War World IV: Invasion

by War World IV Invasion v2 Lit

  Knowing it, though, had made it easy for her to learn the modern speech of Novy Rossiya, she’d told him. Certainly she spoke modern Russki fluently, despite her light accent.

  Veikko Ikola watched the village of Tammipuro appear through the trees. Actually, the first he saw of it was the railroad siding with its loaded and unloaded strings of log cars. The village itself was almost like forest, its gravel streets lined with trees. Though not pines. Its trademark was its steelwood trees, the tammi in Tammipuro. He knew the place well enough, and a number of others more or less like it.

  The morning was far enough along that they left their overcoats in the luggage rack when they got off the train. The local tavern doubled as the dining room for the railroad, and for whatever locals chose to eat out. At this particular hour there were no other dining guests. As was customary, the passengers would sit at a long trestle table set up for them. Nor was there a charge; meals were covered in their fare.

  There was no menu. They simply needed to wait till the food was ready. Some of the men went to the taproom, but Ikola sat down at the long trestle table and waited. He preferred to do his drinking in more intimate situations, with one or two friends in private conversation, or with Toini, his wife, at supper. Dufva and Lytikainen too abstained, Lytikainen because his temper, never the best, was inversely correlated with his blood alcohol. That was how Lytikainen himself put it. Ikola thought the problem was psychological; the forest supervisor could get disagreeable just drawing the stopper.

  Minutes later the mining experts returned with a large pitcher of beer and a liter of whiskey, “bourbon” imported from New Nevada. The loud consultant had bought it. Migruder was his name, Ikola recalled, Carney Migruder, a rather large burly man looking not quite solid but not flabby either.

  As usual the tavernkeeper had the radio on. The station played peasant music almost continually, energetic music you could dance to. There was room to dance in the dining room. Sawmill workers would dance there, and the forest workers when they were in town, with their wives and girlfriends, or with each other if they had none there. But just now the railroad passengers had the place to themselves. During trueday the forest workers were away in the woods, working shift and shift, six hours on and six off through four cycles, spending their off time collapsed on their bunks. Busses brought them to town for dim-day and true night, when woods work was unsafe or impossible. Ikola knew their life first hand; he’d lived it. Had grown up in a village much like Tammipuro, as had Dufva and Lytikainen. You needed the practical experience to be accepted into forestry curricula at the university.

  Migruder stood up, cleared his throat to draw their attention, then held his glass high. “Here’s to Novy Finlandia!” he said loudly in Americ. “Long may she--do whatever it is she does!” He laughed then like a jackass, loudly and without humor.

  Except for Migruder’s laughter, the people there were silent as stone. Ikola had seen Lytikainen stiffen, and had put a hand on his arm. The Nevadan was an official guest, invited by the Minerals Ministry to help evaluate some iron ore deposits in the upper foothills. Small concentrated deposits, typical of those developed volcanically, and potentially very valuable on iron-poor Haven.

  The men from Minerals who accompanied the Nevadan raised their glasses stony faced. Migruder’s mining expertise, Ikola told himself, must be very good indeed for them to put up with him. It was hard to believe that someone who found such pleasure in mindfuck, could do good work. He wondered if the man was married, and if so, what kind of husband he was, what kind of father.

  Novy Finlandia! That was deliberate, thought Demidov. Migruder was either pathologically vicious or had a death wish. Or both.

  Demidov knew more history than most Haveners. He was an avid reader, an accumulator of knowledge. Back on Terra, the Finns had had a long record of resistance, more or less successful resistance, to Russian dominance. Something that some Terran Russians--intellectuals and ruling circles--had found exasperating, and resented.

  After the CoDominium was established, no Terran state was independent. So in Finland, the original Finland, a corporation was founded that sold shares in a new colony. In the worldwide depression of the time, however, even 7,000 shareholders were limited in what they could pay for. Thus the Finns settled for a place on Haven. Had chosen a place with much forest--hardly surprising, considering Finnish skills and traditions--and nearly six centuries ago had emigrated, moving families, livestock, and equipment.

