In the Balance

Liu Han never found out what Yi Min’s latest scheme was. Before he could announce it, Ssofeg burst back into the tent. Three more little scaly devils were right behind him, all of them carrying guns. Liu Han’s bowels turned to water. Now Yi Min bleated like a sheep facing the butcher’s cleaver. “Mercy, kind devil!” he wailed.

Ssofeg pointed outside, then to Yi Min. “You come,” he said in Chinese Yi Min was so frightened, he had trouble getting to his feet. He stumbled out of the tent on stiff, numb legs. Two of the armed devils flanked him as he went.

Liu Han gaped at Ssofeg. At a stroke, the little devil had given her what she wanted most-freedom from Yi Min. And if he was gone, then she’d have this fine tent to herself. She felt like kissing Ssofeg. If he hadn’t had a mouthful of sharp teeth and one armed retainer still standing by him, she might have done it.

Then the devil pointed at her. “Too come you,” he said.

“Me?” Her sudden hopes crashed down. “Oh, no, kind devil, you don’t want me, you don’t need me, I am just a poor woman who knows not a thing in all the world.” She knew she was talking too fast for the ignorant little devil to understand, but the words poured out of her like the sweat that all at once began to pour from her armpits.

Ssofeg paid no more attention to what she wanted than Yi Min had when he undressed her and satisfied his own urges. “Too come you, woman,” he said. The scaly devil behind him moved his gun so it bore on her. The devils were not in the habit of taking no for an answer. Moaning, she followed Yi Min out into the street.

People stared and pointed and exclaimed as the little devils marched her along behind the apothecary. She understood a couple of their remarks: “Ee, that doesn’t look good!” “I wonder what they did?” Liu Han wondered what she’d done, too, aside from being foolish enough to let, Yi Min take advantage of her. And why should the scaly devils care about that?

No one did anything more than stare and exclaim. The devils were little, but they were powerful. The three with guns could kill many Chinese by themselves, and even if they were somehow overwhelmed, the rest of the scaly devils would flay the prison camp with fire from their dragonfly planes. Liu Han had seen what such fire did to the Japanese in her village, and they had had arms to fight back. The people in the camp were utterly defenseless against assault from the air.

Yi Min yelled, “Help me, someone! I haven’t done a thing. Save me from the terrible devils!” Liu Han snorted angrily and glowered at his back. He didn’t care what happened to anyone else, so long as he saved his own worthless skin. She snorted again. It wasn’t as if she didn’t already know that.

Despite his bawling like a pig with a cut hock, no one did anything foolish, for which Liu Han was heartily glad. But she felt very lonely as the armed escort of devils led her out of the prison camp, away from her own people, and toward a dragonfly plane. “In!” Ssofeg said. Having no choice, first Yi Min and then Liu Han obeyed.

A few minutes later, the dragonfly plane scrambled noisily into the air. Even though her stomach lurched every time the plane changed direction, she wasn’t as completely petrified as she had been the first time the little scaly devils forced her aboard one of their flying machines. After all, several of them were in here, too, and no matter how little they cared about her, she’d seen that they valued their own painted hides.

“This is all your fault!” Yi Min shouted at her. “If you weren’t flaunting yourself there in my tent, I never would have gotten into this predicament.”

The unfairness of that took her breath away. Before she could answer, one of the devils let out an ominous hiss. It punctured the apothecary’s bluster like a pin popping an inflated sow’s bladder. He shut up, though he didn’t stop glaring at her. She glared right back.

After about half an hour’s flight, the dragonfly plane set down not far from some much bigger machines of the scaly devils. The devils, with guns urged her and Yi Min out, marched them along to one of those big machines, and up a ladder into its belly. Unlike the ones on the dragonfly plane, the seats in there were padded, though still not big enough eyen for her.

These seats had straps, too. A little devil waiting for them fastened those straps so Liu Han could not reach the buckles no matter how she squirmed. Her fear came back. Yi Min writhed even more violently than he had under her. Here, though, his thrashing won no release.

The door to the outside world slammed shut. The devil twisted a handle to make sure it stayed that way. Then he scrambled up an interior ladder into a higher room, leaving the two people alone and helpless.

“Your fault,” Yi Min insisted. He went on in that vein for some time. Liu Han stopped listening to him. Nothing, obviously, had ever been his fault in all his born days, and if you didn’t believe it, you had but to ask him.