“Well, philosopher, let me ask a philosophical question. When is it legally and morally permissible to rebel?” Vereshchagin asked, staring at the ceiling.
“It is never legal to rebel. Unless, pf course, you win.” “No, I am serious, Abram. When is it morally permissible to rebel?” He added quietly, “More importantly, when is it morally imperative to rebel?”
“Let me see. The twin principles of necessity and proportionality govern the use of force. I could twist these principles upon their tails to say that it is morally permissable to rebel when the suffering you would avert outweighs the suffering you would cause. How much of an idealist are you, Anton?” “Very much of one, I am afraid.” Vereshchagin took out his pipe and cradled the bowl in his hands. “The municipal police found the body this morning—Matti called it a stiff stiff—of a man named Breytenbach who had been tortured to death. His vehicle was used in the murders of two Manchurian soldiers, and Colonel Sumi apparently believed that he knew more about the incident than he mentioned to the police.”
“Dear God! Admiral Horii strikes me as a cultured and intelligent man. How can he allow such things to occur?” Vereshchagin smiled. “Japanese policy making can accurately be described as systematized irresponsibility. Senior decision-makers are expected to concur in the consensus of their subordinates. Admiral Horii has been ignoring most of the unpalatable advice that he has been receiving, and his subordinates are beginning to take action on their own to force him to do the ‘right’ thing. At this junction, if he were to issue prudent and unpopular orders, the security police and the Lifeguards would simply ignore them. He cannot subject his authority to being flouted in this manner, so he acquiesces.” “Dear God, what a system.”
“It is the one that I have served all of my life, Abram, but it is becoming worse, much worse.”
“I can’t see as far into the future as you, Anton, but what kind of men carry out these orders, and the ones that you foresee?”
“Fanatics, of course. For fanatics, ends are everything and any means will suffice. Sumi is one. Careerists would do so as well. Some of the men I have known would pursue any policy however immoral if it would benefit them. Cynics who have lost hope would do so reluctantly, but efficiently nonetheless.” He stuck the pipe back into his pocket before he continued speaking.
“But I will tell you, Abram, pity the would-be reformers who serve a corrupt regime with open eyes; for when souls are weighed in the balance, theirs will be the most damned souls in hell.”
“You have been thinking about this for a long time, haven’t you?” van Zyl asked him.
“Too long, perhaps. But I am very much afraid of throwing away my life to no purpose, Abram.”
Van Zyl poked his finger at him. “Never try to fool your advocate, Anton. What you are very much afraid of is dragging others down with you.”
“Yes,” Vereshchagin said. “Yes.”
Sunday(312)
AFTER WORSHIP, SANMARTIN WALKED HIS FAMILY BACK FROM
church. He carried Hendricka, who carried her doll. “Call Hans?” he asked his wife.
“Call Hans,” his wife responded.
Coldewe’s face appeared on the telephone’s tiny screen. “How was your day off, Raul? Do you realize that this is the first time one of your ‘Saturdays in Chubut’ actually fell on a Saturday?”
“Hans, what kept you last night?” Bruwer asked.
“We had a little moonlight yachting here.”
“Night river crossing. Assault boats,” Sanmartin translated. “Easy as downhill skiing,” Coldewe said.
“Hans, what would you know about downhill skiing?” Bruwer asked.
“You are jesting, of course. I was brought up in Tubingen, which is, after all, in the shadow of the Alps.” Coldewe coughed. “In a manner of speaking.”
Bruwer and Sanmartin looked at each other and waited for something more outrageous to come out.
“I know, for example, that the bottom of the beginner slope is a good place to look for loose change when the snow melts.” “It reminds you of Hendricka talking to her kitten,” Bruwer commented. “Hans, where were you last night? We missed you.” “Oh, things got busy around here, and I decided I couldn’t break away. I should have called you—”
“You should have,” Hanna said firmly.
“My apologies,” Coldewe said. He hung his head in false dejection. “How was the show?”
Sanmartin looked at his wife. “Well, the university band—” ‘The university orchestra,” Hanna exclaimed.
