Alternities (37 page)

“I take it you’re laughing, too.”

“The Communists are in power, true enough. Likely they’ll stay there. But France is not a Communist state. More to the point, it is not a Soviet client. Nor do I see any prospect that it will soon become one. A French Communist is as independent-minded as a French Socialist. I’m confident they’ll refuse the tit.”

“What makes you so damned sure?”

They could almost hear Somerset’s smile. “Because they already have.”

“What?”

“I can’t discuss my sources, you understand,” Somerset said. “But Gaschet was approached by Soviet officials last Thursday. They offered hard currency loans and an agreement to double purchases of French wine, wheat, and automobiles by the Red bloc.”

“Son of a bitch—”

“Even though what they offered would go a long way toward solving his immediate problems, Gaschet told them the French would do for themselves, thank you very much. So you see, either he’ll succeed and retain France’s independence, or his government will fall and a centrist take power, to the same effect.”

Robinson scowled. “This is a side issue,” he said. “You wanted to look strong when France went Communist. Fine. I understand the political game. But the Weasels aren’t targeted on Paris. They’re targeted on Murmansk and Leningrad and Odessa. How about facing up to the real threat, Prime Minister?”

“We have no quarrel with the Soviet Union.”

The stupidity of the statement galled Robinson. “Are you a Communist yourself, then?” he sniped. “I’d heard they were strong in British Labour.”

“Shit,” said Rodman under his breath. Clifton groaned.

“Thank you for not disappointing me,” Somerset said. “You’re every bit the ass I was told to expect.”

“So you don’t bother to deny it.”

“No, I don’t. Because I don’t bother to deny idiotic blather,” Somerset snapped. “You bloody yobbo, we deal with Communists every day. You’ve been hiding behind that wall so long you haven’t the first idea what’s on the other side.”

“The Reds have enough weapons to smash your entire island into sand—”

“But why would they? Really, Peter. What would they have to gain? Nothing. They have no need of more land—they’re facing a hundred-year task to develop what they already own. And anything else we have or make they can buy from us at a fair price. We have differences, many more than a few. I wouldn’t call them friends. But neither can I call them enemies.”

“I can’t believe that you intend to make that kind of bar-stool liberal thinking the basis of policy. Don’t be naive, Somerset. Anytime the other bastard is stronger than you are, you’ve got to be careful.”

“I am being careful. That’s why I want the Weasels gone.”

“You asked for them, goddamn it! You let us think you understood the strategic issues.”

“I understand
our
strategic interests. And our interests demand that those missiles go back to your side of the Atlantic.”

“They’re no goddamned use over here unless we go to war with fucking Greenland.”

“That’s none of our concern. Put them in Alaska and invade Kamchatka.”

“You used us, you bastard.”

“Yes. A payback, Mr. President, for the high-handed way you and my predecessor used us. For your arrogance in trying to draw us into your little feud. Sixty days.”

“Sell us the oil platforms,” Robinson said on sudden impulse. “We’ll move everything offshore.”

“No.”

“Look, there has to be some reasonable middle ground here—”

“There is none. You can take them out, or you can watch us drop them into the sea. Sixty days.”

The sound of a key in the lock announced the return of Wallace’s roommate. Fowler had a sack of groceries in his arm and a dusting of melting snow decorating his knit cap and coat.

“How’d it go?” Wallace asked, looking up from the notes and photos arrayed around him on the living room floor.

Fowler tossed Wallace a keyring in a looping arc. “I tried three different stores, including one in Millersville as large as a General Supply back home. It had everything you could want if you were cooking Spanish or Ukrainian. But the fish was all frozen, the only seaweed was in the aquarium supplies, and they had never heard of Chocos.”

Fowler had been moaning about the chocolate-glazed cinnamon-filled pastries for weeks. “I hadn’t either, and we call the same world home. Don’t make yourself crazy. Bring some back next time you rotate Home.”

“That’s not funny. I’m not going to break quarantine.”

“I guess you’ll just have to adjust,” Wallace said with a shrug. “I’ve had frozen fish. It’s not that bad.”

“I don’t trust frozen food,” Fowler grumped, stepping past Wallace’s scattered work en route to the kitchen. “It’s just a way of passing off food that didn’t sell five minutes before it spoils.”

“I don’t think that’s how they do it.”

“Why not? No one in their right mind would pick frozen over fresh. Anyway, thanks for the use of the car.”

Smiling to himself, Wallace returned to his work. “How long is it until your next pink card?”

“Three weeks. Why?”

“I just want to know how long I’m going to have to listen to you complaining about Choco deprivation.”

“Oh,” Fowler said, folding the empty sack and tucking it under the sink. “Well, as far as that goes, I think you need to get Home, too,” he volunteered.

Wallace looked up. “What do you mean?”

“Just that if you were working as much as you say you are, you wouldn’t need to be catching up on your paperwork the few nights you are here—like now.”

“Oh.”

“Not to mention the stupid smile you wear on your face when you are here.”

The stupid smile appeared on cue. “What do you think it all means?”

