Striking the Balance

“Yeah, I know, but you’re still doin’ it.” Mutt gave up ragging him. He recognized the big pile of brick and steel off to the left. It had come through the blast fairly well, and had shielded some of the apartment houses behind it so they weren’t badly damaged at all. But the sight of upright buildings in the midst of the wreckage wasn’t what made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. “Ain’t that Wrigley Field?” he whispered. “Gotta be, from where it’s at and what it looks like.”

He’d never played in Wrigley Field-the Cubs had still been out at old West Side Grounds when he came through as a catcher for the Cardinals before the First World War. But seeing the ballpark in ruins brought the reality of this war home to him like a kick in the teeth. Sometimes big things would do that, sometimes little ones; he remembered a doughboy breaking down and sobbing like a baby when he found some French kid’s dolly with its head blown off.

Muldoon’s eyes slid over toward Wrigley for a moment. “Gonna be a long time before the Cubs win another pennant,” he said, as good an epitaph as any for the park-and the city.

South of Wrigley Field, a big fellow with a sergeant’s stripes and a mean expression gave Daniels a perfunctory salute. “Come on, Lieutenant,” he said. “I’m supposed to get your unit into line here.”

“Well, then, go on and do it,” Mutt said. Most of his men didn’t have enough experience to wipe their asses after they went and squatted. A lot of them were going to end up casualties because of it. Sometimes all the experience in the world didn’t matter, either. Mutt had scars on his backside from a Lizard bullet-luckily, a through-and-through flesh wound that hadn’t chewed up his hipbone. A couple, three feet up, though, and it would have hit him right in the ear.

The sergeant led them out of the blast area, down through the Near North Side toward the Chicago River. The big buildings ahead stood empty and battered, as meaningless to what was happening now as so many dinosaur bones might have been-unless, of course, they had Lizard snipers in them. “We shoulda pushed ’em farther back,” the sergeant said, spitting in disgust, “but what the hell you gonna do?”

“Them Lizards, they’re hard to push,” Daniels agreed glumly. He looked around. The big bomb hadn’t leveled this part of Chicago, but any number of small bombs and artillery shells had had their way with it. So had fire and bullets. The ruins gave ideal cover for anybody who felt like picking a line and fighting it out there. “This here’s a lousy part of town for pushin’ ’em, too.”

“This here’s a lousy part of town, period-sir,” the sergeant said. “All the dagos used to live here till the Lizards ran ’em out-maybe they did somethin’ decent there, you ask me.”

“Knock off the crap about dagos,” Daniels told him. He had two in his platoon. If the sergeant turned his back on Giordano and Pinelli, he was liable to end up dead.

Now he sent Mutt an odd glance, as if wondering why he didn’t agree: no pudgy old red-faced guy who talked like a Johnny Reb could be a dago himself, so what was he doing taking their part? But Mutt was a lieutenant, so the sergeant shut up till he got the platoon to its destination: “This here’s Oak and Cleveland, sir. They call it ‘Dead Corner’ on account of the da-the Eyetalian gents got in the habit of murdering each other here during Prohibition. Somehow, there never were any witnesses. Funny how that works, ain’t it?” He saluted and took off.

The platoon leader Daniels replaced was a skinny blond guy named Rasmussen. He pointed south. “Lizard lines are about four hundred yards down that way, out past Locust. Last couple days, it’s been pretty quiet.”

“Okay.” Daniels brought field glasses up to his eyes and peered down past Locust. He spotted a couple of Lizards. Things had to be quiet, or they never would have shown themselves. They were about the size of ten-year-olds, with green-brown skin painted in patterns that meant things like rank and specialization badges and service stripes, swively eyes, and a forward-leaning, skittery gait unlike anything ever spawned on Earth.

“They sure are ugly little critters,” Rasmussen said. “Little’s the word, too. How do things that size go about making so much trouble?”

“They manage, that’s a fact,” Mutt answered. “What I don’t see is, now that they’re here, how we ever gonna get rid of all of ’em? They’ve come to stay, no two ways about that a-tall.”

“Just have to kill ’em all, I guess,” Rasmussen said.

“Good luck!” Mutt said. “They’re liable to do that to us instead. Real liable. You ask me-not that you did-we got to find some other kind of way.” He rubbed his bristly chin. “Only trouble is, I ain’t got a clue what it could be. Hope somebody does. If nobody does, we better find one pretty damn quick or we’re in all kinds of trouble.”

“Like you said, I didn’t ask you,” Rasmussen told him.

II