Worldwar_ Upsetting The Balance Part 19

"They'd better have moved into Lydia by now," Auerbach answered feelingly. "If they haven't, a lot of us are going to end up dead." He shook his head. "A lot of us are going to end up dead any which way. Riding horses against the Lizards isn't your basic low-risk business."

"Radio traces have been telling 'em right where we're at ever since we set out from Lamar," Magruder said with a tight grin. "They should know we're gettin' ready to hit Lydia with everything we've got."

"They should, yeah." Auerbach's smile was tight, too. The Lizards loved their gadgets, and believed in what those gadgets told them. If they intercepted radio signals that said two companies were heading toward Lydia to try to take it away from them, they'd take that seriously-and be waiting to greet the Americans when they arrived.

But it wasn't two companies heading toward Lydia: it was just Auerbach's radioman and half a dozen buddies, plus a lot of horses lashed together and carrying cloth dummies in the saddle. They never would have fooled anybody from the ground, but from the air they looked pretty good. The Lizards used aerial recon the same way they used radio intercepts. If you fed 'em what they already thought they were seeing or hearing, you could fool 'em. They went to Lydia-and you went to Lakin.

Thinking about carrier pigeons and nineteenth- versus twentieth-century warfare had given Auerbach the idea. He'd sold it to Colonel Nordenskold. Now it was his to execute... and if he'd guessed wrong about how the Lizards' minds worked, they'd do some serious executing of their own.

He held up a leather-gauntleted hand to halt his command when they came to a tall stand of cottonwoods along the banks of the Arkansas River. "We'll hold horses here," he ordered. "We're a little farther out than usual, I know, but we've got more horses along, too, since this is a two-company raid. We won't find better cover for concealing them any closer to town. Mortar crews, machine gunners, and you boys with the bazooka, you'll bring your animals forward. If we're lucky, you can use 'em to haul the weapons out when we pull back."

"If we're real lucky, we'll hold the place a while," Lieutenant Magruder said quietly. Auerbach nodded, grateful the Virginian didn't trumpet that thought. If everything went perfectly, they might push the Lizard-human frontier a few miles back toward the distant Mississippi and make the push stick. But how often did things go perfectly in war?

He swung himself down from his own horse, tossing the reins to one of the troopers who was staying behind. Only about twenty or twenty-five men would hold horses today; the cottonwoods' trunks and low branches made convenient tethering points for the animals. He wanted to get as many soldiers into the fight as he could.

The troopers and the packhorses carrying what pa.s.sed for their heavy firepower spread out into a broad skirmish line as they advanced on Lakin. Some of the sweat that darkened the armpits of Auerbach's olive-drab tunic had to do with the weather and the hike. Some came from worry-or rather, fear. If the Lizards hadn't taken the bait and reinforced Lydia at Lakin's expense, a lot of good young men weren't going to make it home to Lamar.

Lots of L's, he thought. if the similarity in names had confused the Lizards, they wouldn't have reacted as he'd hoped. And if they hadn't, his two companies were going to get ma.s.sacred. Then, a few days or a few weeks or a few months from now, some hotshot captain back in Lamar would have some new brilliant idea about how to drive the Lizards out of Lakin. Maybe Colonel Nordenskold would let him try it out-a.s.suming the Lizards weren't in Lamar by then, or in Denver. he thought. if the similarity in names had confused the Lizards, they wouldn't have reacted as he'd hoped. And if they hadn't, his two companies were going to get ma.s.sacred. Then, a few days or a few weeks or a few months from now, some hotshot captain back in Lamar would have some new brilliant idea about how to drive the Lizards out of Lakin. Maybe Colonel Nordenskold would let him try it out-a.s.suming the Lizards weren't in Lamar by then, or in Denver.

From way off to the left of the advancing skirmish line came a loud, flat bang! bang! and a shriek. "Oh, h.e.l.l," Auerbach muttered under his breath. He raised his voice: "They've laid some mines since we were here last, boys. Watch where you put your feet." Not that that would do much good, as he knew only too well. and a shriek. "Oh, h.e.l.l," Auerbach muttered under his breath. He raised his voice: "They've laid some mines since we were here last, boys. Watch where you put your feet." Not that that would do much good, as he knew only too well.

