The Victorious opposition ae-3

by Harry Turtledove

  "Sir, if you think I'm happy to be right, you're wrong," Sam said. "What happens if they do go in?"

  Commander Cressy shrugged. "I don't know. I hope President Smith does. He'd better. Somebody had better, anyhow."

  "If they go in, won't it take a war to get them out?" That was Lieutenant Commander Hiram Pottinger, Carsten's superior on the damage-control party.

  Nobody in the officers' mess said anything for some little while after that. They knew what war meant. Not many of them besides Sam had served in the Great War, but they'd all been through the inconclusive Pacific War against Japan.

  "A lot will depend on what happens in Europe," Commander Cressy said.

  "France is starting to whoop and holler about Alsace and Lorraine," Sam said meditatively. "I saw an Action Franзaise riot before those boys came to power. I don't think they'll take no for an answer. They're just as sure they've got God on their side as Jake Featherston is."

  "And the Russians are squawking about Poland, and they're starting to squawk about the Ukraine, too," Cressy said. "And the limeys are growling at the micks, and ain't we got fun?"

  Sam sighed. He wished for a cigarette, but the smoking lamp was out. "We're going to hell in a handbasket all over again," he said. "Didn't anybody learn anything the last time around?"

  "I'll tell you one thing we didn't learn," the Remembrance's exec said. "We didn't learn to make sure the sons of bitches who lost took so many lumps, they couldn't get back up on their feet and have another try. And I'm afraid we're going to have to pay for it."

  Lieutenant Commander Pottinger said, "They've learned something in South America, anyhow. Argentina and the Empire of Brazil are cuddling up, even if Argentina and Chile are yelling again."

  "Sir, that's good news for Britain, not for us," Carsten said. "If there is a war, it means Brazil will let Argentina ship food through its territorial waters and then make the short hop across the Atlantic to French West Africa, same as happened the last time."

  "How do you know so much about that?" Commander Cressy asked, as if to say, You're a mustang, so you're not supposed to know much of anything.

  "Sir, I was there, in the Dakota," Sam answered. Cressy was a young hotshot. He had more book learning and learned faster than anyone Sam had ever seen. If war did come, he would likely have flag rank by the time it was done, assuming he lived. But he did sometimes forget that people could also learn by good, old-fashioned experience.

  The other side of the coin was, Sam had only been a petty officer then. Officers also had the unfortunate habit of believing that men who weren't didn't know anything. (Petty officers, of course, were just as sure that officers' heads either had nothing in them or were full of rocks.)

  "We can lick the Confederates," Pottinger said. "We did it before, and this time we won't have to take on Canada, too."

  Everyone in the mess nodded. Somebody-Sam didn't see who-said, "Goddamn Japs'll try and sucker punch us in the Pacific when we're busy close to home."

  More nods. Sam said, "They did that in the last war-the last big war, I mean. I was there for that, too."

  Something in his tone made Commander Cressy's gaze sharpen. "The Dakota was the ship that went on that wild circle through the Battle of the Three Navies, wasn't she?"

  "Yes, sir," Carsten said. "One of the hits we took jammed our steering, so all we could do was circle-either that or stand still, and the Japs or the limeys would have blown us out of the water if we had."

  "You've had an… interesting career, haven't you?" the exec said.

  "Sir, I've been lucky," Sam answered. "Closest I came to buying a plot was from the Spanish influenza after the war. That almost did me in. Otherwise, hardly a scratch."

  "They tried taking the Sandwich Islands away from us in the Pacific War." Hiram Pottinger went on with the main argument: "Odds are the bastards will try it again. And if they do, the Pacific coast had better look out."

  Nobody argued with him. After the wake-up call the Japanese had given Los Angeles in 1932, nobody could. They'd built their Navy to fight far out into the Pacific, and so had the United States. If the two countries ever went at each other with everything they had…

  "If we go at the Japs full bore, instead of doing a half-assed job of it the way we did the last time, we'll lick 'em," Sam said.

