Colonization_ Aftershocks Part 3

She wished they'd been able to stay longer. She might have avoided the bout of nausea and vomiting that had wracked her. But she was better now, and her hair hadn't fallen out, as had happened to so many who'd been closer to the bomb the Lizards dropped on her city. Of course, tens of thousands who'd been closer still were no longer among the living.

But those who survived were once more citizens of the Republique Francaise Republique Francaise. Monique had been a girl when France surrendered to Germany, and only a couple of years older than that when the Lizards drove the n.a.z.is and their puppets in Vichy away from Ma.r.s.eille. But when the fighting ended, France had returned to German hands, and the Germans hadn't bothered with ruling through puppets in the south any more.

Now Monique could walk through the outskirts of Ma.r.s.eille without worrying about SS men. If that wasn't a gift from G.o.d, she didn't know what was. She could even think about looking for a university position in Roman history again, and if she got one she would be able to say whatever she pleased about the Germanic invaders who'd helped bring down the Roman Empire.

"h.e.l.lo, sweetheart!" A man waved to her from behind the table on which he'd set up his wares. "Interested in anything I've got?"

He looked to be selling military gear the Germans who'd survived the explosive-metal bombing of Ma.r.s.eille had left behind when they'd been required to make their way back to the Reich Reich. By the way he tugged at his ratty trousers, that junk might not have been what he'd been trying to interest her in.

Since she wanted no more of him than she did of his junk, she stuck her nose in the air and kept walking. He laughed, not a bit abashed, and asked the next woman he saw the same not quite lewd question.

As Monique drew closer to the region the bomb had wrecked, she saw an enormous banner: DOWN BUT NOT OUT DOWN BUT NOT OUT. She smiled, liking that. France had been down a long time-longer than ever before in her history, perhaps-but she was on her feet again now, even if shakily.

A lot of Lizards were on the streets of Ma.r.s.eille-the streets on the fringes of town, the streets that hadn't been melted to slag by a temperature on the same order as those found in the sun. Returned French independence was one of the prices the Lizards had extracted from the n.a.z.is in exchange for accepting their surrender. Monique hoped it wasn't the only, or even the largest, price the Race had extracted from the Reich. Reich.

Back when Ma.r.s.eille belonged to the Germans, a lot of the Lizards who visited the city had been furtive characters. They'd come to buy ginger and often to sell drugs humans found entertaining. Monique had no doubt a lot of them were still here for those purposes. But they didn't have to be furtive any more. Nowadays, they were the ones who propped up French independence. What policeman would want to give them any trouble?

Even more to the point, what policeman would have the nerve to give them trouble? They didn't occupy France, as the Germans had. They didn't carry away everything movable, as the doryph.o.r.es doryph.o.r.es-Colorado beetles-in field-gray had. But France wasn't strong enough to stand on her own even against the battered, enfeebled, radioactive Reich. Reich. So the Lizards had to prop up the new Fourth Republic. And, of course, they had to be listened to. Of course. So the Lizards had to prop up the new Fourth Republic. And, of course, they had to be listened to. Of course.

Monique turned a corner and found what she was looking for: a little square where farmers down from the hills around town sold their cheeses and vegetables and smoked and salted meats to the survivors of the bombing for the most bloodthirsty prices they could extort. "How much for your haricots verts? haricots verts?" she asked a peasant with a battered cloth cap on his head, stubble on his cheeks and chin, and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth.

"Fifty Reichsmarks a kilo," he answered, and paused to look her up and down. He grinned, not very pleasantly. "Or a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b, if you'd rather."

"For green beans? That's outrageous," Monique said.

"I have ham, too," the farmer said. "If you want to blow me for ham, we can work something out, I expect."

"No, your price in money," Monique said impatiently. She didn't have to give this b.a.s.t.a.r.d anything she didn't want to; he wasn't an SS man. "I'll pay you thirty Reichsmarks a kilo." German money was the only kind in circulation; new francs were promised, but had yet to appear.

