Second Contact by Harry Turtledove Page A

He’d driven panzers against the French, against the Russians, and then against the Lizards before setting his sights higher both figuratively and literally. This upper stage—he’d named it Käthe , after his wife— responded far more smoothly and easily than the big grunting machines he’d formerly guided.
    Of course, if a shell slammed into a panzer, he had some chance of bailing out. If anyone ever decided to expend a missile on him here, odds were a million to one he’d never know what hit him.
    His wireless set crackled to life. “German pilot, this is the U.S. tracking facility in Hot Springs. Do you read me? Over.” A moment later, the American radioman switched from English to badly accented German.
    Like most who flew into space, Drucker spoke some English and Russian—and some of the Lizards’ language—along with his German. “Hot Springs tracking, this is the German rocket,” he said. “How do I look? Over.”
    It wasn’t an academic question. By his own navigation, he was in the orbit calculated for him. If American radar showed otherwise, though, things might get sticky. Unexpected changes in course from a spacecraft carrying nuclear weapons had a way of making people nervous.
    But the American answered, “In the groove,” which let him relax. Then the fellow said, “How’s the weather up there, Hans? Over.”
    “Very bad,” Drucker answered seriously. “Rain last night, and a snowstorm ahead. Is that you, Joe? Over.”
    “Yeah, it’s me,” Joe said with a laugh at Drucker’s attempt at humor: weather was one thing—maybe the only thing—he didn’t have to worry about in space. “You’ll be coming down from your tour in another few orbits, won’t you? Over.”
    “I do not answer this sort of question,” Drucker said. “You know I do not answer this sort of question. Your pilots do not answer this sort of question when we ask. Over.”
    “You stay nosy, though, and so do we,” Joe answered, not in the least put out. “Have yourself a safe landing. I’ll talk to you some more when you come up for another turn. Over and out.”
    “Thank you—over and out,” Drucker said. The American’s signal had started to break up before strengthening. Like the Reich and the Soviet Union, the USA had strings of ships that relayed transmissions to pilots wherever above the Earth they might be. The Lizards were the only ones who didn’t need to bother with that. For one thing, they had more communications satellites and other spacecraft in orbit than all the human powers put together. For another, they had ground stations around the world, which no human power did.
    Drucker scowled. And now their colonization fleet was beginning to join the conquest fleet. The colonists had set out from Tau Ceti II about the time the conquest fleet reached Earth. They’d expected a world subdued and waiting for them. Hitler didn’t let that happen, Drucker thought proudly. Could he have done so without harming the Greater German Reich , he would have blasted every Lizard spacecraft out of the sky. He couldn’t. No human could. What would happen when the colonists started coming down to Earth was something he didn’t like to think about.
    What would happen when he came back to Earth was less important to human history, but much more immediately urgent to him. Joe’s Have yourself a safe landing hadn’t been idle chatter. The upper stage Drucker rode, like all manmade spacecraft, was an uneasy blend of human and Lizard technology. The Wall of Heroes at Peenemünde had all too many names inscribed on it. Despite the handsome pension that would accrue to his widow, Drucker did not want his added to it.
    He slid over the Atlantic in a matter of minutes, and then across Africa. The whole continent belonged to the Lizards. Some small rebellion still simmered in what had been the Union of South Africa, enough to keep the Lizards from exploiting the minerals there as fully as they might have. Other than