“Now we know,” said Whittaker, shaking his head in wonder.
“I think that’s cool!” said Melanie in awe.
“Yes, it rather was, wasn’t it?” agreed Jenny.
XXV
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS
(32 years, seven months, and eight days after Longview.)
A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.
—Baltasar Gracian
“Plane’s on the ground—top-line private jet, big petrol burner, just like we predicted. They’re going through Customs now,” Jason Stockdale told Bob Campbell and Tom Horakova as they walked into the large and comfortable official reception lounge at the Missoula airport. A number of other senior members of the Lost Creek excavation team were also present, waiting on the foreign scientists and academics who had just landed.
“Let’s hope they don’t create an incident right off the bat,” said Bob. “They wouldn’t try to bring in any pornography or Zionist videos, would they? I mean, surely we’ve had some kind of contact with these people beforehand and somebody has explained our laws to them?”
“Yes, I spoke with Dr. Haskins, Dr. Fortis, and Dr. Wyrick on videophone a few days ago,” Jason told them. “I would have liked to do so much earlier and more extensively, but it took this long to get all the necessary government permission slips on their end for a conference call between London, Harvard, the Smithsonian, and us here in the wicked and evil Northwest Republic where the powers of darkness are exalted. Had to be sure their eggheads wouldn’t catch racist cooties through the monitor, I suppose. Anyway, yes, they know they’re not supposed to bring porn. No Zionist or Jew drivel, no nigger music, nothing promoting race-mixing or buggery, and none of certain drugs like heroin and LSD which are considered anti-social. Of course, their definition of what’s anti-social and ours are probably poles apart.”
“I’ll be interested to see if any of them try to test us on something petty like that, right off the bat,” said Robert. “If they do, we’ll know they’re probably not our bad boy or girl. He or she will be coming in squeaky clean and exquisitely polite. Yes sir, no sir, three bags full, sir.”
“They’re coming up here when they clear Customs?” asked Tom.
“Yes, the airport manager and the protocol guy from the Foreign Ministry met them on the tarmac and are guiding them through,” said Jason. “We will have a brief introduction up here, after which they may or may not want to unwind with a few of our fine Northwest brews…” he nodded toward a buffet table and minibar along one side of the wall, including a large ice tub of Red Hook and Rogue Brewery beers in dark bottles, “Or they may fling a hissy fit about something wicked and racist they’ve seen already and start throwing the beers. I honestly have no idea how these people are going to behave. We’ve never had much non-violent interaction with the rest of the world over the past forty years, and we’re still kind of new at it.”
“They’re probably going to be freaked out by our wardrobe,” said Bob.
“Not surprising,” commented Tom. “I spend a lot of time online reading their publications and watching their videos and raw news feeds we intercept. Have you any idea what they’re wearing Out There now? When they wear anything at all? The men look like zombies risen from the grave, and the women all dress like wh—like bad ladies,” he hastily amended himself, remembering that Ally and several other women were in the room.
Tom had a point. Sartorial fashion in the Northwest Republic was being carefully and gently yet deliberately walked backward through time by the Ministry of Culture, on the theory that clothes do to a large extent make the man or woman, and that sloppiness of dress leads to sloppiness of mind. Bob Campbell was wearing his Guard uniform, but Tom and Jason were dressed in the Northwest’s formal business style, which was taken from the 1930s—double-breasted suits, light cotton for summer, with square-cut shoulders, wide cuffed trouser legs with razor-sharp creases, wide neckties, and long-sleeved shirts with cufflinks. Jason was wearing a charcoal gray suit and Tom dark blue with pin-stripes, with matching fedoras. Dr. Arne Wingard turned out to be a much nattier and more fashionable Northwest clothes horse when he wasn’t up to his knees in coprolite. He was wearing a quasi-1890s style that was becoming popular, a brown corduroy coat with matching waistcoat and trousers, spats, a short turnover shirt collar, and a knotted beige cravat. His straw boater hung on the hat rack.
