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turn it off the second it was hot enough. She didn't look up. Ken
felt relieved. Cora was the only one who knew how well he'd done
by taking in city orphans. It hadn't been as much trouble as he'd
thought, with Sarge and his wife to help. They put the kids into two
empty neighboring houses, and Sarge got them organized like a
military outfit with their own leaders and everything. Ken hardly saw
them.
And it had paid off nicely. Not only were there enough ration
coupons and gas bottles to trade for a few luxuries, but everybody
knew about the kids and his increased ration tickets, so the local
ration wardens didn't come searching his place. Hoarders weren't
highly regarded...
Ken had known food would be scarce. But who'd have thought
that heat to cook it with would be the hardest thing to come by?
No sun!
Cora was just beginning to bulge. I suppose I'll have to marry
her. Maybe not. Either way, she's going to make me send Patsy
away. Unless I can get somebody to marry Patsy? Somebody
hungry who'll act jealous?
They took the coffee into the front room. Anthony Graves was
in his usual place by the big front windows. They faced southeast
and got just enough sun to grow tomatoes in pots if somebody
would spend enough time taking care of them. Graves was glad to
do it. There wasn't a lot else for somebody his age.
Randy Conant was there, too.
Sarge gave Anthony Graves a quarter cup of his coffee. Ht
liked Graves. He carefully ignored Randy Conant. "Get much written,
sir?"
"Some," Graves said. He grinned. "I never expected to write
my magnum opus long after I retired."
"I think it's great," Sarge said.
Randy Conant mumbled something.
"What?" Cora asked.
"I said it was shit."
"Enough, Sarge," Ken said. Sarge Harris hadn't moved, but his
face told it all. "Randy, why don't you go turn over the compost
heap?"
"Fuck all, let somebody else do some of the work!"
"Sarge, I said that'll do! Randy, we all work. Now get going
before I forget you're my sister's kid-"
"Don't do me any favors, Uncle Ken."
"Maybe I'll take that advice."
"Whew," Patsy said. "It gets thick-"
"Hey, I'm sorry," Randy said. "I get upset, that's all. All this
work, and what for?"
"What for?" Sarge demanded.
"Yeah, what for? We're gonna lose anyway. Just like that
Dawson guy said, they can keep dropping rocks on us until we have
to give up. Why don't we do it while we've got something left?"
"Peace in our time.' Thank you, Neville Chamberlain," Graves
chuckled.
"You're gonna fight the snouts with quotes?"
"Sure. Have another. 'Some folks win by winning, some folks
win by losing.' I think you get off on looking stupid, Randy."
"There's a lot of people think like I do!"
"Bullshit!" -
"Sarge, you won't hear it," Patsy said. "But he's right. I hear
them down at the market. Nice people. They just want things the
way they were before the war started." -
"That's what they won't get," Graves said. "Whatever else,
they won't have that. Look what happened after World War II.
Everything changes after a war. Win or lose."
"It'll be worse if we lose," Sarge insisted.
"Sure. People don't tame very well."
"I don't want us to surrender," Cora said. "But-well, would it
be so awful? That congressman, Dawson, he said they'll let us live
under our own laws, live the way we always said we want to-"
Monogamously. You'd like that. Ken thought.
"That's what the commies always said!" Sarge shouted.
"True enough," Graves said.
"I'd rather have them than snouts," Patsy said.
"What difference does it make, what you'd rather have?"
Randy demanded. "Nothing we do makes any difference! They're up
there and we can't hurt them!"
"The Army's doing something." Sarge was positive.
"What? Just what can they do?"
"I don't know, but they're doing something. You heard the
President! He sounded good, confident-"
"And you really believe in politicians. I mean, you really trust
them! Hell, you hate President Coffey!"
"A lot of people hated Roosevelt," Graves said. "A lot more
than you'd think. But he won the war."
"It's different now," Randy said. "Don't you see, it's different.
If there was something we could do, some way we could fight, but
there's nothing, we just sit here and let them drop rocks on us,
nothing we can do, and they'll get bigger and bigger. They'll kill us
all and we can't do anything about it." He laughed. "Shit, we sure
can't do anything. We can't even surrender."
"We can hang on," Graves said. "Stay alive and be ready to
35 THE WASHING OF THE SPEARS
An assegai has been thrust into the--belly of the nation. There are
not enough tears to mourn the dead.
-- King of the Zulu, after the battle of Rorke's Drift
"We are winning." Attackmaster Koothfektil-rusp's image blurred
slightly, and his voice hissed.
African night lay below Message Bearer. The dark cloud coy
flared with chains of wild power surges. The Herdmaster's nerv
screamed at the sight, but he couldn't look away. Repair the broken
lines, lest the ship die! He waited for the atmospheric electric
discharges to end. They came less frequently now. When the fithp
had landed in the first weeks after the Foot, they had been near
constant. -
The image solidified. "We have captured wonderful machine
which make electrical power, and transportation devices, machines
that make other machines. We have slaves. The land is wide, and it
is ours. We eat the native food-"
"We must learn if poisons are present or nutrients are
missing. Ship samples to Message Bearer for chemical analysis."
"We will, on the next launch. Herdmaster, Chintithpit-mar
wishes to return for the mating season. We will miss him sorely but
he has surely earned the privilege."
"Yes, I remember your reports." Yet Chintithpit-mang is a
dissident, of the Year Zero Fillip! What have they found, that the
look so far? "Can you truly spare your best warriors? You continue
to lose fithp."
"Yes, Herdmaster. We will always lose warriors until we have
culled out the rogues from among these humans. Fistarteh-thuktu
was correct. This is a race of rogues, rogues everywhere, they may
be more rogues than normals. The acolytes are studying this, to
see how it could have come about. Herdmaster, we may have come
just in time to save these humans. As if it were meant to be.
Herdmaster, we gain a new domain, a wide domain. We stand on
high places and we cannot see the bounds of our territory!"
"Your domain grows large and the fithp grow fewer. The
warriors sicken of slaughter."
"It will not always be so. The true humans learn. We kill rogues
only. It is the, task of warriors to kill rogues."
The Herdmaster suppressed an urge to trumpet. "How are you
sure there are what you call true humans?"
"I will show you." The Attackmaster gestured and stepped
aside. Two stepped into camera view: Breaker-One Raztupispminz,
and a dark human male covered with drab cloth, as the important
ones always covered themselves. He stood half out of camera view,
for fear of standing too close to the Breaker.
"This one is called Botha. He held high rank in the Afrikaans
tribe. He knows little of our speech, but I will give you his words. He
is eager to end this war."
The human spoke at length. His voice went up and down, now
a mumble, now a whine. Pastempeh-keph heard it as a plea.
"He speaks strangely," Tashayamp said.
Pastempeh-keph turned to her. "Is it not English?"
"Yes, Herdmaster, but not as I have learned it."
The Breaker spoke. "He says that the war destroys, and both
humans and flthp lose. He says that he would do what he could to
end the fighting and let humans and fithp live together. This he
calls peace. He says that now he can do nothing. We took his
surrender in a ceremony broadcast to all the humans here, and
because they have seen my foot on his chest, many will no longer
obey him."
The Herdmaster trumpeted in rage. "Then why seek leaders at
all? Must we take surrender from each? We have not enough feet
for every human!"
"No, Herdmaster. We allow them to gather. They have
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