Number One felt a twinge go through him. He turned back to Marshal Croft-Gordon. “Go on, Coaid. What else?”
“Largely, we progress elsewhere, with the funkers fleeing before us, unwilling to stand and fight.”
“Surely you must be able to corner or surround some elements.”
“Of course! You think my army’s composed of cloddies?” The Marshal’s tone was unnaturally belligerent before his superior. “But when we do, large numbers simply melt away. They dissolve into smaller units and take to the woods, hills, swamps, wherever motorized military units find it most difficult to operate. They become guerrillas, never standing and fighting, but sniping, burning, assassinating. It’s the most idiotic, infuriating type of warfare imaginable. Why, there are no back areas. The territory we overrun is never secure. Soldiers on leave, expecting to have a cold glass of guzzle in some local inn, never know when a grenade will be tossed through the window. Soldiers strolling the streets in a conquered village never know when a sniper will pick one off.”
Number One fell into thought.
Not even Marshal Croft-Gordon felt rebellious enough to interrupt.
Finally the Presidor shook himself and said, “Would it be of benefit to ignore public opinion and resort to nuclear weapons?”
Both the Marshal and Pater Riggin stared at him in shock.
“Jim,” the Temple Monk said, so low as hardly to be heard.
The Marshal shook his head in bitter regret. “There are no particular targets we could use. We can’t flatten the, Tatra Mountains—they cover an area larger than most of the neutral nations can boast. And besides, how can we know what action United Planets might ultimately take? Fusion and even fission weapons have been used only two or three times in the past century among the some three thousand member planets of UP, and in which case it meant disaster for the user.”
Number One changed the subject abruptly. “How much of their countryside do we now nominally control?”
“Nominally is correct. But including the open cities that capitulated, more than one-half. However, there is another element here. I need more troops. More age groups must be called up to the colors. My men are being spread too thin, considering the number of guerrillas operating behind our lines.”
His ultimate leader nodded wearily. “We’ll consider it. The finances involved are a problem; Coaid Matheison is still working in a madhouse. So are the anti-draft and peace riots a problem. But I’ll take it up.”
Marshal Croft-Gordon barked, “It’s not just a matter of taking it up, Your Leadership. I must have more men, more equipment, more munitions. Do you realize that the computers estimate that it is taking an average of fourteen tons of ammunition, bombs or other expendable material, to kill one Betastani, the way they are now fighting?”
Number One looked at him bleakly. “Pay attention to the manner in which you address me, Coaid. I weary of your lack of courtesy.”
A young woman pushing a baby carriage passed two Surety guards who idled at a street corner.
One of them grinned down into the conveyance, but she whispered, “Shhhhh, asleep.”
“I gotta little girl,” he whispered back.
She went on her way, turning a corner. The street was clear before her.
She darted her eyes, up, down, then temporarily abandoned the carriage at an alley head and scurried up the narrow way half a dozen feet. A pair of rubber handled wire snips materialized in her hand.
Moving fast, she approached an innocuous looking box set into the brick of the building.
Her little tool went snik, snik, snik.
Deputy Mark Fielder of the Commissariat of Surety was on the carpet. His face, for once incapable of controlling inner currents, was slowly darkening.
Number One rumbled, “You were aware of the state of the man in the street. Coaid Westley warned us repeatedly at sessions of the Central Comita. And now, here, this massacre. Your men firing wholesale into bodies of teenage children.”
“Your Leadership! Hardly children. The affair began as a demonstration against the new draft edicts. Children are not of draft age.”
Pater Riggin raised his eyebrows and murmured, “I had always thought otherwise. What is a boy of seventeen?”
They both ignored him,
“Go on,” Number One said ominously. “Explain, Coaid, why over a hundred and fifty of my people were shot down on the streets of Alphacity.”
There were blisters of cold sweat on the forehead of the Surety chief.
“It began fairly innocuously. My men, armed only with truncheons, attempted to break up their march. However, new elements, attracted undoubtedly as usual from curious passers-by, encouraged the youths. Some had the audacity to call out against my Surety men. The crowd swelled. My commandant in charge called for reserves.”
Fielder took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his face.
“Nobody seems to know how the first spark was struck. Most likely it was one of the Betastani…”
“The what… ?”
“The saboteurs. Was Your Leadership of the opinion that these continuing civil disturbances were spontaneous on the part of our own citizens? Please, Coaid Presidor, this much activity does not come spontaneously. It is planned. Any police agency, down through the ages, could tell you that Riots need leaders. Most often, they need planning. Our people are too well disciplined to provide either.”
Number One was dour. Tell me more about these saboteurs before continuing with today’s riot.”
Deputy Fielder felt himself on stronger ground. “How long the Betastani funkers have been planning for this war is unknown but I begin to suspect that it had been even longer than our own preparations and certainly on a different level. We should have suspected the large number of exchange students that enrolled in our universities. We should…”
Pater Riggin murmured mildly, “At the time we thought it a wonderful opportunity to influence their minds toward our form of regime and our religion.” Once again they ignored him. He didn’t mind.
“… have paid more attention to the number of their citizens who took up semi-permanent residence in Alphacity and elsewhere. At any rate, upon the declaration of war, these supposed students, tourists and temporary residents, disappeared into our streets, our mountains, our countryside. My commissariat is now of the opinion that a considerable number are highly trained ECE agents or graduates of their hush-hush Partisan Tech.
“What was that last?”
“A very secretive, very difficult, highly demanding institution devoted to guerrilla warfare as adapted to the modern scene. Marshal Croft-Gordon has infiltrated several of his and imprisoned. Without doubt, whoever scrambled Deputy Matheison’s records was a product of Partisan Tech.
“At any rate, Your Leadership, evidently the Betastani espionage and guerrilla chiefs hit upon the idea of disguising large numbers of their operatives as teen-agers. Has it ever occurred to you how inconspicuous a teenager is upon the streets? Their very loudness of dress, their raucous voices, their condolescent gawkiness, tend to make us ignore them, usually scornfully.