Page 94 of Striking the Balance (Worldwar 4)

“I don’t really remember,” Nussboym said. Whenno was a lie andyes was trouble, what were you supposed to do?Temporize was all that came to mind.

“But you said everyone said such things,” Skriabin reminded him. “You must know whether the man Fyodorov was a part of everyone or an exception.”

Damn you, Moisei Solomonovich,Nussboym thought. Aloud, he said, “Maybe he was, but maybe he wasn’t, too. As I told you, I have trouble remembering who said what when.”

“I have never noticed this trouble when you speak of the Lizards,” Colonel Skriabin said. “You are always most accurate and precise.” He thrust a typewritten sheet of paper across the desk to Nussboym. “Here. Just sign this, and all will be as it should.”

Nussboym stared at the sheet in dismay. He could make out some spoken Russian, because many of the words were close to their Polish equivalents. Staring at characters from a different alphabet was something else again. “What does it say?” he asked suspiciously.

“That on a couple of occasions you did hear the prisoner Ivan Fyodorov utter anti-Soviet sentiments, nothing more.” Skriabin held out a pen to him. He took it but did not sign on the line helpfully provided. Colonel Skriabin looked sorrowful. “And I had such hope for you, David Aronovich.” His voice tolled out Nussboym’s name and patronymic like a mourning bell.

With a couple of quick jerks that had almost nothing to do with his brain, Nussboym signed the denunciation and shoved it back at Skriabin. He realized he should have shouted at Skriabin the second the NKVD man tried to get him to betray Fyodorov. But if you’d always believed in getting along with authority, you didn’t think of such things till that first fateful second had passed, and then it was too late. Skriabin took the paper and locked it in his desk.

Nussboym got another full bowl of soup at supper that night. He ate every drop of it, and every drop tasted like ashes in his mouth.

XVII

Atvar wished he had acquired the habit of tasting ginger. He needed something, anything, to fortify himself before going in to resume dickering with a chamber full of argumentative Big Uglies. Turning both eye turrets toward Kirel, he said, “If we are to have peace with the Tosevites, it appears we shall have to make the most of the concessions upon which they originally insisted.”

“Truth,” Kirel said in a melancholy voice. “They are certainly the most indefatigable argufiers the Race has ever encountered.”

“That they are.” Atvar twisted his body in distaste. “Even the ones with whom we need not conduct actual negotiations-the British and the Nipponese-go on with their unending quibbles, while two Chinese factions both insist they deserve to be here, though neither seems willing to admit the other does. Madness!”

“What of the Deutsche, Exalted Fleetlord?” Kirel asked. “Of all the Tosevite empires and not-empires, theirs seems to be presenting the Race with the greatest number of difficulties.”

“I admire your gift for understatement,” Atvar said acidly. “The envoy from Deutschland seems dim even for a Tosevite. The not-emperor he serves is, by all appearances, as addled as an unfertilized egg left half a year in the sun-or do you know a better way to interpret his alternating threats and cajolery?” Without waiting for an answer, the fleetlord went on, “And yet, of all these Tosevite empires and not-empires, the Deutsche may well be the most technologically advanced. Can you unravel this paradox for me?”

“Tosev 3 is a world full of paradoxes,” Kirel replied. “Among so many, one more loses its capacity to surprise.”

“This is also a truth.” Atvar let out a weary, hissing sigh. “One or another of them is liable to prove a calamity, I fear. I admit I do not know which one, though, and very much wish I did.”

Pshing spoke up: “Exalted Fleetlord, the time appointed for continuation of these discussions with the Tosevites is now upon us.”

“Thank you, Adjutant,” Atvar said, though he felt anything but grateful. “They are a punctual species, that much I will say for them. Even after so long in the Empire, the Hallessi would show up late for their own cremations if they could.” His mouth dropped open in wry amusement. “Now that I think on it, so would I. If I could.”

Regretfully, Atvar turned his eye turrets away from the males of his own kind and, with his interpreter, entered the chamber where the Tosevite representatives awaited him. They rose from their seats as he entered, a token of respect. “Tell them to sit down so we can get on with it,” Atvar said to the interpreter. “Tell them politely, but tell them.” The translator; a male named Uotat, turned his words into English.

