In the Balance (46 page)

Jens joined the crowd. Two or three people gave him sidelong looks: he was a Stranger, with a capital S. He’d grown up in a small town before he went off to college; he knew he could live here for twenty years and still be thought a stranger, though perhaps by then a lower-case one.

“Damn shame,” somebody said. Somebody else nodded. Larssen didn’t. As someone from out of town, his opinion was, automatically less than worthless. He just stood and watched.

The Lizards knew the kinds of goods they wanted. They came out of Garver Brothers with coils of copper wire slung over their scaly shoulders, with hand tools of all sorts, with an electric generator trundled along on a wheeled cart, with a lathe on another cart.

Jens tried to find a pattern to their depredations. At first he saw none. Then he realized most of what the Lizards were taking was tools that would help them make things of their own rather than already finished products of Earthly manufacture.

He scratched his head, not quite knowing what to make of that. It might have been a sign the invaders were settling in for a long stay. On the other hand, it might also have meant their own resources were short and they were having to eke them out with whatever they could steal. If that was so, it was encouraging.

“They’re just a bunch of damn chicken thieves, that’s what they are,” someone in the crowd said as another truck rolled away. Most of the rest of the people murmured agreement. This time, Larssen did let himself nod. Whatever their reasons for cleaning out Garver Brothers, the Lizards were doing a good, workmanlike job of it.

A vehicle came up Wooster Street toward the store. It was about as far removed as possible from the smooth, silent trucks the Lizards ran: it was a horse-drawn buggy, driven by a bearded man with a broad-brimmed black hat. He pulled into the parking lot as casually as if it had been filled with Fords and De Sotos, put a feed bag on his horse’s nose, and strode toward the guarded front door.

“The Amish have been coming to Garver Brothers for years,” someone observed.

“I wish I had me a buggy like that,” somebody else said. “A horse’ll run on grass, but my car sure as hell won’t.”

The Lizards with guns blocked the Amish farmer’s path into the store. He spoke to them; since he didn’t raise his voice and his back was turned, Larssen couldn’t make out what he said. He braced himself for trouble all the same.

Another Lizard came bounding up to the doorway. Maybe he spoke English, because the farmer started talking to him instead of to the guards. And then, to Jens’ surprise, the aliens stood aside and let him go in. He emerged a few minutes later with a shovel, a pickax, and a bolt of black cloth. Nodding politely to the Lizards as he passed them he returned to his wagon climbed in and rolled away

He didn’t want anything the Lizards needed so they let him have his stuff
, Jens thought. That was smart of them. As for the farmer, he might not have seen them as being that different from anyone else who failed to share his own rigorous faith. The idea of living in a simple, orderly world with strict laws held no small appeal for Larssen: as a physicist, he thought well of order and law and predictability. But the tools he used to seek them were necessarily more complex than pick and shovel, horse and buggy.

That reminded him why he’d come this way in the first place. “Does anybody know if Charlie Tompkins’ garage is open?” he asked.

“Not right now it isn’t,” said the fellow who’d called the Lizards chicken thieves, “on account of I’m Charlie Tompkins. What can I do for you, stranger?”

“My car broke down about a mile outside of town,” Larssen answered. “Any chance you can take a look at it?”

The mechanic laughed. “Don’t see why not. I’m not what you’d call real busy these days—I expect you can tell that by lookin’. What’s your machine doin’, anyhow?” When Jens described the symptoms, Tompkins looked grave. “That doesn’t sound so good. Well, we’ll go see. Come on up to my shop so as I can get some tools.”

As the woman at the drugstore had said, the garage lay just a little past the Garver Brothers store. Tompkins picked up his tool kit. It didn’t look light, so Larssen said, “I’ll carry it for you, if you like. We’ve got a ways to walk.”

“Don’t worry about it. Here, come on with me.” The mechanic led Larssen over to a bicycle which had a bracket welded to the head tube. The handle of the tool kit fit neatly over the bracket. Tompkins climbed onto the saddle, gestured to Larssen. “You ride behind me. I don’t use any gas this way, a bike’s got fewer parts than a car, and they’re easier for somebody like me to fix if they do break.”

All that made perfect sense, but Jens hadn’t ridden on one of those little flat racks since about the third grade. “Will it carry both of us?” he asked.

