In the Balance

Liu Han did not understand all of what he said, which was perhaps just as well. she did appreciate the water, after she’d rinsed and spat a couple of times to take away the horrid taste, she felt much better. It wasn’t like throwing up when she was ill: now that her body had done what it needed to do, it seemed willing to let her alone for a while.

“I wish the Lizards had a priest up here,” Bobby Fiore said. “I want the kid to get brought up Catholic. I know I’m not the best Christian there ever was, but I try to do what’s right”

Liu Han hadn’t thought much of the Christian missionaries she’d seen in China. How to raise the baby was, however, the least of her worries at the moment She said, “I wonder what the little scaly devils will do to me when they find out I am with child.”

she did not think her fear was idle. After all, the little devils had snatched her from her village, then from the prison camp. While she was up here in the airplane that did not land, they’d made her submit to several men (and how relieved she was not to be carrying a baby by any of them!). They could do as they pleased with her, do whatever interested them… without caring in the least what she thought about what they wanted.

“Whatever they do, they’ll have to do it to both of us,” Bobby Fiore said stoutly. She reached out and set a hand on his arm, grateful he stood by her. She would have been more grateful had she thought his brave words bore any relation to reality. If the little devils decided to keep the two of them in separate cubicles, what could he possibly do about it?

He said, “You ought to try and eat some more. You’ve got company in there, after all.”

“I suppose so.” Dutifully-but also cautiously-Liu Han ate a little corn, some of the beans, and even the last mouthful of pork left in the tin. She waited for her stomach to give them back, but it stayed quiet: having emptied once, it now seemed willing to relent. She hoped it would keep on being so forbearing.

Then, too late, she realized the little scaly devils would not have to wait until her belly bulged to learn she was pregnant. she’d grown so resigned to the moving pictures they made of her-not just when she was coupling but almost all the time-that she’d almost forgotten about them. But if the scaly devils could sort through the mix of Chinese, English, and their own language that she and Bobby Fiore spoke with each other, they’d know at once. And what would they do then?

If they were human, they’d have known when my courses didn’t come, she thought. But the devils hadn’t noticed that. Bobby Fiore didn’t think they were devils at all, but creatures from another world. Most of the time, Liu Han remained convinced that was nonsense, but now and then she wondered. Could real devils be so ignorant of matters Earthly as her captors sometimes acted?

In the end, what they were didn’t much matter. They had her-and Bobby Fiore-in their power either way. Liu Han wondered if any of the other women they’d brought up to the airplane that never landed were also pregnant. If they’d been used as she was, some probably were. She hoped so. she didn’t want to face the ordeal alone.

She glanced over at Bobby Fiore. He’d been watching her; when her eyes met his, he looked away. Wondering if I’ll throw up again, Liu Han guessed. She smiled wryly. What did a man know about a woman who was with child? Not much, which was why she hoped some of the others up here shared her predicament.

Then all at once she clung to Bobby Fiore, man though he was, foreign devil though he was, as she had not clung to him since the first day when he astonished her with his kindness. He might not know much about expectant mothers, but he was a veritable Kung Fu-Tze when set alongside even the wisest of the little scaly devils.

Smoke and a blast of heat greeted David Goldfarb when he walked into the White Horse Inn. “Shut the bloody door!” three people yelled from three different parts of the pub. Goldfarb quickly obeyed, then pushed his way through the crowd to get as close to the fireplace as he could.

The crackling wood fire, the torches that blazed in place of electric lights dark for want of power, took the White Horse Inn a long step back toward its medieval origins. Shadows jumped and flickered like live things, and puddled in corners as if they might creep out and pounce at any moment. Goldfarb had never been afraid of the dark, but these days he better understood why his ancestors might have been.

The reek of unwashed bodies was another step away from what had been the civilized norm. Goldfarb knew he added to it, but what could he do? Hot water was impossible to come by, and bathing in cold invited pneumonia.