Tilting the Balance

“Tosev is hotter and brighter than the sun-the sun of Home, I mean,” Ristin said. “Rabotev-what you call Epsilon Eridani”-he hissed the name-“is like our sun, but Halless, Epsilon Indi”-another hiss-“is cooler and more orange. Next to any of the worlds the Race rules, Tosev 3 is cold and wet and not very comfortable.” He gave a theatrical shiver.

“The sun’s a type-G star, a yellow one,” Yeager added. “So is Tau Ceti but it’s at the cool end of the G range and the sun’s at the warm end. Epsilon Eridani’s at the warm end of the K range, which is the next one over from G, and Epsilon Indi’s a little fellow at the cool end of that range.”

“How much of this stuff did you know before you started riding herd on the Lizards there?” somebody asked slyly.

“Some; not all,” Yeager said. “If I hadn’t known some, I would have been lost-but then, if I hadn’t known some, I wouldn’t have gotten the job in the first place.” He added, “I’ve learned a heck of a lot since then, too.” He would have made that stronger if Barbara hadn’t been sitting on the grass beside him.

She reached out and squeezed his hand. “I’m proud of how much you know,” she said. He grinned like a fool. Till Barbara, he’d never known a woman who gave a damn how smart he was-and precious few men, either. If a ballplayer read books on the train or the bus, he got tagged “Professor,” and it wasn’t the sort of nickname you wanted to have.

He climbed to his feet. “Come on, Ullhass, Ristin-time to take you back to your nice heated room.” The adjective got the Lizards moving in a hurry, as it usually did. Sam chuckled under his breath. He’d always figured white men knew more than Indians, because Columbus had found America and the Indians hadn’t discovered Europe. By that standard, the Lizards knew more than people: Sam might have flown to far planets in his mind, but the Lizards had come here for real. All the same, though, the gap wasn’t so wide that he couldn’t manipulate them.

“So long, Sam.” “See you in the morning.” “Way to play today, Slugger.” The ballplayers said their good-byes. The pitcher off whom he’d homered and singled added, “I’ll get you next time-or maybe we’ll be on the same side and I won’t have to worry about it.”

“They like you,” Barbara remarked as they picked their way across the dark University of Denver campus with Ristin and Ullhass.

Keeping an eye on them made his answer come slower than would have otherwise: “Why shouldn’t they like me? I’m a regular guy; I get along with people pretty well.”

Now Barbara walked along silently for a while. At last she said, “When I would go out with Jens, it was always as if we were on the outside looking in, not part of the crowd. This is different. I like it.”

“Okay, good,” he said. “I like it, too.” Every time she compared him favorably to her former husband, he swelled with pride. He laughed a little. Maybe she was using that the same way he used the promise of heat with the Lizards.

“What’s funny?” Barbara asked.

“Nothing’s funny. I’m happy, that’s all.” He slipped an arm around her waist. “Crazy thing to say in the middle of a war, isn’t it? But it’s true.”

He got Ristin and Ullhass settled in their secured quarters, then headed back to the apartment with Barbara. They were just coming to East Evans Street when a flight of Lizard planes roared over downtown Denver to the north. Along with the roar of their engines and the flat crummp! of exploding bombs came the roar of all the antiaircraft guns in town. Inside half a minute, the sky turned into a Fourth of July extravaganza, with tracers and bursting shells and wildly wigwagging searchlights doing duty for skyrockets and pinwheels and Roman candles.

Shrapnel pattered down like hail. “We better not stand here watching like a couple of dummies,” Sam said. “That stuff’s no good when it lands on your head.” Holding Barbara’s hand, led her across the street and into the apartment building. He felt safer with a tile roof over him and solid brick walls all around.

The antiaircraft guns kept hammering for fifteen or twenty minutes, which had to be long after the Lizards’ planes were gone. Behind blackout curtains, Sam and Barbara got ready for bed. When she turned out the light, the bedroom was dark as the legendary coal cellar at midnight.

Sam slid toward her under the cover. Even through his pajamas and the cotton nightgown she wore, the feel of her in his arms was worth all the gold in Fort Knox, and another five bucks besides. “Yeah, happy.”

“So am I.” Barbara giggled. “By the way he’s poking me there, you’re not just happy.”

She wasn’t shy about it, or upset, either. That was the good half of her having been married before: she was used to the way men worked. But Yeager shook his head. “Nah he’s horny, but I’m not really,” he answered. “I’d sooner just hold you for a while and then go, to sleep.”

She squeezed him tight enough to bring the air out in a surprised oof. “That’s a very sweet thing to say.”