“Same thing. The university band’s ‘Night in Blue’ was truly blue, and since she’s Madam Speaker, we had to go wearing funny clothes.”
“You look good in a suit. What did they play?”
“It was mostly American classical stuff. What was that one song I liked? Not the Gershwin, the other one?” Sanmartin asked his wife.
“It was called ‘Blue Rondo a la Turk,’ and it was by Dave Brubeck. Honestly, Hans, I cannot take him anywhere. And what were you doing with your pocket computer in there?” “Ammunition stocks,” Sanmartin explained.
“Ammunition stocks. Oh, I couldn’t believe it. I thought that the couple next to us would die!” Bruwer told Coldewe.
“I thought I would, too, until you stopped trying to poke a hole in my ribs and started laughing,” her husband commented. “Seriously, Hans, first an orchestra, and after that, who knows what? Sooner or later, somebody on this planet is going to try and start a ballet.”
“Not that!” Coldewe said with genuine horror.
“Oh, be serious, both of you!” The frown lines reappeared on Bruwer’s face. “He does these things on purpose, Hans. He doesn’t think I smile enough anymore. I wish—”
“I wish we had more time,” Sanmartin said firmly.
“Well, if you couldn’t have come, at least you could have sent your friend Marta so that both tickets weren’t wasted.” Hanna lectured Coldewe to change the subject.
“Oh. I’m not seeing Marta anymore,” Coldewe said. “What!” Bruwer said sharply. “Hans, what happened?” Coldewe refused to meet her eyes. “Oh, things weren’t right
between us, so I told her that we should stop seeing each other. She wasn’t very happy about it.”
“I should imagine. I would have hit you,” Bruwer said, staring right through him.
“Oh, she did that, too.”
Sanmartin laid his hand on his wife’s arm. “We’ll talk with you tomorrow, Hans.”
“Sorry I missed the show.” Coldewe broke the connection. “Well, of all of the silly things that I have heard! How could he? The girl loves him—veiy much unless I am mistaken.” The “girl” in question was her own age, but Bruwer tended to overlook such things. “She should have called me. I would have said something to Hans, you can be sure!”
“I don’t know that Marta would have felt comfortable calling you. It isn’t as if this is an affair of state.”
Bruwer laughed gently. “I keep forgetting that we do not have private lives. Poor Marta!” She eyed her husband. “Why do you think that Hans has stopped seeing her—-the real reasons, this time?”
Sanmartin sighed. “I was hoping that we could put off business until morning.” He walked over to his computer, which had both a voice-lock and a password access system, and printed out two copies of one file. “Here. For you and Albert. Hans has already seen them.”
“What are these?” Bruwer asked, skimming the top page. “The document on top is a transcript of the tape that Hiroshi Mizoguchi sent. Hiroshi was the blind lieutenant we sent to Earth. We asked him to report on conditions there. Underneath Hiroshi’s transcript is a copy of Admiral Horii’s instructions from the Guardianship Council. We pried it out of his computer—please don’t ask how. It’s four layers deep in euphemisms, but the general drift is viciously apparent. Finally, you have an extract of Matsudaira’s working notes. Apparently, he keeps some sort of computer diary. One of his executives is at least as worried as we are, and he got
Timo Haerkoennen into Matsudaira’s system. It took Timo about two hours to break into Matsudaira’s files. Matsudaira isn’t particularly security conscious. He is unusually blunt.”
“What does this all mean?” she asked, clutching the packet. “You and Albert read it, and then we’ll talk. I know what I think it means, but I want you to form your own conclusions.” He smiled a wintery smile. “Most rulers would shoot a messenger who brings news this bad.”
“Oh, my dear Lord,” she said, clutching the packet to herself and rocking back and forth. “Poor, poor Marta.”
Monday(312)
THE AFRIKANER RESISTANCE MOVEMENT BEGAN WITH A GROUP OF
students from the University of Suid-Afrika’s philosophy department. Only a few of the philosophy students lasted long— the philosophy department didn’t offer a course in political methods, and they liked to argue with one another and everyone else past the point of prudence—but the younger, more vigorous students from other departments who took their places still formed the movement’s core.
