Harry Turtledove - Aftershocks

“Yes, even those freedom fighters,” Molotov answered calmly. He could not prove the Lizard wasn’t talking about Kuomintang reactionaries, who also carried on guerrilla warfare against the Race. And, even if Queek was talking about the patriots of the People’s Liberation Army, nothing would have made Molotov admit it.

He doubted Queek was, in any case. The People’s Liberation Army, he judged, would have been unlikely to threaten mere torment to whatever hostages it had taken. It would have gone straight to the most severe punishment-unless, of course, someone found some good tactical reason for the lesser threat.

“One individual’s bandit, I see, is another individual’s freedom fighter,” Queek remarked. Molotov tried to remember whether the Lizard had been so cynical when he first became the Race’s ambassador to the USSR not long after the fighting stopped. The Soviet leader didn’t think so. He wondered what could have changed Queek’s outlook on life.

Not to be outdone, Molotov replied, “Indeed. That, no doubt, is why even the Race can reckon itself progressive.”

The chair in which Queek sat had an opening through which his short, stumpy tail protruded. That tail quivered now. Molotov watched it with an internal smile-the only kind he customarily allowed himself. He’d succeeded in angering the Lizard.

Queek said, “No matter what sort of denials you give me, I am going to reiterate a warning I have given you before: if the Chinese rebels and bandits who profess your ideology should detonate an explosive-metal bomb, the Race will hold the Soviet Union responsible, and will punish your not-empire most severely. Do you understand this warning?”

“Yes, I understand it,” Molotov said, suddenly fighting to keep from showing fear rather than glee. “I have always understood it. I have also always reckoned it unjust. These days, I reckon it more unjust than ever. A disaffected German submarine officer might give his missile warheads to Chinese factionalists of any political stripe in preference to surrendering them to you. And the Japanese might furnish the Chinese such weapons to harm the Race and harm the peace-loving Soviet Union at the same time.” He found the first of those far-fetched; the second struck him as only too possible. He would have done it, were he ruling in Japan.

But Queek said, “Did you not just tell me your relations with the Nipponese were correct? If they are not your enemies, why would they do such a thing to you?”

Was that naivete, or was it a nasty desire to make Molotov squirm? Molotov suspected the latter. He replied, “Until recently, the leaders of Japan have not been in a position to embarrass the Soviet Union in this way. Do you not think it would be to their advantage to use an explosive-metal bomb against the Race and to do so in such a way as to go unpunished for it?”

To his relief, Queek had no fast, snappy comeback. After a pause, the Lizard said, “Here, for once, you have given me a justification for caution that may not be altogether self-serving. I think you may be confident that the Nipponese will receive a similar warning from our representatives to their empire. As you probably know, we do not maintain an embassy in Nippon at present, though recent developments may force us to open one there.”

Good, Molotov thought. I did distract him, then. Now to try to make him feel guilty: “Any assistance the Race could provide us in reducing the effects on our territory from your war with the Germans would be appreciated.”

“If you seek such assistance, ask the Reich, ” Queek said curtly. “Its leaders were the cause of the war.”

Molotov didn’t push it. He’d got the Lizard ambassador to respond to him instead of his having to react to what Queek said. Given the Race’s strength, that was something of a diplomatic triumph.

A squad of little scaly devils strode through the captives’ camp in central China. They stopped in front of the miserable little hut Liu Han shared with her daughter, Liu Mei. One of them spoke in bad Chinese: “You are the female Liu Han and the hatchling of the female Liu Han?”

Liu Han and Liu Mei were both sitting on the kang, the low clay hearth that gave the hut what little heat it had. “Yes, we are those females,” Liu Han admitted.

A moment later, she wondered if she should have denied it, for the little devil gestured with his rifle and said, “You come with me. You two of you, you come with me.”

“What have we done now?” Liu Mei asked. Her face stayed calm, though her eyes were anxious. As a baby, she’d been raised by the scaly devils, and she’d never learned to smile or to show much in the way of any expression.

“You two of you, you come with me,” was all the little scaly devil would say, and Liu Han and Liu Mei had no choice but to do as they were told.

They didn’t go to the administrative buildings in the camp, which surprised Liu Han: it wasn’t some new interrogation, then. She got another surprise when the scaly devils led her and Liu Mei out through the several razor-wire gateways that walled off the camp from the rest of the world.

Outside the last one stood an armored fighting vehicle. Another little devil, this one with fancier body paint, waited by it. He confirmed their names, then said, “You get in.”

“Where are you taking us?” Liu Han demanded.

“You never mind that, you two of you,” the scaly devil answered. “You get in.”

“No,” Liu Han said, and her daughter nodded behind her.

“You get in right now,” the scaly devil said.

“No,” Liu Han repeated, even though he swung the muzzle of his rifle in her direction. “Not till we know where we’re going.”

“What is wrong with this stupid Big Ugly?” one of the other scaly devils asked in their own hissing language. “Why does she refuse to go in?”

“She wants to know where they will be taken,” answered the little devil who spoke Chinese. “I cannot tell her that, because of security.”

“Tell her she is an idiot,” the other little scaly devil said. “Does she want to stay in this camp? If she does, she must be an idiot indeed.”

Maybe that conversation was set up for her benefit; the little devils knew she spoke their language. But they were not usually so devious. Liu Han had feared they were taking Liu Mei and her out to execute them. If they weren’t, if they were going somewhere better than the camp, she would play along. And where, on all the face of the Earth, was there anywhere worse than the camp? Nowhere she knew.

“I have changed my mind,” she said. “We will get in.”

“Thank you two of you.” The little devil who spoke Chinese might not be fluent, but he knew how to be sarcastic. He was even more sarcastic in his own language: “She must think she is the Emperor.”

“Who cares what a Big Ugly thinks?” the other scaly devil replied. “Get her and the other one in and get them out of here.”

He evidently outranked the scaly devil who spoke Chinese, for that male said, “It shall be done.” He opened the rear gate on the mechanized combat vehicle and returned to Chinese: “You two of you, get in there.”

Liu Han went in ahead of Liu Mei. If danger waited inside, she would find it before her daughter did. But she found no danger, only Nieh Ho-T’ing. The People’s Liberation Army officer nodded to her. “I might have known you would be coming along, too,” he remarked, as calmly as if they’d met on the streets of Peking. “Is your daughter with you?” Before Liu Han could answer that, Liu Mei climbed up into the troop-carrying compartment of the combat vehicle. Nieh smiled at her. She nodded back; she couldn’t smile herself. “I see you are here,” he said to her.