In the Balance

“It is a puzzlement,” Gnik said, so seriously that Larssen knew he really was puzzled. Are they that stupid? he wondered. But the Lizards weren’t stupid, not even slightly, or they’d never have been able to come to Earth, never have been able to make and drop their atomic bombs. They were sure naive, though. Had they expected to be welcomed as liberators?

Even under the mildly euphoric buzz of the not-quite-truth drug, Larssen worried a little. Suppose the Lizards decided to let him go and then followed him while he tried to find his cousins’ farm? That would be the best way to make him out a liar. Or would it? He could always point to a ruined one and claim Olaf et mythical cetera had lived there.

The Lizards were chattering back and forth one more time. Gnik cut off debate with a sharp motion of his hand. He swung his eyes toward Larssen. “What you say with the drug in you must be true. So my superiors have told me; thus, so it must be. And if it is true, you is-are-no danger to the Race. You may go. Take up the things that are yours and travel on, Pete Smith.”

“Just like that?” Larssen blurted. An instant later, he bit his tongue, which made him yelp-it was sore. But did he want the Lizard to change its mind? Like hell he did! His next question was distinctly more practical: “Where’s my bike?”

Gnik understood the word, even if he couldn’t recall it. “It will go to where you are being kept. Go there now yourself to take up the things that are yours.”

Along with the drug-induced euphoria, Jens now had his own genuine variety. He put his cold-weather gear back on, all but floated over the snow back to the Baptist church. Questions rang out “What happened?” “What’d they want with you?”

“They’re letting me go,” he said simply. He was still absorbing the magnitude of his own luck. Back in White Sulphur Springs, Colonel Groves-or was it General Marshall? — had told him the Lizards were worse than Russians for depending on their higher-ups to tell them what to do. Gnik’s higher-ups had told him he had a real live truth drug here, and as far as he was concerned, that made it Holy Writ. As long as the higher-ups were right, it was a good enough system. When they were wrong…

Half the people in the church came running forward to pound his back and shake his hand. Sal’s kiss was so authoritative, his arms automatically tightened around her. She molded herself to him, ground her hips against his crotch. “Lucky bastard,” she whispered when she finally pulled away.

“Yeah,” he muttered, dazed. All at once, he wanted not to leave… at least for one night. But no. If he didn’t get out while he could, the Lizards were liable to wonder why-and liable to change their minds. That did not bear thinking about.

He pushed through the friendly little crowd to get his belongings from the pew he’d come to call his own. As he slung his knapsack over his shoulders, he noticed for the first time the men and women who’d hung back from offering best wishes. Not to put too fine a point on it, they looked as if they hated him. Several-women and men both-turned away so he would not see them cry. He all but ran toward the doorway. No, even if the Lizards allowed it, he could not stay another night, not for Sal and all her blowsy charms. Even a few seconds of that envy and rage were more than he could stand.

The Lizards were efficient enough. By the time he got outside, one of them had his bicycle waiting. As he swung up onto it, he got a last glimpse of pale, hungry faces staring out from inside the church at the freedom they could not share. He’d expected to feel a lot of different things when he was set free, but never shame. He started to pedal. Snow kicked up from under his wheels. In bare seconds, the hamlet of Fiat vanished behind him.

After less than an hour, he stopped for a blow. He wasn’t in the shape he’d enjoyed before the Lizards put him out of circulation for a while. “Gotta keep going or I’ll stiffen up,” he said aloud. Unlike his wind, the habit of talking to himself came back right away.

When he came upon the signs announcing Montpelier, he skirted the town on the best paths he could find, then returned to Highway 18. For the next few days, everything seemed to go right. He rode around Marion as he had Montpelier, sailed right on through Sweetser and Converse, Wawpekong and Galveston. Whenever he needed food, he found some. Whenever he was tired, a hayloft or an abandoned farmhouse seemed to beckon.

Once, in a bureau drawer, he even found a pack of Philip Morrises. He hadn’t had a cigarette since he couldn’t remember when; he smoked himself light-headed and half-sick in an orgy of making up for lost time. “Worth it,” he declared as he coughed his way through the next day.