Tilting the Balance

Tosevites were impetuous, hot-blooded, always doing things. The Race’s virtues were study, patience, careful planning. So Teerts had been indoctrinated, and little he had seen inclined him to doubt what his killercraft squadron’s briefing officers had said. But now, out in the hallway, Okamoto stood quietly and waited as patiently as any male of the Race.

And Teerts? As the joy from the ginger ebbed in him, leaving only a memory of sensation, Teerts became a veritable parody of a Big Ugly, grabbing at the bars of his cell, shouting curses, reaching uselessly for Okamoto in a foredoomed effort to get more ginger onto his tongue: in short, he acted blindly, without the slightest concern for consequences. He should have been ashamed of himself. He was ashamed of himself-but not enough to stop.

Okamoto waited until his blustering had died away, swallowed in the crushing depression that followed ginger euphoria. Then, at just the right instant, the Nipponese said, “Tell me everything you know about the process that transforms element 92 to element 94.”

“The special word for this in our language is ‘transmutes,’ ” Teerts said. “It takes place in several steps. First-” He wondered how much Okamoto would make him talk before he got another taste.

Bobby Fiore threw an easy peg to the young Chinese man who stood waiting to catch the ball. The fellow actually did catch it, too; it slapped into the leather glove (a duplicate of Fiore’s) he wore, and he covered it with his bare hand.

“Good job!” Fiore said, using tone and expression and dumb show to get across what he still had trouble saying in Chinese. “Now throw it back.” Again, gesture showed what he wanted.

The Chinese, whose name was Lo, threw high. Fiore sprang and caught the ball. He landed lightly, ready to throw again himself: after so many years on so many infields, he could probably do that in his sleep. Drop a ball anywhere near him and he’d be on it like a cat.

“Don’t throw like a girl,” he told Lo; this once, it was just as well that his pupil didn’t understand exactly what he had to say. He demonstrated, exaggerating the from-the-elbow style the Chinese had used and shaking his head violently to show it wasn’t the best way to do the job. Then he showed the full-arm motion American kids picked up on farmyards, parks, and vacant lots.

Lo didn’t seem to think one better than the other. Instead of using his handmade, expensive baseball to prove the point, Bobby Fiore bent down to get an egg-sized rock. He and Lo were not far from the razor-wire fence around the Lizards’ camp. He turned and threw the rock as far as he could into the green fields beyond the perimeter.

He found another rock, tossed it underhand to Lo. “Let’s see you top that, throwing like you do,” he said. Again, gestures eked out meaning. Lo nodded and let fly, grunting with effort. His rock flew barely half as far as Fiore’s had. He looked at the American, nodded thoughtfully, and tried the full-arm motion. Fiore clapped his hands. “That’s the idea!”

The truth was, he couldn’t antagonize a cash customer. He and Liu flan still put on their baseball show, but it didn’t pull in as much as it had when it was new. A few Chinese had been interested enough to pay to learn more, so he was teaching them to hit and catch and throw. Had the camp had enough open space, they could have put on a real game.

He didn’t care to kowtow to Chinamen, but he’d grown used to the little luxuries spare cash allowed him to buy. And it wasn’t as if he was selling something they had to have. If he got ’em mad at him, they’d just leave. So he did his best to stay on good behavior.

“Come on, try it with the ball,” he said, and tossed it to Lo. The Chinese threw it back, still not too straight but with a better motion. “That’s the way to do it!” Fiore said, clapping his hands in encouragement.

After several more throws that showed he was starting to get the idea, Lo picked up another rock and flung it out over the razor wire into the field. Throwing with his whole arm, he made it go a good deal farther than he’d managed before, but still not as far as Fiore had flung it. The ballplayer puffed out his chest, thinking no Chink was going to get the better of him.

Maybe Lo thought the same thing, for he bowed to Fiore and spoke several sharp sentences. Almost in spite of himself, Fiore was starting to understand Chinese. He didn’t follow all of this, but, got the idea that Lo was praising his arm and wanted to bring by some friends who would also be interested in the way he threw.

“Yeah, sure, that’d be fine,” Fiore answered in English, and then did his best to turn it into Chinese. Evidently Lo got the idea, because he bowed again and nodded, then gave the glove back to Fiore and went on his way.