"Fifty, take it or leave it." The farmer didn't sound put out that she'd failed to fall to her knees. But he went on, "For once in my life, I don't have to haggle. If you won't pay me what I want, somebody else will-and you won't get a better price from anyone else around."

He was almost certainly right. "When the roads and railroads get fixed, you'll sing a different tune," Monique said.

"All the better reason to get what I can now, "he answered. "Do you want these beans, or don't you? Like I say, if you don't, somebody will."

"Give me two kilos." Monique had the money. Her brother Pierre had more money than he knew what to do with, even at the obscene prices for which things were selling nowadays. The Lizards had bought a lot of ginger from him over the years, and Germans and Frenchmen had bought a lot of goods he'd got from the Lizards.

After Monique paid the peasant, she held out her stringbag-a universal French shopping tool-and he poured haricots verts haricots verts into it. When he stopped, she hefted the sack and glared at him. Grudgingly, he doled out a few more beans. Getting cheated on price was one thing. Getting cheated on weight was something else. Hefting the stringbag again, Monique supposed he'd come close to giving her the proper amount. into it. When he stopped, she hefted the sack and glared at him. Grudgingly, he doled out a few more beans. Getting cheated on price was one thing. Getting cheated on weight was something else. Hefting the stringbag again, Monique supposed he'd come close to giving her the proper amount.

She bought potatoes from another farmer, one who refrained from offering to take his price in venery. Of course, his wife, a woman of formidable proportions, was standing beside him, which probably had something to do with his restraint. Then Monique headed back to the vast tent city outside of town that housed the many survivors who'd come through even when their homes hadn't.

The tent city smelled like a barnyard. She supposed that was inevitable, since it had no running water. The Romans, no doubt, would have taken such odors as an inevitable part of urban life. Monique didn't, couldn't. She wished her nose would go to sleep whenever she had to come back.

A boy who couldn't have been older than eight tried to steal her vegetables. She walloped him on the bottom, hard enough to send him off yowling. If he'd asked her for some, she probably would have given them to him. But she wouldn't put up with thieves, not even thieves in short pants.

As she'd had to share a flat with her brother and his lover, now she had to share a tent with them. When she ducked inside, she discovered they had company: a Lizard with impressively fancy body paint. He jerked in alarm when she came through the tent flap.

Lucie spoke rea.s.suringly in the Lizards' language. Monique didn't speak it, but caught the tone. She wondered if it worked as well on the Lizard as it would have on a human male. Lucie wasn't much to look at, being pudgy and plain, but she had the s.e.xiest voice Monique had ever heard.

Pierre Dutourd was also pudgy and plain, so they made a good pair, or at least a well-matched one. He was ten years older than Monique, and the difference looked even wider than it was. "How did you do?"

She hefted the stringbag. "Everything is too expensive," she answered, "but the haricots verts haricots verts and the potatoes looked pretty good, so I got them." and the potatoes looked pretty good, so I got them."

"Excuse me," the Lizard said in hissing French. "Is it that these foods were grown in the local soil?"

"But of course," Monique answered. "Why?"

"Because, in that case, they are liable to be in some measure radioactive," the Lizard replied. "Your health would be better if you did not eat them."

"They are the only food we can get," Monique said, acid in her voice. "Would our health be better if we starved to death?"

"Well, no," the Lizard admitted. "But why can you not get more healthful alimentation?"

"Why?" Monique wanted to hit him over the head with the stringbag. "Because the Race has dropped explosive-metal bombs all over France, that's why." She turned to Pierre. "Do you always deal with idiots?"

"Keffesh isn't an idiot," her brother answered, and patted the Lizard on the shoulder. "He's just new in Ma.r.s.eille, and doesn't understand the way things here are right now. He's been buying and selling down in the South Pacific, till the war disrupted things."

"Well, he ought to think a little before he talks," Monique snapped.

"Who is this bad-tempered person?" the Lizard named Keffesh asked Pierre.

"My sister," he answered. "She is bad-tempered, I agree, but she will not betray you. You may rely on that."

