In the Balance

“When we hit the Germans,” Anielewicz repeated. “We have grenades, pistols, a few rifles, even one machine gun. The Armja Krajowa”-the Home Army, the Polish resistance forces-“has many more. If we rise, the Nazis won’t be able to fight us and the Lizards both, and Warsaw will fall. And we will have our vengeance.” His whole face, thin and pale like everyone else’s, blazed with anticipation.

“I–I don’t know,” Russie stammered. “What makes you think the Lizards will make better masters than the Germans?”

“How could they be worse?” Every line of Anielewicz’s body was a shout of contempt.

“This I do not know, but after we have seen so much suffering, who knows what may be possible?” Russie said. “And the Poles-will they really rise with you, or sit on their hands and let the Nazis slaughter you? For every Armja Krajowa man, there’s another in the dark blue police.” The German-led Order Police wore uniforms of a shade nearly navy. Russie added, “Sometimes the Armja Krajowa man is in the dark blue police. There are traitors everywhere.”

Anielewicz shrugged, as if hearing nothing he didn’t already know. “Most of them hate Germans worse than Jews. As for those who don’t, well, we’ll have more guns after the rising than we do now. If we fight Germans, we can fight Poles, too. Come on, Reb Moishe-you’ve said all along the Lizards were God’s means of delivering us from the Nazis. Say it again when we rise, to hearten us and bring new fighters to our cause.”

“But the Lizards are not even human beings,” Russie said.

Anielewicz impaled him on another stare. “Are the Nazis?”

“Yes,” he answered at once. “Evil human beings, but human beings all the same. I don’t know what to tell you. I-” Russie stopped, shaking his head in bewilderment. Ever since God granted him a sign-ever since the Lizards came to Earth-he’d been treated as someone important, as someone whose opinion mattered. Reb Moishe: even Anielewicz called him that. Now, he discovered that with importance came responsibility; hundreds, more like thousands, of lives would turn on what he decided. All at once, he wished he were simply a starving onetime medical student once more.

But that was not the sort of wish God was in the habit of granting. Russie temporized: “By when must I decide?”

“We strike tomorrow night,” Anielewicz answered. Then, with a couple of quick wriggles, he slid away from Russie and lost himself in the packed shelter.

After a while, Lizard bombs stopped raining down. No sirens wailed to announce the all clear, but that proved nothing. Power was erratic in Warsaw these days. For that matter, power had always been erratic in the ghetto. People took advantage of the lull to make their escape, to try to rejoin their loved ones.

As he made his way to the door with the rest, Russie looked for Mordechai Anielewicz. He did not find him; one shabby Jew looked all too much like another, especially from behind. Russie came out onto Gliniana Street, a couple of blocks east of the overflowingly full Jewish cemetery.

He glanced toward the graveyard. The Germans had positioned a couple of 8.8-centimeter antiaircraft guns in it; their long barrels stuck up from among the tumbled headstones like monster elephant trunks. Russie could see the gun crews moving around now that the bombardment had eased up.

The sun sparked dully off the matte finish of their helmets. Nazis, Russie thought, the source of endless misery and death and ruin. A plume of cigarette smoke floated up from one of them. They were Nazis, but they were also human beings. Would life be better under things called Lizards?

“Send me a sign, God,” he begged silently, as he had on the night when the Lizards came. One of the gunners assumed a spraddle-legged stance Russie recognized: the fellow was urinating. Hoarse German laugher floated to Russie’s ears. It filled him with rage-how like the Nazis to piss on dead Jews and then laugh about it.

All at once, he realized he had his sign.

An intelligence officer set a new stack of documents in front of Atvar. As was his habit, he skimmed through the summaries till he found one that engaged his full attention. It didn’t take long this time. He read every word of the second report in the stack, then turned one eye toward the intelligence male. “This report is confirmed as accurate?”

“Which one do you have there, Exalted Fleetlord?” The officer peered down to see where Atvar had paused. “Oh, that one. Yes, Exalted Fleetlord, no possible mistake there. The Big Uglies in the town in the empire of Deutschland are fighting amongst themselves-quite ferociously, too.”

“And the radio intercepts? Those are reliable as well?”