Upsetting the Balance

Despairingly, Teerts turned his eye turrets toward the heavens. Those heavens remained empty, silent if they remained so much longer, he would either starve or be recaptured-or use the one shot he was sure he could fire from his Nipponese rifle.

He counted himself lucky not to have been recaptured already. So much of the train on which he’d been riding had gone up in flames. However savage and backwards they were, though, the Big Uglies were not stupid enough to take his demise for granted. A search would be mounted. Teerts was gloomily certain of that.

A little stream tinkled by the stand of brush where he was holed up; at night he could come out to drink. He’d caught a couple of crawling and scurrying things and eaten them raw, but hunger gained on him regardless. He did his best to remember how used to hunger he’d got while the Nipponese were mistreating him, but it wasn’t easy.

He hungered for ginger, too, all the way down to the depths of his spirit.

Every once in a while, when he saw no Tosevites around, he emerged from the shrubbery during daylight, to show himself for aircraft or satellites that might be passing overhead. If they’d spotted him, they’d certainly given no sign of it.

Now he lay curled up in a nest he’d made of branches and twigs and dry leaves. It was the sort of thing in which an animal might live, not a male of the Race. The Nipponese had done their best to make him into an animal, and failed. Now he was doing it to himself.

A noise in the sky-Teerts’ head came up, but only for a moment. Some of the flying creatures of Tosev 3 were noisy as they made their way through the air. His hearing diaphragms stretched tight with hope, he’d mistaken their wingbeats for the thutter of a rescue helicopter again and again. He couldn’t fool himself any more.

But this sound swelled and swelled. Teerts jumped to his feet, crying the Emperor’s name. From above, in a voice like thunder, came a call in his own language: “Male of the Race, show yourself! This is hostile airspace; we cannot stay long!” The accent was pure and clean-that of Home. Teerts had been listening to the mushy, barking way the Nipponese mangled his speech for so long, he needed a moment to recognize this was how it should be spoken.

He sprang from cover, waved his arms frantically, and did everything but turn backflips in the wild effort to make himself as visible as he could. His swiveling eyes caught sight of the helicopter-and one of the crewmales saw him, too, and the big, ungainly, ever so beautiful machine swung in his direction. Its rotor kicked up gravel and dust; nictitating membranes slid across his eyes to protect them from flying grit.

The helicopter hovered, its landing wheels not quite touching the ground. Its side door came open; a male inside let down a chain-link ladder. Teerts was already running toward the copter. He scrambled aboard. “We’ve got him!” the male shouted to the pilot and weapons officer in their cockpit forward.

The fellow hauled in the ladder, slammed and dogged the door. The helicopter was already gaining altitude and scurrying out toward the sea. “Thank you!” Teerts gasped. “The Emperor grant you bounty. You don’t know-”

“Don’t thank me yet,” the crewmale answered. He hurried to a machine gun that stuck out one of the windows. “We’re a long way from safe. We’ve got a killercraft overhead, but if the Big Uglies send enough aircraft after us, they’re liable to catch up with us and shoot us down. They’re a lot faster than we are.” He turned one eye back toward Teerts. “Who are you, anyway?”

“Teerts, killercraft pilot and flight leader,” Teerts answered. Stating his specialization and rank made him consciously aware for the first time in a very long while that he was without his body paint. That didn’t seem to bother his rescuer, who said, “Good. You know how to handle one of these things, then.” He patted the machine gun. “In case I get hit, keep shooting till we go into the water.”

“It shall be done, superior sir,” Teerts said. Actually, he outranked the male at the gun, but he was not part of the helicopter crew-and, after so long in Nipponese captivity, he was used to attaching honorifics to anyone with whom he spoke. As the land of Nippon receded behind them, his wits began to work again. “You couldn’t have flown straight here from any land the Race controls: you must have used in-flight refueling.”

“That’s right,” the crewmale said. “We’re on our way out for more hydrogen now, too. That should be enough to take us back to base.” He paused, listening to the microphone fastened to one hearing diaphragm. “Pilot says our killercraft cover just shot down three of the Big Uglies’ aircraft and the rest have broken off pursuit. Now I really start to think we’re going to be all right.”