Colonization_ Aftershocks Part 6

Burnt-out trucks made the asphalt impa.s.sable. These particular vehicles were of human manufacture, but he had to look closely to see which side had used them. The Lizards had pressed plenty of human-made models into service in Poland, and most of them had been imported from Germany.

He got off the bicycle and walked it around the jam. He'd been doing that every kilometer or two on the journey down to Widawa. He'd got his family out of Lodz before the fighting started, and sent them southwest to this little town. That had kept them safe-or safer, anyhow-when the Germans. .h.i.t the city with an explosive-metal bomb. But the Wehrmacht Wehrmacht had overrun Widawa-and Bertha and Miriam and David and Heinrich were every bit as Jewish as he was, of course. had overrun Widawa-and Bertha and Miriam and David and Heinrich were every bit as Jewish as he was, of course.

Even after he pa.s.sed the wrecks, he couldn't get back on the road right away. Someone's airplanes had cratered it with bomblets. Anielewicz's legs ached as he brought the bicycle forward. They'd been doing that since the last round of fighting, when he'd breathed German nerve gas. Without the antidote, he would have died then. As things were, he'd got off lucky. Of the others who'd breathed the gas, Heinrich Jager, after whom his younger son was named, had died at an early age. Ludmila Gorbunova had suffered far more from the lingering effects of the stuff than he had. Ludmila had been in Lodz. Odds were all too good-or all too bad-she wasn't suffering at all any more.

Over the years, Mordechai had come to take his aches and pains for granted. He couldn't do that now. The n.a.z.is had used poison gas again in this new round of fighting. How much of it had he breathed? How much harm was it doing? Just how much residual damage did he have? Those were all fascinating questions, and he lacked answers to any of them.

And, in a most important sense, none of them mattered much, not when measured against the one question, the overriding question. What happened to my family? What happened to my family? No, there wasn't one question only. Another lay underneath it, one he would sooner not have contemplated. No, there wasn't one question only. Another lay underneath it, one he would sooner not have contemplated. Have I still got a family? Have I still got a family?

After half a kilometer, the road stopped being too battered for a bicycle. He got back up on the bike and rode hard. The harder he worked, the worse his legs felt-till, after a while, they stopped hurting so much. He let out a sigh of relief. That had happened before. If he put in enough exercise, he could work right through the cramps. Sometimes.

No road signs warned him he was coming into Widawa. For one thing, Polish roads had never been well marked. For another, Widawa wasn't a town important enough to require much in the way of marking. And, for a third, the war had been here before him. If there had been signs, they weren't upright any more. A lot of trees in the forest just north of Widawa weren't upright any more.

When the road curved around the forest and gave him his first glimpse of the town, he saw that a lot of the houses in it weren't upright any more, either. His mouth tightened. He'd seen a lot of ruins in the first round of fighting and now in this one. Another set wouldn't have been so much out of the ordinary-except that these might hold the bodies of his wife and children.

A burnt-out German panzer and an equally burnt-out Lizard landcruiser sprawled in death a few meters apart, just outside of town. Had they killed each other, or had some different fate befallen them? Mordechai knew he would never know. He pedaled past them into Widawa.

People on the street hardly bothered to look up at him. What was one more middle-aged bicycle rider with a rifle slung on his back? They'd surely seen a surfeit of those already. He put a foot down and used a boot heel for a brake. Nodding to an old woman with a head scarf who wore a long black dress, he asked, "Granny, who knows about the refugees who came in from Lodz?"

She eyed him. He spoke Polish notable only for a Warsaw accent. He looked like a Pole, being fair-skinned and light-eyed. But the old woman said, "Well, Jew, you'd best ask Father Wladyslaw about that. I don't know anything. I don't want to know anything." She went on her way as if he didn't exist.

Anielewicz sighed. Some people had a radar better than anything electronic in the Lizards' a.r.s.enal. He'd seen that before. "Thanks," he called after her, but she might as well not have heard.

A couple of sh.e.l.ls had hit the church. Workmen were busy repairing it. Mordechai shrugged at that, but didn't sigh. Jews would have fixed up a synagogue before they worried about their houses, too. "Is the priest in?" Mordechai asked a carpenter hammering nails into a board.

The man nodded and shifted his cigarette to the corner of his mouth so he could talk more readily. "Yeah, he's there. What do you want to talk to him about?"

"I'm looking for my wife and children," Anielewicz answered. "They came here out of Lodz not long before the Germans invaded."

"Ah." The cigarette twitched. "You a Jew?"

