In the Balance полностью

“Forgive me, exalted male, but I do not understand. You Tosevites”-Teerts carefully did not say Big Uglies-“take prisoners in your own wars and mostly treat them well. Is it just to use us so differently from your own?”

“Not do so,” the Nipponese officer answered. “Be prisoner go against bushido.” The word was in Nipponese. The officer explained it: “Against way of fighting male. Proper fighting male die before become prisoner. Become prisoner, not deserve to live. Become-how you say? — sport for those who catch.”

“That’s-” Teerts caught himself before he blurted out insane. “That’s not the way most other Tosevites act.”

“They fools, idiots. We Nipponese, we-how you say? — people of the emperor. Our way right, proper. Same family rule us two thousand five hundred year.” He drew himself up as if that paltry figure were a matter for pride. Teerts didn’t think it wise to point out that the Emperors’ family had ruled the Race for fifty thousand years, which was twenty-five thousand revolutions of Tosev 3. A small pride, he reasoned, might be more easily hurt by a large truth.

He said, “What will you do with me, then?”

“What we want,” the officer answered. “You ours now.”

“If you mistreat me, the Race will avenge itself on your people,” Teerts warned.

The Nipponese officer made a peculiar barking noise. After a bit, Teerts realized it had to be what the Big Uglies used for laughter. The officer said, “Your Race already hurt Nippon so bad, how you do worse on account of prisoners, eh? You try make me afraid? I show you. I not afraid to do this-”

He kicked Teerts, hard. The flight leader hissed in surprise and pain. When the Big Ugly kicked him again, he whirled round and tried to fight back-even, if he was smaller than a Tosevite, he had teeth and claws. They did him no good. The officer did not even bother reaching for the sword or the small firearm he carried on his belt He’d somehow learned to use his legs and arms as deadly weapons. Teerts couldn’t so much as tear his tunic.

The beating and stomping went on for some time. Finally the Nipponese officer kicked the flight leader’s broken wrist. Teerts’ vision blurred and threatened to go out, just as it had when the ejection seat hurled him away from his killercraft. As if from very far away, he heard someone screaming, “Enough! Enough!” He needed a while before he recognized the voice as his own.

“You talk stupid again?” the Big Ugly asked. He stood balanced on one leg, ready to kick Teerts some more. If the flight leader said no, the Tosevite might stop; if he said yes, he was sure he’d get kicked to death. He got the feeling the officer didn’t much care one way or the other what he answered. In a way, that indifference was even more frightening than the beating itself.

“No, I won’t talk stupidly again, or I’ll try not to, anyway,” Teerts gasped. The tiny qualification held all the defiance left in him.

“You get up, then.”

Teerts didn’t think he could. But if he failed, the Big Ugly would have another excuse to hurt him. He struggled to his feet, did his best to wipe the mud off his scales one-handed.

“What you learn from this?” the Nipponese officer asked.

The flight leader could hear the danger in that question. It wasn’t just rhetoric; he’d better answer it in a way that satisfied the Tosevite. Slowly, he said, “I learned that I am your prisoner, that I am in your power, that you can do whatever you want with me.”

The Big Ugly moved his head up and down. “You keep this in your mind, eh?”

“Yes.” Teerts didn’t think he was likely to forget.

The Nipponese officer gave him a light shove. “You come on, then.”

Moving hurt, but Teerts managed. He didn’t dare fail; maybe the Big Ugly really had taught him a lesson after all Dawn was breaking when they came to a transport center. The Race had worked it over at least once: truck carcasses lay here and there, some flipped over, others burnt out, still others both.

But the center still functioned. Nipponese soldiers, chanting as they worked, unloaded cloth sacks from a few intact motor vehicles and from a great many animal-drawn wagons. The officer shouted to the males there. A couple of them came rushing over. They exchanged bows with the flight leader’s captor, spoke rapidly back and forth.

The officer shoved Teerts again, pointed toward a wagon. “You go on that one.”

Teerts awkwardly climbed into the wagon. The Nipponese officer gestured for him to sit in one corner. He obeyed. The wooden bottom and sides scratched against his sore hide. The officer and a Big Ugly soldier got into the wagon with him. Now the officer took out his small firearm. The soldier kept his rifle aimed at Teerts, too. The flight leader’s mouth wanted to fall open. The Tosevites had to be crazy if they thought he was in any shape to try something.