“Liu Han is absent,” Nieh answered. The little devils had as much trouble telling people apart as he did with them.

Ppevel spoke again: “We suspect a link between her and the disappearance of the researcher Ttomalss.”

“Your people and mine are at war,” Nieh Ho-T’ing answered. “We have honored the truce we gave in exchange for Liu Han’s baby. We were not required to do anything more than that. Suspect all you like.”

“You are arrogant,” Ppevel said.

That, coming from an imperialist exploiter of a little scaly devil, almost made Nieh Ho-T’ing laugh out loud. He didn’t; he was here on business. He said, “We have learned that you scaly devils are seriously considering cease-fires without time limits for discussion of your withdrawal from the territory of the peace-loving Soviet Union and other states.”

“These requests are under discussion,” Ppevel agreed through the interpreter. “They have nothing to do with you, however. We shall not withdraw from China under any circumstances.”

Nieh stared at him in dismay. He had been ordered by Mao Tse-Tung himself to demand China’s-and, specifically, the People’s Liberation Army’s-inclusion in such talks. Having the little scaly devils reject that out of hand before he could even propose it was a jolt. It reminded Nieh of the signs the European foreign devils had put up in their colonial parks: NO DOGS OR CHINESE ALLOWED.

“You shall regret this high-handed refusal,” he said when he could speak again. “What we have done to you is but a pinprick beside what we might do.”

“What you might do is a pinprick beside the damage from an explosive-metal bomb,” Ppevel replied. “You have none. We are strong enough to hold down this land no matter what you do. We shall.”

“If you do, we’ll make your life a living hell,” Hsia Shou-Tao burst out hotly. “Every time you step out on the street, someone may shoot at you. Every time you get into one of your cars or trucks or tanks, you may drive over a mine. Every time you travel between one city and another, someone may have a mortar zeroed on the road. Every time you bring food into a city, you may have to see if it is poisoned.”

Nieh wished his aide hadn’t given the little devils such bald threats. Liu Han would have known better, she was, as Nieh had discovered to his own occasional discomfiture, a master at biding her time till she was ready to attack a target full force. But Nieh did not disagree with the sentiments Hsia had expressed.

Ppevel remained unimpressed. “How is this different from what you are doing now?” he demanded. “We hold the centers of population, we hold the roads between one of them and another. Using these, we can control the countryside.”

“You can try,” Nieh Ho-T’ing told him. That was the recipe the Japanese had used in occupying northeastern China. It was almost the only recipe you could use if you lacked the manpower-or even the devilpower-to occupy a land completely. “You will find the price higher than you can afford to pay.”

“We are a patient people,” Ppevel answered. “In the end, we shall wear you down. You Big Uglies are too hasty for long campaigns.”

Nieh Ho-T’ing was used to thinking of the Europeans and Japanese as hasty folk, hopelessly out of their depth in dealing with China. He was not used to being perceived as a blunt, unsubtle barbarian himself. Pointing a finger at Ppevel, he said, “You will lose more fighters here in China than you would from an explosive-metal bomb. You would do better to negotiate a peaceful withdrawal of your forces now than to see them destroyed piecemeal.”

“Threats are easy to make,” Ppevel said. “They are harder to carry out.”

“Conquests are sometimes easy to make, too,” Nieh replied. “They are harder to keep. If you stay here, you will not be facing the People’s Liberation Army alone, you know. The Kuomintang and the eastern devils-the Japanese-will struggle alongside us. If the war takes a generation or longer, we shall accept the necessity.”

He was sure he spoke the truth about the Kuomintang. Chiang Kai-shek had betrayed the Chinese revolution, but he was as wily a politician as any in the land. Even after the Japanese invaded, he’d saved the bulk of his strength for the conflict against the People’s Liberation Army, just as Mao had conserved force to use against him. Each of them recognized the need for protracted war to gain his own objectives.

What the Japanese would do was harder to calculate. Without a doubt, though, they hated the little scaly devils and would fight them ferociously, even if without any great political acumen.

Ppevel said, “As I told you before, we are going to keep this land. Your threats we ignore. Your pinpricks we ignore. We recognize only true force. You are far too backward to build an explosive-metal bomb. We have no need to fear you or anything you might do.”

“Maybe we cannot build one,” Hsia Shou-Tao hissed, “but we have allies. One of these bombs might yet appear in a Chinese city.”

This time, Nieh felt like patting Hsia on the back. That was exactly the right thing to say. Nieh knew-he did not think Hsia did-that Mao had sent Stalin a message, asking for the use of the first bomb the Soviet Union did not urgently require in its own defense.

The interpreter translated. Ppevel jerked in his chair as if he’d sat on something sharp and pointed. “You are lying,” he said. Yet the interpreter’s Chinese sounded uncertain. And Nieh did not think Ppevel sounded confident, either. He wished after all that he’d had Liu Han along; she would have been better at gauging the little devil’s tone.

“Are we lying when we say we have allies?” Nieh replied. “You know we are not. The United States was allied with the Kuomintang and the People’s Liberation Army against the Japanese before you scaly devils came here. The Soviet Union was allied with the People’s Liberation Army against the Kuomintang. Both the U.S.A. and the USSR have explosive-metal bombs.”

He thought the chances that one of those bombs would make its way to China were slim. But he did not have to let Ppevel know that. The more likely the little devil reckoned it to be, the better the bargain the People’s Liberation Army would get.

And he’d rocked Ppevel too. He could see as much. The high-ranking scaly devil and his interpreter went back and forth between themselves for a couple of minutes. Ppevel finally said, “I still do not altogether believe your words, but I shall bring them to the attention of my superiors. They will pass on to you their decision on whether to include you Chinese in these talks.”

“For their own sake and for yours, they had best not delay,” Nieh said, a monumental bluff if ever there was one.

“They will decide in their own time, not in yours,” Ppevel answered. Nieh gave a mental shrug: not all bluffs worked. He recognized a delaying tactic when he saw one. The little devils would discuss and discuss-and then say no. Ppevel went on, “The talks between us now are ended. You are dismissed, pending my superiors’ actions.”

“We are not your servants, to be dismissed on your whim,” Hsia Shou-Tao said, anger in his voice. But the interpreter did not bother translating that; he and Ppevel retreated into the rear area of the enormous orange tent. An armed little devil came into what Nieh thought of as the conference chamber to make sure he and Hsia departed in good time.

Nieh was thoughtful and quiet till he and his aide left the Forbidden City and returned to the raucous bustle of the rest of Peking: partly because he needed to mull over what Ppevel had so arrogantly said, partly because he feared the little scaly devils could listen if he discussed his conclusions with Hsia Shou-Tao anywhere close to their strongholds.

At last he said, “I fear we shall have to form a popular front with the Kuomintang and maybe even with the Japanese as well if we are to harass the little devils to the point where they decide staying in China is more trouble than it’s worth.”