Return engagement sa-1

by Harry Turtledove

  "No, thanks. I've got my own." Martin had a plain steel nib, but it was plenty good enough for signatures. After he signed, he stuck out his hand again. Casson shook it. The flash photographers took more pictures.

  "This is a great day for Los Angeles!" one of the reporters said.

  He worked for the Times. "It'd be a better day, and it would have come sooner, if your paper hadn't spent the last I don't know how many years calling us a pack of lousy Reds," Chester said. "I bet you don't print that-I bet you pretend I never said it-but it's true just the same."

  "I'm writing it down," the reporter said. Men from the other, smaller, papers in town were writing it down, too. It would show up in their rags. Whether or not the guy from the Times put it in his piece, Chester's bet was his editor would kill it before it saw print.

  "How much will this help the war effort?" asked a man from the Torrance Daily Breeze, a paper that had given labor's side of the class struggle a much fairer shake.

  Chester nodded to Harry T. Casson, as if to say, You know more about that than I do. Chester wasn't shy about admitting it, not when it was true. The builder said, "We hope it will help quite a bit. We think everything will go better now that we're all pulling in the same direction."

  "Will the other builders settle with the union?" asked the reporter from the Breeze.

  "I can't speak for them," Casson said, which was half true at most. "I hope they will, though. We've had too much trouble here for too long."

  "Amen to that," Chester said. "I think we could have settled earlier-the union hasn't made any secret about the terms it was after-but I'm awfully glad we've got an agreement at last."

  A man from the Pasadena Star-News asked, "With so many workers going into defense plants, how much will this deal really mean? Can the union keep its members? Except for war work, how much building will be going on?"

  "You want to take that one?" Martin and Casson both said at the same time. They laughed. So did everybody else at the press conference. With a shrug, Chester went on, "Steve, to tell you the truth, I just don't know. We'll have to play it by ear and see what happens. The war's turned everything topsy-turvy."

  "That about sums it up," Harry T. Casson agreed. "We're doing the best we can. That's all anybody can do, especially in times like these." He held up a well-manicured hand. "Thank you very much, gentlemen."

  Some of them still scribbling, the reporters got up from their folding chairs and headed off toward typewriters in their offices or towards other stories. "Well, Mr. Casson, we've gone and done it," Chester said. "Now we see how it works."

  "Yes." The building magnate nodded. "That's what we have to do." He took out a monogrammed gold cigarette case that probably cost at least as much as Martin had made in the best three months of his life put together. "Smoke?"

  "Thanks." Martin got out a book of matches that advertised a garage near his place. He lit Casson's cigarette, then his own. The tobacco was pretty good, but no better than pretty good. He'd wondered if capitalists could get their hands on superfancy cigarettes, the way they could with superfancy motorcars. That they couldn't-or at least that Casson hadn't-came as something of a relief.

  Casson eyed him. "And where do you go from here, Mr. Martin?"

  "Me? Back to work," Chester answered. "Where else? It's been way too long since I picked up a hammer and started working with my hands again."

  "I wonder if you'll get the satisfaction from it that you expect," Casson said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You said it yourself: you haven't worked with your hands for a long time," Casson answered. "You've worked with your head instead. You've got used to doing that, I'd say, and you've done it well. You're not just a worker any more. For better or worse, you're a leader of men."

  "I was a sergeant in the last war. I commanded a company for a while, till they found an officer who could cover it," Chester said.

  Harry T. Casson nodded. "Oh, yes. Those things happened. I was a captain, and I had a regiment for a couple of weeks. If you lived, you rose."

  "Yeah." Chester nodded, too. He wasn't surprised at what Casson said; the other man had the air of one who'd been through the mill. "Point is, though, I didn't miss it when the shooting stopped. I don't much like people telling me what to do, either."

  Casson tapped his ash into a cheap glass ashtray on the table. "Maybe not, but you've done it, and done it well. You're in command of more than a regiment these days. Will the people you're in charge of let you walk away? Will the lady who's in charge of you let you do it?"

  "Rita's my worry," Chester said, and Casson nodded politely. Rita hadn't wanted him to start a union here. He remembered that. Why would she care if he went back to what he'd done before? If local president sounded grander than carpenter, so what? As for the other members of the union… "There's bound to be somebody who can do a better job than I can."

