The Victorious opposition ae-3

by Harry Turtledove

  "I gave you the strap when you were little," Lucien told his younger son, "but not enough of it, I see. Well, le bon Dieu is still listening. I did not know 'Dishonor thy father and mother' was one of the commandments."

  "Don't be silly. I wouldn't think of saying a word against maman." Georges' face was the picture of innocence. Galtier snorted.

  Charles struck a match and lit the candle. "Blow it out, Papa, so we can eat the cake," he said sensibly. Unlike Georges, he had no wildness in him, but he made a good, solid man.

  Blow it out Lucien did. Everybody cheered. Nicole cut the cake. She gave her father the first piece. He had no idea how he found room for it, but he did. His children and their spouses groaned as they ate. His grandchildren might have been a swarm of locusts. Lucien marveled that they left any of the cake undevoured.

  "Now," Nicole said briskly, "presents."

  Galtier tried to wave them away. "That I am here with my family is enough-more than enough," he said. Nobody listened to him. He hadn't thought anyone would. Now that he'd made the protest, he could enjoy his gifts and not be thought greedy.

  From Charles, he got a soft tweed jacket better suited to a gentleman of leisure than to a working farmer. That was how it seemed to him, anyhow. But Йloise said, "It's perfect to wear to a dance." He hadn't thought of that. Once she said it, though, he saw she was right.

  Georges gave him a fancy pipe and some even fancier tobacco. When he opened the tin, the rich fragrance filled the room. "Calisse," he said reverently. "That smells so good, I won't even have to smoke it… And what's this?"

  This came from Nicole and Leonard O'Doull. It was a big bottle of real Calvados, not the imitations turned out by local craftsmen who didn't care for the Republic of Quebec's tedious excise-tax regulations. " 'This fine brandy is patronized by his Majesty, King Charles XI, King of France,' " Galtier read from the label.

  "Mais certainement," his son-in-law said. "I personally wrestled this very bottle from King Charles' own hands."

  "You certainly are a muttonhead," Lucien said.

  Йloise Granche gave him a maroon wool sweater. Everyone said it was very handsome. Again, Lucien thought it finer than what he usually wore, but it was thick and warm. It would do nicely in spring and fall and, under a coat, in wintertime, too. "I hope you like it," Йloise said.

  "I do, very much," he said. "It is always pleasant when a friend thinks of me." He spoke with a straight face. Йloise nodded. So did Galtier's children and their spouses. Most of his grandchildren were too young to care one way or the other. Decorum was preserved.

  Later, when he was carrying booty out to the Chevrolet, Йloise said, "Could you give me a ride back to my house, cher Lucien? I would not care to impose on Dr. O'Doull to drive me both ways."

  "It would be no trouble at all," Leonard O'Doull said politely.

  "No, no, don't put yourself to the trouble," Galtier said. "Everyone has done so much for me today. It would be my pleasure to do this." His son-in-law let himself be persuaded.

  "I hope you had a happy birthday," Йloise said as they rolled out of Riviиre-du-Loup and into the countryside.

  "Very happy." Now Lucien could admit it. He chuckled. "I have not had a surprise party since I was eight years old."

  When they pulled up in front of her house, she smiled and asked, "And is there anything else you might like for your birthday?"

  "It could be," he said. "Yes, it could be." They went inside together.

  Except from the roof of the U.S. embassy, the Stars and Stripes had not flown in Richmond for almost eighty years. Only a handful of ancient men and women remembered the days when Virginia was one of the United States. Now, though, as Jake Featherston waited in the June heat inside the railroad station to receive the special train southbound from Washington, U.S. and C.S. flags flew side by side throughout the Confederate capital. No president of the United States had ever made an official visit to Richmond… till now.

  Featherston wore the uniform of a Freedom Party guard, almost identical in cut and color to that of the Confederate Army. The summer-weight cotton cloth was cooler and more comfortable than a suit would have been. With Jake's rangy height, the uniform was also much more impressive on him.

