Sure enough, a new truck came rolling up to Teerts’ killercraft. A couple of males got out, lowered the droplet-shaped tank onto a wheeled cart with a winch, and hooked it up under the belly of the killercraft. As he listened to their clattering, he was heartily glad the Race didn’t entrust that job to Big Ugly hirelings. The potential for disaster was much too high.
He let out a puzzled hiss. The Tosevites had scored a breakthrough on this front; he knew perfectly well that his bombardment hadn’t halted them single-handedly. Yet the base commander was sending him away to serve on another front. Did that mean the Race was overwhelmingly confident of stopping the Big Uglies here, or that the attack on-what was the name of the place? — Denver, the traffic-control male had called it, stood in desperate need of help? He couldn’t very well ask, but he’d find out.
He checked the computer. Sure enough, it had the course information for the flight to Kansas. A good thing, too, because he didn’t know where on this land mass the region was. The technicians finished installing the drop tank. They got back into their truck. It sped away.
“Flight Leader Teerts, you are cleared for takeoff,” the traffic control male said. “Report to the Kansas forward base.”
“It shall be done.” Teerts gave the engine power and taxied down the runway toward the end.
Whenever George Bagnall went into the gloom of theKrom at Pskov these days, he felt his own spirits sinking into darkness, too. He wished Aleksandr German had never mentioned the possibility of sending him, Ken Embry, and Jerome Jones back to England. Before, he’d resigned himself to going on here in this godforsaken corner of the Soviet Union. But with even the slightest chance of getting home again, he found both the place and the work he did here ever more unbearable.
Inside theKrom, German sentries came to attention stiff as rigor mortis. Their Russian opposite numbers, most of them in baggy civilian clothes rather than uniforms that had been laundered too many times, didn’t look as smart, but the submachine guns they carried would chew a man to pieces in short order.
Bagnall went up the stairs to Lieutenant General Kurt Chill’s headquarters. The stairwell was almost black; neither occasional slit windows nor tallow lamps right out of the fourteenth century did much to show him where to put his feet. Every time he got up to the first floor, he thanked his lucky stars he hadn’t broken his neck.
He found Embry up there ahead of him, shooting the breeze with Captain Hans Dolger, Chill’s adjutant As far as Bagnall could tell, Dolger didn’t much fancy Englishmen, but he made a point of being correct and polite. As arguments in Pskov had a way of being settled with bullets as often as with words, politeness was a rarity worth noting.
Dolger looked up when Bagnall came in.“Guten Tag,” he said. “For a moment, I thought you might be one of the partisan brigadiers, but I know that was foolish of me. As well expect the sun to set in the east as a Russian to show up when he is scheduled.”
“I think being late-or at least not worrying about being on time-is built into the Russian language,” Bagnall answered in German. He’d done German in school, but had learned what Russian he had since coming to Pskov. He found it fascinating and frustrating in almost equal measure. “It has a verb form for doing something continuously and a verb form for doing something once, but pinning down the momentright now is anything but easy.”
“This is true,” Dolger said. “It makes matters more difficult. Even if Russian had the full complement of tenses of a civilized language, however, I am of the opinion that our comrades the partisan brigadiers would be late anyhow, simply because that is in their nature.” A lot of Germans in Pskov, from what Bagnall had seen, had stopped automatically thinking of Russians asUntermenschen. Captain Dolger was not among their number.
Aleksandr German arrived twenty minutes late, Nikolai Vasiliev twenty minutes after him. Neither man showed concern, or even awareness of a problem. With the brigadiers in front of him, Captain Dolger was a model of military punctilio, no matter what he said about them behind their backs. Bagnall gave him points for that; he embodied some of the same traits as were found in a good butler.
Kurt Chill grunted when the Russians and the Englishmen who were supposed to lubricate Soviet-German relations entered his chamber. By the scraps of paper that littered his desk, he’d had plenty to keep him busy while he waited.
The meeting was the usual wrangle. Vasiliev and Aleksandr German wanted Chill to commit moreWehrmacht men to front-line fighting; Chill wanted to hold them in reserve to meet breakthroughs because they were more mobile and more heavily armed than their Soviet counterparts. It was almost like a chess opening; for some time, each side knew the moves the other was likely to make, and knew how to counter them.
This time, grudgingly, urged along by Bagnall and Embry, Kurt Chill made concessions. “Good, good,” Nikolai Vasiliev rumbled down deep in his chest, sounding like a bear waking up after a long winter’s nap. “You Englishmen, you have some use.”
“I am glad you think so,” Bagnall said, though he wasn’t particularly glad. If Vasiliev thought them useful here, Aleksandr German probably did, too. And if Aleksandr German thought them useful here, would he help them get back to England, as he’d hinted he might?
Lieutenant General Chill looked disgusted with the world. “I still maintain that expending your strategic reserve will sooner or later leave you without necessary resources for a crisis, but we shall hope this particular use does not create that difficulty.” His glance flicked to Bagnall and Embry. “You are dismissed, gentlemen.”
He’d added that last word, no doubt, to irk the partisan brigadiers, to whomgentlemen should have beencomrades. Bagnall refused to concern himself with fine points of language. He got up from his seat and quickly headed for the door. Any chance to get out of the gloom of theKrom was worth taking. Ken Embry followed him without hesitation.
Outside, the bright sunshine made Bagnall blink. During the winter, the sun seemed to have gone away for good. Now it stayed in the sky more and more, until, when summer came, it would hardly seem to leave. The Pskova River had running water in it again. The ice was all melted. The land burgeoned-for a little while.
In the marketplace not far from theKrom, thebabushkas sat and gossiped among themselves and displayed for sale or trade eggs and pork and matches and paper and all sorts of things that should by rights long since have vanished from Pskov. Bagnall wondered how they came by them. He’d even asked, a couple of times, but the women’s faces grew closed and impassive and they pretended not to understand him.None of your business, they said without saying a word.
Over on the edge of the city, a few scattered gunshots broke out. All through the marketplace, heads came up in alarm. “Oh, bloody hell,” Bagnall exclaimed. “Are the Nazis and Bolshies hammering at each other again?” That had happened too often already in Pskov.
Gunshots came closer to the marketplace. So did a low roar that put Bagnall in mind of one of the Lizards’ jet fighters, but seemed only a few feet off the ground. A long, lean, white-painted shape darted through the market square, dodged around the church of the Archangel Michael and the cathedral of the Trinity, and slammed into theKrom. The explosion knocked Bagnall off his feet, but not before he saw another white dart follow the course of its predecessor and hit theKrom. The second blast knocked Embry down beside him.