Part 52 (2/2)

Maybe you'll get to find out, he thought, breathing in air that tasted of rubber through an activated-charcoal canister that gave him a pig-snouted look. If he'd been a proper kind of fighting leader, he wouldn't have been at the front at all. He would have been back in a headquarters somewhere tens of kilometers to the rear, with aides to peel him grapes and with dancing girls to pinch whenever he felt he needed a break from commanding. he thought, breathing in air that tasted of rubber through an activated-charcoal canister that gave him a pig-snouted look. If he'd been a proper kind of fighting leader, he wouldn't have been at the front at all. He would have been back in a headquarters somewhere tens of kilometers to the rear, with aides to peel him grapes and with dancing girls to pinch whenever he felt he needed a break from commanding.

But headquarters weren't necessarily safe these days, either. He couldn't think of any place in Poland that was necessarily safe. As soon as talks between the Race and the Germans broke down, he'd got his wife and children (and Heinrich's beffel) out of Lodz and into a hamlet called Widawa, southwest of the city. Widawa wasn't safe, either, and the knowledge that it wasn't ate at him. It was closer to the German border than Lodz was. He didn't want to think about what would happen if the n.a.z.is overran the little town.

Trouble was, he also didn't want to think about what would happen if the n.a.z.is. .h.i.t Lodz with an explosive-metal missile. If they did, the city would go-and, probably, the fallout from the blast would blow east. Looked at that way, Widawa made more sense than a lot of other refuges.

Machine-gun bullets st.i.tched the ground in front of Anielewicz, kicking up dirt that bounced off the lenses of his gas mask. He blinked as if the dirt had gone in his eye. If he did get an eyelash in his eye or something like that, he would have to live with it. If he took off the mask to get it out, he would die on account of it.

Another German panzer started burning. They didn't go up like bombs the way they had before, though. Back in the last round of fighting, they'd used gasoline-fueled engines. Now they ran on diesel fuel, as Russian tanks had even then, or on hydrogen, as Lizard landcruisers did.

But the Germans had a lot of panzers. The flame that burst from a machine near the one that had taken a hit was muzzle flash, not damage. And a Lizard landcruiser off to Anielewicz's right caught fire itself. Males of the Race bailed out, as German soldiers had a moment before. Mordechai grunted, though he could hardly hear himself inside the mask. In the last round of fighting, the Germans had counted on losing five or six of their best panzers for every Lizard landcruiser they knocked out. The ratio would have been higher than that, but the n.a.z.is were tactically better than the Race, as they had been tactically better than the Red Army.

And now they had panzers that could stand against the land-cruisers the Lizards had brought from Home. That wasn't a pretty thought.

But before Mordechai could do more than form it, it vanished from his mind. The day was typical of Polish springtime, with clouds covering the sun more often than not. All of a sudden, though, a sharp, black shadow stretched out ahead of Anielewicz, toward the west.

He whirled. There, right about where Lodz was-would have been-had been-a great apricot-and-salmon-colored cloud, utterly unlike the gray ones sp.a.w.ned by nature, climbed into the sky. Crying inside the gas mask, Mordechai rapidly discovered, was almost as bad as getting something in his eye in there. He blinked and blinked, trying to clear his vision.

”Yisgadal v'yiskadash shmay rabo-” he began: the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. Looking around, he saw Polish fighting men making the sign of the cross. The expression was different, but the sentiment was the same. he began: the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. Looking around, he saw Polish fighting men making the sign of the cross. The expression was different, but the sentiment was the same.

The repulsively beautiful cloud rose and rose. Mordechai wondered how many other explosive-metal bombs were going off in Poland. Then he wondered how many would go off above the Greater German Reich. Reich. And then, with horror that truly chilled him, he wondered how many people would survive between the Pyrenees and the Russian border. And then, with horror that truly chilled him, he wondered how many people would survive between the Pyrenees and the Russian border.

He wondered if he would be one of them, too. But that thought came only later.

”We've got to fall back,” somebody near him bawled. ”The Germans are cutting us off!”

How many times had that frightened cry rung out on battlefields throughout Europe during the last round of fighting? This was how the Wehrmacht Wehrmacht worked its brutal magic: pierce the enemy line with armor, then either surround his soldiers or make him retreat. It had worked in Poland, in France, in Russia. Why wouldn't it work again? worked its brutal magic: pierce the enemy line with armor, then either surround his soldiers or make him retreat. It had worked in Poland, in France, in Russia. Why wouldn't it work again?

Anielewicz couldn't see any reason why it wouldn't work again, not if the n.a.z.is had broken through-and they had. ”Form a rear guard!” he shouted. ”We have to slow them down.”

He fired at a German infantryman, who dove for cover. But more Germans kept coming, infantrymen following the panzers into the hole the armored machines had broken in the defenders' line. The n.a.z.is had been doing that since 1939; they'd had more practice than any other human army in the world.

However much practice they had at it, though, not everything went their way. The Poles hated them as much as ever, and didn't like retreating. And the Jewish fighters whom Anielewicz led hated retreating and wouldn't be captured. They knew-those of his generation from the bitterest personal experience-the fate of Jews who fell into German hands.

