Tilting the Balance

Jens Larssen glared at her, at Sam, at her again, as if he couldn’t decide which of them he wanted to belt more. With a snarl of curses, some in English, others in throaty Norwegian, he stomped off. His furious footfalls thundered on the stairs. He slammed the front door of the apartment building hard enough to rattle windows.

“I wish that hadn’t happened,” Barbara said. “I wish-oh, what difference does it make what I wish now? If he’s going away for a while, that may be the best thing that could happen. We’ll get some peace and quiet, and maybe by the time he gets back he’ll have figured out he can’t do anything about this.”

“God, I hope so,” Yeager said. “What he’s put you through ever since we got here isn’t right.” He’d been riding the roller coaster himself, but he kept quiet about that. Barbara was the one who’d had the tough time, because she’d been in love with Jens-right up to the minute she found out he was still alive, Sam thought. Since then, since she’d chosen to stay Barbara Yeager instead of going back to being Barbara Larssen, Jens had done his best to act about as unlovable as a human being could.

Barbara’s sigh showed a weariness that had nothing to do with her being pregnant. “Very strange to think that a year ago he and I were happy together. I don’t think he’s the same person any more. He never used to be bitter-but then, he never used to have much to be bitter about, either. I guess you can’t really tell about someone till you see him when the chips are down.”

“You’re probably right.” Sam had seen that playing ball-some guys wanted to be out there with the game on the line, while others hoped they wouldn’t come up or be on the mound or have the ball hit to them in that kind of spot.

Musingly, Barbara went on, “I suppose that’s one of the reasons people write so much about love and war: they’re the situations that put the most strain on a person’s character, so you can see it at its best and at its worst.”

“Makes sense.” Yeager hadn’t thought about it in those terms, but it did make sense to him. He’d seen enough war close up to know it was more terrifying than exciting but it remained endlessly interesting to read about. He’d never thought about why until now. “You put things in a whole new light for me,” he said admiringly.

She looked at him, then reached out and took his hands in hers. “You’ve put some things in a new light for me, too, Sam,” she murmured.

He felt ten feet tall the rest of the day, and didn’t give Jens Larssen another thought.

“Superior sir, I greet you and welcome you to our fine base here,” Ussmak said to the new landcruiser commander. My latest, he thought, and wondered how many more he’d go through before Tosev 3 was conquered-if it ever was.

That gloomy reflection was a far cry from the spirit of unity with which he-and all landcruiser males-had gone into this campaign. Then, they’d thought crews would stay together through the whole war. They’d trained on that assumption, so that a male without his crew was an object of pity, both to his comrades and to himself.

Things hadn’t quite worked that way. Ussmak had had two commanders and a gunner killed on him, and another commander and gunner swept away in the wild hunt for ginger lickers. He studied this new male and wondered how long he’d last.

The fellow seemed promising enough. He was good-looking and alert, and his neatly applied body paint argued that he didn’t have his tongue in a ginger jar (though you never could tell; Ussmak was fastidious about his own paint just to keep his superiors from getting-justifiably-suspicious).

“Landcruiser Driver Ussmak, I am Landcruiser Commander Nejas; you are assigned to my crew,” the male said. “Skoob, our gunner, will be along shortly; he must be completing reporting formalities. Both of us will draw heavily on your knowledge, as you have more combat experience than we do.”

“I shall help you in any way I can, superior sir,” Ussmak said, as he had to. He did his best to sound fulsome, but was not rejoicing inside. He’d hoped he’d get crewed with veterans, but no such luck. As delicately as he could, he added, “The Deutsche are not opponents to take lightly.”

“So I am given to understand,” Nejas said. “I am also given to understand that this garrison has problems beyond the Deutsche, however. Is it true that the Big Uglies actually spirited a landcruiser out of the vehicle park here?”

“I fear it is, superior sir.” Ussmak was embarrassed about that himself, though he’d had nothing to do with it. It showed Drefsab hadn’t managed to sweep out all the ginger tasters, and it showed some of them didn’t care for anything on Tosev 3 past where their next taste was coming from.

“Disgraceful,” Nejas said. “We must have order aboard our own ship before we can hope to put down the Tosevites.”