Tompkins laughed. “I’ve put bigger men than you back there, my friend. Sure, you’re tall, but you’re built like a pencil. We won’t have any trouble, I promise.”

They didn’t have much. What there was, came because Larssen hadn’t been on any bicycle at all for a good many years, and needed a little while before his body remembered how to balance. Charlie Tompkins compensated for his lurches without saying a word. In a way, that only made them more embarrassing: weren’t you never supposed to forget how to stay on a bicycle? Jens sighed as he did his best not to maim himself while exploding the cliché.

“Whereabouts you from, mister?” Tompkins asked as they rolled past the sign welcoming people to Strasburg.

“Chicago,” Larssen answered.

The mechanic twisted his head. That struck Larssen as foolhardy, but he kept his mouth shut. After a moment, Tompkins turned back to watch where he was going. He spoke over his shoulder: “And you were heading back there, were you, from wherever you were coming from?”

“That’s right. What about it?”

“Nothing, really.” Tompkins pedaled along for a few more seconds, then went on in a sad tone, “Thing is, though, you might not want to say that to just anybody around here who asks. Chicago’s still free, right? Sure it is. I’m not asking whether you would or you wouldn’t, mind, but I can see where you might not want the Lizards to get wind of whatever reasons you’ve got for going that way.”

“How would the Lizards …” Larssen’s voice trailed away. “You don’t mean people would tell them?” He knew the Lizards had human collaborators: the Warsaw Jews, Chinese, Italians, Brazilians. Up till this second, though, he’d never imagined there could be such a thing as an American collaborator. He supposed that was naive of him.

Evidently it was. Tompkins said, “Some people, they’ll do anything to get in good with the boss, no matter who the boss is. Some other people have gotten hurt on account of it.” He didn’t seem to care for the subject, either. Instead of giving details, he took one hand off the handlebars and pointed. “That your car up ahead there, that Plymouth?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.” Tompkins stopped the bike with the soles of his shoes against the asphalt. He and Jens both got off. The mechanic unhooked the tool box, walked over to the deceased automobile, reached through the grill, and popped the hood latch. Once the long piece of sheet metal was up and out of the way, he bent over and peered into the engine compartment.

A low, mournful whistle floated up. “Mister, I hate to tell you, but you
got yourself a cracked block.” Another whistle, not much later. “Your valves are shot to shit, too, pardon my French. What the hell you been burnin’ in this machine, anyhow?”

“Whatever I could get my hands on that would burn,” Larssen answered honestly.

“Well, I know how that goes, what with the way things are, but Jesus, even if times were good I couldn’t fix this poor bastard by my lonesome. What with the way things are, I don’t think I can fix her at all. Hate to have to tell you that, but I’m not gonna lie to you, either.”

“How am I supposed to get back to Chicago, then?” Larssen wasn’t really asking Tompkins; it was more a cry to the unhearing gods. When he’d come east through Ohio, the Lizards hadn’t been anywhere near this far north. When he’d come east through Ohio, his car had been in reasonably good shape, too.

“Wouldn’t take you forever to walk there,” Tompkins said. “What is it, maybe three, four hundred miles? Could be done.”

Jens stared at the mechanic in dismay. At least two weeks on shank’s mare, more likely a month? Dodging in and out of the Lizards’ territory? Dodging bandits, too, likely enough (one more thing he’d never expected in America, at least outside the vanished Wild West)? Winter was on the way, too; already the sky had lost the perfect, transparent blue of summer. Barbara would think he was dead by the time he got back—if he got back.

His eye fell on Tompkins’ bicycle. He pointed. “Tell you what—I’ll trade you my set of wheels for yours. You can use the parts that are still good to keep other cars running.” Before the Lizards came, swapping a two-year-old Plymouth for an elderly bicycle would have been insane. Before the Lizards came, of course, his car could have been fixed if it broke down. Before the Lizards came, his car wouldn’t have broken down because he wouldn’t have had to abuse it so.

Now—Now Charlie Tompkins looked from the bike to the Plymouth, slowly shook his head. “What’s the point to that, mister? You take off for Chicago, you gonna carry your car on your back? I’ll get to scavenge it whether I give you my bike or not.”

“Why, you—” Larssen wanted to murder the mechanic. The force of the feeling frightened him, left him almost sick. He wondered how many killings had sprung from the chaos the Lizards spread across the United States, across the world. Times grew ever more desperate, the risk of getting caught shrank … so why not kill, if you needed to?

