Evidently he didn’t. There was his foreign minister, mouthing phrases that would have been offensive to human opponents. Against the Lizards, who were vastly more powerful than Germany, those phrases struck Molotov as clinically insane.
Through his interpreter, Atvar said, “This proposal is unacceptable to us because it is unacceptable to so many other Tosevites with concerns in the region. It would merely prove a generator of future strife.”
“If you do not immediately cede Poland to us, it will prove a generator of present strife,” von Ribbentrop blustered.
The Lizards’ fleetlord made a noise like a leaking inner tube. “You may tell theFuhrer that the Race is prepared to take the chance.”
“I shall do so,” von Ribbentrop said, and stalked out of the Shepheard’s Hotel meeting room.
Molotov wanted to run after him, to call him back.Wait, you fool! was the cry that echoed in his mind. Hitler’s megalomania might drag everyone else down along with Germany. Even the nations with explosive-metal bombs and poison gas weren’t much more than large nuisances to the Lizards. Until they could deliver their weapons somewhere other than along the front line with the aliens, they could not threaten them on equal terms.
The Soviet foreign commissar hesitated. Did von Ribbentrop’s arrogance mean the Hitlerites had such a method? He didn’t believe it. Their rockets were better than anyone else’s, but powerful enough to throw ten tonnes across hundreds, maybe thousands, of kilometers? Soviet rocket scientists assured him the Nazis couldn’t be that far ahead of the USSR.
If they were wrong… Molotov didn’t care to think about what might happen if they were wrong. If the Germans could throw explosive-metal bombs hundreds or thousands of kilometers, they were as likely to throw them at Moscow as at the Lizards.
He checked his rising agitation. If the Nazis had such rockets, they would not be so insistent about holding on to Poland. They could launch their bombs from Germany and then scoop up Poland at their leisure. This time, the scientists had to be right.
If they were right… Hitler was reacting from emotion rather than reason. What was Nazi doctrine but perverted romanticism? If you wanted a thing, that meant it should become yours, and that meant you had the right-even the duty-to go out and take itif anyone had the gall to object, you ran roughshod over him. Your will was all that mattered.
But if a man a meter and a half tall who weighed fifty kilos wanted something that belonged to a man two meters tall who weighed a hundred kilos and tried to take it, he’d end up with a bloody nose and broken teeth, no matter how strong his will was. The Hitlerites didn’t see that, though their assault on the USSR should have taught it to them.
“Note, Comrade Fleetlord,” Molotov said, “that the German foreign minister’s withdrawal does not imply the rest of us refuse to work out our remaining differences with you.” Yakov Donskoi turned his words into English; Uotat translated the interpreter’s comments into the language of the Lizards.
With a little luck, the aliens would smash the Hitlerites into the ground and save the USSR the trouble.
“Jager!” Otto Skorzeny shouted. “Get your scrawny arse over here. We’ve got something we need to talk about”
“You mean something besides your having the manners of a bear with a toothache?” Jager retorted. He didn’t get up. He was busy darning a sock, and it was hard work, because he had to hold it farther away from his face than he was used to. These past couple of years, his sight had begun to lengthen. You fell apart even if you didn’t get shot. It just happened.
“Excuse me, your magnificent Coloneldom, sir, my lord von Jager,” Skorzeny said, loading his voice with sugar syrup, “would you be so generous and gracious as to honor your most humble and obedient servant with the merest moment of your ever so precious time?”
Grunting, Jager got to his feet “All the same to you, Skorzeny, I like ‘Get your scrawny arse over here’ better.”
The SSStandartenfuhrer chuckled. “Figured you would. Come on. Let’s go for a walk.”
That meant Skorzeny had news he didn’t feel like letting anyone else hear. And that, presumably, meant all hell was going to break loose somewhere, most likely somewhere right around here. Almost plaintively, Jager said, “I was enjoying the cease-fire.”
“Life’s tough,” Skorzeny said, “and it’s our job to make it tougher-for the Lizards. Your regiment’s still the thin end of the wedge, right? How soon can you be ready to hit our scaly chums a good one right in the snout?”
“We’ve got about half our Panthers back at corps repair center for retrofitting,” Jager answered. “Fuel lines, new cupolas for the turrets, fuel pump gaskets made the right way, that kind of thing. We took advantage of the cease-fire to do one lot of them, and now that it’s holding, we’re doing the other. Nobody told me-nobody told anybody-it was breaking down.”
“I’m telling you,” the SS man said. “How long till you’re up to strength again? You need those Panthers, don’t you?”
“Just a bit, yes,” Jager said with what he thought was commendable understatement. “They should all be back here in ten days-a week. If somebody with clout goes and leans on the corps repair crews.”
Skorzeny bit his lip.“Donnerwetter! If I lean on them hard, you think they’d have your panzers up here at the front inside five days? That’s my outer limit, and I haven’t got any discretion about it. If they aren’t here by then, old chum, you just have to go without ’em.”
“Go where?” Jager demanded. “Why are you giving me orders? And not my division commander, I mean?”
“Because I getmy orders from theFuhrer and theReichsfuhrer-SS, not from some tinpot major general commanding a measly corps,” Skorzeny answered smugly. “Here’s what’s going to happen as soon as you’re ready to motor and the artillery boys are set to do their part, too: I blow Lodz to kingdom come, and you-and everybody else-gets to hit the Lizards while they’re still trying to figure out what’s going on. The war is back, in other words.”
Jager wondered if his message to the Jews of Lodz had got through. If it had, he wondered if they’d been able to find the bomb the SS man had hidden there somewhere. And those were the least of his worries: “What will the Lizards do to us if we blow up Lodz? They took out one of our cities for every bomb we used during the war. How many will they slag if we use one of those bombs to break a cease-fire?”
“Don’t know,” Skorzeny said. “I do know nobody asked me to worry about it, so I bloody well won’t. I have orders to blast Lodz in the next five days, so a whole raft of big-nosed kikes are going to get themselves fitted for halos along with the Lizards. We have to teach the Lizards and the people who suck up to ’em that we’re too nasty to mess with-and we will.”
“Blowing up the Jews will teach the Lizards something?” Jager scratched his head. “Why should the Lizards give a damn what happens to the Jews? And with whom are we at war, the Jews or the Lizards?”
“We’re sure as hell at war with the Lizards,” Skorzeny answered, “and we’ve always been at war with the Jews, now haven’t we? You know that. You’ve pissed and moaned about it enough. So we’ll blow up a bunch of kikesand a bunch of Lizards, and theFuhrer will be so happy he’ll dance a little jig, the way he did when the frog-eaters gave up in 1940. So-five days maximum. You’ll be ready to roll by then?”
“If I have my panzers back from the workshops, yes,” Jager said. “Like I said, though, somebody will have to lean on the mechanics.”
“I’lltake care of that,” the SS man promised with a large, evil grin. “You think they won’t hustle with me holding their toes to the fire?” Jager wouldn’t have bet against his meaning that literally. “Other thing is, I’ll make it real plain that if they don’t make me happy, they’ll tell Himmler why. Would you rather deal with me or with the little schoolmaster in his spectacles?”