At least he asked, instead of showing he could tell. "Yes," Mordechai said. The other fellow had a hammer. He had a rifle. "Don't you like that?"

"Don't care one way or the other," the carpenter answered. "But you're right-you'd better talk to the father." He gestured with the hammer toward the doorway. As Mordechai walked over to it, the Pole started driving nails again.

Inside the church, Father Wladyslaw was pounding away with a hammer, too, repairing the front row of pews. He was a young man, and startlingly handsome in a tall, blond way. If his politics had fit, the n.a.z.is would have scooped him into the SS without a second thought. With all the noise, he didn't notice Mordechai for a bit. When he did, his smile was friendly enough. "Oh, h.e.l.lo," he said, getting to his feet and brushing sawdust off his ca.s.sock. "What can I do for you today?"

"I'm looking for my wife and children," Mordechai said again, and gave his name.

Father Wladyslaw's eyebrows flew upward. "The famous fighting leader!" he exclaimed. "Your kin would have been some who came out of Lodz."

"That's right," Mordechai said. "People in town tell me you'd know about them if anybody does. Are they alive?" There. The question was out.

But he got no sure answer for it, for the priest replied, "I'm sorry, but I don't don't know. The Germans overran us twice, and kidnapped people each time they retreated. Some were Jews. Some were Poles who'd lived here for generations uncounted. I'm not even sure why, but who can tell with Germans?" know. The Germans overran us twice, and kidnapped people each time they retreated. Some were Jews. Some were Poles who'd lived here for generations uncounted. I'm not even sure why, but who can tell with Germans?"

"They've run out of Jews in Germany," Anielewicz said bitterly. "They need some fresh people to keep the gas chambers and the ovens busy."

"You may well be right," Father Wladyslaw said. "I wish I could give you more definite news of your loved ones, but I fear I can't. You'll have to go inquire among the refugees who are still here. I pray your family is among them."

"Thank you, Father," Mordechai said; the priest seemed a decent fellow. Then he added several choice comments about the n.a.z.is. He was ashamed of himself as soon as they were out of his mouth, which was, of course, much too late. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Father Wladyslaw told him. "If you think I haven't called them worse than that, you're wrong."

"They're supposed to have published a list of the people they took. They're supposed to have already released those people," Anielewicz said. "And they have published it, and they have turned a few people loose. But n.o.body believes that list is everybody, or even close to everybody."

"Your family is not on it?" the priest asked.

"If they were, I wouldn't be here," Mordechai answered. "Thanks for your help, Father. I won't take up any more of your time. The refugee tents are on the south edge of town?"

"That's right," Father Wladyslaw said. "I wish you luck there, either in finding them or in learning of them." Nodding, Anielewicz walked out of the church. The priest started hammering again even before he'd left.

The tents and huts in which the refugees were staying looked even shabbier than the town of Widawa. The fighting had smashed them up, too, and they'd been less prepossessing to begin with. A sharp stink a.s.sailed Mordechai's nose. He wouldn't have let his fighting men pay sanitation so little heed.

Poles and Jews spilled out into the s.p.a.ces between tents to see who the newcomer was. Anielewicz got the notion the people of Widawa would just as soon they all disappeared. But with Lodz radioactive rubble, a lot of them had nowhere to go. He stared this way and that. He didn't see his family. He did spot someone he knew. "Rabinowicz! Are Bertha and the children here?"

"Were they ever here?" the other Jew answered. "News to me if they were. But I've only been here a couple days myself."

"Wonderful," Mordechai muttered. He looked around again. He'd thought a good many Jews had come from Lodz to Widawa, but Rabinowicz's was the only face he recognized. What had happened to the Jews who were here, then? Were they dead? Were all they hauled off to the Reich Reich for a fate that couldn't possibly be good? He asked some of the Poles, and got a different answer from each of them. for a fate that couldn't possibly be good? He asked some of the Poles, and got a different answer from each of them.

"d.a.m.n n.a.z.is took 'em away," a woman said.

"Not everybody," a man disagreed. "Some got taken away, yes, but some got shot right here and some ran off."

"n.o.body got shot right here," another man insisted. "The Germans said they were gonna, but they never did."

"Does anybody know if Bertha and Miriam and David and Heinrich Anielewicz got away safe, or if they got taken back to Germany?" Mordechai asked.

n.o.body knew. Any which way, people were too busy arguing over what had happened to be very interested in giving details. The two men who'd disagreed went nose to nose with each other, both of them shouting at the tops of their lungs. Mordechai wanted to knock their heads together. That might have let in some sense. He couldn't think of anything else that would.

