Mack Reynolds - Border, Breed Nor Birth

Bey, who had settled down into a folding camp chair, now came to his feet, his tired face angry.

But Homer waved him to silence. “Hold it,” he said. Then to Ostrander: “It doesn’t work that way. It’s not something you decide to do because you’re thirsty for power, or greedy for money. You’re pushed into it. Do you think Washington, a retired Virginian planter wrapped up in his estate and his family, wanted to spend years leading the revolutionary armies through the wilderness that was America in those days? He was thrust into the job, there was no one else more competent to take it. Men make the times, Ostrander, but the times also make the men. Look at Lenin and Trotsky. Three months before the October Revolution, Lenin wrote that he never expected to see in his lifetime the Bolsheviks come to power. Within those months he was at the head of government and Trotsky, a former bookworm who had never fired a gun in his life, was head of the Red Army and being proclaimed a military genius.”

Ostrander was scowling at him, but his face was thoughtful.

Homer said quietly, “It’s not always an easy thing, to have power thrust into your hands. Not always a desirable thing.” His voice went quieter still. “Only a short time ago it led me to the necessity of … killing … my best friend.”

“And mine,” Isobel said softly, almost under her breath.

Dave Moroka said, “Abe Baker,” before he caught himself.

Kenny Ballalou looked at him strangely. “Did you know Abe?”

The South African recovered. “I’ve heard several of you mention him from time to time. He was a commie, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” Homer said without inflection. “And a man. He saved my life on more than one occasion. As long as we worked together with only Africa in mind, there was no conflict. But Abe had a further, and, to him, greater alliance.”

He turned his attention back to the C.I.A. man. “A man does what he must do,” he finished simply. “I did not ask to become El Hassan.”

Ostrander said, “Your motivation is possibly beside the point. The thing is that the battle for men’s minds continues and your program, eventually, must align with the West.”

“And get clobbered in the stampeding around between the two great powers,” Kenny said dryly.

“You’ve got to take your stand,” Ostrander said. “I’d rather die under the neutron bomb than spend the rest of my life on my knees under a Soviet Complex government. Wouldn’t you?” His eyes went from one of them to the other, defiantly.

Homer said slowly. “No, even though that were the only alternative, which is unlikely. Not if it meant finishing off the whole human race at the same time.” He shook his head. “If it were only me, it might be different. But if it was a matter of nuclear war the whole race might well end. Given such circumstances, I’d be proud to remain on my knees the rest of my life. You see, Ostrander, you make the mistake of thinking the Soviet socio-economic system is a permanent thing. It isn’t. It’s changing daily, even as our own socio-economic system is. Even if the Soviet Complex were to dominate the whole world, it would be but a temporary phase in man’s history. Their regime, in its time, right or wrong, will go under in man’s march to whatever his destiny might be. Some day it will be only a memory, and so will the socio-economic systems of the West. No institutions are less permanent than politico-economic ones.”

“I don’t agree with you,” Ostrander snapped.

“Obviously,” Homer shrugged. “However, this is another problem. El Hassan deals with North Africa. The other problems you bring up we admit, but at this stage are not dealing with them. Our dream is in Africa. Perhaps the Africans will be forced to taking other stands, to dreaming new dreams, twenty or thirty years from now. When that time comes, I assume the new problems will be faced. By that time there will probably be no need for El Hassan.”

Ostrander looked at him and bit his lip in thought.

It came to him now that he had never won in his contests with Homer Crawford, and that he would probably never win. No matter how strong his convictions, in the presence of the other man something went out of him. There was strength in Crawford that must be experienced to be understood. When he talked, he held you, and your own opinions became nothing—stupidities on your lips. He had a dream, and in conversation with him, all other things dropped away and nothing was of importance but that dream. A dream? Possibly disease was the better word. And so highly contagious.

While they talked, an aide had entered and handed a report to Bey-ag-Akhamouk. He read it and closed his eyes in weariness.

“What’s up, Bey?” Homer asked.

“I don’t know. Colonel Ibrahim has stepped up his attacks in all directions. At least two-thirds of his force is on the offensive. It doesn’t make much sense. But it must make sense to him, or he wouldn’t be doing it.”

Ostrander said, and to everyone’s surprise there seemed to be an element of worry in his voice too, “I know Colonel Midan Ibrahim, met him in Cairo and in Baghdad on various occasions. He’s considered one of the best men in the Arab Legion. He doesn’t make military blunders.”

Bey said, “Come on, Kenny. Let’s round up Guémama and take a look at the front.” He led the way from the tent.

There was a guard posted before the tent which doubled as press and communications center and the private quarters of David Moroka.

The figure that approached timidly was garbed in the traditional clothing of the young women of the Tégéhé Mellet tribe of the Tuareg and bore an imzad in her left hand, while her right held a corner of her gandoura over her face.

The guard, of the Kel Rela tribe, eyed the one-stringed violin with its string of hair and sounding box made of half a gourd covered with a thin membrane of skin, and grinned. A Tuareg maid was accustomed to sing and to make the high whining tones of desert music on the imzad before submitting to her lover’s embrace. Wallahi! but these women of the Tégéhé Mellet were shameless.

“Where do you go?” he said gruffly. “El Hassan’s vizier has ordered that he is occupied and none should approach.”

“He awaits me,” she wavered. There was khol about her eyes, and indigo at the corners of her mouth. “We met at the tendi last night and he bid me come to his tent. It is for me waits.”

Wallahi! but his leader had taste, the sentry decided.

“Pass,” he said gruffly. Even a vizier of such importance as this one must need solace at times, he decided philosophically.

She slipped past silently to the tent entrance where the Tuareg guard noticed she paused for a long moment before entering. He grinned into his teguelmoust. Aiii, the little bird was timid before the hawk.

She stood for a moment listening, and then slipped inside, dropping the desert musical instrument to the ground. Dave Moroka’s back was to her. Even as she entered he flicked off the switch of the video-radio into which he had been speaking and scowled at it.

When he stood and began to turn, she covered him with the small pocket pistol. She had an ease in handling it which denoted competence.

His eyebrows went up, but he remained silent, waiting for her gambit.

Isobel said evenly, “You’re a Party member, aren’t you, Dave?”

“Why do you say that?”

She nodded infinitesimally to the set. “You were reporting just now. I heard enough just as I came in.”

He took in her disguise. “My guard isn’t as efficient as I had thought,” Dave said wryly.

Isobel said, “You knew Abe Baker, didn’t you?”

He looked at her expressionlessly.