By the way Keffesh's eye turrets swung back and forth, he didn't want to rely on anything. He stuck out his tongue at Pierre, as a human being might have pointed with an index finger. "It could be," he said. Now that he'd started speaking French, he seemed content to stick with it. "But may I rely on you? If you cannot bring in food and have to eat supplies that are possibly contaminated, how is it that you will be able to bring in supplies of the herb my kind craves so much?"

Lucie laughed. Monique didn't know what, if anything, that did to Keffesh; it certainly would have got any human male's complete and undivided attention. Lucie said, "That is very simple. There is little profit in food. There is great profit in ginger. Of course ginger will move where food would not."

"Ah," Keffesh said. "Yes, that is sensible. Very well, then."

Monique shook her head and set down the sack of vegetables. She had no doubt Lucie was right. What did that say about the way things worked in the world? That the coming of the Lizards hadn't changed things much? Of all the conclusions she contemplated, that was odds-on the most depressing.

Rance Auerbach contemplated another perfect Tahitian day. It was warm, a little humid, with clouds rolling across the blue sky. He could look out the window of the apartment he shared with Penny Summers and see the even bluer South Pacific. He turned away from the lovely spectacle and lit a cigarette. Smoking made him cough, which hurt. He'd lost most of a lung and taken other damage from a Lizard bullet during the fighting. Doctors told him he was cutting years off his life by not quitting. Too G.o.dd.a.m.n bad, Too G.o.dd.a.m.n bad, he thought, and took another drag. he thought, and took another drag.

He limped into the kitchen and got himself a beer. "Let me have one of those, too, will you?" Penny called from the bedroom when she heard him open it.

"Okay." His voice was a ruined rasp. He popped the top off another beer. Walking back to give it to her hurt, too. Another bullet from the same burst of fire had left him with a shattered leg. "Here you go, babe."

"Thanks," she told him. She was also smoking a cigarette, in quick, nervous puffs. She grabbed the beer and raised it high. "Here's to crime."

He drank-he would have drunk to anything-but he laughed, too. "Didn't know there was any such thing in Free France."

"Ha," she said, and brushed a lock of dyed blond hair back off her cheek. She was in her early forties, a few years younger than Rance, and could pa.s.s for younger still because of the energy she showed. "Now, the next interesting question is, how much longer will there be a Free France now that there's a real France again?"

"You expect the froggies to sail out here with gunboats and take over?" After a long sentence, Rance had to pause and suck in air. "I don't think that's awful G.o.dd.a.m.n likely."

"Gunboats? No, neither do I. But airplanes full of clerks and cops?" Penny grimaced. "I wouldn't be half surprised. And they're liable to kill the goose that laid the golden egg if they do."

As far as power went, Free France was a joke. It couldn't hold out for twenty minutes if the Empire of j.a.pan or the USA or the Race decided to invade it. But none of them had, because a place under n.o.body's thumb, where people and Lizards could make deals without anybody looking over their shoulders, was too useful to all concerned. How would that look, though, to a pack of functionaries back in Paris?

Not good. "We came here to get out from under," Rance said in his Texas drawl. "What do we do if that doesn't work?" "We came here to get out from under," Rance said in his Texas drawl. "What do we do if that doesn't work?"

"Go somewheres else," Penny answered at once. Her Kansas accent was as harsh as his was soft. "I'm thinkin' about it. How about you?"

"Yeah." He was surprised at how readily he admitted it. Tahiti, with no laws to speak of, with shameless native girls who didn't bother covering their t.i.ts half the time, had been awfully attractive-till he got here. One thing n.o.body mentioned about the native girls was how often they had hulking, bad-tempered native boyfriends. And, with no law to speak of, he often felt like a sardine in a tank full of sharks. "Where have you got in mind?"

"Well, like you said, if the froggies get their hands on this place, they'll squeeze it till its eyes pop," Penny said. "So what I was figuring was maybe going back to France. It's a lot bigger than Tahiti, you know? They won't have half the cops and things they need to keep an eye on everybody, on account of the n.a.z.is have been doing so much of that for so long."

