John Shirley - A Song Called Youth

“Because of the Conventional…”

“The Conventional Aggression Treaty.”

She nodded, as if he were a student giving the right answer. “And because of the warning systems.”

“That’s right. It just wasn’t practical. It would’ve been what is called Mutual Assured Destruction.” He wondered if she’d learned this by rote only, or if she understood it. Then he wondered if anyone really understood it. “Do you know what happened because of the third world war in Europe?”

“The armies destroyed lots of cities and everyone went into refugee camps and there was riots and people stealing everything and… and robbers.”

“Exactly. The New-Soviets and the United States let their bulls loose in the world’s china shops and everyone suffered. Because of that, NATO hired… you know what NATO is?”

“Yes.” A little annoyed. “Of course!”

“Okay. Well, you’re young but you’re more educated than a lot of kids from my country. NATO hired the biggest international private police company. They provided security patrols and antiterrorist squadrons and all kinds of mercenary business. They are called the Second Alliance. You see, at the turn of the century NATO bombed Kosovo, and terrible chaos resulted in that area, in the Balkans. The Albanians had an entrenched organized crime outfit that spread out everywhere in Europe, selling heroin and guns and dealing in prostitution and such, and in the aftermath of the war the crime and violence got so terribly awful in Kosovo and the surrounding areas—so NATO was trying to prevent more of that. It’s sort of ironic, really, considering what happened. They hired the Second Alliance and they were exactly the wrong people to hire. Did you know all that?”

“No,” she admitted.

“The Second Alliance International Security Corporation. We just call them the SA. NATO hired them to police Europe, to keep order behind the lines. They were a big army all by themselves. Bigger than anybody thought. And nobody knew they were waiting for a chance like this. There was a conspiracy… Well, anyway, they occupied lots of Europe behind the lines of fighting. They took control of it. And it turned out that the people who ran the SA were Fascists.”

“Fascists are Nazis. I saw them in movies. They torture people and kill Jews for being Jews. They want to control everything.”

“More or less correct, at least in World War Two. Especially the German Fascists. The SA, now, is controlled by some very, very extremist Fundamentalist Christians who aren’t really Christians at all. Christ would have been saddened by them. Unlike most evangelists, the SA and their friends are believers in racial purity. Genetic purity. A man named Rick Crandall in America, and another man named Watson in Europe, those are their top people. Rick Crandall is a preacher of sorts. They have power in the United States now, too. They have friends in the government. Maybe even the president.”

“Mrs. Bester?”

“Yes. President Bester. And they control some very big American companies. They’re using them to influence the American people through the media. There’s a depression in the United States. Because terrorists destroyed the banking system. Some people think President Bester provoked the New-Soviets into aggression so she could have a war that would help the economy and big business. Anyway, the depression and the war make a lot of pressure on people, and that makes them think that Fascism might be all right… for a lot of reasons. And the Fascists control the Space Colony now. They took it over.”

“The Space Colony! I wanted to go there!”

“You know all about it?”

She nodded eagerly. “It’s a building in space—a building bigger than Merino. Floating out there!” She pointed at the sky. “Thousands of people live in it. It has trees and everything, way out in space! It’s closed up so the air can’t get out, and it recycles everything. But the New-Soviets have… stopped people…”

“Blockaded it.”

“Yes, blockaded it in space, so it’s running out of food because it can’t raise enough for all its people inside.”

“Yes. When we take it back from the Fascists, we can go there for a visit.”

He didn’t say, “ If they take it back.” Not to her.

“That’s what your work is, then? To take it back?”

“Yes. And to help Europe get away from the same people. It’s the work of a great many others: to give Europe back to its people. The Second Alliance used tricks and set up puppet leaders so that the people of Europe think they have their own leaders, but those new leaders really belong to the SA. And the SA is promoting Fascism in the people. They’re hungry and angry and they want order, and Fascism promises food and order, so they think they want Fascism. But they don’t know it means they won’t have any freedom and they’ll have to hate their neighbors.

“How are you fighting these people?”

“We have the New Resistance. The NR. We’re fighting them with guns and with information.”

“With guns?” She looked at him. “You? You might have to fight with guns?”

He put an arm around her shoulders. “No. Not me. I use words and ideas. I’m no good with guns. People like Steinfeld and Hard-Eyes are using guns and strategy and tactics…”

“Steen-field. Hard-Eyes.”

“They’re leading our guerrillas—that’s guerrillas, not—”

“I know the difference between guerrillas and gorillas.” She rolled her eyes at him. “We used to have guerillas fighting here.”

He smiled. “Sorry again. Let’s head back now and get something to drink. I’m thirsty.”

“Yes.” They turned and moved away from the water toward the NR compound.

“Hard-Eyes,” she said when they were almost to the road, “is a stupid name.”

Smoke laughed. “You’re right. Hard-Eyes is an American named Dan Torrence. The nickname sort of embarrasses him now.”

“I can see why.”

“But he’s a good man. He doesn’t think he’s better than anyone else, and he has given himself completely to the Resistance. Because he saw what the Fascists did to some people, and he saw what the future could be like.”

“Why do people decide to be Fascists?”

“Almost anyone could be Fascist under the right circumstances. If they get scared enough. It’s because, you see, most people live their lives like sleepwalkers. They’re not really awake, though they think they are. And sleepwalkers are easily led. That’s why we have to fight it so hard. Because it never quite goes away.”

Three olive-drab trucks and an icy-blue dawn. The shadows were still black in the craters on the two-lane mountain road angling up through the French Alps. The dark steel of the sky to the east was going blue-white between the snowy peaks but the rough texture of the peaks’ western faces was yet etched by the passing night; the dawn light created a kind of ecliptic corona around the silhouetted mountaintops.

In the lead truck, Dan “Hard-Eyes” Torrence was riding shotgun, literally holding a twenty-round CAWS fully automatic shotgun propped up between his legs. Steinfeld was driving. It was a stolen US Army truck, an old Ford diesel built in the twentieth century. It creaked with age and overuse, its mileage indicator long since numerically exhausted. The rusty floor was cracked; engine heat pushed fumes up at them, along with the grunt and clash of the gears as Steinfeld downshifted for the steepening road grade. The headlights flickered when the truck hit a pot-hole, the beams swiveling out over the canyon drop-off to their left as Steinfeld swung the truck around to avoid a crater. On the western side of the road, a craggy cliff face rose two hundred feet above them before sloping back toward the top of the ridge; snow, loosed by the vibrations set up by the truck, skirted down from shelves in the rock to glitter in the headlight beams. There hadn’t been a fresh snowfall for three days. Morning melt-off and the passage of other vehicles had cleared the road of most of it. Now and then the rumbling engine roared in frustration as they hit an icy patch and the wheels spun, Steinfeld cursing through his thick black beard as he wrenched the wheel in search of traction.