Striking the Balance

Slowly, Kirel answered, “Were the Tosevites factions of the Race opposed to the general will-not that the Race would generate such vicious factions, of course, but speaking for the sake of the hypothesis-their strength, unlike that of the mutineers, might come close to making negotiations with them mandatory.”

Atvar contemplated that. Kirel was, generally speaking, a conservative male, and had couched his suggestion conservatively by equating the Big Uglies with analogous groupings within the Race, an equation that in itself made Atvar’s scales itch. But the suggestion, however couched, was more radical than any Straha, the shiplord who’d led the effort to oust Atvar, had ever put forward before deserting and fleeing to the Big Uglies.

“Shiplord,” Atvar demanded sharply, “are you making the same proposal as the mutineers: that we discuss with the Tosevites ways of ending our campaign short of complete conquest?”

“Exalted Fleetlord, did you yourself not say our males seem incapable of effecting a complete conquest of Tosev 3?” Kirel answered, still with perfect subordination but not abandoning his own ideas, either. “If that be so, should we not either destroy the planet to make sure the Tosevites can never threaten us, or else-” He stopped; unlike Straha, he had a sense of when he was going too far for Atvar to tolerate.

“No,” the fleetlord said, “I refuse to concede that the commands of the Emperor cannot be carried out in full. We shall defend ourselves in the northern portion of the planet until its dreadful winter weather improves, then resume the offensive against the Big Uglies. Tosev 3shall be ours.”

Kirel crouched into the Race’s pose of obedience. “It shall be done, Exalted Fleetlord.”

Again, the response was perfectly subordinate. Kirel did not askhow it should be done. The Race had brought only so much materiel from Home. It was of far higher quality than anything the Tosevites used, but there was only a limited quantity of it. Try as they would, the Race’s pilots and missile batteries and artillery had not managed to knock out the Big Uglies’ manufacturing capacity. The armaments they produced, though better than those they’d had when the Race first landed on Tosev 3, remained inferior… but they kept on making them.

Some munitions could be produced in factories captured from the Tosevites, and the Race’s starships had their own manufacturing capacity that would have been signflicant… in a smaller war. When added to what the logistics vessels had brought from Home, that still left the hope of adequacy for the coming campaign… and the Big Uglies were also in distress, no doubt about that. Victory might yet come.

Or, of course… but Atvar did not care to think about that.

Even under a flag of truce, Mordechai Anielewicz felt nervous about approaching the German encampment. After starving in the Warsaw ghetto, after leading the Jewish fighters of Warsaw who’d risen against the Nazis and helped the Lizards drive them out of the city, he was under no illusions about what Hitler’s forces wanted for his people: they wanted them to vanish from the face of the earth.

But the Lizards wanted to enslave everybody, Jews andgoyim alike. The Jews hadn’t fully realized that when they rose against the Nazis. Had they, it wouldn’t have mattered much. Measured against extermination, enslavement looked good.

The Germans were still fighting the Lizards, and fighting hard. No one denied their military prowess, or their technical skill. From afar, Anielewicz had seen the nuclear bomb they’d touched off east of Breslau. Had he seen it close up, he wouldn’t be coming here to dicker with the Nazis.

“Halt!” The voice might have come out of thin air. Mordechai halted. After a moment, a German wearing a white camouflage smock and a whitewashed helmet appeared as if by magic from behind a tree. Just looking at him made Anielewicz, who had Red Armyvalenki on his feet and was dressed in Polish Army trousers, aWehrmacht tunic, a Red Army fur hat, and a sheepskin jacket of civilian origin, feel like a refugee from a rummage sale. He needed a shave, too, which added to his air of seediness. The German’s lip curled. “You are the Jew we were told to expect?”

“No, I’m St. Nicholas, here late for Christmas.” Anielewicz, who had been an engineering student before the war, had learned fluent standard German. He spoke Yiddish now, to annoy the sentry.

The fellow just grunted. Maybe he didn’t think the joke was funny. Maybe he hadn’t got it. He gestured with his Mauser. “You will come with me. I will take you to the colonel.”

That was what Anielewicz was there for, but he didn’t like the way the sentry said it even so. The German spoke as if the universe permitted no other possible outcome. Maybe it didn’t. Mordechai followed him through the cold and silent woods.