island empire of Nippon, on the eastern edge of this same land mass. Air strikes have harmed both empires, but not enough. The males and materiel freed up after the defeat of the
SSSR
will allow us to mount full-scale invasions of all these pestilential islands.”

“Permission to speak, Exalted Fleetlord?” Straha called.

“Speak,” Atvar said. Straha hadn’t asked for permission the last time. The list of successes and anticipated successes must have served notice to him that he wasn’t likely to be fleetlord anytime soon.

Straha said, “With the Deutsche still holding northern-’France’ is the proper geographic designation, is it not? – can we invade this Britain with reasonable hope of success, even assuming the
SSSR
drops out of the fight against us?”

“Computer models show our probability of success as being higher than seventy percent under the circumstances you describe,” Atvar answered. “With the
SSSR
still in. the war and forcing us to continue to expend resources to suppress it, chances for a successful invasion of Britain drop to slightly below fifty percent. Shall I send you a printout of the analysis, Shiplord?”

“If you please, Exalted Fleetlord.”

That was the most politeness Atvar had heard from Straha in a long time. The fleetlord signaled Kirel for the next map. When it appeared, Atvar said, “This, as you see, illustrates our position in the northern part of the lesser continental mass, particularly in our fight against the empire, or rather not-empire, known as the United States. The major urban center called Chicago, which eluded us in our previous attack, has now been reached by our armies; its reduction is only a matter of time.”

Kirel said, “With other major moves planned, Exalted Fleetlord, can we afford the drain on our resources a hard-fought city campaign would entail?”

“My judgment is that we can,” Atvar answered. Kirel might be a good and loyal male, but he was also too cautious and conservative to suit the fleetlord. Straha, on the other hand, fairly bounced in his seat, so eager was he to mix it up with the Big Uglies. Yes, he might have been a Tosevite himself. “If the fleetlord decrees it shall be done, then of course it shall be done,” Kirel declared Atvar knew he would have to back into cold sleep if he wanted to live long enough to hear Straha make the same pledge.

The fleetlord signaled to Kirel once more, and a new map replaced the one of the northern portion of the lesser continenal mass. This one was far more detailed: it showed the street plan of a seacoast town and enough of the hinterland to depict tumbledown ruin on a hilltop not far away.

“I admit, assembled shiplords, that the situation portrayed here lacks the large-scale strategic importance of those I have previously outlined,” Atvar said. “Nonetheless, I shall set it forth for you because it also illustrates, in a different way, the progress we are making against the Tosevites. Have security briefings brought the Big Ugly named Skorzeny to the attention of everyone gathered here at this time?”

“The Tosevite terrorist? Yes, Exalted Fleetlord,” one of the males said. Atvar was comfortably certain some of them had paid no attention to their security briefings. Some of them never did. Well, no matter, not today. As far as Skorzeny was concerned, it would soon be no matter ever again.

Atvar resumed: “One of our operatives has set up an elaborate scheme in this town – it is known as Split – to lure the vassal state known as Croatia out of the empire of Deutschland and toward acceptance of the dominion of the Race. If this succeeds, well and good. But the effort has deliberately been kept to a small scale, to let the Deutsche get the notion they can check it by similarly modest means. We have now confirmed that Skorzeny is operating in the area. All that remains is for our skilled operative to close the trap on him. I expect that to be completed within days. Without this Skorzeny, the Big Uglies will not be able to cause us nearly so much trouble.”

The assembled shiplords didn’t quite burst into cheers, but they came close. Atvar basked in the warm glow of their approval as if he were lying on a sandbank under summer sunshine back on Home.

Heinrich Jager mooched through the streets of Split. In old Yugoslav Army boots, baggy civilian pants, and faded gray Italian Army tunic, he fit in perfectly. Half the men in town wore a mixture of military and civilian garb. Even his craggy features belonged here; he could have been a Croat or a Serb as easily as a German He ambled right past a couple of Lizard patrols. They didn’t turn so much as an eye turret his way.