In the Balance (11 page)

The
Kukuruznik’s
engine complained about the thin air it was breathing; at four thousand meters, it was way over its proper cruising altitude—up near its ceiling, as a matter of fact. Ludmila Gorbunova’s lungs complained, too. The little biplane was not equipped with oxygen, and even sitting in the cockpit made her feel as if she’d just finished a twenty-kilometer run.

She would have gone higher if she could, though. At such a height, the U-2 was hardly more than a speck in the sky—but the Lizards were proving even more skilled than the fascists at spotting such specks and knocking them down.

Ludmila did not even try to fly directly over the new invaders’ base. Planes that did that quite simply never came back. The base, a giant ringworm on the smooth skin of the steppe, was visible enough even at the greater distance an oblique view gave.

She counted the huge flying towers that formed the perimeter of the base, shook her head, counted them again. She still got twenty-seven. That was four more than she’d spotted on her last flight, the day before yesterday. From four thousand meters, most things on the ground looked tiny as ants. The towers, though, still bulked large, their shadows darkening great strips of grassland.

They were large, too; from them poured the impossibly deadly planes and tanks that were wresting great tracts of land not only from the Russians who owned it but from the Germans as well Ludmila still did not know how to feel about that. She hated the Germans with all her soul, but against them one could contend with hope of victory. How could mere men fight the Lizards and their marvels?

Mere men kept trying. Even now, if the radio was to be believed, Soviet tank columns were engaging the Lizards’ armor and pushing, it back in disarray. Ludmila wondered if anyone believed the radio any more. The year before, the radio had said the Germans were being pushed back from Minsk, then from Kiev, then from Smolensk …

Such thoughts were dangerous. Ludmila knew that, too. The purges of the thirties had swept through Kiev as they had everywhere else in the Soviet Union. One day a teacher would be there, the next day vanished. You learned not to ask where he’d gone, not unless you wanted to join him there.

Ludmila shook her head, as if to drive the worries out of it. She peered down at the ground again, squinted to sharpen her vision as much as she could. That plume of dust there in the distance—she squinted harder. “Yes, those are tanks down at the bottom of it, may the Devil’s grandmother run away with them,” she said

The
Kukuruznik
had had a radio fitted when Ludmila went from night harassment to reconnaissance She did not use it. Aircraft that used radio around the Lizards generally did not last long afterward; her information, while she thought it important, didn’t seem worth dying for.

She banked away from the Lizards’ base. She wondered if her own base would still be there when she landed. The new invaders, like the old, pounded every airstrip they could find. But the so-called strip had been only a length of smooth steppe, and she could find another such strip at need. The U-2 didn’t need much room in which to set down.

Even when she got to the airstrip, she had to circle twice to be sure it was there. Camouflage nettings and sod roofs disguised the few buildings. A couple of kilometers away stood a strip camouflaged not quite so well. The Lizards had already bombed it twice. That was all right, or better than all right. The planes there were dummies, the buildings repaired every night but uninhabited.

Her teeth clicked together as the Wheatcutter bounced to a halt. Ludmila scrambled down to the ground while the prop was still spinning. The instant it stopped, groundcrew men threw grass-covered nets over the biplane and hauled it away to hide under still more nets which concealed earthen blast barriers.

Ludmila pulled up a corner of, the command shack’s camouflage net, hurried through the doorless entrance, let the net fall behind her. With netting over all the windows, the interior of the shack was gloomy. “I return, Comrade Major,” she announced.

“So you do, Comrade Pilot,” Major Yelena Popova said, returning her salute. “You are most skilled, or most fortunate, or both.” In the space of a sentence, she went from mild greeting to pure business: “Tell me at once what you saw.”

Ludmila obeyed. Major Popova scowled when she mentioned the four new flying towers on the ground. “These—creatures—swarm onto the soil of the
rodina—the
motherland—like locusts.”

“Yes, Comrade Major, and they consume all before them like locusts, too.” Ludmila described the column of tanks she’d observed.

The squadron commander’s frown, never pleasant, grew downright fearsome. “This is vital information. Those above us must learn of it at once. I shall use the radio. Repeat your statement to me, that I may be sure to report it accurately.”