Jopie Van Nuys had been a student when Hannes Van der Merwe met him, although Van Nuys flunked out long before his political activities began interfering with his studies. As Van der Merwe was preparing to leave for work, Van Nuys pulled up in a delivery truck he had borrowed from his brother-in-law and flung a set of coveralls at him. “Get dressed, Hannes,” he said curtly. “This is the day.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?’ Van der Merwe said, startled. He added inanely, “I will be late for work.”
“The less you know, the less the Imps can squeeze out of you if you are caught. Tell your employer you are sick. Now, get dressed.” Van Nuys gave him a push and listened on the extension when Van der Merwe called in.
Van der Merwe changed quickly. Slightly mollified, Van Nuys said, “I didn’t mean to push you that hard, Hannes.” Van de Merwe soothed him. “You were just tense, Jopie. I took no notice. The Movement always comes before personal feelings.”
As they got into the truck and headed down the road, Van Nuys asked, “Did you bring the contract?”
Van der Merwe patted his pocket. “I have it here. Now what is the plan? I only know parts of it.”
“You know how to use missiles, don’t you? There are some hidden in carpets in the back where they won’t be found. You leave me off about a kilometer from the spaceport and then drive the truck past the guards. Park it in the lot near the sign that says A-32, not too close to the other cars. That is way off to the side, so you should not have any trouble. I will meet you there.”
“What about the guards?”
“You have nothing to worry about. I told you that I hid the missiles so that they couldn’t be found. Just don’t get nervous. We have a contract to install carpeting, and you have a clean record, so they shouldn’t bother you. I would do this myself, but they have my fingerprints, and they would spot me the minute they stuck my hand in a scanner.” Van Nuys’s tone deterred Van der Merwe from discussing the matter further.
For renovation work that USS could not do, Admiral Horii’s intendance officer had tried to throw work to companies owned by members of the pro-imperial New Auspices party. As the ARM’s spy inside the New Auspices party, Van der Merwe was ideally positioned to pick up a piece of the work, after blithely promising a cut of the profits to the New Auspices party’s coffers.
Van der Merwe took the wheel when Van Nuys stopped and got out. At the main checkpoint, a small group of guardsmen made him pull over.
“Renovation contract.” Van der Merwe pulled out the document and showed them. Admiral Horii clearly intended to make the spaceport into a major base, and Van der Merwe could see dozens of civilians working on various projects.
“You are doing this by yourself?” the lance-corporal asked him sharply. “Where are the others?”
“Oh, no. We have another crew coming to help me after lunch,” Van der Merwe explained. “I am not supposed to start until they get here. I plan on taking a nap until then.”
He obligingly showed them his identity card and his New Auspices party card. The lance-corporal shoved Van der Merwe’s fingers and identity card through a scanner to make sure that the fingerprints matched the card, and that the data base had nothing adverse on him. The other guardsmen opened the back door, brushed aside the sheet hung there, and began rooting through the thick rolls of carpeting, peering through the holes in the middle. They failed to notice the tape placed over small holes on the right side of the van, or the narrow spaces that Van Nuys had cut into the inner layers of the carpet rolls to conceal two antiarmor missiles and collapsible launcher rails.
After the lance-corporal called the intendance officer to check the contract number, he grudgingly waved Van der Merwe through. Although Jopie Van Nuys was listed as a known terrorist in the data base that Colonel Sumi had copied from Anton Vereshchagin, Hannes Van der Merwe was not.
Van der Merwe parked the van on the far side of the parking lot opposite Admiral Horii’s office and waited.
The crews of workmen renovating the buildings were taking dinner breaks and walking along the footpaths or chatting in small groups. Dressed as another workman, Van Nuys casually mingled with them and joined Van der Merwe in the van.
“Move the van forward about ten meters,” Van Nuys whispered.
Van der Merwe did so. They stopped and went into the back.