The Lizards inside Lakin hadn't been asleep at the switch, either. As soon as that mine went off, a siren in town began to wail. The Kearny County consolidated high school looked like h.e.l.l from the last time the cavalry had come to call, but the Lizards were still using it for their base. Off in the distance, Auerbach saw little skittering shapes heading for cover. He bit down hard on the inside of his lower lip. He'd counted on being able to get closer to town before his plan started going to pot.

But what you counted on in war and what you got weren't always the same critter. Sometimes they weren't even the same kind of critter. A machine gun started chattering in one of the battered high school buildings. Auerbach threw himself flat amid dark green beet tops. He pounded a fist into the dirt. Cries here and there said his command was taking casualties. If they spent the next hour crawling toward Lakin on their bellies, the Lizards would be able to bring back whatever forces they'd moved up to Lydia.

"Tell Schuyler's mortar crew to take out that machine gun!" he shouted. The man to his left pa.s.sed on the message. No radios here-they were all part of the simulated attack on Lydia. Now for the first time Auerbach missed them desperately. He shrugged. His great-grandfathers' C.O.'s had managed to run battles under conditions like these, so he figured he could do it, too, if he had to.

And he had some pretty good people playing on his team, as had those officers in Confederate gray. Long before any order could have reached him, Schuyler-or maybe one of the other mortar men-opened up with his stovepipe. A bomb fell behind the place from which the machine gun was sending forth its firefly flashes, then another in front. The third bomb was long again, but by less than half as much as the first. The fourth was a hit. The machine gun fell silent.

Cheers rolled up and down the skirmish line. But when some of the troopers got up and started to run toward town, the machine gun began its hateful stutter once more. The mortar went whump, whump, whump whump, whump, whump-three rounds in quick succession. The machine gun stopped firing again. This time, it didn't start up when the Americans came to their feet.

Auerbach let out a Rebel yell as he advanced. Quite a few of his men echoed him; cavalry units drew a disproportionate number of Southerners. Some of the Lizards in the consolidated high school opened up with their automatic rifles. Those were bad, but didn't have the reach or sustained firepower of the machine gun.

Mortar bombs began stalking the rifle positions, one by one. Some were silenced, some weren't. At worst, though, not a whole lot of Lizards were shooting at the cavalrymen.

Auerbach's confidence rose. "Boys, I think most of 'em have gone off to visit up in Lydia," he yelled. That brought fresh cheers and more Rebel yells. Getting through the razor wire around the high school wasn't going to be any fun, but once they managed it- Manage they did. The Lizards lacked the defenders to prevent it. They shot a couple of men attacking the wire with cutters, but others kept up such a heavy stream of fire on their positions that they probably lost as many fighters as they wounded.

Once through the barriers, the Americans fanned out and went Lizard hunting. "Always wanted to do this to my old high school," one trooper said, chucking a grenade into a likely looking doorway. No Lizard came out. Ever so cautiously, Auerbach peered into the room. Desks and tables were randomly scattered over the dirty floor, some of them overturned. Dust and cobwebs covered the blackboard, but he could still read the social studies lesson some teacher had chalked there the day before the world changed forever. The corners of his mouth turned down. Whatever the kids had learned in that lesson, it wasn't helping them now.

The snarl of a Lizard automatic rifle said the fighting wasn't done yet. Auerbach hurried toward the sound of the shooting. The Lizard was holed up in what had been a girls' bathroom. "Surrender!" he shouted to it. Then he made a noise that reminded him of bread popping out of an electric toaster. That was supposed to mean the same thing in Lizard talk.

He didn't think it would do any good. But then the door to the rest room opened. The Lizard slid out its rifle. "Hold fire!" Auerbach called to his men. He made the popping-toast noise again. The door opened wider. The Lizard came out. He knew enough to stand there with his hands high. All he was wearing was body paint; he'd left his equipment behind in the john. He repeated the Lizard word Auerbach had repeated, so it probably did mean surrender surrender after all. after all.

