Battle Hymn (16 page)

Andrew chuckled at the memory.

"You and your comrades raised me from ignorance, and for that I shall be forever grateful."

"But ..Andrew prompted.

"But I am in complete disagreement with you now, old friend."

"As it should be," Andrew replied.

Kal looked at him quizzically.

"Isn't that what the Republic is all about? Disagreeing and then settling our disagreements in public debate."

"A fine sentiment, my friend. But this is different. It is a fundamental argument about the direction the Republic must take."

"It is always that way," Andrew said forcefully. "Every generation views its issues as so earth-shattering in their significance that neither side can, at the start, broker a compromise, but usually that is the end result."

"What about your Civil War?"

Andrew nodded sadly. "It could have been negotiated, if cooler minds had prevailed. Lincoln all but begged in his first inaugural for both sides to come to the table to talk. We did not, and half a million died as a result."

"And our argument?"

"Kal, we see the world in two different lights. Rus is the world you know, it is the land you were born to, love, fought and sacrificed for, and someday shall be buried in, honored as the first president of the Republic. Your thoughts shall always be of Rus first."

"I sense a rebuke in that."

"Not at all, my friend. It is miraculous how you engineered the signing of the Second Constitution, uniting us with Roum, in spite of the misgivings of Congress. I think that as governor of Rus under the new Constitution you will be exemplary."

"But not as president of the Republic?"

Andrew looked his friend straight in the eye and finally shook his head.

Kal reddened. "And you believe your vision is more clear."

"I think so, Kal. Plus, I think I can win."

"And drag us into another war in the process."

"That is what divides us, Kal, the issue of war."

"You believe it is inevitable. I do not," Kal replied heatedly. "We won our fight against the Tugars and the Merki, and heaven knows the bloody price we paid. Half the population of Rus was annihilated."

Kal's voice grew flat. "There are times I wish that you had followed the counsel of Cromwell, taken your ship and fled before the Tugars arrived. You could have returned after they passed, and we would have lost but one in ten of our number. Then we would have had twenty years to prepare for the conflict."

Andrew leaned forward in his chair. "The past cannot be changed. And remember, Mr. President, it was you who incited the rebellion against the boyars, forcing us into staying. If you had stayed your hand, your wish, no matter how wrong, would have come to pass. If there's a fault there, it is yours.

"And remember this too, Kal," Andrew snapped. "Pat and I came to this forsaken place with more than five hundred men under our command. Fewer than half of them are left. I lost a lot of good boys dragging you and Rus out of slavery."

"Andrew."

Kathleen stood up and moved between them, refilling Kal's mug.

"Both of you just settle down for a moment," she snapped. "You cannot undo what was done, and damn it all, there is no fault. Half of Rus is dead and the Lord knows I held the hand of enough of them as they died, Kal. Half the boys of the Thirty-fifth and Forty-fourth are gone and I held more than one of them as well. So stop arguing about what was and think about what will be."

Both men looked up at her and slowly settled back into their chairs. As she filled Andrew's mug, she gave him an angry look of reproach. He bristled slightly, and she stood before him, unmoving, until his features finally relaxed and he nodded imperceptibly, signaling that he had his temper under control.

"We both lost," Andrew finally said. "But their children will not have to make the fight and sacrifice that they made."

"I don't want to lose what's left," Kal replied. "We've poured our strength and wealth into running the railroad a thousand miles beyond Roum, without a single cent of return. We are putting ourselves out on a limb. It might even provoke a response from the Hordes."

"So we're to leave the people out there to the mercy of the likes of Tamuka?"

"Don't try to back me into the comer of being without compassion," Kal snapped back angrily. "What can we do? At best, we can now field an army of two hundred thousand. A quarter of them are already tied down guarding the frontier to the west, southwest, and along the Roum narrows between the Inland Sea and the Great Sea. And that front is slowly bleeding us, five hundred dead this year alone. If a war should trigger with the Bantag, all the progress of the last three years will be sacrificed. And what in the end—another hundred thousand dead?

