Harry Turtledove - In the Balance

“But Barbara’s not even with the Met Lab,” Jens protested.

“Indeed not, but you are,” Patton said. “Are you so soft that you would betray the hope of the United States to the Lizards for the sake of your own convenience? By God, sir, I hope you are not.”

“I don’t see how one message constitutes a betrayal,” Larssen said. “Odds are the Lizards wouldn’t even notice it.”

“Possible,” Patton admitted. He got up from behind his desk and stretched, which also gave him the advantage of staring down at Jens. “Possible, but not likely. If the Lizards’ doctrine is at all like ours-and I’ve seen no reason to doubt that-they monitor as many of our signals as they can, and try to shape them into informative patterns. I speak from experience, sir, when I say that no one-no one-can know in advance which piece of the jigsaw puzzle will reveal enough for the enemy to form the entire picture in his mind.”

Jens knew about security; the Met Lab had had large doses of it. But he’d never been subject to military discipline, so he kept arguing: “You could send a message without my name on it, just ‘Your husband is alive and well’ or something like that.”

“No; your request is refused,” Patton said. Then, as if reading Larssen’s mind, he added, “Any attempt to ignore what I have just said and inveigle a signals officer into clandestinely sending such a message will result in your arrest and confinement, if not worse. I remind you I have military secrets of my own here, and I shall not permit you to compromise them. Do I make myself quite clear?”

“Yes, sir, you do,” Larssen said dejectedly. He’d been all set to try to find a sympathetic radioman no matter what Patton said; he still didn’t believe such an innocuous message would have blown the Met Lab’s cover. But he couldn’t gauge how much outgoing, messages might endanger the offensive still building here in western Indiana. That had to succeed, too, or nothing that happened in Chicago would matter, because Chicago would belong to the Lizards.

“If it helps at all, Dr. Larssen, you have my sympathy,” Patton said.

In a gruff sort of way, he probably even meant it, Jens thought. He said, “Thank you, General,” and walked out of Patton’s office.

Outside, the ground was mottled with melting snow and clumps of yellowish dead grass. Thick low yellow-gray clouds rolled by overhead, The wind came from out of the northwest, and carried a nip that quickly started to turn Jens’ beaky nose to an icicle. It had all the makings of a winter storm, but no snow fell.

His thoughts as gloomy as the weather, Larssen walked on in Oxford, Indiana. Potemkin village ran through his mind. From the air, the, little town undoubtedly seemed as quiet as any other gasoline-starved hamlet in the Midwest. But concealed by houses and garages, haystacks and woodpiles, gathered armored forces plenty, Jens thought, to give the Nazis pause. The only trouble was, they faced worse foes than mere Germans.

Larssen stepped into the Bluebird Cafe. A couple of locals and a couple, of soldiers in civvies (nobody not, in civvies was allowed on the streets of Oxford- security again, Jens thought) sat at the counter. Behind it, the cook made pancakes on a wood-burning griddle instead of his now useless gas range. The griddle wasn’t vented; smoke filled the room. He looked over his shoulder at Larssen. “Waddaya want, mac?”

“I know what I want: how about a broiled lobster tail with drawn butter, asparagus in hollandaise sauce, and crisp green salad? Now, what do you have?”

“Good luck with the lobster, buddy,” the cook said. “What I got is flapjacks here, powdered eggs, and canned pork and beans. You don’t fancy that, go fishing.”

“I’ll take it,” Jens said. It was what he’d been eating ever since that wonderful chicken dinner with General Patton. He wasn’t as skinny as he had been when the Army scooped him up, but he’d long since sworn he’d never look a baked bean in the eye again if and when the war ever ended.

The only virtue he could find to the meal was that he didn’t have to pay for it. Patton had taken over the handful of eateries in town and incorporated them into his commissary department. Larssen supposed that was fair, without the supplies they drew from the Army, they’d long since have closed down.

The better to conceal his soldiers, Patton had also billeted them on the townsfolk. As far as Jens knew, he hadn’t asked anybody for permission before he did it, either. If Patton worried about that, he didn’t let on. Maybe he had a point, the Founding Fathers hadn’t anticipated an invasion from outer space.

But if you started fiddling with the Constitution and pleading military necessity, where would you stop? Jens wished he’d been in a better position to take that up with Patton. It might have made an interesting philosophical discussion if the general hadn’t been steamed at him for trying to get a message to Barbara. As things were, Patton would either roar at him or ignore him, neither of which constituted an enlightened exchange of views.

“Anybody got a cigarette?” asked one of the soldiers in civvies.

The only answer Larssen expected to that was a hoarse laugh, and the soldier got one. Then a civilian, a leathery fellow in a hunting cap who had to be pushing seventy, looked the kid over and drawled, “Son, even if I did have one, you ain’t pretty enough to give me what I’d want for it.”

The young soldier turned the color of the fire under the griddle. The cook solemnly sketched a hash mark in the air. Larssen whistled. The old-timer let out a dry chuckle to show he wasn’t all that impressed with his own wit, then returned to his cup of what the Army called, for lack of a suitable term of opprobrium, coffee.

High overhead, above the clouds, a Lizard jet flew by, its wail thin and fading with distance. Larssen’s shiver had nothing to do with the weather. He wondered how well the aliens’ sensors, whatever they were, could peer through the gray mass that shielded Oxford and the countryside around it from the sky and how well Patton had managed to hide the carefully husbanded gear here. He’d know soon enough.

In one corner of the cafe stood a broken pinball machine, the mournful word TILT permanently on display. Since that constituted the place’s entire potential for entertaimnent, Jens handed his plate and cutlery back to the cook and went out onto the street.

The wind had picked up while he ate. He was glad for his overcoat. His nose was also relieved at the fresh air. Full of soldiers as it was and without much working plumbing, Oxford had become an odorous place. If the buildup here went on a little longer, the Lizards wouldn’t need visual reconnaissance to find their human foes: their noses would do the job for them.

Something stung Jens on the cheek. By reflex he brought up his hand, but felt only a tiny patch of moisture. Then he got stung again, this time on the wrist. He looked down, saw a fat white snowflake melting away to nothingness. More slipped and slid wildly through the air, jitterbug dancers made of ice.

For a moment, he just watched. The start of a snowfall always took him back to his Minnesota childhood, to snowmen and snow angels and snowballs knocking stocking caps off heads. Then the present rose up and smote nostalgia. This snow had nothing to do with childhood’s pleasures. This snow meant attack.

Yi Min felt bigger than life, felt, in fact, as if he were the personification of Ho Tei, fat little god of luck. Who would have imagined so much profit was to be made from the coming of the little scaly devils? At first, when they’d raped him away from his home village and then taken him up into the plane that didn’t land, the plane where he weighed nothing and his poor stomach even less, he’d thought them the worst catastrophe the world had ever known. Now, though… He smiled oleaginously. Now life was good.