German jets raced low over the battlefield, spraying it with rockets and rapid-firing cannon sh.e.l.ls. They didn't have it all their own way, either; the Lizards' killercraft replied in kind, and were better in quality. But the Germans had been building like men obsessed-were men obsessed-and had more airplanes, as they had more panzers. Step by step, the defenders of Poland were forced back.

”What are we going to do?” one of Anielewicz's fighters asked him. Seen through the lenses of his gas mask, the man's eyes were wide with horror.

”Keep fighting,” Mordechai answered. ”I don't know what else we can do.”

”What if the Poles give way?” the Jew demanded.

”They won't,” Anielewicz said. ”They've fought well. They'd better be fighting well. We have to have 'em-there are a lot more of them than there are of us.” All the same, he worried, not so much that the Poles would throw in the towel as at the command structure, or lack of same, of the defenders. He commanded his Jews, the Poles led their own, and the Lizards, while theoretically in charge of everybody, were a lot more diffident than they might have been.

Whatever command problems the Germans might have had, diffidence wasn't one of them.

Battered by superior force, the defenders fell back toward Lodz-or rather, toward what had been Lodz. Before long, they began running into refugees streaming out from the city. Some of those plainly wouldn't last long: they were vomiting blood, and their hair fell out in clumps. They'd been far too close to the bomb; its radiation was killing them. Anielewicz had never seen burns like those in all his life. It was as if some of their faces had been melted to slag.

Some people were blind in one eye, some in both. That was a matter of luck, depending on the direction in which they'd happened to face when the bomb went off. Some were burned on one side but not the other, the shadow of their own bodies having protected them from the hideous flash of light.

And, bad off as they were, they told stories of worse horrors closer to the explosion. ”Everything's melted down flat,” an elderly Polish man said. ”Just flat, with only little bits of things sticking out from what looks like gla.s.s. It's not gla.s.s, I don't guess. What it is is, it's what everything got melted down into, you know what I mean?”

A woman, a badly burned woman who probably wouldn't live, had her own tale: ”I came out of what was left of my house, and there was my neighbor's wall next door. All the paint got burned off it-except where she'd been standing. I don't know what happened to her. I never saw her again. I think she burned up instead of that stretch of the wall, and all that was left of her was her silhouette.”

”Here-drink,” Mordechai said, and gave her water from his canteen. He thanked G.o.d his own family was in Widawa. Maybe they would live. If they'd stayed in Lodz, they would surely be dead.

Because the refugees filled the roads, they made fighting and moving harder. But then, to Anielewicz's delighted surprise, the German onslaught slowed. He and his comrades and the Lizards contained them well short of Lodz. Before long, he ran into someone with a radio who'd been listening to reports of how the wider war was going.

”Breslau,” the fellow said. The Germans had set off an explosive-metal bomb east of it in the last round of fighting. It wasn't the Germans this time: it was the Race's turn. ”Peenemunde. Leignitz. Frankfurt on the Oder.” He tolled the roll of devastation. ”Olmutz. Kreuzberg. Neustettin.”

A light went on in Anielewicz's head. ”No wonder the Germans have stalled. The Race is bombing all their cities near the border. They must be having the devil's time getting supplies through.”

”That's not all the Race is bombing,” the man with the radio answered. ”The Lizards aren't playing the game halfway this time.”

”Will there be anything left of the world when they're through?” Mordechai asked.

”I don't know about the world,” the man answered. ”But I'll tell you this: there won't be much left of the G.o.dd.a.m.n Greater German Reich Reich.”

Mordechai Anielewicz said, ”Good.”

So far, the Deutsche had aimed four missiles at Cairo. The Race had knocked down two. One warhead had failed to detonate. And even the explosive-metal bomb that had gone off exploded a good distance east of the city. All things considered, it could have been much worse, and Atvar knew it.

He swung an eye turret toward Kirel. ”They thought we would be meek and mild and forbearing,” he said. ”Not this time. They miscalculated. In spite of all our warnings, they miscalculated. And now they are going to pay for it.”

”Indeed, Exalted Fleetlord.” Kirel pointed toward the map on the monitor in front of Atvar. ”They have paid for it already.”

”Not yet,” Atvar said. ”Not enough. This time, we are going to make a proper example of them.”

”By the time we are through with the Reich, Reich, nothing will be left of it,” Kirel said. nothing will be left of it,” Kirel said.

”Good,” Atvar said coldly. ”The Deutsche have troubled us altogether too much in the past. We-I-have been far too patient. The time for patience is past. In the future, the Deutsche shall not trouble us again.”

Kirel ordered a different map up on the monitor. ”They have also done us considerable damage in the present conflict.”

Atvar sighed. ”That, unfortunately, was to be expected. With their orbiting weapons and with those fired from their submersible boats, the time between launch and detonation is very short. Our colonies on the island continent and on the central peninsula of the main continental ma.s.s have suffered, as have those west of here.”

”And our orbiting stars.h.i.+ps,” Kirel said.

”And our orbiting stars.h.i.+ps,” Atvar agreed. ”And also Poland, very heavily, which is unfortunate.”

”We might have done better not to settle so many colonists in Poland,” Atvar admitted. ”The only reason we ended up administering the subregion was that none of the Tosevite factions involved in the area would admit that any of the others had the right to control it. To reduce the chances of an outbreak, we kept it-and see what our reward was for that.”

” 'Reward' is hardly the term I would use, Exalted Fleetlord,” Kirel said.

<script>