  Commander Cressy nodded. "If we could do that, we would," he said. "But if we're at war with Japan any time soon, we're also likely to be at war with the Confederate States. And if we're at war with the CSA, we aren't going to be able to hit the Japs with everything we've got. And they've built up a tidy little empire for themselves since the last war."

  That was true enough. Japan had owned Chosen, Formosa, and the Philippines going into the Great War. Since then, she'd gained a lot of influence in China and quietly acquired Indochina from France and the oil-rich East Indies from Holland. In the aftermath of defeat, Britain hadn't been able to do anything but grumble and hope she could hold on to Malaya and Singapore if she ever got on Japan's bad side. But, since the limeys and the Japs both worried about the USA, they put up with each other.

  "If they hit us again, those sons of bitches are going to put a rock in their fist," somebody predicted gloomily.

  "Well, gentlemen, that's why we wear the uniform." Commander Cressy got to his feet. He was always sharply turned out. Sam envied him the knife-edged creases in his trousers. His own clothes were clean, but they weren't what you'd call pressed. Neither were those of anybody else in the officers' mess-except the exec's. Cressy nodded to the other men and left, ignoring the ship's motion with the air of a man who'd known worse.

  Sam stayed long enough to drink another cup of coffee. Then he left the mess, too. As often happened, the officers' bull session went aimless and foolish without Cressy's sharp wit to steer it along. The exec also had the rank to make that wit felt. Sam thought he might have done some steering, too, but he was junior in grade, too damn old, and a mustang to boot. Nobody would take him seriously.

  More than a little wistfully, he went up to the flight deck. He wished he had more to do with sending airplanes off into battle. That was why he'd wanted to serve on the Remembrance in the first place. He'd done good work, useful work, in damage control since returning to the ship as an officer. He knew that. He was even proud of it. But it still wasn't what he wanted to be doing.

  Mechanics in coveralls had the cowl off a fighter's engine. They were puttering with a fuel line, puttering and muttering and now and then swearing like sailors. Funny how that works, Carsten thought, smiling at the bad language that flavored the conversation the way pepper flavored scrambled eggs.

  The fighter itself was a far cry from the wire-and-canvas two-deckers that had flown off the Remembrance when Sam first came aboard her. It was a sleek, aluminum-skinned one-decker with folding wings, so the belowdecks hangar could hold more of its kind. Because of the strengthening it needed to cope with being sent forth with a kick from a catapult and landing with an arrester hook, it was a little heavier and a little slower than a top land-based fighter-a little, but not much.

  Carsten looked out to sea. As always, destroyers shepherded the Remembrance on all sides. The way things were these days, you just couldn't tell. If the Confederates or the limeys wanted to use a submersible to get in a quick knee in the nuts, those destroyers were the ones that would have to make sure they couldn't. He'd served aboard a ship not much different from them. Compared to the Remembrance, they were insanely crowded. They were also much more vulnerable to weather and the sea. But they did a job no other kind of vessel could do.

  For that matter, so did the Remembrance herself. With her aircraft, she could project U.S. power farther than any battleship's big guns. All by herself, she could make the Royal Navy thoughtful about poking its nose into the western Atlantic. Because of that, Sam was surprised when, half an hour later, the carrier suddenly picked up speed-the flight deck throbbed under his feet as the engines began working harder-and swung toward the wes
t. Like any good sheepdogs, the destroyers stayed with her.

  "What's going on, sir?" Sam called to the officer of the deck.

  "Beats me," that worthy replied.

  She kept on steaming west all the rest of that day and into the night. By the time the sun came up astern of her the next morning, rumor had already declared that she was bound for Boston or Providence or New York or Philadelphia or Baltimore to be scrapped or refitted or to have the captain court-martialed or because she was running low on beans. Sam didn't believe the skipper had done anything to deserve a court-martial. Past that, he kept an open mind.

  She turned out to be heading for the Boston Naval Yard. The powers that be admitted as much before she'd been steaming west for a day. They remained close-mouthed about why she'd been called in to port early in her cruise. Maybe she really was running low on beans. Sam couldn't have proved she wasn't. Sailors hoped for shore leave while she stayed in port.

