In the Balance

The convoy rumbled north up University to Fifty-first, then swung left one vehicle at a time. The streets were mostly clear of debris and not too bumpy; rammed earth and rubble filled bomb craters and the subsidence caused by ruptured water mains. The sidewalks were something else again-bulldozers and pick-and-shovel crews had shoved up onto them all the garbage that had clogged the streets. These trucks were going to get through no matter what.

To help make sure it got through, soldiers had machine gun nests in the rubble and stood menacingly at streetcorners. Here and there, colored faces, eyes huge and white within them, stared at the passing traffic from windows of houses and apartment buildings. Bronzeville, Chicago’s black belt, began bare blocks from the university and indeed almost lapped around it. The government feared its Negro citizens only a little less than it feared the Lizards.

Before the aliens came, a quarter of a million people had been jammed into Bronzeville’s six square miles. A lot fewer than that were there now, but the district still showed the signs of crowding and poverty: the storefront churches, the shops advertising mystic potions and charms, the little lunch counters whose windows (those that hadn’t blown out) advertised chitlins and sweet potato pie, hot fish and mustard greens. Poor man’s fare, yes, and poor black man’s fare to boot, but the thought of fresh greens and hot fish was plenty to set Yeager’s stomach rumbling. He’d been living out of cans too long. That was even worse than the greasy spoons he’d haunted as he bounced from one minor-league town to the next. Some of those diners-He hadn’t thought anything could be worse.

“Why we leave this place where we so long stay?” Ristin said. “I like this place, as much as can like any place on this cold, cold world. Where we go now is warmer?” He and Ullhass both swiveled their eyes toward Yeager, waiting hopefully on his reply.

They squeaked in disappointment when he said, “No, I don’t think it will be much warmer.” He didn’t have the heart to tell them it would be colder for a while: once on the Great Lakes, they’d almost certainly sail north and then west, because the Lizards held big stretches of Indiana and Ohio and controlled most of the Mississippi valley. The colder the country, the better, as far as evading them went.

Yeager continued, “As for why we’re leaving, we’re tired of having your people drop bombs on us, that’s why.”

“We tired of that, too,” Ullhass said. He’d learned to nod like a human being to emphasize his words. So had Ristin. Their heads bobbed up and down together.

“I wasn’t real fond of it myself,” Yeager said, adding the Lizards’ emphatic cough; he liked the way it served as a vocal exclamation point. His two charges let their mouths fall open. They thought his accent was funny. It probably was. He laughed a little, too. He and Ullhass and Ristin had rubbed off on one another more than he would have imagined possible back when he became their link to humankind.

The convoy chugged past the domed Byzantine bulk of Temple Isaiah Israel, then past Washington Park, bare-branched and brown and dappled with snow. It swung right onto Michigan Avenue, picking up speed as it went. There were advantages to being the only traffic on the road and not having to worry about stop lights.

Though it was winter, though the Lizards had cut off most rail and truck transport into Chicago, the stink of the stockyards lingered. Wrinkling his nose, Yeager tried to imagine what it had been like on a muggy summer afternoon. No wonder colored folk had taken over Bronzeville-they usually ended up settling in places no one else much wanted.

He also wondered that Jens and Barbara Larssen had chosen to get an apartment somewhere near here. Maybe they hadn’t known Chicago well when they moved, maybe they wanted to live close to the university, for the sake of his work, but Yeager still thought Barbara lucky to have had no trouble getting back and forth each day.

At the corner of Michigan and Forty-seventh, a sign proudly proclaimed, MICHIGAN BOULEVARD GARDEN APARTMENTS. The brick buildings looked as if they held. more people than some of the towns Yeager had played for. One of them had taken a bomb hit and fallen in on itself. More bomb craters scarred the gardens and courts around the apartments. Skinny colored kids ran back and forth, running like banshees.

“What they do?” Ristin asked.

“Probably playing Lizards and Americans,” Sam answered. “It could be cowboys and Indians, though” He spent the next few minutes trying to get the alien to understand what cowboys and Indians were to say nothing of why they were part of a game. He didn’t think he had much luck.

The convoy kept rolling north up Michigan Avenue. Before long though the bus Yeager was riding slowed then stopped. “What the hell s goin’ on?” the driver said “This was supposed to be a straight shot.”