  "You may be surprised," Harry T. Casson said. "You may be very surprised indeed. You've been stubborn, you haven't been vicious, and you've been honest. The combination is rarer than you'd think. I made a bargain with you in half an hour, once I decided I needed to. I wouldn't even have dickered with some of your, ah, colleagues."

  "That's flattering, but I don't believe it for a minute," Martin said.

  "Believe it," the magnate told him. "I don't waste time on flattery, especially not after we've made our deal. What's the point? We've already settled things."

  "I'm glad we have, too," Chester said.

  "Yes, well, this poor miserable old country of ours is going to take plenty more knocks from the damned Confederates. I don't see much point in hurting it ourselves," Casson said.

  "Makes sense," Chester said, and then, "Is Columbus really surrounded?"

  "All I know is what I read in the newspapers and hear on the wireless," Casson answered. "The Confederates say it is, we say it isn't. But both sides say there's fighting north of there. Draw your own conclusions."

  Martin already had. He liked none of them. He said, "I'm from Toledo. I know what holding on to Ohio means to the country."

  "I hope people back East do," Casson said. "If they don't, I think the Confederates'd be happy to teach them." He grimaced, then tried a smile on for size. "Not much either one of us can do about that."

  "No, not unless we want to put on the uniform again," Chester said. Harry T. Casson grimaced again, in a different way. Chester laughed, but not for long. "If Ohio goes down the drain, it could come to that. If Ohio goes down the drain, we'll need everything and everybody we can get our hands on."

  He hoped Casson would tell him he was wrong, tell him that he was flabbling over nothing. He wouldn't have agreed with the building magnate, but he hoped so anyhow. Casson didn't even try. He just said, "You're right. We're a little long in the tooth, but only a little, and we've been through it. They'd put green-gray on us pretty damn quick if we gave 'em the chance."

  "I've thought about it," Martin said.

  "Have you?" Casson pointed a finger at him. "You're mine now. I can blackmail you forever. If you don't do what I say, I'll tell that to your wife."

  "Rita already knows," Chester said. That was true. He didn't say anything about how horrified she'd been when she found out. He didn't suppose he could blame her. Her dismay was probably the biggest single thing that had kept him from visiting a recruiting station. He didn't say anything about that, either; it was none of Harry T. Casson's business. He just took his copies of the agreement they'd signed. "I'd better get home."

  "You don't have an auto, do you?" Casson asked.

  "Nope." Chester shook his head.

  "That's hard here," the magnate said. "Los Angeles is too spread out to make getting around by trolley very easy." Chester only shrugged. Casson went on, "I'd be happy to give you a lift, if you like."

  "No, thanks," Chester said. "I took the trolley here. I can take it back. If you give me a ride, half the people in the union will think I've sold 'em down the river. And that's liable to be
what you've got in mind."

  The other man looked pained. "Times are pretty grim when a friendly gesture can get misunderstood like that."

  "You're right. Time are pretty grim when something like that can happen," Chester said. "But these are the times we've got. We've made a deal. I'm glad we've made a deal-don't get me wrong. We're class enemies just the same, and pretending we're not isn't going to change things even a dime's worth."

  "I'm surprised you'd rather fight Featherston than me," Casson said.

  "Up yours, Mr. Casson," Chester said evenly. "He's a class enemy, too, and he's a national enemy." Before the Great War, Socialists hadn't realized how nationalism could trump the international solidarity of the proletariat. They had no excuse for not seeing that now.

  Harry T. Casson snorted. "Have it your way. I still think the whole notion of class warfare is a bunch of crap."

  "Of course you do. You can afford to." Chester walked out with the agreement and the last word.

  VI

  Early one stiflingly hot and sticky July morning, Cincinnatus Driver watched colored men lining up at the edge of Covington, Kentucky's, Negro district. A sign said, WAR WORK HERE. Three or four policemen-whites, of course-hung around just to make sure nobody got out of line literally or metaphorically.

