Upsetting the Balance (w-3) by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove [Turtledove, Harry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_fantasy
ISBN: 0345402405
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 1996-03-19T05:00:00+00:00

12

Rance Auerbach hated everything about Lamar, Colorado. It reminded him all too vividly of the medium-small west Texas town where he’d grown up, and which he’d left as soon as he could. That would have been bad enough all by itself. But just being in Lamar also reminded him the Lizards had thrown him and his men out of Lakin, Kansas.

That being so, he sneered at everything pertaining to Lamar. The town was dirtier than it had been when he and his force sallied against Lakin. It smelled of horse manure. Normally, that smell bothered him not in the least: he was a cavalryman, after all. There wasn’t a town in the United States that didn’t smell of horse manure nowadays, either. Auerbach was determined not to let facts get between him and his anger.

One thing Lamar did boast was a goodly number of watering holes. What they served these days was moonshine, liquor so raw it would have made better disinfectant than booze. No one who drank it complained, not with nothing better available.

Auerbach would not have imagined a small town like Lamar could hold surprises, but he was proved wrong about that. Coming out of one of the local watering holes was a cavalry trooper who filled a uniform in ways the Quartermaster General’s Office never would have imagined before the Lizards landed.

Seeing him, the trooper snapped to attention. “Captain Auerbach!” she said.

“At ease, Private,” Rance answered. “We’re both off duty right this minute.” He shook his head in bemusement. “And since we are off duty, do you mind if I still call you Rachel?”

“No, sir, not at all,” Rachel Hines answered, smiling.

Auerbach shook his head again. He could have picked her up with one hand, but somehow she still looked like a cavalry trooper, even if she wasn’t exactly a cavalryman. She lacked the devil-may-care relish for danger some of his men had, but she didn’t look as if she’d flinch from it, and she did look as if she wouldn’t lose her head while it was going on. But all of those things, in a way, were beside the point. He came to the point: “How the devil did you talk Colonel Nordenskold into letting you enlist?”

She smiled again. “You promise you won’t tell anybody else?” When Auerbach nodded, she lowered her voice and went on, “He tried putting his hand where it didn’t belong, and I told him that if he did it again I’d kick him right in the nuts-if he had any, that is.”

Auerbach knew he was gaping, but couldn’t help it. That wasn’t the way he’d imagined Rachel Hines persuading the colonel to sign her up: just the opposite, in fact. If she’d been smart enough to study the ground and change her plan of attack after she saw that a blatant come-on hadn’t worked with Auerbach, she had more brains than he’d figured. “My hat’s off to you,” he said, and fit action to word. “It took a little more than

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