  They’d named their corporation Uusi Suomi Yhtio-- “New Finland, Limited.” But some CoDominium bureaucrat, no doubt a Russian, had quietly entered it into the records as Novy Finlandia, the first word Russian, the second latinized Swedish. And once in the CoDominium computers that way, it was not only official. From there it got into all official and commercial computers and onto all map updates for Haven. Which was as close to being graven in stone on Mount Sinai as you could get. Of course, when the CoDominium collapsed, all that became null, and the Empire, when it arrived, accepted the name Uusi Suomi as official. But old habits die hard, and among other Haveners, “Novy Finlandia” was still common, if offensive usage.

  The Finns, one of the most language-proud peoples, had resented it intensely at first, and still were sensitive about it. It would no doubt have been more acceptable had it been in Americ: “New Finland.” But in Russian!

  Another part of the original contract was that Uusi Suomi’s territorial integrity was legally protected. But as with most of their contracts, the CoDominium ignored this one too. After BuReloc, the Bureau of Relocation, was established and forced deportations began, dissident Russians of various stripes were deported to Haven. Most went to mining districts, to work and die as forced laborers. Others were unloaded on the two established Russian colonies to accommodate as best they could; Demidov’s ancestry included such deportees. But a shipload of religious dissidents had been unloaded in “Novy Finlandia.”

  It seemed doubtful that CoDo officialdom planned it that way. Aside from “trivial” matters--matters not coming before high-level officials--it seemed doubtful to Demidov that the CoDominium had gone out of its way to do vicious things, things not substantially profitable to one of its power factions. More probably some mid-level apparatchik had arranged it with the ship’s captain out of spite. Tradition had it that shiploads of deportees had been put down nowhere near the site officially specified, for nothing more than a case of good whiskey, from someone who wanted slave labor and didn’t have pull with BuReloc.

  To make it worse, the newcomers had arrived in early winter with nothing to live on and little to make a living with. While the Finns themselves were still struggling to survive. At once there’d been a schism of sorts among the Finns, between those who wanted to leave the 2,800 newcomers to die, and those who refused to. The colony’s council had voted to help them--indeed such help had already begun, unofficially--but the vote had been close. And the decision had held a proviso: aid to the Russians would come from a special fund of provisions: those who didn’t wish to, need not give.

  Fortunately the newcomers were mostly farmers, people with knowledge and skills, even with some tools. They could contribute effective muscle and work, though nothing of food, medicines, or initial shelter. At the end of the first years-long winter, nearly 1,200 still lived. But among those Finns who’d helped, the winter’s death toll, not to mention other suffering, had been notably worse than among those who hadn’t. The rift it had opened between the halukkait, “the willing,” and the sydamet-toraid, “the heartless,” had taken several generations and the blurring of gradual intermarriage to close.

  The fact that both the name Novy Finlandia and the burden of unwanted dependents were Russian, tied the two together in the psyche of the Finns. Migruder, Demidov told himself, was prodding a very sore spot.

  The music was interrupted in mid-line by a voice in dry staccato Finnish, and it seemed to him it was something he should know about. He turned to Anna Vuorinen, questioningly. H
er words, in Russian, were soft, almost murmured, her eyes unfocussed. “They say a Finnish squadron, the seventh Air Reconnaisance Squadron, has been attacked by the pirates, and most of it destroyed.”

  There’d been much more to the report than that. Apparently the information about the Finnish Squadron had preempted her attention. He didn’t know if that was her husband’s unit or not, but thought it must be. Judging from her face, her eyes. She excused herself then and left the table, which seemed to answer his unasked question.

  He had another, and turned to Ikola with it. “Have the pirates visited Uusi Suomi, then?”

  The Finn shook his head. “That squadron was on”-- he groped for the Americ words--”it had our duty for the Council, at Sabbad.”

  Demidov nodded. Detached service in the south. The new Council of States had instituted an air patrol to discourage the corsairs that occasionally pillaged towns along the southern coast. The biplanes and triplanes they put in the air would mean little to space pirates though.

