Sholom Partisan outside Hrubieszow, Poland
SKORZENY, OTTO SS Standartenfuhrer, North of Lodz, Poland
Skriabin NKVD colonel, GULag outside Petrozavodsk, USSR
Smithson, Hayward U.S. Army major, Medical Corps, Karval, Colorado
STALIN, IOSEF General Secretary, Communist Party, USSR
Stefarnia Partisan outside Hrubieszow, Poland
STERN Jewish guerrilla leader, Jerusalem
Summers, Penny Refugee, Lamar, Colorado
Su Shun-Ch’in Muslim qadi, Peking
Suzie Whore, Elgin, Illinois
Sylvia Barmaid, White Horse Inn, Dover, England
Szymanski, Stan U.S. Army captain, Elgin, Illinois
Tadeusz Farmer outside of Lodz, Poland
TOGO, SHIGENORI Japanese foreign minister
VASILIEV, NIKOLAI Partisan brigadier, Pskov, USSR
Witold Blacksmith, Hrubieszow Poland
Wladeslaw Partisan near Hrubieszow, Poland
Yeager, Barbara Sam Yeager’s wife
Yeager, Jonathan Sam and Barbara Yeager’s son
Yeager, Sam U.S. Army sergeant, Hot Springs, Arkansas
YitzkhakJ ew in Lodz Poland
Zelkowitz, Leon Jewish fighter, Lodz, Poland
Aaatos Intelligence operative, Florida
Atvar Fleetlord, conquest fleet of the Race
Bunim Regional subadministrator, Lodz, Poland
Chook Small-unit group leader near Fall Creek, Illinois
Essaff Guard and interpreter, Peking
Fsseffel Headmale, Race Barracks One,gulagnear Petrozavodsk, USSR
Gazzim Prisoner and interpreter, Moscow
Kirel Shiplord,127th Emperor Hetto
Mzepps Prisoner, Dover, England
Nikeaa Infantry officer outside Pskov, USSR
Oyyag Prisoner,gulagnear Petrozavodsk, USSR
Ppevel Assistant administrator, eastern region, main continental mass, Peking
Pshing Atvar’s adjutant, Cairo
Ristin Prisoner, Hot Springs, Arkansas
Saltta Psychological researcher, Canton, China
Straha Tosevite propagandist, Hot Springs, Arkansas
Strukss Tosevite liaison officer, Cairo
Teerts Killercraft flight leader, Florida
Tessrek Researcher in tosevite behavior
Ttomalss Researcher in tosevite behavior, Peking
Uotat Atvar’s interpreter, Cairo
Ullhass Prisoner, Hot Springs, Arkansas
Ummfac Aircraft armorer, Florida
Ussmak Mutineer outside Tomsk, USSR
Zolraag Negotiator with Jewish guerrillas, Jerusalem
I
In free fall, Atvar the fleetlord glided over to the hologram projector. He poked the stud at the base of the machine. The image that sprang into being above the projector was one the Race’s probe had sent back from Tosev 3 eight hundred local years earlier.
A Big Ugly warrior sat mounted on a beast. He wore leather boots, rusty chainmail, and a dented iron helmet; a thin coat woven from plant fibers and dyed blue with plant juices shielded his armor from the heat of the star the Race called Tosev. To Atvar, to any male of the Race, Tosev 3 was on the chilly side, but not to the natives.
A long, iron-pointed spear stood up from a boss on the contraption the warrior used to stay atop his animal. He carried a shield painted with a cross. On his belt hung a long, straight sword and a couple of knives.
All you could see of the Tosevite himself were his face and one hand. They were plenty to show he was almost as fuzzy as the beast he rode. Thick, wiry yellow fur covered his jaws and the area around his mouth; he had another stripe above each of his flat, immobile eyes. A thinner layer of hair grew on the back of the visible hand.
Atvar touched his own smooth, scaly skin. Just looking at all that fur made him wonder why the Big Uglies didn’t itch all the time. Leaving one eye turret aimed at the Tosevite warrior, he swung the other in the direction of Kirel, shiplord of the127th Emperor Hetto. “This is the foe we thought we were opposing,” he said bitterly.
“Truth, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said. His body paint was almost as colorful and complex as Atvar’s. Since he commanded the bannership of the conquest fleet, only the fleetlord out-ranked him.
Atvar stabbed at the projector control with his left index claw. The Big Ugly warrior vanished. In his place appeared a perfect three-dimensional image of the nuclear explosion that had destroyed the Tosevite city of Rome: Atvar recognized the background terrain. But it could as easily have been the bomb that vaporized Chicago or Breslau or Miami or the spearhead of the Race’s assault force south of Moscow.
“As opposed to the foe we thought we faced, this is what we are actually dealing with,” Atvar said.
“Truth,” Kirel repeated, and, as mournful commentary, added an emphatic cough.
Atvar let out a long, hissing sigh. Stability and predictability were two of the pillars on which the Race and its Empire had flourished for a hundred thousand years and expanded to cover three solar systems. On Tosev 3, nothing seemed predictable, nothing seemed stable. No wonder the Race was having such troubles here. The Big Uglies did not play by any of the rules its savants thought they knew.
With another hiss, the fleetlord poked at the control stud once more. Now the threatening cloud from the nuclear blast vanished. In a way, the image that replaced it was even more menacing. It was a satellite photograph of a base the Race had established in the region of the SSSR known to the locals as Siberia, a place whose frigid climate even the Big Uglies found appalling.
“The mutineers still persist in their rebellion against duly constituted authority,” Atvar said heavily. “Worse, the commandants of the two nearest bases have urged against committing their males to suppress the rebels, for fear they would go over to them instead.”
“This is truly alarming,” Kirel said with another emphatic cough. “If we choose males from a distant air base to bomb the mutineers out of existence, then, will it truly solve the problem?”
“I don’t know,” Atvar said. “But what I really don’t know, by the Emperor”-he cast down his eyes for a moment at the mention of his sovereign-“is how the mutiny could have happened in the first place. Subordination and integration into the greater scheme of the Race as a whole are drilled into our males from hatchlinghood. How could they have overthrown them?”
Now Kirel sighed. “Fighting on this world corrodes males’ moral fiber as badly as its ocean water corrodes equipment. We are not fighting the war that was planned before we set out from Home, and that by itself is plenty to disorient a good many males.”