John Shirley - A Song Called Youth

He stood in the doorway for a moment, staring at the screen, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was getting one of those blasted sinus aches from the cold.

Klaus stood behind him, a foot taller than he was, and sixty pounds heavier. Tonight Klaus made him nervous. Not because he was big. Not even because he was wearing that damned opaque helmet. But because Watson had realized that Klaus was not at all stupid. And therefore his loyalty could be an act.

Across the room, that green light glowed, like some kind of graveyard phosphorescence. A gravestone of green light pulsing alone in the darkness—for him, for Colonel Watson, for no one else.

Get a grip on yourself, man. “ Klaus, turn on the blasted heat, eh?” Watson said, fumbling for the light panel. His fingers brushed the panel, and the lights came on, in sequence across the room—flick, flick, flick, flick. He crossed to the screen, footsteps echoing in the room’s chill metallic spaces, eyes blinking in the harsh blue light, as Klaus lumbered away to find the thermostat.

Watson activated the console, and the holotank above and behind the screen lit up. He’d grumbled about the expense of having a holotank installed here. TV would have done as well, he’d thought. But now he saw why Crandall had insisted on it.

His gut twisted as Crandall appeared in front of him, lifesize in the holotank, his three dimensional image glimmering as if from some numinous inner fire.

Crandall was sitting in a plain wooden armchair, his head tilted forward a little, his eyes shadowy, that same shadow playing around the faint smile. His craggy face looked gaunter than ever. His short hair, combed back from the angular forehead, had thinned. And there was something curiously inert about the set of his legs.

It occurred to Watson that he hadn’t seen Crandall standing for a while, not since the night of the ritual in the Cloudy Peak chapel. The night Johnny Stisky killed himself and Crandall’s sister, Ellen Mae.

Crandall had been secretive about the extent of his wounding after the assassination attempt… after the NR had tried to kill him…

Maybe he was crippled and didn’t want them to know because it would reduce his power over them. He was supposed to be a man Protected by God himself. He was almost the Messiah—he allowed some to suggest that he was the Messiah. Would God allow his Christ to be a cripple? (What was that old American expression, “Christ on a crutch”?)

“Well, Colonel,” the figure in the holotank said in his soft accent, “I’ve heard some mighty disturbin’ reports. I know that you would be unable to sleep well till you cleared up the matter with me. How about you do a little quick explainin’.”

Watson shook his head. “Rick, I—”

“Now, I see that I’m-sorry-Rick-I-don’t-know-what-you’re-talking-about look on your face, so I’ll pretend you’re not joshin’ me, and I’ll tell you here ’n’ now: You’ve been telling our enemies all about our most classified project.”

Watson did indeed know just what Crandall was talking about. And knowing made him feel like he was coming down with the flu. Weak, feverish, and green around the brisket.

“I deny telling an enemy about anything classified,” he said, gazing serenely up at Crandall, hoping his face was as proud and unafraid as he was trying to make it look. The holocameras in a semicircle just above the holotank showed his image to Crandall, transmitted by satellite across the ocean. To Cloudy Peak Farm, where Crandall had remained, with tripled security, since the Stisky affair. Watson had heard Crandall was living behind bulletproof glass now, with only his doctor having physical access to him. And Crandall wasn’t even sure he trusted his doctor.

Crandall asked, with soft incredulity, “You deny it? Do you think you’re in some headmaster’s office, Colonel? Are you a boy denying having stolen the sweet biscuits?”

“I deny that Karakos is an enemy, Rick. At the time he was, technically, but… ah…”

“I’m familiar with your plans for him.” The Southern drawl had left his voice, bit by bit, replaced by the bitter cold of crystallized steel. “Suppose something had gone wrong. Suppose he’d escaped. Suppose he’d won his way to the NR. They have media contacts in the States. How long before the headlines read, second alliance plans world genocide?”

“Rick—”

“What is it you’re about to say, Colonel? That no one would believe we’d attempt something so impractical? Ah, but everyone is familiar with the ‘wonders of neurotech,’ Colonel Watson. Don’t you think American journalists are capable of putting two and two together?”

The inside of Watson’s mouth had turned to cardboard. “Ah, well, Rick—”

“You have lost the privilege of using my first name, Colonel.”

Watson felt a deep, deep chill run through him.

“The truth is,” Crandall went on, “you’re a windbag. You’ve always been a windbag. You’re also a talented man, but that’s not enough. We need reliability. And you simply like to talk. To boast, to pontificate. It’s in your character. It’s a weakness, Colonel.”

Crandall was talking quickly. Was himself strangely loquacious today. With that and the gauntness, Watson began to believe the rumors he’d heard were true: Crandall was taking some kind of amphetamine.

Crandall leaned back in his chair, and the chair creaked. Equipment at Cloudy Peak Farm picked up its creaking, transmitted the creak of the wood to a satellite somewhere over the Atlantic, which sent the creak down to the receiver on the roof of the Comm Center: the sound of wood creaking. “We’re taking under consideration the possibility that you might be better off if part of your, well, now, your background on all this were extracted…”

“No!” Watson burst out. If they extracted his knowledge of Project Total Eclipse, his whole relationship with the SA would be surgically altered. He might be used as a soldier, a strategist, but he’d no longer be an insider. His power would be irreparably undercut.

“You might not like the alternatives, Colonel,” Crandall said softly.

Watson swallowed; his tongue sandpapered the roof of his mouth. “See here, Reverend Crandall—I admit I’ve been a trifle, ah, insubordinate. Truth is, I find it hard to continue working with the albino. He’s obviously a genetic inferior. His hubris is insufferable. I suppose what happened was a product of my distaste for him. I realize that’s no excuse. I can assure you that from here on in, I’ll keep a tight rein, ah, on my tendency to, ah…”

“Very well.”

Those two words opened a floodgate of relief in Watson. Those two words meant he was not to be killed. He was aware that it might’ve gone either way. There was a reason that Klaus was standing behind him.

“But you do know, I’m sure, that your restraint will be closely monitored.”

“I… I would have it no other way, Reverend Crandall.”

“All righty, let’s get on up the hill a ways. What else’ve you got to tell me, Colonel?” Crandall’s false Southern affability had returned. He leaned his chin on his fist and yawned.

“Very good, sir,” Watson said. “We’re triangulating in on the People’s United Front… and ah…”

“I don’t want to hear about every diddly-squat little Commie outfit. The New Resistance is our priority, Colonel.”

“The NR. Yes. We, ah, believe Steinfeld and his planning council to be somewhere in the Mediterranean, possibly on the coast of North Africa. We have, of course, our man in the field, who has every likelihood of linking up with them, and we expect a message from him shortly. In the meantime…”

“You had them, Colonel. Your people had the resistance cadre trapped. And now you don’t even know where they are.”