Oberheim (Voices) Part 36

But he let it happen. He loved this place and its people, if not always understanding them, and instinct, or something deeper, told him that calm indifference would get him nowhere. "If I may say this much, man to man, I would advise you. . .ask you. . .to accept help where and how you find it. We were in a similar position once ourselves, not so very long ago. During the Blitzkrieg our need was every bit as desperate. We had to relearn a good deal that we thought we knew, and rea.s.sess what was truly strong in ourselves."

"That was an entirely different matter." With this Gale's a.s.sistant tapped his watch, as if to remind him of something.

"You will excuse me, Consul."

"Yes, Governor. I will return tomorrow and we may discuss it further.

I'll leave the full proposal here for you to study, if you wish."

Witherspoon reached into a leather briefcase, pulled forth a bound ma.n.u.script. "Is two o'clock agreeable?"

"Of course."

They shook hands at parting, and Gale could not help noticing, almost in spite of himself, that the Englishman's grip was firm, and that he looked him straight in the eye.

The next day at (precisely) two o'clock he returned. The same haggard look on Gale's wrinkled face, the same deep oak paneling, the same brandy. Only this time, Witherspoon noted, the Governor drank considerably more of it. Also, there was no a.s.sistant.

"I have been reading Blackthorne's proposal, Consul, so that now I know the details of what you're offering, though little more of what you intend." He looked up searchingly, surprisingly, into the other's eyes. "Listen to me, John. Man to man, as you said before, I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HE'S AFTER."

Witherspoon felt a spark of hope.

"I honestly don't know, Governor. I suspect it has more to do with hurting the French than helping you. Blackwood is, in fact, a throwback of sorts: an adventurer, an aggressive doer. But whatever his reasons, you have to believe me: I wouldn't be here, speaking to you like this, if I thought they were to your detriment. And it is help unlooked-for in an hour of need. Won't you take it?"

This did not satisfy the Irishman, and as if to further voice his doubts, or play them once more through his mind, he returned to an earlier, seemingly irrelevant point.

"You said yesterday that England under the Blitz was similar to our plight now, and that if you hadn't swallowed your pride long enough to take help from the Yanks you'd have gone under, and we'd all be speaking German."

"You read more than I in---"

"No, John. I read WHAT you intend. Forget your English arrogance, and give me credit for half a brain at least." The consul nodded. "That, as I'm telling you, was an entirely different matter. The Brits had their empire then, their corruption, and oppression of peoples they thought less of than themselves." His eyes glinted. "Imperial Destiny, and a lot of other high-sounding rot. Well. You were only paying your dues for taking more than was given you, and reaping your own bitter harvest."

"If you'll forgive my frankness, Governor, that's a lot of stuff and your know it. Whether our leaders did right or wrong in ruling the Empire, the PEOPLE of Britain were hardly to blame. As if cause and effect, or G.o.d's justice, had anything to do with it." He spoke now with a pa.s.sion that was strange for the Irishman to see.

"We were buckled to our knees, with all we thought strong and everlasting crumbling around us. V-2 missiles, wave after wave of the Luftwaffe, propeller bombs falling silently and unexpectedly. . .our fleets and supply convoys decimated by U-boats, bad news, and the word of loved ones lost coming in every day.

"And if we fell, Governor, who would have guarded the rest of Europe?

or even the thick-headed Irish, that the Germans were so fond of? The Americans? It took the loss of half their Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor before most of them even knew there was a war on. Churchill wept the day it happened, because he knew that they had finally been roused. You're a hard and shrewd old father, Gale, but you leave the path of wisdom when you speak lightly of England's part in that Debate."

"Yes," put in the other, trying to be indignant. "But at least the Americans didn't rub it in your face."

"So now we're talking about pride, are we?" Without realizing it, Witherspoon had begun to speak (and think) in the way of the natives.

He had lived there for seven years, from the time he was thirty.

"If you think we liked being in their debt, both literally and figuratively, you're mistaken. But we had to survive. We had to hang on, so we did what we had to do. Don't you see, it's not a question of principles, or faith, or anything else at all. It's reality; it's war; and the extinction of lives and irreplaceable treasures is final.

Didn't we learn that all too well?

"And what did we get in return for our heroic stand? We took all the early pounding, along with the Russians, absorbed the enemy's worst blows, only to have the Yanks come charging in late in the game, and take all the credit for final victory. Financially we'd have been better off to declare war on the Americans ourselves, and then lose.

They went in afterward like good Samaritans and rebuilt the factories of Germany and j.a.pan, and set them well on their feet for a run at the modern age. And what was left for England, not so very long before the most powerful nation on Earth? Naught but a mountain of debt, a crumbled economy, and the laughter of the world for the aging lion, no longer able even to hold its own among the s.h.i.+fting tides of fate.

"You say we were only paying our dues. Well if that's so then we paid them in full, and not an ha'penny short. Not that the Irish wasted any tears on our behalf." Now it was his eyes that glowered.