Women’s fashions were also headed back to the days of Daisy and the bicycle built for two. Allura had doffed her khaki digging shorts and shirt, and she was now wearing a tight bodice of powder blue with ruffled sleeves and separate white “trumpet” skirt gathered at the waist, with a navy blue jacket. Barely visible beneath her ankle-length hem were tall lace-up boots, and her own straw hat hung beside Wingard’s. Corsets and leg-of-mutton sleeves hadn’t re-emerged yet.
The door to the lounge opened, and the Eminent Persons Delegation from foreign parts entered the room in single file, the ten of them staring around in wonder as if they were being led through some kind of zoo or fun house, with live and dangerous exhibits. Gil Tucker, the protocol officer from the Foreign Ministry in Olympia, stepped over to Bob. “No problem with Customs, Colonel,” he said in a low voice. “Their baggage has been collected and stowed on the mini-bus, which they will take to Big Sky Lodge when we’re done here, for their first night Home—well, here in the Republic, I mean. The government has individual cars waiting for them at the hotel, and they can drive up to Anaconda on their own and make their own accommodation arrangements there if they like, or they can stay in a Party guest house.” One of the ways the government of the Republic saved money and guarded against nascent corruption was by providing comfortable yet Spartan accommodation of its own for various traveling functionaries rather than paying for hotels, with all the consequent possibilities for fiddling receipts, expense accounts, and bar bills.
“We’re giving them cars?” asked Jason.
“The Foreign Ministry guy’s idea,” explained Tucker. “No pressure, no feeling on their part of being shepherded and chaperoned, they’re not dependent on us for transport, they are perfectly free to go anywhere and see anything they like so long as it’s not on a military base or the Centralia spaceport. They can even see most of the spaceport if they want to go over to Washington for a tour later on, so long as they clear it with the Defense Minister.”
“Not levitation vehicles, though?” asked Bob Campbell.
“No, sir, just normal ground cars,” said Garrison.
“Good,” said Jason. “Don’t want them playing around with a flight-capable vehicle they have no idea how to operate and breaking their necks.” Tucker moved away from them and back toward the foreign guests.
“Trackers in all the cars?” asked Jason sotto voce.
“Of course,” said Tom.
The two groups stared at one another briefly. Jason was right; this was the first time any of these people had ever interacted with someone else from the other side in non-hostile terms, or met one, or even seen one other than looking down a rifle barrel. Jason stepped forward. “Hello,” he said to all of them. “Welcome to the Northwest American Republic. I’m Jason Stockdale, Chancellor of the University of Montana. The Lost Creek project is being carried out under our auspices. This is Dr. Arne Wingard, who is the field director in charge of the actual excavation. These others are colleagues of ours whom I hope you will come to know are all involved in the dig. Mr. Tucker, you’ve already met our guests. Will you take it from here?”
Tucker duly made the introductions. By and large there were no surprises. Allura’s idol, the Oxford don Dr. Fred Haskins, turned out to be a mild-mannered Englishman with graying hair and a thin, ascetic face. His assistant, the Scotsman Andrew Renfrew, was a pale younger man with sandy hair and a nervous, almost jumpy air. In fact they all looked a bit twitchy; Bob Campbell reminded himself that these foreigners were now in the presence of people whom they had been indoctrinated all their lives to reg
ard as monsters and devils incarnate. Doctor Arnold Kellerman from Toronto University was a large and pasty chap who greeted them all with the bluff hail-fellow-well-met demeanor of a politician forced by an impending election to press the flesh with the peasantry. His blonde English assistant, Letitia Haines, was flawlessly dressed in a severe but tasteful tweed ensemble that looked like it must have come from Harrods, and she managed to look simultaneously cool and slinky in it. Better keep an eye on that one around our menfolk, thought Tom to himself. The French couple, the Martineaus, were slim, nondescript, middle-aged, and intense. They ignored the buffet and practically tackled Dr. Wingard and wrestled him to the floor, immediately pummeling him with questions about the Lost Creek site. Tom thought, If one of those two is a spy with any thought in their head more recent than the lower Pleistocene Era, they’re the most superb actors I’ve ever seen.
