Under the Yoke

by S. M. Stirling

  The paper was the New Territories Herald; about sixty pages, and more like an Army field-rag than a civilian newspaper, say something on the order of the Star-Spangled Banner he'd read in the Pacific. Logical: most of the Citizens in the conquered lands would still be military, or on some sort of official business, administrative or economic. He scanned the leading stories:

  FAMINE IN RUSSIA OVER

  Command sources indicate that the food distribution program has now reached most of the remaining population centers; grain production should reach sufficient levels with two years to discontinue .

  MEDITERRANEAN PROJECT AUTHORIZED

  Energy Combine spokeswoman Marie Kaine today announced that preliminary studies have confirmed the techno-economic feasibility of a large hydro-electric project in the straits of Gibraltar. "It will actually be more on the nature of a huge bridge rather than a dam, an arched structure that will be a virtual city in itself, supported by an openwork lattice descending to great depths. There are currents in both directions at different levels, and modularized power units, large low-speed turbines, will be added in series over a long period. The temperature differentials at various depths will also supply energy, and there are obvious aqua-cultural and industrial applications. The Dardanelles Project is a model, of course, but the Gibraltar complex will be of a new order of magnitude. We estimate a labor force in the 2,000,000-6,000,000 range, and thirty to forty years for the first phase alone. While the general concept is undoubtedly sound, I expect to spend the rest of my career troubleshooting this one."

  BUSHMAN ACTIVITIES IN LYON

  Kustaa tensed, hid his reaction with a cough. Two days, he thought. I would have expected them to keep it quiet longer. On the other hand… yes, the Citizen population was simply too small to keep the ordinary sort of secret well. Too stubborn as well: they were disciplined enough but lacked the sort of meekness that obeyed bureaucratic dictates without question. He read quickly; just an acknowledgment that sensitive materials had been attacked in transit, the safe-house of a resistance cell raided, and…

  … suspicion of Alliance involvement. "We caught some of them," Strategos Felix Vashon of the Security Directorate assured our reporter.

  "Right now they're telling us everything they know and some things they didn't know they knew. Soon we'll catch the others—this meddling Yankee, too, if that turns out to be the truth—and they can join their friends. My people are experts; we can keep them all alive, sane and screaming for weeks. By the time we impale them, they'll consider it a mercy."

  The editors of the Herald wish Strategos Vashon all success in tracking down the last of the Bushmen, and making Europe a place fit for the Race's habitation.

  Not as bad as it could have been, he thought with relief. Thank God for the cell-system and Resistance paranoia. Of course, the ones who had survived this long, first the Gestapo and now the Security Directorate, had to be paranoids. Blinking his way back from his thoughts, he noticed the flavor of the omelet on his fork; superb, a little too spicy but very good. The bacon was not smoked with anything like hickory, and the sausages had a trifle too much garlic, but both would do.

  A grim smile; the spy heroes of the films he had seen rarely enjoyed breakfast on enemy territory, they were too busy dodging the invariably stupid machinations of the villains. His experience of clandestine operations was rapidly confirming that espionage fiction bore about the same relationship to reality as the war films he had seen in the Corps. And he fondly remembered joining a mob of enraged Gyrenes at a rest center wrecking a projector and screen after those USO morons tried to show what was left of an assault battalion Jason Waggen in Hills of New Guinea. Not that they would have appreciated a realistic war film—what they wanted was a nice light comedy with lots of leggy showgirls and music—but the heroic speeches and neatly photogenic casualties had been just too much.

  Of course, those fictional heroes could also afford to spit in the interrogator's eye as the hot irons came out, because something always rescued them at the last moment, or their captors would stand cackling and spouting all their secrets before the dashing adventurer grabbed their gun… Kustaa took a last bite of buttered croissant, touched his coffee cup for a refill and leaned back with a slight belch. I must have gained six pounds, even with all the running, he thought. Funny, you never see a fat Draka.

