Tilting the Balance

After a while, he rolled onto his back: easier to stay hard for a second round that way, especially if you weren’t in your twenties any more. He’d learned Barbara didn’t mind getting on top every so often.

“Oh, yes,” he said softly as she straddled him. He was glad she hadn’t made him put on a rubber tonight; you could feel so much more without one. He ran his fingers lightly down the smooth curve of her back. She shivered a little.

Afterwards, she didn’t pull away, but sprawled down on top of him. He kissed her cheek and the very corner of her mouth. “Nice,” she said, her voice sleepy. “I just want to stay right here forever.”

He put his arms around her. “That’s what I want, too, hon.”

Oscar appeared in the doorway of Jens Larssen’s BOQ room. “Colonel Hexham wants to see you, sir. Right away.”

“Does he?” Larssen had been sprawled out on the cot, reading the newest issue of Time-now getting on toward a year old-he could find. He got up in a hurry. “I’ll come.” He hadn’t been “sir” to Oscar since he’d gone on strike, not till now. Maybe that was a good sign.

He didn’t think so when the guard escorted him back into the colonel’s office. Hexham’s toothpick was going back and forth like a metronome, his bulldog face pinched and sour. “So you won’t do any work unless you write your miserable letter, eh?” he ground out, never opening his mouth wide enough for the toothpick to fall out.

“That’s right,” Jens said-not defiantly, but more as if stating a law of nature.

“Then write it.” Hexham looked more unhappy than ever. He shoved a sheet of paper and a pencil across the desk at Jens.

“Thank you, sir,” Larssen exclaimed, taking them gladly. As he started to write, he asked, “What made you change your mind?”

“Orders.” Hexham bit the word off. So you’ve been overruled have you? Jens thought as he let the pencil race joyously across the paper. Trying to get a little of his own back, the colonel went on, “I will read that letter when you’re done with it. No last names, no other breaches of security will be permitted.”

“That’s fine, sir. I’ll go back to Science Hall the minute I’m done here.” Larssen scrawled Love, Jens and handed the paper back to Colonel Hexham. He didn’t bother waiting for Hexham to read it, but started out to keep his end of the bargain. If you worked at it, he thought, you could make things go the way they were supposed to.

IV

Bobby Fiore almost wished he was still on the Lizards’ spaceship. For one thing, as far as he was concerned, the food had been better up there. For another, all the human beings on the spaceship had been aliens, guinea pigs. Plopped down in the middle of God only knew how many Chinamen, he was the alien in this refugee camp.

His lips quirked wryly. “I’m the only guinea here, too,” he said out loud.

Speaking English, even to himself, felt good. He didn’t get much chance to do it these days, even less than he’d had when he was up in space. Some of the Lizards there had understood him. Here nobody did; if the Lizard camp guards spoke any human language-not all of them did-it was Chinese. Only Liu Han knew any English at all.

His face set in a frown. He hated depending on a woman; it made him feel as if he were eight years old again, and back in Pittsburgh with his mama. He couldn’t help it, though. Except for Liu Han, nobody for miles around could speak with him.

He rubbed his chin. He needed a shave. The first thing he’d done when the Lizards dumped him here was get a razor and get rid of his beard. Not only did shaving make him stand out less from everybody else, a razor was a handy thing to have in a fight. He’d seen enough barroom brawls to know that; he’d been in a few, too.

The funny thing was how little notice he drew. He wore wide legged pants and baggy shirts that reminded him of pajamas, the same as the Chinese (even with them, he was cold a lot of the time-and he wasn’t used to that after the spaceship, either), which helped him fit in. A lot of the locals were too busy to pay him any mind, too; they made stuff for the Lizards out of straw and wicker and leather and scrap metal and God only knew what all else, and they worked hard.

But what really surprised him was that his looks weren’t so far out of place. Sure, he still had his big Italian nose; his eyes were too round and his hair was wavy. But eyes and hair were dark; a blond like Sam Yeager would have stood out like a sore thumb. And his olive skin wasn’t that different from the color of the people around him. As long as he stayed clean shaven, he wasn’t that remarkable.

“I’m even tall,” he said, smiling again. Back in the States, five-eight was nothing. Even here he wasn’t huge, but for a change he was bigger than average.