“And I,” said the scaly devil who had spoken second. A couple of others sputtered agreement.
Liu Han watched the performing mice a minute or two more. Then she tossed the man who exhibited them a few coppers and walked down theTa Cha La, thinking hard. More little devils congregated in a vacant lot from which the wreckage of a shop had been cleared away. A trained bear was going through its run of tricks there. The scaly devils exclaimed as it wielded a heavy wooden sword with a long handle. Liu Han walked by, hardly noticing.
Nieh Ho-T’ing was always looking for ways to get close to the little scaly devils, the better to make their lives miserable. If trained animals fascinated them so, a troupe of men with such performers might well gain access even to important males, or groups of important males. Anyone who showed Nieh a new way to do that would gain credit for it.
Liu Han scratched her head. She was sure she had a good idea, but how could she use it to best advantage? She was no longer the naive peasant woman she’d been when the little devils carried her away from her village. Too much had happened to her since. If she could, she would take her fate back into her own hands.
“Not to be a puppet,” she said. A man with a thin wisp of white beard turned and gave her a curious look. She didn’t care. Nieh Ho T’ing hadn’t treated her badly; he’d probably treated her better than anyone except Bobby Fiore. But one of the reasons he did treat her so was that he found her a tool to fit his hand. If she was lucky, if she was careful, maybe she could make him treat her as someone to be reckoned with.
After the lamplit gloom of theKrom, George Bagnall had to blink and wait for his eyes to adjust to daylight. Even after the adjustment, he looked about curiously. Something about the quality of the light, the color of the sky, had changed, ever so slightly. The day was bright and warm, and yet-
When Bagnall remarked on that, Jerome Jones nodded and said, “I noticed it, too, the other day. Somebody Up There”-the capitals were quite audible-“is telling us summer shan’t last forever.” He looked wistful. “Now that it’s beginning to go, it seems hardly to have been here at all.”
“Weren’t you the blighter who swore to us Pskov had a mild climate by Russian standards?” Ken Embry demanded with mock fierceness. “This, as I recall, while we were flying above endless snow and a frozen lake.”
“By Russian standards, Pskovdoes have a mild climate,” Jones protested. “Set alongside Moscow, it’s very pleasant. Set along Arkhangelsk, it’s like Havana or New Delhi.”
“Set alongside Arkhangelsk, by all accounts, the bloody South Pole looks like a holiday resort,” Embry said. “I knew Russian standards in matters of weather were elastic before we got here; I simply hadn’t realized how much stretch the elastic had to it: rather like a fat man’s underclothes, I’d say.”
“That may end up working to our advantage,” Bagnall said. “The Lizards like Russian winter even less than we do. We should be able to push them farther south of the city.”
“A consummation devoutly to be wished.” Ken Embry leered at him. “In aid of which, when will they be posting the banns for you and that little Russian flier?”
“Oh, give over such nonsense.” Bagnall kicked a clod of dirt down the street. “Nothing is going on between us.”
The other two Englishmen snorted, either disbelieving or affecting disbelief. Then Jerome Jones sighed. “I wish I thought you were lying. That might make Tatiana stop throwing her fair white body in your direction. We’ve had rows about it, once or twice.” He kicked moodily at the dirt.
“And?” Embry asked. “Leaving us in suspense that way is bad form.”
“And nothing,” Jones answered. “Tatiana does what she bloody well pleases. If one were mad enough to try stopping her, she’d blow off his head.”
Neither of the other Englishmen thought that was in any way figurative language. Bagnall said, “Whoever came up with ‘The female of the species is more deadly than the male’ must have had your fair Russian sniper in mind.”
“Too true.” Jones sighed again. He glanced sidelong at Bagnall. “That’s why she’s keen on you, you know: she thinks you’re better at killing than I am-I’m just a radarman, after all. The idea makes her motor go.”
Bagnall sent him a sympathetic look “Old chap, I don’t mean to give offense, but have you never wondered if you’d be better off without her company?”
“Oh, many a time,” Jones said feelingly.
“Well, then?” Bagnall asked when the radarman failed to draw the obvious conclusion.
Now Jones looked shamefaced. “For one thing, if I give her the boot, she’s liable to give me something out of the barrel of that sniper’s rifle of hers.” He touched a forefinger to a spot just above the bridge of his nose, as if to say the bullet would go in there.
“Something to that, I expect,” Ken Embry said. “But a ‘for one thing’ generally implies a ‘for another,’ what? Rather like amen implying ade, if you’ve read your Greek like a good fellow.”
“Nai, malista,”Jones said, which made all three Englishmen laugh. Bagnall had trouble imagining anything further removed from the classical world than Pskov during wartime. They walked on for another few steps. Slowly, reluctantly, Jerome Jones continued, “Yes, there’s a ‘for another.’ The other reason I don’t send her packing is that-that-I seem to have fallen in love with her.” He waited for his companions to mock him.
Now it was Bagnall’s turn to sigh. He set a sympathetic hand on Jones’ shoulder. The radarman quivered under his touch like a restive horse. Bagnall said, “Steady, there. If we’re being classical, let’s be downright Socratic and define our terms, shall we? Are you truly in love with her, or is it just that she pleases you in the kip?”
Jerome Jones turned a vermilion not commonly seen this side of a sunset.How young he is, Bagnall thought from his superior altitude of three or four years. “How does one tell the difference?” the radarman asked plaintively.
“Always a good question,” Embry said with a cynical chuckle.
“Let’s try answering it, then,” Bagnall said, for Jones looked not only very young but very lost: he’d meant the question with every fiber of his being. Bagnall went on, “Socratics we are, having another go at theSymposium.”
That pleased Jones. Embry chuckled again and said, “Fair young Alcibiades is right out.”
“Fair young Tatiana is quite enough trouble all on her own,” Jones said. “She and Alcibiades, they’d deserve each other.”
“Here’s one fast clue to your feelings, for starters,” Bagnall said: “If you only want to have anything to do with your possibly beloved when the two of you are naked between the sheets, that should tell you something about your state of mind.”
“So it should.” The radarman looked thoughtful. “Not as simple as that, I’m afraid; I wish to heaven it were. But I like being around her, whether we’re”-he coughed-“or not. It’s rather like setting up a tent next to a tiger’s lair: you never know what will happen next, but it’s apt to be something exciting.”
“And you’re liable to end up as thehors d’oeuvres,” Embry put in.
Bagnall waved the pilot to silence. “How do you think she feels about you, Jones?” he asked.
Jerome Jones’ face furrowed with thought. “I am of the opinion her fidelity leaves something to be desired,” he said, to which Bagnall could but nod. Jones went on, “She set her cap for me, not the other way round. This bloody country-I’d be afraid to chat up a girl, because next thing you know, you’d be talking to the NKVD instead.” He shivered. “Some of my university chums, they weren’t just pink, they were red. If any of them had actually seen Russia, that wouldn’t have lasted long, and there’s the God’s truth.”