by Gene Wolfe
Peters smiled. “Not yet. Not quite.”
“Red-brick—did I tell you? We like to put the knife in you toffs when we’ve the chance.”
“I wanted to ask if you’d like to come—yourself—to the party tonight,” Peters said.
Tredgold whistled. “The old chap—did he endorse this bold move?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll say I suggested you drop by to make sure your girls were on the ball.”
“All right,” Tredgold said, “but I should tell you I’ve promised Mum I’ll be home before eight.”
In the main room the first guests were already drifting in, staring at the wall screen on the east wall, talking in self-conscious groups; several of them carried newspapers. Clio was handing around cocktails, and Donovan was already deep in conversation with a man who looked so much like himself that he might almost be talking to a mirror. Watching them all, Peters had the sensation of having seen just this tableau of elaborate casualness and subdued, content-free speech before. It was only when a woman in a red dress—very obviously the secretary-mistress of the Danish shipbuilder whose arm she held—entered that he could place it: the operatic market scene into which, in a moment, one of the principal singers was sure to come, calling for the thrill of romance or (what is much the same thing) the defense of France. Surely, Peters thought, the curtains have just parted. He looked toward the west window and saw Clio moving toward the cord even as he formed the thought.
The gray velvet rolled back to show tossing Atlantic waves. Peters wanted to incline his head toward them, a very slight bow, but someone took him by the arm and said, “You are one of the Americans?”
“Oh, yes, and you are—” He tried, and failed, to attach a name, then a nationality, to the face. Oh, well, when in Rome … . “Senhor …”
“Solomos.”
“Damn glad you could come,” Peters said, taking his hand.
“What is happening in your country is so interesting,” Solomos said. “Great art will come from it—have you thought of that? Great art. The blood of a great people is stirred by such things, and there will be so much of what was old blown away.”
Someone put an Old Fashioned into Peters’s hand, and he sipped it. He said, “I suppose.” He thought of the Italian industrialist who collected art, but he was reasonably sure Solomos was not he.
“The armies—do they take pains to preserve such art as your country possesses?”
“Armies?” Peters had never thought of the radicals as an army.
“We soldiers like to loot,” Solomos said. “All, that is, except the soldiers of my own country—we regard any art save our own as an aberration.” He laughed.
There was a cherry in the bottom of Peters’s glass, and he ate it. He said to Solomos, “You’re a soldier, then?”
“Oh, no. No more.”
A third man joined them; he was tall, and had a mustache. He said, “You are Mr. Peters, I take it. Where do you feel the sympathies of the American people lie, Mr. Peters?”
Peters said, “With the government, unquestionably.”
“But since May,” the tall man began, “there has been so little government left, and so little of the will to rule in what is left—”
“One knows what he intends,” Solomos said.
A fat man who had been talking to another group turned (it was a little, Peters thought, like watching a globe revolve in a library) and said, “In the science of realpolitik the sympathies of the population do not matter except insofar as they are nationalistic sympathies. In the event of a civil war the concept of nationalistic sympathy is inapplicable because to the popular mind the nation claiming allegiance is perceived to have vanished. A charismatic leader—”
Peters said, “In the Civil War regional sympathies—”
“Wait,” the tall man said. “Something is happening.”
Peters turned around and saw that Lowell Lewis was now standing facing the dark screen and rapping (though the sound was inaudible over the hum of talk) with a long pointer on the glass surface.
“He should shoot off a gun, hahaha,” Solomos said. “That would quiet them.”
Peters said, “I think he’s afraid of guns,” then realized he should not have, then that no one had heard him anyway. A beautiful dark-haired girl in an evening gown, one of Tredgold’s girls, gave him a martini.
The fifteen-by-thirty-five-foot screen behind Lewis flashed with light, showing Lewis’s own face, immensely magnified so that every pore could be seen as though through a microscope. It glowered at them, all eyes and nose and mouth, the forehead and chin lost in ceiling and carpet; so magnified it assumed a new quality, like the giants in fairy tales, who are not merely big men but monsters. “Gentlemen,” Lewis said. “Your attention, please.”
The room fell silent.
“I’m afraid we are not quite all here yet, but we have a definite appointment with General Virdon, and it would be best if I began your orientation now.”
Someone said, “Will there he a period for questions?”
The giant answered, “There will be all evening for questions—I want that understood. You may interrupt any speaker—including myself—whenever you have questions. We’re not trying to sell you a pig in a poke.”
“If the attack tonight succeeds, what benefits do you anticipate?”
“I should think the benefits are obvious.”
“I will put it in another way,” the questioner continued. “Do you not feel that the real struggle is taking place on your coasts? That they are the important theaters of operations?”
From beside Peters the tall man called, “Some believe we have been brought here to witness a show victory—a Potemkin village of war.” Peters had been trying to guess the tall man’s nationality, thus far without success.
Lewis disappeared, replaced by a map of America. The real Lewis, seeming suddenly diminutive, tapped Detroit with his wand. “This city may not be known to many of you,” he said, “as it is not a cosmopolitan city; but it is a manufacturing center of great importance. Please observe that it is virtually impossible to isolate it without infringing upon Canadian sovereignty.”
