“Yes, Exalted Fleetlord.” Moishe added an emphatic cough.
“Good,” Atvar said. “I judge you more likely, then, to give me an honest opinion of his actions than you would those of, say, Churchilclass="underline" solidarity with your fellow Big Uglies will be less of an issue in Hitler’s case. Is this also correct?”
“Yes, Exalted Fleetlord,” Moishe repeated. Thinking of Hitler as his fellow human being did not fill him with delight. Whatever you had to say against them, the Lizards had shown themselves to be far better people than Adolf Hitler.
“Very well,” Atvar said through Zolraag. “Here is my question: how do you judge the conduct of Hitler and von Ribbentrop when the latter summoned me to announce the detonation of an atomic bomb and the resumption of warfare by Deutschland against the Race, when in fact no such detonation and no such warfare-barring a few more cease-fire violations than usual-in fact took place?”
Moishe stared. “This really happened, Exalted Fleetlord?”
“Truth,” Atvar said, a word Russie understood in the Lizards’ language.
He scratched his head as he thought. For all he knew, that might have made him uncouth in Atvar’s eyes. But then, he was a Big Ugly, so was he not uncouth in Atvar’s eyes by assumption? Slowly, he said, “I have trouble believing von Ribbentrop would make such a claim knowing it to be untrue and knowing you could easily learn it was untrue.”
“That is perceptive of you,” the fleetlord said. “When the spokesmale for Hitler did make the claim, I immediately investigated it and, finding it false, returned to inform him of the fact. The unanimous opinion of our psychologists is that my statement took him by surprise. Here: observe him for yourself.”
At Atvar’s gesture, Zolraag activated one of the little screens in the chamber. Sure enough, there stood von Ribbentrop, looking somewhere between arrogant and afraid. A Lizard the screen did not show spoke to him in hissing English. The German foreign minister’s eyes widened, his mouth dropped open, a hand groped for the edge of the table.
“Exalted Fleetlord, that is a surprised man,” Moishe declared.
“So we thought,” Atvar agreed. “This raises the following question: is the delivery of false information part of some devious scheme on Hitler’s part, or was the information intended to be true? In either case, of course, von Ribbentrop would have believed it accurate as he delivered it.”
“Yes.” Moishe scratched his head again, trying to figure out what possible benefit Hitler might have derived by deliberately deceiving his foreign minister into threatening the Lizards. For the life of him, he couldn’t come up with any. “I have to believe the Germans intended to attack you.”
“This is the conclusion we have also drawn, although we warned them they would suffer severely if they made any such attacks,” Atvar said. “It is unsettling, distinctly so: somewhere on our frontier with Hitler’s forces, or perhaps beyond that frontier, there is probably a nuclear weapon that for whatever reason has failed of ignition. We have searched for such a weapon, but have not discovered it After El Iskandariya, it is by no means certain we would discover it Now: will Hitler be willing to accept failure and resume talks, or will he seek to detonate the bomb after all?”
Being asked to peer inside Hitler’s brain was rather like being asked to debride gangrenous tissue: revolting but necessary. “If the Germans find any way to detonate the bomb, my guess is that they will,” Moishe said. “I have to say, though, that’s only a guess.”
“It accords with the predictions our researchers have made,” Atvar said. “Whether this makes it accurate, only time will show, but I believe you are giving me your best and most reasoned judgment here.”
“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.