Union Forever

by William R. Forstchen

  "My sentiments as well," Andrew said. "Ah well, democracy in action. I bet Abe must have wished the same more than once.

  "What's on for this afternoon?" Andrew sighed, looking back to John Bullfinch, former lieutenant of the Ogunquit and now his personal adjutant and secretary. The boy had turned into an excellent aide, the one crew member of Cromwell's who had refused to desert.

  "Let's see," Bullfinch said in his high-pitched voice, Adam's apple bobbing up and down. "Sir, you have a meeting with President Kalencka at two. Then an inspection tour of the new musket rifling works at three. Next, sir—"

  "Next he has time with his wife."

  With a smile, Andrew looked up. Sweeping past Andrew, she leaned over Bullfinch's shoulder and with a flourish picked up his pen and drew a line through the page.

  "Meetings canceled by order of myself and the president. Kal ordered you to take the afternoon off," Kathleen said, shaking her finger at Andrew. Her green eyes sparkled with a mischievous light as she stepped past Bullfinch and came up to put her arms around Andrew.

  "If I were president I would have had that Mikhail arrested and hung from the gate," Kathleen said sharply, looking over to Hans for support.

  "Kathleen, it is a republic we've got here."

  "And you were military dictator for over a year before that."

  "Not any longer," Andrew sighed.

  "Well, if you had given women the right to vote from the start, he'd have never made office."

  "I think it's time for me to leave," Hans replied, rising to his feet.

  "Hans Schuder, I don't know why you don't agree with me on this. With your influence I might have been able to persuade my husband to put that into the Constitution."

  "I'm just a soldier, ma'am. Politics ain't my business," Hans replied lamely.

  "A likely excuse," Kathleen replied with a grin. "But anyhow, my dear," she continued to Andrew, "you promised me a jaunt out of town a week ago. I've got the carriage outside, and I'm not taking no for an answer."

  Andrew stood and looked down at his wife's figure with concern.

  "I'm still nearly two months away, and Emil said the fresh air would do me good."

  "Well, it looks like I've got my marching orders," Andrew said with a mock sigh.

  Extending his arm to Kathleen, he left the Senate chamber, and passing down the main corridor of the capitol he paused for a moment before the doorway into the presidential offices, but she pulled him away and out through the open doors onto the broad steps facing the great square.

  Suzdal was vibrant with life. A summer shower had washed through the town early in the morning, and with its passing a cooling breeze had risen up from the northwest, bringing with it the tangy scent of the great woods beyond. Andrew paused and with a smile of satisfaction looked around.

  It was hard to imagine that it was upon this square that the 35th Maine and 44th New York had fought their last desperate action against the Tugars. Behind him the ruins of the old palace had given way to the offices of the new government. The Senate chambers, Kal's offices, and the meeting room of the Supreme Court were now housed in a square whitewashed building of fresh logs, adorned as usual with the scrolling designs and carved adornments that were the delight of the Rus. Walking down the steps of the capitol, Andrew returned the salutes of the honor guard from the 1st Suzdal who stood at the base of the steps.

  Smiling, Andrew stepped out into the square. Merchant stalls lined the square, selling the traditional wares of Rus along with the dozens of newer products introduced since the war.

  The tolling of a church bell echoed across the square. The crowd packing the marketplace fell into an expectant hush and looked to the top of the cathedral in anticipation.

  Suddenly there was a cacophony of bells as the minute hand on the new cathedral clock marked the arrival of noon. Side doors to the clock opened up and a wooden bear emerged carrying the standard of Rus, and the crowd broke into appreciative applause. Behind the bear came a procession of cubs, each bearing the flag of the ten city-states, Novrod, Vazima, Kev, Nizhil, Mosva, and the others, and with the appearance of each flag, the visiting citizens cheered. The last cub carried the red-and-gold standard of Suzdal, and an ovation swept the square.

