Striking the Balance (64 page)

He wished he’d never gone into cold sleep aboard a starship, wished he’d never seen Tosev 3, wished he’d never turned his eye turrets toward Liu Han, wished he’d never watched the hatchling emerge all slimy and bloody and disgusting from the genital opening between her legs, and wished—oh, how he wished!—he’d never taken that hatchling to see what he could learn from it

Those wishes weren’t going to come to fruition, either. He cherished them all the same. No one could deny they were utterly rational and sensible, the products of a mind fully in touch with reality.

He heard a sharp, metallic click and felt the building in which he was confined vibrate ever so slightly. He heard footfalls in the chamber outside his door, and heard the outer door to the building close. Someone fumbled at the lock that confined him. It opened, too, with a click different from that of the one on the outer door.

With a squeak of hinges that needed oil, the inner door swung open. Ttomalss all but quivered with joy at the prospect of seeing, speaking with, anyone, even a Big Ugly. “Superior—female,” he said when he recognized Liu Han.

She did not answer right away. She carried a submachine gun in one hand and her hatchling on her other hip. Ttomalss had trouble knowing the hatchling was the creature he had studied. When the little Tosevite had been his, he’d put no cloths on it except the necessary ones around its middle that kept its wastes from splashing indiscriminately all over his laboratory area.

Now—Now Liu Han had decked the hatching in shiny cloth of several bright colors. The hatchling also wore bits of ribbon tied in its black hair. The adornment struck Ttomalss as foolish and unnecessary; all he’d ever done was make sure the hair was clean and untangled. Why bother with anything more?

The hatchling looked at him for some time. Did it remember? He had no way to know; his research had been interrupted before he could learn such things—and, in any case, he couldn’t be sure how long he’d been imprisoned here.

“Mama?” the hatchling said—in Chinese, without an interrogative cough. A small hand went out to point toward Ttomalss. “This?” Again, it spoke in the Tosevite language, without any hint it had begun to learn that of the Race.

“This is a little scaly devil,” Liu Han answered, also in Chinese. She repeated herself: “Little scaly devil.”

“Little scaly devil,” the hatchling echoed. The words were not pronounced perfectly, but even Ttomalss, whose own Chinese was far from perfect, had no trouble understanding them.

“Good,” Liu Han said, and twisted her rubbery face into the expression Big Uglies used to convey amiability. The hatching did not give that expression back. It hadn’t done that so much in the latter part of the time when Ttomalss had had it, perhaps because it had had no models to imitate. Liu Han’s grimace left her features. “Liu Mei hardly smiles,” she said. “For this I blame you.”

Ttomalss realized the female had given the hatchling a name reminiscent of her own.
Family relationships are critical among Tosevites,
he reminded himself, becoming for a moment a researcher once more, not a captive. Then he saw Liu Han was waiting for his reply. Relying on the patience of a Big Ugly waiting with a submachine gun did not do. He said, “It maybe so, superior female. Perhaps the hatchling needed a pattern for this expression. I cannot smile, so I could not be that pattern. We do not learn these things until we encounter them.”

“You should not have had to learn them,” Liu Han answered. “You should not have taken Liu Mei from me in the first place.”

“Superior female, I wish I had not taken the hatchling,” Ttomalss said, and backed that with an emphatic cough. The hatchling—Liu
Mei
he reminded himself—stirred in Liu Han’s arms, as if reminded of something it had once known. Ttomalss went on, “I cannot undo what I did, though. It is too late for that.”

“It is too late for many things,” Liu Han said, and he thought she meant to kill him on the spot. Then Liu Mei wiggled again. Liu Han looked down at the small Tosevite that had come from her body. “But it is not too late for all things. Do you see how Liu Mei is becoming a proper human person, wearing proper human clothes, speaking proper human language?”

“I see that, yes,” Ttomalss answered. “She is very—” He didn’t know how to say
adaptable
in Chinese, and cast around for a way to get across what he meant: “When the way she lives changes, she changes with it, very fast.” Tosevite adaptability had addled the Race ever since the conquest fleet came to Tosev 3. Ttomalss saw no reason to be surprised at one more example.

Even in the gloomy little cell, Liu Han’s eyes glittered. “Do you remember when you gave me back my baby, you gloated because you had raised it as a little scaly devil and it would not become a proper human being? That is what you said?”