The man with the mustache said, “Canada cannot allow the passage of war matériel.”
“I am speaking of industrial goods, whose passage Canada has guaranteed—machine tools and electronics. Not supplies for the troops in the east. Our aim in this campaign is to restore American productivity.”
Someone near Peters said, “And American credit.” There was a ripple of laughter.
“Precisely.” Lewis’s flat voice came loudly, cutting through the amusement. “Credit, as you know, is a matter of confidence, of trust. Ours is still a country of great natural resources, with a wonderful supply of skilled labor and unmatched management know-how. I don’t have to tell any of you gentlemen that U.S. is one of the world’s leading manufacturers, or that we are trying to obtain, currently, financing overseas, but—”
The man standing next to Peters said, “You are having difficulties. What is it you call management if you have such difficulties?”
Peters turned, expecting to see Solomos, but it was a man he had not met, a short, fat man of fifty or so. Peters said, “We mean business management. Maximizing the return on invested capital.”
“Management,” the fat man said firmly, “is management.”
Peters turned back to listen to Lewis.
“End,” the fat man continued, “you do not any longer have these resources you speak of, not so much more as other peoples.”
Peters said, “There is a great deal left.”
“Not so much for each person as Western Europe. Different, yes, but not so much.”
Lewis had a map of Detroit on the screen now, stabbed by arrows from the south and west.
On the other side of Peters someone asked, “Do you have a master plan for retaking the country?” and the tall man with the mustache said, “They surely must, but I doubt if this young man knows it
, or could confide in us if he did.” Peters recalled a conversation he had had with Lewis earlier in which he had asked much the same question. Lewis had said, “Top management knows what it’s doing,” and Peters had felt better until he remembered that Lewis was top management. One of Tredgold’s girls brushed against him, her back arched, her hands and a tray of hors d’oeuvres above her head; he was acutely conscious of the momentary warmth and pressure of her hips; General Virdon was talking on the wall-sized screen, a gray-haired, square-faced man whose hard jaw was betrayed by nervous eyes. Peters had seen the face before, the face of a frightened middle-management man whose career had topped out in his forties, driving his subordinates from habit and his fear of his many-faced, ever shifting superiors. Donovan edged up to him and said, “He looks like old Charlie Taylor, doesn’t he? Runs the Duluth plant.”
Peters nodded. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
“I was out there two years ago,” Donovan continued. “You know, go around, see what the boys back home were doing … .”
Mentally Peters tuned him out. Someone new, a major, was on the screen. He said, “I regret that Colonel Hopkins was unable to return as scheduled to address this group. He left our headquarters here at fourteen hundred hours and was due back quite some time ago. I don’t know just what he had intended to tell you, but I’ll answer your questions as well as I can.” The major wore paratrooper wings; they went well with his impassive, almost Indian, face. Someone asked, “If your colonel does not return, will you direct the attack?”
“If you mean Force Wolverine,” the major said, “I’ll lead it. General Virdon will direct it.”
From another part of the room: “Isn’t it true that you have put clerks and cooks into the fighting ranks?”
“Not as much as I’d like to.” Unexpectedly the major smiled, the boyish smile of a man who has got his way when he did not expect it. “They’re usually the most able-bodied soldiers we’ve got, especially the clerks. Now that the government’s out and the companies have taken over, all the goofballs with political connections can’t write their damn letters any-more.”
“Don’t you find it difficult to get recruits when you cannot pay?”
“Hell, that would be impossible,” the major said. “But we can pay something—the companies have bankrolled us to some extent, and they buy up some of the stuff we liberate.”
Lowell Lewis said, “May I add a bit of explanation of my own there, major? Thank you. Gentlemen, this is, of course, one of the most important reasons for the loans we are trying to secure here—we feel an obligation to deal fairly with the men who are directing these vital operations in our own country. They are going to win, they will win, and we are in a position to secure those loans with the solidest possible collateral—victory.”
“A question for you, Mr. Lewis. This officer takes order from General Veerdon—”
“Virdon,” the major said.
“Thank you. General Veerdon. But from whom does General Veerdon take order?”
There was a long pause. At last Lewis said, “At present General Virdon can’t be said to be getting orders from anyone. America feels that as one of its finest commanders he is competent, during this emergency, to exercise his own judgment.”
“But he consult with you?”
Lewis nodded. “About finances and supplies, and to a certain extent concerning priorities among objectives.” Peters saw Clio Morris hand him a note.
“And General Marteen, at Boston, with who—”
“Excuse me,” Lewis said, “but word had just been flashed to us that the troops are jumping off for the attack, and I don’t think any of you will want to miss that.”
Down an eight-lane highway dotted with the carcasses of burned-out automobiles (casualties of the June fighting that had lost the city) men in green and brown and blue were advancing ahead of three light tanks. Some of the men wore helmets; others did not, and Peters noticed one group in the flat-brimmed campaign hats of state police. The short, fat man called out, “Ees Force Wolpereen?”
