Second Contact by Harry Turtledove Page B

Reuven said. He didn’t feel particularly downtrodden. Jews did better under the Lizards than anywhere in the independent lands except possibly the United States. That they did so well made them objects of suspicion to the rest of mankind— not that we weren’t objects of suspicion to the rest of mankind before the Lizards came, he thought.
    “I didn’t intend to use your shoulder to cry on,” Jane Archibald said. “It’s not like you can do anything about the way things are.”
    “It’s all right,” Reuven repeated. “Any time.” He made as if to grab her and forcibly pull her to the aforesaid shoulder. She made as if to clout him over the head with her notebook, which was thick enough to have lethal potential. They both laughed. Maybe the world wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t seem so bad, either.

    Rance Auerbach awoke in pain. He’d awakened in pain every day for almost all the past twenty years, ever since a burst from a Lizard machine gun wrecked his leg and his chest and shoulder outside of Denver. The Lizards had captured him afterwards, and taken care of him as best they knew how. He had both legs, which proved as much. But he still woke in pain every morning.
    He reached for his stick, which lay beside him on the bed like a lover and was far more faithful than any lover he’d ever had. Then, moving slowly and carefully—the only way he could move these days—he first sat and finally stood.
    Limping into the kitchen of his small, grubby Fort Worth apartment, he poured water into a pot and spooned instant coffee and sugar into a cup. The coffee jar was getting close to empty. If he bought a new one the next time he went to the store, he’d have to figure out what else to do without. “Damn the Lizards anyway,” he muttered. His own voice held a Texas twang; he’d come home after the fighting stopped. “Damn them to hell and gone.” The Lizards ruled just about all the lands where coffee grew, and made sure it wasn’t cheap when it got to the free people who drank it.
    He burned a couple of slices of toast, scraped some of the charcoal off them, and spread them with grape jelly. He left the knife, the plate, and the coffee cup in the sink. They had company from the day before, and some more from the day before that. He’d been neat as a pin in his Army days. He wasn’t neat as a pin any more.
    Getting dressed meant going through another ordeal. It also meant looking at the scars that seamed his body. Not for the first time, he wished the Lizards had killed him outright instead of reminding him for the rest of his life how close they’d come. He dragged on khaki pants that had seen better days and slowly buttoned a chambray shirt he didn’t bother tucking in.
    Slipping his feet into thong-style sandals was pretty easy. As he headed for the door, he passed the mirror on the dresser from which he hadn’t taken clean underwear. He hadn’t shaved, either, which meant graying stubble fuzzed his cheeks and jaw.
    “You know what you look like?” he told his reflection. “You look like a goddamn wino.” Was that misery in his voice or a sort of twisted pride? For the life of him, he couldn’t tell.
    He made sure the door was locked when he went outside, then turned the key in the dead bolt he’d installed himself. This wasn’t the best part of town. He didn’t have much to tempt a burglar, but what he did have, by God, was his.
    His bad leg made him wish he could afford either a ground-floor apartment or a building that boasted an elevator. Going down two flights of stairs left him sweating and cursing. Going upstairs when he came home tonight would be worse. To celebrate making it to the sidewalk, he lit a cigarette.
    Every doctor he’d ever met told him he didn’t have the lung capacity to keep smoking. “None of the sons of bitches ever told me how to quit, though,” he said, and took another deep drag on the coffin nail.
    The sun beat down from a sky of enameled brass. Shadows were