“There’s a notion, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said. “We should explore the weapons stocks in empires under our control. That may enable us to retaliate in kind against the Tosevites.”
“See to that,” Atvar said. “We will still be at a disadvantage against them, as their protection technology is ahead of ours”-he opened and closed his hands in embarrassment at the admission-“but having the tool in our kit will prove useful, as you say. Start the investigation today.”
“It shall be done,” Kirel said.
Atvar went on, “Whether or not we come upon stores of these gases, though, the point is that we were unaware the Tosevites even had them until we made the British desperate enough to use them against us.”
“With all too much success,” Kirel said.
“With all too much success,” Atvar agreed. “The Big Uglies care nothing for the long term. If something will help them for a moment, they seize on it. In the long run; their species may well have wrecked itself had we not come along at this particular time.” He hissed a sigh. “But come we did, and now we must make the best of it.”
“The Soviets’ use of the nuclear device was a similar phenomenon, I believe,” Kirel said. “When we press the Tosevites-or some of them, at any rate-they are liable to do astonishing things.”
“Astonishing, yes,” Atvar replied dryly. “To say nothing of appalling. And several of their other empires and not-empires are sure to be working on nuclear weapons for themselves. And if we press hard enough to make them desperate-” He paused.
“But if we don’t, Exalted Fleetlord, how are we to win the war?” Kirel said.
“Planners back on Home never have to worry about dilemmas like that,” Atvar said. “By the Emperor, bow I envy them!”
10
Ludmila Gorbunova was used to flying over the endless plains of the Ukraine and central Russia. She’d seen little of the great forests of pine and fir and beech and birch that blanketed the more northerly reaches of her country.
Around Pskov, trees dominated, not steppe. The great dark green expanse to the east had been called the forest republic when Soviet partisans used it as their base and stronghold against the Nazis who held the city. Now Russians and Germans both used the woods in their struggle against the Lizards.
The Lizards used them, too. Ludmila was still discovering one major difference between forest and steppe: out on the steppe, despite vigorous Sovietmaskirovka, concealing soldiers and weapons and machines was hard work. Here in the woods, it was second nature.
An aircraft that flew low and slow like her little U-2 biplane was the only sort of machine with much of a chance to look down and see what the enemy was doing. As she buzzed along, she wished theKukuruznik could also fly low and fast. A Lizard helicopter could run her down and shoot her out of the air with no trouble at all, if it chanced to notice her.
She skimmed over a path in the forest. On the path she spied a pair of lorries, pushing north. They were of human manufacture-one a German model, the other an American one probably captured from the Soviets-but where they were and the direction in which they were going declared them to be under Lizard control. And where she’d seen two, there were likely to be two dozen more she hadn’t seen, plus armored personnel carriers and tanks.
Ludmila had heard stories of Red Air Force pilots who’d flown below treetop height right down paths like that, shooting up everything in their sights. People who did things like that got the Hero of the Soviet Union award pinned on their tunics, sometimes by the Great Stalin himself. It was tempting, but…
“I’d only get myself killed,” Ludmila said, as if someone were in theKukuruznik arguing with her. It wasn’t that she was afraid the Lizards would shoot her down; she’d signed up with the risk of getting shot down when she joined the Red Air Force. But she didn’t think the lane was wide enough to let her get the U-2 down it. Tearing the wings off your aircraft by running into a tree was not what they taught you in flight school.
That left her with one choice. She spun the little-but not little enough-biplane through a tight turn and headed back toward Pskov. The Germans had artillery that could pound this position and the area north of it. It wouldn’t be a guaranteed kill, not by any means, but it would make the Lizards unhappy.
Again she wished she could wring a better turn of speed from the Wheatcutter. The sooner she got back to Pskov, the shorter the distance the supply convoy would have traveled and the better the chance for a hit.
The tall stone pile of theKrom and the onion domes of the churches marked the town. The old citadel wasn’t badly damaged, but some of the domes had bites taken out of them and others leaned drunkenly away from the perpendicular. Some churches, along with a great many secular buildings, were in ruins.
Ludmila was a loyal child of the October Revolution, and had no great use for churches. Had the Soviet government knocked them down, she wouldn’t have missed them a bit. But to have them destroyed by invading aliens was something else again. Even the Nazis, albeit for reasons of their own, had usually refrained from wrecking churches.
Instead of using the airstrip to the east of Pskov, as she usually did, Ludmila brought theKukuruznik down in the park in the middle of town, the way she had when she first came to the city. Again, she managed to keep from running over people or livestock. Men came running to get the U-2 under the shelter of friendly trees.
She scrambled out of the aircraft and hurried toward theKrom, whereGeneralleutnant Kurt Chill had his headquarters. Having a Nazi in overall command of the defenses of a Soviet city galled her, but she couldn’t do anything about it, not now. And if Chill didn’t fight hard against the Lizards, it was assuredly his backside, too.
People shouted to her, asking what she’d seen that made her want to land in the middle of Pskov. “I can’t tell you that,” she answered. Some of the Pskovites seemed never to have heard of security. Well, if they hadn’t, she certainly had.
She hurried over to theKrom. No sentries, Soviet or German, stood outside. Nobody wanted to give the Lizards a clue that anything important went on in there. Inside the entrance, a couple of tall Nazi soldiers leered at her. The Germans often found the idea of women in the fighting forces funny.“Was willst du, Liebchen?” one of them asked. His companion, a very rough-looking customer indeed, broke out in giggles.
“Ich will Generalleutnant Chill sofort zu sehen,”Ludmila answered in the iciest German she could muster: “I want to see Lieutenant General Chill immediately.”
“Give me a kiss first,” the guard said, which made his comrade all but wet himself with mirth.
Ludmila drew her Tokarev automatic, pointing it not at the fellow’s head or chest but at his crotch. “Stop wasting my time,dummkopf,” she said sweetly. “If the Lizards get away on account of you, it won’t be my neck that goes into the noose.”
“Bitch,” muttered one of the Germans. “Dyke,” the other said under his breath. But both of them moved aside. Ludmila didn’t put the pistol back in its holster till she got round the corner.
Another German, a captain, sat at a desk in the antechamber outside Lieutenant General Chill’s office. He treated Ludmila like a soldier, but was no more helpful on account of that. “I am sorry, Senior Lieutenant, but he is away at the front,” the German said. “I do not expect him back for several days.”