“Welcome, gentlemen”
The first thing Gordon noticed was the crackling fireplace. The snug pre-Doom ranger station was stone sealed and warm. He had almost forgotten what the sensation felt like.
Second noticed was the rustle of silk as a long-legged blond rose from a cushion by the hearth. The girl was a striking contrast to nearly all the other women they had seen here—clean, erect, laden down with glittering stones that would have brought a fortune before the war.
Nevertheless, her eyes were lined, and she looked at the two northerners as one might regard creatures from the far side of the moon. Silently, she stood up and exited the room through a beaded curtain.
“I said welcome, gentlemen. Welcome to the Free Realm.”
At last Gordon turned and took notice of a thin, bald man with a neatly trimmed beard, who rose to greet them from a cluttered desk. Four gold rings glittered from one earlobe, and three from the other—symbols of rank. He approached holding out his hand.
“Colonel Charles Westin Bezoar, at your service, formerly of the bar of the State of Oregon and Republican Commissioner for Jackson County. I presently have the honor of being judge advocate of the American Liberation Army.”
Gordon arched an eyebrow, ignoring the outstretched hand. “There have been a lot of ‘armies’ since the Fall. Which one did you say you were with, again?”
Bezoar smiled and let his hand drop casually. “I realize that some apply other names to us. Let’s defer that for now and just say I serve as aide-de-camp to General Volsci Macklin, who is your host. The General will be joining us shortly. Meanwhile, may I offer you some of our hill country sour mash?” He lifted a cut glass decanter from the carved oak sideboard. “Whatever you may have heard about our rough life up here, I believe you’ll find we’ve refined at least a few of the old arts.”
Gordon shook his head. Johnny looked over the man’s head. Bezoar shrugged.
“No? Pity. Perhaps some other time. I hope you don’t mind if I do indulge.” Bezoar poured himself a glass of brown liquor and gestured to two chairs near the fire. “Please, gentlemen, you must still be exhausted from your journey. Be comfortable. There is much I’d like to know.
“For instance, Mr. Inspector, how are things back in the states to the east, beyond the deserts and the mountains?”
Gordon did not even blink as he sat down. So the “Liberation Army” had an intelligence service. It was no surprise that Bezoar knew who they were . . . or at least who north Oregon thought Gordon was.
“Things are much the same as in the west, Mr. Bezoar. People try to live, and rebuild where they can.”
In his mind Gordon was trying to recreate the dreamscape—the fantasy of St. Paul City, of Odessa and Green Bay—images of living cities leading a bold, resurgent nation—not the windswept ghost towns he remembered, picked clean by ragged bands of wary survivors.
He spoke for the cities as he had dreamed them. His voice was stern. “In some places citizens have been luckier than in others. They’ve regained much, and hope for more for their children. In other areas, the recovery has been . . . hindered. Some of those who nearly ruined our nation, a generation ago, still wreak havoc, still harry our couriers and disrupt communications.
“And as I speak of it” Gordon continued coldly. “I cannot put off any longer asking you just what you’ve done with the mail your men have stolen from the United States.”
Bezoar put on wire-rimmed glasses and lifted a thick folder from the table next to him. “You are speaking of these letters, I presume?” He opened the packet. Dozens of grayed and yellowed sheets rustled dryly. “You see? I do not bother to deny it. I believe we should be open and frank with each other, if anything is to come of this meeting.
“Yes, a team of our advance scouts did find a pack horse in the ruins of Eugene—yours, I imagine—whose saddlebags contained this very strange cargo. Ironically, I believe that at the very moment our scouts were seizing these samples, you were killing two of their comrades elsewhere in the deserted town.”
Bezoar raised one hand before Gordon could speak. “Have no fear of retribution. Our Holnist philosophy does not believe in it. You defeated two survivalists in a straight fight. That makes you a peer in our eyes. Why do you think you were treated as men after you were captured, and not gelded as serfs or as sheep?”
Bezoar smiled amiably, but Gordon seethed inside. In Eugene last spring he had seen what Holnists did to the bodies of the harmless gleaners they had mowed down. He remembered young Mark Aage’s mother, who saved his life and her son’s with one heroic gesture. Bezoar clearly meant what he said, yet to Gordon the logic was sickly, bitterly ironic.
The bald survivalist spread his hands. “We admit to taking your mail, Mr. Inspector. Can we mitigate our guilt by claiming ignorance? After all, until these letters reached me here, none of us had ever heard of the Restored United States!
“Imagine our amazement when we saw such things . . . letters carried many miles from town to town, warrants for new postmasters, and these,” he raised a sheaf of official-looking flyers. “These declarations from the provisional government in St. Paul City.”
The words were conciliatory and sounded earnest. But there was something in the man’s tone of voice. . . . He could not quite pin it down, but whatever it was disturbed Gordon.
