Withûr We

by Matthew Bruce Alexander

  Reaching out to shake his hand, Alistair said, “Alistair Ashley. Good to meet you.”

  The ice having broken, most of the rest of the band introduced themselves. They were an unshaved and unwashed lot, scarred in many cases, but they were not entirely unfriendly now. A couple ignored him, but most offered a welcome of some sort and a few a firm handshake.

  “We don’t normally allow new recruits onto the base like this,” Bob informed him, “but Oliver vouched for you and all.”

  In response, Oliver shrugged his shoulders and shoveled some more porridge into his mouth.

  “Well,” Alistair replied, searching for some response, “I hope I don’t disappoint.”

  After breakfast, Alistair accompanied Oliver outside into what proved to be another chilly, windy day. Small flurries of snow were whipped into their faces, and wherever the wind blew into a corner or niche, the flakes piled up and formed drifts. The sky was covered by gray clouds sulking over the sea.

  He got his first daylight view of the platform, and it looked like it had been abandoned for many cycles. The rusty metal grating that served as the floor was slick and icy. The massive legs at each corner were spotted with rust. The metal ladders and stairs leading to the upper reaches were in need of replacement, and the walkways and grating above that clustered around the tall machinery towering over the main platform did not look trustworthy either. In one place it had partially fallen and hung suspended in the air, swaying in the wind, a few nuts and bolts preventing a total collapse.

  The rebels all had a purpose. Whatever it was they aimed to do, they were taking steps to do it. Men rushed between the central control building and what looked like piles of rubbish kept under tarps tied to the grating. Some carried objects from the piles to the central building, while others were busy repairing the upper reaches, or perhaps dissecting them to use the parts, it was difficult to say. A couple of the men, far, far above at the highest reaches of the platform, seemed to be lookouts, pacing about and peering into the distance.

  Following Oliver from the barracks to the central building, he entered through one of the side doors. There was a cacophony inside, with men repairing, dismantling and building all at once. The sound of metal on metal interspersed with barked orders dominated, and so loud was it that the wind outside could not be heard.

  “Welcome to the base of operations,” yelled Oliver and proceeded to lead him into a stairwell and up to the second story. Once there, with the noise much attenuated, he took him down a hall and into a large room almost empty save for a long table and some folding chairs. The windows had been replaced with plywood so that the room had to be lit with a couple lanterns. It stank of kerosene and unwashed bodies. Mike was there with two other men whom Alistair did not recognize.

  “Here’s our new recruit,” Oliver said and sat down across from Mike at the long conference table, kicking his feet up and resting them on top.

  “Get yer damn feet off the table,” Mike growled. “I hope that chair breaks underneath ya’.”

  Oliver smirked but put his feet on the floor.

  Mike turned his attention to Alistair, who remained standing. “Alistair, good morning.”

  “Good morning, Mike.”

  “Yer gonna learn pretty quick to address me as sir until yer a bit higher in rank.”

  Alistair hesitated a moment but he finally managed a nod.

  “I expect yer used to taking orders, but ya’ don’t seem to like ‘em,” Mike continued.

  Alistair said nothing.

  “Alistair is going to be invaluable,” Oliver said. “He spent four cycles on Kaldis; he doesn’t need any more boot camp instruction.”

  Mike spared Oliver a quick glance and then fixed his gaze back on Alistair. “So here y’are. Oliver’s vouched fer ya’, so do him a favor and don’t embarrass yerself. Remember we’re glad to have ya’ because I ain’t gonna tell ya’ again. Who’r ya’ roomin’ with?”

  “Ryan Wellesley.”

  “Fine. Ryan’s not paired right now. He’ll be yer partner.”

  “Partner?”

  “Questions later. What are yer skills? What can ya’ offer us?”

  Alistair thought a moment with his cool gaze fixed on Mike. “I can analyze any government program and tell you what sort of market distortions it will produce.”

