Harry Turtledove - Tilting the Balance

“It’s not quite so bad as that,” Goldfarb said. “Group Captain Hipple and his crew have made good progress with the engines.”

“Oh, indeed. But he’d already figured out the basic principles involved.”

“We have the basic principles of radar,” Goldfarb protested. “But their radar is further ahead of ours than their jet engines are,” Horton said. “It’s just the quality of the metallurgy that drives the group captain mad. Here, the Lizards are using a whole different technology to achieve their results: no valves, everything so small the circuits only come clear under the microscope. Figuring out what anything does is a triumph; figuring out how it does it is a wholly different question.”

“Don’t I know it,” Goldfarb said ruefully. “There have been days-and plenty of ’em-when I’d sooner have kicked that bleeding radar out onto the rubbish pitch than worked on it.”

“Ah, but you have managed to get away for a bit.” Horton pointed to the Military Medal ribbon on Goldfarb’s chest. “I wish I’d had the chance to try to earn one of those.”

Remembering terror and flight, Goldfarb started to say he would have been just as glad not to have had the opportunity. But that wasn’t really true. Getting his cousin Moishe and his family out of Poland had been worth doing; he knew only pride that he’d been able to help there.

The other thing he noted, with a small shock, was the edge of genuine envy in Horton’s voice. The new radarman’s savvy had intimidated him ever since he got back to Bruntingthorpe. Finding out that Horton admired him was like a tonic. He remembered the gap that had existed back at Dover between those who went up to do battle in the air and those who stayed behind and fought their war with electrons and phosphors.

But Goldfarb had crossed to the far side of that gap. Even before he went to Poland, he’d gone aloft in a Lancaster to test the practicability of airborne radar sets. He’d taken Lizard fire then, too, but returned safely. Ground combat, though, was something else again, If one of those Lizard rockets had struck the Lanc, he never would have seen the alien who killed him. Ground combat was personal. He’d shot people and Lizards in Lodz and watched them fall. He still had nasty dreams about it.

Leo Horton was still waiting for an answer. Goldfarb said, “In the long run, what we do here will have more effect on how the war ends than anything anyone accomplishes gallivanting about with a bloody knife between his teeth.”

“You go gallivanting about with a knife between your teeth and it’ll turn bloody in short order, that’s for certain,” Horton said.

Flight Officer Basil Roundbush came in and poured himself a cup of ersatz tea. His broad, ruddy face lit up in a smile. “Not bad today, by Jove,” he said.

“Probably does taste better after you run it through that soup strainer you’ve got on your upper lip,” Goldfarb said.

“You’re a cheeky bugger, you know that?” Roundbush took a step toward Goldfarb, as if in anger. Goldfarb needed a distinct effort of will to stand his ground; he gave away three or four inches and a couple of stone in weight. Not only that, Roundbush wore a virtual constellation of pot metal and bright ribbons on his chest. He’d flown Spitfires against the Luftwaffe in what then looked to be Britain’s darkest hour.

“Just a joke, sir,” Horton said hastily.

“You’re new here,” Roundbush said, his voice amused. “I know it’s a joke, and what’s more, Goldfarb there knows I know. Isn’t that right, Goldfarb?” His expression defied the radarman to deny it.

“Yes, sir, I think so,” Goldfarb answered, “Although one can’t be too certain with a man who grows such a vile caricature of a mustache.”

Leo Horton looked alarmed. Roundbush threw back his head and roared laughter. “You are a cheeky bugger, and you skewered me as neatly there as if you were Errol Flynn in one of those Hollywood cinemas about pirates.” He assumed a fencing stance and made cut-and-thrust motions that showed he had some idea of what he was about. He suddenly stopped and held up one finger “I have it! Best way to rid ourselves of the Lizards would be to challenge them to a duel. Foil, epee, saber-makes no difference. Our champion against theirs, winner take all.”

From one of the tables strewn with jet engine parts, Wing Commander Julian Peary called, “One of these days, Basil, you’really should learn the difference between simplifying a problem and actually solving it.”

“Yes, sir,” Roundbush said, not at all respectfully. Then he turned wistful: “It would be nice, though, wouldn’t it, to take them on in a contest where we might have the advantage.”

“Something to that,” Peary admitted.

Leo Horton bent over a scrap of paper, sketched rapidly. In a minute or two, he held up a creditable drawing of a Lizard wearing a long-snouted knight’s helmet (complete with plume) and holding a broadsword. Prepare to die, Earthling varlet, the alien proclaimed in a cartoon-style speech bubble.

“That s not bad,” Roundbush said. “We ought to post it on a board here.”

“That’s quite good,” Goldfarb said. “You should think of doing portrait sketches for the girls.”

Horton eyed him admiringly. “No flies on you. I’ve done that a few times. It works awfully well.”

“Unfair competition, that’s what I call it,” Basil Roundbush grumped. “I shall write my MP and have him propose a bill classing it with all other forms of poaching.”

As helpful as he’d been before, Peary said, “You couldn’t poach an egg, and I wouldn’t give long odds about your writing, either.”

About then, Goldfarb noticed Fred Hipple standing in the doorway and listening to the back-and-forth. Roundbush saw the diminutive group captain at the same moment. Whatever hot reply he’d been about to make died in his throat with a gurgle. Hipple ran a forefinger along his thin brown mustache. “A band of brothers, one and all,” he murmured as he came inside.

“Sir, if we can’t rag one another, half the fun goes out of life,” Roundbush said.

“For you, Basil, more: than half, unless I’m sadly mistaken,” Hipple said, which made the flight officer blush like a child. But Hipple’s voice held no reproof; he went on, “So long as it doesn’t interfere with the quality of our work, I see no reason for the badinage not to continue.”

“Ah, capital,” Roundbush said in relief. “That means I can include my distinguished gray-haired superior in that letter to my MP; perhaps I can arrange to have his tongue ruled a noxious substance and shipped out of the country, or at least possibly rabid and so subject to six months’ quarantine.”

Julian Peary was not about to let himself be upstaged: “If we inquire at all closely into what your tongue has been doing, Basil old boy, I dare say we’d find it needs more quarantine than a mere six months.” Roundbush had turned pink at Hipple’s gibe; now he went brick-red.

“Torpedoed at the waterline,” Goldfarb whispered to Leo Horton. “He’s sinking fast.” The other radarman grinned and nodded.

Hipple turned to the two of them. Goldfarb was afraid he’d overheard, but he just said, “How are we coming at fitting a radar set into the Meteor fuselage, gentlemen?”

“As long as we don’t fly with fuel tanks in there, we’ll be fine, sir,” Goldfarb answered, deadpan. Hipple gave him a fishy stare, then laughed-warily-and nodded. Goldfarb went on, “Horton, though, has made some exciting finds about which part of the circuitry controls signal amplitude.”

He’d expected that to excite Hipple, who had been almost as eager to learn about radar as he had been to tinker with his beloved jet engines. But Ripple just asked, “Is it something we can apply immediately?”