John Shirley - A Song Called Youth

He didn’t have to say it: the trains run on time.

Steinfeld went on. “And, of course, the white Christians see them isolating the Algerians and the other blacks and immigrants in assigned ghettos, arresting anyone black or Arab or Jewish who so much as sneezes. And the white Christians who are prejudiced respond favorably when they see that. And even the ones who were formerly liberal…” He shrugged. “Jack Smoke once said that social chaos has a way of making conservatives. When there is privation, famine, constant danger, some low instinct seems to make people suspicious of strangers, or of anyone at all different. Open minds will slam shut…” He paused to sigh. The darkness thickened in the room. “There are only a few courses open to us. We can run to the States and work there to try to awaken the public to what’s going on over here. The SA’s American people are manipulating the news, censoring things without seeming to. Here, they don’t permit journalists to accompany NATO troops in Europe. People in America don’t know what’s happening here. But Smoke and Witcher and their team are working on changing that already, and if we leave Europe, the continent’s only resistance core will be gone.”

By insisting on keeping all political activity out of the NR—except, of course, for its primary mandate—Steinfeld had made the New Resistance a resource available to Communists, capitalists, anarchists, republicist conservatives, liberals; all flavors of those persuasions, as long as they were opposed to the Second Alliance. New NR recruits sometimes joined on their own; others might be assigned by the Socialist Workers Party, or the Libertarian Party—but all were required to take a mortally serious vow that clearly stated they would put all political disagreements with other Resistance fighters aside, giving first priority to the struggle with the New Fascism. Steinfeld’s organization supplied the sundry Communist and anarchist resistance cadres with money, weapons, and sometimes hiding places; in return, the cadres provided intel, safe houses for traveling NR actives, and sometimes military reinforcement. They coordinated their sabotage efforts, and together managed to keep the SA off-balance.

Occasionally there were polite ideological arguments in the NR ranks. Some of the republicists muttered about the danger of giving Communists resources that would help them survive so they’d be around after it was all over.

But Steinfeld had said, “There will always be Communists. I’m against all dictatorships—even dictatorships of the proletariat. But we have to learn to live with Communists.”

At such times Levassier, who was a Trotskyite, would complain bitterly of Steinfeld’s patronizing tone with respect to the People’s Revolution, and he would insist that the dictatorial phase of Communism was only temporary, in order to enforce revolutionary reforms, and he would go on to quote Marcuse’s claim that the so-called free world was a dictatorship that used media and conformist conditioning to enforce its dominion. “Zuh Grid,” Levassier said: “All zuh television and Internet, all electronic media, banking computer systems, all of zis—this is their gulag…”

NR political discussions were always mild and rhetorical, never became real infighting.

They were all too urgently aware of the real fight.

“If core NR escapes to the USA,” Steinfeld said, “we weaken the other resistance groups. But—SA surveillance on the continent is so tight, we’re finding it tougher to get away with anything. And people are frightened.” He made a gesture that almost seemed to convey despair. It was difficult to tell; his face was lost in shadow. “They’re beginning to turn our people in.”

“So what does that leave us?” Torrence asked.

And the room grew darker yet.

Steinfeld took a deep, rheumy breath. “The Fascists have two European headquarters—Paris and Palermo. The Sicilian headquarters is also their center of communications, and one of their top air bases. According to our information, Colonel Watson and five other top Second Alliance officials will be in Palermo in early March to evaluate the European situation. They’ll be in conference with Crandall by satellite. If they decide the situation is amenable, they’ll move into the second phase of their campaign to take control of Europe. They’ll announce something called the Self-Policing Organization of European States. SPOES will claim it’s the core of a new economic and political unity that will protect it from the ravages of New-Soviet and American interference, and from the war itself. It will be…”

“…A new Axis,” Danco burst out. “Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, and Tojo, in the last century. Now we will have Le Pen, Sinsera, and the other SA puppets.”

Steinfeld said simply, “Yes.” After a moment he added, “In effect, they will be announcing the birth of a new Fascist state.”

No one spoke for a full minute. Then Torrence said, “You want to raid their Palermo HQ? That it?”

Steinfeld grunted in assent. His chair creaked mournfully as he shifted his weight, leaned back.

Torrence looked out the window. The last shreds of saffron light were melting away. A single ray of orange-red flicked on as a cloud shifted at the horizon. And suddenly switched off, as the sun sank farther, as if someone had thrown a switch to turn off a searchlight beam.

Steinfeld said, “I have in mind a large, concerted raid, timed to hit the island when they’re having their conference. Ideally we will kill Watson and some other top people, destroy their sat dishes, their transmitters, whatever aircraft are on the ground. It won’t stop their push, but it will slow them. The longer they wait to put SPOES into effect, the more chance we will have to warn people about what’s coming.”

Chiswell said, “Rather awfully breezy, the way you say it, Steinfeld—but that island will be defended like nowhere else in their territory. I don’t think we have the manpower or the air power to make it work. Unless the Maltese help us.”

Steinfeld said, “They’re Socialist, so they oppose the SA. But not actively—not even very vocally. They give us shelter, but no help with materiel or troops or transportation. The Mossad will provide some planes, some choppers, some amphibious vehicles. But it must operate secretively too. There’s a severe limit to how much they can help us. Witcher is doing what he can, but he’s finding it tough to get anything through the Atlantic Blockade.”

“Then we do what we can with what we’ve got,” Torrence said, thinking, as the room grew darker still. And we’ll probably die doing it.

A young black woman came into the room; Lila, an NR captain from Martinique. She spoke to Steinfeld in rapid-fire French. He nodded, replied in the same language. She left. Steinfeld said, “It seems Levassier is going to live. He will lose an arm, however.” Cold silence till he went on. “And one other piece of news: Michael Karakos has escaped from the detention camps. He’s on his way to us. He’s a good man. He’ll be a great help.”

And the darkness in the room was almost complete.

There was a can of people, floating in space. It was the Space Colony, FirStep, but to Russell Parker, just then, it was only a very big tin can.

Russ Parker—he thought of himself as Russ—was Chief of Colony Security. He sat at his desk in Central Admin, hating his job, hating his current home (if you could call it a home), hating his boss, and hating himself. And asking God’s forgiveness for all that hatred.

It had just hit him as he sat there looking over his schedule of interviews for the day: He hated. It had boiled up in him from somewhere hidden and it had come as a complete surprise.