Read Online The Trouble With Heroes.... by Jo Beverley - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jo Beverley
Ads: Link
to Winston Churchill.
Then one of the fixers cried. He was a
dark-skinned man, perhaps, by his accent, from one of the African
settlements first affected, and part way through his technical
description tears began to well in his large, dark eyes. He blinked
and kept going, but then suddenly choked. He covered his face and
turned away from the camera.
The reporter -- another young black man, but
speaking meticulous Earth Standard English -- took over, talking
about the exhaustion of the noble heroes who were fighting such
terrible battles.
Jenny watched, not hearing what he was saying
but the sobs of the man off screen, shaken by that deep and
desolate grief. Nothing in that spoke of victory, only of loss.
Was talk of victory a lie?
Or did he weep for the price of victory?
In the past weeks she'd become an expert on
war. All kinds of war. Now she remembered the words of the Duke of
Wellington after the bloody victory at Waterloo: "Nothing except a
battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."
If Dan was alive, was he as melancholy, as
soul-shocked as the weeping fixer? Oh, to take him in her arms and
comfort him. She'd have walked out of Anglia to find him if she'd
had any idea where to start.
All she could do was do her bit to keep the
home fires burning. She had a shower, went to work, and even
suctioned dust out of the idle presses. She kept part of the office
screen on to Angliacom as she worked, set to alert her to a mention
of Dan Fixer.
The parade of fixers stopped, replaced by a
middle-aged woman called Helga, with gray hair and a stony,
unreadable face. Helga made no attempt at technical explanations,
but flatly reported daily successes, giving details on areas that
were cleared. She did not take questions.
News readers returned. Jenny phoned Angliacom
asking for news about Dan. A short time later she heard back.
They’d put in a request for a report on him and received no
response.
Anglia itself was perking up like a spring
flower after a frost. People were pouring back in, and Jenny
finally had work to distract her, enough that she grew impatient
for her co-workers to return.
Reporters ventured out with cameras, but
apparently the fixers had ordered everyone to stay away from the
front, so they could only send back pictures of peaceful
countryside and occasional close-ups of heaps of clothing and ash.
Even they were rare. War hadn’t changed the weather, so most
remains had been scattered by wind and rain.
Daily, Helga reported progress, and the red
tide on the map ebbed. Then she began to announce places that were
now safe, inviting people to return. There was never a trace of joy
or triumph.
Jenny had learned to distrust the news, but
she'd come to believe in Helga. The woman reminded her of jowly
Churchill, someone who tamped down emotion and simply got the job
done.
Anyway, Jenny knew in other ways that what
Helga said was true. The pressure of sick fear in her mind was
easing, the bitter taste was less. She actually had some appetite,
and began to gain back the weight she'd lost. Sometimes she had to
probe for the unreal parts of her mind instead of fight them
off.
With victory clear, it was like Christmas.
She could have gone to ten parties a night, but instead she spent
every night in Dan's place. She didn't watch the war films anymore.
Instead she wandered through his sys – music, poetry, games,
comedies. She saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail listed, but
skipped over it. She didn’t think she’d find it funny now.
Then she came across his family album and
some film from when they were kids.
A group of them running around screaming in
the park under water jets.
A birthday party with Dan wearing a Sirius V
helmet, a milkshake moustache, and missing his front teeth.
Dan and her building something out of
Robot-Robot, then cheering as their construct poured juice into a
glass without spilling any. She thought about Earth, where
apparently war was mostly waged by robots.
Lucky
Then one of the fixers cried. He was a
dark-skinned man, perhaps, by his accent, from one of the African
settlements first affected, and part way through his technical
description tears began to well in his large, dark eyes. He blinked
and kept going, but then suddenly choked. He covered his face and
turned away from the camera.
The reporter -- another young black man, but
speaking meticulous Earth Standard English -- took over, talking
about the exhaustion of the noble heroes who were fighting such
terrible battles.
Jenny watched, not hearing what he was saying
but the sobs of the man off screen, shaken by that deep and
desolate grief. Nothing in that spoke of victory, only of loss.
Was talk of victory a lie?
Or did he weep for the price of victory?
In the past weeks she'd become an expert on
war. All kinds of war. Now she remembered the words of the Duke of
Wellington after the bloody victory at Waterloo: "Nothing except a
battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."
If Dan was alive, was he as melancholy, as
soul-shocked as the weeping fixer? Oh, to take him in her arms and
comfort him. She'd have walked out of Anglia to find him if she'd
had any idea where to start.
All she could do was do her bit to keep the
home fires burning. She had a shower, went to work, and even
suctioned dust out of the idle presses. She kept part of the office
screen on to Angliacom as she worked, set to alert her to a mention
of Dan Fixer.
The parade of fixers stopped, replaced by a
middle-aged woman called Helga, with gray hair and a stony,
unreadable face. Helga made no attempt at technical explanations,
but flatly reported daily successes, giving details on areas that
were cleared. She did not take questions.
News readers returned. Jenny phoned Angliacom
asking for news about Dan. A short time later she heard back.
They’d put in a request for a report on him and received no
response.
Anglia itself was perking up like a spring
flower after a frost. People were pouring back in, and Jenny
finally had work to distract her, enough that she grew impatient
for her co-workers to return.
Reporters ventured out with cameras, but
apparently the fixers had ordered everyone to stay away from the
front, so they could only send back pictures of peaceful
countryside and occasional close-ups of heaps of clothing and ash.
Even they were rare. War hadn’t changed the weather, so most
remains had been scattered by wind and rain.
Daily, Helga reported progress, and the red
tide on the map ebbed. Then she began to announce places that were
now safe, inviting people to return. There was never a trace of joy
or triumph.
Jenny had learned to distrust the news, but
she'd come to believe in Helga. The woman reminded her of jowly
Churchill, someone who tamped down emotion and simply got the job
done.
Anyway, Jenny knew in other ways that what
Helga said was true. The pressure of sick fear in her mind was
easing, the bitter taste was less. She actually had some appetite,
and began to gain back the weight she'd lost. Sometimes she had to
probe for the unreal parts of her mind instead of fight them
off.
With victory clear, it was like Christmas.
She could have gone to ten parties a night, but instead she spent
every night in Dan's place. She didn't watch the war films anymore.
Instead she wandered through his sys – music, poetry, games,
comedies. She saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail listed, but
skipped over it. She didn’t think she’d find it funny now.
Then she came across his family album and
some film from when they were kids.
A group of them running around screaming in
the park under water jets.
A birthday party with Dan wearing a Sirius V
helmet, a milkshake moustache, and missing his front teeth.
Dan and her building something out of
Robot-Robot, then cheering as their construct poured juice into a
glass without spilling any. She thought about Earth, where
apparently war was mostly waged by robots.
Lucky
Similar Books