  One of Mike’s companions chuckled. The other, an auburn haired man a couple dozen cycles older than Alistair, did not react. He leaned back in his chair with one leg draped over an arm.

  “Son of a bitch is a bigger smart ass than you are,” said Mike to Oliver, who grinned.

  “Horseshit,” said Oliver. “I’m way more of a smart ass.”

  “I don’t give a damn about yer schoolin’,” growled Mike, his attention back to Alistair. “What did ya’ learn in the army?”

  “I learned how to make war,” Alistair replied with a voice cold enough to put out a fire. “If it needs to be demolished, destroyed, dismembered, decapitated or otherwise put out of function, I can do it.”

  Mike grinned. “Now that’s what we need around here.”

  “But I make war on my own terms,” Alistair continued, his voice as firm as he could make it. “I’ve done plenty of killing and I don’t want to go looking for more. At any rate, killing would just play right into the State’s hands. I’ll recruit, I’ll spy, I’ll destroy their military equipment, I’ll sabotage… but I’m not going to kill unless I have no other choice.”

  Mike considered Alistair in silence for an uncomfortably long time before he spoke again. “We’ll talk about our war philosophies later. Do ya’ have any questions fer me now?”

  “A couple. What’s your ultimate goal? What steps are you taking now to get there? Why are you fighting to begin with? What supplies do you have? What contacts do you have? Are you recruiting? How are you recruiting? How is the recruiting going? Do you have a fall back plan? Do you have another base if this one gets compromised? How much military experience do we have altogether? How many troops do you command? Are you affiliated with other resistance groups? How many and what’s their membership?”

  Mike gave a throaty chuckle while the auburn haired man let his gaze wander as if bored.

  “Supplies could be better. Yeah, we have another base. Plenty, in fact. We’re about to abandon this one. Recruiting is slow but I expect it’ll pick up. The ultimate plan is to overthrow the government. We’re building our supplies right now as ya’ may have seen… What were the other questions?”

  “Why are you fighting?”

  Mike shrugged. “Because now’s the time. We’re tired of the whole damn thing. We’re tired of standing in lines for food that tastes like it came out the backside of a cow. I’m sick of the bastards who run this country and I say it’s time to oust ‘em. Does that satisfy ya’?”

  “Good enough for now.”

  “So now’s my question. Do ya’ still have my gold? Is it in that safe?”

  “I have none of your gold. I have gold that used to be yours but you transferred to me.”

  “Details. Here’s my problem. We could use it right now. When we paid ya’ fer yer information, we didn’t realize how bad things were gonna get here. Nobody’s got money enough to pay us fer the medicine. People are more likely to die of starvation than some disease. There’s just no market it fer it right now.”

  “There’s hardly a market for anything right now. You may have noticed how little my gold can buy. At any rate, we both agreed to the exchange.”

  “So, how can we convince ya’ to spend that gold on our little operation here?”

  “As long as we’re both fighting the government I’ll be happy to spend it on you. In return I want some independence and enough rank to call you by your first name.”

  Mike chuckled again, unsurprised and, suggested by his gravelly chuckle, impressed. “Done.” Mike opened his arms and spoke to the other two. “Boys, here’s the new Captain. Just purchased his rank fer thirty pounds of gold.”

>   “I don’t have the entire thirty pounds anymore,” Alistair answered, taking a seat next to Oliver.

  “Lieutenant, then. This is Brad Stanson. This is Johnny Raymond. Clever Johnny as we call him. Now, how exactly do we go about putting ya’ to use?”

  Brad Stanson, with light brown hair and average height and build, eagerly stood up to shake Alistair’s hand. Clever Johnny, a smallish man with the auburn hair streaked with white, did not. He hardly bothered to lift his hand off the table and meet Alistair halfway.

  “So now we’re five,” Mike said. “Maybe with one more brain in the group we can figure out what the hell to do.”