"If I had a hat, I'd take it off to you," Rance said. "That's one of the sneakiest things I ever heard in all my born days. Of course, there's a good deal to to France, if you know what I mean. You have any place in particular in mind, or just sort of all over the country?" France, if you know what I mean. You have any place in particular in mind, or just sort of all over the country?"

"How's Ma.r.s.eille sound to you?" Penny asked.

Auerbach made motions of tipping the hat he wasn't wearing and sticking it back on his head. "Are you out of your ever-loving mind?" he demanded. "Do you remember what happened to us the last time we were in Ma.r.s.eille? The Germans almost gave us a blindfold and a cigarette and lined us up against the wall and shot us."

"That's right," Penny said placidly. "So what?"

"So what?" Rance would have screamed, but he didn't have the lungs for it. Perhaps because he couldn't make a lot of noise, he had to think before saying anything else. After thinking, he felt foolish. "Oh," he said. "No more n.a.z.is, right?"

Penny grinned at him. "Bingo. See? You're not so dumb after all."

"Maybe not. But maybe I am. And maybe you are, too," Rance said. "Didn't Ma.r.s.eille have an explosive-metal bomb land on its head?"

"Yeah, I think it did," Penny answered. "But so what again? Some of the ginger dealers'll still be around. And if the place got shaken up good, that gives us a better chance to set up shop there."

Rance thought about it. At first, it sounded pretty crazy. Then he liked the idea. After that, though, he hesitated again. "Going to be plenty of Lizards in Ma.r.s.eille, or in whatever's left of it," he remarked.

"I hope so," Penny exclaimed. "You think I want to sell all the ginger we've got to a bunch of cooks in a restaurant?"

But Rance was shaking his head. "That's not what I meant. You wait and see-there'll be lots of Lizards all over France, pretending they're not telling the Frenchmen what to do. If they weren't there, how long would it be before the n.a.z.is were telling the Frenchmen what to do again?"

"Oh." Now Penny saw what he was driving at.

"That's right," Auerbach said. "If there are official-type Lizards all over France-and you can bet your bottom dollar there will be-they aren't going to be real happy with us. Go ahead-tell me I'm wrong."

Penny looked glum. "Can't do it, G.o.ddammit."

"Good." Rance knew he had relief in his voice. The Lizards had arrested both of them in Mexico for selling ginger, and tried to use them in Ma.r.s.eille to trap a smuggler (Rance still thought of him as Pierre the t.u.r.d, though he knew that couldn't possibly have been the guy's right name). The Germans had fouled that up, but the Race had been grateful enough to set Rance and Penny up in South Africa-where they'd gone into the ginger business again, and barely managed to escape a three-cornered firefight with enough gold to come to Tahiti.

But Penny still looked discontented. "We can't stay here forever, either, even if the real French don't clamp down on the Free French. We aren't doing enough business; we're too small. And everything is expensive as h.e.l.l."

"Do you want to try going back to the States?" Auerbach asked. "We haven't done anything illegal there. American law doesn't care about ginger one way or the other."

"If we went home, I wouldn't be worrying about the law," Penny said.

Rance could only nod about that. She'd come back into his life, years after they broke up, because she was on the run from ginger-smuggling a.s.sociates she'd stiffed; they hadn't been happy with her for keeping the fee she got from the Lizards instead of turning it over to them. And they weren't happy with Rance, either: he'd killed a couple of their hired thugs who'd come to his apartment to take the price for that ginger out of Penny's hide.

He sighed, which made him cough, which made him wince, which made him take another swig of beer to try to put out the fire inside him. It didn't work. It never worked. But he drank an awful lot, as he had ever since he was wounded. Enough hooch and he didn't feel things so much.

Penny said, "If we can't stay here and we can't go to France and we can't go to the States, what the h.e.l.l can we do?"

"We can stay here quite a while, if we sit tight," Auerbach answered. "We can go back to the States, too, and not have anybody notice us-if we sit tight."

