In At the Death sa-4

by Harry Turtledove

After a case like that, writing about the work O'Doull had done during the war didn't seem so bad. That, at least, had mattered. This? While he was sewing and splinting and cutting, he'd looked forward to this with a fierce and simple longing. Now that he had it again, he discovered the danger of getting exactly what you thought you wanted. It could prove as unfortunate in real life as in fairy tales.

  He was home with Nicole. That was as good as it always had been. But his practice…After you'd spent time as a battlefield surgeon, prescribing ringworm salve didn't seem the same.

  Another patient came in. Franзoise Boulanger had arthritis. And well she might-she was seventy-seven, and she'd worked hard all her life. She hurt, and she had trouble moving. O'Doull didn't have much to offer her: aspirin to take the edge from pain and inflammation, heating pads and warm baths to soothe a little. He would have given her the same advice before the Great War. If he'd been practicing before the War of Secession, he would have substituted laudanum for aspirin. Franзoise might have got hooked on the opiated brandy, but it would have done as much for her pain as the little white pills did, maybe more.

  Leaning on her cane, she shuffled out of the office. Is this what I've got to look forward to for the rest of my professional life? God! If he could have brought Nicole with him, he would have run for Alabama and a military hospital.

  A little boy with strep throat made him feel happier. Penicillin would take care of that, and would make sure the kid didn't come down with rheumatic fever or endocarditis. O'Doull felt he'd earned his fee there and done some real good. All the same, he wasn't used to taking it easy any more. He wondered if he ever would be.

  A corporal waited on the platform when Abner Dowling got off the train at the Broad Street station. Saluting, the noncom said, "I'll take you to the War Department, sir."

  "Obliged," Dowling said. The corporal grabbed his suitcase, too. It wasn't heavy, but Dowling didn't complain. Ten years earlier, he knew he would have. He still wasn't as old as George Custer had been when the Great War broke out, but he needed only another six years.

  Philadelphia looked better than it had the last time he was there. More craters were filled in. More ruined buildings were torn down. Of course, the superbomb hadn't gone off right here.

  "How are things on the other side of the river?" he asked.

  "Sir, they're still pretty, uh, fouled up." The corporal would have said something strong talking with one of his buddies. As he braked for a red light, he added, "That's such a big mess, God knows when they'll set it to rights."

  "I suppose," Dowling said.

  "Believe it, sir. It's the truth." The corporal sounded missionary in his zeal to convince.

  Dowling already believed. He'd spent too much time talking with Henderson V. FitzBelmont to do anything else. FitzBelmont wasn't the most exciting man ever born-an understatement. But he'd put a superbomb together while the United States was doing their goddamnedest to blow Lexington off the map. Dowling didn't like him, but did respect his professional competence. So did the U.S. physicists who'd interrogated him. They were impressed he'd done as much as he had under the conditions in which he had to work.

  The War Department looked a lot better than it had when the Confederates tried their best to knock it flat. Now repairmen could do their job without fighting constant new damage. The concrete barriers around the massive structure remained in place. No C.S. diehards or Mormon fanatics or stubborn Canucks-rebellion still flared north of the border-could grab an easy chance to auto-bomb the place.

  Dowling walked from the barricades up to the entrance. He wheezed climbing the stairs. His heart pounded. He was carrying a lot of weight around, and he'd just reminded himself how young he wasn't. I made it through the war, though. That's all that-well, most of what-really counts.

  Despite the stars on his shoulder straps, he got frisked before he could go inside. The soldiers who patted him down didn't take anything for granted. When Dowling asked about that, one of them said, "Sir, the way things are, we'll be doing this forever. Too many assholes running around loose-uh, pardon my French."

  "I've met the word," Dowling remarked. The enlisted men grinned.

  A corporal in a uniform with creases sharp enough to shave with took Dowling down into the bowels of the earth to John Abell's office. These days, the more deeply you were buried, the bigger the wheel you were. And Abell was a bigger wheel-he now sported two stars on his shoulder straps.

  "Congratulations, Major General," Dowling said, and stuck out his hand.

