by David Brin
“The process also takes a lot of air,” George Powhatan said mildly, conversationally. Still inhaling deeply, he began to straighten up.
By now Macklin had stopped laughing. The Holnist stared in frank disbelief.
Powhatan talked on, conversationally. “We are prisoners in similar cages … although you seem to relish yours.… Alike, we’re both trapped by the last arrogance of arrogant days.…”
“You aren’t …”
“Come now, General,” Powhatan smiled without malice at his captor. “Don’t look so surprised.… Surely you didn’t believe you and your generation were the last?”
Macklin must have instantly reached the same conclusion as Gordon—understanding that George Powhatan was talking only in order to buy time.
“Macklin!” Gordon shouted. But the Holnist wasn’t distracted. In a blur his long, machetelike knife was out, glittering wetly in the lamplight before slashing down toward Powhatan’s immobilized right hand.
Still bent and unready, Powhatan reacted in a twisting blur. The blow that landed tore only a glancing streak along his arm as he caught Macklin’s wrist in his free hand.
The Holnist cried out as they strained together, the General’s greater strength pushing the dripping blade closer, closer.
With a sudden step and hip movement, Powhatan fell backward, flicking Macklin overhead. The General landed on his feet, still holding on, and wrenched hard, in turn. Whirling like two arms of a pinwheel, they threw each other, gaining momentum until they disappeared into the blackness beyond the ring of light. There was a crash. Then another. To Gordon it sounded like elephants trampling the undergrowth.
Wincing at the pain of mere movement, he crawled out of the light far enough for his eyes to begin adapting to the darkness, and pulled up under a rain-drenched red cedar. He peered in the direction they had gone, but was unable to do anything more than follow the fight by its tumult, and the skittering of tiny forest creatures fleeing the path of destruction.
When two wrestling forms spilled out into the clearing again, their clothes were in tatters. Their bodies ran red rivulets from scores of cuts and scratches. The knife was gone, but even weaponless the two warriors were fearsome. In their path no brambles, no mere saplings endured. A zone of devastation followed them wherever the battle went.
There was no ritual, no elegance to this combat. The smaller, more powerful figure closed with ferocity and tried to grapple with his enemy. The taller one fought to maintain a distance, and lashed out with blows that seemed to split the air.
Don’t exaggerate, Gordon told himself. They’re only men, and old men, at that.
And yet a part of Gordon felt kinship with those ancient peoples who believed in giants—in manlike gods—whose battles boiled seas and pushed up mountain ranges. As the combatants disappeared again into the darkness, Gordon experienced a wave of the sort of abstract wondering that had always cropped up in his mind when he least expected it. Detached, he thought about how augmentation, like so many other newly discovered powers, had seen its first use in war. But that had always been the way, before other uses were found … with chemistry, aircraft, spaceflight.… Later, though, came the real uses.
What would have happened, had the Doomwar not come … had this technology mixed with the worldwide ideals of the New Renaissance, and been harnessed by all its citizens?
What might mankind have been capable of? What, if anything, would have been out of reach?
Gordon leaned on the rough trunk of the cedar and managed to hobble to his feet. He wavered unsteadily for a moment, then put one foot in front of the other—limping step by step in the direction of the crashing sounds. There was no thought of running away, only of witnessing the last great miracle of Twentieth-Century science play itself out under pelting rain and lightning in a dark age forest.
The lantern laid stark shadows through the crushed brambles, but soon he was beyond its reach. Gordon followed the noises until, suddenly, it all stopped. There were no more shouts, no more heavy concussions, only the rumbling of the thunderheads and the roar of the river.
Eyes adapted to the darkness. Shading them from the rain, he finally saw—outlined against the gray clouds—two stark, reddish shapes standing atop a prominence overlooking the river. One crouched, squat and bull-necked, like the legendary Minotaur. The other was shaped more like a man, but with long hair that whipped like tattered banners in the wind. Completely naked now, the two augments faced each other, rocking as they panted under the growling storm.
Then, as if at a signal, they came together for the last time.
Thunder rolled. A blinding staircase of lightning struck the mountain on the opposite river bank, whipping the forest branches with its bellow.
In that instant, Gordon saw a figure silhouetted against the jagged electric ladder, arms outstretched to hold another struggling shape overhead. The blinding brightness lasted just long enough for Gordon to see the standing shadow tense, flex, and cast the other into the air. The black shape rose for a full second before the electric brilliance vanished and darkness folded in again.
The afterimage felt seared. Gordon knew that that tumbling figure had to come down again—to the canyon and jagged, icy torrent far below. But in his imagination he saw the shadow continue upward, as if cast from the Earth.
Great sheets of rain blew southward down the narrow defile. Gordon felt his way back to the trunk of a fallen tree and sat down heavily. There he simply waited, unable even to contemplate moving, his memories churning like a turgid, silt-swirled river.
At last, there was a crackle of snapping twigs to his left. A naked form slowly emerged from the darkness, walking wearily toward him.
“Dena said there were only two types of males who counted,” Gordon commented. “It always seemed a crackpot idea to me. But I never realized the government thought that way too, before the end.”