To fight the temptation, he jammed his hands deep into his trouser pockets. Amidst keys and small change, the fingers of his right hand closed round his cigarette lighter. The Zippo, unlike the Plymouth, would work
forever, or at least as long as he could keep coming up with flints. It would also burn moonshine a lot better than the car had.

He yanked out the buffed steel case, flipped open the top. His thumb went to the lighter’s wheel. “You don’t trade me your bike, Charlie, I’ll
burn
the goddamn car. Let’s see how you like that.”

The mechanic started to grab for a wrench from his tool kit. Larssen’s mouth went dry—maybe he hadn’t been the only one thinking of murder. Then Tompkins’ hand stopped suddenly. His high-pitched laugh sounded unnatural, but it was a laugh. “Godawful times,” he said, to which Jens could only nod. “All right, Larssen, take the bike. I expect I’ll be able to come up with another one from somewheres.”

Larssen relaxed, but not very far. His Zippo might torch the Plymouth, but it didn’t stack up very well against a monkey wrench. He walked over to the rear end of the car, opened the trunk. He took out the smaller of the two suitcases there and a ball of twine, slammed the trunk shut. He did the best job he could of tying the suitcase to the rack on which he’d ridden, then pulled the trunk key off the ring and tossed it to Charlie Tompkins.

He swung his right leg over the bicycle saddle, as if he were mounting a horse. If he’d wobbled as a passenger, he was even more unsteady up there by himself. But he managed to stay upright and keep the bike rolling forward. After a couple of hundred yards, he took a chance and looked back over his shoulder. Tompkins was already going through the suitcase he’d had to leave behind. He scowled and kept pedaling.

The U-2 buzzed through the night, so low that an instant’s inattention or simply a hillock she’d forgotten would have cost Ludmila Gorbunova her life. The
Kukuruznik
was proving the Soviet Union’s ace in the hole in the war against the Lizards. Newer Red Air Force planes with greater speed and better guns, but also with more metal in their airframes and higher minimum ceilings, had all but vanished from the skies. The obsolescent little biplane trainer, too small, too slow, and too low to be noticed, soldiered on.

The slipstream blew chilly over Ludmila’s goggled face. Fall was in the air. The rains would start any day now. Her lips curled upward in a mirthless smile. The
rasputitsa
, the time of mud, had hurt the fascists badly last year. She wondered how the Lizards’ armored vehicles would enjoy trying to push forward through slimy porridge.

She also wondered, just for a moment, what her superiors had done with the two Germans she’d delivered to them from the Ukrainian collective farm. Having deadly foes suddenly turn into allies was disconcerting, as was the realization the Nazis were human beings like her own side. Better when they’d seemed only small field-gray shapes scurrying like lice before the bullets from her machine guns.

She glanced down at the map book balanced on her knees. The lights from her instrument panel bet her trace her assigned flight path. She flew over a rivet. A quick peek at her watch told her how long she’d been in the alt. Yes, it ought to be the Slovechna, which meant she needed to swing farther south … now.

Her breath came short and fast when she spotted lights on the horizon ahead. Some of the Lizards still kept the stupid habit of lighting up their campsites at night. Maybe they thought it made them safer from ground attack. Given the range and power of their weapons, maybe it even did; Ludmila was no Marshal of the Soviet Union, to know everything there was to know about ground tactics. She did know being able to see what she was shooting at made her own job easier.

She couldn’t gain altitude and then glide silently to the attack, as she had against the Nazis. Aircraft that attacked the Lizards from anything much above ground height came down in pieces, a lesson learned from bitter experience. Stay low and you had a chance.

It wasn’t always a good chance. Her air regiment was chewed to bits. She knew of only three or four other pilots from it still flying. The regiment was long since broken up, of course—large concentrations of aircraft on the ground drew the Lizards’ wrath like nothing else. These days, the
Kukuruzniks
flew by ones and twos, not in formation.

The lighted area swelled ahead of her. Her finger went to the firing button for the machine guns. She spied what looked at first like bumpy ground but proved as she drew nearer to be some sort of vehicles under camouflage netting. Trucks, she thought—Lizard tanks, being almost impervious to human weapons, were seldom concealed so carefully.