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“Believe me, superior sir, I understand this is a gamble,” Gorppet said. “It is, I repeat, one I am willing to make.”
“I cannot give you permission for such a rash act myself,” Hozzanet said. “I shall have to consult with my superiors.”
Gorppet made the affirmative gesture. “Go ahead, superior sir. I hope they decide quickly. Would you not agree that we may not have much time?”
Hozzanet didn’t say whether he agreed or disagreed. He just waved Gorppet away and began making telephone calls. Later that day, he summoned Gorppet back into his presence. Not sounding particularly happy, he spoke formally: “Very well, Small-Unit Group Leader. You are authorized to pursue negotiations with the Big Uglies at whatever level of intimacy proves necessary.” He twisted an eye turret in a particular way. “Try not to get killed while you are doing all this.”
“I thank you, superior sir,” Gorppet said. “It shall be done.”
“Wait,” Hozzanet told him. “It shall not be done quite yet. We are going to make you a little more useful first.”
And so, when Gorppet approached the house in Kanth from which Mordechai Anielewicz hadn’t returned, he wore several small listening devices glued to his scales. They were covered with false skin, to make them as difficult as possible for the Big Uglies to detect.
Of course, he thought as he walked up to the house, they could just shoot me now, in which case my superiors back at the encampment will hear nothing useful. But no shots rang out. He looked for a speaker by the door with which he could announce himself. The house boasted no such amenity. Few Tosevite houses did. Lacking anything better to do, he knocked on the door.
The Big Uglies inside had to know he was there. They could surely see he carried no weapon (and they just as surely couldn’t see the little patches of false skin). Why wouldn’t they let him in? If nothing else, he gave them another hostage. They wouldn’t know that a good many members of the Race-everybody who particularly hated ginger-wouldn’t be sorry to see him dead.
But no one came to the door. Would he have to leave emptyhanded? He didn’t intend to do any such thing. He knocked again. “I come in peace!” he called in his own language. He could have said the same thing in Arabic, but no one in this part of Tosev 3 used that tongue. He knew none of the languages the Deutsche and the Jews spoke.
At last, the door did open, though not very wide. A Big Ugly gestured with an assault rifle-come inside. Gorppet obeyed. He’d come here to do nothing less. The door slammed shut behind him.
“I greet you,” he said, as if he’d come on a friendly visit. “Do you understand my language?”
“No, not a word,” the Big Ugly answered-in the language of the Race.
It could have been funny, had the Tosevite not been carrying that rifle and had he not been so plainly ready to use it. As things were, Gorppet said, “I thank you for letting me come in here.”
With a shrug, the Tosevite said, “You came to this house. We can hold you here. You cannot give us any trouble.”
“As you still hold Mordechai Anielewicz?” Gorppet pronounced the name, so alien to him, with great care: he did not want to be misunderstood.
And he was not. With a nod, the Jewish Big Ugly answered, “Yes, we hold him; that is a truth. But you will have nothing to do with him. Nothing, do you understand me? You two shall not plot together. I know you are our enemies.”
“I have fought side by side with males of your superstition, and-” Gorppet began.
“It is not a superstition,” the Tosevite snapped. “It is truth.”
“We disagree,” Gorppet said, wondering if that would get him shot the next instant. “But as I say, I have fought side by side with Jewish Tosevites against the Deutsche. Mordechai Anielewicz has led you. How can you say that we are your enemies?”
“Because it is a truth,” the Big Ugly said. “Now you of the Race and the Deutsche work together against us. You do not want us to have the vengeance we deserve.”
“We do not want another round of fighting under any circumstances,” Gorppet said. “What good could it do?”
“Go down these stairs,” the Jewish Tosevite said. Gorppet went. The Big Ugly stayed far enough behind him that he couldn’t hope to whirl and seize the rifle. He didn’t intend to try any such thing, but his captor couldn’t know that, and took no chances. The Big ugly resumed: “Destroying the Deutsche is worthwhile for its own sake.”