As Ludmila obeyed, Major Popova wrote down what she said, then repeated it back. When Ludmila nodded to show it was right, the major went over to the radio. It and its battery were stowed in a wheelbarrow and covered with hay. Yelena took the wheelbarrow out through the door, started in the direction of the dummy airstrip. To anyone—say, a Lizard—in a plane, she looked like a peasant shambling along.

Ludmila watched her slow progress across the plain. Then the tiny shape that was she disappeared into one of the Potemkin sheds. She emerged a bare minute later, moving much faster than she had on the way over.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a rocket slammed into the empty shed. Flames leapt up from it. The deception team would have, a lot of work to do tonight, Ludmila thought. After the rocket hit, Major Popova slowed down again. Ludmila did not blame her. Weighted down by radio and battery, the wheelbarrow was heavy.

“The Lizards are
very
good at picking up radio signals,” the major said as she arrived at the real airstrip. She wiped her forehead. Her sleeve came away dark with sweat. But her eyes, narrow and black like a Tatar’s, gleamed in triumph.

Even though the breeze was chilly against his muzzle, landcruiser driver Ussmak preferred moving along unbuttoned when he could. The periscopes didn’t give him nearly the view he enjoyed with his head out. Besides, being cooped up in the driver’s compartment reminded him too much of the cold-sleep coffin in which he’d hibernated away the years between Home and Tosev 3.

He had an audio button taped to one hearing diaphragm. “Better get down, Ussmak,” said Votal, the landcruiser commander. “Airscouts report Big Ugly landcruisers ahead.”

“It shall be done,” Ussmak said, and slid back down into his compartment. Even as he dogged the hatch over his head, he wondered why he was bothering. The Big Uglies, especially this set that used a red star as its emblem, had lots of landcruisers, but they weren’t very good ones or used very well. But his commander had given the order, so he obeyed. That had been ingrained in him since his hatching day

Gunner Telerep said, “What do you want to bet we don’t even get in on the fun? Our air will probably take them out before they’re in range for us.”

“We may have some work,” Votal said. “The farther away from base we move the thinner our air cover gets. And—” His voice rose to a sudden
shout. “Big Ugly airplane!” In his audio button Ussmak heard the commander dive down in the landcruiser’s turret. A roar overhead a couple of shells bouncing off metal and ceramic armor and the natives craft sped away its belly almost scraping the grass.

Two landcruisers in the formation fired missiles after it. However fast it was, they were faster. It tumbled to the ground; dust flew from the brown track it plowed through the green.
Brave
, Ussmak thought,
brave but stupid
. The Tosevites seemed like that.

“Tosevite landcruisers!” Telerep said. “Looks like you were right, commander.”

“I see them,” Votal answered. Ussmak still didn’t, being down low in the hull rather than up in the turret. That didn’t matter. Votal told him what to do: “Steer 22, Ussmak.”

Ussmak started turning from north to west. Yes, there they were. Being big and clumsy themselves, the Tosevites built big and clumsy, though these landcruisers didn’t have a bad ballistic shape compared to some others the crews had been briefed about. At least their turret armor sloped … not that that would help them now.

“Gunner!” Votal said loudly. He’d picked a target, then, one from among the several that sought to bar his path. A moment later, he added, “Sabot!”

“Sabot!” Telerep repeated. The automatic loader cranked a round into the breech of the cannon. Ussmak heard it not only in his audio button but also through his whole body—clang-clang! Another metallic noise announced that the breech had closed. Telerep said, “Up and ready.”

“Landcruiser—front!” That meant Votal had the target Tosevite in his sights.

“Identified.” Telerep saw it, too. Over Ussmak’s head, the gun tube swung slightly as it moved toward the enemy’s center of mass.

“Fire!”

Through his periscopes, Ussmak saw flame leap from the muzzle of the gun. Armor shielded him from the roar of the report. Recoil made the landcruiser seem to hesitate for an instant. The aluminum sabots fell away from the tungsten penetrator arrow. Ussmak did not see that, of course. A heartbeat later, he did see the turret leap off a Tosevite landcruiser. “Hit!” he yelled, along with Votal and Telerep.

Another Tosevite was killed, this one in a pyrotechnic display of exploding ammunition. The Big Uglies lost whatever formation they were trying to keep. Some of them stopped, as they had to if they hoped to fire accurately.
Their eggs are broken now
, Ussmak thought with cold glee. They were easy enough to kill on the move. Stopped … “Landcruiser—front!” Votal said.

