Harry Turtledove - Striking the Balance

Out on the meadow, the Big Uglies marched and marched, now reversing their course, now shifting at right angles. The male with stripes on his sleeves marched right along with them, berating them into performance ever more nearly perfect. Eventually, all of their legs were moving as if under the control of a single organism.

“This is intriguing to watch,” Teerts said to Aaatos, “but what is its function? Any males who implemented these tactics in actual ground combat would be quickly destroyed. Even I, a killercraft pilot, know males are supposed to spread wide and seek cover. This is only common sense.” He let his mouth fall open. “Not that common sense is common among the Big Uglies.”

“This marching, I am given to understand, promotes group solidarity among the Tosevites,” the male from Intelligence answered. “I do not understand exactly why this is so, but that it is so appears undeniable: every native military uses similar disciplinary techniques. One theory currently popular as to the reason why is that the Big Uglies, being a species less inherently disciplined than the Race, employ these procedures to inculcate order and conformity to commands.”

Teerts thought about that. It made more sense than a lot of theories he’d heard from Intelligence. That didn’t necessarily mean it was true-nothing necessarily meant anything on Tosev 3, as far as he could tell-but he didn’t have to keep from laughing in Aaatos’ face.

He went back to watching the marching Tosevites. After a while, they stopped marching and stood in a neat grid, still stiffly erect, as the male with stripes on his sleeves harangued them. Every so often, they would break in with chorused responses. “Do you understand their language?” Teerts asked Aaatos. “What are they saying?”

“Their leader is describing the attributes of the fighting males he wants them to become,” Aaatos said. “He is asking them whether they desire to possess and do possess these attributes. They answer in the affirmative.”

“Yes, I can see that they might,” Teerts said. “We have never had cause to doubt the fighting attributes of the Tosevites. But still I persist in wondering: will these attributes be employed for us or against us in the end?”

“I do not think the danger is so great as you fear,” Aaatos said, “and, in any case, we must take the chance or risk losing the war.” Teerts had never heard it put so bluntly. He started worrying in earnest.

One of the nice things about Lamar, Colorado, was that when you’d gone a mile past the outskirts of town, the place might as well not have existed. There was nothing but you, the prairie, a million stars shining down on you from a sky clearer and blacker than the sky had any business being-and the person who’d walked a mile past the outskirts of town with you.

Penny Summers snuggled against Rance Auerbach and said, “I wish I’d joined the cavalry, the way Rachel did. Then I’d be riding out with you tomorrow instead of staying stuck back here.”

He slipped his arm around her waist. “I’m glad you’re not,” he answered. “If I were giving you orders, it wouldn’t be fair for me to do something like this.” He bent down and kissed her. The kiss went on for a long time.

“You wouldn’t need to give me orders to get me to want to do that,” she said breathlessly when their lips separated at last. “I like it.” Then she kissed him.

“Hoo!” he said after a while-a noisy exhalation that sent breath smoking from his lungs. Spring was coming, but the nights didn’t know it yet. That it was cold gave him another excuse to hold her tight against him.

After one more kiss, Penny threw back her head and stared up at the night sky through half-closed eyelids. She couldn’t have sent him a fancier invitation if she’d had one engraved. The sweet curve of her neck was pale as milk in the starlight. He started to bend to kiss it, then checked himself.

She noticed that. Her eyes opened all the way again. “What’s the matter?” she asked, her voice no longer throaty but a little cross.

“It’s chilly out here,” he said, which was true, but only part of an answer.

Now she exhaled-indignantly. “Wouldn’t be that chilly,” she said, “specially while we were doin’-you know.”

He wanted her. They both had on long, heavy coats, but he knew she knew: she wouldn’t have needed to be the heroine in the story of the princess and the pea to tell. But, even though she wasn’t under his command, hauling her denims down and screwing her in the dirt wasn’t what he had in mind, no matter how much he’d been thinking about it when he’d asked her to go walking with him.

He tried to put that into words, so it would make sense to him as well as to her: “Doesn’t seem quite fair somehow, not when you were so poorly for so long. I want to make sure you’re all right before I-” Before I what? If all he’d wanted to do was lay her, that would have been simple. Crazy how being interested in her as herself made him-not less interested in her as a naked girl, but not so interested in that just for its own sake.

She didn’t get it. “I’m fine,” she said indignantly. “Yeah, it hit me hard when my pa got killed, but I’m over that now. I’m as good as I’m ever going to be.”

“Okay,” he said. He didn’t want to argue with her. But when people went from down in the dumps to up in the clouds too darn quick, that didn’t mean they got off the roller coaster and stayed up there. From what he’d seen, the ride kept right on going.

“Well, then,” she said, as if it were all settled.

“Look, here’s what we’ll do,” he told her. “Wait till I come back from this next mission. That’ll be plenty of time to do whatever we want to do.” And you’ll have had more of a chance to sort yourself out, make sure you’re not just throwing yourself at the first guy who’s handy.

She pouted. “But you’re going away for a long time. Rachel says this next mission isn’t just a little raid. She says you’re going out to try and wreck one of the Lizards’ spaceships.”

“She shouldn’t have told you that,” Auerbach answered. Security came natural to him; he’d been a soldier all his adult life. He knew Penny wouldn’t run off and blab to the Lizards, but who else had Rachel told about the planned strike? And who had they told? The idea of humans collaborating with the Lizards had been slow to catch on in the United States, at least in the parts that were still free, but such things did happen. Rachel and Penny both knew about them. Yet Rachel had talked anyway. That wasn’t so good.

“Maybe she shouldn’t have, but she did, so I know about it,” Penny said with a toss of the head that seemed to add, So there. “What if I go and find somebody else while you’re gone, Mr. Rance Auerbach, sir? What about then?”

He wanted to laugh. Here he was trying to be careful and sensible, and where was it getting him? Into hot water. He said, “If you do that, you wouldn’t want to tell him about a time like this, would you?”

She glared at him. “You think you’ve got all the answers, don’t you?”

“Shut up,” he said. He didn’t aim to stop a fight, or to make one worse; he spoke the words in a tone of voice entirely different from the one he’d been using.

Penny started to reply sharply, but then she too heard the distant roar in the sky. It grew louder with hideous speed. “Those are Lizard planes, ain’t they?” she said, as if hoping he’d contradict her.

He wished he could. “They sure are,” he said. “More than I’ve heard in a while, too. Usually they fly higher when they’re on their way to a target, then go down low to hit it. Don’t know why they’re acting different this time, unless-”