Harry Turtledove - Return engagement

"If you want to be a horseshoe or a nail or anything else made out of iron, Birmingham's a fine enough town, I reckon. You want anything else, Atlanta's the place to be."

That struck home, after all the time Jeff had spent at the Sloss Foundry working with molten steel. He was damned if he'd admit it. "Atlanta says it's a big city, but all you've got is fizzy water. And the fellow who invented the number one brand outa that place sucked up cocaine like it was going out of style."

Mercer Scott only laughed. "You had that kind of scratch back at your house, wouldn't you do the same?"

Since Jeff probably would have, he changed the argument in a hurry: "Besides, next to Richmond you ain't so much of a much."

"You don't want to push me too far," Scott said in suitably menacing tones. "You really don't… boss."

That could have provoked a fight between the two men as soon as they got out of the auto. It could also have made Pinkard pull off the road and settle things then and there. But he judged the other man's menace was put on, not genuine, and so he laughed instead. Mercer Scott laughed, too, and the moment passed.

"Hell of a thing about Chick," Pinkard said a minute or so later.

"Well, yeah." But Scott didn't seem unduly upset, not any more. "We're here to get rid of niggers. If you can't do the job, you don't belong."

"I wish he'd've asked for a transfer out or something, though," Jeff said. "I'd've given him a good notice. He did the best he could, dammit." His hands tightened on the wheel. If that didn't sound like an epitaph, he didn't know what did.

"Whole country did the best it could in the last war," Scott replied. "That's not good enough. Only thing that's good enough is doing what you got to do."

He had no give in him, not anywhere. That made him good at what he had to do. A camp guard who showed mercy was the last thing anybody needed. But it made Scott uncomfortable to be around. He was always looking for signs of weakness in other people, including Jefferson Pinkard. And if he found one, he'd take advantage of it without the least pity or hesitation. He made no bones about that at all.

"There's the camp," he said when Jeff swung the rattling Birmingham-iron, sure enough-around a last corner.

"Yeah," Jeff said. "Wonder when they're gonna send us some more population."

"Whenever they do, we'll reduce it," Mercer Scott declared. "Only thing that can stop us is running out of ammo." He laughed again. So did Pinkard, not quite comfortably.

Flora Blackford's secretary stuck her head into the Congresswoman's office. She said, "Mr. Jordan is here to see you."

"He's right on time," Flora said. "Show him in."

Orson Jordan was a tall blond man in his mid-thirties. He was so pink, he looked as if he'd just been scrubbed with a wire brush. "Very pleased to meet you, ma'am," he said. By the way he shook Flora's hand, he was afraid it would break if he squeezed it very hard.

"Please sit down," Flora told him, and he did. She went on, "Shall I have Bertha bring us some coffee-or tea, if you'd rather?"

"Oh, no, thank you, ma'am." Orson Jordan shook his head. He turned pinker than ever. Flora hadn't thought he could. He said, "Go right ahead yourself, if you care to. Not for me, though. I don't indulge in hot drinks."

He sounded like an observant Jew politely declining the shrimp cocktail. There were parallels between Jews and Mormons; Mormons had a way of making more of them than Jews did. Flora shrugged. That wasn't her worry, or she didn't think it was. "It's all right," she said. "Tell me, Mr. Jordan, what do you think I can do for you that your own Congressman from Utah can't?"

"It's not what I think you can do, ma'am," Jordan said earnestly. "It's what Governor Young hopes you can do." Heber Young, grandson of Brigham, had headed the Mormon church in Utah during the occupation after the Great War, when legally it did not exist. He was elected Governor the minute President Smith finally lifted military rule in the state. By all appearances, he could go on getting elected Governor till he died of old age, even if that didn't happen for the next fifty years.

Patiently, Flora asked, "Well, what does Governor Young think I can do for him, then? He's not my constituent, you know."

Orson Jordan smiled at the joke, even though Flora had been kidding on the square. He said, "In a way, ma'am, he thinks he is one of your constituents. He says anyone who respects liberty is."

"That's… very kind of him, and of you," Flora said. "Flattery will get you nowhere, though, or I hope it won't. What does he want?"

"Well, ma'am, you're bound to know Utah is a bit touchy about soldiers going through it or soldiers being stationed there. We've earned the right to be touchy, I'd say. I was only a boy when the last troubles happened, and I wouldn't want my own children to have to worry about anything like that."

"I believe you," Flora said. When the Mormons rose during the Great War, they'd fought till they couldn't fight any more. Plenty of boys no older than Orson Jordan would have been had died with guns in hand. The United States had triumphed in a purely Tacitean way: they'd made a desert and called it peace.

"All right, then," Jordan said. He wore a somber, discreetly striped suit and a very plain maroon tie. A faint smell of soap wafted from him. So did a much stronger aura of sincerity. He meant everything he said. He was a citizen the United States would have been proud to have as their own-if he hadn't continued, "Governor Young wants to make it real plain he can't answer for what will happen if the United States keep on doing things like that. A lot of people there hate Philadelphia and everything it stands for. He's been holding them back, but he isn't King Canute. He can't go on doing it forever. Frankly, he doesn't want to go on doing it forever. We want what ought to be ours."

"Should what you want be any different from what other Americans want?" Flora asked. "When you got military rule lifted, part of the reason you did was that you convinced people back here you were ordinary citizens."

"We're citizens, but we're not ordinary citizens," Jordan said. "We got hounded out of the USA. That's why we went to Utah in the first place. It belonged to Mexico then. But the First Mexican War put us under the Stars and Stripes again-and the government started persecuting us again. Look at 1881. The oppression after that was what made us rise in 1915. Do you think we can trust the United States when they start going back on their solemn word?"

He still sounded earnest and sincere. Flora still had no doubt he meant every word he said, meant it from the bottom of his heart. She also had no doubt he didn't have any idea how irritating he was to her. She said, "Another way you're special is that you're not conscripted. Shouldn't you count your blessings?"

Orson Jordan shook his head. "No, ma'am. We want to be trusted to do our duty, like anybody else."

She pointed a finger at him. "I'm afraid you can't have that both ways, Mr. Jordan. You want to be trusted, but you don't want to trust. If you don't trust, you won't be trusted. It's as simple as that."

The Mormon emissary looked troubled. "You may have a point there. I will discuss it with the Governor when I get back to Salt Lake-you can count on that. But we have been through so much, trust will not come easy. I wish I could say something different, but I can't."

"Learning to trust Mormons won't come easy for the rest of the country, either," Flora said. "As I told you, the knife cuts both ways."

"Yes, you did say that." Jordan gave no hint about what he thought of her comment. After a moment, he went on, "You will take my words to President Smith?"

"You can certainly trust me on that," Flora said, and her guest gave her a surprisingly boyish smile. She continued, "He needs to hear what you just told me. I can't promise what he'll do about it. I can't promise he'll do anything about it. There is a war on, in case you hadn't noticed."