“You know of it now,” he pointed out. “And yet you continue. Two of our postal couriers have disappeared without a trace since your invasion of the north. Ybur ‘American Liberation Army’ has been at war with the United States for many months now, Colonel Bezoar. And that cannot be mitigated by ignorance.”
The lies came easily, now. In essence, after all, the words were true.
Ever since those few weeks, right after the big war had been “won”—when the U.S. still had a government, and food and materiel still moved protected on the highways— the real problem had not been the broken enemies without so much as the chaos within.
Grain rotted in bulging silos while farmers were felled by simple, innoculable plagues. Vaccine was available in the cities, where starvation reaped multitudes. More people died due to the breakdown and lawlessness—the shattered web of commerce and mutual assistance—than from all the bombs and germs, or even from the three-year dusk.
It had been men like this who delivered the coup de grace, who ended any chance those millions had.
“Perhaps, perhaps.” Bezoar tossed back a shot of the pungent liquor. He smiled. “Then again, many have claimed to be the true inheritors of American sovereignty. So your ‘Restored United States’ controls large areas and populations, and so its leaders include a few old farts who once bought elected office with cash and a television smile. Does that mean that it is the true America?”
For an instant the calm, reasonable visage seemed to crack, and Gordon saw the fanatic within, unchanged except perhaps by deepening over the years. Gordon had heard that tone . . . long ago in the radio voice of Nathan Holn—before the survivalist “saint” was hanged—and spoken by his followers ever since.
It was the same solipsistic philosophy of ego that had stoked the rage of Nazism, of Stalinism. Hegel, Horbiger, Holn—the roots were identical. Derived truth, smug and certain, never to be tested in the light of reality.
In North America, Holnism had been a nut fringe during a time of otherwise unparalleled brilliance, a throwback to the egoistic eighties. But another version of the same evil—“Slavic Mysticism”—actually seized power in the other hemisphere. That madness finally plunged the world into the Doomwar.
Gordon smiled with grim severity. “Who can say what is legitimate, after all these years? But one thing is certain, Bezoar, the ‘true spirit of America’ seems to have become a passion for hunting down Holnists. Your cult of the strong is loathed—not only in the Restored U.S. but almost everywhere I’ve traveled. Feuding villages will join forces on rumor of sighting one of your bands. Any man caught wearing surplus camouflage is hanged on sight.”
He knew he had scored, then. The earringed officer’s nostrils flared. “That’s Colonel Bezoar, if you please. And I’ll wager there are some areas where that’s not true, Mr. Inspector. Florida, perhaps? And Alaska?”
Gordon shrugged. Both states had gone silent the day after the first bombs fell. There had been other places too, such as southern Oregon, where the militia had not dared enter, even in strength.
Bezoar stood up and walked to a bookshelf. He pulled down a thick volume. “Have you ever actually read Nathan Holn?” he asked, his voice amiable once again. Gordon shook his head.
“But, sir!” Bezoar protested. “How can you know your enemy without learning how he thinks? Please, take this copy of Lost Empire . . . Holn’s own biography of that great man, Aaron Burr. It just might change your mind.
“You know I do believe, Mr. Krantz, that you are the sort of man who could become a Holnist. Often the strong need only have their eyes opened to see that they have been cozened by the propaganda of the weak, that they could have the world, if only they stretched out their hands and took it.”
Gordon suppressed his initial response, and picked up the proffered book instead. It probably wouldn’t be wise to provoke the man too far. After all, he could probably have both northerners killed with a word.
“All right. It might help pass the time while you arrange our transportation back to the Willamette,” he said, quite calmly.
“Yeah,” Johnny Stevens contributed, speaking for the first time. “And while you’re at it, how about paying the extra postage it’ll take to finish delivering that stolen mail we’re going to take back with us?”
Bezoar returned Johnny’s cold smile, but before he could reply, they heard footsteps on the wooden porch of the former ranger station. The door opened and in stepped three bearded men dressed in the traditional green and black fatigues.
One of them, the shortest but easily the most imposing figure, wore only a single earring. But it glittered with large, inset gems.
“Gentlemen,” Bezoar said, standing up. “Allow me to introduce Brigadier General Macklin, U.S. Army Reserve, uniter of the Oregon clans of Holn and commander of the American Forces of Liberation.”
Gordon stood up numbly. For a moment he could only stare. The General and his two aides were among the strangest-looking human beings he had ever seen.
There was nothing unusual about their beards or earrings . . . or the short string of shriveled “trophies” that each wore as ceremonial decorations. But all three men were eerily scarred, wherever their uniforms permitted view of their necks and arms. And under the faint lines left by some long ago surgery, the muscles and tendons seemed to bulge and knot oddly.
It was weird, and yet it occurred to Gordon that he might have seen something akin to it, sometime in the past. He could not quite remember where or when though.
Had these men suffered from one of the postwar plagues? Supermumps, perhaps? Or some sort of thyroid hypertrophy?
