Come and Take Them-eARC

by Tom Kratman

  Casa Linda, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Pililak was devastated. Ham would be home on leave from the academy in just a few months and she still hadn’t been able to escape to join him, proving thereby her devotion to him in a way that would set her apart from his other wives…or, for that matter, his sisters.

  She could almost cry. She would have cried if she hadn’t been from a people who were about as hard as nails.

  Every time I thought I was ready, I thought of something else that needed doing or, if not needed, would at least be good to have ready. Or, if I thought of it early, it took much time…or it took much time and then, as with the food I stashed, the rats and bugs got to it. And then there were the things Alena the witch said, that made me think of still other problems.

  And now he’s coming home and I will just be one among many. I don’t even deserve for him to think I’m special or important, since I’ve failed so miserably in this one thing I set my heart on.

  “Ah, to Hell with it,” Ant said, in her native tongue. “If I haven’t got everything ready in the next five weeks I am going to go anyway.”

  * * *

  Alena, who, again, was more likely to have been simply a supremely observant and intelligent woman than a witch, overheard little Ant and thought, About time. How many suggestions did I have to give you to make sure you got yourself ready for this? Silly little girl. Go to our god soon. And make for us all the sixth sign.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Feminism, Socialism and Communism are one and the same, and Socialist/Communist government is the goal of feminism.

  —Catharine MacKinnon, Toward a Feminist Theory of the State

  Hamilton FD, Federated States of Columbia, Terra Nova

  Not a lot had been heard from Belisario Endara-Rocaberti after he’d taken Parilla’s secretary Luci, and fled the country. He, and she, had had excellent reason to flee, of course, since the assassination they’d set Carrera up for had failed and since he was known to be unforgiving, unrelenting, and remarkably vindictive and vicious. Thus, while the couple had initially put down stakes in Aserri, Santa Josefina, they’d soon realized that that was far too close to Patricio Carrera for health and safety. They’d fled then to the Federated States, where Carrera could probably still reach, but which he was also probably loath to annoy.

  Endara’d married Luci then, in the capital city of Hamilton. A joint meeting with the then-president of the Federated States, Karl Schumann, had disabused him of the notion that the marriage was going to be an exclusive relationship. At least, if he wanted a hearing with the president, he’d best be willing to share such a bounty. Luci? Sure, she’d been willing enough. However, when Schumann had used her thoroughly, but never helped her husband return to power, while his successor, Walter Madison Howe, had done no better, she’d grown quite disillusioned.

  And the last one, Howe, at least, had been true to his word. He, unlike Schumann, had listened to all petitions carefully and attentively, provided such petitions were carried by the quite beautiful and large-breasted Luci, wearing nothing but perhaps a pair of kneepads. He’d even provided a house and government-funded security for the couple. He’d even sent an official vehicle to pick up Luci for her fortnightly dates with his cock. But war? No, he wasn’t interested. He’d also advised against wasting time with the Tauran Union, since they were even less interested in war than the Federated States was.

  Now, with even the hope of Tauran intervention apparently gone, an unhappy Belisario Endara-Rocaberti sat with Luci in their government-provided house. He cursed his own weakness, cursed the fact that he had to share his wife with the president of the FSC, cursed life, and cursed fate. Even the coming of the New Year, normally a greater festival for Balboans than for gringos, failed to improve his mood. He drank without enjoyment. The sounds of celebration coming faintly from the street below were anathema to his ears. The delicacies spread before him tasted of ashes. He was curt and unpleasant to Luci when she tried to make conversation. He’d actually been losing some of the lard he could afford to dispense with, though his girth was still a large fraction of his height.

  “Well, it isn’t my damned fault,” Luci countered. “I’ve done everything you wanted me to; a lot more than you have done yourself to return to Balboa.” She crossed her arms over her breasts—large-breasted female sign of disapproval and rejection—in a huff.

  Endara-Rocaberti relented. “I…I’m sorry. I know it isn’t your fault. But it just seems we’re further away from coming back to power than we ever were. Nothing works. Their fucking president won’t talk to me anymore. ‘Too busy,’ his aides say. ‘He’s working on the problem,’ they say. What a load of horse manure.”

  Luci hung her head. “He doesn’t want me much either. Not since his wife—the tortillera bitch—caught us in bed. I really don’t see any point in continuing to see him at all.”

  Belisario Endara-Rocaberti sat up suddenly, the beginnings of an idea forming. The mention of the first lady caused him to think hard for a few moments, then a thin smile widened on his face.

  “Luci, my very dear…how far would you be willing to go to give us some influence again?”

  The woman looked intently at her nominal husband but without understanding. Then, with understanding, came disgust, nausea forming from enlightenment. “Oh, I couldn’t; not possibly. Not that! And especially not with her, for all that she licks her lips when she looks at my chest.”

  “Easy to understand,” said Belisario smoothly, “since that skinny, dark-skinned houri she sleeps with has no tits to speak of. As to whether you could; of course you could. You are the finest actress in the world. You can pretend to be anything you want to…or need to.”

  She was adamant, however. “But…Belisario. I’ve done a lot but I’ve never done that. I wouldn’t know what to do. Really I wouldn’t.”