"Hagerman! Calhoun! Take charge of him," Auerbach said. "They really want Lizard POWs; we'll get a pat on the f.a.n.n.y for bringing him in, if we can do it."

Max Hagerman gave the Lizard a dubious look. "How we gonna keep him on a horse all the way back to Lamar, sir?"

"d.a.m.ned if I know, but I expect you'll figure something out," Auerbach said cheerfully, which meant Hagerman was stuck with it. Turning to Jack Calhoun, the captain went on, "Go in there and gather up his gear. The intelligence staff'll want that, too." The cavalryman a.s.sumed a dubious expression, too, his on account of the GIRLS GIRLS sign on the battered door. "Go on," Auerbach told him. "They aren't in there now." sign on the battered door. "Go on," Auerbach told him. "They aren't in there now."

"Yeah, that's right," Calhoun said, as if reminding himself.

That seemed to be the last combat inside the school grounds. Auerbach hurried to the northern edge of the school. The mortar teams and the .50-caliber machine-gun crew were already digging themselves in. "You boys don't need me," Auerbach said. "You could run this show by yourselves."

The troopers just grinned and went on setting up. The mortar teams began lobbing bombs up Highway 25, 25, getting the range and zeroing in on the highway itself. "They'll have to work to get past us," a sergeant said. "We've each got a different stretch of road to cover, from long range to almost right down on top of us. And as they pa.s.s the longer-range weapons, those'll drop down to keep the pressure on." getting the range and zeroing in on the highway itself. "They'll have to work to get past us," a sergeant said. "We've each got a different stretch of road to cover, from long range to almost right down on top of us. And as they pa.s.s the longer-range weapons, those'll drop down to keep the pressure on."

"That's how we set it up," Auerbach agreed. "Now we find out if we're as smart as we think we are." If the Lizards sent a tank or two west from Garden City, instead of bringing the garrison back from Lydia to Lakin, his men were in big trouble. Sure, they'd packed the bazooka launcher and a dozen or so rounds for it, but you needed to be lucky to take out a Lizard tank with a bazooka, and you didn't need to be lucky to smash up some cavalrymen with a tank.

One of his troopers let out a yell and pointed north. Auerbach took his field gla.s.ses out of their case. The little specks on the road swelled into one of the Lizards' armored personnel carriers and a couple of trucks. They were southbound, coming fast.

"Get ready, boys," he said, stowing the binoculars again. "That APC is gonna be tough." A Lizard APC could give a Lee tank a tough fight. A bazooka would make it say uncle, though.

He shouted for more troopers to come up and find cover in the buildings and ruins of the school. For once the Lizards were doing the dirty work, attacking Americans in a fortified position. Outside of Chicago, that didn't happen often enough.

The sergeant dropped a finned bomb down the tube of his mortar. Bang! Bang! Off it flew, quite visible against the sky. It was still airborne when he fired the second. He got off the third before either of the first two hit. Then dirt and asphalt fountained up from Highway 25, right behind the APC. The second bomb hit between two trucks, the third alongside one of them. Off it flew, quite visible against the sky. It was still airborne when he fired the second. He got off the third before either of the first two hit. Then dirt and asphalt fountained up from Highway 25, right behind the APC. The second bomb hit between two trucks, the third alongside one of them.

The trucks and the APC came on harder than ever, into the next mortar's zone. That crew was already firing. Screams of delight rose from the Americans when a bomb landed on top of a truck. The truck slewed sideways, flipped over, and started to burn. Lizards spilled out of it. Some lay on the roadway. Others skittered for cover. The .50-caliber machine gun opened up on them, and on the other truck.

The APC had a heavy machine gun, too, or a light cannon. Whatever it was, it put a lot of rounds in the air, and in a hurry. Auerbach threw himself flat behind what had been a wall and was now a substantial pile of rubble. With the Lizards' gun chewing at it, he hoped it was substantial enough.

He swore when the . .50 fell silent. The mortar teams were shooting up and over cover, but the machine gunners had to be more exposed, and their weapon's muzzle flash gave the Lizards a dandy target. The Americans needed that gun. Auerbach crawled toward it on his belly. As he'd feared, he found both gunners down, one with the top of his head blown off, the other moaning with a shoulder wound. He quickly helped bandage the wounded man, then peered out over the long gun's sights.