The man slumped onto the torn bark beside him. Under his skin a thousand little pulsing threads surged and throbbed. Blood trickled from hundreds of scratches all over his body. He breathed heavily, staring at nothing at all.
“They reversed their policy, didn’t they?” Gordon asked. “In the end, they rediscovered wisdom.”
He knew George Powhatan had heard him, and had understood. But still there was no reply.
Gordon fumed. He needed an answer. For some reason, deep within, he had to know if the United States had been ruled, in those last years before the Calamity, by men and women of honor.
“Tell me, George! You said they abandoned using the warrior type. Who else was there, then? Did they select for the opposite? For an aversion to power? For men who would fight well, but reluctantly?”
An image: of a puzzled Johnny Stevens—ever eager to learn—earnestly trying to understand the enigma of a great leader who spurns a golden crown in favor of a plow. He had never really explained it to the boy. And now it was too late.
“Well? Did they revive the old ideal? Did they purposely seek out soldiers who saw themselves as citizens first?”
He grabbed Powhatan’s throbbing shoulders. “Damn you! Why didn’t you tell me, when I’d come all that way from Corvallis to plead with you! Don’t you think I, of all people, would have understood?”
The Squire of Camas Valley looked sunken. He met Gordon’s eyes very briefly, then looked away again, shuddering.
“Oh, you bet I’d have understood, Powhatan. I knew what you meant, when you said that the Big Things are insatiable.” Gordon’s fists clenched. “The Big Things will take everything you love away from you, and still demand more. You know it, I know it … that poor slob Cincinnatus knew it, when he told them they could keep their stupid crown!
“But your mistake was thinking it can ever end, Powhatan!” Gordon hobbled to his feet. He shouted his anger at the man. “Did you honestly think your responsibility was ever finished?”
When Powhatan spoke at last, Gordon had to bend to hear him over the rolling thunder.
; “I’d hoped … I was so sure I could—”
“So sure you could say no to all the big lies!” Gordon laughed sarcastically, bitterly. “Sure you could say no to honor, and dignity, and country?
“What made you change your mind, then?
“You laughed off Cyclops, and the promise of technology. Not God, nor pity, nor the ‘Restored United States’ would move you! So tell me, Powhatan, what power was finally great enough to make you follow Phil Bokuto down here and look for me?”
Sitting with clutched hands, the most powerful man alive—sole relic of an age of near-gods—seemed to draw into himself like a small boy, exhausted, ashamed.
“You’re right,” he groaned. “It never ends. I’ve done my share, a thousand times over I have! … All I wanted was to be left to grow old in peace. Is that too much to ask? Is it?”
His eyes were bleak. “But it never, ever ends.”
Powhatan looked up, then, meeting and holding Gordon’s stare for the first time.
“It was the women,” he said softly, answering Gordon’s question at last. “Ever since your visit and those damned letters, they kept talking, asking questions.
“Then the story of that madness up north arrived, even in my valley. I tried … tried to tell them it was just craziness, what your Amazons did, but they—”
Powhatan’s voice caught. He shook his head. “Bokuto stormed out, to come down here all alone … and when that happened they kept looking at me.… They kept after me and after me and after me.…”
He moaned and covered his face with his hands.
“Sweet God in Heaven, forgive me. The women made me do it.”
Gordon blinked in amazement. Amidst the pelting raindrops, tears flowed down the last augment’s craggy, careworn face. George Powhatan shuddered and sobbed achingly aloud.
Gordon slumped down to the rough log next to him, a heaviness filling him like the nearby Coquille, swollen from winter’s snows. In another minute, his own lips were trembling.
Lightning flashed. The nearby river roared. And they wept together under the rain—mourning as men can only mourn themselves.
INTERLUDE
Fierce Winter lingers
Until Ocean does her duty
Chasing him—with Spring
IV
NEITHER CHAOS
1
A new legend swept Oregon, from Roseburg all the way north to the Columbia, from the mountains to the sea. It traveled by letter and by word of mouth, growing with each telling.
It was a sadder story than the two that had come before it—those speaking of a wise, benevolent machine and of a reborn nation. It was more disturbing than those. And yet this new fable had one important element its predecessors lacked.
It was true.
The story told of a band of forty women—crazy women, many contended—who had shared among themselves a secret vow: to do anything and everything to end a terrible war, and end it before all the good men died trying to save them.
They acted out of love, some explained. Others said that they did it for their country.
There was even a rumor that the women had looked on their odyssey to Hell as a form of penance, in order to make up for some past failing of womankind.
Interpretations varied, but the overall moral was always the same, whether spread by word of mouth or by U.S. Mail. From hamlet to village to farmstead, mothers and daughters and wives read the letters and listened to the words—and passed them on.
• • •
Men can be brilliant and strong, they whispered to one another. But men can be mad, as well. And the mad ones can ruin the world.
Women, you must judge them.…
Never again can things be allowed to reach this pass, they said to one another as they thought of the sacrifice the Scouts had made.
Never again can we let the age-old fight go on between good and bad men alone.
Women, you must share responsibility … and bring your own talents into the struggle.…
And always remember, the moral concluded: Even the best men—the heroes—will sometimes neglect to do their jobs.