  The bear and its cubs disappeared, and then a lone figure appeared. An ugly hiss went up at the carved likeness of a Tugar. The figure stood before the clock, and then from a door directly beneath the clock emerged the images of a Rus soldier with gun raised, flanked by a Yankee, pushing a small cannon. Puffs of smoke shot out from the cannon and the musket, and the Tugar fell upon its back and disappeared while a wild cheer went up from the crowd. The two soldiers retreated back into their niches. Finally a robed form appeared wearing a halo, and the crowd blessed themselves as the figure of Perm turned to face them and then, following the path of the bear and its cubs, disappeared from view.

  The crowd broke into applause and then slowly started to disperse.

  "I don't think they'll ever grow tired of Vincent's creation," Kathleen said admiringly. "It's the pride of the town. Nadia, Vasilia's wife, told me that the town council of Novrod is planning one that's even better. Having a good clock is becoming a real point of civic pride."

  "And it's getting everyone used to clocks as well," Andrew said, nodding toward the row of clock vendors, who always did a brisk business at noon.

  The issue of time on this planet had been an intriguing one to settle. It had started when an apprentice under Vincent had taken upon himself the task of repairing Andrew's rusty pocket watch, damaged like all the others in the tunnel of light. The boy had finally succeeded, and became a master craftsman in his own right by doing it. However, the day on Valennia seemed to be an hour shorter, a fact which Andrew found intriguing alongside the other curious point that a year was nearly forty days longer as well. There had been a lively debate on whether to have a twenty-three-hour or twenty-four-hour day. Vincent Hawthorne, who had first tinkered with clocks and introduced them to this world, finally won out for the twenty-four-hour system, arguing for the symmetry of it, and the fact that the gearing in clocks would be easier to calculate. Though Andrew realized it was not logical, he felt as if he were being cheated out of precious time in the one respect and getting it back on the other side.

  Fumbling with his watch case, he went through the daily ritual of setting it ahead an hour and then slipped the cherished memento, a present back in '63 from the men of Company B, his first command with the regiment, into his vest pocket.

  Leaving the steps, which had survived from the old palace, Andrew nodded his greetings to the throngs who called out good-naturedly to him, or in most cases still looked upon him with an admiration verging on awe. The giving of flowers was a Rus tradition he still was not used to, but Kathleen beamed happily as a group of children rushed up to her with excited giggles and presented her with a bouquet. Leaning over, she kissed the youngest on the cheek, and the blushing girl drew away.

  Andrew stopped before the carriage and looked it over carefully before helping Kathleen climb up. It was almost as good as the carriages back home, with metal springs and light iron-shod wheels. Yet it was still more Rus than American and far heavier than what he was used to. It had an out-of-balance look with a former Tugar war-horse, larger than a Clydesdale, in the traces.

  Driving a carriage with one hand still made Andrew nervous. He felt perfectly comfortable with his horsemanship when mounted. But then it seemed as if Mercury somehow sensed his master's disability.

  Awkwardly taking the leads, Andrew swung the carriage around and started across the plaza. Reaching the middle of the square, he saw a line of stalls and eased the horse to a stop.

  "I hope business is good for you today," Andrew called in Latin to a merchant wearing the long toga of the Roum.

  A curious crowd was gathered around the row of half a dozen stalls, looking with wonder not only at the array of silver necklaces, bracelets, and embroidered linens, but also at the mysterious shop
keepers.

  "Good, very good," one of the merchants replied haltingly in broken Rus.

  "He's only the first of many," Andrew announced to the curious crowd. "Trade between his people and ours will only make us all better off. Just remember it's going to take a while for them to accept paper money."

  "And ruin our own silversmiths, by their being here," came an angry voice from the group. "His prices are cheaper."

  "Yours are too high, Basil Andreovich," came a taunting reply.

  The protest instantly triggered off a debate, and knowing if he stayed it would turn into another lecture on the free-market system, Andrew forced a smile and got the horse moving again.

