Under the Yoke

by S. M. Stirling

  "It's that pigdog Vashon; he didn't see me," the German was saying. Jean felt another clear metallic thing go snap behind his eyes, because it was all working just right, just as the Master called Vashon had said it would, the voice that spoke to him from the darkness beyond the blinding light, it always did and the photo landed at his feet and he looked down, no he didn't.

  "Probably just chance he's here, but we've got to be even more careful, Almighty Lord God but he's a cunning devil."

  Not chance; the voice from darkness was strong, it was wise, it would lead him into the newsreel and the ship and the tall fountains of water and the thrown streamers and confetti, where Marie-Claire laughed and did not huddle beside him on the concrete bunk listening to the noises in the dark. The voice knew he was its faithful servant and had come to reward him.

  "But there's one stroke of luck, as good as Vashon is bad: Jules Lebrun is here, he and I were friends in the old days, and he's in on it with the other, the nun. They've arranged to have him on radio-watch during the celebrations tonight, and with him I to 'play chess.' The American will slip away as soon as he can. When the message is received, we will flash the lights three times from the upper window. That gives us an hour before the airplane arrives; you must have the diversion ready, to draw all attention from this place. And the landing lights."

  Henri smiled, nodded. How ugly his teeth, why did I never see that before. "Don't worry," he said, clapping the older man on the shoulder. Disgusting, a Boche, maybe Henri just boasted of fighting them, he ran away and was a collaborator. "We'll be employing our little plastique surprises, they'll be too busy attending to the transformer and their autos to notice a silenced plane. No killings, even, so it shouldn't mean more than a few sore backs among the locals, we'll all be far away in our different directions, no?" He's a coward too, a coward.

  Vashon was here. It would be difficult to slip away, they were all watching him. Perhaps when they went to plant the explosives. The voice from darkness would take away all his sins as he knelt and begged forgiveness. It would wash him clean and it would all be clear in his head, like this.

  "Sounds too good to be true, comrades." Ybarra's voice came from behind his shoulder.

  His own mouth made sounds, and they were clear and good because Henri laughed and nudged him. Die, bitch. Die.

  "Don't call me comrade," Henri was saying, an arm around Jean's shoulders.

  Die.

  "I think," the Austrian replied, resting a hand for a moment on Henri's arm, the woman's shoulder, "we can reclaim that word for all of us. It is a good word, kamerad."

  Jean smiled and said the word. Die. Leave me alone in my head, stop talking to me inside, die.

  Tonight.

  All of you. Die.

  The picture was one of the middle series. Alexandra caught with the discus in her hand, leaning back against the wall with one leg propped up against it. Old stone wall, Mediterranean-white. Strong bare slender foot trailing toes in the white dust, just highlights of the rest, the scratched bronze of the disc, school-tunic, metallic-black of hair, face shadowed by the colored dark of the bougainvillea…

  "I was always too fond of putting flowers in," Tanya said.

  "No," Alexandra replied. They were sitting on the solitary couch in an empty echoing room in the new east wing, the picture propped up before them on a wooden chair. Their arms were over each other's shoulders, the free hands holding cooling late-afternoon glasses of beer. Light scattered through the windows, shafts into darkness, slanting hazy pillars of yellow crossed by the slow white flecks of dust-motes.

  Gods, I'm glad to get away for a while, Tanya thought, and let her head loll back against the high scrollwork back of the seat. The tour of the Quarters had been deadly dull…

  "Still thinkin' 'bout all those old fogies complainin' the serfs would be spoiled with four-room cottages an' runnin' water?" Alexandra said, with a slight teasing note in her voice.

  Tanya turned her head. She's aged well, was her first thought. Better than me. Experience lines beside the eyes that were a blue deeper than indigo, almost black.

  They kissed, drew back and laughed, turning to the painting.

  "No, thinkin' of… back then."

  "Gods bless, it's like rememberin' another universe… What were we goin' to do?"

  "What weren't we? Conquer the world—"

  "About half, it turned out."

  "Paint the most beautiful pictures ever done, design planes to fly to the moon… love like nobody ever had or would."

  "Ah, what happened to us?" Alexandra mused.