“I seem to have been wrong,” Ttomalss said. “I wish I had never said any such thing. We of the Race are always finding out we do not know as much about you Tosevites as we thought we did. That is one of the reasons I took the hatchling: to try to learn more.”

“One of the things you have learned is that you should not have done it,” Liu Han snapped.

“Truth!” Ttomalss exclaimed, and used another emphatic cough

“I brought Liu Mei here to show you how wrong you were,” Liu Han said. “You little scaly devils, you do not like to be wrong.” Her tone was mocking; Ttomalss had learned enough of the way Tosevites spoke to be sure of that. She went on, mocking still, “You were not patient enough. You did not think enough about what would happen when Liu Mei was among proper human beings for a while.”

“Truth,” Ttomalss said again, this time quietly. What a fool he had been, to scoff at Liu Han without regard for possible consequences. As the Race had so often with the Big Uglies as a whole, he had underestimated her. And, as the Race had, he was paying for it.

“I will tell you something else,” Liu Han said—if it wasn’t going to be sensory deprivation, apparently she would do everything she could to make him feel dreadful. “You scaly devils have had to agree to talks of peace with several nations of human beings, because you were being so badly hurt in the fighting.”

“I do not believe you,” Ttomalss said. She was his only source of information here—why shouldn’t she tell all sorts of outrageous lies to break his morale?

“I do not care what you believe. It is the truth even so,” Liu Han answered. Her indifference made him wonder if perhaps he’d been wrong—but it might have been intended to do that. She continued, “You little devils still go on oppressing China. Before too much time has passed, you will learn this too is a mistake. You have made a great many mistakes, here and all over the world.”

“It may be so,” Ttomalss admitted. “But I make no mistakes here.” He lifted a foot and brought it down on the concrete floor. “When I can do nothing, I can make no mistakes.”

Liu Han let out several barks of Tosevite laughter. “In that case, you will stay a perfect male for a long time.” Liu Mei started to fuss. Liu Han jiggled the hatchling back and forth, calming it more readily than Ttomalss had ever managed. “I wanted to show you how very wrong you were. Think of that as part of your punishment.”

“You are more clever than I ever thought,” Ttomalss said bitterly. Was it worse to contemplate nothing or his own stupidity? He did not know, not yet. Here in this cell, he expected he would have plenty of time to find out.

“Tell this to the other little devils—if I ever let you go,” Liu Han said. She backed out of the chamber, keeping him covered with the submachine gun till she had shut the door. The click of the lock closing over the hasp had a dreadfully final sound. A moment later, he heard her close the outer door, too.

He stared after her. If she ever let him go? He realized she had told him that precisely to have it prey on his mind. Would she? Wouldn’t she? Could he persuade her? If he could, how? Worrying about it would addle his mind, but how could he keep from worrying about it?

She was
much
more clever than he’d ever thought

Sam Yeager stood on first base after cracking a single to left. In a seat in back of the first-base dugout, Barbara clapped her hands. “Nice poke,” said the first baseman, a stocky corporal named Grabowski. “But then, you played ball, didn’t you? Pro ball, I mean.”

“Years and years,” Sam answered. “I’d be doing it yet if the Lizards hadn’t come. I’ve got full dentures, top and bottom, so the Army wouldn’t touch me till everything went to hell in a handbasket”

“Yeah, I’ve heard other guys say the same kind of thing,” Grabowski answered, nodding. “But you’re used to playing in a fancy park like this, is what I was getting at.”

Yeager hadn’t thought of Ban Johnson Field as a fancy park. It was just a ballyard, like hundreds of other minor-league parks he’d been through: covered grandstand, bleachers out in back of left and right, advertisements pasted on the boards of the outfield fences—faded, peeling, tattered advertisements now, because nobody in Hot Springs was advertising much of anything these days.

Grabowski went on, “Hell, for me this is like what the Polo Grounds must feel like. City parks’re as hot a ball as I ever played.”

“All depends on how you look at things,” Sam said.

Crack!
The guy up behind him hit a bouncer to short. Sam lit out for second full tilt. In a pickup game like this, you couldn’t be sure the shortstop would make the play. But he did. He shoveled the ball to second, smooth as you please.

