by John Maclay
You would think that some fiend was behind each of those old dears with a whip. They move with all the speed they can muster, pulling handles, walking treadmills, until the generators almost overload.
COLDIR has given Anna a commendation for her brilliant idea. The heat is off my department. And all our superannuated gamblers are in topnotch physical condition, as opposed to those who stick to the old regimen.
But I never mention that to Anna.
RATINGS WAR
This tale was rejected by an editor who swore that journalists would never do such a thing. The next week there was a news story about reporters in Northern Ireland paying street children to throw bricks at British soldiers.
New Britannia went up like a bonfire of rockets. There hadn’t been a real dust-up in several years, and the holocasters were almost as depressed as their ratings. The populace was well and truly hooked on true-life blood and guts, and stories about natural disasters and human nature just didn’t fill the bill anymore.
Of course I’m not saying—not out in the open—that the shindy in N.B. was contrived by the satellite syndicates to boost ratings. There had been rumbles in that part of the world ever since England had used Australia for a dumping-ground for felons, long generations ago. Once that continent made common cause with New Zealand, Tasmania, New Guinea, and the southern parts of Indonesia, it was just a matter of time. The mix of races and interests was almost as interesting as the assortment of grievances against old-world entrepreneurs operating concessions in that area.
They claimed their lands and resources were being funneled away into the worked-out, bombed-out, devastated areas of Europe and America. And they were. I’ve been down there a lot, and I’ve seen what goes on. But the Whole Earth Federation is a political organization, let no one fool you into thinking otherwise. Their complaints, over decades, were filed away and never heard from again. So the Associated States of New Britannia blew up in our faces, as anyone of my fellow ’casters could have told you it was going to do.
I had begun to build up a following by then. The name Tam Wills brought some recognition in the spot checks the systems run, now and again. I was young, too, and spry, which some of my more famous peers were beginning not to be. So Global let herself forget about my frequent mutinies against policy. I got the plummy assignment. Read that—crummy.
England’s population-recruitment program had been pretty successful. A great many tenth- and eleventh-generation Aussies and New Zealanders had taken advantage of the generous allowances made to those who would return to the old country to help restore it to viability, after its last flare-up. That left Aborigines and Maoris to run their own countries at last. What they found, when they assessed their record books, left them unhappy with any unarguably white face they saw. And mine was whiter, even, than most, for my mother was a Swede.
I was hassled from the word go. The drop took place in a violent rainstorm, and things went downhill from there. The battle I was supposed to be covering didn’t seem to be where they thought it would be. I found myself staggering around in the dark in my Glow-Suit, lugging my personal belongings and the wrist-cam through boggy ground that would make the Slough of Despond look like a freeway.
There wasn’t a sound except the slash of the rain and the whistling of wind. No light in any direction. No evidence that any skirmish had ever taken place anywhere around. I dug my short-range communicator from one of the Suit’s sealpockets and thumbed the switch.
“Tamerlane Wills, First-In Holocast for Global Systems, coordinates z-slash-3, h-slash-9. Pickup requested. Error in drop-site.”
The little bugger crackled and sputtered for a moment; then a loud beep vibrated my hand, and I flicked the incoming switch. “Remain exactly where you are. Remain exactly where you are. Major engagement took place your site 900 hours. Unexpended charges all around you. Make no light; you are under enemy observation and in range.”
I stood, believe it, like a statue. Antipersonnel charges were nasty little things that are set off by the electrical field of a human body. Whoever gets within range meets his end in one of the stickier ways I know of. They are seldom used these days, for the military has lost its taste for bleeding indiscriminately. I guessed that those from the Indonesian splinter groups might well have sowed them, as they had large stockpiles of obsolete weaponry that they had scrounged from the devastated powers after the last big blowup in Europe.
Standing there, I knew that I would stand out like a bonfire to the UVs of whatever bunch “the enemy” was—if they were keeping close watch on an unused battlefield. I devoutly hoped that they were not, for I had a notion that they might well be a detachment of the NeoPrimitives, a far-right-wing Abo bunch. They didn’t believe in anything modern except weapons. Those they used with a ferocity bordering on fanaticism. Even my Glow-Suit, supposed to protect me in any area of civilized warfare, might well make me a welcome target on this drenched plain. So far, since the coalition broke up into chaos, this action was anything but civilized, according to early reports.
It seemed at least a millennium before I heard the gentle swish of a hover-car making its way toward me across the invisible landscape. For a second, I was doused with rain coming down from the sky and up from the puddle the car landed in; then a hand touched me, and a voice said, “Get in fast, be quiet, and let’s go.”
That was fine with me. We were out of there, with all my impedimenta, in half a shake, slipping through the sheeting rain. I was full of questions, but something about the gruff voice had impressed me. I sat silent while we crossed the invisible landscape.
It must have been a British-made car. They made the best before they were hit, and this one moved with the quiet speed that argued a really fine machine. When daylight began to pale the wet sky, I was able to see numbers on the panel before me, and that confirmed my guess. It also showed me my companion.
