A Song Called Youth (49 page)

Smoke turned to Witcher. “How’d they do it?”

“What Steinfeld calls “pincer Coordination.” The units trapped behind the lines hit the SA roadblocks at the same time Steinfeld’s people hit them from the outside. Two-thirds of the NR trapped in Paris got through and got away. They’re camped somewhere in the French Alps now. There’s a list of the confirmed casualties here.”

Smoke nodded, but he didn’t look at the list.

“How long will we be in New York?” Smoke asked.

“Four days. We can’t stay long—the public exposure is a risk for you. You’ll be heavily guarded, of course, but . . . ”

Smoke nodded. “I know. Where do we go after New York?”

“The Antilles. A little island where . . . you’ll see.”

“This man Kessler is there?”

“He is, yes, with his wife. You and he’ll be working closely together—at least, that’s what Steinfeld’s hoping.”

“In some ways Steinfeld’s very . . . practical. But he’s also a wild-eyed idealist like a college kid of twenty. With his fantasy of restructuring the Grid itself. Giving the media back to the people. Raising consciousness in one global flash . . . ” Smoke shook his head.

“You think it can’t be done?”

“I think any real social restructuring is unlikely short of nuclear holocaust. But . . . ” He smiled wanly. “But of course we’ll try.” He looked out the window, at New York City. “Why do you do it, Witcher? You can’t be making a profit on this. You don’t strike me as an, um . . . ”

“As the humanitarian type? I’m not. I admire brave men, but . . . But mostly, it’s business. Three times the SAISC has tried to take over Witcher Airlines, Witcher Computers—three times each. The SAISC is a corporate predator. They started it—I’m just fighting back.”

Smoke shook his head. “That’s not the reason.” Was Witcher the twenty-first century’s Oskar Schindler? Or was there something else, something hidden several layers down?

He tried to see what was at the very tip of the Worldtalk Building. The plane was tilted, circling the south end of the island, swinging in toward Queens, and he felt as if there were an invisible string connecting the tip of the building and the plane, the plane spinning on the string like a child’s toy.

“Well, now,” Witcher said, “you’re a sharp man. Steinfeld said you were. You’re right: it’s not the real reason. Someday I’ll tell you the reason, maybe. When it’s safe.”

A blank TV screen behind the bar flickered and then lit up with a fish-eye image of the cockpit. The copilot turned to look at them. “We have clearance, sir. We’re making our final approach.”

Witcher nodded at the screen. “It’s about time. Double-check to see that our security meets us.”

“Yes, sir.” The screen went blank again.

Smoke said, “Of course, the good news from Paris is also bad news. Because it means the Second Alliance have Paris to themselves. Just so much more captured territory.”

“They had it already—too many of the French were with them . . . ” Witcher shrugged. “And the rest of Europe is falling in step.”

“There are plenty of French who are not collaborating. And Steinfeld’s still in France.” Smoke murmured, “And Hard-Eyes. And the others. And they haven’t given up.”

The plane passed over the city, and Smoke had a glimpse of the traffic sweating through the avenues . . . The urban organism humming with life . . . 

“This city is very much alive,” Smoke said softly, to the crow. “But then, so was Amsterdam, not so long ago.”

The End of Book One

A Song Called Youth
Book Two:
 
ECLIPSE PENUMBRA

For Stephen P. Brown

• Prologue •

A man and a little girl were strolling down a white beach, in hazy sunshine, in the heart of the twenty-first century. The Caribbean surged lazily beside them, white capping crystalline blue. The man was tall and dark and gaunt. A crow perched on his left shoulder, a blot of blackness on the beach, its head ducked against the sun. The girl, who walked between the man and the lapping lacework fringe of the surf, was about nine or ten—no one was quite sure of her precise age. She was dark brown, her wavy black hair caught up in the bright yellow scarf common to the women of the island of Merino. She had hold of the belt loop on the man’s left hip, holding it as if she were holding his hand. It was too warm to hold hands.

The man and the little girl wore sandals made from tire rubber and hemp; he wore khaki shorts and a blue silk shortsleeved shirt; it was an expensive shirt but he’d lost three buttons from it and hadn’t bothered to replace them. The girl was wearing a yellow cotton shift.

The man was Jack Brendan Smoke. The little girl was named Alouette.

