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At last, silence fell. Nobody’d shot anybody, not so far as Mordechai could tell. But he hadn’t the faintest idea what had happened-he hadn’t been able to make out the words-or why they’d started screaming at one another in the first place, either. All he could do was sit there in the darkness and wonder and wait.
Instead of waiting, he fell asleep. He didn’t think he’d been asleep very long when the door flew open. One of the bully boys shined a flashlight in his face. Another one growled, “Come on. You’re going to see the boss.”
“Am I?” Anielewicz yawned and rose and did as he was told.
He was still yawning when the two toughs escorted him into Benjamin Rubin’s presence. Rubin didn’t beat around the bush: “Is it true that, if we surrender, we can surrender to the Lizards and not the damned Nazis? And there’s supposed to be a safe-conduct out of here and a pardon afterwards. Is that true, or isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s true,” Mordechai answered, more than a little dazed. “Does it matter?”
“It matters,” Rubin said bleakly. “On those terms, we give up.” He took a pistol off his belt and handed it to Anielewicz. “Here. This is yours now.”
Two more of his followers brought in the Lizard Mordechai had heard. It wasn’t Nesseref; he would have recognized her body paint. “I greet you,” he said. “Are you Gorppet?” When the Lizard made the affirmative gesture, Anielewicz went on, “They are surrendering to the Race, in exchange for safe-conduct and pardon. Will you go make the arrangements for picking them up and getting them out of the Reich?”
“It shall be done,” Gorppet answered. “And you have no idea how glad I am that it shall be done.”
“Oh, I might,” Anielewicz said.
One of the Jews who followed Rubin led the Lizard toward the front door. It opened, then closed again. Rubin said, “I’m counting on the Race to keep its promises.”
“It’s a good bet,” Mordechai said. “They’re better about things like that than we are.” He raised an eyebrow. “What made you change your mind at last?”
“What do you think?” Benjamin Rubin said bitterly. “We tried to touch off the damned bomb, and it wouldn’t work.” He looked as if he hated Anielewicz. “These past twenty years, I thought you were taking care of it.”
“So did I,” Mordechai said. “But do you know what? I’ve never been so happy in all my life to find out I was wrong.”
“Well, there is one crisis solved.” Atvar spoke in considerable relief. “Solved without casualties, too, I might add. That is such a pleasant novelty, I would not mind seeing it occur more often.”
“I understand, Exalted Fleetlord,” Pshing said. “I hope such proves to be the case.”
“So do I.” Atvar used an emphatic cough. So much time on Tosev 3, however, had turned him from an optimist to a realist, if not to an outright cynic. “I would not bet anything I could not afford to lose. Given the present sorry situation on too much of Tosev 3-and, indeed, throughout too much of this solar system-my larger bet would too likely prove doomed to disappointment.”
His adjutant made the affirmative gesture. “I understand,” he repeated. “Shall we now proceed to the rest of the daily report?”
“I suppose so,” Atvar replied. “I am sure I will not like it nearly so well as the news from the Reich.”
Next on the agenda was the latest news on the fighting in China. Atvar promptly proved himself right: he didn’t like it nearly so well as he’d liked the news from the Reich. From somewhere or other, the Chinese rebels had come up with revoltingly large quantities of Deutsch antilandcruiser rockets and antiaircraft missiles. The fleetlord had a strong suspicion where somewhere or other was: the SSSR, with a long land border with China, seemed a far more likely candidate than the distant, shattered Reich. But he couldn’t prove anything there, the Race’s best efforts to do so notwithstanding. And the SSSR, unfortunately, was able to do too much damage to make welcome a confrontation without secure proof of wrongdoing. Molotov, the SSSR’s not-emperor, had made his willingness to fight very clear.
“One thing,” Atvar said after reading the latest digest of action reports from China. “Fleetlord Reffet can no longer object to recruiting members of the colonization fleet to help defend the Race. A few more campaigns like the one now under way there and we will not have enough males from the conquest fleet left to give us an armed force of the size and strength we require on this world.”
“As a matter of fact, Exalted Fleetlord, Fleetlord Reffet is still objecting,” Pshing said. “If you will see item five of the agenda-”
“I shall do no such thing, not now,” Atvar said. “Reffet is welcome to hiss and cough and snarl as much as he likes. He has no authority to do anything more. If he tries to do anything more than object-if, for example, he tries to obstruct-he will learn at first hand just how significant military power can be.”
He relished the thought of sending a couple of squads of battle-hardened infantrymales to seize Reffet and force him to see reason when it was aimed at him from the barrel of a rifle. If the fleetlord of the colonization fleet provoked him enough, he just might do it. So he told himself, at any rate. Would he ever really have the nerve? Maybe not. But thinking about it was sweet.
He needed a few sweet thoughts, for the next agenda item was no more satisfactory than the one pertaining to China: the American Big Uglies were going right ahead with their plan to turn small asteroids into missiles aimed at Tosev 3. Probes had found several new distant rocks to which they’d fitted motors, and analysts were warning in loud and strident tones that they were sure they hadn’t found them all.
“Spirits of Emperors past turn their backs on the Americans,” Atvar muttered. He swung an eye turret toward Pshing. “Our analysts believe the Americans will resist with force if we try to destroy these installations, even if no Big Uglies are presently aboard them. What is your view?”
“Exalted Fleetlord, it might have been better had we not threatened them with war if they attacked our automated probes out in the asteroid belt,” his adjutant replied. “Now they can reverse that precedent and hit us in the snout with it.”
“No doubt you are right about that,” Atvar said unhappily. “But I am more concerned with practical aspects than with legalistic ones here. If we ignore the precedent and resort to force, will they respond in kind?”
“By every indication from Henry Cabot Lodge, they will,” Pshing said. “Do we wish to ignore the express statements of their ambassador? Can we afford to ignore those statements? If we ignore them and find we were mistaken, how expensive and how embarrassing will that prove?”
“Those are all good questions,” Atvar admitted. “They are, in fact, the very questions I have been asking myself. I wish I liked the answers I find for them better than I do.”
“And I also understand that,” Pshing said. “The more technically capable the Big Uglies become, the more difficult in other ways they also become.”
“And the more unpredictably difficult, too.” Atvar swung both eye turrets toward the monitor. “Why are so many American and Canadian manufacturing companies suddenly ordering large quantities of a particular small servomotor from us? To what nefarious purpose will they put the device?”
“I saw that item, Exalted Fleetlord, and checked with our Security personnel,” Pshing said. “The stated reason is, this motor will be the central unit in a toy for Tosevite hatchlings.”
“Yes, that is the stated reason.” Atvar bore down heavily on the word. “But what true reason lurks behind it?”
“Here, I believe, none.” Pshing spoke to the monitor, which yielded Atvar a view of a goggle-eyed, fuzzy object that looked like a cross between a Big Ugly and some of the large wild beasts of Tosev 3. “This thing is called, I believe, a Hairy. By the excitement with which the Tosevites speak of it, it is already remarkably popular, and seems on the way to becoming more so.”
“Madness,” Atvar said with great conviction. “Utter madness, and an utter
waste of good servomotors, too.”
“Better they should go to fripperies than to devices that truly would trouble us,” Pshing said.
“Well, that is a truth, and I can hardly deny it.” Atvar looked at the next item on the agenda. It involved talking with Reffet about recruiting males and females from the colonization fleet. “Reffet is a nuisance, and I can hardly deny that, either. Go call him, Pshing. Perhaps the shock will make him fall over dead. I can hope as much, at any rate.”
“It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord,” Atvar’s adjutant said, and went off to do it.
