Upsetting the Balance полностью

“Nai, malista,”Jones said, which made all three Englishmen laugh. Bagnall had trouble imagining anything further removed from the classical world than Pskov during wartime. They walked on for another few steps. Slowly, reluctantly, Jerome Jones continued, “Yes, there’s a ‘for another.’ The other reason I don’t send her packing is that-that-I seem to have fallen in love with her.” He waited for his companions to mock him.

Now it was Bagnall’s turn to sigh. He set a sympathetic hand on Jones’ shoulder. The radarman quivered under his touch like a restive horse. Bagnall said, “Steady, there. If we’re being classical, let’s be downright Socratic and define our terms, shall we? Are you truly in love with her, or is it just that she pleases you in the kip?”

Jerome Jones turned a vermilion not commonly seen this side of a sunset.How young he is, Bagnall thought from his superior altitude of three or four years. “How does one tell the difference?” the radarman asked plaintively.

“Always a good question,” Embry said with a cynical chuckle.

“Let’s try answering it, then,” Bagnall said, for Jones looked not only very young but very lost: he’d meant the question with every fiber of his being. Bagnall went on, “Socratics we are, having another go at theSymposium.”

That pleased Jones. Embry chuckled again and said, “Fair young Alcibiades is right out.”

“Fair young Tatiana is quite enough trouble all on her own,” Jones said. “She and Alcibiades, they’d deserve each other.”

“Here’s one fast clue to your feelings, for starters,” Bagnall said: “If you only want to have anything to do with your possibly beloved when the two of you are naked between the sheets, that should tell you something about your state of mind.”

“So it should.” The radarman looked thoughtful. “Not as simple as that, I’m afraid; I wish to heaven it were. But I like being around her, whether we’re”-he coughed-“or not. It’s rather like setting up a tent next to a tiger’s lair: you never know what will happen next, but it’s apt to be something exciting.”

“And you’re liable to end up as thehors d’oeuvres,” Embry put in.

Bagnall waved the pilot to silence. “How do you think she feels about you, Jones?” he asked.

Jerome Jones’ face furrowed with thought. “I am of the opinion her fidelity leaves something to be desired,” he said, to which Bagnall could but nod. Jones went on, “She set her cap for me, not the other way round. This bloody country-I’d be afraid to chat up a girl, because next thing you know, you’d be talking to the NKVD instead.” He shivered. “Some of my university chums, they weren’t just pink, they were red. If any of them had actually seen Russia, that wouldn’t have lasted long, and there’s the God’s truth.”

“You’re certain to be right about that,” Bagnall said. “The same thing has occurred to me, oh, once or twice during our delightful sojourn here. But it’s not to the point now. That centers on the fair Tatiana.”

“I know.” Jones walked on for several paces without continuing.

Bagnall waited for him to say something, anything, that would clarify what he felt, what Tatiana felt, and might even help all of them get out of their present complications without falling into new ones that were worse. He realized that was asking a lot, but he’d never wanted Tatiana to set her sights on him.

After a bit, the radarman said, “I chased a lot of skirt back in England; I don’t think there was a barmaid in any pub I went into whom I didn’t try to chat up. But we all know there’s a deal of difference between chasing it and catching it, don’t we?” He chuckled wryly. “And so, when we got here and I had this gorgeous creature chasing me, it made me feel about ten feet high. And, of course-” He didn’t go on, but his expression was eloquent.

Ken Embry put that expression into words: “When you’re sleeping with a pretty woman, there is a certain natural disinclination to do anything which will result in your not sleeping with her in future.”

“Well, yes,” Jones said, coloring a little. “In her own bloodthirsty way, I think, Tatiana is fond enough of me, too. Speaking a bit of Russian does me no harm there. But she keeps complaining I’m too soft to quite suit her, that she’d like me better if I stuck a knife between my teeth and crawled about through the bushes slitting Lizards’ throats.”

Bagnall nodded. His own rugged masculine charm (if any) hadn’t been what drew Tatiana to him. He knew that perfectly well. Tatiana wanted him because she thought he was good at hurting the Lizards. She hadn’t made any bones about it, either.

Embry said, “With that cast of mind, it’s a miracle she didn’t throw in her lot with a Jerry.”

“If she hadn’t been trying to pot them before the Lizards came, she would have done just that, my guess is,” Jones said. “But she hates them worse than any other Russian I’ve ever seen, and she thinks her own menfolk are a pack of swine. Which left-me. Except nowadays I’m not good enough, either.”