  Photographers snapped away. Newsreel cameras ground out footage. Reporters waited for quotes. Jake reminded himself that he had to be extra careful about what he did and said in public. The Confederate press crews would make him look and sound the way he and Saul Goldman thought he should. The crews from the USA were a different story, though. Half-more than half-of them were here hoping to see him look and sound like a fool. And he couldn't keep them out of the CSA, not when President Smith was coming. Just have to be smarter than they are, he thought, and smiled a little nastily. Shouldn't be hard.

  A stalwart in white shirt and butternut trousers put down a telephone and hurried over to him. "The train's about two minutes away, boss," he said.

  "Thanks, Ozzie," Jake answered. The stalwart drew back. Are you loyal? Featherston wondered. Are you really loyal? Ever since Willy Knight tried to do him in, he'd wondered about almost everyone around him-everyone except Ferd Koenig and Saul Goldman and a handful of other old campaigners. He'd chosen his new vice president, a senator from Tennessee named Donald Partridge, not least because Don was an amiable nonentity who couldn't hope to threaten him.

  Here came Al Smith's train. Schoolchildren on the platform started waving the Stars and Stripes and the Stars and Bars. A military band struck up "The Battle Cry of Freedom," a tune both sides had used-with different lyrics-during the War of Secession.

  The train came to a stop. A colored attendant brought up the little stepped platform people used to descend to the station. Freedom Party guards-not stalwarts, who were less likely to be trustworthy-with submachine guns fanned out to make sure there were no unfortunate international incidents. The door to Smith's Pullman car opened. The first men out were the U.S. president's bodyguards. They wore civilian suits, not butternut uniforms, but otherwise were stamped from the same hard-faced mold as the Freedom Party men.

  When President Smith himself emerged, the band began to play "The Star-Spangled Banner," a tune heard as seldom in Richmond as the Stars and Stripes were seen. Under a jaunty fedora, Smith's hair was snow white. He looked older and wearier than Jake Featherston had expected. But he managed a smile for the swarm of cameramen and reporters, and walked up to Jake with a friendly nod. "Pleased t'meetcha, Mr. President," he said.

  "Right pleased to meet you, too, Mr. President," Jake answered. Flash photographs and the newsreel cameras recorded their handshake for posterity. Jake had heard Al Smith on the wireless and in newsreels. He'd found the other president's New York City accent hard to follow then. It proved no easier in person. Smith highlighted sounds anyone from the Confederate States would have swallowed, and chopped up what a Confederate would have stretched out.

  "Looking forward to hashing things out wit' you," Smith said.

  "Welcome to Richmond," Featherston said. "About time we did sit down and talk face to face. Best way to settle things." Best way for you to give me what I want.

  "You betcha," Smith said. Jake took that to be agreement. The military band switched from the U.S. national anthem to "Dixie." President Smith took off his hat and stood at attention.

  Also at attention beside him, Jake Featherston admitted to himself it was a nice touch. When the Confederate anthem ended, Jake said, "Shall we go on to the Gray House and do a little horse-trading?"

  "That's a deal," Al Smith said.

  Surrounded by bodyguards from both countries-who eyed one another almost as warily as they examined bystanders-the two presidents went out to Featherston's new limousine. The previous motorcar had been armored. This one could have been a barrel, except it didn't have a turret. Anyone who tried to murder the president of the CSA while he was in it was wasting his time.

  Unfortunately, with the thick windows rolled up, traveling in the limousine was about as hot a
s traveling in a barrel. Al Smith promptly rolled his down a few inches. "They want to take a shot at me, they can take a shot at me," he said. "At least I won't roast."

  "Suits me." Jake did his best to stay nonchalant. His guards and Smith's were probably all having conniptions. Well, too damn bad, he thought.

  The parade route from the station to the Gray House jogged once. That way, Smith-and the reporters with him-didn't see the damage from an auto bomb Red Negroes had set off two days before. Featherston hated the black man who'd come up with that tactic. It did a lot of damage, it spread even more fear, and it was damned hard to defend against. Too many Negroes, too many motorcars-how could you check them all? You couldn't, worse luck.

  If President Smith noticed the jog, he was too polite to say so. He smiled out at the flag-waving children and adults lining the route. "Nice crowd," he said, with no trace of irony Featherston could hear. Did that mean he didn't realize they'd been specially brought out for the occasion? Jake hoped so.