  "Thanks." The General Staff officer's grip was stronger than his slender build and pallid face would have made you think. He'd been fair almost to the point of ghostliness even before he started impersonating a mole. But he had to be really good at what he did to rise as high as he had without a field command. Well, that was nothing Dowling hadn't already known.

  "What's the latest?" Dowling asked.

  "We finally have a handle on the rising in Saskatoon," Abell answered. "They surrendered on a promise that we'd treat them as POWs-and that we wouldn't superbomb the place."

  "Good God!" Dowling said. "Were we thinking of it?"

  "No-but the Canucks don't need to know that," the younger man replied.

  "Well, well. A use for superbombs I hadn't thought of," Dowling said. "Just knowing we've got 'em on inventory is worth something."

  "Indeed," Abell said. "Speaking of which, how is Professor FitzBelmont?"

  Before answering, Dowling asked, "Am I allowed to talk about that with you?"

  Abell's smile was cold, but his smiles usually were. "Oh, yes. That's one of the reasons you were ordered back here."

  "He's a more than capable physicist, and he had some good engineers working under him," Dowling said. "That's the opinion of people who ought to know. What with as much of this town as he blew up, I'd say they're right."

  "What do we do with him?" Abell asked.

  "He's kind of like a bomb himself, isn't he? All that stuff he knows…Damn good thing Featherston didn't want to listen to him at first. Damn good thing. If the Japs or the Russians kidnapped him, I'd flabble," Dowling said. "And he'd sing. He'd sing like a nightingale. He'd probably think it was…interesting."

  "Our German allies don't want the Russians getting a superbomb," Abell said. "Nobody wants the Japanese getting one."

  "Except them," Dowling said.

  "Yes. Except them." John Abell jotted something in a notebook. Even upside down, his script looked clear and precise. "Probably about time for him to have an unfortunate accident, don't you think? Then we won't have to worry about what he's up to and where he might go-or, as you say, might be taken."

  What had he just written down? Kill Henderson FitzBelmont, the way someone else might have written eggs, salami, Ѕ pound butter? Dowling didn't know, but that was what he would have bet. And Abell wanted his opinion of the idea, too. What was he supposed to say? What came out of his mouth was, "Well, I think we've learned about as much from him as we're going to."

  Abell nodded. "That was my next question."

  "If we're going to do this, it really does have to look like an accident," Dowling said. "We give the diehards a martyr if we screw up."

  "Don't worry about it. The people we use are reliable," Abell said. "Very sad, but if the professor tried to cross the street in front of a command car…"

  "I see." Dowling wondered if he saw anything but the tip of the iceberg. "How many Confederates have already had, uh, unfortunate accidents?"

  "I can't talk about that with you," the General Staff officer answered. "Some people we can't convict for crimes against humanity still don't deserve to live, though. Or will you tell me I'm wrong?"

  Dowling thought about that. He thought about everything that had happened in the CSA since Jake Featherston took over. Slowly, he shook his head. "Nope. I won't say boo."

  "Good. I didn't expect you would." Abell gave another of his chilly smiles. "Tell me, General, have you given any thought to your retiremen
t?"

  The question might have been a knife in Abner Dowling's guts. So this is the other reason they called me to Philadelphia, he thought dully. He didn't know why he was surprised. Not many men his age were still serving. But he thought he'd done as well as a man could reasonably do. Of course, when you got old enough, that didn't mean anything any more. They'd kick you out regardless. If it had happened to George Custer-and it had-it could happen to anybody.

  With that in mind, Dowling answered, "Custer got over sixty years in the Army. I've had more than forty myself. That doesn't match him, but it's not a bad run. I'm not ready to go, but I will if the War Department thinks it's time."

  "I'm afraid the War Department does," Abell said. "This implies no disrespect: only the desire to move younger men forward. Your career has been distinguished in all respects, and no one would say otherwise."

  "If I'd held Ohio…" But Dowling shook his head. Even that probably wouldn't have mattered much. The only way you could keep from getting old was by dying before you made it. The past three years, far too many people had done that.

  "It's not personal or political," Abell said. "I understand that you feel General Custer's retirement was both."

  "Oh, it was," Dowling said. "I was there when the Socialists stuck it to him. There was blood on the floor by the time N. Matoon Thomas got done."