She was a surprise. Dark, of course, but with that beautiful Maori color and the tall and slender build of her race. Even the combat fatigues couldn’t hide her figure. Her face, however, was the striking thing about her. I have seen strong faces—a few. Hers was that and more. There was an air of leashed power in her expression, and her eyes that would have sat well upon the president of the Whole Earth Federation. Her long hands maneuvered the car through what I now saw to be an entanglement of gum forest with such skill that I had not been aware that we were avoiding obstacles all the way.
“Is it all right to talk now?” I asked, extremely softly.
She turned her black eyes on me speculatively. There was hostility there to some extent, but I felt that she was too much of a person to accept canned prejudices. In a moment she nodded, one quick dip of her head.
I sighed. “I’m literally in the dark. They dropped me where a battle had been hours before. They didn’t tell me which side, if any, was going to cooperate with us—just tuned the short-range to the proper frequency. I don’t know what faction you are with. I don’t, for that matter, know what faction I’m with. Or where we’re going. Or what I’m going to do when we get there. Is your group open for interviews?”
Her hands flicked backward and sideways, and a huge tree skittered away into the half-light. “New Zealand stands as one,” she said. “Only we, of all the divergent racial and interest-groups, make common cause with all those of our land—white, Maori, and half-blood alike. North Island and South Island. The moderate Abos are with us, with those whites who still remain emotionally stable. Some few of the Indonesians and New Guineans also have joined with us to try to keep some sort of system going. The rest of the Associated States are at each other’s throats—and at ours. From what I hear, the rest of the world hasn’t yet comprehended what is going on down here. I think your system might well be useful.”
I didn’t press my luck. She had answered, and her tone said that that was all she was going to say. But it was nothing unusual for ’cast subjects to us
e the system to get their viewpoints across to the rest of the world. Like it or not, we do a pretty poor job of communication. Sensationalism and propaganda are, as I suppose they always have been, the principal output of the media.
The morning was growing lighter—and wetter. We were now on a roadway, and I could see a complex of some kind ahead, though it quite definitely was not a town. Sensor-netting was up all over the place, its glittering strands of filament shining, even amid the rain.
“Command post?” I asked.
“For now,” the driver answered. “We move often. Even with the netting, the satellite sensors will find us, after a time. But you will not remain here for long.”
“What about my assignment?” I asked her. “I’m supposed to get some battles on tape, interview generals on different sides of the squabble. How can I get perspective on your problem down here unless I can move freely?”
“Move freely where?” she asked. “We don’t even have a morgue anymore. It was blown away three days ago. And that’s where you’d end, if you went wandering around this area. This is no civilized warfare with rules and gentlemen’s agreements. The Primitives have reverted, all the way. Your white face would be an immediate death sentence if you came across any of the three factions that oppose us in this war. But with us, you can serve a useful purpose and get a story that will shake the Whole Earth Fed to its boot-heels. If, of course, your system will let you get it through.”
I picked up my ears. “You sound as if you have something specific in mind.”
She shut down the fans, and the car settled into the mud beside the timber and tarp structure. We’re going to New Zealand, as soon as you check in with my superior. Of course, if you insist, we’ll turn you loose. You can walk away into that....”—and she gestured toward the sodden grassland that stretched, empty as a plate, in all directions.
I thought of all those frantic casts about in the flooded battlefield and shook my head. “Just give me your word that you don’t expect any major action in the next day or so.”
She laughed. She was still laughing as she anchored the car to its post and ushered me into the semi-tent that housed the Command of this odd group. As I struggled out of my Glow-Suit and dumped it into a corner with my scanty gear, she sobered a bit.
“Tamerlane Wills, you are used to another sort of war entirely. Nobody knows when or where or even if there will be a battle. We hit each other as unexpectedly as possible. There’s none of this idiocy of scheduling action to suit light conditions and the convenience of the holocast system. This is WAR, the old-fashioned kind, full of hatred and blood-thirst and guts. We mean it; can you understand that?”
I looked at her, and something of my confusion must have shown in my face. She went off into another peal of laughter. It stopped in mid-peal when an inner flap opened and a tall old fellow in combat-fatigues entered the room.
“Moana Fao, with the holocaster,” she said, straightening, though she offered no salute.
The newcomer bore no insignia of rank, but his bearing in itself was enough to tell me that here I faced the head man of the Moderates. I met his shrewd black eyes, and a shock ran through me. I’d been meeting generals for years, but never before had I met one whose intelligence seemed to laser through my mind in an instant, winnowing out everything of importance. Before I opened my mouth, he was nodding to Moana.
“You have done well. It seems that he is one of those few who might be able and willing to help us. Have you explained the situation?”
She frowned. “I thought it better to allow you to do that. Some of his kind only believe what they hear from the topmost officer. It might save a reiteration of the tale.”
“I think you misjudge this one,” he mused, motioning to me to a the camp table by the wall, where I sat in a folding chair and looked across at him.
