Footfall

Harry laughed sardonically. “Not me.” He broke into song. “You can call out your mother, your sister or your brother, but for Christ’s sakes don’t call me!”

“They won’t call your sister,” Janet said. “No women on the flight crew at all.”

“Yeah, I know,” Harry said. “Matter of fact, I know most of the crew. Nice clean-cut young men—”

“Men’s right,” Janet said. “And it’s not fair.”

“Oh, come on,” Pat said. “Janet, you have to be crazy, why would anybody want to go up with that?”

“Well, they could ask!”

“It’s Gillespie,” Harry said. “He says women aren’t strong enough.”

“Stupid,” Janet said.

“It doesn’t have to be the truth. Look, those idealistic young men are supposed to be fixing what the snouts shoot. Gillespie may not want them rescuing idealistic young women instead, if you follow me. Anyway, they don’t want you. They don’t want me, either. What would either one of us do? I learned to do a lot of things when I hung around with the bikers. Little welding, electrical stuff, this and that. So that’s what I do. This and that. Whitey, you owe me a pitcher.”

The Dreamers’ Workroom was a chaos of tables, blackboards, maps, papers, and personal computers. One of the tables had been cleared of all such junk. A cloth was thrown over it, and an impressive array of bottles, glasses, mixers, and ice stood there.

Jack Clybourne had the bourbon. Jenny held out her glass for a refill.

“It was the ancient Persians. It’s in H-Herodotus.” Sherry Atkinson wanted to talk faster than her memory would serve her, and it caused a stutter. “There have been plenty of cultures that wouldn’t implement a decision they’d taken when drunk until they’d discussed it sober. Only the Persians wouldn’t do anything they’d decided sober until they’d discussed it drunk.” She poured herself another large glass of white wine, and drank half of it.

Her colleagues nodded in sage agreement. “Interesting philosophy,” Reynolds said.

Carol laughed. She was enjoying her role as the only fan in an endless science-fiction convention.

“We can discuss it all to death. The problem is, we don’t have any decisions,” Curtis muttered. “Not a goddam thing we can do but wait.” He was working on his fourth tall drink. His wife had long since gone to bed in disgust.

“Volunteer for Africa if you’re so eager to fight,” Sherry said.

Curtis laughed and poured another drink. “Hah.” He jerked his thumb toward Jenny. “The Colonel there is the only one they let out of here.”

“They don’t let me anywhere near Africa.” Jenny was about to say something else, but the door opened. Admiral Carrell came in. It took Jenny a moment for that to register through the bourbon. Then she jumped to her feet. After a moment Jack Clybourne stood as well.

Curtis looked at Carrell, then pointedly looked at his watch. “Off duty, Admiral, but we could sober up in a hurry. Something we’re needed for, I hope?”

“Not really. This is a social visit. May I come in?”

Curtis looked up and down the table. “I see no objections. Come in. This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard. What’ll you drink?”

“Scotch, thank you. And don’t drown it.” Carrell sat heavily at the table, then raised his glass. “Cheers.”

The others responded.

“Hope there’s something to be cheerful about,” Curtis said.

“Very little, I’m afraid. Angola just surrendered, and we’re pretty sure Zaire will when their eight-day ultimatum is up.”

Joe Ransom took a globe from another table and set it on theirs. Idly he spun it. “South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Angola — when Zaire goes they’ll have just about everything to the equator.”

“There was a sizable Cuban mercenary army in Angola,” Curtis mused.

“Yes. They’ll work for the Invaders now,” Admiral Carrell said.

“Divide and rule,” Sherry said.

“Surrender with conditions,” Ransom said. “They do learn.”

“Learn too damn fast,” Curtis agreed.

“I don’t know.” Reynolds poured another drink. “What did you think of the message they sent last week?”

“Not a lot,” Curtis said.

“Wade, if you knew just how alien the whole idea of surrender terms is to them,” Sherry said.

Carol laughed. “Alien,” she chuckled.

“Sure. It shocked Harpanet,” Curtis said. “So they’ve got themselves a Ruth Benedict.”

“Eh?” Clybourne asked.

“Ruth Fulton Benedict,” Sherry explained. “Anthropologist. She tried to explain Japanese culture to the U.S. War Department in World War II.”

“How’d she do?” Jack asked.

“Pretty good.”

“Trouble was, there wasn’t much anybody could do with the information,” Curtis added.

“They’ve done something with theirs,” Sherry said. “Governments surrender, and now they’ve got human diplomats talking to other governments, and some of their tame politicians broadcasting to the rest of the world …”

“Like Lord Haw Haw,” Ransom said.

“What gets me is some of the bastards buy it,” Curtis said.