Fire spurted from the second truck. It stopped but didn't roll onto its side. Lizards bailed out into the fields on either side of Highway 25. Auerbach fired at them. He came to the end of a belt and bent to fasten on another one from the ammunition box.

"I'll take care of that, sir," a trooper said. "I've done it with a .30-caliber weapon often enough. This here one's just bigger, looks like."

"That's about right," Auerbach agreed. He squeezed the triggers. The heavy machine gun felt like a jackhammer in his hands, and made a racket like a dozen jackhammers all going flat out. Even with the flash hider at the end of the muzzle, he blinked against the spearhead of flame that spat from the barrel. A stream of hot bra.s.s cartridge cases, each as big as his thumb, spewed from the breech and clattered down onto the growing pile at his feet.

He swore again when the APC's weapon, which had gone on to other targets after wrecking the machine-gun crew, now swung back his way. "Get down!" he yelled to the corporal feeding him ammo. Bullets slammed into the wreckage all around him. Flying concrete chips bit into the back of his neck.

All at once, the sh.e.l.ls stopped coming. Auerbach looked up, wondering if a sniper was waiting to put one through his head. But no-smoke poured from the APC. A mortar bomb had pierced the armor over the engine compartment. With the enemy machine dead in the water, all the mortar teams poured fire on it. In seconds, another bomb tore through the roof. The APC went up in a Fourth of July display of exploding ammunition.

A few Lizards out in the field kept up a rattle of small-arms fire. Next to what had been going on, it was Easy Street now. The mortar teams and Auerbach on the .50-caliber shot back whenever they found decent targets. The Lizards couldn't hit back, not at long range.

"We beat 'em." Lieutenant Magruder sounded as if he couldn't believe it.

Auerbach didn't blame him; he was having trouble believing it himself. "Yeah, we did," he said. "We'll send a pigeon back to Lamar, let 'em know we did it. And we'll send back our prisoner with a guard. Otherwise, though, we'll bring the horses forward into town."

"Yes, sir," Magruder said. "You aim to stay in Lakin, then?"

"Till I get orders otherwise or till the Lizards come up from Garden City and run me out, you bet I do," Auerbach answered. "Why the h.e.l.l not? I won it, and by G.o.d I'm going to keep it."

Leslie Groves stared at the telephone in disbelief, as if it were a snake that had just bitten him. "I'm sorry, General," the voice on the other end said, "but I don't see how we're going to be able to get those tubes and explosives and detonator wiring to you."

"Then you'd better look harder, Mister," Groves growled. "You're in Minneapolis, right? You still have a working railroad, for G.o.d's sake. Get 'em across the Dakotas or up through Canada; our track north by way of Fort Greeley is still open most of the time. You get moving, do you hear me?"

The fellow from Minneapolis-Porlock, that's what his name was-said, "I don't know whether we'll be able to make that s.h.i.+pment. I'm aware your priority is extremely high, but the losses we've suffered on rail s.h.i.+pments make me hesitate to take the risk. Transporting the goods by wagon would be much more secure." His voice trailed away in a sort of a peevish whine.

"Fine. Send us a set by wagon," Groves said.

"Oh, I'm so glad you see my difficulty," Porlock said, now in tones full of bureaucratic relief.

Porlock, Groves reflected, should have been named Morlock, after one of the subterranean creatures in The Time Machine. The Time Machine. Then he shook his head. Morlocks were machine tenders; they would have had a proper appreciation for the uses of technology, no matter how lamentable their taste in entrees had grown over the millennia. Then he shook his head. Morlocks were machine tenders; they would have had a proper appreciation for the uses of technology, no matter how lamentable their taste in entrees had grown over the millennia.