“We have a prisoner,” he said. Then he smiled at my incomprehension. “This is no ordinary prisoner of war. He is, indeed, not even a participant in the war. He is the instigator of it. Or at least one of the prominent instigators. He is totally confused at this moment. He is used to fomenting wars and leaving them to boil away. He told us as much, before he realized that in this instance he had set off a conflict that had been merely awaiting a fuse. Once he knew that this was a serious, gut-level war, he stopped talking. We need someone who will get him started again. That being your profession, it could well be you. We suspect his identity, but I will not tell you what we think it is. That might prejudice you for or against him.”
“But why do you think he’ll talk to me?” I asked. “A man in a cell isn’t going to take kindly to an interview that might get him into deeper trouble.”
“Oh, you will be in the cell also,” the tall officer said. “No wrist-cam, no Glow-Suit. Just you, a fellow captive caught in the performance of your duties. If the situation is what we think it is, you will come out of the cell with the story that will either make or break your career. Have you the courage to take that chance?”
I thought for a minute. The overly cautious don’t make first-in reporters. And I was a tad less cautious than most. That little tingle that wakes in the back of my mind when I scent a topnotch story began to vibrate, and I looked over at him and nodded.
They were fast. I was fed while a VTO was being fueled for the long hop across a thousand miles of ocean to New Zealand. In thirty minutes, we were over the Pacific, heading eastward. Moana Fao was still my...captor? Companion? Guide? Whatever. Once she had set the automatic controls, she leaned her seat back and said, “It would be well to rest. We have just over an hour. One never knows when there will be another opportunity.”
I’d have liked to talk, but she closed her eyes so determinedly that I did the same. I opened them again to a fervent beeping from the chronometer on the panel before us.
The hour had flown already, and I could see the double-shape of New Zealand showing through a thin haze of cloud below and ahead of us.
* * * *
They mussed me up good. I looked as if I had been caught and manhandled by a bunch of gorillas when I was shoved into my waiting cell. The insults and threats that followed were a bit too convincing to be entirely acting, I thought, as I bounced off a dampish wall and sank to my haunches in the semi-darkness.
If this had been a real arrest and imprisonment, I’d have already activated the implant in my skull that signaled Global that I was in trouble. As it was, I let it ride until I saw how the situation shaped up. I wasn’t quite convinced that I hadn’t been skillfully maneuvered into something I didn’t understand and couldn’t control. But I wasn’t quite sure the situation wasn’t just as represented, either.
I heard a grunt in the corner to my right. I started (a nice effect, I thought) and asked, “Is somebody here? Say something!”
He had been wearing a tan suit when they caught him. It was now splotched and grimed with numbers of things better left nameless. His hair had been mussed until it could have doubled for a straw-stack. A light growth of beard stubbled his face. Above it, shrewd gray eyes looked me over.
“And who might you be?” he asked. Something about the way he turned his words told me he was Irish, or had been.
The Moderates had given me a cover story, fearing that my proper persona might make him suspicious, so I said, “Tom Willis. Buyer for Amalgamated Minerals—or I was. I don’t know what I am right now. I came in from South Island in a small boat. A bunch of gorillas met me at the dock and gave me a working-over. I’m lucky I still have my teeth. What in hell has happened in the last week? I’ve been knocking around the Fiji Islands and Noumea for months.”
He came over and hunkered down beside me. “I’ve been in here for three days, but the best I can figure, the gooks have fallen out among themselves. There seems to be a full-scale war going on. And I haven’t been able to get anyone to call the Irish Consul. I seem to be stuck here for a while.”
/> He seemed to have said his say, and I was quiet too, as if considering his words. Either he was the innocent he seemed, or he was playing it very close to his vest. I decided that it was going to take a while to build up the sort of rapport that leads to prison confidences.
“Damn!” I said. “I was almost through with my assignment. They were going to send me to South America next. Just my luck to miss that. I’d like to see, just once again, some place that hasn’t been knocked to bits and patched back together.” That earned no reply at all from my cellmate.
It was a long day and a longer night. My nap on the VTO was a mistake too, for it left me too wakeful to relax on the pile of straw they thrust into the cell for my use. By the time a supper of thin gruel, moldy bread, and unidentifiable meat made its appearance, I was thoroughly sorry for my bargain with Moana’s boss.
I got sorrier. Two days went by in grim boredom and desultory conversation. My companion, though he seemed to take me at face value, kept his own counsel. Whoever he was supposed to be working for must have trained him well, I thought. Then the guard came after me and dragged me away yelling at the top of my lungs. That wasn’t all acting either. I’d no idea what was about to happen.
Moana met me in a small steel chamber that I thought must be underground, from the feel of it. When I gave her my report, she shook her head. “It is taking too much time,” she said. “What if we gave you a beating? Would that make him trust you more?”
I stared at her, and she chuckled. “Not a real beating, you nitwit. Just a lot of noise and moans. Maybe a bruise or two.”
I reached into my mouth and removed the bridge that was a souvenir of an early assignment. “Maybe knock out some of my teeth?” I asked.
She took them. “Remind me to give you something to make your mouth look bloody. Good idea”
I’d no idea that I was so much an actor. The very real-sounding thwacks of a rod against a stuffed bolster brought forth from me a performance I wouldn’t have believed.