  "They came in on the train this morning," Kathleen said. "Now that must have been a sight, a group of merchants from the descendants of the Romans, taking an American train to trade in a medieval Russian city." Leaning back, she started to laugh.

  "It's only the beginning," Andrew said quietly. "It's the ideas I'm even more interested in. Those Roum, or Romans, whatever you want to call them, will go back home in a couple of days having made far more than they hoped for. They'll also have seen how our country runs. Once the railhead reaches their city, hundreds of them will make the trip. I think Rus furs and woodcarvings will get a high price over there, and the Roum will pay in silver. Bill Webster's screaming all the time that we need more hard currency."

  The young secretary of the treasury was a wonder to him. Somehow he had forged an economic system, based largely on paper currency, which was working.

  The fact that his face was on the dollar bill was a constant source of amusement to Pat O'Donald, who by luck of the draw had pulled the ten-dollar slot, while Emil held the five and Hans, who he knew was secretly proud of it, had the twenty. Kal had argued vehemently against the fifty-dollar position but appeared on it anyhow, and Casmar in winning the hundred had diplomatically insisted that the largest denomination should carry the image of Perm and Kesus. The hard part of it all had been convincing the Rus that the money held real value.

  What took even more doing was setting up the first bank of Rus, and showing the people that they could safely put paper money in, and later on get it back with a hefty five percent interest rate. It seemed like some sort of strange miracle to them, and once the novelty caught on the bank was flooded with business, a fact which Webster rejoiced over as he loaned the money back out at six and a half percent for the dozens of individuals who approached each week with new ideas for businesses.

  His next big innovation had been the stock market, a concept which Andrew found to be a complete mystery. The men from Maine had started off the craze, once he gave them the right to form private businesses when the state of military emergency ended. Nearly every man was a shareholder now in one concern or another. Several had grown rich in the process and more than a few had gone bankrupt; it was a passion every bit as strong as the incessant gambling that had always been part and parcel of the old Union Army.

  "Paper, sir."

  Andrew looked over at the Suzdalian boy running by his side.

  He reined in the horse and nodded to Kathleen, who pulled out an iron penny and handed it down. The boy handed the paper up and looked at her with a wistful smile. Shaking her head, she pulled out two more pennies and tucked them into his hand.

  "Perm bless you," the boy shouted and then ducked away into the crowd.

  "Let's see what Gates has in his rag today," Andrew said, trying to take the single sheet out of her hand.

  She looked at the paper and then quickly folded it.

  "I guess what you expected, Andrew. He's screaming about the sewer-pipe controversy and denouncing Mina and the entire government."

  Andrew groaned, shaking his head.

  "Then there's the stock market prices," she said quickly, changing the subject, "and those disgusting advertisements of that Uri the undertaker—'We'll plant you on the road to heaven.' I tell you, those slogans are setting a real trend in poor taste."

  Andrew laughed softly. Actually he rather looked forward to Uri's newest ditties and puns, as did the rest of the city. Gates's paper was turning out to be one of the best primers for reading in the entire republic, and Uri in the process had cornered the market on funerals.

  "Come on, Andrew, let's get moving before someone finds a reason to call you back to work. I'll let you read the paper later."

  He tried to read the headline, but she shook her head, folded the paper, and tucked it into her purse. With a snap of the reins he urged the horse back into a canter.

  Leaving the great square, they made their way down the eastern thoroughfare, and passing through the gate of the inner wall, Andrew reined the horse back in.

  A steam whistle cut the air, and through the outer gate of the earthen walls a train emerged trailing its billowing cloud of white smoke. The broad area between the old city walls and the outer earthworks had been cleared of the vast wreckage of the war and was now the main terminal of the MFL&S railroad. The northern battlements, wiped clear by the floodwaters which had broken the Tugar attack, had been rebuilt and strengthened. The ground between the earthworks and the old inner walls was now covered with a dozen lines of track for the city's growing shipping yards.

  The train swung through a curve and glided into the open platform station with whistle shrieking and bells ringing.