  "What didn't? The war. Life. Love, death, victory, defeat, joy, anguish, children… time."

  "There it is, captured fo'ever," the dark-haired woman said. "Not many can say that, Tanya. All the fire an' the sweetness and the old familiar pain…"A sigh. "While we, we're not those two any longer, are we?"

  "No; we're older, sadder, and friends."

  A door slammed and a small figure bounced through, cartwheeling, a flash of orange fire as the hair passed like a bar of flame through a patch of light.

  "Ma, Ma!" Gudrun said, then stopped politely when she saw her mother had company. "Sorry, Ma, ma'am. I'll come back later."

  Alexandra laughed. 'Time takes, time gives. I'd best go see to my own, they've probably burned down half the province an' set sail on yo' yacht to play pirates all the way to Ceylon."

  They touched fingers. "See yo' later, 'zandra," Tanya said.

  "Sholy, Tannie."

  Tanya held up her arm. "Not too old to snuggle with yo' momma?" she said.

  The child settled into the curve of her shoulder, a wiry-hard bundle whose calm trust finished the task of relaxing the tension out of her back. Not too old, she thought. Not yet. Gudrun sighed and yawned, curling up, the bouncing energy suddenly flipping over into sleepy thoughtfulness. How did I feel at her age? How did I think? The effort to recall was maddening, slipping away from the fingers of the mind. A rage, a rage to do, to live, to be… Fragments of memory; holding a dragonfly's wing to the sun and seeing it suddenly as a vast plane of gold ridged with rivers of amber. Lying in her bed alone in the dark and feeling consciousness staggering as she comprehended death for the first time, realized that one day she, herself, the inner I would cease to be. Enormous unappeasable frustration with all-powerful adults who would not, could not understand… things that seemed so clear, but that she could never have put into words.

  Her daughter was looking at the painting. "Did yo' love her, Ma?" she asked.

  Tanya smiled and put down the glass, used the other arm to hold her daughter close. Well, she's getting to the age when your parents' love-lives are troubling mysteries instead of boring grown-up stuff, she thought tenderly.

  "Yes, very much," she said.

  "As… as much as yo' love Pa?" the girl asked.

  "Different, child, different…" How to explain? "Remember what happened when we said yo' were old enough to drink yo' wine unwatered?" Tanya felt the beginnings of an embarrassed squirm.

  "No, don't feel bad, baby, everyone takes a great big gulp just to see what it's like. Love's like that, carrot-top, yo' have to practice, an' the first real try makes yo' head spin. Makes everythin' wild an' strange-like, because it is the first an' the skill isn't there. Flares up like a bonfire, where yo' freeze and roast. Then yo' learn how to make the good warm coals that'll last all yo' life long, the way Pa and I've done. But ah! those first tall flames are a lovely sight."

  A long pause. She looked down and saw the red brows knitted in thought, then a slow nod.

  "Will I ever have a special friend like your Miss "zandra?" she asked shyly. "The girls in the senior forms at school, they're always goin' on about who's fallin' fo' who, and it all seems so… silly, like a game."

  "Sometimes it is, carrottop, and it'll all seem less silly once yo' body changes—I know it's hard when we say, 'wait until yo' older,' but sometimes it's all we can." She kissed the top of the child's head, feeling the su
n-warmth still stored in the coppery hair. "Jus" have to wait, child; doan' ever rush into things 'cause others are doin' it and yo' want to fit in. When yo' time comes, listen to yo' heart; maybe in school, maybe later in the Army when yo' old enough fo' boys, maybe not till University. Maybe everythin' will work perfect right off, or yo' might have to try an' try again—most folks do."

  "If… if yo' love someone like that, and it doesn't… work, does it hurt?"

  A rueful laugh. "Sweet goddesses, yes, baby, worse than anythin' else in the world."

  "Then why does anybody do it, Ma?"

  "Can't help themselves, child, no ways."

  Another silence. "Pa never had a special friend like Miss 'zandra, did he, Ma?"

  Tanya squeezed a hug. "Freya, carrottop, yo' wants to find out everythin' in a hurry." A pause for thought. "No, though some do… Men are different from us, baby." A nod; Draka children learned the physical facts of life early, from observation and in their schooling. "Not just the way they're made, but inside."