In a sudden recognition Gordon knew that the biggest of Macklin’s aides was the pig-ugly raider who had struck so quickly on the night of the ambush by the banks of the Co-qunie, knocking him to the ground with the punch of a bull before he could even begin to move.
None of the men was of the newer generation of feudal-survivalists, young toughs recruited all through southern Oregon. Like Bezoar, the newcomers were clearly old enough to have been adults before the Doomwar. Time did not seem to have slowed them down any, however. General Macklin moved with a catlike quickness that was intimidating to watch. He wasted no time in pleasantries. With a jerk of his head and a glance at Johnny, he made his wishes known to Bezoar.
Bezoar pressed his fingers together. “Ah. Yes. Mr. Stevens, if you would please accompany these gentlemen back to your, um, quarters? It appears the General wants to speak with your superior alone.”
Johnny looked at Gordon. Obviously, if given the word, he would fight.
Gordon quailed inwardly under the burden of that expression in the youth’s eyes. Such devotion was something he had never sought, not from anybody. “Go on back, John,” he told his young friend. “I’ll join you later.”
The two hulking aides accompanied Johnny outside. When the door had closed, and the footsteps receded into the night, Gordon turned to face the commander of the united Holnists. In his heart he felt a powerful determination. There was no regret, no fear of hypocrisy here. If it was in him to lie well enough to bluff these bastards, he would do it. He felt full within his postman’s uniform, and got ready to give the best performance of his life.
“Save it,” Macklin snapped.
The dark-bearded man pointed a long, powerful hand at him. “One word of that crap about a ‘Restored United States’ out of you, and I’ll stuff your ‘uniform’ down your frigging throat!”
Gordon blinked. He glanced at Bezoar and saw that the man was grinning.
“I am afraid I’ve been less than open with you, Mr. Inspecter.” There was a clear lilt of sarcasm this time in Be-zoar’s last two words. The Holnist Colonel bent to open a drawer in his desk. “When first I heard of you I immediately sent out parties to trace your route backwards. By the way, you are right that Holnism is not very popular, in certain areas. At least not yet. Two of the teams never returned.”
General Macklin snapped his fingers. “Don’t drag this out, Bezoar. I’m busy. Call the jerk in.”
Bezoar nodded quickly and reached back to pull a cord on the wall, leaving Gordon wondering what he had been trying to find in the drawer.
“Anyway, one of our scouting parties did encounter a band of kindred spirits in the Cascades, in a pass north of Crater Lake. There were misunderstandings, most of the poor locals died, I’m afraid. But we did manage to persuade a survivor—“
There were footsteps, then the beaded curtain parted. The svelte blond woman held it open and watched coldly as a battered-looking man with a bandaged head stumbled into the room. He wore a uniform of patched, faded camouflage, a belt knife, and a single, tiny earring. His eyes were downcast. This survivalist was one who seemed less than joyous at being here.
“I would introduce you to our latest recruit, Mr. Inspector,” Bezoar said. “But I believe you two already know each other.”
Gordon shook his head, thoroughly lost. What was going on here? To his knowledge he had never seen this man before in his life!
Bezoar prodded the drooping newcomer, who looked up, then. “I cannot say for certain,” the unsteady Holn recruit said, peering at Gordon. “He might be the one. It was a passing event, really, of so . . . so little consequence at the time . . . .”
Gordon’s fists balled suddenly. That voice.
“It’s you, you bastard!”
The jaunty Alpine cap was gone, but now Gordon recognized the salt-and-pepper sideburns, the sallow complexion. Roger Septien seemed far less serene than when Gordon had last seen the man—on the slopes of a death-dry mountainside, helping to carry away nearly everything Gordon owned in the world, blithely, sarcastically, leaving him to almost certain death.
Bezoar nodded in satisfaction. “You may go, Private Septien. I believe your officer has suitable duty arranged for you, tonight.”
The former robber and onetime stockbroker nodded wearily. He didn’t even glance again at Gordon, but passed outside without another word.
Gordon realized that he had blundered in reacting so quickly. He should have ignored the man, pretended he didn’t recognize him.
But then, would it have made a difference? Macklin had already seemed so sure. . . .
“Get on with it,” the General told his aide.
Bezoar reached into the drawer again, and this time drew forth a small, ragged, black notebook. He held it out to Gordon. “Do you recognize this? It has your name in it.”
Gordon blinked. Of course it was his journal, stolen— along with all his goods—by Septien and the other robbers only hours before he stumbled onto the ruined postal van and started down the road to his new career.
At the time he had mourned its loss, for the diary detailed his travels ever since leaving Minnesota, seventeen years ago . . . his careful observations of life in postholocaust America.
Now, though, the slim volume was the last thing on Earth he would ever have wanted to see. He sat down heavily, suddenly weary, aware of how completely the devils had been toying with him. The lie had caught up with him, at last.
In all the pages of that little journal, there wasn’t a single word about postmen, or recovery, or any “Restored United States.”
There was only the truth.