□ Net Vol. A69802-554, 04/20/38: 04:14:52 UT User T106-ll-7657-Aab Historical Reenactments Special Interest Group. Key: “Authenticity”
Brussels — Belgian Historical Society authorities called in the police this morning, to help disperse thirty thousand disappointed history buffs dressed in Napoleonic military uniforms. Some of them had traveled from as far as Taipei to participate in this year’s reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo, only to be turned away. Many angrily waved valid registration forms, claiming they already had official membership in the annual pageant.
This reporter asked BHS Director Emile Tousand: Why were so many accepted, only to be turned back at the battleground itself?
“Out of three hundred and fifty thousand applicants, only one hundred and ninety-three thousand qualified with authentic, handmade kits — from muskets to uniform buttons. Of this number, we predicted a no-show rate over thirty percent, especially after this year’s increase in coach-class zep tickets.”
When asked to explain the discrepancy, Tousand explained.
“It appears we are suffering for our success. Except for Gettysburg and Borodino, ours is the best-respected battle recreation. Many a hobbyist is eager to play a simple foot soldier, even if only to have a radio-controlled blood capsule explode on him the first day.”
Then why were so many sent away?
“Our passion is accuracy. How, I beg you, could we have that with more ersatz soldiers than were at the main battle itself? The idea’s absurd!
“Besides, environmental groups routinely agitate against us. Unless we keep the trampling and noise below a certain level, musket era reenactments may go the way of those ill-fated attempts to recreate Kursk and El Alamein, back in the teens.”
Would that be such a bad thing? Can we afford to have thousands of men marching about, playing war, when that scourge nearly destroyed us only a generation ago?
“Is it a coincidence that as more men join clubs to ‘play war,’ there has been less and less of the real thing? I can tell you that our boys come to have fun. They get fresh air and exercise, unlike so many whose passive hobbies have turned them into mere net junkies, or even dazers. And there are very few injuries or fatalities.”
But don’t war games encourage a romantic fascination with the real thing?
“Any sane man knows the difference between falling dramatically before the cameras, because his blood cartridge has been set off, and what it must have been like for real soldiers … to actually feel musket balls tearing through your guts, shattering your bones. None of our members fails to weep when staring across the terrible finale — the tableau of the Old Guard, lying in bloody heaps upon their last redoubt. No man who has gazed on it in person could ever long to experience the real thing.
“Fascination, yes. There will always be fascination. But that only increases our appreciation of how far we’ve come. For all our problems today, I doubt anyone who studies what life was like in bygone times would sanely trade places with any ancestor, peasant or soldier, general or king.”
• IONOSPHERE
The moon shone on the horizon, setting in an unusual direction. Almost due south.
Of course at that moment all land headings were approximately southward. Such was the trickery of crossing over the north pole. Or near it. Drifting alongside the tiny model-three shuttle
Intrepid, Mark Randall turned from the moon to look down upon the estuary of the arctic River Ob, artery of the new Soviet grainlands. The steppe stretched across a flat expanse below him, an infinity of dun and green. Mark spoke a single word of command.
“Magnify.”
In response, a portion of his faceplate instantly displayed an amplified image. The Ob delta leaped toward him in fine, amplified detail.
“Prepare record sheet six,” he continued, as a reticle scale overlaid the ribbon of muddy blue, weaving across a vast, thawing tundra plain. Sensors tracked every movement of his pupils, so Mark could roll the scene as fast as he could look. “Zero in on position twelve point two by three point seven… expand eightfold.”
Smoothly, the main telescope in Intrepid’s observation bay turned microscopically on magnetic gimbals, focusing on the specified coordinates. Or at least the inertial tracker said they were the right coordinates. But Mark’s experience working with Teresa Tikhana had rubbed off, especially after the Erehwon disaster, so he double-checked by satellite references and two distinct landmarks — the Scharansky Power Station and the Cargil Corporation grain silos, bracketing the river from opposite shores. “Commence recording,” he said.
Between those two landmarks, the waters showed severe agitation — surface ripples and stirred-up bottom mud — each symptom detected in another optical or infrared or polarization band. A flotilla of vessels nosed about the disturbed area. Mark wondered what had churned the River Ob so. It must be important for Intrepid’s orders to be changed so abruptly, extending this simple peeper run far beyond normal.
I’m going to talk to the guild about this, Mark thought. Polar assignments pile up too many rads. They shouldn’t be prolonged without extra shielding, or bonus pay. Or at least a damn good reason…
It got especially inconvenient when a model-three shuttle was involved. The HOTOL technology was a pilot’s dream during takeoff and landing, but a bizarre, unexpected, and uncorrectable vibration mode meant the crew had to step “outside” during high-resolution camera work, in order not to ruin the pictures with their slightest movements. The flaw would be fixed in the next generation of vehicles… in maybe twenty years or so.
He spoke again, commanding the telescope to zero in even closer on the activity below. Now he clearly made out machinery on the dredges, and men standing at the gunwales of squat barges, peering into the river. Mark even saw black figures in the water. Probably divers, since as yet the burgeoning Ob was still too chilly to support other life forms so large. Lab-enhanced photos would, of course, make out even manufacturers’ labels on the divers’ masks.
Green telltales showed the recording was going well. This kind of precision wasn’t possible with surveillance satellites, and manned space stations didn’t operate this high in latitude, so Intrepid was the only platform available. Mark hoped it was worth it.
Anyway, so much for the rewards of fame and good works. After Erehwon and his tour for NASA on the lecture circuit, it had been good to be promoted to left seat on a shuttle. Still, of late he’d begun wondering if maybe Teresa weren’t right to be so suspicious, after all. Something smelled funny about the way he’d been glad-handed and diverted from asking questions about what Spivey and his crew had learned about the disaster.
Apparently that was who he was working for now, anyway… Glenn Spivey. The peeper had a large and growing group under him. Quite a few of Mark’s friends had been swept into the colonel’s growing web of subordinates and investigative teams. But what were they investigating? When Mark asked, old comrades looked away embarrassed, muttering phrases like national security or even — it’s secret.
“Bloody hell,” Mark muttered. Fortunately, his suit computer was narrow minded, and didn’t try to interpret it as an instruction. After hard experience, the astronaut corps went for literal-minded equipment that was difficult to confuse, if less “imaginative” than what civilians used.