The Americans were different, not openly hostile, but with more of a suspicious air, several of them almost sullen. That was to be expected. All of them were close enough in age to the time of the Seven Weeks’ War to have been affected by it, and some of them were old enough to have adult memories, although so far as WPB records showed, none of them had served in the U.S. military. Doctor Alvin Fortis was a rather dumpy, balding man of about fifty who was wearing a single-piece nylon overall with a hood, which Tom recognized as current semi-formal wear in the U.S. His thirty-something assistant Ralph Tarricone was wearing a black tank-top T-shirt and baggy cargo pants with bulbous-tipped shoes, a style that had once been negroid but was now normal American street wear. The two alleged nymphomaniacs from Harvard, Doctor Amanda Wyrick and her assistant Bella Sutcliffe, were a contrast. The PhD was a lissome blonde who appeared around 40 years old, but according to her file was 46. Ms. Sutcliffe was a stockier, more voluptuous type about ten years younger with china-blue eyes, coal-black hair, and a brilliant skin of porcelain white. Any Jewish ancestry she had did not appear in her face. Both were wearing safari suits with short pants and knee socks.
Doctor Fortis looked at his own group and the Northwesterners. “Good God!” he said, bemused. “I had no idea what to expect, but this almost resembles the Mad Hatter’s tea party!”
“Welcome to Wonderland, then,” said Allura Campbell with a warm smile.
“We’re all here because we are fascinated by the past, Doctor Fortis,” said Jason. “Consider that you’ve gone through the looking glass and back in time, which in many respects you have, not just with reference to Lost Creek.”
Bob addressed the group. “Tell you what, folks, by way of breaking the ice, let’s just get the grim and scary part over with, insofar as there is any. I hope there won’t be. My name is Colonel Robert Campbell of the Civil Guard, the Northwest Republic’s national police force. I’m the commander of the Montana Criminal Investigation Division, which means I’m chief of detectives for this neck of the woods. This is Captain Thomas Horakova of the dreaded Bureau of State Security, about which I am sure you have heard a plethora of horror stories.”
“Some of them are true, most aren’t,” said Tom.
“I think it’s best we start off by getting everything right out here in the open, and then I’ll let you get into the Red Hook and mingle.” Bob continued. “I know all of you have received briefings from your respective governments, not just on Lost Creek but on us, and you’ve been told what dangerous and violent psychopaths we are. That’s not quite the case. We teach our children a different version of the Golden Rule than you do. Ours goes: ‘Do unto others as others do unto you.’ Our primary schools are sexually segregated until the age of thirteen or so when our young people of both genders move on to high school. In boys’ elementary school, in every classroom, there is a motto that hangs on the wall, and every Northwest boy knows it by heart by the time he’s ten years old. That motto reads, ‘I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.’ Now you understand us, better than you could from any briefing you could ever receive from your own rulers.”
Campbell went on. “The Northwest people in this room are students and scientists and scholars just like yourselves, whether you choose to recognize our country and their qualifications or not. Regardless of nation or politics, they are your kindred spirits, as I hope you will come to learn. Captain Horakova and I, on the other hand, represent the government of the NAR. I could give you all a bunch of soft soap about how we’re just here to protect and serve the community and make sure your stay is a pleasant one, and that wouldn’t be completely untrue. We really do want this visit to our country to be a good memory for all of you. But we are also here to protect and serve the interests of the state, and unlike your own police, we at least own up to that fact honestly. We live in a world where every aspect of life has become politicized, a process that began in North America over a hundred years ago, and it would be dishonest to pretend that we are unaware of the profound political and historical implications of what is happening at Lost Creek.