  “And her husband was with the destroyed squadron?”

  The Finn pursed his lips. “I think. From the way Anna react.”

  The food had been brought to their table more in the manner of a boarding house than a restaurant. It was plain but good, the sort of meal a solid working-class family might eat at home. Eating, Ikola told himself, served the additional function here of keeping Migruder’s mouth occupied. Afterward the cook himself brought out individual bowls of a sweet but spicy dessert, and served each person himself.

  When they’d finished, they reboarded the train. Both Demidov and Migruder had wanted to continue to their original destination, the town of Rajakuilu in the northeast comer of the country.

  There were more than enough seats on the car. No one needed to sit beside anyone, or even across from anyone if they wanted to be alone. And indeed, most did sit alone. Why, Ikola asked himself, isn’t everyone talking about the pirates? The place should be a-buzz. Yet he felt no urge himself to talk about it. Perhaps because so little was known--the skimpiest of information and no rumors at all.

  One man was talking though. At the far end of the car, Migruder sat wearying his interpreter with his usual loud Americ. His monolog was rich in idiom and slang, well beyond Ikola’s ability to follow, even had he been in the mood. It seemed to be something derogatory about someone.

  One of the men from the Minerals Ministry passed on his way to the restroom. On his return, Ikola reached and touched his arm. “Sit,” he invited, gesturing toward the seat opposite. The man hesitated, then sat.

  “What do you know about Migruder?” Ikola asked.

  The man shrugged, his face a grimace. “He is famous for his ability. As well as his character or lack of it. The Ministry studied the records of all the experts on Haven, and Migruder seems to be the best of them. We’ll just have to put up with him for a few days.”

  “It’s surprising someone hasn’t killed him.”

  The man nodded. “His father is Baron Migruder of New Reno, very rich and influential. They fight like two land gators over a dead goat. The old man has disinherited him, or that’s the report we have, but protects him nonetheless.” The Ministry man shrugged and started to stand.

  Just then Migruder hurried past him, headed for the restrooms at the end of the car.

  Demidov still sat across from Anna Vuorinen, across the aisle from Ikola. And guessed it was Migruder that Ikola talked about with the Minerals official. What else? He looked at the young woman. “What did they say?” he asked.

  She looked at him woodenly, and he realized she didn’t know, hadn’t listened. She must have been thinking about her husband, wondering if he was dead or alive. “Excuse me,” he said. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your thoughts. My question was idle curiosity.”

  She nodded slightly, then seemed to blank him out, her focus turning inward.

  They rolled past a recent clearcutting, thick with seedlings knee high to a man, and lovely to Demidov’s eyes. Haven pine produced two crops of tiny winged seeds in the long summer, the first remaining in the tough leathery pods. If a summer fire killed the stand, the pods, chemically changed by the heat, opened and released the seed onto the ash, where it germinated to produce a virtual carpet of seedlings. The later seed crop was born in pods much more fragile, which opened in winter storms. The spring thaw worked the seeds down into the needle litter. If fire then burned through before the early crop matured, the crowns might bum and the trees be killed, but of the needle litter, only the top centimeter or two were dry enough to bum. Last year’s late crop, stimulated by the heat, germinated quickly then; at least what was left of it did.

  In which case the new stand was often patchy and more or less thin and limby, but nature cared little about form factor or coarse knots, only presence and energy gradients. The trick in management was to use such general knowledge, along with the specifics of local conditions, to harvest the mature stand and obtain a new one without fire. The Finns, Ikola in particular, were masters at it, which was why he’d come here.

  The loudspeaker sounded again. This time it wasn’t the conductor’s voice. He’d been sitting in his compartment listening to the radio, apparently, and switched on the speaker so the passengers could hear. It began in mid-sentence. Demidov watched as the woman listened. Her face paled almost to chalk, then the color returned to it as the report ended. Tears began to run down her face.

