Striking the Balance

Before she could, Sam stepped up behind her and cupped a breast in each hand. She turned her head and smiled at him over her shoulder, but it wasn’t a smile of invitation, even though they had started making love again a couple of weeks before.

“Do you mind too much if I just lie down for a while?” she said. “By myself, I mean. It’s not that I don’t love you, Sam-it’s just that I’m so tired, I can’t see straight.”

“Okay, I understand that,” he said, and let go. The soft, warm memory of her flesh remained printed on his palms. He kicked at the linoleum floor, once.

Barbara quickly pulled her dress up to where it belonged, then turned around and put her hands on his shoulders. “Thank you,” she said. “I know this hasn’t been easy for you, either.”

“Takes some getting used to, that’s all,” he said. “Being in the middle of the war when we got married didn’t help a whole lot, and then you were expecting right away-” As best they could tell, that had happened on their wedding night. He chuckled. “Of course. If it hadn’t been for the war, we never would have met. What do they say about clouds and silver linings?”

Barbara hugged him. “I’m very happy with you, and with our baby, and with everything.” She corrected herself, yawning: “With almost everything. I could do with a lot more sleep.”

“I’m happy with just about everything, too,” he said, his arms tightening around her back. As he’d said. If it hadn’t been for the war, they wouldn’t have met. If they had met, she wouldn’t have looked at him; she’d been married to a nuclear physicist in Chicago. But Jens Larssen had been away from the Met Lab project, away for so long they’d both figured he was dead, and they’d become first friends, then lovers, and finally husband and wife. And then Barbara had got pregnant-and then they’d found out Jens was alive after all.

Sam squeezed Barbara one more time, then let her go and walked over to the side of the crib to look down at their sleeping son. He reached out a hand and ruffled Jonathan’s fine, thin head of almost snow-white hair.

“That’s sweet,” Barbara said.

“He’s a pretty good little guy,” Yeager answered.And if you hadn’t been carrying him, odds are ten bucks against a wooden nickel you’d have dropped me and gone back to Larssen. He smiled at the baby.Kid, I owe you a big one for that. One of these days, I’ll see if I can figure out how to pay you back.

Barbara kissed him on the lips, a brief, friendly peck, and then walked over to the bed. “Iam going to get some rest,” she said.

“Okay.” Sam headed for the door. “I guess I’ll find me some Lizards and chin with them for a while. Do me some good now, and maybe even after the war, too. If there ever is an ‘after the war.’ Whatever happens, people and Lizards are going to have to deal with each other from here on out. The more I know, the better off I’ll be.”

“I think you’ll be just fine any which way,” Barbara answered as she lay down. “Why don’t you come back in an hour or so? If Jonathan’s still asleep, who knows what might happen?”

“We’ll find out.” Yeager opened the door, then glanced back at his son. “Sleep tight, kiddo.”

The man who wore earphones glanced over at Vyacheslav Molotov. “Comrade Foreign Commissar, we are getting new reports that theYashcheritsi at the base east of Tomsk are showing interest in surrendering to us.” When Molotov didn’t answer, the technician made so bold as to add, “You remember, Comrade: the ones who mutinied against their superiors.”

“I assure you, Comrade, I am aware of the situation and need no reminding,” Molotov said in a voice colder than Moscow winter-colder than Siberian winter, too. The technician gulped and dipped his head to show he understood. You were lucky to get away with one slip around Molotov; you wouldn’t get away with two. The foreign commissar went on, “Have they any definite terms this time?”

“Da,Comrade Foreign Commissar.” The fellow at the wireless set looked down at the notes he’d scribbled. His pencil was barely as long as his thumb; everything was at a premium these days. “They want pledges not only of safe conduct but also of good treatment after going over to us.”

“We can give them those,” Molotov said at once. “I would think even the local military commander would have the wit to see as much for himself.” The local military commander should also have had the wit to see that such pledges could be ignored the instant they became inconvenient.

On the other hand, it was probably just as well that the local military commander displayed no excessive initiative, but referred his questions back to Moscow and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union for answers. Commanders who usurped Party control in one area were only too likely to try to throw it off in others.