  "The twelve-o'clock express arriving from Novrod, Nizhil, Vazima, Siberia, and points east to Hispania now arriving track one," the stationmaster announced as he walked down the length of the platform, wearing a gray frock coat and top hat which somehow had become the standard garb of conductors and stationmasters. It was another incongruity which Andrew found touching.

  Andrew reined in for a moment to watch the unusual spectacle. Dozens of workers arriving back from the railhead on their monthly leave came clamoring off the train shouting joyfully as their families rushed to greet them, while local travelers alighted, many of them looking about in wonder at the sights or nervously back at the train, which for nearly all the Rus was still a wondrous invention.

  Andrew was delighted to see two Roum merchants climb down from the train, carrying heavy packs, both of them surrounded by curious citizens eagerly shouting questions to the confused pair.

  "So unlike an American train station," Kathleen said with a smile.

  "Just a bit," Andrew replied, looking at the strange collection of people who now swirled past him, more than one doffing his cap in respect and offering a sweeping bow with right hand touching the ground (a habit he had yet to successfully discourage), or if in the uniform of the Suzdalian army, snapping off a sharp salute. A contingent of half a dozen men wearing the Union-blue uniform of the 44th New York came past, and after the formal salutes to Andrew the men tipped their hats to Kathleen and passed on.

  "It's more than just the people," Kathleen said, "there's a wonderful vibrancy to what we've helped to create here. You can sense it. These people have been held down for a thousand years, and though they drive you near insane at times, there's a childlike wonder to them. They actually believe that the world is now limitless, that nothing can stop them."

  "All aboard, all aboard. The twelve-fifteen local now departing track one for all points east!"

  "It is limitless," Andrew replied, his voice almost wistful. "Let's just hope that Mikhail and those who think like him don't somehow find a way to subvert it all. That's the problem with a democracy. It's great in theory but hell in practice. I could have held power, but in the end it would have simply created a new boyar, or worse a Czar."

  "Let's not talk politics, or I'll counter with my suffrage work," Kathleen said, leaning into Andrew's arm and by her look making it quite clear that the topic was closed.

  The train whistle shrieked, and with the harmonic cacophony of half a dozen bells mounted up front—a very Rus touch, Andrew thought as they played against each other— the train eased out of the platform, and coming through the switching yard gained steam on its run out th
e east drawbridge gate.

  Easing his horse into a trot, Andrew guided the carriage on down the road and out through the massive earth-banked positions of the outer wall. With a practiced military eye he surveyed the dead field beyond the earthen embankments that protected Suzdal with a vast array of deadfalls, sharpened stakes, and brush entanglements.

  Already there were some who were stating that the maintenance of such vast fortifications around the capital city of Rus was now a wasted effort. But for at least the next several years he wanted them in place. Similar fortifications were going up around the rebuilding cities to the east as well. To the southwest, a hundred miles of fortifications were going up along the banks of what was now called the Potomac River. It was a barrier line that stretched from the Inland Sea all the way up to the Great Forest, a line of nearly ninety miles across the great steppe, the forward defense system to be ready by fall if the Merki should plan to come. Next time, if there was a next time, it was his hope to hold all the major towns and meet whatever enemy approached on the border of Rus territory. To abandon everything and just hold the city was once acceptable, since the revolution had only taken hold in Suzdal and Novrod. Even then, Novrod had been abandoned, since it was obvious that the defenses could not be divided. But if there was a next time, the country would disintegrate if he tried that expedient again.

  The people of Rus had suffered horribly in the war. Over half had lost their lives from the pox or at the hands of the Tugars, and every city had been devastated either by the Tugar occupation or in the final stand at Suzdal. The southern half of the city of Suzdal was the only urban area of importance to stay intact.

  The Rus in the past had been used to disaster; their old cities burned of their own accord every generation or so. The rebuilding of homes this time had happened rather quickly, but rebuilding all that had been created since would be a heartbreaking task. To lose the vast factory complex would be a catastrophe.