Snarling, Groves said, "I wasn't done yet, Porlock. G.o.d d.a.m.n it to h.e.l.l, sir, if I tell you I want your breakfast fried eggs and toast chucked into a fighter plane and flown out here, they'd better still be hot when I meet 'em at the airport. That's That's what the priority this project has is all about. You want to send me backups for my requisitions, you can send 'em any d.a.m.n way you please. But you will send me a set my way, on my schedule, or the President of the United States will hear about it. Do you have that down loud and clear, Mister? You'd better, that's all I have to say." what the priority this project has is all about. You want to send me backups for my requisitions, you can send 'em any d.a.m.n way you please. But you will send me a set my way, on my schedule, or the President of the United States will hear about it. Do you have that down loud and clear, Mister? You'd better, that's all I have to say."

Porlock had tried to interrupt him a couple of times, but Groves used his loud, gravelly voice the same way he used his wide, heavy body: to bulldoze his way ahead. Now, when he paused for breath, Porlock said, "There are more projects than yours these days, General. Poison gas has had its priority increased to-"

"Three levels below ours," Groves broke in. When he felt like interrupting, he d.a.m.n well interrupted. "Poison gas is a sideshow, Mister. The Lizards'll figure out proper masks sooner or later, and they'll figure out how to make gas of their own, too. If they don't manage it by themselves, you can bet your bottom dollar some helpful frog or wop'll give 'em a hand. The thing we're working on here, though"-he wouldn't call it a bomb, not over the telephone; you never could tell who might be listening-"the only way to defend against that is to be somewhere else when it goes off."

"Rail travel isn't safe or secure," Porlock protested.

"Mister, in case you haven't noticed, there's a war on. Not one d.a.m.ned thing in the United States is safe or secure these days. Now I need what I need, and I need it when I need it. Are you going to send it to me my way, or not?" Groves made the question into a threat: You are going to send it to me my way, or else. You are going to send it to me my way, or else.

"Well, yes, but-"

"All right, then," Groves said, and hung up. He glared at the phone after it was back on the hook. Sometimes the people on his own side were worse enemies than the Lizards. No matter that the United States had been at war for more than a year and a half, no matter that the Lizards had been on American soil for more than a year. Some people still didn't get the idea that if you didn't take occasional risks-or not so occasional risks-now, you'd never get the chance to take them later. He snorted, a full-throated noise of contempt. For all the initiative some people showed, they might as well have been Lizards themselves.

He snorted again. n.o.body would ever accuse him of failing through lack of initiative. Through rus.h.i.+ng ahead too fast, maybe, but never through hanging back.

He had a picture of his wife on his desk. He didn't look at it as often as he should, because when he did, he remembered how much he missed her. That made him inefficient, and he couldn't afford inefficiency, not now.

Thinking of his own wife made him think of what had happened to Jens Larssen. The guy had caught a bunch of bad breaks, no doubt about that. Having your wife take up with another man was tough. But Larssen had let it drive him-oh, not round the bend, but to a nasty place, a place where people didn't want to work with him any more. He'd had real talent, but he'd given up on the team and he wasn't quite brilliant enough to be an a.s.set as a lone-wolf theorist. Sending him out had been a good notion. Groves hoped he'd come back better for it "Hanford," Groves muttered discontentedly. It had seemed a great idea at the time. The Columbia was about as ideal a cooling source for an atomic pile as you could imagine, and eastern Was.h.i.+ngton a good long way away from any Lizards.

But things had changed since Larssen got on his trusty bicycle and pedaled out of Denver. The project was running smoothly here now, with plutonium coming off the piles gram after gram, and with a third pile just starting construction.

Not only that, Groves had his doubts about being able to start up a major industrial development in a sleepy hamlet like Hanford without having the Lizards notice and wonder what was going on. Those doubts had grown more urgent since Tokyo vanished in a flash of light and an immense pillar of dust, and since Cordell Hull brought back word that the Lizards would treat any American nuclear research facility the same way if they found it.

Just because Hanford was such a good site for a pile, Groves feared the Lizards would suspect any new work there was exactly what it really was. If they did, it would cease to exist moments later, and so would the hamlet of Hanford. Of course, if they got suspicious about Denver, the same thing would happen there-and Denver had a lot more people in it than Hanford did. Most of them-Groves devoutly hoped-knew nothing whatever about the atomic bombs being sp.a.w.ned here. They were hostages to the secret's being kept, just the same.