Smoke had adopted her a few weeks earlier. She was a child of this island. Her parents had died a year before, in a hurricane.

“Do you think I’m a clever girl?” she asked him. Her island accent was strong, but her English was good.

“Yes. You are the cleverest girl your teachers know. But you mustn’t hold yourself above the other students.”

“I won’t. But if you think I’m clever, why don’t you tell me things?”

“What things?”

“What your work is. Why you came here. What your people are doing. I know they’re doing something special.”

He hesitated. Then he decided. “All right. You know about the New-Soviets?”

“Yes. Well . . . I’ve heard of Soviets, in Russia. I didn’t know they were new . . . ”

“The
New
-Soviets came into power after Yeltsin and his successors failed to keep Russia thriving—Russia was weak from corruption, in the years after Putin. They couldn’t pay the people who kept the country together. They had to find a way to strengthen the country again. Sometimes war stimulates economies. The NATO nations were aggressive, they argued about the oil near the North Pole and . . . all that gave them a good excuse. So, you know what they did?”

“They invaded Eastern Europe because they were afraid of the aggressiveness of the Yankees. The Yankees were very aggressive. The Yankees were stealing their oil.”

“That was their excuse. There was arguing about NATO presence in Eastern Europe and the oil in the Arctic Circle—the Russians said it was theirs. Moscow believed—or pretended to believe—that the allies were building up a force to use against them, to seize the oil. The New-Soviets said ‘a good offense is the best defense.’ Do you know why there wasn’t a nuclear war?”

“Because of the Conventional . . . ”

“The Conventional Aggression Treaty.”

She nodded, as if he were a student giving the right answer. “And because of the warning systems.”

“That’s right. It just wasn’t practical. It would’ve been what is called Mutual Assured Destruction.” He wondered if she’d learned this by rote only, or if she understood it. Then he wondered if anyone really understood it. “Do you know what happened because of the third world war in Europe?”

“The armies destroyed lots of cities and everyone went into refugee camps and there was riots and people stealing everything and . . . and robbers.”

“Exactly. The New-Soviets and the United States let their bulls loose in the world’s china shops and everyone suffered. Because of that, NATO hired . . . you know what NATO is?”

“Yes.” A little annoyed. “Of course!”

“Okay. Well, you’re young but you’re more educated than a lot of kids from my country. NATO hired the biggest international private police company. They provided security patrols and antiterrorist squadrons and all kinds of mercenary business. They are called the Second Alliance. You see, at the turn of the century NATO bombed Kosovo, and terrible chaos resulted in that area, in the Balkans. The Albanians had an entrenched organized crime outfit that spread out everywhere in Europe, selling heroin and guns and dealing in prostitution and such, and in the aftermath of the war the crime and violence got so terribly awful in Kosovo and the surrounding areas—so NATO was trying to prevent more of that. It’s sort of ironic, really, considering what happened. They hired the Second Alliance and they were exactly the wrong people to hire. Did you know all that?”

“No,” she admitted.

“The Second Alliance International Security Corporation. We just call them the SA. NATO hired them to police Europe, to keep order behind the lines. They were a big army all by themselves. Bigger than anybody thought. And nobody knew they were waiting for a chance like this. There was a conspiracy . . . Well, anyway, they occupied lots of Europe behind the lines of fighting. They took control of it. And it turned out that the people who ran the SA were Fascists.”

“Fascists are Nazis. I saw them in movies. They torture people and kill Jews for being Jews. They want to control everything.”

“More or less correct, at least in World War Two. Especially the German Fascists. The SA, now, is controlled by some very, very extremist Fundamentalist Christians who aren’t really Christians at all. Christ would have been saddened by them. Unlike most evangelists, the SA and their friends are believers in racial purity. Genetic purity. A man named Rick Crandall in America, and another man named Watson in Europe, those are their top people. Rick Crandall is a preacher of sorts. They have power in the United States now, too. They have friends in the government. Maybe even the president.”

“Mrs. Bester?”

“Yes. President Bester. And they control some very big American companies. They’re using them to influence the American people through the media. There’s a depression in the United States. Because terrorists destroyed the banking system. Some people think President Bester provoked the New-Soviets into aggression so she could have a war that would help the economy and big business. Anyway, the depression and the war make a lot of pressure on people, and that makes them think that Fascism might be all right . . . for a lot of reasons. And the Fascists control the Space Colony now. They took it over.”

