Jack Chalker - A War of Shadows

Sam Cornish’s eyebrows rose. “Huh?”

“Look around you,” the man said, gesturing with his right arm. “A lot of folks from the old days. Suppose some of these younger cult-groups and the remaining members of the old guard could be brought together under a single unified structure, a common program, with proper money and support?” His eyes gleamed. “Why, man, we could take over anything!”

Sam shrugged. “Who knows? I think we’ll find out in a little bit, though. My ears just popped and I think the plane’s banking for an approach.”

It was true. Almost as he finished saying those words they heard the thump, thump, of the landing gear being lowered and locked, and within a minute or so more they were on the ground, there was the rush of engines reversing, and the plane slowed to a crawl and began to taxi.

It was a short ride on the bumpy ground until the plane stopped with a jerk and a groan. Most of the people were awake now, many talking in hushed whispers, but all eyes were looking forward to the pilot’s cabin and the door just before it.

Now the cabin door opened and a bearded young Latin-looking man in olive drab fatigues emerged and opened the door. The engines shut down, and when the door opened a blast of tremendously hot, dry air rushed in. The temperature in the cabin rose tremendously.

A stair or ramp of some kind was quickly attached and there were footsteps running up to the plane. A thin, small woman in fatigues entered, shook hands with the crewman, exchanged a few words they couldn’t make out, then walked back to the main passenger cabin, stopping at the galley.

Cornish wasn’t the only one who noticed four V-shaped chevrons in dark red on her left sleeve. She was tanned darkly, but could have been any nationality with European antecedents. Sam guessed she was no more than twenty-five.

Her voice was deep, rich, and loud, and had the ring of confident authority. “Welcome to Camp Liberty,” she announced. She sounded like she was from Kansas or another of the midwestern states—neutral, a little nasal, and totally American. “I am Sergeant Twenty-Four. As far as you are concerned, that will be the only name you’ll ever hear. All of you will receive code names and/or numbers here. Stick to them and do not use any other. You will be training with, and trained by, literally hundreds of freedom fighters from around the world. Naturally, when we go into action, a few of us may wind up in enemy hands. If so, you will be placed under conditions where you might tell all you know. Because of this, you will know what you need to know and nothing else. That way no one can betray another.”

The man next to Cornish chuckled. “You see?” he murmured. “Organization. Yes, sir, real pros.”

“Camp Liberty is a military camp and is run as such,” the woman went on. “You are all now in the Liberation Army. In the times ahead, we will train you, equip you, and weed out those who can and will carry out the armed struggle and those who can or will not do so.”

Sam felt slightly ill, not entirely from the building heat and effects of little to eat and drug suppression. There was very little doubt in his mind as to what would happen to those these people found could not or would not aid in the struggle. Everyone there was a non-person, someone easily and efficiently eliminated.

“You have many long and hard days and nights ahead of you,” the sergeant warned. “However, you are among friends, people from across the globe committed to eliminating the fascist corporate states who still dominate the world. In the past you worked alone or in small groups, and you know what that got. Publicity, and little else. Now, this time, we are in a different position. Revolution not only within our lifetime, but within the year.”

She went on and on with it, but Sam was tuning her out rather quickly. A fanatic like those in the past; her face shone with vision and purpose, and the rhetoric was the same.

It was getting damned hot, and sweat was pouring out of most of them. He was uncomfortable and he itched. He admired the way this overdressed young revolutionary seemed oblivious to all that, and, indeed, oblivious to the discomfort and boredom of her passengers, all of whom had also heard this or said this long before, when this woman was a pigtailed elementary schooler.

“I wish she’d run down,” he whispered to his seat companion out of the side of his mouth.

“I think this is the start of it,” the other said in the same hushed tone and manner. “She wants to see who the troublemakers are at the very beginning, who can’t take this and who can.”

Sam sank back in his seat and wiped the perspiration from his brow. They’d even taken his handkerchief.

The other man was right, though. The more she droned on, the clearer it became to everyone that they were in a contest, the sergeant in those heavy fatigues versus those in regular clothes in the plane. Suddenly he noticed the plane crew in the background. The fellow who’d opened the door was standing there with a clipboard, eyes looking around at the passengers. Every once in a while he’d jot something down.

The other two of the crew, both of the same type and background as the man with the clipboard, stayed for a little bit, then walked out and down the ramp.

Sam began to be amused by it as time wore on. The woman started slurring her words slightly, and seemed uncomfortable and a little dizzy. She kept recovering, but these flashes were coming more and more frequently now, and her uniform was drenched. Finally she admitted defeat and wound it up.

“You will now exit the plane from the front. When you get to the door, Navigator Nine Sixteen will hand you a card with your own identity for the duration of this exercise. Memorize it, learn to use it exclusively for your own sake later on.”

They disembarked. When Sam passed the navigator he was handed a little white index card on which was printed 2025. Easy enough number, he thought, and went out.

It was even worse under the sun, but it was dry as hell and with a slight wind. The greedy dry air sucked up much of his perspiration.

They were in a desert, that was for sure. Whitish sand was everywhere in great dunes and depressions, with no features and no signs of living things.

The sand was hard-packed right here, though, and felt solid as a rock. Somebody had put down a paved runway and a little bit away was Camp Liberty.

It looked like something out of an old desert movie combined with a cheap war picture. Lots of large tents all over, interspersed here and there with old-type quonset huts, buildings of tin that looked like the upper half of buried tubes.

There were lots of people about, all wearing either the military fatigues and boots of the sergeant and flight crew or olive tee-shirts and shorts. Some wore armbands of one sort or another, and all wore incongruous-looking hard khaki-colored Jungle Jim hats. Men and women were about equal in number.

They headed first for a large tent nearest the plane, directed by a few uniformed people. They didn’t enter, though. Instead they were broken up into groups of ten, equally male and female, and made to stand there a bit more. The sorting was by number.

There were eight groups, he counted. Eighty old revolutionaries on that plane.

Now a big man and a husky woman in uniform emerged from the tent. They went to the first group, and the man, in a Slavic-sounding accent, said, “You will follow us, please.”

As soon as the first group was away, the second was met by another man-woman team, and then it was his turn.

An Oriental-looking man and a tiny black woman were his group’s caretakers, and both had soft but definite accents as well.

“You will follow us,” the woman commanded in an accent that was somewhat African-English with traces of French. They followed, all feeling like they would drop any second.