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“That is so,” the major admitted, in the hollow voice of a man who has had too much happen to him too quickly. “In any case, with the Lizards having established a base inside the Polish Generalgouvernement, the Wehrmacht has more to worry about at the moment than you Jews.”

“Thank you, sir,” Russie breathed. His own sincerity startled him. After a moment, it angered him as well: why should he thank this Nazi for deigning to allow him what should have been his by right?

And, indeed, the German tempered his own moderation: “You would likely do well to remember that the SS never has more to worry about than you Jews. Be careful.” Be very careful, the cold gray eyes of the silent enlisted man seemed to add. Be very carefulkike.

“We have learned to be careful,” Russie said. “Otherwise we would all be dead by now.”

He wondered how the major would react to that. The man merely nodded, as at any statement of obvious fact. His arm shot up and out in the German salute. “Heil Hitler!”

Russie could not bring himself to answer with the Nazi farewell. But the officer had talked to him as man to man, not as master to slave. He said, “God keep you safe from the Lizards, Major.”

The German nodded again, this time brusquely, did a military about-face, and strode away. The enlisted man stalked after him. They left Moishe Russie still standing in Polish Warsaw, outside the ghetto. “Moishe, are you all right?” his wife called from the other side of the fence. She had not fled, but Reuven was nowhere to be seen-a sensible precaution, for he was all they had left.

“I am all right,” he answered, wonder in his own voice. He repeated the words, louder: “I am all right.” Simply standing in broad daylight on what had been forbidden soil was as intoxicating as Purim vodka.

Timidly, Rivka picked her way across the bomb crater and joined him on the far side of the wall. “They spoke with you, and you took no harm.” She sounded as amazed as he had. “Maybe even they felt God working through you.”

“Maybe they did,” Russie said as he slipped his arm around her shoulder. An hour earlier, he had scoffed at the idea that he-a medical student who ate pork if his need was desperate enough-might somehow be a prophet. Now he too began to wonder. God had not actively interfered in the affairs of His chosen people since the days of the Bible. But when since those days had His people been in such peril?

And why, Russie thought, would God choose him? He shook his head. “Who am I, to question Him?” he said. “His will be done.”

“It is,” Rivka, said proudly. “Through you.”

The lights were off in the auditorium of the Mills and Petrie Memorial Center; power had been erratic ever since the Lizards’ airplanes started ranging over the Midwest. The gloomy auditorium was packed nonetheless, with youths and men from the village of Ashton and with refugees like Sam Yeager and Mutt Daniels.

Yeager was acutely aware that he’d been wearing the same clothes for several days, that he hadn’t washed either them or himself any time lately, that he’d done a lot of walking and running and hiding, in them. Seeing a good many men as grimy as he, and none of them taking any notice of it, was something of a relief.

A grim-faced, middle-aged man in khaki walked across the stage, stopped in the center. Crowd noises ceased, as abruptly as if cut off by a switch. “Thank you for being here this morning,” the man said. “I want you all to stand and raise your right hands.”

Yeager was already standing; the auditorium had more men in it than seats. He put up his right hand. The man in khaki said, “Repeat after me: ‘I’-state your name-”

“I, Samuel William Yeager,” Yeager repeated, “a citizen of the United States, do hereby acknowledge to have voluntarily enlisted the eighth day of June, 1942, as a soldier in the Regular Army of the United States of America for the period of four years or the duration of this war under the conditions prescribed by law, unless sooner discharged by proper authority; and do also agree to accept from the United States such bounty, pay, rations, and clothing as are or may be prescribed by law. And I do solemnly swear”-the echoing chorus grew, ragged for a moment, as a few men said affirm-“that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the United States of America; that I will serve them honestly and faithfully against all their enemies whatsoever; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States, and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the Rules and Articles of War.”

An enormous grin stretched across Yeager’s face It had taken an invasion from Mars or wherever the hell the Lizards came from, but he’d made it into the service after all.

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Все книги серии Worldwar

In the Balance
In the Balance

War seethed across the planet. Machines soared through the air, churned through the seas, crawled across the surface, pushing ever forward, carrying death. Earth was engaged in a titanic struggle. Germany, Russia, France, China, Japan: the maps were changing day by day. The hostilities spread in ever-widening ripples of destruction: Britain, Italy, Africa… the fate of the world hung in the balance. Then the real enemy came. Out of the dark of night, out of the soft glow of dawn, out of the clear blue sky came an invasion force the likes of which Earth had never known-and worldwar was truly joined. The invaders were inhuman and they were unstoppable. Their technology was far beyond our reach, and their goal was simple. Fleetlord Atvar had arrived to claim Earth for the Empire. Never before had Earth's people been more divided. Never had the need for unity been greater. And grudgingly, inexpertly, humanity took up the challenge. In this epic novel of alternate history, Harry Turtledove takes us around the globe. We roll with German panzers; watch the coast of Britain with the RAF; and welcome alien-liberators to the Warsaw ghetto. In tiny planes we skim the vast Russian steppe, and we push the envelope of technology in secret labs at the University of Chicago. Turtledove's saga covers all the Earth, and beyond, as mankind-in all its folly and glory-faces the ultimate threat; and a turning point in history shows us a past that never was and a future that could yet come to be…

Гарри Тертлдав

Боевая фантастика
Tilting the Balance
Tilting the Balance

World War II screeched to a halt as the great military powers scrambled to meet an even deadlier foe. The enemy's formidable technology made their victory seem inevitable. Already Berlin and Washington, D.C., had been vaporized by atom bombs, and large parts of the Soviet Union, the United States, and Germany and its conquests lay under the invaders' thumb. Yet humanity would not give up so easily, even if the enemy's tanks, armored personnel carriers, and jet aircraft seemed unstoppable. The humans were fiendishly clever, ruthless at finding their foe's weaknesses and exploiting them. While Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Togo planned strategy, the real war continued. In Warsaw, Jews welcomed the invaders as liberators, only to be cruelly disillusioned. In China, the Communist guerrillas used every trick they knew, even getting an American baseball player to lob grenades at the enemy. Though the invaders had cut the United States practically in half at the Mississippi River and devastated much of Europe, they could not shut down America's mighty industrial power or the ferocious counterattacks of her allies. Whether delivering supplies in tiny biplanes to partisans across the vast steppes of Russia, working furiously to understand the enemy's captured radar in England, or battling house to house on the streets of Chicago, humanity would not give up. Meanwhile, an ingenious German panzer colonel had managed to steal some of the enemy's plutonium, and now the Russians, Germans, Americans, and Japanese were all laboring frantically to make their own bombs. As Turtledove's global saga of alternate history continues, humanity grows more resourceful, even as the menace worsens. No one could say when the hellish inferno of death would stop being a war of conquest and turn into a war of survival-the very survival of the planet. In this epic of civilizations in deadly combat, the end of the war could mean the end of the world as well.

Гарри Тертлдав

Боевая фантастика

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