He lacked the energy to treat the two loud fools as they deserved. Instead, he turned away, sick at heart. His wife and children were either carried off to Germany or dead: a bad choice or a worse one. He would have to beard the n.a.z.is in their den to find out. He'd need help from the Lizards there, but he thought they would give him the paperwork and help he'd require. They despised the German ruling party, too.

He tried one more thing: "My son, Heinrich, had a beffel for a pet, an animal from the Lizards' world. It would squeak when it was happy. Does anybody remember that?"

And two people did. "That d.a.m.ned thing," a woman said. "Yes, the Germans nabbed the people who had it. They took them away when they got run out of here." The other person, an old man, nodded.

"They did did go into Germany, then," Mordechai breathed. "Thank you both, from the bottom of my heart." He didn't know if he ought to be thanking them. Jews who went into Germany were not in the habit of coming out again. But his family hadn't simply been slaughtered here. That was something... he hoped. go into Germany, then," Mordechai breathed. "Thank you both, from the bottom of my heart." He didn't know if he ought to be thanking them. Jews who went into Germany were not in the habit of coming out again. But his family hadn't simply been slaughtered here. That was something... he hoped.

Nesseref was feeding Orbit, her tsiongi, when the telephone hissed for attention. The pet started eating while she hurried into the bedchamber, wondering who was calling. "I greet you," the shuttlecraft pilot said, waiting to see whose image appeared on the computer monitor.

To her surprise, it was not a male or female of the Race but a Big Ugly. "I greet you, superior female," he said in the language of the Race. "Mordechai Anielewicz here."

"Good to see you," Nesseref answered, glad he'd named himself. No matter how well she liked him, she had trouble telling Tosevites apart.

"I hope you are well," the Big Ugly said.

"On the whole, yes," Nesseref replied. "The fallout levels have been high, but my apartment building was damaged only once, and even then the filters functioned well. By now, everything has been replaced, and radioactivity levels are falling. But I hope very much that you you are well, Mordechai Anielewicz. You have not been shielded from all the radioactivity that descended on Poland." are well, Mordechai Anielewicz. You have not been shielded from all the radioactivity that descended on Poland."

"I am well enough for now," Anielewicz told her. "Past that, I do not worry about myself. I worry about my mate and my hatchlings. They have been carried back into the Reich Reich by retreating Deutsch armies, and they very well may be dead by now." by retreating Deutsch armies, and they very well may be dead by now."

"Yes, they are of the Jewish superst.i.tion, as you are-is that not a truth?" Nesseref said. "I have never understood the irrational loathing of the Deutsche for Tosevites of the Jewish superst.i.tion." It struck her as no more absurd than any other Tosevite superst.i.tion. Belatedly, she realized she should say something more. She'd forgotten the strong ties of s.e.xuality and other emotions that linked Big Uglies in family units. "For your sake, I hope you find them well."

"I thank you," Mordechai Anielewicz said. "They were were alive, at least fairly recently. I have found Tosevites who saw and remember my youngest hatchling's beffel." He did an excellent job of imitating the squeak of the little animal from Home. alive, at least fairly recently. I have found Tosevites who saw and remember my youngest hatchling's beffel." He did an excellent job of imitating the squeak of the little animal from Home.

At that squeak, Orbit came racing into the bedroom, plainly furious that Nesseref might have concealed a beffel somewhere in the apartment. His tail lashed up and down, up and down. His mouth was open so his scent receptors could better pick up the hated odor of a beffel. But images on the monitor meant nothing to him. At last, with the air of someone who knew he'd been tricked but couldn't figure out how, the tsiongi went away.

Nesseref said, "There is still some hope, then. I am glad of that." She used an emphatic cough to show how glad she was.

"I thank you," Mordechai Anielewicz said again. "I want you to help me locate them, if that should prove possible."

"What can I do?" Nesseref asked in some surprise. "If it is within my ability, you may rest a.s.sured that I will do it." As the ties of family were less important among the Race than with the Big Uglies, so the ties of friendship were more important. And Mordechai Anielewicz, though a Tosevite, was unquestionably a friend.

"Once more, I thank you," he said. "As you surely know, I have some prominence with the Race because of my rank among the Jews of Poland. Still, my primary dealings these past many years have been with the Race's authorities in Lodz. Now those authorities are reporting only to the spirits of Emperors past." He didn't cast down his eyes. Other than that, his knowledge of the Race's beliefs was flawless. He finished, "I would like you to help me obtain the a.s.sistance of the authorities in Warsaw."