"Let us take our breather now, Andrew. Take two, three, even five years to build for ourselves. Then let us drive the railroad westward, and ten years hence, if there is to be a final showdown with the Hordes, let it be thousands of miles to the west."

Andrew shook his head.

"That will condemn half the world to the revenge of the Hordes. In those ten, fifteen years, they will sweep around the world, but this time they will slaughter everyone, Kal, everyone. And they will build and prepare as well. The war our children will have to fight will be ten times worse."

"They'll have no factories like ours," Kal replied. "They will face our modern weapons with their bows or old smoothbores. The progress we can make in the next ten years will give us even greater superiority."

"Can we be so sure?" Andrew said softly.

"What I can be sure of is that if we provoke another war, we will not survive. The miracle at Hispania will not be repeated twice."

"And suppose it is the Bantag who come looking for us?" Andrew questioned.

"A defensive war. The fortification line between the Inland Sea and the Great Sea."

"It still exists only on paper. We have a string of strong points, but they'll be cut off in the first hours of a campaign and left in the rear to rot. We need ten thousand laborers on that line for six months to make it worth anything."

Kal nodded and extended his hand. "I know, I know. And if I ask for it, Congress will scream bloody murder. Ten thousand laborers are needed back here already. Those ten thousand could break a hundred thousand acres of virgin land, bring it under cultivation, and guarantee a food surplus, or better roads, or millions of board feet of lumber instead."

"If we don't prepare, there won't be anything left to defend," Andrew replied. "At least run the rail line on to Nippon. That's nearly four million more people, an additional ten to fifteen corps once we train and arm them."

"And the political ramifications in Congress?" Kal replied. "They'll outnumber both us and the Rus."

"Ah, so now we get to the bottom of it all," Andrew replied sharply. "Better to let them die than become voters."

Kal stood up angrily.

"That was out of line, Andrew," Kathleen snapped Andrew looked sharply at Kathleen and then back at Kal. He saw the anger and also the hurt in Kal's eyes.

"That was uncalled for," Andrew said softly. "I apologize."

Kal nodded, unable to reply.

"Kal, we're going to run against each other. I think it comes down to that. Besides, it's what a Republic is supposed to be about. We have two different visions of how to arrive at the same place—security for our people."

"That means you will have to resign your commission," Kal replied.

Andrew nodded sadly. The thought was a depressing one. He had been in uniform for more than a decade. To hang up his uniform after such long service was in many ways a frightening concept. The salary that Kathleen drew as assistant director of medical services for the armies, would help them to get by, but the daily routine that stretched back to a drill field in Augusta, Maine, in the summer of 1862 was a hard tradition to leave behind.

"When will you announce?" Kal asked.

"I was thinking after the congressional elections in November."

"I was hoping you would agree to that," Kal replied.

"Until then, I will observe the Constitution, sir. You are my commander in chief and I will obey all orders without protest."

"Who should replace you?"

"I was thinking your son-in-law."

"Vincent? Good heavens, he's only twenty-seven years old."

"And has the respect of every fighting man in both Rus and Roum. Don't worry, Pat will be his number two and will keep a steady hand on him."

"Won't some people think I'm playing family politics?"

Andrew smiled. "He's the best for the job, Kal. Trust me on that."

"All right, I'll consider that."

"Kal, there is one request I do have now."

"And that is?"

"The airship. It should be ready within the month. Let it go into Bantag territory."

Kal looked at him in surprise and then shook his head. "You remember the message from their Qar Qarth. Leave them alone and they'll leave us alone."

"Then explain why we've lost five hundred boys out on the frontier."

"Border skirmishing is bound to happen with a race we've been at war with. But actually flying into their territory is different."

"It could settle some issues once and for all, Kal. Either we'll find something out there confirming the rumors or there'll be nothing but open steppe. Sir, I pray it's the latter, but if it's the former, it might very well make the difference between our living and dying."

"Congress would have my head over this."

