Striking the Balance

“I do,” Nussboym said with respect grudging but nonetheless real. Either Skriabin was very shrewd or genuinely clever.

He got no chance to think about which, for the NKVD man said, “Now march back there this instant and show that Lizard he cannot set his naked will against the historical dialectic impelling the Soviet Union ahead to victory.”

“I shall go, Comrade Colonel,” Nussboym said. He had his own opinions about the historical dialectic, but Skriabin hadn’t asked him about them. With luck, Skriabin wouldn’t.

Captain Marchenko glowered at Nussboym when he returned. It didn’t faze him; Marchenko glowered at everyone all the time. Nussboym went into the barracks full of striking Lizards. “If you do not go back to work, some of you will be killed,” he warned. “Colonel Skriabin is fierce and determined.”

“We are not afraid,” Ussmak said. “If you kill us, the spirits of Emperors past will watch over us.”

“Will they?” David Nussboym asked. “Colonel Skriabin tells me many of you males here are mutineers who murdered your own officers. Even those who did not, have surely given secrets of the Race to the Soviet Union. Why would the Emperors want anything to do with your spirits?”

Appalled silence crashed down inside the rebellious barracks. Then the Lizards started talking among themselves in low voices, mostly too fast for Nussboym to follow. He got the drift, though: that was something the Lizards might have thought privately but bad never dared speak aloud. He gave Skriabin credit for understanding the way the aliens’ minds worked.

At last, Ussmak said, “You Big Uglies go straight for the killing shot, don’t you? I have not abandoned the Empire, not in my spirit, but the Emperors may have abandoned me. This is truth. Dare I take the chance of finding out? Darewe

take the chance of finding out?” He turned to the prisoners and put the question to them.

In Poland, the Lizards had derisively called democracysnoutcounting. Here they were using something uncommonly like it to hash the matter out for themselves. Nussboym didn’t say anything about that. He stood waiting till they were done arguing, and tried to follow the debate as best he could.

“We will work,” Ussmak said. He sounded dull and defeated. “We do need more food, though. And-” He hesitated, then decided to go on: “If you can get us the herb ginger, it would help us through these long, boring days.”

“I will put your requests to Colonel Skriabin,” Nussboym promised. He didn’t think the Lizards were likely to get more food. Nobody except the NKVD men, their trusties, and the cooks got enough to eat. Ginger was another story. If it drugged them effectively, they might get it.

He walked out of the barracks. “Well?” Captain Marchenko barked at him.

“The strike is over,” he answered in Polish, then added a German word to make sure the NKVD man got it:“Kaputt.” Marchenko nodded. He still looked unhappy with the world, but he didn’t look like a man about to hose down the neighborhood with his submachine gun, as he often did. He waved Nussboym back toward the original camp.

As he returned, he saw Ivan Fyodorov limping back into camp, accompanied by a guard. The right leg of Fyodorov’s trousers was red with blood; his axe must have slipped, out there in the woods.

“Ivan, are you all right?” Nussboym called.

Fyodorov looked at him, shrugged, then looked away. Nussboym’s cheeks flamed. This wasn’t the first time since he’d become interpreter for the Lizards that he’d got the cold shoulder from the men of his former work gang. They made it all too clear he wasn’t one of them any more. He hadn’t been asked to rat on them or anything of the sort, but they treated him with the same mistrustful respect they gave any of the otherzeks

who went out of their way to work with the camp administration.

I’m just being realistic,he told himself. In Poland, the Lizards had been the power to propitiate, and he’d propitiated them. Only a fool would have thought the Germans a better choice. Well, God had never been shy about turning out fools in carload lots. That was how he’d ended up here, after all. No matter where a man was, he had to land on his feet. He was even serving mankind by helping the NKVD get the most from the Lizards. He reported what they wanted to Colonel Skriabin. Skriabin only grunted.

Nussboym wondered why he felt so lonely.

For the first time since George Bagnall had had the displeasure of making his acquaintance, Georg Schultz had kitted himself out in full German uniform rather than the motley mix of Nazi and Bolshevik gear he usually wore. Standing in the doorway of the house Bagnall, Ken Embry, and Jerome Jones shared, he looked large and mean and menacing.

He sounded menacing, too. “You damned Englishmen, you had better clear out of Pleskau while you have the chance.” He gave the German version of the name of the Russian town. “You don’t clear out now, don’t bet anyone will let you next week. You understand what I’m saying?”