The Long War

So they were all in their socks when they walked into the house’s big living room, with its unlit hearth and a few hunting trophies, and heaps of books and papers. It was very neat, Nathan thought, almost military neat. He already knew this man had a daughter, the woman called Katie; Nathan immediately guessed this was the home of a widower, with too much time on his hands.

Jack Green glared at them all, as though they were naughty children. ‘OK. I’ll let you in, out of the heat. Common humanity demands that. I’ll give you water. There’s a pump out back.’

With a nod, Allen deputized a couple of the guys to go fetch a few jugs. They dumped their kit by the door and moved. Soon the guys were all drinking from pottery mugs. ‘Glugging it faster than Boston natives on St. Patrick’s Day,’ observed Wang.

Jack faced Lieutenant Allen. ‘I can loan you a Stepper. Then you can send one of these warrior children of yours to track down your airship, can’t you?’ He laughed. ‘What a comical mess.’

‘Thank you, sir—’

‘Don’t thank me, because it’s all I’m going to do for you.’ He waved a hand. ‘Oh, you may as well sit. Just don’t break anything, or play with anything, or mess up my papers.’

The marines began to dump more kit, unhook their body armour, take off their camouflage jackets. They sat in little huddles, talking quietly, and Nathan saw that within minutes one of them had his Travel Scrabble set out and had started a three-hand game with a couple of the guys.

Allen looked on with disgust. ‘You don’t bring your Stepper, McKibben. You don’t bring any goddamn drinking water. But you bring your Scrabble.’

‘Got to get your priorities right, Lieutenant.’

Jack sat down at his paper-laden desk. All the furniture looked hand-made, Nathan saw, kind of rough but sturdy. Jack said, ‘Well, I can’t say I’m surprised to see you. The news of your triumphant progress across the worlds precedes you. But, Bill, why the hell did you bring these people to me?’

The former postman looked mischievous. ‘Why, who better in our little community to welcome our, umm, liberators?’

That little exchange put Lieutenant Allen on alert. Without being asked, he sat opposite Jack, and pulled a printed list of names out of his jacket pocket. ‘John Rodney Green, called Jack. That’s you, right?’

‘What have you got there, your Christmas card list?’

‘A list of signatories of your so-called Valhalla “Declaration of Independence”, sir, and their advisers.’

Jack just grinned. ‘So what are you going to do now, shoot me? Arrest me and bundle me aboard your airship?’

‘We’re here to protect you, sir. Not to create trouble.’

‘Thanks!’

‘In fact we’re grateful to you for your assistance so far, Mr. Green,’ Allen said, precisely. ‘And you can help us out further. Now, Ensign Fox here—’ he snapped his fingers to summon Fox ‘– is working on a census.’

‘Is he? Good for you, sonny.’

‘Now we’re here I can see it’s going to take some time, what with you having this mish-mash you call a “county” spread over several worlds, and so on. So if you have a spare room where Fox can bunk down—’

‘I’m not having Datum troops under my roof.’

‘We’re prepared to compensate you.’

Jack looked amused. ‘With what?’

‘Well . . . Monetarily, obviously. I’m authorized to sign cheques, up to a limit. We carry cash.’

‘What cash? Dollars, right?’

Allen said sternly, ‘The legal tender of this community, being in the US Aegis as it is, sir.’

Jack sighed. ‘But what am I going to do with dollars? You imagine I can pay Bill here in dollars for a catch of fish? What the hell is he going to do with them? You’d end up with bits of paper circling around and around this community like flies over a cowpat . . .’

Allen was going to snap back some angry response.

But Fox leaned forward, interested. ‘Then how would you want paying, sir? How does that work around here?’

‘We call it favours,’ Jack said.

‘Favours?’

‘I give you a room for a few nights. That’s a favour. Now you owe me a favour. We agree what that is before you move in, right? If it was Bill it would be so many pounds of fish. He does the favour for me, and we’re square. Or – if I don’t need any fish, then Bill can go to old Mike Doak down the street, who can shoe horses like he was raised to it, and give him the fish, thus transferring the favour he owes me to Mike, and then when my horse throws a shoe—’

‘I get it.’ Allen raised his hands.

Fox said, ‘So you don’t use paper money. But you must get outside workers coming through. Doctors, dentists—’

‘We support them with favours, one way or another.’

‘Specialists, like engineers to build you a dam. Something like that. There must be occasions when there’s nothing you can do for someone like that. You can only eat one meal at a time, wear one pair of trousers—’