Tilting the Balance

“Please, superior sir, ” Liu Han said desperately. “People dead look different from people alive. I cannot be certain. I am sorry, superior sir. ” She was sorry Lo-for the dead man in the picture was undoubtedly he-had ever wanted Bobby Fiore to show him how to throw. She was even sorrier he and his henchmen had come to the hut and taken Bobby Fiore away.

But she was not going to tell the little scaly devils anything she didn’t have to. She knew they were dangerous, yes, and they had her in their power. But she also had a very healthy respect-fear was not too strong a word-for the Communists. If she spilled her guts to the little devils, she knew she www.cheapmusic.ru would pay: maybe not right now, but before too long.

The scaly devil holding the picture let his mouth hang open: he was laughing at her. “To you, maybe. To us, all Big Uglies look alike, alive or dead. ” He translated the joke into his own language for the benefit of his comrades. They laughed, too.

But the little devil who had shouted at Liu Han said, “This is no joke. These bandits injured males of the Race. Only through the mercy of the watchful Emperor”-he cast down his eyes, as did the other little devils-“was no one killed. ”

No one killed? Liu Han thought. What of Lo and his friends? She was reminded of signs the European devils were said to have put up in their parks in Shanghai: NO DOGS OR CHINESE ALLOWED. To the little scaly devils, all human beings might as well have been dogs.

“We should give her the drug that makes her tell the truth, ” the scaly devil with the picture said. “Then we will find out what she really knows. ”

Liu Han shivered. She was ready to believe the scaly devils had such a drug. They were devils, after all, with powers effectively unlimited. If they gave it to her, they would find out she hadn’t told them everything, and then… then they would do something horrible to her. She didn’t care to think about that.

But then Ttomalss spoke up. The-what had Bobby Fiore named his calling?  — the psychologist, that was it, said, “No, Ssamraff, for two reasons. No first because the drug is not as effective as we believed it would be when we first made it. And no second because this female Big Ugly has a hatchling growing inside her. ”