“Good job, Hannes,” Van Nuys said grudgingly.
They untied the carpets, pulled out the missiles, and began assembling the launcher rails. Breaking the silence, Van der Merwe asked, “Aren’t you afraid that they will trace this track back to your brother-in-law?”
“He’s a fascist anyway,” Van Nuys grunted. “He thinks that I am using it to steal things and expects me to cut him in on the profits. I will cut him in, all right. Aren’t you lucky that I convinced the executive to have you join the Kaffirboeties?” “That may be one of the things that has kept me from moving up in the Movement,” Van der Merwe rejoined mildly.
“No, the reason that you have not advanced is because Troll—that man Phillipbon—does not trust you. But after today, there is nothing that the Movement will deny to either one of us. Werewolf, our general secretary, already thinks highly of you.”
“I am glad of that, but I do not know Werewolf.” “Certainly you do. He is Gerrit Terblanche. You should remember him from the university.”
“Oh, yes, the engineer.”
“After today, you will have an opportunity to know him much better.” Van Nuys’s voice hardened. “As for Phillipbon, he is a right deviationist, and I think that he is a spy. We do things to deviationists and spies.”
Van der Merwe looked away. Members of the executive personally “dealt with” important spies and deviationists “to show that they were totally committed to the Movement.”
Working steadily, he and Van Nuys put the missiles into place inside the truck. Then Van Nuys ripped away the tape and began sighting the missiles in on Admiral Horii’s office. Van Nuys had left two holes to sight through and two more for the missiles to actually emerge through. Although the holes were only a fraction of the diameter of the missiles, as
Terblanche had pointed out, the missiles would go through the side of the truck as if it were made of cardboard. It would take the resistance of the armored glass shielding Admiral Horii to cause them to detonate.
“What will happen if we kill the admiral, Jopie?” Van der Merwe asked. “I missed all of the executive meetings,” he said, making a joke out of it.
“With Horii dead, Colonel Sumi becomes commander to the Imperials. He will almost certainly take action against Vereshchagin.” Van Nuys spit the name out. “And against the traitors in the government. All traitors against the Volk must suffer for their treason. Never fear, when the moment is ripe, we will hunt each of them down.”
Van der Merwe thought of several former friends he had broken with after they joined Vereshchagin’s men. “I wonder what Sumi will do.”
“Sumi will take action against our Movement that will make our eventual success possible,” Van Nuys said, warming to the task of molding his colleague’s opinions correctly. ‘The reason that our Movement does not enjoy success against the people is that they have been seduced away from their proper national-political interests. Once the Imperials oppress them properly in an attempt to destroy us, the people will begin to see their true national-political duty.” He swelled with pride. “Our actions here today will make the people realize that the Movement has been acting in their best interests all along.” “Of course.”
“There will be important changes after today, Hannes, never fear. Traitors within the Movement will suffer, as will Vereshchagin and Beyers and all of their creatures. You were captured once by Vereshchagin’s men, weren’t you?”
“Yes. Some of Captain Sanmartin’s men beat me and threatened to execute me,” Van der Merwe said, blushing. ‘Then Captain Sanmartin had them inject me with drugs and question me.”
“The Bruwer woman and her fascist husband will be two of the first to go,” Van Nuys exulted.
Moments later, Van Nuys finished sighting his missile in and said excitedly, “We are set, and I see people moving inside Admiral Horii’s office.”
Engaging the radio control that would fire the missiles, Van Nuys and Van der Merwe left the truck, locked it, and began walking up the footpath at a moderate pace.
“Are you sure that Admiral Horii is in his office?” Van der Merwe whispered.
“Werewolf has had someone watching the admiral. He is still inside his headquarters, and he is almost certainly inside his office. I will trigger the missiles when we reach the top of that rise. I saw him look out the window.” Excitement bubbling up inside him, Van Nuys was almost certain of this. “Hannes, today we strike our strongest blow for Suid-Afrikan liberty, and I will make certain that the Imperials know who acted against them!”
Robert Frezza - [Colonial War 02] Page 12