Read Online Second Contact by Harry Turtledove - Free Book Online Page B

the Lizards. If it had come apart then . . . Heinrich said to the end of his days that keeping that from happening was the best thing he ever did.”
    “I wish he were still here to say it, your fascist jackal,” Anielewicz replied.
    Ludmila smiled; she still sometimes used Communist jargon without even noticing she’d done it. She said, “So do I, but . . . nichevo .” Yes, that was a very useful word indeed. With another nod, she made her slow, painful way down the street, never once complaining.
    Anielewicz carried the bicycle upstairs to his flat. Had he been so rash as to leave it on the sidewalk, even with a stout chain, it would have walked with Jesus. Even Jews used that saying about mysterious disappearances these days.
    When he opened the door, familiar chaos surrounded him. His wife, Bertha, wearing a dress that would have been stylish in London a couple of years before and was still the height of fashion in Lodz, came up to give him a kiss. As always, a smile brought beauty to her plain face without the intermediate step of prettiness.
    She said something. It was probably “How are you?” or “How are things?” but Anielewicz had trouble being sure. His daughter, Miriam, was practicing the violin. His son David, a couple of years younger, was practicing Hebrew for his bar mitzvah, which was only a little more than a month away. And his other son, Heinrich, who was eight, was working his way through a school lesson in the Lizards’ language. These days, Anielewicz hardly noticed the contrast between Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe and It shall be done, superior sir . He did notice the racket. He would have had to be deaf, or more likely dead, not to notice.
    The racket changed only languages when his children spotted him. They all tried to tell him everything about their days at the same time. What he heard were bits and pieces that surely didn’t—couldn’t—have gone together. If a boy had in fact invited Miriam to go to a film about Lizard irregular verbs, the world was even stranger than Anielewicz suspected.
    When his wife could get a word in edgewise, she said, “Bunim telephoned a couple of hours ago.”
    “Did he?” That brought Mordechai to full alertness; Bunim was the most powerful Lizard stationed in Lodz. “What did he want?”
    “He wouldn’t tell me,” Bertha answered. “He said leaving a message would not be proper protocol.”
    “Sounds like a Lizard,” Anielewicz said, and Bertha nodded. He went on, “I’d better ring him up. Can you keep the menagerie down to low roars while I’m on the telephone?”
    “I can try,” his wife said, and proceeded to lay down the law in a fashion Moses might have envied. In the brief respite thus afforded—and he knew it would be brief—Mordechai went into his bedroom to use the telephone.
    He had no trouble getting through to Bunim; the regional subadministrator always accepted calls from his phone code. “I have for you a warning, Anielewicz,” he said without preamble. His German was fairly fluent. Hearing the Nazis’ language in his mouth never failed to set Anielewicz’s teeth on edge.
    “Go ahead,” Anielewicz answered, not showing what he felt.
    “A warning, yes,” the Lizard repeated. “If you Tosevites plan any interference against the anticipated arrival of colonists in this region, it will be suppressed without mercy.”
    “Regional Subadministrator, I know of no such plans inside Poland,” Anielewicz answered, on the whole truthfully. As he’d thought before, most of the human inhabitants of Poland, Jews and Poles alike, preferred their alien overlords to any of the humans who aspired to the job.
    “Perhaps you should know more,” Bunim said, and added an emphatic cough. “We have received a communication threatening that if a million males and females of the Race colonize Poland, that entire million shall die.”
    “First I’ve heard of it,” Anielewicz said, which was completely