Striking the Balance

“Truth,” Atvar said, a word Russie knew. He nodded to show he understood. Atvar went on in the Lizards’ speech, again too quickly for Moishe to keep up. Zolraag translated once more: “The exalted fleetlord has learned, from me among others, that you opposed having the Jews rise on our behalf when we entered Palestine. Why did you do this, when you supported us against the Germans in Poland?”

“Two reasons,” Moishe said. “First, I know better now than I did then that you plan to rule all of mankind forever, and I cannot support that. Second, the Germans in Poland were slaughtering Jews, as you know. The British in Palestine were doing no such thing. Some of the Jews who back you there had escaped from Germany or from Poland. You seem more dangerous to me than the British do.”

Zolraag translated that into the Lizards’ hisses and pops and squeaks. Atvar spoke again, this time slowly, aiming his words directly at Moishe: “These other males who escaped do not think as you do. Why is this?”

Moishe did his best to answer in the language of the Race: “Other males see short. I look for long. In long, Race worse, British better.” To show how strongly he believed that, he ended with an emphatic cough.

“It is good that you think of the long term. Few Big Uglies do,” Atvar said. “It may even be that, from the point of view of a Big Ugly who does not wish to come under the rule of the Race, you are right.” He paused and turned both eye turrets toward Moishe’s face. “This will not help you, though.”

The Lizards had replaced the human-made furniture in the suite with their own gear. It made the room in which Russie stood appear even larger than it really was. One of the many devices with blank glass screens lit up, suddenly showing a Lizard’s face. The Lizard’s voice came out of the machine, too.A telephone with a cinema attachment, Moishe thought.

By the way Atvar’s adjutant jerked at whatever the message was, he might have stuck his tongue into a live electrical socket. He turned one eye turret back toward Atvar and said, “Exalted Fleetlord!”

“Not now, Pshing,” Atvar replied with very human impatience.

But the adjutant-Pshing-kept talking. Atvar hissed something Russie didn’t understand and whirled away from him toward the screen. As he did so, the Lizard’s face disappeared from it, to be replaced by a great, mushroom-shaped cloud rising into the sky. Moishe gasped in horror. He’d seen one of those clouds on his way to Palestine, rising over what had been Rome.

The sound he made seemed to remind Atvar he was there. The fleetlord turned one eye turret toward Zolraag for a moment and snapped, “Get him out of here.”

“It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord,” Zolraag said. He turned to Russie. “Go now. The exalted fleetlord has more important things with which to concern himself at the moment than one insignificant Big Ugly.”

Moishe went. He said nothing until the infantry combat vehicle that had brought him to Atvar’s headquarters started back toward the hotel in which he was imprisoned. Then he asked, “Where did that atomic bomb explode?”

Zolraag let out a hiss that made him sound like an unhappy samovar. “So you recognized it, did you? The place is part of this province of Egypt. I gather it has two names, in your sloppy Tosevite fashion. It is called both El Iskandariya and Alexandria. Do you know either of these names?”

“Someone bombed Alexandria?” Moishe exclaimed.“Vay iz mir! Who? How? You of the Race control all this country, don’t you?”

“I thought we did,” Zolraag answered. “Evidently not, yes? Who? We do not know. The British, taking revenge for what we did to Australia? We did not-do not-believe them to have weapons of this sort. Could they have borrowed one from the Americans?”

He sounded as if he meant the question seriously. Moishe made haste to reply: “I have no idea, superior sir.”

“No?” Zolraag said. “Yet you broadcast for the British. We must investigate further.” Ice ran up Russie’s back. The Lizard went on, “The Deutsche, fighting us as best they could? We do not know-but when we learn which Big Uglies did this, they will pay a great price.”

Something Zolraag had said got through to Moishe slower than it should have. “Australia, superior sir? What happened in Australia?”

“We destroyed two cities to secure our conquests there,” the former Polish provincelord answered with chilling indifference before returning to a previous question: “How? We do not know that, either. We detected no airplanes, no missiles, no boats moving over the water. We do not believe the bomb could have been smuggled in by land, either; we would have found it in our searches of cargo.”

“Not over water, not by air, not on land?” Moishe said. “That doesn’t leave much. Did someone dig a tunnel and set the bombunder Alexandria?”