She waited for the Big Ugly to say, It shall be done. But Darnand acted for all the world as if France were as much an independent not-empire as the Reich had been before the fighting. “One moment, if it please you,” he said. “I shall consult my records.”

“Very well.” Felless could hardly say no to that.

It took a lot longer than the promised moment. Felless reminded herself that Tosevite data-retrieval systems were much less efficient than those of the Race. She had to remind herself of that several times before Joseph Darnand finally returned to the line. He said, “I regret, Senior Researcher, that this will be difficult. Without doubt, this female carried on a sexual relationship with a Deutsch officer-and not just any Deutsch officer, but one from their secret police. Such betrayal must be punished, unless there is some vitally important reason to forgive.”

At first, Felless thought he was flat-out refusing. Such disobedience from a Big Ugly supposed to be dependent on the Race would have infuriated her. But then she saw a possible loophole in his words. “Is it not true that this particular female was forced into this sexual relationship against her will?” That counted for a great deal among Tosevites, she knew. Thanks to ginger and ingenious males, it was also beginning to matter to the Race on Tosev 3.

“She claims this,” Joseph Darnand said scornfully. “But what female in such circumstances would not claim it? Our interrogators do not believe it to be true, not at all.”

“But I-and the Race, speaking through me-do believe it to be true in this case.” Felless knew how far she was stretching things. She personally knew next to nothing about the case, and speaking through her was not the fleetlord or an ambassador but a ginger dealer. With a small hiss of annoyance at herself and her role here, she went on, “And this female has cooperated with us. We would strongly appreciate her release.” She added an emphatic cough for good measure.

After another long silence on the other end of the line, the Francais minister of purification sighed. “Oh, very well,” he said. “I shall give the appropriate orders. At least you, unlike the Deutsche, are polite enough to disguise your commands as requests.” He knew he was supposed to be subservient, then. Felless had wondered.

Having got what she wanted, she could afford to be gracious. “I thank you very much,” she said, wondering how much ginger Keffesh would pay her for her services.

“It is nothing.” By Joseph Darnand’s tone, it was much more than that. He growled something in his own language as he broke the connection. Felless didn’t mind annoying him. In fact, she rather enjoyed it.

“Comrade General Secretary, the ambassador from Finland is here,” Vyacheslav Molotov’s secretary said.

“Good. Very good,” Molotov said. “By all means show him into the office. I have looked forward to this interview for many years. At last, I am in the position to bring it off.”

“Good morning, Comrade General Secretary,” Urho Kekkonen said in fluent Russian. He took tea from the samovar in the corner of the room and helped himself to smoked salmon on rye bread.

“Good morning,” Molotov replied: enough socializing. “Now-has your government come to a decision about the contents of the note you received from the foreign commissariat of the Soviet Union?”

Kekkonen slowly and deliberately chewed and swallowed. He was a big, broad-shouldered man who wore glasses thicker than Molotov’s. “We have, Comrade General Secretary,” he answered. “Finland rejects your demands in all particulars.”

“What?” Molotov was astonished, and had to work hard not to show it. “I would strongly suggest that you reconsider. I would very strongly suggest that you reconsider.”

“Nyet. ” Kekkonen spoke one of Molotov’s favorite words with almost offensive relish.

“Are you mad?” Molotov demanded. “Is your government mad? For a generation, you have sheltered under the wing of the Reich. But the Reich, these days, is a dead bird. Where will you shelter now from the just wrath of the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union at your aggression?”

“You were unjust when you invaded us in 1939,” Urho Kekkonen answered, “and you have not improved since. We have no intention of reconsidering. If you invade us again, we shall fight again.”

“We defeated you then,” Molotov said coldly. “We can do it again, you know. And, as I said, Germany is in no position to aid you.”

“I understand that,” the Finn said. “I understand it most thoroughly. That is why my government has entered into consultations with the Race. We were not eager to do this, you must understand, but the Soviet Union’s attitude left us no choice.”

For Molotov, the words were like a blow in the belly. He hadn’t made a worse miscalculation since the pact with the Nazis. “You would betray mankind?” he barked, his voice harsh.

“Nyet, ” Kekkonen repeated. “Our government would-and will-protect our country from aggression. Dealing with the Lizards is the only choice available to us at the moment. Because it is our only choice, we have taken it.”

It was not the choice Molotov had expected the Finns to take. They’d jealously protected their independence against the USSR. They’d also protected it, as much as they could, against the Germans. They’d been the Reich’s allies, but not, unlike Hungary and Romania, its subject allies. Molotov tried the best arrow left in his quiver: “How will your people take the news that you have surrendered to the Race?”