  She tapped her daughter's head. "They… come to the need fo' lovin' late, but need the pleasurin' part of it more, 'specially when they're young, and they can keep the two apart more. We're the other way 'round, the lovin' comes first, in general, and then the needin' grows on us. Not everybody's that way, yo' understand, but most. That's why the boys mostly start with wenches, because at first with them it's just this… blind drive to plant their seed."

  Gudrun frowned again, and when she spoke it was in a quiet voice. "Ma, doesn't that mean… well…"

  Tanya rocked her, smiling over her head. That was a question all Draka children asked, sooner or later; important to give the right answer. "An' yo' wonderin' if that means he loves yo' less, with all those wenches' babies he made, makes yo' less special," she said. A quick nod. "No, never, darlin' of my heart," she went on, letting a note of indulgent amusement into her voice, showing that the fear was understood but not a thing to be taken seriously, feeling the momentary tension relax out of the girl's body. "Yo' see, Pa and I made yo' together; like he loves me special out of all the world, we love yo' and Timmie and the twins, because only yo' children of our blood are really ours. Y'understand, sweetlin'? Yo' the children we raised an' trained, and yo' our… well, when we're gone, you'll be all that's left of us.

  "Know how we always say, 'Service to the State,' and 'Glory to the Race'?" A nod; civics classes would have taken care of that. "There's another meanin', and this is real important. Yo' are the glory of the Race, darlin'. Because of yo' and yo' brothers and sisters, Pa and I are joined to the Race, through the children yo'll have some day, and their children and children's children, forever. Just like we join y'all to the ones who went before, right back to the beginnin'."

  "Oh. That's sort of scary."

  "Mmmmm-hmmm. Big responsibility, carrottop, but it'll be a while before yo' has to worry about that. Never be in a rush to grow up, my baby; that's what 'zandra and I were talkin' about, before yo' came. Lookin' ahead, yo' see all the things yo' can do that yo' can't now; but lookin' back, yo' see what's lost. Take each year with what it brings, Gudrun."

  "Ma…"

  "What, mo' questions?" A laugh. "Go ahead, daughter, go ahead. Just remember, fo' yo' own when their favorite word is 'why.' '

  "Why do Pa and yo'… I mean, I know yo' love each other, so why, ummm—"

  "Aha, the wenches. Well, darlin', that's another thing you'll understand better when yo're older, but… it's like candy and real food. Yo' could live without candy, fairly easy, but on nothin' but candy yo'd sicken. Nice to have both, though."

  "Why only, well, only wenches, Ma?"

  "It isn't," she said frankly. "Fo' men so inclined, there's prettybucks. Remember what I said about the Race?" A nod. "Well, women can't mother as many as a man can father, and it takes a Draka mother to make Draka, child. Especially since we've other things to do, like fightin' and helping run the estates and so forth. So we have to save our wombs fo' the Race's seed. " We'll leave aside the vexed question of whether contraception's made the Race Purity laws obsolete, and the even more vexed question of the primitive male confusion between penetration and Domination; that's for your generation to deal with. "Another thing that pro'bly won't vex you for a good many years yet." More somberly: "When it does, remember, we're like iron, they're glass; be careful touchin' them, yo' can shatter them without meanin' to."

  Gudrun yawned again, snuggled her head down against her mother's bosom, squirming into a more comfortable position. Tanya sat without words for a few minutes, watching the near-invisible lashes flutter lower, the near-transparent redhead's eyelids drooping down.

  "But what did yo' come runnin' in to ask, my sleepy baby?"

  Another huge yawn, and a near mumble. "Beth said I had to nap, but I'm too old to take naps in the afternoon. Ma."

  '"Course yo' are, honeybunch. Yo' just lie there a while, and momma'll sing fo' yo'. "

  Rocking, she began very softly:

  "Hush little baby, doan yo' cry

  Yo' know the spirit was meant

  To fly"

  "…fiasco In Lyon," someone's voice was saying. Kustaa pricked up his ears, bending over the gift table. It was sunset, and the night's entertainment had begun. He glanced at his watch; Ernst and Jules would be in the radio room at 21:30, and for three hours after that. His scheduled transmission time started a half-hour later. Plenty of time, and it would be suspicious in the extreme if he absented himself; he could plead sickness but then his hosts would exercise their damned consideration and call for medical help, which he could not afford.

