Read Online The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century by Harry Turtledove - Free Book Online Page B

as if he were... as if he were some kind of hero. That wasn’t exactly right. But seeing it...
    January would not live to see the years that followed, so he would never know what came of his action. He had given up casting his mind forward and imagining possibilities, because there was no point to it. His planning was ended. In any case he would not have been able to imagine the course of the post-war years. That the world would quickly become an armed camp pitched on the edge of atomic war, he might have predicted. But he never would have guessed that so many people would join a January Society. He would never know of the effect the Society had on Dewey during the Korean crisis, never know of the Society’s successful campaign for the test ban treaty, and never learn that thanks in part to the Society and its allies, a treaty would be signed by the great powers that would reduce the number of atomic bombs year by year, until there were none left.
    Frank January would never know any of that. But in that moment on his cot looking into the eyes of young Patrick Getty, he guessed an inkling of it—he felt, just for an instant, the impact on history.
    And with that he relaxed. In his last week everyone who met him carried away the same impression, that of a calm, quiet man, angry at Truman and others, but in a withdrawn, matter-of-fact way. Patrick Getty, a strong force in the January Society ever after, said January was talkative for some time after he learned of the missed attack on Kokura. Then he became quieter and quieter, as the day approached. On the morning that they woke him at dawn to march him out to a hastily constructed execution shed, his MPs shook his hand. The priest was with him as he smoked a final cigarette, and they prepared to put the hood over his head. January looked at him calmly. “They load one of the guns with a blank cartridge, right?”
    “Yes,” Getty said.
    “So each man in the squad can imagine he may not have shot me?”
    “Yes. That’s right.”
    A tight, unhumorous smile was January’s last expression. He threw down the cigarette, ground it out, poked the priest in the arm. “But I know .” Then the mask slipped back into place for good, making the hood redundant, and with a firm step January went to the wall. One might have said he was at peace.

NICHOLAS A. DiCHARIO
     
     
    A prolific writer of short fiction, Nicholas A. DiChario has published more than two dozen stories in the past decade. His short fiction, some of it written in collaboration with Mike Resnick, has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , Starshore , and Science Fiction Age , and been anthologized in The Ultimate Alien , Universe Three , Witch Fantastic , Christmas Ghosts , and numerous other anthologies. DiChario’s special interest in alternate history is on display in his contributions to Alternate Tyrants , Alternate Warriors , and The Way It Wasn’t . “The Winterberry,” which appeared in the anthology Alternate Kennedys , was selected for inclusion in the Writers of the Future series.

THE WINTERBERRY

Nicholas A. DiChario
     
    MAY, 1971
    It was uncle Teddy who taught me how to read and write. I think it took a long time but I’m not sure. I heard him arguing with Mother about it one night a few years ago when I wasn’t supposed to be out of my room, but I was very excited with the next day being my birthday and I couldn’t sleep.
    “He can do it,” Uncle Teddy had said.
    And Mother said, “He doesn’t care whether he reads or writes. It’s you who cares. Why do you torture yourself? Let him be.”
    “He’s fifty-four years old,” Uncle Teddy said.
    “Let him be!” Mother sounded very angry.
    I listened to Uncle Teddy walk across the room. “If you feel that way,” he said, “why didn’t you just let him die?”
    There was a long silence before Mother said, “I don’t know,” and another long silence after that.
    Something in their voices frightened me so I returned