  When they got to the Gray House, Smith stared at it with interest. Comparing it to the White House, Jake thought, or to that place in Philadelphia.

  They posed for more pictures in the downstairs reception hall, and then in Jake's office. Then they shooed the photographers out of the room. "Care for a drink before we get down to business?" Featherston asked. He'd heard Al Smith could put it away pretty good, and he wasn't so bad himself.

  "Sure. Why not?" the president of the USA said.

  A colored servant brought a bottle of hundred-proof bourbon, some ice cubes, and two glasses. Jake did the honors himself. He raised his glass to Al Smith. "Mud in your eye," he said. They both drank.

  "Ah!" Smith said. "That's the straight goods." He took another sip. Anyone that whiskey didn't faze had seen the bottom of more than one glass in his day, sure as hell.

  After Featherston poured refills, he said, "You know what I want, Mr. President. You know what's right, too, by God." As far as he was concerned, the two were one and the same. "Let the people choose. We'll take our chances with that."

  "And in the meantime, you'll keep murdering anybody in Kentucky and Houston who doesn't go along," Smith said.

  "We haven't got anything to do with that." Jake lied without compunction.

  The president of the USA let out a laugh that was half a cough. "My ass."

  Featherston blinked. Nobody'd come right out and called him a liar for a long time. He said, "You're just afraid of a plebiscite on account of you know what'll happen."

  "If I was afraid of a plebiscite, I wouldn't be here," Al Smith answered. "But if we go that way, I've got some conditions of my own."

  "Let's hear 'em," Jake said. Maybe he wouldn't be able to grab everything on the table. If he got it served to him course by course, though, that would do.

  "First thing is, no bloodshed in the time before the plebiscite," Smith said. "If people are going to vote, let 'em vote without being afraid."

  "If you call a plebiscite, I expect the folks in the occupied states will be happy enough to go along with that," Featherston said at once. He could rein in most of his people, and say the ones he didn't rein in weren't his fault. Besides, everybody knew by now what the Freedom Party could do. It wouldn't have to add much more in the runup to a plebiscite to keep the message fresh.

  "All right. Number two, then," Al Smith said. "You want the people to vote, the people should vote. All the people-everybody over twenty-one in Houston and Kentucky and Sequoyah."

  "I've been saying that all along," Jake answered. Despite his thunderings, he didn't know if he would win in Sequoyah. Settlers from the USA had flooded into it since the war. Before, the Confederates had kept white settlement slow out of deference to the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians, who'd helped so much in the War of Secession. The United States had always been hard on Indians, which was why the Creeks and the Cherokees and the rest were so loyal to the CSA.

  But President Smith shook his head. "I don't think you get it. When I say everybody, I mean everybody. Whites and Negroes."

  "Whites and Negroes?" Jake was genuinely shocked. That hadn't even occurred to him. "Niggers've never been able to vote in the CSA. They sure as hell won't vote once they come back, either. Hell, they can't vote in those states now."

  "They'll vote in the plebiscite," Smith said. "They've got surnames these days. We can keep track of 'em, make sure it's fair and honest. They aren't slaves any more. In the USA, they're citizens, even if they don't vote. If they're going to change countries, they have to be able to help make the choice."

  Jake considered. Smith had neatly turned the tables on him. He'd been yelling, Let the people vote! Now Smith said, Let all the people vote! How could he say no to that without looking like a fool? He couldn't, and he knew it. "All right, goddammit," he ground out. That made Sequoyah even iffier, but he didn't think it would hurt-except as far as precedent went-in Kentucky or Houston.

  Smith seemed a little surprised he'd accepted, even if grudgingly. He gave his next condition: "Any state that changes hands stays demilitarized for twenty-five years."

  "That's a bargain." Jake didn't hesitate for even a moment there. He knew he would break the deal inside of twenty-five days. He could always manufacture incidents to give him an excuse-or maybe, if the blacks got uppity, he wouldn't have to manufacture any. "What else?"

  "These have to be your last demands as far as territorial changes go," Smith said. That would leave the United States with part of Virginia, part of Arkansas, part of Sonora-maybe enough to claim they'd still made a profit on the war.

