Striking the Balance

“This will be even more delightful to mediate than the generals’ brawls,” Bagnall murmured in an aside to Ken Embry.

Embry nodded, then grinned impudently. “It’s rather more entertaining to listen to, though, isn’t it?”

“-have been sleeping with you,” Tatiana was saying, “so you have no cause for complaint. I do this even though, last time you got on top of me, you called me Ludmila instead of my own name.”

“I what?” Schultz said. “I never-”

“You did,” Tatiana said with a certainty that could not be denied-and an obvious malicious pleasure in that certainty. “You can still think about that soft little Red Air Force pilot you pined for like a puppy with its tongue hanging out, but if I think of anyone else, it’s like you think your poor mistreated cock will fall off. If you think I mistreat your cock when it’s in there, it can stay out.” She turned to Jones, swinging her hips a little and running her tongue over her lips to make them fuller and redder. Bagnall could see exactly what she was doing, but that didn’t mean he was immune to it.

Neither was the British radarman. He took half a step toward Tatiana, then stopped with a very visible effort. “No, dammit!” he yelled. “This is how I got into trouble in the first place.” He paused and looked thoughtful, so well that Bagnall wondered if the expression was altogether spontaneous. And when Jones spoke again, he made a deliberate effort to turn the subject: “Haven’t seen Ludmila about for the past few days. She’s overdue from her last flight, isn’t she?”

“Ja,”Schultz said. His head bobbed up and down. “She flew last to Riga, and should have been back soon.”

“No, not necessarily,” Bagnall said. “General Chill got a message answering whatever query he’d sent with her, and saying also that the soldier commanding in Riga was taking advantage of her light airplane for some mission of his own.” Now he had trouble keeping his face straight. He’d been interested in Ludmila Gorbunova, too, but she hadn’t been interested back.

“Ah, that is good; that is very good,” Schultz said. “I had not heard it.”

Tatiana started to smash the plate over his head. He was fast; he knocked it out of her hand so that it flew across the room, hit the timbers of the wall, and broke there. Tatiana cursed him in Russian and in the bad German she’d picked up. When she’d run through all her invective once-and the choicer bits twice-she shouted, “Since no one cares about me, to the devil’s uncle with the lot of you.” She stormed out of the house, slamming the door behind her loud enough, probably, to make the neighbors think an artillery round had hit it there.

Georg Schultz surprised Bagnall by starting to laugh. Then Schultz, a farmerly type, surprised him again by quoting Goethe:“Die ewige Weibliche- the eternal feminine.” The German shook his head. “I don’t know why I get myself into such a state over her, but I do.”

“Must be love,” Ken Embry said innocently.

“God forbid!” Schultz looked around at the shattered crockery. “Ah, the hell with it.” His gaze fixed on Jerome Jones. “And the hell with you, too,Englander.”

“From you, that’s a compliment,” Jones said. Bagnall took a step over to the radarman’s side. If Schultz wanted to try anything, he wouldn’t be going against Jones alone.

But the German shook his head again, rather like a bear be deviled by bees, and left the house. He didn’t slam the door as hard as Tatiana had, but broken pieces of dishes jumped all the same. Bagnall took a deep breath. The scene hadn’t been as bad as combat, but it hadn’t been any fun, either. He clapped Jerome Jones on the back. “How the devil did you ever get tangled up with that avalanche who walks like a man?”

“The fair Tatiana?” Now Jones shook his head-ruefully. “She doesn’t walk like a man. She walks like a woman-that was the problem.”

“And she doesn’t want to give you up, even though she has her dashing Nazi, too?” Bagnall said.Dashing wasn’t the right word to describe Georg Schultz, and he knew it.Capable

fit pretty well.Dangerous was in there, too, perhaps not as overtly as with Tatiana Pirogova, but part of the mix nonetheless.

“That’s about it,” Jones muttered.

“Tell her to go away often enough and she’ll eventually get the message, old man,” Bagnall said. “You dowant her to go away, don’t you?”

“Most of the time, of course I do,” Jones answered. “But sometimes, when I’m-you know-” He glanced down at the crockery-strewn floor and didn’t go on.

Bagnall did it for him: “When you’re randy, you mean.” Jones nodded miserably. Bagnall looked at Ken Embry. Embry was looking at him. They both groaned.

The coming of the Lizards had brought ruin to hundreds of towns for every one it helped. Lamar, Colorado, though, was one of the latter. The prairie town, a no-account county seat before the aliens invaded, had become a center for the defense against them. People and supplies had flowed into it rather than streaming away, as was the usual case.