  There was a sharp clacking from the courtyard below. Then again, not so funny. Two of them were practicing there, stick-fighting on the tiled stretch just in from the colonnade that ran along the inner edge of the building. Not the ones he had been introduced to, so they were probably overseers. A short squat dark-haired man and a taller woman with reddish-brown curls cut close to her head; both stripped to trousers and singlets, the thin fabric clinging to their sweat-slick bodies. Swinging fighting-sticks in each hand, meter-long ebony rods with rounded steel tips. Swift flicking strikes, thrusts and darting slashes that blurred the night-colored wood and would have crushed bone and ruptured organs if they had landed.

  Fast, God, but they're fast, he thought enviously. Another form dashed out from the exercise-room beneath his feet. Anonymous in unarmed-combat armor of brown leather and padding and steel; it dove forward on its forearms and kicked back with both feet. The one following was only a flicker before it flew back out of sight with a crash. He recognized Tanya as she went into a forward roll and twisted back the way she had come; just barely in time, as her husband followed in a huge bounding leap that ended with a side-kick and his heel driven into her midriff. Their feet and hands were thickly padded, the armor over the stomach strong, but Kustaa was still surprised to the edge of shock to hear no more than a hufff! of exhaled breath as the woman was knocked back half a dozen feet.

  She backrolled half a dozen times and came to her feet to meet Edward's attack; for twenty seconds they fought almost in place, hands, feet, knees, elbows, blocking and striking almost too fast for the American's trained attention to follow. Pankration was what they called it, the classical Greek term for all-in wrestling-boxing, although it was an outgrowth of Draka contacts with the far east in the 1880s. He could see the origins of the style in the Oriental schools he had studied, but this level of skill could only be learned by continuous training from babyhood. And we have better things to do with our lives, he thought. Furthermore, the Way of the Gun beat the Way of the Empty Hand every time, in his opinion. Automatic weapons at two hundred paces, that's my preference.

  It was functional, though, he supposed. Serfs rarely confronted their masters with weapons in hand, and on a subconscious level a demonstration of personal deadliness was probably more daunting than weapons, no matter that the firearm was so much more objectively destructive. Just as a rifle with a bayonet could drive back a crowd better than the rifle alone, even though the blade added little to actual combat effectiveness. A fresh clatter broke into his thoughts; the owners of the plantation were down on the ground now, rolling, close-quarter work, driving knuckles at pressure-points and trying for choke or breaking holds. Weight and strength told more in grappling style, and Edward called victory with clawed fingers in a position that would have ripped out his wife's windpipe in true combat.

  They pulled off their helmets of padding and steel bars and kissed.

  "Not bad fo' a turtle-minded tanker," he heard the man say.

  "Pretty dam' good fo' someone who trained to crawl through ditches an' listen at windows," she replied, as they both shoulder-rolled to their feet.

  "Mistah Kenston!" she called up to him. "Good mornin'; see yo' in half an hour!"

  The two Draka were shedding their padding and clothes, tossing them aside with the casual unconcern of those raised to expect things to be picked up, cleaned and neatly replaced by ever-attentive hands. Kustaa remembered his own mother's weariness after he and Dad came back from the fields, keeping house for a family of six far from electricity and the sort of money that bought appliances. Bastards, he thought. They were trotting down to the marble beach; Edward swep
t the woman up in his arms and began to run, clearing a stone table with an easy raking stride. At the edge he halted and threw her; Tanya twisted in midair and hit the surface with a clean dive, her blurred form swimming out underwater for a dozen yards.

  The overseers joined Kustaa at the table, freshly washed and dressed in long robes. Any more of this and we'll look like a Southern Baptist's idea of the Last Supper, Kustaa thought irritably. The man was wearing an earring and bracelets, too, one joined to his thumb-ring by a silver chain; it still looked unnatural to see men wearing jewelry. A rueful glance down at his own clothes; loose indigo-blue trousers with gold embroidery down the seams, ruffled shirt, string tie with a jeweled clasp, black silk-velvet jacket with broad lapels edged in silver-gilt, buckled shoes. He had drawn the line at the diamond ear-studs the outfitting section back at OSS HQ tried to insist on, but there was no alternative to the floppy-brimmed hat with the side-clasp and spray of peacock feathers; the only really comfortable item was the gunbelt. At least he didn't have to wear that to breakfast.

