David Brin - The Postman

At last, Gordon’s eyes closed completely. The silence stretched on. He inhaled and with some effort made the heaviness fall aside. Powhatan had been trying to tell him something, with that strange story. He, in turn, had something to say to Powhatan.

“A duty to help others isn’t necessarily the same as being subject to the will of…”

He stopped — sensing that something had changed. His eyes opened, and when he turned, he saw that Powhatan was gone.

That evening people gathered from all over, more men and women than Gordon had thought still lived in the sparsely settled valley. For the visiting postman and his company, they put on a folk festival, of sorts. Children sang, and small troupes performed clever little skits.

Unlike in the north, where popular songs were often those remembered from the days of television and radio, here there were no fondly recalled commercial jingles, few rock and roll melodies retuned to banjo and acoustic guitar. Instead, the music went back to an older tradition.

The bearded men, the women in long dresses tending table, the singing by fire and lamplight — it might easily have been a gathering from nearly two centuries ago, back when this valley had first been settled by white men, coming together for company and to shake off the chill of winter.

Johnny Stevens represented the northerners during the songfest. He had brought his treasured guitar, and dazzled the people with his flair, setting them clapping and stamping their feet.

Normally, this would have been wonderful fun, and Gordon might gladly join in with offerings from his old repertoire — from back before he had hit on being a “postman,” when he had been a wandering minstrel trading songs and stories for meals halfway across the continent.

But he had listened to jazz and to Debussy the night before leaving Corvallis. He could not help wondering if it would turn out to have been the last time, ever.

Gordon knew what George Powhatan was trying to accomplish with this fete. He was putting off the confrontation… making the Willametters sit and stew… taking their measure.

Gordon’s impression back at the cliff had not changed. With his long locks and ready banter, Powhatan was the very image of the aging neohippy. The long-dead movement of the nineties seemed to fit the Squire’s style of leadership.

For instance, in the Camas Valley, clearly everyone was independent and equal.

Still, when George laughed, everyone else did. It seemed only natural. He gave no orders, no commands. It did not seem to occur to anyone that he would. Nothing happened in the lodge that displeased him enough to even raise an eyebrow.

In what had once been called the “soft” arts — those requiring neither metals nor electricity — these people were as advanced as the busy craftsmen of the Willamette. In some ways, perhaps, more so. That, no doubt, was why Powhatan had insisted on showing off his farm — to let the visitors see that they were not dealing with a society of throwbacks, but folk just as civilized in their own right. Part of Gordon’s plan was to prove that Powhatan was wrong.

At last it was time to bring out the “gifts from Cyclops” they had brought all this way.

The people watched wide-eyed as Johnny Stevens demonstrated a cartoon graphics game on a color display that had been lovingly repaired by the Corvallis techs. He gave them a video puppet show about a dinosaur and a robot. The images and bright sounds soon had everybody laughing in delight, the adults as much as the children.

And yet Gordon detected once again that uncanny something in their mood. The people cheered and laughed, but their applause seemed to be in honor of a clever trick. The machines had been brought to whet their appetites, to make them want high technology once again. But Gordon saw no covetous glow in the watchers’ eyes, no rekindled urge to own such wonders again.

Some of the men did sit up when Philip Bokuto’s turn came. The black ex-Marine stepped up with a battered leather valise, and from it he drew out a few of the new weapons.

He showed the gas bombs and mines, and told them how they might be used to hold strong points against attack. Philip described the night vision scopes, soon to be available from the workshops of Cyclops. A ripple of uncertainty moved from man to man — battle-scarred veterans of a long war against a terrible enemy. While Bokuto talked, people kept glancing at the big man in the corner.

Powhatan did not say or do anything explicit. The picture of politeness, he only yawned once, demurely covering his mouth. He smiled indulgently as each weapon was displayed, and Gordon was awed to see how, with body language alone, the man seemed to say that these presents were quaint, perhaps even clever… but really quite irrelevant.

The bastard. But Gordon really didn’t know how to fight back. Soon, that smile had spread around the room, and he knew that it was time to cut their losses.

Dena had pestered him to bring along her own list of presents. Needles and thread, base-neutral soap, samples of that new line of semicotton underwear they had started weaving again up in Salem, just before the invasion.

“They’ll convert the women, Gordon. They’ll do more good than all your whiz-bangs and razzle-dazzles. Trust me”

The last time he had trusted Dena, though, it had led to a slender, tragic corpse under a snow-blown cedar. By that time Gordon had had quite enough of Dena’s version of pseudofeminism.

Would it have been any worse than this, though? Was I hasty? Perhaps we should have brought along some of the more mundane things — tooth powder and sanitary napkins, pottery, and new linen sheets.

He shook his head; that was all water under a dam. He gave Bokuto the signal to wrap it up and reached for his third ace. He drew forth his saddlebag and handed it to Johnny Stevens.

A hush fell over the crowd. Gordon and Powhatan watched each other across the room as Johnny stood — proud in his uniform — in front of the flickering fire. He riffled through envelopes and began reading names aloud in order to deliver the mail.

All through the still-civilized parts of the Willamette, the call had gone out. Anyone who had ever known anybody in the south had been asked to write to them. Most of the intended recipients would turn out to be long dead, of course. But a few letters would certainly arrive in the right hands, or those of relatives. Old connections might be resumed, the theory went. The plea for help would have to become something less abstract, more personal.

It had been a good idea, but once again the reaction was not as expected. The pile of undeliverable letters grew. And as Johnny called out name after name without reply, Gordon saw that a different lesson was being brought home.

The people of the Camas were being reminded of how many had died. Of how few had survived the bitter times.

And now that peace seemed to be theirs at last, it was easy to see how they resented being asked to sacrifice again, for near strangers who had had it easier for years. Those few who did acknowledge letters seemed to take them reluctantly, folding them away without reading them.

George Powhatan looked surprised when his own name was called. But his flicker of puzzlement vanished quickly as he shrugged and took a package and a slim envelope.

Things were not going well at all, Gordon realized. Johnny finished his task and gave his leader a look that seemed to say, What now?

Gordon had only one card left — the one he hated most of all — and the one he knew best how to use.

Damn. But there’s no other choice.

He stepped in front of the fireplace, facing the silent people with the warmth to his back, and took a deep breath. Then he started right in… lying to them.