Kekkonen’s smile was almost as cold as any Molotov might have produced. “You misunderstand, Comrade General Secretary. In no way have we surrendered to the Race.”

“What?” Molotov was so furious, and so alarmed, he had trouble sounding dry. “Did you not just tell me that you are allowing the Race to occupy Finland?”

“Yes, the Race will have a military presence in my country,” Urho Kekkonen replied. “But the Lizards will not occupy us, any more than the Germans occupied us. We remain independent. The males of the Race in Finland will remain in their bases unless we are attacked, in which case they will cooperate with us in our defense. An attack on Finland will be construed as an attack on the Race.”

“I… see,” Molotov said. “This… agreement does not infringe on your sovereignty?”

Kekkonen shook his big head. “We do not care to have anyone infringe on our sovereignty. The Soviet Union has had some small trouble grasping this over the years. It includes you, it includes the Reich, and it also includes the Race.”

“I… see,” Molotov said again. “I had not believed the Lizards would enter into such an agreement.” If I had, I never would have issued that ultimatum.

“Perhaps no one had proposed such an arrangement to them before,” the Finnish ambassador answered. “Perhaps no one was in a position to propose such an agreement to them before. But we did, and they wasted no time in accepting.”

“Of course they accepted,” Molotov snapped. “You’ve let them put their foot in the door.”

“We judged it better to let them put their foot in the door than for you to force your foot in,” Kekkonen said.

Molotov didn’t answer right away. He was thinking furiously. The Lizards never would have agreed to such a bargain before the latest round of fighting with the Germans. (That the Finns wouldn’t have needed to ask for such an arrangement then was for the moment beside the point.) But they’d left the Reich independent but weak. They’d re-created an independent but weak France. And now they were fostering an independent Finland that could never be anything but weak.

They have hit upon something new, he thought. Now they are seeing what they can do with it. The Lizards still weren’t skilled diplomats, not by Earthly standards. Odds were, they never would be. But they played the game better than they had on first coming to Earth: then, they’d hardly realized there was a game to be played. They could learn. He wished they hadn’t started learning here.

Kekkonen said, “I presume we may now consider your ultimatum withdrawn?”

I ought to tell him no, Molotov thought. I ought to tell him we would be happy to go to war with the Finns and the Lizards both. That would jolt him out of his smug bourgeois complacency.

But it would also result in disaster for the Soviet Union. Molotov knew that only too well. Had he not known it, the recent horrid example of the Greater German Reich would have rubbed his nose in it. Fighting the Lizards was a tactic of last resort. And so, staring hatefully at Kekkonen through his spectacles, he bit off one word: “Da. ”

He took a certain amount of satisfaction in noting how relieved the Finn looked. Kekkonen hadn’t been sure he wouldn’t throw his country onto the funeral pyre for the sake of pride. The Nazis had, after all. But the Nazis weren’t rational, and never had been. The USSR was and would remain in the struggle against imperialism indefinitely. If he had to retreat today, he would advance tomorrow.

After Urho Kekkonen had left, Molotov summoned Andrei Gromyko and Marshal Zhukov. He told them what the Finns had done. Zhukov cursed. Gromyko came to the point: “What did you tell him, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich?”

“That we withdraw the ultimatum.” The words were sour as vomit in Molotov’s mouth, but he brought them out even so. Turning to Zhukov, he asked, “Or do you think I made a mistake?”

“No,” Zhukov said at once. “When the devil’s grandmother starts fooling with your plans, you have to change them.”

Molotov was relieved there. Unlike Kekkonen, he didn’t show it. Had Zhukov been bound and determined to fight the Lizards, he would have brushed Molotov aside and done it. But he’d fought them a generation before and wasn’t eager to repeat the experience, any more than Molotov was.

Gromyko’s shaggy eyebrows twitched. “Just when you think the Race too stupid to survive, you get a surprise like this.”

“What do you suggest to avoid similar unfortunate surprises, Andrei Andreyevich?” Molotov asked.

“Well, if we were going to present Romania with an ultimatum, this would be a good time to put it back on the shelf,” Gromyko answered. “Of course, we had no such plan in mind.”

“Of course,” Molotov said in a hollow voice. All three men looked at one another. Romania still held Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, lands the USSR had reclaimed under the 1940 Vienna Award, only to lose them again in the aftermath of the Hitlerite invasion. Now that the Reich could no longer come to the aid of its friends, the Romanian government would have been next on the list after Finland. But if the Romanians screamed for help and the Lizards answered, that would just give the Race a longer frontier with the USSR.