Women, you must remind them, from time to time.…
2
April 28, 2012
Dear Mrs. Thompson,
Thank you for your letters. They helped immeasurably during my recovery—especially since I had been so worried that the enemy might have reached Pine View. Learning that you and Abby and Michael were all right was worth more to me than you might ever know.
Speaking of Abby, please tell her that I saw Michael yesterday! He arrived, hale and well, along with the other five volunteers Pine View sent to help in the war. Like so many of our recruits, it seemed he just couldn’t wait to get into the fighting.
I hope I didn’t dampen his spirits too much when I told him of some of my firsthand experiences with Holnists. I do think, though, that now he’ll be more attentive to his training, and maybe a bit less eager to win the war single-handedly. After all, we want Abby and little Caroline to see him again.
I’m glad you were able to take in Marcie and Heather. We all owe those two a debt. Corvallis would have been a shock. Pine View should offer a kinder readjustment.
Tell Abby I gave her letter to some old professors who have been talking about starting up classes again. There just may be a university of sorts here, in a year or so—assuming the war goes well.
Of course the latter’s not absolutely assured. Things have turned around, but we have a long, long way to go against a terrible enemy.
Your last question is a troubling one, Mrs. Thompson, and I don’t even know if I can answer. It doesn’t surprise me that the story of the Scouts’ Sacrifice reached you, up there in the mountains. But you should know that even down here we aren’t exactly clear about the details, yet.
All I can really tell you now is, yes, I knew Dena Spurgen well. And no, I don’t think I understood her at all. I honestly wonder if I ever will.
Gordon sat on a bench just outside the Corvallis Post Office. He rested his back against the rough wall, catching the rays of the morning sun, and thought about things he could not write of in his letter to Mrs. Thompson … things for which he could not find words.
Until they had recaptured the villages of Chesire and Franklin, all the people of the Willamette had to go on were rumors, for not one of the Scouts had ever come home again from that unauthorized, midwinter foray. After the first counterattacks, though, newly released slaves began relating parts of the story. Slowly, the pieces fell together.
One winter day—in fact only two days after Gordon had left Corvallis on his long trek south—the women Scouts started deserting from their army of farmers and townsmen. A few at a time, they slipped away south and west, and gave themselves up, unarmed, to the enemy.
A few were killed on the spot. Others were raped and tortured by laughing madmen who would not even hear their carefully rehearsed declarations.
Most, though, were taken in—as they had hoped—welcomed by the Holnists’ insatiable appetite for women.
Those who could pass it off believably explained that they were sick of living as farmers’ wives, and wanted the touch of “real men.” It was a tale the followers of Nathan Holn were disposed to accept, or so those who had dreamed up the plan imagined.
What followed must have been hard, perhaps beyond imagining. For the women had to pretend, and pretend believably, until the scheduled red night of knives—the night when they were supposed to save the frail remnant of civilization from the monsters who were bringing it down.
What exactly went wrong wasn’t yet clear, as the spring counteroffensive pushed through the first recaptured towns. Perhaps an invader grew suspicious and tortured some poor girl until she talked. Or maybe one of the women fell in love with her fierce barbarian, and spilled her heart in a betraying confession. Dena was correct that history told of such things occurring. It might have happened here.
Or perhaps some simply could not lie wel
l enough, or hide the shivers when their new lords touched them.
Whatever went wrong, the scheduled night was red, indeed. Where the warning did not arrive in time, women stole kitchen knives, that midnight, and slipped from room to room, killing and killing again until they themselves went down struggling.
Elsewhere, they merely went down, cursing and spitting into their enemies’ eyes to the last.
Of course it was a failure. Anyone could have predicted it. Even where the plan “succeeded,” too few of the invaders died to make any real difference. The women soldiers’ sacrifice accomplished nothing at all in any military sense.
The gesture was a tragic fiasco.
Word spread though, across the lines and up the valleys. Men listened, dumbfounded, and shook their heads in disbelief. Women heard also, and spoke together urgently, privately. They argued, frowned, and thought.
Eventually, word arrived even far to the south. By now a legend, the story came at last to Sugarloaf Mountain.
And there, high above the confluence of the roaring Coquille, the Scouts finally won their victory.
• • •
All I can tell you is that I hope this thing doesn’t turn into a dogma, a religion. In my worst dreams I see women taking up a tradition of drowning their sons, if they show signs of becoming bullies. I envision them doing their duty, by passing on life and death before a male child becomes a threat to all around him.
Maybe a fraction of us males are “too mad to be allowed to live.” But taken to the extreme, this “solution” is something that terrifies me … as an ideology, it is something my mind cannot even grasp.
Of course, it’ll probably sort itself out. Women are too sensible to take this to extremes. That, perhaps, is in the end where our hope lies.
And now it’s time to mail this letter. I will try to write to you and Abby again from Coos Bay. Until then, I remain your devoted—
Gordon
“Courier!”
Gordon hailed a passing youth, wearing the blue denim and leather of a postman. The young man hurried over and saluted. Gordon held out the envelope. “Would you drop this onto the regular eastbound sort stack for me?”