“You, Sam Yeager, I think you could succeed at this,” Straha said, which made Sam feel damn good. He thought he could have gained even more fluency in the Lizards’ language if he hadn’t also had to spend time with Robert Goddard. On the other hand, he would have learned more about rockets if he hadn’t had to spend time with Straha and the other Lizard POWs.
And he would have learned more about his baby son if he hadn’t been in the Army. That would have kept Barbara happier, too; he worried about not seeing her enough. There weren’t enough hours in a day, in a year, in a lifetime, to do all the things he wanted to do. That was true all the time, but trying to keep up during a war rubbed your nose in it.
Straha touched the frequency-advance toggle. The Lizard numbers in the display showed that the radio was now monitoring a frequency a tenth of a megacycle higher (or rather, something that worked out to be about an eighth of a megacycle-the Lizards naturally used their own units rather than those of mankind). A male’s voice came out of the speaker.
Yeager leaned forward and listened intently. The Lizard was apparently in a rear area, and complaining about rockets falling nearby and disrupting resupply efforts for the troops pushing toward Denver. “That’s good news,” Sam said, scribbling notes.
“Truth,” Straha agreed. “Your ventures into uncharted technology are paying a handsome profit for your species. If the Race were so innovative, Tosev 3 would long since have been conquered-provided the Race had not blown itself to radioactive dust in innovative frenzy.”
“You think that’s what we would have done if you hadn’t invaded?” Sam asked.
“It is certainly one of the higher probabilities,” Straha said, and Yeager was hard-pressed to disagree with him. The ex-shiplord flipped to a new frequency. The Lizard talking now sounded angry as all get-out. “He is ordering the dismissal, demotion, and transfer of a local commander in a region called Illinois,” Straha said. Yeager nodded. The Lizard went on, “Where is this Illinois place?”
Sam showed him on a map. He was listening, too. “Something about letting a pack of prisoners escape or get rescued or something. The fellow who’s cursing him is really doing quite a job, isn’t he?”
“If said snout-to-snout, telling a male that someone shit in his egg before it hatched is guaranteed to start a fight,” Straha said.
“I believe it.” Sam listened to the radio some more. “They’re moving that incompetent officer to-upstate New York.” He wrote it down. “That’s worth knowing. With luck, we’ll be able to take advantage of his weaknesses over there, too.”
“Truth,” Straha said again, this time in bemused tones. “You Big Uglies aggressively exploit the intelligence you gather, and you gather great quantities of it. Do you do this in your own conflicts as well?”
“Don’t know,” Yeager answered. “I’ve never been in a war before, and I’m only a little fellow in this one.” He thought back to his ballplaying days, and to all the signs he and his teammates had stolen. Mutt Daniels was a genius at that kind of thing. He wondered how-and if-Mutt was doing these days.
Straha shifted to yet another frequency. An excited-sounding Lizard was relaying a long, involved message. “Ah, that is most interesting,” Straha said when he was done.
“I didn’t follow all of it,” Sam confessed, embarrassed at having to say that after Straha had praised his grasp of the Lizards’ tongue. “Something about ginger and calculator fraud, whatever that is.”
“Not calculator fraud-computer fraud,” Straha said. “I do not blame you for not understanding completely. You Big Uglies, while technically far more advanced than you have any business being, as yet have no real grasp of the potential of computing machines.”
“Maybe not,” Yeager said. “Sounds like we don’t have any grasp of how to commit crimes with them, either.”
Straha’s mouth dropped open in amusement. “Committing the crime is easy. Males in the payroll section diverted payments to ginger purveyors into accounts of which only they and the purveyors-and, of course, the computers-were aware. Since no one else knew these accounts existed, no one not party to the secret could access them. The computers would not announce their presence; it was, in essence, a perfect scheme.”
“We have a saying that there’s no such thing as a perfect crime,” Yeager remarked. “What went wrong with this one?”
Straha laughed again. “Nothing is accident-proof. A male in the accounting section who was not part of the miscreants’ scheme was investigating a legitimate account. But he made a mistake in entering the number of that account and found himself looking at one of the concealed ones. He recognized it at once for what it was and notflied his superiors, who began a larger investigation. Many males will find themselves in difficulties because of it.”
“Hope you won’t be angry if I tell you that doesn’t make me too unhappy,” Sam said. “Who would have thought the Race would turn out to have drug fiends? Makes you seem almost human-no offense.”
“I shall endeavor to take none,” Straha replied with dignity.
Yeager kept his face straight; Straha was getting pretty good at interpreting human expressions, and he didn’t want the Lizard to see how funny he thought that was. He said, “I wonder if we have any way to use the news, maybe make some of your people think males who aren’t ginger tasters really are. Something like that, anyhow.”
“You have an evilly twisted mind, Sam Yeager,” Straha said.
“Thank you,” Sam answered, which made Straha first jerk both eye turrets toward him and then start to laugh as he understood it was a joke. Yeager went on, “You might talk with some of our propaganda people, maybe ask if they want you to broadcast about it. Who knows what kind of trouble you might stir up?”
“Who indeed?” Straha said. “I shall do that.” It wasn’t quiteIt shall be done, the Lizards’ equivalent forYes, sir, but it was more deference than Sam had ever got from Straha before. Little by little, he was earning respect.
When his shift was done, he started to go upstairs to see Barbara and Jonathan, but ran into Ristin and Ullhass in the hospital lobby. Those two Lizard POWs were old buddies; he’d captured them back in the summer of 1942, when the Lizard invasion was new and looked irresistible. By now, they seemed well on the way to becoming Americans, and wore their official U.S. prisoner-of-war red-white-and-blue body paint with considerable pride. They’d also picked up pretty good English over the last couple of years.
“Hey, Sam,” Ristin said in that language. “Baseball this afternoon?”
“Yes,” Ullhass echoed. “Baseball!” He added an emphatic cough.
“Maybe later-not now,” Sam said, to which both Lizards responded with steam-whistle noises of disappointment. With their fast, skittery movements, they made surprisingly good middle infielders, and had taken to the game well. Their small size and forward-sloping posture gave them a strike zone about the size of a postage stamp, too, so they were good leadoff men-well, leadoff males-even if they seldom hit the ball hard.
“Good weather for a game,” Ristin said, doing his best to tempt Sam. A lot of soldiers played ball when they were off duty, but Ristin and Ullhass were the only Lizards who joined in. With Yeager’s endless years of bush-league experience, everybody was glad to see him out there, and people had put up with his Lizard pals for his sake. Now Ullhass and Ristin were starting to get noticed for the way they played, not for their scaly hides.
“Maybe later,” Sam repeated. “Now I want to see my wife and son. If you don’t mind too much.” The Lizards sighed in resignation. They knew families mattered to Tosevites, but it didn’t feel real to them, any more than Yeager understood in his gut how much their precious Emperor meant to them. He headed for the stairs. Ristin and Ullhass started practicing phantom double plays. Ristin, who mostly played second, had a hell of a fast pivot.