"Warsaw also received an explosive-metal bomb from the Deutsche," Nesseref reminded him. "The present administration for this subregion is in Pinsk."

"Ah. Pinsk. Yes. I understand. I had forgotten because of my own troubles." Anielewicz's face twisted into a grimace Nesseref believed to denote unhappiness. "The Deutsche would not have tried to bomb that city, for fear the bomb would go wrong and strike the Soviet Union, which they did not want. In any case, this new administration is made up of males and females unfamiliar to me. I would greatly appreciate your good offices in dealing with them."

"Are you planning to travel there in person?" Nesseref asked.

"If I must, but only if I must," the Big Ugly answered, and used another unhappy grimace. "I hate to travel all the way to the eastern edge of this subregion when all my concerns are here in the west. That is another reason I want your help."

"I understand. You shall have it," the shuttlecraft pilot said. She waved aside the Tosevite's further thanks. "Friends may ask favors of friends. Let me make inquiries in Pinsk." She noted the telephone code from which he was calling. It wasn't his phone, of course, but one belonging to some military detachment or bureaucratic outpost of the Race. "May I leave messages for you here?"

"You may," Mordechai Anielewicz said. "And, again, I thank you from the bottom of my heart." That was a Tosevite idiom literally translated, but Nesseref figured out what it had to mean.

After Anielewicz broke the connection, Nesseref telephoned the new authorities in Pinsk. "Yes, we have heard from this Tosevite," a female told her. "We are hesitant to grant his request for a.s.sistance in entering the Reich Reich in search of those other individuals, for we know that the Deutsche are liable to make it as difficult as possible for him to carry out the aforesaid search." in search of those other individuals, for we know that the Deutsche are liable to make it as difficult as possible for him to carry out the aforesaid search."

"You are from the colonization fleet," Nesseref said. That was an obvious truth. No females had been part of the conquest fleet. Nesseref went on, "I think you are too inexperienced to grasp the attachment Big Uglies place on their s.e.xual partners and hatchlings. You would not be doing this male a favor by protecting him from himself."

"You are also part of the colonization fleet," the bureaucrat in Pinsk answered sharply. "Why is your experience more valid than mine?"

"I have made a friend of this Tosevite," Nesseref replied. "Am I mistaken, or would you have recently come from a new town where you had only limited contact with Big Uglies?"

"That is a truth," the other female admitted in some surprise. "If you can note it, perhaps you do know what you are talking about. I will take what you say under advis.e.m.e.nt."

"I thank you." Nesseref made some more calls, doing all she could to get the Race's functionaries to help Mordechai Anielewicz. Two or three of the functionaries with whom she spoke said she wasn't the first person asking them to help the Big Ugly. She was miffed the first time she heard that. Then she decided she'd made a mistake-Anielewicz had the right to do whatever he could to try to recover the Tosevites who were important to him.

Orbit walked into the bedroom a couple of times while Nesseref was on the telephone. The tsiongi prowled around the room and even poked his long-snouted head into the closets a couple of time. He thought he'd heard a beffel, and it hadn't come out. That meant it should still be in there. His logic was impeccable, or would have been if he'd understood how video monitors worked. As things were, he got to be one increasingly frustrated animal.

And then Nesseref's telephone hissed again. She thought it would be one of the bureaucrats with whom she'd talked calling back for more information, or possibly Mordechai Anielewicz with a new suggestion or request. But it wasn't. It was, in fact, a Big Ugly calling on the security hookup of her apartment building. "Yes? What do you want?" she asked him.

"I have for you delivery." He spoke the language of the Race fairly well. "It is animal exercise wheel."

"Oh, yes. I thank you." Nesseref had ordered that during the fighting, but no one had been able to deliver it. More urgent concerns had all but overwhelmed the Race's supply system. "Wait one moment. I will admit you." She let him go through the building's outer door. Inside, part of the lobby had been turned into what almost amounted to an airlock system, one designed to keep as much radioactive outside air as possible from circulating in the halls and units of the building. Only after fans blew the contaminated air out onto the street did the inner door open and admit the Big Ugly.

Instead of pressing the buzzer by her doorway, as a male or female of the Race would have done, he knocked on the door. Orbit let out a growling hiss. "No!" Nesseref said sharply as she opened the door. "Stay!" The tsiongi lashed its tail, angry that it didn't get to attack this obviously dangerous intruder.