  "I shouldn't wonder. Custer was a, ah, vivid figure." Abell wasn't lying. And the sun was warm, and the ocean was moist. The General Staff officer went on, "I repeat, though, none of those factors applies in your case."

  "Bully," Dowling said-slang even more antiquated than he was. "I get put out to pasture any which way."

  "If you'd been asked to retire during the war, it might have shown dissatisfaction with your performance. We needed your experience then. Now we have the chance to train younger men," Abell said.

  He was putting the best face he could on it. He wasn't a hundred percent convincing, but he didn't miss by much. Even so…"How long before they put you out to pasture?" Dowling asked brutally.

  "I may have a few more years. Or they may ask me to step down tomorrow," Abell answered with every appearance of sangfroid. "I hope I'll know when it's time to say good-bye. I don't know that I will, but I hope so."

  "Time to say good-bye," Dowling echoed. "When I started, no one was sure what the machine gun was worth. Now FitzBelmont talks about blowing up Rhode Island with one bomb."

  "Best thing that could happen to it," Abell observed.

  "Heh," Dowling said. "Maybe it is time for me to go."

  "Believe me, the Army appreciates everything you did," Abell said. "Your success in west Texas changed the whole moral character of the war."

  Dowling knew what that meant. Not even U.S. citizens who didn't like Negroes could stomach killing them in carload lots. That was why Jefferson Pinkard would swing. Dowling's Eleventh Army had shown that the massacres weren't just propaganda. The Confederates really were doing those things-and a lot of them were proud of it.

  "Well…thank you," Dowling said. It wasn't exactly what he'd hoped to be remembered for when he graduated from West Point, but it was better than not being remembered at all. As Custer's longtime adjutant, he'd been only a footnote. The one time he'd been important was when he lied to the War Department about what Custer and Morrell planned to do with barrels. That, he hoped, wouldn't go down in history. In this war, he'd carved out a niche for himself. It wasn't a Custer-sized niche. If anybody had that one this time around, it was Irving Morrell. But a niche it was.

  "You might do worse than think about publishing your memoirs in timely fashion," Abell said. "A lot of high-ranking officers will be doing that. If you get yours out there before most of the others, it can only work to your advantage."

  If I do that, Dowling thought, I will have to talk about lying to the War Department. A good many people would read a memoir of his precisely because he'd worked with Custer for so long. But work with Custer wasn't all he'd done-not even close. Didn't the world deserve to know as much?

  "I'll think about it," he said.

  "All right." Abell nodded briskly. He'd solved a problem. Dowling wouldn't be difficult, not the way Custer had. The General Staff officer went on, "Do you want to head over to the press office to help them draft a release about your retirement?"

  "Do I want to?" Dowling shrugged. "Not especially. I will, though." What did Proverbs say? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever. He hadn't passed away yet, but he was passing. The United States, like the earth, would abide, and he'd helped make that so.

  XIX

  "Hi, hon," Sally Dover said when Jerry came back to the house. "You got a telephone call maybe half an hour ago."

  "Oh, yeah?" Dover gave his wife the kind of absentminded kiss people who've been married a long time often share. "Good thing we didn't take it out yet, then." That was coming soon, he feared. You could pretend to stay middle-class for a while when you were out of work, but only for a while. After that, you started saving every cent you could, every way you could. The Dovers weren't eating meat very often these days, and most of the meat they did eat was sowbelly.

  "Here's the number." She gave him a scrap of paper.

  He'd hoped it would be the Huntsman's Lodge. It wasn't. He knew that number by heart, of course. He knew the numbers for just about all the restaurants in Augusta by heart. This wasn't any of them. If it was anything that had to do with work, whether in a restaurant or not, he would leap at it now.

  He dialed the operator and gave her the number. She put the call through. It rang twice before someone on the other end picked it up. "This is Mr. Broxton's residence." The voice was unfamiliar. The accent wasn't-if the man hadn't been born in Mexico, Jerry Dover was an Eskimo.

