In the Balance

“Too goddamn right we didn’t,” Schneider said. “And all the time then I thought things couldn’t get any worse.” He spat on the floor. “Shows what I know, don’t it?”

“Yeah.” Daniels’ shiver had only a little to do with the cold that snuck into his very bones. He’d read about tanks since the new war began, seen them in newsreels. But until, the Lizards turned the whole world upside down, he hadn’t really undertood what they did to fighting. It wasn’t just that they picked up big guns and put them on tracks. Worse still, behind their thick armor, the crews that served those guns were almost invulnerable to infantry.

Almost. Mutt scuttled forward on hands and knees. If that tank-if any Lizard tank-forced its way to the eastern bank of the Fox River, the job of defending Chicago would take another step on the road to impossibility.

The tank’s machine gun chattered, firing at one of the Americans defending Aurora or else at random to make humans keep their heads down. Combat here was house-to-house, concentrated; in fact, it reminded Daniels of the trench warfare he’d known in France. Aurora marked the western edge of the factory belt that spread out across the prairie from Chicago.

Fighting all the way into the big city would be like this-if anyone lived to retreat all the way into the big city. Mutt had his doubts about that. He’d had his doubts in 1918, too, but then he’d been on the side with more men and bigger guns. Now he was getting a taste of how the poor damned Boches must have felt as everything rained down on them.

The Germans had kept fighting like bastards right up till the Armistice. Mutt felt asimilar obligation to keep going as long as he could. The front wall of the factory had been bombed not long before he holed up in it; its bricks were part of the rubble through which the Lizard tank was forcing its way. He crawled toward what had been a window opening and was now just a hole a little squarer than most. Knife-sharp shards of glass tore his pants and his knees.

Ever so cautiously, he peered out. The tank was about thirty yards east of him. It had slowed to shove aside some burned-out trucks the Americans were using as a roadblock. The commander had nerve. In spite of rattling small-arms fire, he stood head and shoulders out of his cupola so he could see what was going on around him.

His back was to Daniels. Mutt had grown up hunting squirrels and possums for the pot. He swung the rifle up to his shoulder, exhaled, saw the front of the Lizard’s head explode in a red mist a split second before he threw himself away from his firing position.

“Nailed the son of a bitch!” he shouted through the din of gunfire and explosions. The other Americans sheltering in the ruined factory raised a cheer. Such a clear-cut cry of victory came their way too seldom. Had the Lizards had the numbers to match the might of their marvelous machines, Daniels knew the fight would have been long since lost.

Nor did he get more than a moment to exult in his successful piece of sniping. Bullets from the tank’s machine gun lashed the factory building. He huddled in back of another broken power tool, grateful for the heavy chunk of iron and steel that shielded him from flying death.

“Good job, Mutt,” Sergeant Schneider bawled. “You diverted him from the advance he was making. Taking us out doesn’t mean a thing strategically.”

Daniels wondered whether he’d be any less dead if he got killed in an action strategically meaningless. He didn’t think so. “Damn shame,” he muttered. He also marveled that Schneider could still think and talk like a professional soldier while being hosed down by machine-gun slugs.

Then there was a sudden hot yellow glare outside, as if the sun had come on in the middle of the street. The roar that accompanied it was loud, the wham-crash! of the shell from the tank’s big gun even louder. Chunks of brick rained down on Daniels; a timber that would have smashed him like a bug was instead smashed itself against the machine behind which he cowered.

The tank gave the factory two more rounds: flash, boom crash; flash, boom, crash. Mutt screamed for all he was worth, but couldn’t hear himself or anyone else. He wondered if he’d ever hear anything again. At the moment, it was the least of his worries. He realized he’d wet his pants, but he didn’t care about that, either.

When he tried to scramble away, his arms and legs shook so much he could hardly move. “Shell shock,” he said, feeling the words on his lips but not hearing them at all. He’d seen men like this in the trenches after a good German barrage. Other soldiers would jeer at them, but not too hard-it wasn’t as if the poor bastards could help themselves. He marveled at being alive.

“Hey, Schneider,” he called, “you think them Lizards are fucking diverted enough for now?”