  Half a dozen buses rolled up. They were old and rickety. The nasty black diesel fumes that belched from their tailpipes made Cincinnatus cough. It wasn't the poison gas the Confederates and Yankees were shooting at each other on the far side of the Ohio, but it was bad enough.

  Doors wheezed open on the buses. The blacks filed aboard. They filled each bus to overflowing, taking all the seats and packing the aisles. More fumes poured from tailpipes as the buses rolled away. Disappointed blacks who hadn't managed to get aboard milled around on the sidewalk.

  "Form a new line!" one of the cops bawled. "Form a new line, goddammit! Next buses come along in fifteen minutes!"

  The Negroes obeyed. They might have been so many sheep. Lambs to the slaughter, Cincinnatus thought. He got moving again, putting weight on his cane so he didn't have to put it on his bad leg. He couldn't go fast enough to get out of his own way. By now, the policemen were used to seeing him around. They hardly ever asked for his passbook any more, at least as long as he stayed in the colored district.

  He couldn't have worked in a war plant even if he'd wanted to, not unless they found him a job that involved sitting down all the time. Such jobs undoubtedly existed. Did blacks have any of them? Cincinnatus doubted that. It would have been unlikely in the USA. In the CSA, it was inconceivable, or as close as made no difference.

  But these Negroes, swarms of them, lined up for the chance to work at whatever kind of jobs their white rulers deigned to give them. Kentucky hadn't been back in the Confederate States for very long. Blacks here had already learned the difference between bad and worse, though. This was bad: long hours, lousy pay, hard work, no choice, no possible complaint.

  Worse? Worse was drawing the notice of Confederate authorities-in practice, of any suspicious white. If that happened, you didn't go on a ride to a war plant. You went for a ride, all right, but you didn't come back. People talked about camps. People talked about worse things than camps. A strange phrase had crept into the language since Cincinnatus found himself stuck in Covington. You gonna git your population reduced, one Negro would say to another when he meant the other man would end up in trouble. Cincinnatus hadn't heard that one before. He knew endless variations on git your tit in a wringer and git your ass in a sling, but git your population reduced was new-and more than a little ominous. The next person he heard of who'd come out of a camp would be the first.

  He shuffled on. His father was sprier than he was these days. He hated that. With his mother slipping deeper into her second childhood every day, his father needed someone who could help keep an eye on her and take care of her. Cincinnatus had come down from Des Moines so he could take them both back to the USA before Kentucky returned to the Confederate fold. Thanks to the man who'd run him down, Seneca now had two to take care of.

  Somebody'd pasted a crudely printed flyer to a brick wall. sabotage! it said in bold black letters, and underneath, Don't make things the Freedom Party can use against the USA! If the Confederacy wins, Negroes lose! Below that was a set of broken chains.

  Cincinnatus read the flyer out of the corner of his eye. He didn't turn his head towards it. Someone could have been watching him. Besides, he'd seen that particular flyer before. During the Great War, he'd become something of a connoisseur of propaganda posters. This one, he judged, was… fair.

  Nothing wrong with the message. If the CSA and the Freedom Party beat the USA, things would only get worse for blacks here. But calling for sabotage was calling for a worker to take his life in his hands. Those who got caught paid. Oh, how they paid.

  He also saw lots of places where a flyer-probably the same one-had been torn down. Not many people would want that message on their wall or fence or tree. It would land them in trouble with the Confederate authorities, and trouble with the Confederate authorities was the last thing any black man in Covington needed.

  Not entirely by coincidence, Cincinnatus' amble took him past Lucullus Wood's barbecue place. He started to go inside, but he was still reaching for the knob when the door opened-and out strode a gray-uniformed policeman gnawing on a beef rib as long as a billy club.

  "You comin' in, uncle?" the cop said around a mouthful of beef. Grease shone on his lips and chin. He held the door open for Cincinnatus.

  "Thank you kindly, suh," Cincinnatus said, looking down at the ground so the policeman wouldn't see his face. The man had done something perfectly decent: not the sort of thing one necessarily expected from a cop in Covington at all. But then he'd gone and spoiled it with one word. Uncle. Like boy, it denied a black male his fundamental equality, his fundamental humanity. And, worse, the policeman seemed to have no idea that it did.