  “The first thing I would do is get off this rig,” Alistair advised. “You’re sitting ducks out here as soon as they think to look for you. With a few keystrokes a man in Rendral can aim a satellite, find your heat signatures and let loose a missile. Five minutes later the revolution is over.”

  Mike turned to Brad Stanson. “Alistair’s supposed to be pretty smart too. Got a lot of training in the military; got promoted pretty quickly. Didn’t study at university like you, though.” Turning back to Alistair, he said, “We were supposed to abandon this place a while ago. Will be shortly. We needed it fer storage. Plus, we knew they wouldn’t think to look for a few outlaws way out here. Now that our operations are gettin’ bigger, we’ll be headin’ fer the hills outside Arcarius.”

  “It would be advisable.”

  “Apart from our place of residence, we need to decide what the hell to do,” Mike continued. “We attacked the draft center. I think that sends a pretty clear message. What next?”

  “You can’t beat them on a battlefield, so you take advantage of what you do have,” Alistair continued. “You form cells and keep only loose ties. You can kill a bear with one shot, but a swarm of bees is harder to eradicate. The movement can’t be tied to just one person. It has to be an idea that won’t die. The worse things get, the more likely we are to get support. The longer we last and the more we make them sweat, we get even more support.”

  Brad nodded. “He’s quite correct. We need to get the public’s sympathy and admiration. On Kaldis there are companies that advertise their product and strive for brand loyalty among the populace. That’s what we need. We need an easily recognizable symbol. We can leave it at the location of whatever building we bomb. If there’s ever another food shortage—”

  “And there will be,” interjected Alistair.

  “—we need to be there with emergency supplies, courtesy of the revolution, with our symbol marked on the packages of food.”

  “Fantastic,” said Alistair. “The worse things get, the more we can take advantage. But we need to confine our attacks to those who deserve it. We must be able to justify every vengeful act on the State, and we need to match it with charity to the people we are trying to recruit from.”

  “In any revolution,” said Brad, “pamphlets are at least as powerful as rifles. The old saying about the pen and the sword is quite correct. We need to print and distribute pamphlets, thousands of them.”

  “We point out a code of conduct we believe in,” Alistair went on, “and demonstrate how the State has violated it. We follow our ethical code, and each time the State breaks it, we call them on it. Then either we overthrow the masters, or we force them to reform.”

  Mike shook his head at the last bit. “No reform. We’re lookin’ to completely overthrow the government. If not fer the whole planet, at least fer Arcarius. Go back to a system of independent city-states like we had a long time ago maybe.”

  “If the government were to reform, would that not be enough?” Oliver asked.

  Mike firmly shook his head. “I’m not in this to get a few concessions from ‘em. They need to be crushed. Then we’ll take control. I like what ya’ said about things getting worse and that being better for us. Let’s go down that path a bit.”

  “Any non market system is going to have difficulty producing and allocating in accordance with what the people desire,” said Alistair. “The recent food shortage will be followed by worse ones unless market reforms—”

  “No, no,” Mike cut him off. “I’m not waiting fer some bureaucrat to make a mistake and cause a shortage. We need to create one and blame it on the government, get people stirred up again.”

  Alistair shook his head. “It wasn’t necessarily a bureaucrat’s mistake that caused the last one. It’s impossible to centrally coordinate an economy the size of Aldra’s, or even one an order of magnitude smaller. Another shortage – of something – is inevitable.”

  “Fine, but why wait fer it?” asked Mike. “Let’s sink the next supply ship that comes in. Make their job harder.”

  Alistair’s faint blush and gritted teeth revealed his feelings for the idea. “Because then we’d be no better than the government we’re opposing.”

  “This is a war.”

  “I thought we wanted to win the people’s hearts.”

  “It seems to me,” said Clever Johnny, speaking for the first time and still casually draped over his chair, “that we are going to be blamed for every problem that occurs anyway. If they are going to blame us for every shortage, why not create more of them?”

  “Because then we’ll make what the government says true.”

