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“Why isn’t it scraped off the road as soon as it forms?” the Lizard demanded. “Your practices here strike me as most unsafe. The Race has held this part of the planet for some time, and should have done a better job of preparing it for colonization.”
Anielewicz didn’t laugh out loud, though holding back wasn’t easy. But he didn’t want to make the poor, ignorant, indignant Lizard any more indignant than it already was. Patiently, he said, “Sometimes there are only patches of ice, as today. Sometimes all the roads are icy, and there is no equipment for all the scraping it would take to keep them clear. Sometimes, when…” He hesitated. He didn’t know how to say snow in the Lizards’ language. Circumlocution, then: “When powdery frozen water falls from the sky, it covers the roads higher than a male. In this season of the year, that could happen at any time.”
“When I was awakened, I was warned of this kind of frozen water,” the Lizard said. “I still find it hard to believe any planet could have such an absurd form of precipitation.”
“You will find out how absurd it is,” Mordechai said. “And now, I must be on my way.” Off he went, slowly building up speed.
The Lizard looked as if it wanted to order him to stop and help. But, as usual, he had a rifle on his back. Maybe the briefing the Lizard had got included the idea that it wasn’t a good idea to give orders to Tosevites who might open fire instead of obeying. For the colonists’ sake, Mordechai hoped it included that thought. If it didn’t, they’d learn some expensive lessons in a hurry.
When he got into Glowno, he was alarmed to discover a Lizard prowling the streets. He didn’t dare approach the shed where the bomb was kept till he found out why the alien was going around. Glowno wasn’t much more than a wide spot on the highway between Lodz and Warsaw. Lizards came through the place, but they rarely stopped.
He went up to the Lizard and asked his question straight out: “What are you doing here?”
“Freezing,” the Lizard answered, which wasn’t what he’d expected but was perfectly reasonable. As an afterthought, the Lizard went on, “And looking for a place to put a shuttlecraft port.”
“Ah,” Anielewicz said. “I heard you were in Lodz, my home city, not long ago. You did not find any place that suited you there?”
“Would I be here if I had?” the Lizard retorted, again catching him off guard.
He tried to rally: “You are the female Nesseref, not so? That is the name of the shuttlecraft pilot I heard.”
“Yes, I am Nesseref,” she answered. “Who are you, to know who I am?”
He found himself in a trap of his own making. If he admitted who he was and his status, she would wonder why such a prominent personage had come to such an unprominent town as Glowno. After a moment’s thought, he said, “I am Mordechai Anielewicz,” and let it go at that. If she realized who he was, she did; if not, not. To keep her from having much time to think, he went on, “To me, you look much as a male of the Race would. How can a Tosevite tell a female from a male?”
Nesseref’s mouth fell open. She found the question funny. “We have the same trouble with you Big Uglies, you know. You all look the same to us, and you do not even use body paint to help us tell you apart. Some of the males from the conquest fleet can tell your males and females apart, but I cannot, not yet.”
“But you have not answered my question,” Anielewicz said.
“It is easy enough, for anyone with eyes in his head,” the Lizard said with another laugh. “My stance is somewhat wider than a male’s; I am the one who lays the eggs, and so need wider hips. My tailstump is a little longer, my snout is a little more pointed than a male’s would be. Do you understand now?”
“I do, yes. I thank you.” Armed with his new knowledge, Mordechai tried to pick out the things she said made her distinct from males of the Race. For the life of him, he couldn’t. She looked like a Lizard, and that was that. He laughed. “Now I understand why the Race has trouble with us.”
“But our differences are so obvious!” Nesseref exclaimed. “They are not subtle, like the differences between male and female Tosevites.”
“Obvious differences are the differences one is used to,” Anielewicz said. “Subtle differences are the differences someone else is used to.”
Nesseref thought about that. After a moment, she laughed again. “Truth!” she said, and added an emphatic cough. She turned both eye turrets toward Mordechai. “You are different from most Big Uglies I have met. You do not bluster and swagger, as so many of your kind seem to do.”
“I thank you,” Anielewicz said again. It would have been a compliment of a different sort from a female of his own species. In an odd way, he valued it more from the Lizard, who was disinterested-or, at least, uninterested. And he returned it: “Nor do you seem like most males of the Race I know. You are not so certain you know everything there is to know.”
“And I thank you,” Nesseref returned. “Perhaps we shall be friends.”
“Perhaps we shall,” Mordechai said in some surprise. Having a Lizard as a friend had not occurred to him till that moment. He had always dealt with Lizards because he had to, not because he wanted to. The Lizards he’d known had always made it clear they were dealing with him for the same reason. “Are all females like you?”
“By the Emperor, no,” Nesseref said. “Are all Tosevite males-I presume you are a male-like you?”
“No,” Anielewicz said. “All right. We are a couple of individuals who happen to get on well. That will do, I think.”
“Yes, I also think so,” Nesseref said. “From much of what I had heard and seen on this planet, I wondered if having a Tosevite friend was even possible. We of the Race have friendships with Rabotevs and Hallessi, but they are more like us in temperament-not in appearance, necessarily, but in temperament-than you Big Uglies.”
“I have heard that from other members of the Race,” Anielewicz said. “I notice you have not brought any of these peoples to Tosev 3.”
“No: both these expeditions were fitted out from Home,” Nesseref answered. “Once this world is brought fully into the Empire, though, Hallessi and Rabotevs will come here, as they have gone to each other’s worlds and to Home as well.”
“You will find many Tosevites who do not think this world will ever be fully brought into the Empire,” Anielewicz said. “As a matter of fact, I am one of them. I hope this does not offend you.”
“Offend
me? No. Why should it?” Nesseref said. “But that is not to say I believe you are right. By all appearances, you Tosevites are an impatient species. The Race is a great many things. Impatient it is not. Time is on our side. In a few thousand years, you Tosevites will be contented subjects of the Emperor.”
Bunim, the regional subadministrator in Lodz, had said much the same thing. Such confidence was unnerving. Were the Lizards right? The only thing Mordechai knew was that he wouldn’t live long enough to find out. Seeking to shake the female’s calm confidence a bit, he said, “I do wish you the best of luck finding a spot for your shuttlecraft port.”
“I thank you,” Nesseref replied. “You are well-spoken indeed, for a Tosevite.”
“And I thank you,” Mordechai said. “And now, if you will excuse me, I have to check on the security of my explosive-metal bomb.”
Nesseref’s mouth fell open. “You are a funny Big Ugly, Mordechai Anielewicz,” she said, “but you cannot fool me so easily as that.” Anielewicz shrugged. Just as well-better than just as well-she hadn’t believed him.
As much as Johannes Drucker relished going into space, he also treasured leave time with his family. He treasured it more than ever these days; he’d come too close to losing Kathe. He didn’t know what he would have done without her. He didn’t know what his children would have done, either. Heinrich was fifteen now, Claudia twelve, and Adolf ten: old enough to get through better than they would have a few years before, perhaps, but losing a mother could never be easy. And losing a mother for the reason the Gestapo had put forward…
“Go on, Father,” Heinrich said from the back seat of the Volkswagen. “The light is green. That means you can.” He would be eligible to learn to drive next year. The thought made Drucker cringe, or at least want to go back behind the steering controls of a Panther or some other panzer the next time he needed to hit the road.
He put the car into gear. It was a 1960 model, and burned hydrogen rather than gasoline. The engine was a lot quieter than those of the older buggy VWs that helped clog the streets of Greifswald. Christmas candles and lamps burned in the windows of shops and taverns and houses. They did only so much to relieve the grayness the town shared with so many others near the Baltic.