  I look like the most dangerous goddam pansy in the world, the thought. The overseers were making conversation among themselves, tactfully including him when replies could be limited to yes-no. Making conversation about this party coming up, and the impending harvest; it was late this year, evidently the spring had been cold and the summer delayed. Once he was jarred by a question about Alexandria, his supposed hometown, but the Draka answered it herself after his noncommital grunt. They were going to have to get more agents trained in Draka speech-patterns; the trouble was that the ones who could pass even casually for Citizens were so few. The dialect was not really all that much like American Southern, either: derived from the same roots, but a hundred and fifty years made a lot of difference. Not to mention the regional variation; he could tell the two overseers came from separate areas, but…

  Two of the von Shrakenberg children joined them, a tow-headed boy and a girl of the same age with freckles and red braids; disturbing—it was easier to think of Draka as adult monsters. Then the master and mistress themselves…

  They halted by the servants' table, Edward only long enough to sign Ernst over to his "master's" chair; Tanya stopped and spoke to the French girl. Girl? Kustaa thought. She looked young, with that clear porcelain skin, on the other hand… The conversation was in French. His own command of the language was rather good, and he strained unobtrusively to hear over the sounds of wind and water.

  "… lonely, Mistress," the serf was saying. "My bad dreams again."

  Tanya ruffled her hair. "I do have to sleep with my husband occasionally, you know, my sweet. Tonight, then; the day will be a busy one."

  Does that mean what I think— Kustaa's thought began. Then they kissed, and he managed to avoid staring. Jesus, they're french-kissing, he thought, halfway between fascination and disgust. Reaching for another croissant, he used the movement to glance aside at Edward; the Draka had looked up from his newspaper and smiled, proud and fond, before glancing down again.

  "Glad they've approved that Gibraltar thing," he remarked to his wife. Then: "See yo've got yorn mo' enthusiastic about domestic duties than I've ever managed on mine."

  "That's because yo're a man and therefore crude, love," she said with a grin. "But keep tryin', by all means." He laughed and kissed her fingers, then turned to Kustaa.

  "We 'spect to be rather busy, today, Mr. Kenston," he said affably. "Guests should be arrivin' any minute—"

  "Speak of the devil," the male overseer remarked, and jerked his head to the east.

  Two black dots coming in low and fast: twin-engine small planes. Engine-roar grew swiftly, and they flashed by overhead; one began to circle, while the other drove across the chateau again at barely rooftop level and began a series of wild-looking acrobatics, looping and turning.

  "My cousin Johanna," Tanya said. "Ace pilot durin' the War, an' never lets yo' fo'get it." She snapped her fingers and the mulatto girl came running. "Yasmin, up to the radio room an' have the operator tell 'em where the landin' field is."

  Kustaa signed at Ernst. "My master asks," the Austrian said, "if you have landing facilities, Masters."

  "Why yes," Edward said. " 'bout two kilometers north, there were some buildin's suitable fo' light hangars. Up near our primary wine-cellars an' the shelter."

  "Shel-ter?" Kustaa asked in his own gravelly "voice."

  "Oh, the War Directorate's insistin'," Tanya said with an expression of distaste. "Good idea, I suppose, but… shelter from radioactivity, in case o' war with the Yankees. Underground, industrial strength fuel-cell, air filters, food an' water, so forth. Jus' fo' the family an' some key serfs to start, eventually fo' everyone. Hopes to God we nevah have to use the damn thing."

  "Amen," Edward said. "Though at least we didn't have to put it in ourselves. Public Works Directorate did it, nice neat job, reinforced concrete shell an' doors from an old French cruiser. Pretty well all local materials an' labor, come to that."

  Kustaa signed. "My master says you seem to be making rapid progress. Masters," Ernst said.

  "Very," Tanya replied, taking a second helping of the grits. "Almighty Thor, but I missed these while I was expectin'. Mo, coffee, Francois… Yes, very rapid. Troublesome, conquerin' an advanced area like Europe, but there are compensations. Got the road net intact, fo one; that saved us ten years. Local supplies of skilled labor, an electric power grid needin' only a little fixin'… well, yo' know."

  Kustaa nodded and accepted a slim brown cigarillo. A nursemaid had pushed out a double stroller with the youngest von Shrakenbergs, to be dandled and appropriately exclaimed over; the American carefully shut his mind to how much the wiggling forms resembled any children.

