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“They sure are ugly little critters,” Rasmussen said. “Little’s the word, too. How do things that size go about making so much trouble?”
“They manage, that’s a fact,” Mutt answered. “What I don’t see is, now that they’re here, how we ever gonna get rid of all of ’em? They’ve come to stay, no two ways about that a-tall.”
“Just have to kill ’em all, I guess,” Rasmussen said.
“Good luck!” Mutt said. “They’re liable to do that to us instead. Real liable. You ask me-not that you did-we got to find some other kind of way.” He rubbed his bristly chin. “Only trouble is, I ain’t got a clue what it could be. Hope somebody does. If nobody does, we better find one pretty damn quick or we’re in all kinds of trouble.”
“Like you said, I didn’t ask you,” Rasmussen told him.
II
High above Dover, a jet plane roared past. Without looking up, David Goldfarb couldn’t tell whether it was a Lizard aircraft or a British Meteor. Given the thick layer of gray clouds hanging low overhead, looking up probably wouldn’t have done him any good, either.
“That’s one of ours,” Flight Lieutenant Basil Roundbush declared.
“If you say so,” Goldfarb answered, tacking on “Sir” half a beat too late.
“I do say so,” Roundbush told him. He was tall and handsome and blond and ruddy, with a dashing mustache and a chestful of decorations, first from the Battle of Britain and then from the recent Lizard invasion. As far as Goldfarb was concerned, a pilot deserved a bloody medal just for surviving the Lizard attack. Even Meteors were easy meat against the machines the Lizards flew.
To make matters worse, Roundbush wasn’t just a fighting machine with more ballocks than brains. He’d helped Fred Hipple with improvements on the engines that powered the Meteor, he had a lively wit, and women fell all over him. Taken all in all, he gave Goldfarb an inferiority complex.
He did his best to hide it, because Roundbush, within the limits of possessing few limits, was withal a most likable chap. “I am but a mere ‘umble radarman, sir,” Goldfarb said, making as if to tug at a forelock he didn’t have. “I wouldn’t know such things, I wouldn’t.”
“You’re a mere ‘umble pile of malarkey, is what you are,” Roundbush said with a snort.
Goldfarb sighed. The pilot had the right accent, too. His own, despite studious efforts to make it more cultivated, betrayed his East End London origins every time he opened his mouth. He hadn’t had to exaggerate it much to put on his ‘umble air for Roundbush.
The pilot pointed. “The oasis lies ahead. Onward!”
They quickened their strides. The White Horse Inn lay not far from Dover Castle, in the northern part of town. It was a goodly hike from Dover College, where they both labored to turn Lizard gadgetry into devices the RAF and other British forces could use. It was also the best pub in Dover, not only for its bitter, but also for its barmaids.
Not surprisingly, it was packed. Uniforms of every sort-RAF, Army, Marines, Royal Navy-mingled with civilian tweed and flannel. The great fireplace at one end of the room threw heat all across it, as it had been doing in that building since the fourteenth century. Goldfarb sighed blissfully. The Dover College laboratories where he spent his days were clean modern-and bloody cold.
As if in a rugby scrum, he and Roundbush elbowed their way toward the bar. Roundbush held up a hand as they neared the promised land. “Two pints of best bitter darling!” he bawled to the redhead in back of the long oaken expanse.
“For you, dearie, anything,” Sylvia said with a toss of her head. All the men who heard her howled wolfishly. Goldfarb joined in, but only so as not to seem out of place. He and Sylvia had been lovers a while before. It wasn’t that he’d been mad about her; it wasn’t even that he d been her only one at the time: she was, in her own way, honest, and hadn’t tried to string him along with such stories. But seeing her now that they’d parted did sometimes sting-not least because he still craved the sweet warmth of her body.
She slid the pint pots toward them. Roundbush slapped silver on the bar. Sylvia took it. When she started to make change for him, he shook his head. She smiled a large, promising smile-she was honestly mercenary, too.