  He smiled to himself as he edged nearer to the cluster about Tanya's brother and the Security general. The throat-story was bad enough, making elaborate explanations impossible; sometimes he felt Donovan had outsmarted himself there, the speech training had worked to some extent, a more moderate injury would have been better. The head injuries were even worse, because if he played sick they might override his objections to a doctor's examination.

  Ah, well.

  "Not quite a fiasco, sho'ly," Vashon was saying.

  "Since I was there, and jointly responsible, I think I can speak frankly without givin' offense, Strategos. Fiasco I said and meant," Andrew replied.

  Kustaa moved down again, past studbooks showing the pedigree livestock among the presents, past a da Vinci and a Cellini saltshaker. There was no formal organization to the viewing; you went and examined young Karl and Alexandra in their cradles, perfectly ordinary looking examples of two-month children, round squashed-looking faces and starfish hands. Then you drifted down along, giving each item the grave attention or amusement or comment it merited; the American took his cues from others. A pair of pistols caught his eye, and he lifted one out of satin lining of the rosewood case.

  "We caught a good number of them," Vashon objected.

  "Spearchuckers. That bunch is so tightly celled, even they contact-men don't know who their opposite numbers are, they just a voice in the dark."

  "So they're claimin', to date."

  "Strategos, yo' know as well as I do that it isn't impossible to lie while bein' castrated, blinded and bastinadoed, but it is impossible to lie well and coherently and consistently. We didn't get their leaders, or the American, or the scientist, or the… well, yo' know."

  Kustaa turned the weapon over in his hands, hiding savage elation as the old oiled metal sheened in the lamplight. It was a six-shot revolver, but with a second barrel under the normal one; a massive weapon, the patterned Damascus steel inlaid with elongated leopards and buck, the butt with plaques of turquoise and ivory. He flipped it up to look at the white-metal plate on the end of the grip. "Le Matt, Virconium, 1870." Back, to examine the barrel. There was a slight pattern of randomly-etched pits around the muzzles; these had been used, and fairly frequently. He reached into the case for two of the cartridges; brass centerfire models, no corrosion so they must be made up to fit the antique. A standard revolver bullet, about .477, and what looked like
a miniature shotgun shell. There was a faint smell of gun-oil and brass about the weapon, the patina of another's palm on the grip.

  "Cobbler to the last, a fightin' man to weapons," a voice said by his ear. He turned, startled; the speaker was a tall gray-haired man in an Arch-Strategos' uniform. That was a rarity; there weren't more than a hundred or so in the Domination.

  "Karl von Shrakenberg, Landholder, Arch-Strategos, Supreme General Staff, retired," the man said. Kustaa took his hand and gave the strangled grunt expected of him; another of the eagle faces, but this was an old bird, tired, face scored by years and pain; he moved stiffly, with a limp.

  "Sannie von Shrakenberg, Landholder, Strategos, Supreme General Staff, Strategic Plannin', active." Kustaa blinked; the woman looked to be in her forties, a little old for the six-month belly, but it was still disorienting. Like seeing one of the Joint Chiefs knitting booties, he thought with a smile. The woman nodded to him again and moved off.

  "I knew Charley Stenner, yo' commander," the retired general said. Kustaa turned his start into an appropriate grimace. "Good man, pity that strafin' got him."

  Maybe Donovan was right after all, Kustaa thought thankfully. Following two conversations at once was another skill he had been taught; the secret policeman was still arguing.

  . . .not an irretrievable disaster, in any case. We were a little ahead of the Yankees on that project, now we're a little behind. Bad loosin' Oerbach, but the basic research is done an' recorded; the plutonium is really unfortunate, bottleneck fo' us and the Alliance both."

  "It's the Yankee that sticks in my gullet," Andrew replied. "Much mo' of that and we'll have them runnin' wild. And Corey Hartmann was a friend of mine."

  "Agreed. I want a film of him dyin' on the stake. After we've gotten what he knows, of course… still, in the long run, we gain mo' from espionage than they do."