Harry Turtledove - Striking the Balance

“Truth, Exalted Fleetlord,” Moishe said in the language of the Race.

“Good,” the Lizard answered. “I am of the opinion that we previously tried to exploit you too broadly, and, as with any misused tool, this caused difficulties we would not have had if we kept you within limits appropriate to your situation. This appears to be the source of a large portion of your enmity toward us and your turning against us.”

“It’s certainly a source of some of it,” Moishe agreed. That was the closest to understanding him the Lizards had ever come, at any rate, and vastly preferable to their equating his actions with treason, as they had been doing.

“If a knife breaks because it is used as a pry bar, is that the fault of the knife?” Atvar resumed. “No, it is the fault of the operator. Because your service, Moishe Russie, has improved when you are properly used, I grow more willing to overlook past transgressions. When these negotiations between the Race and the Tosevites are completed, perhaps we shall establish you in the area where you were recaptured-”

“The exalted fleetlord means Palestine,” Zolraag put in on his own. “These names you give places have caused us considerable difficulty, especially where more than one name applies to the same place.”

Atvar resumed: “We shall establish you there, as I was saying, with your female and hatchling, and, as necessary, consult with you on Tosevite affairs. We shall do a better job of recognizing your limits henceforward, and not force you to provide information or propaganda you find distasteful. Would you accept such an arrangement?”

They wanted to set him up in Palestine-in the Holy Land-with his family? They’d use him as an expert on humanity without coercing him or humiliating him? Cautiously, he said, “Exalted Fleetlord, my only worry is that it sounds too good to be true.”

“It is truth,” the fleetlord answered. “Have you not seen, Moishe Russie, that when the Race makes an agreement, it abides by what it agrees?”

“I have seen this,” Moishe admitted. “But I’ve also seen the Race ordering rather than trying to agree.”

The fleetlord’s sigh sounded surprisingly human. “This has proved far less effective on Tosev 3 than we would have desired. We are, accordingly, trying new methods here, however distasteful innovation is for us. When the males and females of the colonization fleet arrive, they will undoubtedly have a great many sharp things to say about our practices, but we shall be able to offer them a large portion of a viable planet on which to settle. Considering what might have happened here, this strikes me as an acceptable resolution.”

“I don’t see how I could disagree, Exalted Fleetlord,” Moishe said. “Sometimes not everyone can get everything he wants from a situation.”

“This has never before happened to the Race,” Atvar said with another sigh.

Moishe went from the world-bestriding to the personal in the space of a sentence: “When you settle me and my family in Palestine, there is one other thing I would like.”

“And what is this?” the fleetlord asked.

Russie wondered if he was pushing his luck too far, but pressed ahead anyhow: “You know I was studying to become a doctor before the Germans invaded Poland. I’d like to take up those studies again, not just with humans but with males of the Race. If there is peace, we’ll have so much to learn from you… ”

“One of my principal concerns in making a peace with you Big Uglies is how much you will learn from us, and what sorts of things,” Atvar said. “You have learned too much already. But in medicine I do not suppose you will become a great danger to us. Very well, Moishe Russie, let it be as you say.”

“Thank you, Exalted Fleetlord,” Moishe said. Some American in a film had once used an expression that sounded so odd when dubbed literally into Polish, Moishe had never forgotten it: come up smelling like a rose. If Atvar stayed by the terms of the agreement, he’d somehow managed to do exactly that. “A rose,” he muttered. “Just like a rose.”

“Moishe Russie?” Atvar asked, with an interrogative cough: Zolraag hadn’t been able to make sense of the words.

“It is a bargain, Exalted Fleetlord,” Moishe said, and hoped the rose didn’t prove to have too many thorns.

Straha leaned away from the microphone and took off his earphones, which didn’t fit well over his hearing diaphragms anyhow. “Another broadcast,” he said, turning an eye turret toward Sam Yeager. “I do not see the necessity for many more, not with talks between the Race and you Big Uglies progressing so well. You cannot imagine how you must have horrified stodgy old Atvar, to get him to talk with you at all.”

“I’m glad he did, finally,” Sam said. “I’ve had a bellyful of war. This whole world has had a bellyful-two bellyfuls-of war.”

“Half measures of any sort do not appear to succeed on Tosev 3,” Straha agreed. “Had it been I in the fleetlord’s body paint, we would have tried sooner and harder to batter you Tosevites into submission.”

“I know that.” Yeager nodded. The refugee shiplord had never made any great secret of his preference for the stick over the carrot. Sam remembered the American atomic bomb sitting somewhere here in Hot Springs, surely no more than a few hundred yards from this stuffy little studio. He couldn’t tell Straha about the bomb, of course; General Donovan would nail his scalp to the wall if he pulled a boner like that. What he did say was, “With three not-empires making atomic bombs, you’d have had a hard time stopping all of them.”

“Truth there, too, of course.” Straha sighed. “When peace comes-if peace comes-what becomes of me?”

“We won’t give you back for the Race to take vengeance on you,” Sam told him. “We’ve already said as much to your people in Cairo. They didn’t much like it, but they’ve agreed.”

“Of this much I am already aware,” Straha answered. “So I shall live out my life among you, the Tosevites of the U.S.A. And how am I to pass my time while I am doing this?”

“Oh.” Sam started to see what the refugee was driving at. “Some males of the Race fit in fine with us. Vesstil’s taught us an amazing lot about rocket engineering, and Ristin-”

“Has for all practical purposes turned into a Big Ugly,” Straha said with acid in his voice.

“When you think about where he is, what’s he supposed to do?” Sam asked.

“He is a male of the Race. He should have the dignity to remember that fact,” Straha replied.

After a second, Sam figured out what the Lizard reminded him of: a snobby Englishman looking down his nose at a countryman who’d “gone native” in Tanganyika or Burma or somewhere like that. He’d seen enough jungle movies with that as part of the story. Only trouble was, he couldn’t say as much to Straha, not without insulting him further. Instead, he said, “Maybe if we get a peace, we’ll get a”-he had to fumble around to get across the idea he wanted, but finally did-“an amnesty along with it”

“For the likes of Ristin, there will surely be an amnesty,” Straha said. “He shall have it, though he does not require it to enjoy his life. For the likes of Vesstil, there also may be an amnesty. Vesstil has taught you much-this is truth, Sam Yeager, as you say. But he came among you Tosevites at my order. He was my shuttlecraft pilot: when I ordered, his duty was to obey, and obey he did. Despite the aid he has furnished you, he may be forgiven. But for me, Sam Yeager, of amnesty there shall be none. I tried to remove the fleetlord Atvar, to keep him from losing the war to you Tosevites. I failed-and so did he, for is the war won? Do you think he will let me enter any land the Race holds after peace comes-if peace comes? It would but remind him I was right to doubt him, and that the conquest failed. No. If I am to live, it must be among you Big Uglies.”