  “Excuse me,” she whispered, and getting up, hurried toward the restrooms. Ikola had been watching; he came over and sat where she had. “Radio gave names of dead flyers,” he said. “One was Luutnantti Eino Vuorinen. I think her husband.”

  Demidov felt his own throat constrict, a burning in his own eyes, and thought for an embarrassed moment that he might weep. That would never do! He didn’t know the woman well enough for that, and besides, what would Ikola think?

  Through the long slow hours of early morning, most of the passengers dozed intermittently. The car rocked and swayed, the seemingly endless forest slid slowly past, and reading led easily to drowsiness. There were occasional short stops to pick up and drop off strings of log cars.

  Migruder was the exception; he spent much of the next several hours in one or the other of the car’s two restrooms, emerging more and more haggard. It seemed to Ikola that the tavernkeeper or cook in Tammipuro must have overheard the man’s insulting toast and prepared a dessert portion especially for him. That would explain the personal service.

  Toward midmorning, some of them adjusted their seats into beds, took their pillows from the overhead, and lay down to sleep. Even Migruder lay down between trips to the restroom.

  The next news bulletin was switched into the speaker almost from the first word: The intruders had nuked Hell’s-A-Comin’ and Castell City! The mushroom cloud at Hell’s-A-Comin’ could be seen from Nothing Ventured, 215 kilometers away. Unofficial reports were that the intruders were not pirates! Supposedly, satellite transmissions had shown the ship to be a Sauron heavy cruiser!

  Saurons! A chill rucked Ikola’s skin. Talk of Saurons on Haven drove the report of nukings into the background. If Saurons had come ... If Saurons had come, the Empire had lost, and they faced a new empire, a Sauron empire, that would make their old troubles seem trivial.

  On the other hand-- For unofficial report, read “rumor.” Of course, rumors could be true; that was eighty percent of their fascination, but more often than not—

  Drowsing was over with; no one was sleepy anymore. Nor likely to become so, Demidov thought. The conductor let the radio play continuously now. At least it wasn’t dance music; under the circumstances it wouldn’t have been appropriate. This was old music in the classical vein, played on an orchestral synthesizer. Dark music. He didn’t recognize it; perhaps it was Finnish. Men adjusted their beds back into seats. Still nothing much was said for a few minutes. People began to draw together, talking sporadically in undertones. Lytikainen and Dufva drifted over to sit again by Ikola.

  D
emidov looked openly at Anna Vuorinen. Her eyes occupied dark depressions in a pale face. He thought to start a conversation with her; it might draw her out of herself and her shock. But he could think of nothing. Partly it seemed too little was known, and the Saurons-- The Saurons might be only a rumor. And partly-- If it was true, it was too big and too new to confront all at once.

  Even so, he found himself speaking. “Mrs. Vuorinen, do you know what music that is?” Inane! he told himself. You’re being inane!

  “It is ‘Lemminkainen in Tuonela.’”

  “Thank you.” He hesitated. “Was Lieutenant Eino Vuorinen . . . ?”

  “My husband.”

  “I am terribly sorry.”

  “Thank you. Feel sorry for yourself.” She said it almost bitterly, as if she held him somehow accountable. Then spoke further, contrite and clarifying: “It is kind of you to say so. But I feel--” She shrugged, a shrug that was half shudder. “I think our troubles are just beginning.”

  He turned inward, wondering if they were. There was no proof, only the rumors. He’d demoted the reports of nukings to rumors now, too, along with the Saurons.

  But only for a moment, because the music was interrupted by another report from Hautaharju. The interpreter listened without changing expression. As if nothing more could affect her now. When it was done, she translated for Demidov without his asking. “Falkenberg has been destroyed by a nuclear explosion. Other places have been attacked by powerful weapons, believed to be orbital weapons. There has been a massive explosion at the power plant near Lermontovgrad, not nuclear, but a fire is said to be raging there, sending a smoke plume toward the east. It is thought to be radioactive.” Her mouth twisted as if in cyncism. “People are warned to get out of its way.”