Tilting the Balance

Part of the feeling sprang from the company he kept. Having Barbara on the plush seat beside him, her hand warm in his, would have put a warm glow on anything this side of going to the dentist (not a major concern for Yeager anyhow, not with his store-bought teeth). Later, his hand would probably drop to her thigh. In the dim cavern of the movie theater, nobody was likely to notice, or to care if he did notice.

But part of what Sam got from the movies had nothing to do with Barbara. For a couple of hours, he could forget how miserable the world outside this haven on Sixteenth Street looked and pretend what happened on the screen was what mattered.

“Funny, ” he whispered to Barbara as they waited for the projectionist to start the newsreel: “I can get out of myself with a good story in a magazine or a book, but watching a show is more special somehow. ”

“Reading lets me get away from things, too, ” she answered, “but a lot of people can’t escape that way. I feel sorry for them, but I know it’s true. The other thing is, when you’re reading, you’re by yourself. Here you’re with lots of other people looking for the same release you’re after. It makes a difference. ”

“I found what I was after, ” Sam said, and squeezed her hand. She turned to smile at him. Before she could say anything, the lights dimmed and the big screen at the front of the theater came to sparkling life.

The newsreel wasn’t the smoothly professional production it would have been before the Lizards came. Yeager didn’t know whether the aliens held Hollywood itself, but the distribution system for new films coming out of California had completely broken down.

What the moviegoers got instead was a U. S. Army production, probably put together right here in Denver. Some of the bits had sound added, some used cards with words on them, something Sam remembered from silent film days but had thought to be gone for good.

EASTERN FRANCE one of those cards announced. The camera panned slowly, lovingly, across burned-out Lizard tanks. A tough-looking fellow in German uniform walked among the wreckage.

People cheered wildly. Barbara murmured, “Has everyone forgotten the Nazis were our worst enemies a year ago? ”

“Yes, ” Yeager whispered back. He had no love for the Nazis, but if they were hurting the Lizards, more power to ’em. He hadn’t loved the Russian Reds last year, either, but he’d been damn glad they were in the fight against Hitler.

Another card flashed, MOSCOW. There stood Stalin, shaking hands with a factory worker in a cloth cap. Behind them, a row of almost-completed airplanes stretched as far as the eye-or the camera-could see. Yet another card said, THE SOVIET UNION STAYS IN THE FIGHT. More cheers echoed through the movie theater.

The next segment had sound; a fellow with a flat midwestern accent said, “Outside of Bloomington, the Lizards banged their snouts into tough American resistance as they tried to push north toward Chicago again. ” Another picture of a wrecked Lizard tank was followed by shots of tired-looking but happy GIs around a campfire.

Yeager almost bounced out of his chair. “There’s Mutt, by God! ” he told Barbara. “My old manager, I mean. Jesus, I wonder how he lived through all the fighting. He’s got sergeant’s stripes, too-did you see? ”

“I wouldn’t have recognized him, Sam. He wasn’t my manager, ” she answered, which made him feel foolish. She added, “I’m glad he’s all right. ”

“Boy, so am I, ” he said, “I’ve played for some real hard cases in my day, but he was one of the other kind, the good ones. He-” People to either side and behind made shushing noises. Yeager subsided, abashed.

The newsreel cut to a card that said, SOMEWHERE IN THE U. S. A. “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States! ” the announcer said.

In the black-and-white film, Franklin D. Roosevelt sat behind a desk in what looked like a hotel room. The drapes were drawn behind him, perhaps merely to give him a backdrop, perhaps to keep the Lizards from figuring out where he was by what the camera showed out the window.

Roosevelt was in his shirtsleeves, his collar unbuttoned and his tie loose. He looked tired and worn, but kept the cigarette holder at a jaunty angle in his mouth. He still had cigarettes, Yeager noted without resentment: FDR was working hard enough to be entitled to them.

The President took the holder from his mouth, stubbed out the cigarette instead of letting it smolder to add a picturesque plume of smoke to the scene. He leaned toward the microphone in front of him. “My friends, ” he said (and Yeager felt Roosevelt was speaking straight to him), “the fight goes on. ”

Applause rippled through the theater, then quickly faded so people could listen to what the President had to say. Even his first half-dozen words gave Sam fresh hope. FDR had always had that gift. He hadn’t always made things better, but he’d always made people feel they would get better, which was half the battle by itself-it made people go to work to improve their own lot instead of moaning about how dreadful everything was.

Roosevelt said, “The enemy is on our soil and in the air above our homes. These creatures from another world believe they can frighten us into surrender by raining destruction down on our heads. As our gallant British allies did with the Germans in 1940, we shall prove them wrong.

“Every day we have more new weapons to hurl against the Lizards. Every day they have less with which to resist. Those of you who still live free, everything you do to help the war effort helps ensure that your children, and your children’s children, will grow up in freedom, too. And to those of you in occupied territory who may see this, I say: do not collaborate with the enemy in any way. Do not work in his factories, do not grow crops for him, do nothing you can possibly avoid. Without human beings to be his slaves, sooner or later he will be helpless.

“For we have hurt him, in America, in Europe, and in Asia as well. He is not superhuman, he is merely inhuman. Our united nations-now all the nations on this planet-will surely triumph in the end. Thank you and God bless you. ”

The next news segment showed ways to conserve scrap metal. It had a soundtrack, but Yeager didn’t pay much attention to it. He didn’t think anyone else did, either. Just hearing FDR’s voice was a tonic. Roosevelt made you think everything would turn out okay, one way or another.