“If you set off this bomb, you will not only be destroying the Deutsche,” Gorppet said. “Do you not see that? You also put the Race at risk, and your fellow Jews in Poland.”
“Destroying the Deutsche is all that matters to us,” the Tosevite said implacably. He pointed to a door. “Go in there.”
Gorppet opened the door. The chamber inside was small and dark. Be-fore going in, he said, “You would also destroy yourselves, of course.”
“Of course,” his captor agreed with chilling calm. “Do you know the story of Masada?”
“No.” Gorppet made the negative gesture. “Who is Masada?”
“Masada is not a person. Masada is-was-a place, a fortress,” the Big Ugly answered. “Nineteen hundred years ago, we Jews rose up against the Romans, who oppressed us. They had more soldiers. They beat us. Masada was our last fortress. They put soldiers around it. They demanded that we surrender.”
“And?” Gorppet asked, as he was obviously intended to do.
A melancholy pride in his voice that Gorppet could not mistake, the Jew said, “All the soldiers in Masada-almost a thousand of them-killed themselves instead of giving up to the Romans. We can do that again here. We are proud to do that again here.”
Gorppet had seen plenty of Muslim Tosevites willing to die if in dying they could carry out their goal of harming the Race. Big Uglies who did not care whether they lived or died were the greatest problem the Race faced, because they were so hard to defend against. Gorppet said, “If you harm your own males and females more than you harm the Deutsche, what have you accomplished?”
“Harm to the Deutsche,” the Tosevite said. “Revenge for all they have done to us. We need nothing more.”
He was impervious to reason. That was the most frightening thing about him. Gorppet tried again nonetheless: “But harm will also come to those you care about.”
“We shall punish the Deutsche.” Yes, the Big Ugly was impenetrable. He gestured with his rifle. “Go inside.”
“You will not listen to me,” Gorppet protested.
“I did not ask you to come here. I did not say I would listen to you if you did. Why should I listen to you? You will only tell me lies.” Th
e Tosevite gestured with the rifle barrel again. “Go inside, I tell you, or you will never go anywhere again.”
Despair in his liver, Gorppet went. The Big ugly closed the door. The lock clicked. Gorppet found himself in almost total blackness; only the tiniest bit of light leaked under the bottom of the door. He had to explore by touch. He found nothing but a pad that might do for a sleeping mat and a metal pot he presumed he was to use for his excrement.
I should have let myself go to prison, he thought. Anything would be better than this.
Oddly, Johannes Drucker hadn’t hated the Lizards while fighting two wars against them. He’d been a professional. They’d been professionals. Both sides had just been doing their jobs. Had the Lizards felt otherwise, they would have killed him after his attack on their starship.
Now, though, he hated them. He’d hated Gunther Grillparzer for trying to blackmail him, too. He’d been able to do something about Grillparzer, who he heartily hoped was dead. And he hated the Lizards for blackmailing him. The trouble was, he couldn’t do anything about them.
He peered through Zeiss binoculars at the house in Kanth where the Jews had holed up with the explosive-metal bomb. An artillery shell or a conventional bomb from a dive-bomber might kill all of them before they could detonate the weapon they’d stolen. If it did, the crisis would be over.
Might. If. Those words didn’t carry a lot of punch, not till you measured them against the risk. If the shells, if the bombs, didn’t do the trick…
In that case, Kanth and a good deal of the surrounding countryside would go up in radioactive fire. The Jews would have a measure of revenge on the Reich, and who could guess what would happen next?
He even understood why the Jews holed up in Kanth wanted their revenge. Before the Gestapo hauled Kathe away, he didn’t think he would have. He hadn’t seen Jews as people till then, only as enemies of the Reich. But, considering what he felt toward the goddamn blackshirts, why shouldn’t they feel the same way, only more so? Sure as hell, Germany had given them reason enough.