“In case you wonder whether or not you’re going to be watched, certainly we’re going to be keeping an eye on things throughout your visit. Common sense should tell you that, and we’re not denying it. We are doing so for one reason and one reason only: to make sure that you are able to see what you need to see and understand what we have found, and draw your conclusions from it free from any politically motivated attempts on anyone’s part to distract or confuse or deceive you. We have no need to do that, because we know that Lost Creek is real. As always, we have truth on our side, but in this case, thanks to the men and women of Comrade Stockdale’s generation who took it upon themselves to change the world, we have the power and the tools to defend truth, as for so long we did not. Unfortunately, there are others who are highly motivated to denounce and discredit Lost Creek, and who will most likely attempt to do so. We will make sure they fail, at least on this end. What you write, and what you say, and what you report back to your respective academic and scientific bodies about Lost Creek, that we have no control over. We do have control over what happens here in this country, and we intend to make sure that you get the truth. What you will do with it is up to you.
“Beyond anything to do with the dig at Lost Creek, I want you all to know that you are free to travel anywhere you want in our country, free to meet and speak with anyone you want, and free to say what’s on your mind to anyone. You are not in jail here, and we’re not going to try and herd you like cattle from place to place or anything like that. There are of course certain common sense restrictions that would suggest themselves. For example, it’s probably not a good idea to go into the Long Branch saloon in Anaconda, get drunk and start running your mouth about the glories of multi-culturalism and diversity and what racist barbarians we are. Captain Horakova here fought in the Seven Weeks’ war at age seventeen, and you should bear in mind that most people of his age and over are almost certainly veterans who remember a time when your world tried to destroy ours. We have freedom of speech here, but we also have something your societies no longer recognize: individual responsibility. You are now in a place such as you have never seen before, a genuinely free country. The way we keep it free is by ensuring that words and actions have consequences, both good and bad. It’s a great way to live, and none of us here would have it any other way. Welcome, and enjoy your stay in this free and mighty land of ours—and yours.”
There was a long silence and the sudden hiss of a bottle cap being flipped off. Campbell glanced over and saw the younger man from the Smithsonian, Ralph Tarricone, caught guiltily with a beer in his hand. “Sorry, Colonel,” he said sheepishly. “Couldn’t resist. My dad used to live in Seattle and he told me about Red Hook. We can’t get it in D.C.” A chuckle ran through the room.
“Try the Rogue red ale,” advised Campbell. “Nectar of the gods, I promise.”
Slowly the two groups broke ranks and started to mingle around the buffet table, with more beers b
eing cracked and plates being piled up with salmon salad, sandwiches of Montana beef and Oregon cheese, and bowls filled with collations of Northwest fruit, apples and pears, blueberries and strawberries. Tom overheard Madame Martineau asking Jason at the fruit bar, “Monsieur le Chancellor, if it is not a state secret, how do you get tangerines and grapefruit past les sanctions?”
“No need to smuggle them any more,” Jason told her. “Almost twenty percent of the Republic’s agriculture is now hydroponic to one degree or another. Out on the plains of Idaho and eastern Washington and Oregon you will see mile after mile of greenhouses along the side of the highway, in rows two miles long sometimes. We can grow anything at any season now, from citrus fruit to tobacco to orchids. We are the world’s number one per capita food-exporting nation in every area except for wheat, where Russia still has us topped, and certain fresh fruits like oranges and grapefruit.”
“Russia is a much bigger country,” said Doctor Haskins, loading his plate with a mountain of salmon salad. “Yet what you have done here in thirty years is most incredible, Doctor Stockdale.”
“I’m just Mister Stockdale,” Jason corrected him. “I never actually completed my degree at the University here. Not even my B.A.”
“Why not?” asked Madame Martineau.
Jason pointed to the Old NVA pin in his lapel. “History got in the way, ma’am. When people are trying to kill you, you tend to cut class a lot.”
“So how you did come to be Chancellor?” asked the Canadian archaeologist, Doctor Kellerman.
“Spoils of war kind of thing,” Jason told him. “Or spoils of revolution.”
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