light blue against the dark blue twilight.
Smoke was at the window, looking out at the sky, squinting as he tried to see some detail of the Colony; but it was just a pale glimmer, a fragment of Bethlehem’s marker, forty degrees above the horizon. “They made that thing up there out of asteroids and pieces of the moon.” He spoke to Richard Pryor and the crow tilted its head as if listening, and Smoke was grateful. Talking to yourself didn’t look quite so undignified when you had something, someone, to pretend you were talking to.
Dignity. A haggard, grimy, stooped, gaunt, bearded man. His gray-shot black beard matted, his eyes too intense, his hands always faintly shaking and dirty as rat’s claws. And we’re talking about dignity?
But dignity was everything to Smoke.
Hard-Eyes and Jenkins were behind Smoke, their backs to him, talking to Steinfeld and Voortoven and Willow. Yukio was there, too, but he wasn’t talking. Smoke knew Yukio was listening, though.
Smoke listened to bits and pieces as Hard-Eyes and Steinfeld interrogated one another. Smoke tuned in and out.
He kept his eyes on the man-spark hanging in the blue-black sky.
(Just below the window ledge, on the outside, gleaming with rainwater, was the egg, the metal bird had attached the day before. It was sending a signal that meant They’re in the room now . . . )
Smoke looked at the sky, and, now and then, he listened.
“Let’s talk basics,” Hard-Eyes was saying. “We’re talking no salary, not even after the revolution, supposing that ever happens.”
“No salary: correct. But I didn’t say anything about a revolution. We’re not revolutionaries. We’re international partisans. We want to re-establish the republics that existed before the war. Elimination of the jurisdiction of the Second Alliance is obviously a prerequisite.”
“ ‘Elimination,’ ” Jenkins said. “Has a nice clean sound to it.” There was no subtlety to Jenkins’ sarcasm, “How big you say the SA weighed in at?”
Steinfeld hesitated. Smoke couldn’t see him, but he knew the man and his mannerisms. He could imagine stocky, tired-eyed Steinfeld with his long, iron-gray hair neatly parted in the middle, caught up in the back with a twist of wire. With his black beard, the white streak down the middle so neat-edged it could almost have been dyed there. The short, blunt fingers raised, fanned out just above the top of the scarred desk, the deltas of fine lines at his eyes deepening as he concentrated on his reply. His ineffaceable sense of mission never faltering no matter how much he backed and filled and weaved and bobbed in his dealings. Whop —the hands coming down flat on the desk as Steinfeld spoke: “Half-million, it’s said. And growing.”
“Half-million. They have a half-million men in Europe.” Jenkins said it with stagey disbelief.
Steinfeld went on to answer the unasked question hanging in the air. “And all told, if we count splinter groups, factions, the NR could muster four, five thousand. But on this front of the resistance, we’re not going after them head-on. We sabotage, we guerrilla their flanks, we chew a lot of little wounds in them till they weaken from bleeding.”
“Go back to the part about “this front’,” Hard-Eyes said. “What’s the other front?”
“Negotiating for help. From the Japanese. And others. We’re working on it.”
“What about the States?” Jenkins asked.
“You must be bloody joking,” Willow said. Willow—in olive-drab fatigues, tennis shoes rotting apart, stolen AK-49 assault rifle across his lap. Broomstick skinny, thatch of colorless hair, a beard that belonged on some aging Chinese emperor, bad teeth; spoke in a monotone, the British mumble. “Fucking Yanks wanking off the fucking Nazis.” He pronounced it Nazzies. “They like the fascist takeover becorz they figure it’s either that or commies. And they got big promises for big business deals from the fascists.”
“All
Smoke was at the window, looking out at the sky, squinting as he tried to see some detail of the Colony; but it was just a pale glimmer, a fragment of Bethlehem’s marker, forty degrees above the horizon. “They made that thing up there out of asteroids and pieces of the moon.” He spoke to Richard Pryor and the crow tilted its head as if listening, and Smoke was grateful. Talking to yourself didn’t look quite so undignified when you had something, someone, to pretend you were talking to.
Dignity. A haggard, grimy, stooped, gaunt, bearded man. His gray-shot black beard matted, his eyes too intense, his hands always faintly shaking and dirty as rat’s claws. And we’re talking about dignity?
But dignity was everything to Smoke.
Hard-Eyes and Jenkins were behind Smoke, their backs to him, talking to Steinfeld and Voortoven and Willow. Yukio was there, too, but he wasn’t talking. Smoke knew Yukio was listening, though.
Smoke listened to bits and pieces as Hard-Eyes and Steinfeld interrogated one another. Smoke tuned in and out.
He kept his eyes on the man-spark hanging in the blue-black sky.
(Just below the window ledge, on the outside, gleaming with rainwater, was the egg, the metal bird had attached the day before. It was sending a signal that meant They’re in the room now . . . )
Smoke looked at the sky, and, now and then, he listened.
“Let’s talk basics,” Hard-Eyes was saying. “We’re talking no salary, not even after the revolution, supposing that ever happens.”
“No salary: correct. But I didn’t say anything about a revolution. We’re not revolutionaries. We’re international partisans. We want to re-establish the republics that existed before the war. Elimination of the jurisdiction of the Second Alliance is obviously a prerequisite.”
“ ‘Elimination,’ ” Jenkins said. “Has a nice clean sound to it.” There was no subtlety to Jenkins’ sarcasm, “How big you say the SA weighed in at?”
Steinfeld hesitated. Smoke couldn’t see him, but he knew the man and his mannerisms. He could imagine stocky, tired-eyed Steinfeld with his long, iron-gray hair neatly parted in the middle, caught up in the back with a twist of wire. With his black beard, the white streak down the middle so neat-edged it could almost have been dyed there. The short, blunt fingers raised, fanned out just above the top of the scarred desk, the deltas of fine lines at his eyes deepening as he concentrated on his reply. His ineffaceable sense of mission never faltering no matter how much he backed and filled and weaved and bobbed in his dealings. Whop —the hands coming down flat on the desk as Steinfeld spoke: “Half-million, it’s said. And growing.”
“Half-million. They have a half-million men in Europe.” Jenkins said it with stagey disbelief.
Steinfeld went on to answer the unasked question hanging in the air. “And all told, if we count splinter groups, factions, the NR could muster four, five thousand. But on this front of the resistance, we’re not going after them head-on. We sabotage, we guerrilla their flanks, we chew a lot of little wounds in them till they weaken from bleeding.”
“Go back to the part about “this front’,” Hard-Eyes said. “What’s the other front?”
“Negotiating for help. From the Japanese. And others. We’re working on it.”
“What about the States?” Jenkins asked.
“You must be bloody joking,” Willow said. Willow—in olive-drab fatigues, tennis shoes rotting apart, stolen AK-49 assault rifle across his lap. Broomstick skinny, thatch of colorless hair, a beard that belonged on some aging Chinese emperor, bad teeth; spoke in a monotone, the British mumble. “Fucking Yanks wanking off the fucking Nazis.” He pronounced it Nazzies. “They like the fascist takeover becorz they figure it’s either that or commies. And they got big promises for big business deals from the fascists.”
“All
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