Striking the Balance

“Superior female, I wish I had not taken the hatchling,” Ttomalss said, and backed that with an emphatic cough. The hatchling-LiuMei he reminded himself-stirred in Liu Han’s arms, as if reminded of something it had once known. Ttomalss went on, “I cannot undo what I did, though. It is too late for that.”

“It is too late for many things,” Liu Han said, and he thought she meant to kill him on the spot. Then Liu Mei wiggled again. Liu Han looked down at the small Tosevite that had come from her body. “But it is not too late for all things. Do you see how Liu Mei is becoming a proper human person, wearing proper human clothes, speaking proper human language?”

“I see that, yes,” Ttomalss answered. “She is very-” He didn’t know how to sayadaptable in Chinese, and cast around for a way to get across what he meant: “When the way she lives changes, she changes with it, very fast.” Tosevite adaptability had addled the Race ever since the conquest fleet came to Tosev 3. Ttomalss saw no reason to be surprised at one more example.

Even in the gloomy little cell, Liu Han’s eyes glittered. “Do you remember when you gave me back my baby, you gloated because you had raised it as a little scaly devil and it would not become a proper human being? That is what you said?”

“I seem to have been wrong,” Ttomalss said. “I wish I had never said any such thing. We of the Race are always finding out we do not know as much about you Tosevites as we thought we did. That is one of the reasons I took the hatchling: to try to learn more.”

“One of the things you have learned is that you should not have done it,” Liu Han snapped.

“Truth!” Ttomalss exclaimed, and used another emphatic cough.

“I brought Liu Mei here to show you how wrong you were,” Liu Han said. “You little scaly devils, you do not like to be wrong.” Her tone was mocking; Ttomalss had learned enough of the way Tosevites spoke to be sure of that. She went on, mocking still, “You were not patient enough. You did not think enough about what would happen when Liu Mei was among proper human beings for a while.”

“Truth,” Ttomalss said again, this time quietly. What a fool he had been, to scoff at Liu Han without regard for possible consequences. As the Race had so often with the Big Uglies as a whole, he had underestimated her. And, as the Race had, he was paying for it.

“I will tell you something else,” Liu Han said-if it wasn’t going to be sensory deprivation, apparently she would do everything she could to make him feel dreadful. “You scaly devils have had to agree to talks of peace with several nations of human beings, because you were being so badly hurt in the fighting.”

“I do not believe you,” Ttomalss said. She was his only source of information here-why shouldn’t she tell all sorts of outrageous lies to break his morale?

“I do not care what you believe. It is the truth even so,” Liu Han answered. Her indifference made him wonder if perhaps he’d been wrong-but it might have been intended to do that. She continued, “You little devils still go on oppressing China. Before too much time has passed, you will learn this too is a mistake. You have made a great many mistakes, here and all over the world.”

“It may be so,” Ttomalss admitted. “But I make no mistakes here.” He lifted a foot and brought it down on the concrete floor. “When I can do nothing, I can make no mistakes.”

Liu Han let out several barks of Tosevite laughter. “In that case, you will stay a perfect male for a long time.” Liu Mei started to fuss. Liu Han jiggled the hatchling back and forth, calming it more readily than Ttomalss had ever managed. “I wanted to show you how very wrong you were. Think of that as part of your punishment.”

“You are more clever than I ever thought,” Ttomalss said bitterly. Was it worse to contemplate nothing or his own stupidity? He did not know, not yet. Here in this cell, he expected he would have plenty of time to find out.

“Tell this to the other little devils-if I ever let you go,” Liu Han said. She backed out of the chamber, keeping him covered with the submachine gun till she had shut the door. The click of the lock closing over the hasp had a dreadfully final sound. A moment later, he heard her close the outer door, too.

He stared after her. If she ever let him go? He realized she had told him that precisely to have it prey on his mind. Would she? Wouldn’t she? Could he persuade her? If he could, how? Worrying about it would addle his mind, but how could he keep from worrying about it?

She wasmuch more clever than he’d ever thought.

Sam Yeager stood on first base after cracking a single to left. In a seat in back of the first-base dugout, Barbara clapped her hands. “Nice poke,” said the first baseman, a stocky corporal named Grabowski. “But then, you played ball, didn’t you? Pro ball, I mean.”