  When she came in, a tugboat guided her into Boston harbor. By the way the tug dodged and zigged, Carsten suspected the minelayers had been busy. That saddened him, but didn't surprise him very much.

  More tugs nudged the Remembrance up against a quay. It was snowing hard, the temperature down close to zero. That didn't keep a swarm of electrician's mates and machinist's mates led by several officers from coming aboard and going straight to work. By all appearances, the refit rumor had been true. But what were the technicians fitting? Sam couldn't figure it out on his own, and nobody seemed willing to talk. Whatever it was, it involved some funny-looking revolving installations atop the island, and a bunch of new gear inside the armored command center. After a little while, Sam stopped asking questions. Whenever he did, people looked at him as if he were a traitor. He went on about his own business and watched from the corner of his eye. Sooner or later, he figured, he'd find out.

  Lucien Galtier stretched uncomfortably as he shooed another hen off the nest to see if she'd laid. She hadn't; his fingers found no new egg. The hen clucked at the indignity. Galtier went on to the next nest. He grunted when he reached into it. The grunt was part satisfaction, for he found an egg there, and part unhappiness, for he still couldn't get rid of the tightness in his chest.

  No help for it. Even if he had pulled something in there, the work didn't go away. He finished gathering eggs, fed the animals and mucked out their stalls, and did everything else in the barn that needed doing. Then he picked up the basket of eggs, pulled his hat down on his forehead, lowered the ear-flaps and tied them under his chin, pulled the thick wool muffler Nicole had knitted up to cover his mouth and nose, and left the barn.

  That first breath of outside air was as bad as he'd known it would be. He might have inhaled a lungful of daggers. It was cold inside the barn with the animals' body heat and an oil heater warming things up and with the wooden walls keeping out wind and snow. Outside, in the space between the barn and the farmhouse, it was a good deal worse than merely cold.

  Snow blew horizontally out of the northwest. It had a good running start by the time it got to his farm. It stung his eyes and tried to freeze them shut. Despite hat and muffler and heavy coat and sweater and stout dungarees and woolen, itchy long johns, the wind started sucking heat from his body the instant it touched him.

  In the swirling white, he could hardly see the house ahead. He'd known worse blizzards, but not many. If he missed the house, he'd freeze out here. That happened to a luckless farmer or two every winter in Quebec.

  Lucien didn't miss. He staggered up the stairs, opened the kitchen door, lurched inside, and slammed it shut behind him. "Calisse!" he muttered. He shook himself like a dog. Snow flew everywhere. The stove was already hot, but he built up the fire in it and stood in front of it, gratefully soaking up the warmth.

  Only after he'd done that did he worry about the clumps of melting snow on the floor. He cleaned up as best he could. Then he went back to the stove and made himself a pot of coffee. He gulped it down as hot as he could stand it. He wanted to be warm inside and out.

  Outside, the wind kept howling. He watched the blowing, swirling whiteness and sent it some thoughts that weren't compliments. There was supposed to be a dance tomorrow night. If the blizzard went on roaring, how would anybody get to it?

  He turned on the wireless set in the front room. The wireless was a splendid companion for a man who lived by himself. It made interesting noise, and he didn't have to respond unless he wanted to. Music poured out of the speaker. Right now, though, he didn't care for music. He changed the station. He wanted to find out whether they were going to get another foot and a half of snow before tomorrow night.

  But the wireless stations blathered on about what they were interested in, not about what he was interested in. That was the drawback of the marvelous machine. He didn't have to respond to it unless he wanted to, but it didn't have to respond to him at all.

  He went from station to station for the next twenty minutes, until the top of the hour, and not one of them seemed the least bit interested in the weather outside. For all they cared, it could have been summer out there, with blue sky and warm sun. It could have been, but he knew it wasn't.

  At the top of the hour, every station gave forth with five minutes of news. It was as if they suddenly remembered they were part of the wider world after all. Lucien listened impatiently to accounts of riots in the Ukraine and Austria-Hungary and celebrations on the border between the United States and the Confederate States. All he wanted was a simple weather report, and nobody seemed willing to give him one.