  Endara-Rocaberti walked across the room to pick up a telephone book. He thumbed to the “E” pages. “Don’t worry about that. We can hire a technical expert to teach you. I’ll enjoy watching the lessons.”

  “Listen to me!” she shouted, stamping her dainty foot. “I’ve done a lot for you…for me, too. But this is too much. I will not go to bed with that woman, not if you—or she!—offered me the world. Even if she is more of a man than her husband. Find another way.”

  Belisario, reluctantly, closed the phone book. “Very well” he said, “we’ll see what turns up. Maybe we should move…to Tauran. Maybe to Anglia.”

  “I’d love to get the dust of this place off my feet,” she said. “What brings up Anglia, anyway?”

  “Oh, there’s some female supremacist woman there, Patricia Britain, who’s been complaining about Balboa not giving the vote to women.”

  “But they do,” said Luci. “If the women finish a term with the legion.”

  “I’m reasonably sure,” said Belisario, “that Britain could care less about men not being given the vote, gratis, but is deeply offended by the notion that women must earn it, too.”

  “Well, of course,” said Luci. And maybe I should have just stayed there and done a term myself. And never got involved in trying to kill the boss’s right-hand man. God, was that fucking stupid!

  “Hmmm…maybe I should send you to talk to her,” suggested Belisario.

  “If you mean talk, fine,” she answered. “But if you mean let her lunch me, or vice versa, no.”

  “Just talk,” he assured her. “Might be useful. You want me to make the arrangements?”

  “Last time you ‘made the arrangements’ I ended up blowing the president of the Federated States. Both of the last two. Dozens of times each. And for no good purpose whatsoever. So I’ll make my own arrangements, thank you very much.”

  Masque Hall, Marylebone, Anglia, Terra Nova

  Luci did make her own arrangements, except that the Anglian female supremacist, Patricia Britain, set her up with a suite not too far from the old palace at Marylebone. Since Balboa was Britain’s current obsession, s
he’d been thrilled to host the wife of the one everybody who mattered assumed was the rightful ruler of Balboa.

  Patricia Britain was, it turned out, better looking than the first lady of the Federated States. This was still not particularly good looking, and certainly nothing that would have tempted Luci to consider sleeping with her. As it turned out, though, that wasn’t necessary. Britain had both a husband, male, and a partner, female. The partner, Renee Feist, was also a devout Tsarist-Marxist, thus of somewhat mixed feelings toward Balboa, given its heavy increment of socialism.

  Luci had been around power most of her life. She was used to cynicism, corruption, and hypocrisy. What she was totally unfamiliar with was political sincerity. Britain and Feist just oozed it, so much so that it took Luci the better part of an hour before she could be certain the sincerity wasn’t an act.

  She could tell they were sincere by the way the two women argued with each other, in this spacious basement office of a former government building, now gone to charitable uses.

  Britain stood and paced. “If we don’t go forward we must go back!” she declaimed to the walls. “We can’t afford any chink in our armor. Every little place that refuses to accord equal rights to women is a bad example to men here and everywhere.”

  “It’s not just about women, though,” answered Feist, seated and calmer. “There are questions of class involved here and, whatever else they may have done or may do in the future, the rulers of Balboa have made massive strides in elevating the working class.”

  Feist looked at Luci for confirmation. The Balboan women nodded her head, briskly, saying, “Well…yes. But only for some. There are still plenty of poor they have no interest in. And the opportunities they provide for poor women are highly limited.”

  “That’s true, as far as it goes,” agreed Feist, “but I understand they’re making or may have already made a regiment to create more opportunities for women.”

  “I heard that, too,” half-shouted Britain, still in declamation mode. “It’s a sop, a token force, with no consciousness of their prime duty as women to women. They’re just traitors to the cause.”

  “Traitors to which cause?” asked Feist, a touch of heat rising in her voice. “There are two causes here. One, the cause of the working masses, the Balboan soldier women are supporting.”

  “That, after tens of thousands of years of patriarchal oppression,” said Britain, still more heatedly, “is secondary.”

  “Never!” said Feist.

  “Always!” said Britain.

  They’re fucking serious about this shit, thought Luci. How very odd.

  “Put Tsarist-Marxists in charge and women will rise automatically!” shouted Feist.

  “Put women in charge and Socialism will come as naturally as the rising of the sun!” shouted back Britain. “Feminism is Marxism!”

  And how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? thought Luci. Because you two are just arguing religion.

  “Feminism is socialist and pacifist, first and foremost,” said Feist.

  “Bah,” said Britain. “A soldier’s job is to defend our rights, which means women’s rights. And our rights are threatened by the government in Balboa. Hell, our rights are threatened right here and in the Federated States. Do you realize that after the battle in Balboa even the Army is beginning to question the degree of opportunity it has opened to women? Naturally we’ve beaten them into submission again, the uniformed castrati, but another disaster like that and we could set the clock back in the military, then in the whole Tauran Union, by decades.”