Goldfarb raised his mug. “To Group Captain Hipple!” he said.
He and Roundbush both drank. If it hadn’t been for Fred Hipple, the RAF would have had to go on fighting the Lizards with Hurricanes and Spitfires, not jets. But Hipple had been missing since the Lizards attacked the Bruntingthorpe research station during their invasion. The toast was all, too likely to be the only memorial he’d ever get.
Roundbush peered with respect at the deep golden brew he was quaffing. “That’sbloody good,” he said. “These handmade bitters often turn out better than what the brewers sold all across the country.”
“You’re right about that,” Goldfarb said, thoughtfully smacking his lips. He fancied himself a connoisseur of bitter. “Well hopped, nutty-” He took another pull, to remind himself of what he was talking about.
The pint pots quickly emptied. Goldfarb raised a hand to order another round. He looked around for Sylvia, didn’t see her for a moment, then he did; she was carrying a tray of mugs over to a table by the fire.
As if by magic, another woman materialized behind the bar while his head was turned. “You want a fresh pint?” she asked.
“Two pints-one for my friend here,” he answered automatically. Then he looked at her. “Hullo! You’re new here.”
She nodded as she poured beer from the pitcher into the pint pots. “Yes-my name’s Naomi.” She wore her dark hair pulled back from her face. It made her look thoughtful. She had delicate features: skin pale without being pink, narrow chin, wide cheekbones, large gray eyes, elegantly arched nose.
Goldfarb paid for the bitter, all the while studying her. At last, he risked a word not in English:“Yehudeh?”
Those eyes fixed on him, sharply. He knew she was searching his features-and knew what she’d find. His brown, curly hair and formidable nose had not sprung from native English stock. After a moment, she relaxed and said, “Yes, I’m Jewish-and you, unless I’m wrong.” Now that he heard more than a sentence from her, he caught her accent-like the one his parents had, though not nearly so strong.
He nodded. “Guilty as charged,” he said, which won a cautious smile from her. He left her a tip as large as the one Basil Roundbush had given Sylvia, though he could afford it less well. He raised his mug to her before he drank, then asked, “What are you doing here?”
“In England, do you mean?” she asked, wiping the bar with a bit of rag. “My parents were lucky enough, smart enough-whatever you like-to get out of Germany in 1937.I came with them; I was fourteen then.”
That made her twenty or twenty-one now: a fine age, Goldfarb thought reverently. He said, “My parents came from Poland before the First World War, so I was born here.” He wondered if he should have told her that; German Jews sometimes looked down their noses at their Polish cousins.
But she said, “You were very lucky, then. What we went through… and we were gone before the worst. And in Poland, they say, it was even worse.”
“Everything they say is true, too,” David answered. “Have you ever heard Moishe Russie broadcast? We’re cousins; I’ve talked with him after he escaped from Poland. If it hadn’t been for the Lizards, there wouldn’t be any Jews left there by now. I hate being grateful to them, but there you are.”
“Yes, I have heard him,” Naomi said. “Terrible things there-but there, at least, they’re over. In Germany, they go on.”
“I know,” Goldfarb said, and took along pull at his bitter. “And the Nazis have hit the Lizards as many licks as anyone else, maybe more. The world’s gone crazy, it bloody well has.”
Basil Roundbush had been talking with a sandy-haired Royal Navy commander. Now he turned-back to find a fresh pint at his elbow-and Naomi behind the bar. He pulled himself straight; he could turn on two hundred watts of charm the way most men fli
cked on a light switch. “Well, well,” he said with a toothy smile. “Our publican’s taste has gone up, it has indeed. Where did he find you?”
Not sporting,Goldfarb thought. He waited for Naomi to sigh or giggle or do whatever she did to show she was smitten. He hadn’t seen Roundbush fail yet. But the barmaid just answered, coolly enough, “I was looking for work, and he was kind enough to think I might do. Now if you will excuse me-” She hurried off to minister to other thirst-stricken patrons.