“I think it means you’re bending the fraternization rules,” Fowler said crossly. “Don’t tell me, because I’m not asking. But just because I don’t go out doesn’t mean I don’t know anything. Some of the reports that come across my desk would pass for pornography on the other side of the gate.”

“Some of what you watch on that television would, too.”

“I’m not watching for myself,” said Fowler. “I’m trying to assemble a picture for the Guard. This world offends everything we know about how people should live. The things women here do—the things they allow—I would never have believed it. The women who’ve been seduced by the pills and the propaganda, running away from their parents and running out on their husbands.

“A woman can divorce her husband here for no reason—incredible! They take men’s jobs and ape men’s roles and suddenly they’re as shallow and selfish as the worst of us. Sluts. Seducers. Marriage doesn’t mean anything to them, motherhood doesn’t mean anything to them, morality doesn’t mean anything to them.”

Wallace had experience with Fowler’s little sermons, and he had learned the best way to shorten them was to say little or nothing. But this time the attack seemed personal.

“There’s some special women, too,” he said, knowing he should remain silent. “There’s women that can fill a house with music and show you ways of thinking about the world that you never dreamed of There’s women who have so much love and joy inside them that one smile, one look can make you feel like your life has started over again.”

Fowler stared for a moment, then came and sat on the chair opposite Wallace. “The worst I thought was that you were slopping the whores on Central Avenue or trolling Michigan Street for students. But that’s not what this is, is it.”

“Who are you asking for? Yourself or the Guard?”

The analyst squirmed uncomfortably. “Myself.”

“Are you going to report me to Frederick?”

“I don’t want to get you in trouble. But I don’t want to see you get yourself in trouble, either.”

Sighing, Wallace leaned back against the front of the couch. “I already am,” he said.

“Not yet. Nobody knows. Just stop seeing her.”

Wallace shook his head. “Did you ever know someone who made the rest of the world go away for you? So that it was just you and her, and nothing else was real.”

“Don’t try to tell me you love her. God in heaven, you can’t be that stupid.”

Bristling, Wallace said nothing.

“How long has this been going on? A month?”

“About,” he said gruffly.

“Then you don’t love her,” Fowler said firmly. “Are you slopping her?”

“Christ almighty, Gary,” Wallace snapped. “Is that the only word you know for it? Is that what you call it when you get romantic with your wife?”

“That’s the right word when there’s no ring,” he said stiffly.

“When you touch somebody—when it’s right—” He caught himself and started again. “Shan brings everything she is to her lovemaking. She gives it time, and love, and thought, and energy. She’s so different from—Look, it’s not like what you’re saying at all.”

“You don’t love her,” Fowler said. “Women use sex as a trap. They make you call those feelings love, make you think you have to have her, when all you have to have is friction.”

“This isn’t like that,” Wallace said, shaking his head. “And besides—I loved her before I met her.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She’s Common World.”

Fowler stared. “Somebody you knew back Home?”

“My might-have-been. The person I’d think about on those nights when you’re lying wide awake in bed at two in the morning. Think about and wonder if she ever thought of me. Doesn’t everybody have one?”

“Sweet Baby Jesus—Ray, how could you be so stupid?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He walked to the frosty window and stared out. “This picture of her in my mind,” he said slowly. “It’s part what she was and part what she is, all mixed in together so I can hardly tell which is which. And there’s all these old feelings that never went anywhere working with everything that’s so good about being with her.”

“You’ve got to break it off.”

“Arens had a girlfriend. He was even trying to get her pregnant. Nobody cared. We make our own rules. That’s what he said. What business is it of Frederick’s? Why should he care?”

“Forget Frederick,” Fowler said. “Forget the Guard. Forget frat rules and quarantine. You’re married, Ray. That’s for keeps.”

“A life sentence? The way they do it here makes more sense to me, Gary. You don’t have to spend all those years pretending.”

“You’re making excuses that even you don’t believe. You know it’s wrong. Just a moment ago, you stopped yourself from comparing them. You won’t let yourself think thoughts like ‘Shan’s a better ride,’ because you know how unfair it is.”

Wallace turned away from the glass. “There’s no way Ruthann will ever know. It stays on this side of the gate. It has to.”

“It only stays here if you stay here. Don’t you know that you’ll be comparing them, every minute? Ruthann could fail a test she didn’t even know she was taking.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Yes, you will. It has to end, Ray. It has to.”

“Is that a threat?”

“I don’t believe in what you’re doing. It’s wrong—for you, for the Guard, for that little girl you claim you love.” Fowler took a deep breath. “Ray, I know.
I know
. I made a… a mistake, three years ago, with that kind of woman. I know. Please—open your eyes. You know I’m right.”

“Are you going to report me? Tell Ruthann?”

Fowler folded his arms across his chest as he considered an answer. “No,” he said finally. “But if you keep this up, I’m not going to have to. End it. You’ve got to end it.”

Wallace turned back to the window. “I know,” he said. “I just don’t know if I can.”

“You can.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know what it’s like to fly.”