"I don't want want to sit tight." Penny paced around the bedroom. She paused only to light another cigarette, which she started smoking even more savagely than she had the first one. "All the time I lived in Kansas, I spent sitting tight. That was the only thing people knew how to do there. And I'll sit tight when I'm dead. In between the one and the other, I'm going to to sit tight." Penny paced around the bedroom. She paused only to light another cigarette, which she started smoking even more savagely than she had the first one. "All the time I lived in Kansas, I spent sitting tight. That was the only thing people knew how to do there. And I'll sit tight when I'm dead. In between the one and the other, I'm going to live, live, dammit." dammit."

"I might have known you were going to say that," Rance remarked. "h.e.l.l, I did know you were going to say it. But it doesn't help right now, you know?"

Penny set her hands on her hips and exhaled an angry cloud of smoke. "Okay, hotshot, you're so G.o.dd.a.m.n smart, you keep thinking up reasons why we can't do this, that, or the other thing-what do you figure we ought to do?"

"If I had my druthers, I'd go back to the States," Auerbach said slowly. "I've got a little pension waiting for me, and-"

Penny laughed a flaying, scornful laugh. "Oh, yeah. h.e.l.l of a life you were living back there. You just bet it was, Rance."

His ears heated. He'd had that miserable little apartment in Fort Worth, and he'd been drinking himself to death an inch at a time there. For excitement, he'd go down to the veterans' hall and play poker with the other fellows who'd been left wrecked but not quite dead. They'd all heard one another's stories endless times: often enough to keep a straight face while pretending to believe the juiciest parts of the lies the other fellows told.

If he went back, he'd fall into that same rut again. He knew it. That was how he'd lived for a long time. Life with Penny Summers was a great many things, but a rut never. A roller coaster, perhaps-Christ, a roller coaster certainly-but not a rut.

"Tahiti just won't be the same," he said mournfully. "No matter what happens, it won't be the same. And our gold won't stretch as far as we hoped it would." Down in Cape Town, he'd almost got killed on account of that gold. But it wasn't enough, no matter how much blood had been spilled over it.

"What does that leave, then?" Penny said. "England's too close to the n.a.z.is to be comfortable, and the same people do business in Canada as in the USA."

He pointed an accusing finger at her. "I know what's up. You want to go back to France, and you don't give a good G.o.dd.a.m.n how stupid it is."

For once, he caught Penny without a snappy comeback, from which he concluded he was dead right. His girlfriend did laugh again, this time ruefully. "If you were younger and dumber, I'd take you to bed with me, and by the time I was through you'd swear going back there was your idea."

"If I was younger and dumber, I'd be a lot happier. Either that or dead, one." Rance drank the last beer in the bottle. "You want to take me to bed anyhow? Who knows how dumb I'll be afterwards?"

Penny reached up to the back of her neck and undid the halter top she was wearing. She pulled down her white linen shorts, kicked them off to one side, and stood there naked. Her body had yielded very little to time. "Why the h.e.l.l not?" she said. "Come here, guy."

Afterwards, they lay side by side, sweaty and sated. Auerbach reached out with a lazy hand and tweaked her nipple. "What the h.e.l.l," he said. "You talked me into it."

"How about that?" Penny answered. "And I didn't even have to say anything. I must not know what a persuasive gal I am."

That made Rance laugh. "Every woman ever born is persuasive that way, if she feels like using it. Of course"-he watched Penny cloud up, and hastened to amend his words-"some are more persuasive than others."

The clouds went away. Penny turned practical: "We shouldn't have much trouble getting into France, and our papers probably won't have to be too good. The Frenchies'll take a while to figure out what they're supposed to be doing. We should make quite a killing."

"Terrific," Rance said. "Once we do it, we can retire to Tahiti." Penny poked him in the ribs, and he supposed he deserved it.

Felless was perfectly happy to leave the eggs she'd laid-the second clutch from ginger-inspired matings-in the local hatching room. She hoped she would soon be able to leave the new town in the Arabian peninsula herself. As was her way, she made no secret of what she hoped.

One of the locals said, "You could have stayed in Ma.r.s.eille. That, at least, would have shut you up when a bomb burst there."