  Lucullus' place did a brisk breakfast business, mostly on scraps and shreds of barbecued beef and pork cooked with eggs and with fried potatoes or grits. Cincinnatus sat down at a bench and ordered eggs and pork and grits and a cup of coffee. Everything came fast as lightning; Lucullus ran a tight ship. Cincinnatus' eyes widened when he took his first sip of the coffee. He sent the waitress an accusing stare. "You reckon I don't know chicory when I taste it? There any real coffee in this here cup at all?"

  "There's some," she answered. "But we havin' trouble gettin' the real bean. Everybody havin' trouble gettin' the real bean, even white folks. We got to stretch best way we know how."

  Cincinnatus took another sip. Some people in the CSA-especially blacks-had a taste for coffee laced with chicory. Some even liked it better than the real bean. He hadn't even tasted it since he moved up to Iowa. It did help pry his eyes open. He couldn't deny that. "You go on, girl," he told the waitress. "It'll do. But you let Lucullus know he got somebody out front who wants a word with him."

  "I do that," she said, and hurried off.

  Lucullus didn't come out right away. Cincinnatus would have been astonished if he had. When he did, he planted his massive form across the table from Cincinnatus and said, "So you ain't much for chicory, eh?"

  "It's all right. It's tolerable, anyways," Cincinnatus answered. "What it says that you can't get no coffee… that's another story."

  "There's some. There's always some, you wanna pay the price for it," Lucullus said. "But it ain't cheap no more, like it was before the war. I charge my customers a quarter a cup, pretty damn quick I ain't got no customers no more."

  With his barbecue, he would always have customers. Cincinnatus took his point just the same. After another forkful of grits, he spoke in a low voice: "I seen six buses first pickup this mornin'. More comin' in fifteen minutes, police say."

  "Six, with more comin'," Lucullus echoed quietly. Cincinnatus nodded. Lucullus clicked his tongue between his teeth. "They got a lot o' niggers workin' for 'em."

  "You don't wor
k for 'em, somethin' worse happen," Cincinnatus said. "You don't work hard for 'em, somethin' worse happen. You seen that sabotage flyer?"

  "Yeah, I seen it," Lucullus answered. His smile was broad and genuinely amused. Cincinnatus hadn't asked him if he'd had anything to do with putting it up. Seeing it was safe enough. The other wasn't.

  "Lots o' colored folks try that, they end up dead," Cincinnatus said.

  "Colored folks don't try somethin' like that, we all liable to end up dead," Lucullus said. Cincinnatus made a face. That was going too far… wasn't it? But Lucullus nodded. "You reckon Jake Featherston don't want us dead?"

  "Well, no," Cincinnatus said; nobody in his right mind could believe that. But he went on, "There's a difference between wantin' us dead an' makin' us dead."

  "You go on thinkin' that way, you gonna git your population reduced." Lucullus pointed at Cincinnatus with a thick, stubby forefinger. "You hear that before?"

  "I heard it," Cincinnatus said unwillingly.

  "You suppose the folks who say it, they jokin'?" Lucullus persisted.

  "How the hell do I know?" Cincinnatus spoke with more than a little irritation. "I ain't been in the goddamn Confederate States for a hell of a long time. Never wanted to be in the Confederate States again, neither. How do I know how you crazy niggers talk down here?"

  That made Lucullus laugh, but not for long. He said, "We talks that way on account o' what goes on at them camps in Alabama and Mississippi and Louisiana. You don't believe they reduces their population there? You don't believe they kills people so they don't got to worry 'bout feedin' 'em no more? You don't believe that?"

  Cincinnatus didn't know what he believed. "Don't want to believe it," he said at last. "Even Featherston ain't that much of a son of a bitch."

  "Hell he ain't." Lucullus had no doubts. "Mebbe they kills us whether we fights back or no. We sits quiet, though, they kills us for sure."

  "He's fightin' the damnyankees," Cincinnatus said. "How's he gonna do that if he's doin' all this other shit, too? USA's bigger'n the CSA. Featherston's a bastard, but he ain't no fool. He got to see he can't waste his men and waste his trains and waste all his other stuff goin'after niggers who ain't doin' him no harm."