"Here." Grunting, the Tosevite delivery male lifted the crate off the dolly he'd used to move it to the elevator. The dolly was of Big Ugly manufacture, heavier and grimier than anything the Race would have used. After setting the crate in the center of the floor, the Big Ugly handed Nesseref an electronic clipboard and stylus, saying, "You sign this here, superior sir."

"Superior female," Nesseref corrected him. Before signing, she checked to make sure the crate said it contained the exercise wheel she'd ordered. As soon as her signature went into the system, her account would be debited the price of the wheel. But everything seemed to be in order. She scribbled her signature on the proper line on the clipboard.

"I thank you, superior female." The Big Ugly got it right the second time. He bent into a clumsy version of the posture of respect, then left her apartment.

"Let us see what we have here," Nesseref said. Orbit was certainly curious. His tongue lolled out so the scent receptors on it could catch all the interesting odors coming from the crate. Nesseref's eyes caught something she'd missed when ordering the exercise wheel. On the side of the crate were the dreaded words, SOME a.s.sEMBLY REQUIRED SOME a.s.sEMBLY REQUIRED. She sighed. Did some some mean a little or a lot? She'd find out. mean a little or a lot? She'd find out.

Orbit thought he was a very helpful tsiongi. As soon as she'd opened the crate, he started jumping in and then jumping out again. He tried to kill some of the plastic bags that held fasteners. He poked his snout into every suba.s.sembly as Nesseref put it together. Long before she had the whole wheel done, she was ready to throw the animal for whom it was intended right out the window.

"Here," she said when, despite Orbit's best efforts at a.s.sistance, she finally did put the wheel together. "This says your wheel is impregnated with the odor of zisuili, to make you enthusiastic about using it." Domestic tsiongyu helped herd zisuili back on Home. Their wild cousins-and occasional unreliable or feral tsiongyu-preyed on the meat animals.

Orbit jumped into the wheel and started to run. Before long, he hopped out again. Maybe he'd worn himself out doing his best to lend Nesseref a hand. Maybe he didn't feel like running in it no matter what it smelled like. Tsiongyu had a reputation for perversity. On a smaller scale, they were something like Big Uglies.

"Miserable beast," Nesseref said, more or less fondly. As if doing her a favor, Orbit deigned to turn an eye turret in her direction for a moment. Then he curled up by the exercise wheel, slapped his tail down on the floor a couple of times, and went to sleep.

Nesseref's laugh quickly turned rueful. Orbit had no worries bigger than not being able to go outside for a good run. She wished she could say the same.

Reuven Russie came home to find his father on the telephone with Atvar. "Anything you might be able to do would be greatly appreciated, Exalted Fleetlord," Moishe Russie said. "Mordechai Anielewicz is a longtime friend, and he has also helped the Race a great deal in the fight against the Deutsche."

"I can do less than you might think," the fleetlord of the conquest fleet replied. "I can encourage our males and females in the subregion of Poland to a.s.sist him, and I shall do that. But the Reich Reich retains political independence. That limits actions available to me there." retains political independence. That limits actions available to me there."

"How unfortunate," Reuven's father said, and used an emphatic cough.

"I regret not being able to do more." Atvar didn't sound regretful. He sounded, if anything, indifferent. After a moment, he went on, "And now, if you will excuse me, I have a great many things to do." His image vanished from the screen.

Moishe Russie turned away from the telephone with a sigh. He looked up in surprise. "h.e.l.lo, Reuven. I didn't think you'd be back from the office so soon."

"My last two appointments canceled on me, one right after the other," Reuven answered. "You took the afternoon off; I got mine by default. The Lizards don't care what happened to Anielewicz's family?"

"Not even a little." His father made a disgusted noise, down deep in his throat. "We're good enough to do things for them. But they're too good to do things for us, especially if that would take some real work from them. I've seen it before, but never so bad as now. You don't even remember Anielewicz, do you?"

"I was just a little boy-a very little boy-when we got smuggled out of Poland," Reuven said.

"I know that. But if Anielewicz had decided to fight for the Germans against the Race when the conquest fleet landed, Poland might have stayed in n.a.z.i hands," his father said. "That's how important he was. And now Atvar doesn't care whether his family is alive or dead."

"Lizards don't really understand about families," Reuven said.

"Emotionally, no," Moishe Russie agreed. "Emotionally, no, but intellectually, yes. They aren't stupid. They just don't want to take the trouble for someone who's done a lot for them, and I think it's a disgrace."

"What's a disgrace?" Reuven's mother asked. She glanced over to her only son. "You're home early. I hope there's nothing wrong?"

He shook his head. "Only canceled appointments, like I told Father."