“The Space Colony! I wanted to go there!”

“You know all about it?”

She nodded eagerly. “It’s a building in space—a building bigger than Merino. Floating out there!” She pointed at the sky. “Thousands of people live in it. It has trees and everything, way out in space! It’s closed up so the air can’t get out, and it recycles everything. But the New-Soviets have . . . stopped people . . . ”

“Blockaded it.”

“Yes, blockaded it in space, so it’s running out of food because it can’t raise enough for all its people inside.”

“Yes. When we take it back from the Fascists, we can go there for a visit.”

He didn’t say, “
If
they take it back.” Not to her.

“That’s what your work is, then? To take it back?”

“Yes. And to help Europe get away from the same people. It’s the work of a great many others: to give Europe back to its people. The Second Alliance used tricks and set up puppet leaders so that the people of Europe think they have their own leaders, but those new leaders really belong to the SA. And the SA is promoting Fascism in the people. They’re hungry and angry and they want order, and Fascism promises food and order, so they think they want Fascism. But they don’t know it means they won’t have any freedom and they’ll have to hate their neighbors.

“How are you fighting these people?”

“We have the New Resistance. The NR. We’re fighting them with guns and with information.”

“With guns?” She looked at him. “You? You might have to fight with guns?”

He put an arm around her shoulders. “No. Not me. I use words and ideas. I’m no good with guns. People like Steinfeld and Hard-Eyes are using guns and strategy and tactics . . . ”

“Steen-field. Hard-Eyes.”

“They’re leading our guerrillas—that’s
guerrillas,
not—”

“I know the difference between guerrillas and gorillas.” She rolled her eyes at him. “We used to have guerillas fighting here.”

He smiled. “Sorry again. Let’s head back now and get something to drink. I’m thirsty.”

“Yes.” They turned and moved away from the water toward the NR compound.

“Hard-Eyes,” she said when they were almost to the road, “is a stupid name.”

Smoke laughed. “You’re right. Hard-Eyes is an American named Dan Torrence. The nickname sort of embarrasses him now.”

“I can see why.”

“But he’s a good man. He doesn’t think he’s better than anyone else, and he has given himself completely to the Resistance. Because he saw what the Fascists did to some people, and he saw what the future could be like.”

“Why do people decide to be Fascists?”

“Almost anyone could be Fascist under the right circumstances. If they get scared enough. It’s because, you see, most people live their lives like sleepwalkers. They’re not really awake, though they think they are. And sleepwalkers are easily led. That’s why we have to fight it so hard. Because it never quite goes away.”

• 01 •

Southeastern France. The Alps.

Three olive-drab trucks and an icy-blue dawn. The shadows were still black in the craters on the two-lane mountain road angling up through the French Alps. The dark steel of the sky to the east was going blue-white between the snowy peaks but the rough texture of the peaks’ western faces was yet etched by the passing night; the dawn light created a kind of ecliptic corona around the silhouetted mountaintops.

In the lead truck, Dan “Hard-Eyes” Torrence was riding shotgun, literally holding a twenty-round CAWS fully automatic shotgun propped up between his legs. Steinfeld was driving. It was a stolen US Army truck, an old Ford diesel built in the twentieth century. It creaked with age and overuse, its mileage indicator long since numerically exhausted. The rusty floor was cracked; engine heat pushed fumes up at them, along with the grunt and clash of the gears as Steinfeld downshifted for the steepening road grade. The headlights flickered when the truck hit a pot-hole, the beams swiveling out over the canyon drop-off to their left as Steinfeld swung the truck around to avoid a crater. On the western side of the road, a craggy cliff face rose two hundred feet above them before sloping back toward the top of the ridge; snow, loosed by the vibrations set up by the truck, skirted down from shelves in the rock to glitter in the headlight beams. There hadn’t been a fresh snowfall for three days. Morning melt-off and the passage of other vehicles had cleared the road of most of it. Now and then the rumbling engine roared in frustration as they hit an icy patch and the wheels spun, Steinfeld cursing through his thick black beard as he wrenched the wheel in search of traction.