The Tosevites returned to their chairs again, in their usual pattern. Marshall, the American male, and Eden, his British counterpart, always sat close together, though Eden was not really a formal participant in these talks. Then came Molotov, from the SSSR, and von Ribbentrop, of Deutschland. Like Eden, Togo of Nippon was more an observer than a negotiator.

“We begin,” Atvar said. The Tosevite males leaned forward, away from the rigidly upright position they preferred most of the time and toward one more like that the Race used. This was, Atvar had learned, a sign of interest and attention. He went on, “In most cases, we have agreed in principle to withdraw from the territory controlled at the time of our arrival on Tosev 3 by the U.S.A., the SSSR, and Deutschland. We have done this in spite of claims we have received from several groups of Big Uglies offering the view that the SSSR and Deutschland did not rightfully possess some of these territories. Your not-empires are the ones strong enough to treat with us; this gives your claims priority.”

Von Ribbentrop sat straight again and brushed an imaginary speck of dust from the material of the outer cloth covering of his torso. “He is smug,” Uotat said to Atvar, using an eye turret to point to the Deutsch envoy.

“He is a fool,” Atvar replied, “but you need not tell him that; if you are a fool, you derive no profit from hearing as much. I now resume with the matter at hand… Because we are gracious, we also agree to withdraw our males from the northern territory that seems to be not quite a part of either the U.S.A. or Britain.”

The toponym escaped him; Marshall and Eden supplied it together. “Canada.”

“Canada, yes,” Atvar said. The simple truth was that most of the place was too cold to be worth much to the Race under any circumstances. Marshall also seemed to think it was for all practical purposes part of the U.S.A., though it had a separate sovereignty. Atvar did not fully understand that, but it was to him a matter of small import.

“Now to the issue on which these talks paused in our last session,” Atvar said: “the issue of Poland.”

“Poland in its entirety must be ours!” von Ribbentrop said loudly. “No other solution is possible or acceptable. So theFuhrer has dec

lared.” (Uotat added, “This is the title of the Deutsch not-emperor.” “I know,” Atvar answered.) “I have no room whatever for discussion on this matter.”

Molotov spoke. He was the only Tosevite envoy who did not use English. His interpreter translated for Uotat: “This view is unacceptable to the workers and farmers of the SSSR, who have an immediate claim on the eastern half of this region, one which I personally brokered with the Deutsch foreign minister, and also a historic claim to the entire country.”

Atvar turned his eye turrets away from both contentious Big Uglies. Neither of them would budge on the issue. Atvar tried a new tack: “Perhaps we could let the Poles and the Jews of Poland form new not-empires of their own, between those of your not-emperors.”

Molotov did not reply. Von Ribbentrop, unfortunately, did: “As I have said, theFuhrer finds this intolerable. The answer is no.”

The fleetlord wanted to let loose with a long, hissing sigh, but refrained. The Big Uglies were undoubtedly studying his behavior as closely as he and his staff of researchers and psychologists were examining theirs. He tried a different course: “Perhaps, then, it is appropriate for the Race to remain sovereign over this place called Poland.” In saying that, he realized he was meeting the ambitions of the Tosevite Moishe Russie. It wasn’t what he’d had in mind, but he saw now that Russie did indeed understand his fellow Big Uglies.

“This may in principle be acceptable to the Soviet Union, depending on the precise boundaries of said occupation,” Molotov said. In a low voice, Uotat added his own comment to that: “The Tosevites of the SSSR find the Deutsche no more pleasant neighbors than we do.”

“Truth,” Atvar said, amused but unwilling to show it to the Big Uglies.

Von Ribbentrop turned his head and looked at Molotov for several seconds before giving his attention back to Atvar. If that wasn’t anger the Deutsch representative was displaying, all the Race’s studies of Tosevite gestural language were worthless. But von Ribbentrop spoke without undue passion: “I am sorry to have to keep repeating myself, but this is not acceptable to Deutschland or to theFuhrer. Poland had been under and should return in its entirety to Deutsch sovereignty.”

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