AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Goodbye, Straha wrote, but Yeager would probably get that message later. The ex-shiplord paused a while in thought. At last, he found an idea that satisfied him. In fact, he quite liked it. Had he been a Big Ugly, he would have used the curious grimace the Tosevites called smiling.
After a while, his driver came inside, greasy to the elbows and with a smile of his own on his face. He was indeed one of those individuals who enjoyed tinkering for the sake of tinkering. Straha asked, “Is everything now operating as it should?”
“Couldn’t be better,” the driver answered in English as he started cleaning himself off. His mind was plainly elsewhere, or he would have stuck to the language of the Race.
“Excellent.” Straha did stay with his own tongue. “I would like you to drive down to the Race’s consulate in the center of the city tomorrow for me, and to bring back a selection of new books and videos. The ones I have are growing stale.”
As he’d expected, that made the driver’s smile disappear. “Oh, very well,” the Big Ugly said at last. “I do not suppose you can go to the consulate yourself, not when you would be seized and spirited away if you tried. But I must tell you that I will also use the visit as an opportunity to brief my own superiors, who are based not far away.”
“If you must.” Straha sounded sulky. The driver was punishing him. His report would take some time, which meant he would be later bringing back the things Straha wanted. But Straha also wanted other things, things the driver didn’t know about. And to keep the Big Ugly from wondering if they might be there, the ex-shiplord had to act as if they weren’t.
Rubbing in the punishment, his driver went on, “I will not want to start until late morning, to escape the worst of the traffic.”
“Yes, think of your convenience first, and then of mine,” Straha complained, though he was laughing inside.
In fact, the Big Ugly waited so long to leave the next day that Straha feared he would still be there when Sam Yeager arrived. Straha couldn’t hurry him too much, either, not without rousing his suspicions. But he drove off not long before Yeager pulled up.
“I greet you,” Straha said, opening the door for his friend.
“And I greet you, Shiplord,” the Tosevite replied. “I also thank you from the bottom of my heart.” That was an English idiom translated literally into the language of the Race. “You are a true friend.”
“I feel the same about you,” Straha said truthfully. “Now, tell me of this trouble, and of how I can help you with it.” He led Yeager to the front room and got him comfortable on the sofa where his driver usually sat. “Can I bring you some alcohol? Some of that nasty bourbon you favor, perhaps?”
“That would be very good,” Yeager said. “But can we talk in your garden out back?”
He didn’t say why, but Straha had no trouble figuring out the answer: he feared things said inside the house might be recorded. Straha didn’t know if they were or not, but recognized they might be. He said, “Of course. Go on out. I will follow with your drink, and with one for me.”
His own drink was vodka without ice; like most members of the Race, he found whiskey of any sort vile. He carried the two glasses out to the backyard. For him, the weather was cool but not cold. Yeager, he judged, would find it ideal.
They sipped their glasses of alcohol, one flavored, one not. A hummingbird buzzed among the flowers, then flew off with startling speed. “Do you care to begin?” Straha asked.
“I wish I did not have to begin,” the Big Ugly answered. Straha realized, slower than he should have, that Yeager wasn’t wearing his usual uniform, but the wrappings a civilian would have chosen. What made the ex-shiplord notice was the Tosevite’s pulling a sealed envelope from the inside pocket of his upper outer wrapping-a jacket, that was the English word. He handed Straha the envelope, saying, “Keep this for me. Hide it. You will know when to open it.”
That Straha would; the envelope had TO BE OPENED IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH written on it, in both English and the language of the Race. The ex-shiplord kept one eye turret on it and turned the other toward Sam Yeager. “And what do I do with this if I should have to open it?”
“When you see what is inside, you will know,” Yeager said. “I trust you not to open it while I am still among those present.” That was another English idiom. “If I ever ask on the telephone to have it back, do not give it to me unless I say ‘it would help if you did.’ Unless I use that exact phrase, I am asking under duress. Then tell me it was accidentally destroyed, or lost, or something of the sort.”
“As you say, so shall it be. By the spirits of Emperors past, I swear it.” Straha cast down his eyes. Sam Yeager’s head bobbed up and down in the Tosevite gesture of agreement. Straha found another question: “What if I were to open it before anything happened to you?”
“One of the reasons I am giving it to you is that I trust you not to do that more than I trust any of my Big Ugly friends,” Yeager answered. “Am I wrong?”
“No,” Straha said firmly. He cast down his eyes again. “By the spirits of Emperors past, I swear that, too.” He paused and slyly waggled an eye turret a little. “How much trouble would I cause if I did?”
Yeager laughed. He relied on Straha not to mean that. But his own voice was serious as he replied, “More than you can imagine, Shiplord. Even if you multiply that imagination by ten, more than you can imagine.” He laughed again. “And that probably tempts you to open it more than anything else I have said.”
“As a matter of fact, it does,” Straha answered. What did Yeager have in the envelope he now held in his own scaly hand? Whatever it was, by the way he spoke it was even more important than his raising hatchlings of the Race as if they were Big Uglies. Straha wondered if it was some purely Tosevite affair or one also involving the Race He could find out. He could…
“As I said, I trust you,” Yeager told him.
“You may.” Straha meant it. “I shall hide this envelope and keep it safe and not
open it, as you require.” He laughed. “But I shall go right on wondering what it holds.”
Sam Yeager nodded. “Fair enough.”
When the telephone rang, Vyacheslav Molotov feared it would be Marshal Zhukov. Ever since the Germans and the Lizards started fighting, Zhukov had called more often than Molotov really wanted to listen to him. The Soviet Union’s leading soldier assumed that war close to the border brought him to the fore, and Molotov was in no position to contradict him.
But Molotov’s secretary spoke in some excitement: “Comrade General Secretary, I have Paul Schmidt on the line.”
“The German ambassador, Pyotr Maksimovich?” Molotov said. “Put him through, by all means.” He waited, then spoke to Schmidt: “And what can I do for you today, your Excellency?”
“May I please see you as soon as I can reach the Kremlin?” Schmidt asked. “I would sooner not conduct my business over uncertainly secure wires.”
“By all means, come. I will see you,” Molotov replied. He wondered whether his wires were insecure, whether Zhukov was listening. Probably, he judged, but he called the marshal anyway as soon as he got off the phone with the German. Without preamble, he said, “Schmidt is on the way here.”
“Did he say what for?”
“No. He said he would tell me when he got here.”
“All right. Keep me apprised.” Zhukov hung up.
Molotov had cakes and rolls stuffed with spiced meat set out beside the samovar in the corner of the office where he went to wait for Schmidt. He had never had any use for the man’s Nazi bosses, but liked him as well as he liked anyone.
After the handshakes and polite greetings that followed the German ambassador’s arrival, Schmidt took tea and did eat one of the rolls. Molotov waited patiently. Schmidt blotted his lips on a linen napkin, then, grimacing, said, “Comrade General Secretary, I would like you to use your good offices to help the Greater German Reich end its hostilities with the Race.”
“Ah.” Molotov had thought it might be so. He wasn’t sure whether or not he’d hoped it might be so. He wouldn’t have been altogether sorry to see the Germans and the Lizards pound on each other a while longer. Maybe the Nazis couldn’t pound any more. Delicately, Molotov said, “You understand, this may involve negotiating a surrender.”