  "Well, of course," Featherston said, again without hesitation. If I get that much, I'll get the rest, too-you bet I will. "Anything else?"

  "Yes-one more thing," the U.S. president said. "We can announce an agreement now, but I don't think the vote itself oughta come before 1941. We should have a proper campaign-let both sides be heard."

  "What?" Featherston frowned, wondering what sort of fast one Smith was trying to pull there. Then, suddenly, he laughed. Al Smith would run for reelection in November. He wanted to be able to say he'd made peace with the Confederate States, but he didn't want to have to hand over any territory to them before Election Day. Afterwards, he'd have plenty of time to repair the damage. He thinks so, anyway. "All right, Mr. President," Jake said. "You've got yourself a deal."

  XV

  Anne Colleton had heard that people danced in the streets in Richmond when Woodrow Wilson declared war on the United States. Now the newsboys here shouted, "Plebiscite!" — and people danced in the street. Maybe that was because they thought there wouldn't be a war now. But maybe-and, odds were, more likely-it was because they thought the Confederate States would finally get back what they'd lost in the war.

  She thought as much herself. She felt proud of herself for backing the right horse. Before the Freedom Party came to power, who would have believed the United States would ever even think of turning loose the lands they'd stolen from the CSA? But the stolen states had grown too hot to hold on to; the United States kept burning their fingers. And if that wasn't Jake Featherston's doing, whose was it? The right horse, sure enough, Anne thought smugly.

  Celebrations in Capitol Square, across the street from Ford's Hotel, were noisy enough to keep her awake at night. She hadn't thought of that when she checked in. There were, of course, plenty of worse problems to have, even if she needed her sleep more regularly than she had when she was younger.

  She was in Richmond to pay a call on the French embassy. Some of the men with whom she'd conferred in Paris years before had risen in prominence since. She could talk with one of them informally but still leave him certain he understood where the Confederate government stood. She hadn't had much chance to speak French lately, but she expected her accent wouldn't be too barbarous.

  Across from the French embassy east of Capitol Square stood the much bigger building housing the U.S. embassy. A man-high fence of pointed iron palings protected the neoclassical white marble p
ile above which flew the Stars and Stripes. Anne understood why the U.S. embassy needed that kind of protection. How many times had her countrymen wanted to give it what they thought it deserved?

  But not today. Today people cheered the U.S. military guards in their green-gray uniforms. The guards stood impassive at the entrance to the embassy. Their faces showed nothing of what they were thinking. All the same, Anne wondered what that would be. How happy did the prospect of a plebiscite in the annexed states make them?

  Not very, I hope.

  Colonel Jean-Henri Jusserand had been French military attachй in the Confederate States since sailing across the Atlantic with Anne aboard the Charles XL "So good to see you again, Mademoiselle Colleton," he said, bowing over her hand. "It has been too long a time."

  "Yes, I think so, too," she said. "I hope you are well?"

  "I must confess, the weather here in summer is a trial," Jusserand replied. "Other than that, though, yes, thank you. And I must also say that I am full of admiration for the extraordinary achievement of your government. C'est formidable!"

  "Merci beaucoup," Anne said. "I hope that France will soon have similar good fortune with respect to Alsace and Lorraine."

  Colonel Jusserand's narrow, intelligent face twisted. "Who can say? The Germans delay and delay. They delay endlessly. And we cannot even tax them for it overmuch, for the Kaiser delays dying. He delays and delays, delays- almost-endlessly. And while he is dying, what can be decided? Why, nothing, of course."

  "There are ways to make them decide," Anne murmured.

  "To go to war, do you mean?" the military attachй asked. Anne nodded. Jusserand sighed. "It is not so simple. I wish it were, but it is not. We have to know what the English will do, and the Russians, and the Italians. Until we are sure, how can we move? The Boches have beaten us twice in a lifetime. If we lose for a third time, we are ruined forever."

  "When we came across the Atlantic from France to the Confederate States a few years ago, your country was ahead of mine," Anne said. "You poked and prodded at the Germans, while we could not do much with the United States. Things are different now. C'est dommage."