  Hope was also unfamiliar. Charlemagne Broxton-and wasn't that a name to remember? — was the principal owner of the Huntsman's Lodge. Heart thuttering, Dover gave his name. "I'm returning Mr. Broxton's call," he said.

  "Oh, yes, sir. One moment, please," the-butler? — said. Back before the war, Charlemagne Broxton had had colored servants. Who among the wealthy in Augusta hadn't? Where were they now? Nobody who'd lived through the war wanted to think about things like that. Nobody on the Confederate side, anyway-the damnyankees were much too fond of asking such inconvenient and embarrassing questions.

  "Broxton here." This voice was deep and gruff and familiar. "That you, Dover?"

  No. My name's Reilly, and I sell lampshades. The mad, idiot quip flickered through Dover's mind and, fortunately, went out. "Yeah, it's me, Mr. Broxton. What can I do for you, sir?"

  "Well, I hear you're looking for work," Broxton said. "How would you like your old job back?"

  "I'd like that fine, Mr. Broxton. But what happened to Willard Sloan?" Jerry Dover asked.

  Shut up! Are you out of your mind? Sally mouthed at him. He ignored her. No matter how tight things were, he didn't want to put a cripple on the street. That could have happened to him if a bullet or a shell fragment changed course by a few inches.

  "Well, we had to let him go," Broxton answered.

  "How come?" Dover persisted. "Not for my sake, I hope. He could do the job." Sally looked daggers at him. He went right on pretending not to see.

  "Didn't have anything to do with that," Broxton said. Jerry Dover waited. The restaurant owner coughed. "Can you keep this quiet? I don't want to hurt his chances somewhere else."

  "C'mon, Mr. Broxton. How many years have you known me? Do I blab?" Dover said.

  "Well, no." Charlemagne Broxton coughed again. "We caught him taking rakeoffs from suppliers. Big rakeoffs. And so…"

  If some food disappeared from the restaurant, well, that was part of the overhead. The manager and the cooks and the waiters and the busboys all stole a little. Skimming cash was something else again. If you got caught, you got canned. The one might not cost more than the other, but it went over the line. Dover wondered why Sloan needed to do it. Was he a gamb
ler? Was he paying somebody else off? (Dover knew too much about that.) Or did he just get greedy? If he did, he was pretty dumb. And so? People were dumb, all the goddamn time.

  "If you need me back, you know I'll be there," Dover said.

  "Good. I hoped you'd say that." Charlemagne Broxton coughed one more time. "Ah…There is the question of your pay." He named a figure just over half of what Dover had been making before he went into uniform.

  "You can do better than that, Mr. Broxton," Dover said. "I happen to know you were paying Willard Sloan more than that." Sally gave him a Freedom Party salute. He scowled at her; that was dangerous even in private. And if you did it in private you might slip and do it in public. His wife stuck out her tongue at him.

  Broxton sighed. "Business isn't what it used to be. But all right. I'll give you what I was giving Sloan." He named another figure, which did indeed just about match what Jerry Dover had heard. Then he said, "Don't try fooling around to bump it up, the way Sloan did."

  "If you think I will, you better not hire me," Dover replied.

  "If I thought you would, I wouldn't have called," Broxton said. "But I didn't think Sloan would, either, dammit."

  "When do you want me to start?" Dover asked.

  "Fast as you can get over to the restaurant," the owner answered. "I've got Luis tending to it now, and I want him to go back to boss cook fast as he can. A greaser in that spot'd steal me blind faster'n Sloan did."

  From what Jerry Dover had seen, honesty and its flip side had little to do with color. He didn't argue with Charlemagne Broxton, though. "Be there in half an hour," he promised, and hung up.

  Sally flew into his arms and kissed him. "They want you back!" she said. He nodded. Her smile was bright as the sun. She'd worked in a munitions plant during the war, but times had been lean since. Money coming in was a good thing.

  After Dover detached himself from her, he put on a tie and a jacket and hustled off to the Huntsman's Lodge. He didn't want to be late, even by a minute. As he hurried along Augusta's battered streets, he contemplated ways and means. He didn't want the head cook pissed off at him. That was trouble with a capital T. He'd have to find a way to keep Luis sweet, or else get him out of the restaurant.