“Identified,” Telerep answered.

As the automatic loader clattered into action, a Tosevite landcruiser spat fire. Ussmak’s jaw opened in a laugh.
Another one down
, he thought, and wondered which of the other landcruisers in his unit had scored the kill.
Then—wham!
Something smote the glacis plate like a kick in the teeth.

“Ussmak!” Votal said. “You all right?”

“Y-yes,” the driver answered, still more than a little shaken. “Didn’t penetrate, the Emperor be praised.”
Or I’d be splashed all over the inside of the compartment
, he added to himself. The Big Uglies were doing their best to fight back. Their best, fortunately for Ussmak, was not good enough.

He must have been too stunned to listen to the whole command sequence, for the big gun fired then. He had the satisfaction of watching the landcruiser that had almost killed him start to burn. He wondered if any of the crew got out. In a way, they were guildmates of his, and so deserving of respect. On the other hand, they were only Big Uglies, and knew not the Emperor’s name.

When most of the Tosevite landcruisers were dead, some of the survivors turned tailstump and started to run. Ussmak laughed again. They couldn’t outrun cannon shells.

A funny noise in his audio button, sort of a wet splat. Then a cry of disbelief and rage from Telerep: “Votal! Vo—They’ve killed the commander!”

Ussmak’s belly went strange and empty, as if he’d suddenly been dropped into free-fall. “How could they?” he demanded of the gunner. “We’re slaughtering their landcruisers. They’re hardly fighting back any more.”

“Sniper, or I miss my guess,” Telerep said. “They can’t meet us in honest battle, so they lie in wait instead.”

“We’ll make them pay,” Ussmak said fiercely. “The past Emperors have learned Votal’s name. He is with them now.”

“Of course he is,” the gunner answered. “Now shut up and drive will you? I’m going to conn this landcruiser and run the gun, too, so I’m too busy to chatter. I’m going to be busier than a one-handed male with the underscale itch, as a matter of fact.”

Ussmak drove. When he’d stepped into the starship and slung his gear down beside his cold sleep coffin he’d expected the Race to overrun Tosev 3 without losing a male. It wasn’t turning out to be so simple, not with the Big Uglies knowing more than anyone had suspected they did. But they didn’t know enough. The Race could still drive them as easily as Ussmak drove his landcruiser.

A
pinng
off the turret—“Steer 25, Ussmak!” Telerep shouted. “I saw the flash!”

The driver obediently turned due west. Another
pinng
, this one off the glacis plate. After taking a hit from a landcruiser cannon, Ussmak ignored
the tiny nuisance. He tramped down hard on the accelerator. This time, he’d spotted the muzzle flash, too. He drove straight toward it. The Big Ugly fired again, uselessly, then turned and tried to run.

Telerep cut him down with machine-gun fire. Ussmak ran over the carcass, smashing it into the grass and dirt. His jaws opened wide. Votal was avenged. The landcruiser formation rolled on across the steppe.

Even the smallest noise or flicker of motion in the sky drew Heinrich Jäger’s complete and concerned—he was too stubborn to admit to a word like
fearful
—attention. This time, it was just a linnet flitting past, chirping as it went. This time.

He had three tanks left, three tanks and a combat group of infantry. “Combat group” was the
Wehrmacht
way of describing odds and ends of military meat pressed together in the hope of turning out a sausage. Sometimes it even worked—but when it did, the sausage went right back into the meat grinder again.

Another motion across the sky turned out to be another bird. Jäger shook his head. He could feel how jumpy he was getting. But the Lizards’ aircraft didn’t have to be right overhead to kill. The company had learned that, too, to its sorrow.

He managed something halfway between a laugh and a cough, leaned down into the turret. “I wonder if the Ivans felt this naked after we smashed so many of their planes on the ground last year,” he said.

“If they did, they hid it damned well,” his gunner answered. Georg Schultz wore the ribbon for a wound badge, too.

“So do we—I hope,” Jäger said.

A squad of infantry was posted on a swell of ground a few hundred meters in front of the tanks. One of the foot soldiers turned and waved urgently. The signal meant only one thing—Lizard panzers, heading across the steppe. Jäger’s testicles tried to crawl up into his belly. Schultz looked up at him. The gunner was dirty and unshaven. “We must try,” he said. “For the Fatherland.”