  “Johnny’s right,” pronounced Mike with a note of finality. “We steal the food shipments and distribute them and make sure the people know we gave it to them. Failing that, we sink the shipments coming in. We need to make people suffer and then be the only relief they have.”

  “It seems like a sound plan,” offered Brad, with an almost apologetic look to Alistair.

  Upon considering them for a moment, Alistair said, “I prefer not to participate in such operations.”

  Mike fixed a dark look on Alistair. “What operations would ya’ prefer to engage in?”

  The audacity of Alistair’s idea made him hesitate a moment before uttering it. “The prison has recently been filled with a lot of the rioters, a lot of the people who stormed the Palace.” Alistair looked at each in turn, as if discerning their attitudes. “I think we can break them out of prison.”

  ***

  Mike remained behind to have a word with Clever Johnny and Oliver, while Alistair and Brad left. Outside, Alistair caught Brad’s attention and they shook dirty hands again.

  “That’s a bold plan you proposed,” said Brad as they walked together towards the barracks. “This is a group of angry men, and angry men want to fight. Getting them to fight smart is sometimes a chore.”

  “There’s a long history of the State and its dissatisfied customers. We have a lot of lessons to draw from.”

  “Exactly. What we don’t have is a good blueprint for what comes after.”

  “And what should come after?”

  “Government needs to be more responsive to the people. We need to prevent tyrants from getting into authority. We need the right Constitution to make government more efficient, more controlled. We need a lot of things.”

  Frowning, Alistair replied, “A Constitution is simply words on parchment.”

  “Well,” Brad faltered for a second, “you always have to make sure it is enforced properly.”

  “How can we recognize a tyrant in time to prevent him from getting into office? How can we be sure a good man won’t become one when he tastes power?”

  “If we can’t find a way then you and I might as well quit what we’re doing, because that’s the only option we have.”

  “Is it?”

  “When this rebellion finally succeeds – and it will succeed – we’ll be in position to make things better for the future.”

  Alistair was thoughtful a moment. Then he said, “Doesn’t it seem government power always – I mean always – gets worse with time?”

  Brad nodded after thinking about it for a moment. “It seems that way.”

  “Doesn’t it seem the more power a government gets, the more ruthless is the man at the top?”

  “Or
woman. Yes it does, I suppose. Just off the top of my head.”

  “It’s almost as if the progression of rising to the top is a weed out process where decent, honest men are discarded in favor of ruthless, power hungry dictators.”

  As they neared the door to the barracks, Brad said, “That means we need to be on the lookout now. When we seize control, people like you and me need to have the authority.”

  “I think if you make it to the top, you either are or will be transformed into a man unfit to lead. What if the problem is with the entire concept of leadership and authority itself?”

  As they entered the barracks, Brad slowly nodded again and regarded Alistair with genuine interest. “This time will be different,” he assured his new comrade.

  Chapter 17

  “I hate old people,” said Wellesley as he sat across from Alistair in a booth in a dark corner of a near empty restaurant on the fringes of the inhabited part of Arcarius.

  He took a sip from his mug and set it back down on the grimy table as a soft tune hummed in the air. There were few staff members there, and fewer patrons.

  “They’re practically useless. I don’t give a damn what they did for society thirty cycles ago. They just sit around and complain about how much their welfare deposit was reduced last month. I’m the one working for it; they should consider themselves lucky they’re getting anything. They need to pass a law against old people.”

  Alistair smiled into his mug as he sipped at his beer. “How about just ending welfare?”

  Wellesley just shrugged. “They’ll never do that. Were there a lot of old people on Kaldis?”

  “A lot more than here.”

  Wellesley groaned. “Best argument against anarchy.”

  “Kaldis isn’t anarchistic,” Alistair corrected, but Wellesley wasn’t listening.

  “The whole place is up in flames… well hell, you know. Everybody runs around wild and look at the mess the place is in. They need someone to impose some order.”