They were also camouflage. The Lizards flew over Denver a good deal, and bombed the plants that turned out tires and bricks and mining equipment and furniture (some of the latter plants were making wooden aircraft parts these days instead). The United States needed everything the factories produced. All the same, Groves didn't too much mind seeing them bombed. As long as the Lizards. .h.i.t them, they weren't hitting anything of greater importance. And here, unlike in Hanford, new industrial facilities could go up without being reckoned anything out of the ordinary.

Even if Larssen did come back with the news that Hanford could be the earthly paradise for atomic research, Groves figured the Metallurgical Laboratory would stay here, east of Eden. Packing up and moving would be tough, doing it secretly would be tougher, and keeping things in Was.h.i.+ngton State secret would be toughest of all. Accepting Denver's drawbacks and exploiting its advantages seemed a better bet.

"That'll tick Larssen off, too," Groves muttered under his breath. If Larssen came back from risking his neck for project and country with a recommendation to go yonder, he wouldn't be dancing with glee when he found out they'd decided to stay hither no matter what. "Too d.a.m.n bad," Groves told the ceiling. "If he doesn't like it, he can go back to Hanford by his lonesome."

He turned to the report he'd been studying when that idiot Porlock called. Keeping the atomic piles cool as they cooked plutonium took a lot of water from Cherry Creek and the South Platte. Separating the plutonium from the uranium took chemical reactions that used more water. Every bit of that water, by the time it finished doing its job, ended up radioactive. A radioactive trail in the South Platte leading back to Denver might as well have been a sign to the Lizards, saying AIM HERE.

Heavy-duty filters sucked as much radioactive goop out of the water as they could. They did a good job; Geiger counters downstream from the University of Denver were pretty quiet. But that didn't end the problem. The gla.s.s wool and diatomaceous earth and other goodies in the filter (the report had a long list) grew radioactive themselves after a while. When they got cleaned out and replaced, they had to go somewhere. To keep the Lizards from detecting them, "somewhere" meant lead-lined tubs and trash cans.

The major who'd written the report was complaining that he had trouble getting enough lead sheeting to line the tubs and cans. Groves scribbled a note in the margin: This is silver-mining country, for heaven's sake. Wherever there's silver, there's going to be lead. If we aren't exploiting that as well as we should, we have to get better at it. This is silver-mining country, for heaven's sake. Wherever there's silver, there's going to be lead. If we aren't exploiting that as well as we should, we have to get better at it.

If he had to requisition lead from outside of town, G.o.d only knew how long it would take to get here. If he stayed local, he could control the whole process of getting it from start to finish. All at once, he understood how old-time feudal barons, living off the produce and manufactures of their own estates, must have felt.

He smiled. "Lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," he said.

.9.

The mustard-gas burn on David Goldfarb's leg throbbed painfully. His trousers had pulled up over his socks just for a moment, while he was scrambling through gra.s.s near a sh.e.l.l hole that must have come from a gas round. That was all it took.

He pulled up his trousers now. In spite of the slimy stuff the medic had smeared on it, the burn remained red and inflamed. It looked infected. Mustard gas was nasty stuff. It could linger for days. He was just glad he'd been wearing his gas mask while he was near that hole. The idea of trying to breathe with a burn on his lungs made him s.h.i.+ver all over.

" 'Ow's it doin', flyboy?" Fred Stanegate asked in Yorks.h.i.+re dialect so broad Goldfarb had trouble following it. Stanegate was a big blond chap with cheekbones that made him look more like a Viking than an Englishman. The Sten gun he carried seemed hardly more than a pistol in his ma.s.sive, thick-fingered hands. It also seemed anachronistic; he should have been toting a battle-axe and wearing a hauberk, not filthy army battledress.

"I expect I'll live," Goldfarb answered. Stanegate chuckled as if he'd said something funny. From the Yorks.h.i.+reman's point of view, maybe he had; by all appearances, he bemused Fred at least as much as the other way round.

"Right peculiar they didna want you back," Stanegate said. "Peculiar." He repeated the word with relish, making four distinct syllables of it: pee-kyou-lee-yuhr.