Ristin, who was playing second base, brushed the bag with one foot, then got it between him and the oncoming Yeager. The Lizard dropped down sidearm for the throw to first, giving Sam the choice between sliding and taking the ball right between the eyes. Sam hit the dirt. The ball thumped into Grabowski’s mitt when the GI who’d hit the grounder was still a stride from the bag. “Yer out!” yelled the dogface making like an ump.

Yeager got up and brushed off his chinos. “Pretty double play,” he told Ristin before he trotted off the field. “Can’t turn ’em any better than that.”

“I thank you, superior sir,” Ristin answered in his own language. “This is a good game you Tosevites play.”

When Sam got back to the bench, he grabbed for a towel and wiped his sweaty face. You played ball in Hot Springs in summertime, you might as well have played
in
the hot springs.

“Yeager! Sergeant Sam Yeager!” somebody called from the stands. It didn’t sound like somebody from the crowd—if you called three, four dozen people a crowd. It sounded like somebody looking for him.

He stuck his head out of the dugout. “Yeah? What is it?”

A fellow with a first lieutenant’s silver bar on each shoulder said, “Sergeant, I have orders to fetch you back to the hospital right away.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said, glad the lieutenant wasn’t getting shirty about the casual way he’d answered. “Let me get out of my spikes and into street shoes.” He did that in a hurry, telling his teammates, “You’ll have to find somebody else for left now.” He took off his baseball cap and stuck his service cap on his head. He wished his pants weren’t dirty, but he couldn’t do anything about that now.

“Shall I come, too?” Barbara asked as he climbed up into the stands and headed toward the lieutenant. She shifted Jonathan from her lap to her shoulder and started to get up.

But Yeager shook his head. “You may as well stay, hon,” he answered. “They wouldn’t be looking for me like this if they didn’t have some kind of duty in mind.” He saw the officer had his hands on his hips, a bad sign. “I better get moving,” he said, and did just that.

They went back to the Army and Navy General Hospital at a fast walk that was close to a trot. Ban Johnson Field was in Whittington Park, out at the west end of Whittington Avenue. They went past the old Catholic school on Whittington, down past Bathhouse Row on Central, and over Reserve to the hospital.

“What’s gone wrong, anyhow?” Yeager asked as they went inside.

The lieutenant didn’t answer, but hustled him along to the offices reserved for top brass. Sam didn’t like that. He wondered if he was in trouble and, if he was, how much trouble he was in. The farther down the row of fancy offices they got, the bigger he figured the trouble might be.

A door with a frosted glass windowpane had a cardboard sign taped to it:
BASE COMMANDANT’S OFFICE
. Yeager gulped. He couldn’t help it. “Hawkins, sir,” the lieutenant said, saluting a captain sitting at a desk full of papers. “Reporting with Sergeant Yeager as ordered.”

“Thank you, Hawkins.” The captain got up from his desk. “I’ll tell Major General Donovan he’s here.” He ducked into the office behind the antechamber. When he emerged a moment later, he held the door open. “Go on in, Sergeant”

“Yes, sir.” Yeager wished to high heaven the lieutenant had given him a chance to clean up a little before he presented himself to a two-star general. Even if they did call Donovan “Wild Bill,” he wasn’t likely to appreciate sweat and grime and an aroma that clearly announced Yeager had been running around in hot, muggy weather.

No help for that now, though. Sam walked through the door, which the adjutant closed behind him. Saluting, he said, “Sergeant Samuel Yeager, sir, reporting as ordered.”

“At ease, Sergeant,” Donovan said as he returned the salute. He was a fit sixty, more or less, with blue eyes and the map of Ireland on his face. He had a couple of cans’ worth of fruit salad on his chest. One of those ribbons was blue, with white stars. Yeager’s eyes widened slightly. You didn’t pick up a Congressional Medal of Honor for playing jacks. Before he got over that surprise, Donovan gave him another one, saying in fluent Lizard talk, “I greet you, Tosevite male who so well understands the males of the Race.”

“I greet you, superior sir,” Yeager answered automatically, using the same language. He dropped back into English to continue, “I didn’t know you knew their lingo, sir.”

“I’m supposed to know everything. That’s my job,” Donovan answered, without the slightest hint he was joking. He made a wry face. “Can’t be done, of course. It’s still my job. Which is why I sent for you.”