  Lesbian they may be, thought Luci, but if sex were really important to them they’d be paying a lot more attention to me than they are. No, they care about religion and their religion is politics. She suddenly had a perverse image, rather a couple of them, of the two women taking turns performing oral sex on each other. In the first image, Britain, receiving oral sex from Feist, declaimed, “Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains,” In the second, with Feist sitting on Britain’s face, she spouted, “They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!”

  Luci couldn’t help it; she started to giggle. This got her dirty looks from both Britain and Feist. She stifled the sound.

  Still, the magic of argument was broken. “You really think they might start to push back?” asked Feist. “Hard to believe, as emasculated as they are, but…”

  She grew thoughtful. “Hmmm. Maybe the thing to do is to fight them politically in Balboa since the Tauran Union now refuses to fight them militarily.”

  “How do we do that?” asked Britain.

  “Well, what if we start sending missions to Balboa to rally its women, rebuild the women’s movement there? If it doesn’t work we’re no worse off than we were. If it works partly then they’ll probably repress it pretty violently—it’s how their dictator and his chief stormtrooper think. A few images on TNN of Balboan women being beaten in the streets by legionary thugs might change things. And it is possible that we could succeed; swing the women back to our way of thinking and have them sway the men. It worked here, after all.”

  They both turned to look at Luci. “What do you think, my dear?” asked Feist.

  “Might work,” was all she could offer, what with having to put so much effort into the giggle suppression campaign. The twin images, side by side in her mind, just wouldn’t go away.

  Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova

  But it did not work in Balboa. Groups of well meaning, and often quite eloquent, Spanish-speaking feminists duly went to the Republic; about one such group a month. They were not arrested. They were not harassed. They appeared to be pointedly ignored by the Balboan government, although, in fact, some tabs were kept on them for their own safety’s sake.

  Not that these groups couldn’t drum up an audience. The entertainment value alone was too high to permit their being totally ignored. They were also, invariably, interviewed on every television channel except TeleVision Militar. Then, too, local feminist groups—there were still a few that were active—bought advertising and put up posters; all to little, if any, avail.

  Upon returning, the Tauran feminists did greatly play up their imagined dangers, and their almost as imaginary successes. It’s possible that some television viewers in the Tauran Union were persuaded that there was a great groundswell of support for women’s rights in Balboa and that their heroines in men’s clothing were daily braving martyrdom. At least, they might have been if heavily predisposed toward fantasy.

  However, as one member of a Balboan audience put it to one of the missionary groups: “You are missing the point. Yes, if men as a whole had the vote we could make them feel guilty enough to give it back to us, too. But they do not. And those who do, or will, will have paid a great price for it. They will not share with anybody who hasn’t paid that price. And they don’t feel even a little bit guilty about it, quite the reverse. Most women, here or anywhere, probably can’t or won’t pay that price. And the women who do, or will? They’re worse than the men. So, unless the Tauran Union can force Balboa into giving us back our political rights, you are wasting your time…and ours.”

  Masque Hall, Marylebone, Anglia, Terra Nova

  Britain and Feist exchanged a chaste kiss. After all, neither was quite as young as she’d once been and Luci had flown over for the meeting. Maybe, just maybe, if she’d shown an interest they might not have kissed quite so chastely but, alas, so many women just didn’t understand what they were missing…

  The three sat down to chat.

  “It just isn’t working, none of it,” admitted Feist. She was not one of those fooled into believing there was any real progress in Balboa. “You may as well call off the missionaries. It’s just good money after bad.”

  “Don’t be silly, my dear,” answered Britain. “Why, we’ve hardly started. Attendance at our rallies in Balboa is up by an appreciable fraction. Our surveys show an increase in the numbe
r of Balboan men who want to reenfranchise the women. It isn’t all bad.”

  “Any of the men in those surveys have the vote themselves?” asked Luci.

  “Some. A few.” At Luci’s raised eyebrow, Britain admitted, “Okay, two. But that’s two more than we had last month.”

  After a moment’s hesitation Britain blurted out, “Let me try one more thing before we give up. Let me go to Balboa with a few select women. Maybe we can raise their consciousness.”

  “Do you think,” asked Feist, “that you should take someone from the government with you?”

  “Like who?”

  Feist thought for a moment, then answered, “I think the Safety Minister, Marine R.E.S. Mors du Char the Fourth would be willing.”

  Hamilton FD, Federated States of Columbia, Terra Nova

  Belisario Endara-Rocaberti and Luci sat staring at the TV. Patricia Britain was making an announcement. Feist stood discreetly nearby on the screen, applauding where appropriate.

  Rocaberti waited until the news was over, then looked down in deep thought, weighing probabilities.

  I have the itinerary from Luci. I have the personnel from the cast-off Policia I’ve been supporting. Arms and other necessities are not hard to come by, back home. It can be done.

  After a moment a smile lit his features. “Luci, bring me the telephone, would you?”

  Herrera International Airport, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova

  Four men, each bearing a seemingly valid Balboan passport, processed through customs without speaking to one another. The passports had been stolen, but not yet reported as such, from the Balboan consulate in Hamilton. It had been no great feat for two former policemen, and two former criminals, to break the security of the office.