The Irishman drained his snifter and let it fall wearily to the woven rug. He looked now truly old and weather beaten, proud still, but with very little hope left. Witherspoon had time to recover himself.

"Please, Bryan. Won't you at least pa.s.s the message on to your approaching fleets?" He knew their Commander's name and (complete) authority, even his current location; but this was no time to flaunt the thoroughness of British intelligence. "I love New Belfast as much as anyone. You don't know what it's given me. If it goes down to the b.l.o.o.d.y French Elite, a part of me will die as well."

Gale looked up, and saw to his astonishment that there were standing tears in the younger man's eyes. He lowered his head again, shook it, and said finally, heavily. "I'll think about it."

"Do this one thing for me, Bryan, I beg. Don't think too long. Or there will be nothing left to defend." He rose and left the room.

The next day, Gale relayed Blackwood's proposal to Commander Donovan, venturing to suggest that the way things were---desperate---perhaps it could be considered as a fall-back position. After the necessary signal delay (and not two minutes later) he received the following reply, an audio/visual recording.

"Have you lost your mind, man? I'd sooner make a pact with the Devil.

You just do your job and hold 'em off until we get there, or I'll replace you with someone of stouter fiber and longer memory. Help from the English, indeed!" And that was the end of it.

New Belfast fell to the enemy, and could not be retaken.

Here, at least, was a clear moral for anyone to read. By facing the darkness alone and stubbornly, refusing all help, by not using unsparingly all the resources at their disposal, and by placing beliefs in constraining patterns upon a world where no such narrow order existed, the frontier Irish were swept away. And all their heart, courage and past, all their faith in life and beauty of soul were rendered meaningless, and in the end amounted to naught, because of it.

But for one disturbing question. What was Blackwood really after?

Part, the Second

The wind, she blows extreme My mind would scream But for the discipline That empty years have taught it.

Richard Dark, a denaturalized American citizen, had risen swiftly through the ranks of the (People's Republic of) Chinese Army, and because of his technical understanding and combat experience, along with the marked favor of vice-Chairman Tam, had been put in charge of the Outer Fences of the two settled planets of the Tsingtao system, now under attack by Soviet-backed Cuban forces.

Viewed mockingly by some, since they were not accompanied by a powerful s.p.a.ce Navy, these unique defenses were nonetheless a highly effective form of planetary cover. Invented by Dark himself, in conjunction with the exiled physicist Tolstoy (both men had chosen not to reveal the full discovery to their native governments, and were therefore outcast), they were based on a combined series of s.h.i.+elds and orbiting Artillery Stations, similar to, but more highly integrated than those of the East Germans, in that the s.h.i.+elds themselves were wrapped about the great mace-shapes of the Stations like nets of energy strung between harbor mines.

But what made them effective was the source of their power. Not only did they feed off the sun, but also used the very energy of a.s.saulting blasts to strengthen the fields, and channel the drawn-off power into a reverse stroke by the corresponding station---like an aimed mirror of aggression. The harder an opponent struck, the harder was the blow returned.

Though much of the final figuring had been Tolstoy's, the inspiration and early experiments all belonged to Dark. The idea had first come to him during one of his many visits to the Taoist monastery near his home in Manchuria, where he had been raised by his father, a stern U.C. Army Captain stationed there. Of all the things he had learned (the Shao-lin had let him ask all the questions he liked, though they seldom answered directly or in full), one precept of the Kung Fu style of fighting had always intrigued him most deeply:

If a man, in hand-to-hand combat with another, could turn the force of his opponent's a.s.sault back upon him, adding to it the strength of his own spirit, why couldn't a machine, or even a defense field, do the same? He had carried this thought through all the years of his scientific and worldly education, and while serving in the Commonwealth s.p.a.ce Navy during the Manxsome conflict, had seen first-hand the need for such a defense: a way for the week to hold off the strong.

He had also been severely wounded, and nearly died, when his s.h.i.+p's own force-s.h.i.+elds had been broken, and the exposed vessel riven with agonizing heat. The next four years had been spent in hospitals and operating rooms where, remarkably, he had slowly recovered with no permanent (physical) damage.

In fact, though his life totaled only twenty-nine Earth years, they had been lived with such intensity and trauma, through no conscious choice of his own, that while he was considerably younger than most of the officers under him, he was, in his way, more experience, time-wizened (and weary of life) than nearly all of them. If hope, despair, and nearness to death are the great teachers of this existence, then here was a student who knew the lists by rote.

He stood now in the engineering room of Power Station One, at the heart of the Fences surrounding the planet Ten Hsiao-p'ang, examining damage reports. The Cubans, after trying for a week to storm the defenses of both planets at once, had decided to concentrate their forces upon Teng along, believing, correctly, that once it fell, the power of the other would be diminished as well. Though Dark's s.h.i.+elds still held, the outlook was not bright. For even a mirror may be destroyed by a well aimed and determined laser; and the colonies had to hold out for another month at least.

"I don't know why I try," he muttered to himself. He switched off the last tracer diagram, leaned on the railing heavily.