Striking the Balance

Before she could ask him how the girl was, Essaff said, “You Tosevites, you sit down with us.” The chairs the scaly devils had brought for them were of human make, a concession she’d never seen from them before. As she and Nieh Ho-T’ing sat, Essaff asked, “You will drink tea?”

“No,” Nieh said sharply. “You examined our bodies before we came in here. We cannot examine the tea. We know you sometimes try to drug people. We will not drink or eat with you.”

Ttomalss understood Chinese. Ppevel evidently did not. Essaff translated for him. Liu Han followed some of the translation. She’d learned a bit of the scaly devils’ speech. That was one reason she was here instead of Nieh’s longtime aide, Hsia Shou-Tao.

Through Essaff, Ppevel said, “This is a parley. You need have no fear.”

“You had fear of us,” Nieh answered. “If you do not trust us, how can we trust you?” The scaly devils’ drugs did not usually work well on people. Nieh Ho-T’ing and Liu Han both knew that. Nieh added, “Even among our own people-human beings, I mean-we Chinese have had to suffer under unequal treaties. Now we want nothing less than full reciprocity in all our dealings, and give no more than we get.”

Ppevel said, “We are talking with you. Is this not concession enough?”

“It is a concession,” Nieh Ho-T’ing said. “It is not enough.” Liu Han added an emphatic cough to his words. Both Ppevel and Essaff jerked in surprise. Ttomalss spoke to his superior in a low voice. Liu Han caught enough to gather that he was explaining how she’d picked up some of their tongue.

“Let us talk, then,” Ppevel said. “We shall see who is equal and who is not when this war is over.”

“Yes, that is true,” Nieh Ho-T’ing agreed. “Very well, we shall talk. Do you wish this discussion to begin with great things and move down to the small, or would you rather start with small things and work up as we make progress?”

“Best we start with small things,” Ppevel said. “Because they are small, you and we may both find it easier to give ground on them. If we try too much at the beginning, we may only grow angry with each other and have these talks fail altogether.”

“You are sensible,” Nieh said, inclining his head to the little scaly devil. Liu Han listened to Essaff explaining to Ppevel that that was a gesture of respect. Nieh went on, “As we have noted”-his voice was dry; the People’s Liberation Army had noted it with bombs-“we demand that you return the girl child, you callously kidnapped from Liu Han here.”

Ttomalss jumped as if someone had jabbed him with a pin. “This is not a small matter!” he exclaimed in Chinese, and added an emphatic cough to show he meant it. Essaff was put in the odd position of translating for one little devil what a different one said.

Nieh Ho-T’ing raised an eyebrow. Liu Han suspected the gesture was wasted on the scaly devils, who had no eyebrows-nor any other hair. Nieh said, “What would you call a small matter, then? I could tell you I find the stuff from which you have made this tent very ugly, but that is hardly something worth negotiating. Compared to having all you imperialist aggressors leave China at once, the fate of this baby is small, or at least smaller.”

When that had been translated, Ppevel said, “Yes, that is a small matter compared to the other. In any case, this land is now ours, which admits of no discussion-as you are aware.”

Nieh smiled without replying in words. The European powers and the Japanese had said such things to China, too, but failed in their efforts to consolidate what they had taken at bayonet point Marxist-Leninist doctrine gave Nieh a long view of history, a view he’d been teaching to Liu Han.

But she knew from her own experience that the little scaly devils had a long view of history, too, one that had nothing to do with Marx or Lenin. They were inhumanly patient; what worked against Britain or Japan might fail against them. If they weren’t lying, even the Chinese, the most anciently and perfectly civilized nation in the world, might have been children beside them.

“Is my daughter well?” Liu Han asked Ttomalss at last. She dared not break down and cry, but talking about the girl made her nose begin to run in lieu of tears. She blew between her fingers before going on, “Are you taking good care of her?”

“The hatchling is both comfortable and healthy.” Ttomalss took out a machine of a sort Liu Han had seen before. He touched a stud. Above the machine, by some magic of the scaly devils, an image of the baby sprang into being. She was up on all fours, wearing only a cloth around her middle and smiling wide enough to show two tiny white teeth.

Liu Han did start to weep then. Ttomalss knew enough to understand that meant grief. He touched the stud again. The picture vanished. Liu Han didn’t know whether that made things better or worse. She ached to hold the baby in her arms.