“No,” Lewis said, “this is Cougar, moving up Interstate Seventy-five from the Rockwood-Gibraltar area. We’ll be seeing Wolverine in a few moments now.”
Another voice: “May I ask how we are receiving these pictures? They do not appear to be coming by helicopter.”
“That is correct. Although we have a great deal of airpower—I believe you can see some fighter-bomber strikes in the background there—we prefer to use hand-held cameras for this sort of coverage, since they permit us to contact individuals directly. I believe an officer sitting on the roof of a truck is taking this.”
“Would it be possible for us to talk to one of the soldiers involved?”
“I’ll see if I can’t arrange it.”
The picture abruptly changed to show a burning building that might have been an apartment house. “This is Wolverine: the skirmish line preceding the main force, which I believe is just now jumping off.”
A soldier with an assault rifle dashed past, followed by two dungareed sailors carrying carbines. Abruptly the burning apartment house wobbled and fell away to a street lined with buildings with sandbagged windows, then sky, then the face of General Virdon, who said, “It appears our operator has bought it, sir. We’ll have another one for you in a few seconds.”
Lewis said, “We quite understand.”
Peters, trying to make it appear that he was relaying a question from one of the people near him, asked, “Can you tell us the composition of Force Wolverine, general?”
“Certainly.” Virdon leaned forward to glance at a note on his desk before answering, and Peters wondered suddenly where he was—if he was within a hundred miles of the battle. “Wolverine comprises elements of the Thirty-first Airborne, strengthened with naval detachments from the Great Lakes Training Station and armored units of the Wisconsin National Guard—the name, as you may have guessed, has been chosen to honor these last.”
In Peter’s ear Donovan said, “Belongs to————” -he named a mining company—“and we’re getting them on loan. Lou set it up.”
A tall black man said, “I represent the National Trade Bureau of the Empire of Ethiopia. May I ask a question?”
Lewis said, “Certainly. It isn’t necessary, however, for anyone to identify themselves.”
“I wish to ask my question of General Virdon.”
In the colossal screen the general nodded.
“Would you tell us your prior military experience, sir?”
Solomos, who had reappeared from somewhere, said to Peters, “A very nice party. I enjoy it. But what do you think of the attack as far as this?”
Peters said, “If we win in Detroit it will be the key to opening up the Midwest and splitting the radicals.” It was what he had heard Lewis tell a Swiss banker earlier that day.
“No doubt. But will you win?”
“We have to win,” Peters said, and found that he had surprised himself. As quickly as he could he added, “The odds are too heavily weighed in our favor. Suppose, for example, Mr. Solomos, that your company was going to open up a new territory, or introduce a new product. You would observe your competitors: not just how much advertising they are doing, but how much they are capable of doing—and how many salesmen they have; how good those salesmen are; any special advantages they may have, like high customer loyalty in this particular area. When you’ve learned all those things you’re in a position to calculate just how much it will take to knock them out of the top spot quickly, and decide whether or not you can do it. If you go in at all, you go in with about double the top ad budget they can afford, free samples, coupon offers and the pick of your sales force—on special bonus incentives. You don’t go in until you’ve asked yourself how can I lose? and found that you can’t imagine any possible way you could—and then you can’t. Well, that’s what we’ve done”—Peters waved at General Virdon on the screen—“and we’re going in.”
“Bravo,” Solomos said. “Ma
gnificent. You say all that very well. But they have more men than you.”
“Ours are better armed and have air support and tanks; and I doubt that they really have more people—at least not many. A great part of the population of Detroit is still loyal to free enterprise, or just doesn’t want to get involved.”
“But that was interesting to me,” Solomos continued, “about the selling. What if the product you sell is not better?”
“Actually,” Peters said, “that hardly matters, unless it’s really pretty bad. We—I mean United Services—always try to have the best, and in fact we spend a lot on that sort of thing—R and D, and quality control. But mostly we do it because it energizes the sales force.”
The Ethiopian was saying to General Virdon, “Then you have not ever actually fought—you yourself fought.”
“What matters in combat is organization and fire support—the total firepower that can be directed at the enemy. We learned that in Vietnam. If you can blow up enough jungle you can kill anybody … . Now, Mr. Lewis—sir?”
“Yes?”
“Your guests mentioned that they would like to talk directly to one of the enlisted men taking part in this operation. We have that set up now, sir.”
“Fine.”
A young man appeared. He was handsome in a boyishly appealing way and wore neatly pressed fatigues with a pfc’s stripe. To the audience he said, “Private Hale reporting, sir.” His forehead was abundantly beaded with sweat, and Peters wondered if it was really that hot in Detroit. After a moment Hale wiped it off. Someone called, “You are a soldier? Don’t you know you could be killed in this action?”
Hale nodded solemnly into the screen, then said, “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, sir, but you can get killed crossing the street—anyway, you could in the good old days—and I think what my buddies and me are doing here is more important than a whole lot of streets.”
“And you are confident this operation will succeed?”
The soldier nodded. “Yes, sir, I am. There’s a whole bunch of good guys wrapped up in this thing, and …”