"Wasn't much of a 'they' left at Bruntingthorpe by the time the Lizards got through with it," Goldfarb said, shrugging. After the first Lizard attack on the air base, Basil Roundbush had been recalled to piloting at once, but no orders had come for Goldfarb to return to a proper radar station. Then the Lizards started pounding Bruntingthorpe with pilotless aircraft, and after one of them hit the officers' barracks in the middle of the night, n.o.body much was left in RAF blue who could give him orders.

The local army commander had been happy enough to take him on. He'd said, "You know how to handle a weapon and obey orders, and that gives you a leg up-two legs up-on a lot of the lads we're giving the king's s.h.i.+lling to these days." Goldfarb pictured himself with two legs up, and cras.h.i.+ng to earth immediately thereafter. He didn't argue with the major, though. He'd wanted to get into the sc.r.a.p firsthand.

Now he waved about him and said, "And so we find ourselves approaching the lovely metropolis of Market Harborough and all its amenities, which-"

"All its what?" Fred Stanegate broke in.

"All the good stuff it has in it," Goldfarb said. Next to Bruntingthorpe, Market Harborough, a town of ten or fifteen thousand people, was indeed a metropolis, not that that in itself said much for Market Harborough. Goldfarb had pedaled into it a few times; it was no farther from Bruntingthorpe than Leicester was. "The Three Swans served some very fine bitter, even in wartime."

"Aye, that's so. Ah recall now." Stanegate's face grew beatific at the memory. "And in the market-you ken, the one by t'old school-you could get a bit o' b.u.t.ter for your bread, if you knew the right bloke t'ask."

"Could you?" Goldfarb hadn't known the right bloke, or even that there was a right bloke. Too late to worry about it now, even if the margarine he'd been spreading on his bread had tasted like something that dripped from the crankcase of a decrepit lorry.

"Aye, y'could." Fred Stanegate sighed. "Wonder how much of the place is left." He shook his head gloomily. "Not much, I wager. Not much o' anything left these days."

"Pretty country," Goldfarb said, waving again. Occasional sh.e.l.l holes marred the green meadows and fields or shattered fence gates, but the Lizards hadn't quite moved up into Market Harborough itself, so it hadn't been fought over house by house. "Can't you just see the hounds and riders chasing a fox into those woods there?"

"Ah, weel, Ah always used t'pull for the fox, if tha kens what I mean, whenever the hunt went by my farm."

"You're one up on me, then," Goldfarb said. "The only hunts I've ever seen were in the cinema."

"Looked to me like it'd be a fair bit of a lark, if you had the bra.s.s to keep up the hounds and the horses and the kit and all," Stanegate said. "Me, Ah was getting by on a couple o' quid a week, so Ah wasn't about t'go out ridin' t'the hounds." He spoke quite without malice or resentment, just reporting on how things had been. After a moment, he grinned. "So here Ah am in the army now, at a deal less than a couple o' quid a week. Life's a rum 'un, ain't it?"

"Won't quarrel with you there." Goldfarb reached up to straighten the tin hat on his head. His right index finger slid toward the trigger of his Sten gun. Houses were growing thicker on the ground as they got into Market Harborough. Even though the Lizards had never been in the town, they'd bombed it and sh.e.l.led it, and a lot of their bombs and sh.e.l.ls sprayed submunitions that stayed around waiting for some unlucky or careless sod to tread on them. Goldfarb did not intend to be careless.

A lot of people who had lived in Market Harborough had fled. A good many others, no doubt, were casualties. That did not mean the place was empty. Far from it: it bulged with refugees from the fighting farther south in the Midlands. Their tents and blankets filled the gra.s.sy square around the old grammar school-the place where, before the Lizards invaded England, Fred Stanegate had bought his b.u.t.ter.

Goldfarb had seen his share of refugees the past few weeks. These seemed at first glance no different from the men and women who'd streamed north before them: tired, pale, thin, filthy, many with blank faces and haunted eyes. But some of them were different. Nurses in white (and some ununiformed but for a Red Cross armband on a sleeve) tended to patients with burns like Goldfarb's but worse, spreading over great stretches of their bodies. Others did what they could for people who wheezed and coughed and tried desperately to get air down into lungs too blistered and burned to receive it.