Andrew fixed him with his gaze. "Sir, you are the president."

A flicker of anger crossed Kal's features.

"We could do it at ten thousand feet," Andrew said hurriedly. "If there's nothing there, they might not even notice it. And frankly, sir, even if they do notice it and protest—well, the hell with them. Besides, it would take weeks, perhaps months, for word of the mission to get back, at which point we could simply call it a bloody lie."

As he spoke, he was watching Kathleen, wondering what her reaction would be to his encouraging the president to be untruthful.

"Do you really believe there's something out there?"

"Yes, sir, I do, and if there is, the earlier we're warned about it, the better."

Kal stood up slowly and put on his hat. "Damn it all, then do it. One flight only, and no one is to know, especially in Congress, or the Home First Party will be down our throats."

Opening the door himself, he walked out and disappeared into the fog.

"I hope that you're right and I'm wrong, my friend," Andrew sighed.

"Okay, do it."

Hans could not help but look back nervously over his shoulder. From where he was standing the row of treadmills was not visible, concealed by a support wall for the furnace. The corner was dark, the darkness enhanced by the towering piles of charcoal and the black walls and ceiling, which were covered in a heavy layer of ground-in dust. Number three was stone-cold, the crew inside it clearing out the last of the ash and slag. The air was choking, his eyes watering. It was the perfect setting for what they were starting. The spotters deployed across the factory floor were giving the all-clear. Only three Bantag were in the building at the moment, all of them down by the main entrance, watching a crew loading iron rails onto a train.

Hans flinched as the pick hit the floor with a high-pitched snap and bits of mortar sprayed in every direction. Ketswana's work crew, loading up wicker baskets of charcoal, worked with boisterous energy, shouting, scraping shovels to scoop charcoal, but they could not completely cover the sound of the pick being swung by a Cartha laborer.

Hans moved away, trying to act casual, whispering to the charcoal haulers not to work so energetically; otherwise their diligence itself might draw attention. The crew inside the furnace was working at a furious pace, slamming picks and shovels, and as Hans stepped away he let out a sigh of relief. From thirty paces away, the sound of the pick digging into the factory floor was indistinguishable from the usual cacophony echoing in the vast brick-walled building.

A spotter standing nearby suddenly pulled a dirty strip of cloth out of his tunic and wiped his face— the danger signal. Hans looked up and saw one of the Bantag guards casually strolling toward them, looming like a demon out of the smoky gloom.

Damn. It was Uktar. The Bantag was stupid beyond belief and thus, in a way, dangerous. If he suspected that a cattle was somehow smarter than he, the thought would move him to torment or kill the source of the offense. He also had the unnerving habit of simply stopping and staring at a work gang, sometimes for an hour or more before moving on. By that time the gang would be all but ready to collapse from working at a frenzied pace under his baleful eye. If he stopped by the charcoal pile and delayed the cutting, they might not get through and set up before the cleaning out of the furnace and reloading was finished. It would mean a delay of at least a week, and something told him that with the threat of the Moon Feast, if any who knew about the plan were selected, they would spill the information to try and save themselves.

Uktar slowly came to a stop and turned to watch the crew on number four getting set for a pour. It was less than thirty yards away. Hans swallowed hard and nodded as Gregory came up to his side.

"Signal to resume."

Gregory looked at him wide-eyed. "He might hear."

"We just cover the noise. If we stop every time one of them is anywhere near, well never get it done. It's a madhouse of noise in here. The dumb bastard will never know the difference."

Hans tried to sound casual, but his stomach was balled up in a tight knot.

Gregory nodded to the watcher, who put his handkerchief back into his tunic.

"Don't signal again unless he's damn near on top of you," Hans whispered as he passed the watcher and then continued on his way.

Hans slowly walked the length of the factory floor, making his features a mirror of indifference. He paused to watch a crew loading the last of a batch of iron rails onto a flatcar, the crew gasping for breath, pushing the heavy wooden-wheeled handcarts back into the factory.