  "Now," Edward said. "As I was sayin' we're goin' to be ferocious busy, Mr. Kenston. But Tanya has volunteered to give yo' a quick once-over of our art collection, if yo'd like."

  The woman sighed, opening a cablegram. "I'm the resident appraiser, fo' my sins. We got a fair bit in Paris; that's another benefit of conquerin' wealthy countries, they have more worth stealin ." That sally brought a general chuckle; Kustaa managed to join in.

  "Darlin'!" Tanya exclaimed suddenly, the hard tanned face turning radiant. "It's from Alexandra! They can make it!" Politely, she explained to Kustaa: "Yo' know, the Alexandra from my 'Alexandra Portraits,' my lover in school, the exhibition I won my first Archon's Prize with?"

  The American nodded, his grin going fixed. Christ, these people are strange, ran through him. And: I'm supposed to be an art expert! with a trace of panic. Running into what was evidently a well-known painter was just the sort of lousy break in his luck that was due, by now.

  "And she's been pesterin' me ever since the war to do a new portrait, one so people won't think of her stuck at seventeen fo'ever, after all she's older than me an' a responsible official with four childer, but we've never had time to do another study." A sigh, and she looked down at the paper with a slightly misty-eyed smile. "Ah, youth, sad an' sweet."

  Kustaa coughed, and signed again. "My master says, thank you very much," Ernst followed fluently, almost a simultaneous translation. "But he has several crates of selected pictures ready for shipment in Paris. Presently he is rounding-off this trip by acquiring antique jewelry?"

  "Hmmm," Edward said doubtfully. "We're anxious to cash in some of the paintin's fo' want of space. The jewelry, what we're not keepin', takes no space to mention an' can only appreciate, market's glutted right now." Tanya nodded; they both glanced at him, concerned to make his visit a productive one.

  More signs. "My master says, thank you, a few days relaxation is what he principally needs, he grows tired more easily these days." Nods of sympathy. "If, perhaps, you could show him some of the estate—particularly the winery, my masters, he would appreciate the kindness?"

  "No problem't'all," Tanya said decisively. "Goin' up there now anyways." She rose, dusting off her hands and chamois breeches. "Glad of yo' company, Mr. Kenston."

  They were almo
st to the main doors when the stout blond serf stopped the Landholder of Chateau Retour.

  "I have those seating plans you wished. Mistress," she said. The accent was unusual, not French or even German, despite the transpositions of "w" and "v"; singsong and heavy at the same time. Kustaa's mind struggled to place it, the automatic filing process that kept covert-ops personnel alive; languages were his tools as a spy, as much as his rifle had been as a Marine, and he was good with both. He snapped mental fingers. Kowalski had the same accent! The big coal-country Polack, the one who'd gotten the Bronze Star on Bougainville for taking out the Nip machine-gun…

  Polish. His eyes snapped back to her; in her thirties, about one-fifty pounds, five-three, built like a Slavic draft-horse, flat face and ash-pale Baltic hair… and something about the eyes that reminded him of Kowalski, or Sergeant McAllistair, or even himself, sometimes. Longer skirt than any he had seen here, long sleeves, rosary and cross at her belt…

  "Not now," the Draka was saying, when Kustaa touched her on the arm.

  "Ex-cuse," he said, jerking a suitably casual thumb toward the serf woman. "Po-lish?"

  Tanya stopped, swung round to nod. "Yes, though we picked her up here. Met her in Poland… long story, tell yo later, Mr. Kenston. Nun, oddly enough; name's Marya, Sister Marya. Bit set in her ways, but a good hard-workin' wench; my head bookkeeper an' clerk."

  Jesus fucking Christ, my contact! ran though Kustaa like a song of exultation. Patience evaporated in a fury of calculation: perhaps his luck had not quite reached the turning point. Radio, airfield, hiding-place… and his contact, who could put them all together. Wait a minute. He rearranged his face, conscious that at least something had shown; they were both looking at him a little oddly. I've got to talk to her, somehow. Privately, with no possibility of interruption, so that he could give her the recognition-code that must be kept secret. The way occurred to him; he almost gagged, but it was necessary. The Sister would have a bad time of it, but only until the door was closed, after all…