  Finally, at the very tail end of one of the newscasts, an announcer grudgingly said, "Our storm is expected to blow itself out by this afternoon. Snow will end before nightfall, and tomorrow will be clear and a little warmer." Two sentences, and then the music resumed.

  In January in Quebec, a little warmer didn't mean warm. Lucien knew that all too well. He also knew the weather forecasters lied in their teeth about one time in three. Even so, he had reason to hope. Without hope, what was a man? Nothing worth mentioning.

  Sure enough, that afternoon the wind dropped and the snow stopped falling. The sun came out and peeped around, as if surprised at everything that had happened since the last time it showed its face. It might have been embarrassed at what it saw, for it set half an hour later.

  The night was long and cold, as January nights were. Lucien woke when it was still dark. He threw on his clothes and went out to the outhouse. The sky was brilliantly clear. Ribbons and curtains of aurora blazed in the north. He yawned and nodded, acknowledging that they were there. Then he trudged back to the farmhouse.

  He was eating fried eggs when a snowplow grumbled by. The main road would be clear, then. Who could guess whether the little side roads to Йloise Granche's house would be, though, and the ones from there to the dance?

  "Well," he said, "I will just have to find out."

  Before he could find out, he had to do some shoveling to let his auto get to the main road. That was hard work, and would have been for a man half his age. His heart was pounding before he finished, but finish he did. Under all those layers of warm clothes, sweat ran down his sides. He went back in and heated water for a bath. That helped soak out some of the kinks in his back, though others refused to disappear.

  When evening came, he used a little more hot water, this time for a shave. He scraped his chin and cheeks with a straight razor he'd been using since before the turn of the century. None of these newfangled safety razors and blades for him. He stropped the razor on a thick, smooth piece of leather before it touched his face. If his shave wasn't smooth, he had only himself to blame, not some factory down in the United States.

  He dressed in clothes he might have worn to town: dark trousers, clean white shirt, and his least disreputable hat. The overcoat he put on had seen better days, but overcoats always got a lot of use in Quebec. Whistling a tune he'd heard on the wireless, he went out to the Chevrolet.

  "I want no trouble from you," he told the auto, as if i
t were the horse with which he'd had so many philosophical discussions over the years. The Chevrolet was old, but it knew better than to argue with him. It started right up.

  Despite the snowplow and the rock salt it had laid down, the roads would still be icy. Galtier drove with care, and made sure he kept plenty of room between himself and other motorists-not that many others were out and about. He didn't miss the traffic. He knew he wouldn't be able to stop in a hurry.

  He left the paved road and bumped along rutted dirt lanes till he came to the farm where Йloise Granche lived. The dim, buttery light of kerosene lamps poured out through her windows; she still had no electricity. He stopped the engine, wagged a finger at the Chevrolet to remind it to start up again, and went up the steps and knocked on the door.

  "Hello," she said with a smile. Then she was in his arms and they kissed hungrily for a long time.

  Still holding her, he said, "When we do that, I want to forget all about the dance."

  "We can, if you want to," she answered. "Would you rather just stay here?"

  Regretfully, Galtier shook his head. "That would be a lot of staying for not much staying power, I'm afraid. If I were half my age, I would say yes."

  "If you were half your age, I wouldn't want anything to do with you-not for that, anyhow," Йloise said. "We'll go to the dance, then, and we'll come back, and who knows what will happen after that?"

  "Who indeed?" Lucien kissed her again, then led her out to the motorcar.

  That wagged finger did its job. The auto started up again without any fuss. The dance was at Pierre Turcot's, not far from the little town of St. Modиste. A rowdy sprawl of motorcars and wagons and buggies surrounded Turcot's barn when the Chevrolet pulled up. Lucien handed Йloise out of the motorcar. They went in side by side.

  People waved and called their names and hurried up to greet them. By now, they'd been together long enough that all their neighbors took them for granted. They might almost have been a married couple. Lucien's son Georges was already out on the floor dancing. He waved to Lucien and blew Йloise a kiss.