Montour sighed at the thought, then sipped a little of his sherry.
“So the obvious happened. When the food and energy began to run out the rich first kept most of it, then all of it. After all, this had always been national policy during the years leading up to the collapse when America consumed most of the world’s petroleum, caring nothing for other countries’ needs. So who can blame individuals for following the same course? Any country that permits its citizens to die for want of medical attention simply because they cannot afford it, becomes a nation in moral trouble. There were riots, killing, and more riots. Guns and weapons were everywhere and they still are. The end product was a nation divided, with the browns and the blacks living as you see them, in ghettos surrounded by barbed wire. Here they grow a certain amount of food on their own, or go out to earn a bit by laboring at the menial jobs that have not been mechanized. They die in infancy or live brutally short lives. The benefits of technological society do not trickle down to them at all. Unlike your country there is no attempt to conceal the history of their physical status from them. The oppressors want the oppressed to know just what happened to them. So they will not be so foolish as to try it all over again some day. So, do you wonder at our interest in this rebellion of the planets? We look forward to it spreading to Earth.”
Jan could only nod and agree.
“Please excuse my rudeness for asking, but I don’t understand why the ruling powers permitted your education.”
Montour smiled. “They didn’t. My people originally came to this country as slaves. Completely without education, torn from their roots and culture. What we have achieved since that time was done despite the position our masters had placed us in. When the breakdown began we had no intention of giving up what we had so painfully achieved. We matured as a people even as we were being oppressed as a people. If they took away everything except our intelligence — why then we would have to rely on our intelligence alone. In doing this we had the opportunity to emulate the example of another oppressed minority. The Jews. For millennia they kept their culture and their traditions alive through religion and respect for learning. The religious man, the educated man was the honored man. We had our religion, and we had our professors and educators. Under the pressure of circumstance the two became amalgamated. The brightest boys are now honored by being permitted to enter the ministry when they come of age. My formative years were spent in dose streets. I speak the ghetto language that has developed since we were cut off from the mainstream of life. But I have learned the language of the oppressor as well, as part of my education. If salvation does not come in my generation I shall pass on my wisdom to those who follow after me. But I know — I have faith — that it will come some day.”
Jan drained the last of the sherry and put the glass down, waving away the offer of more. The rapid passage of events had left him dazed; his mind was almost as tired as his body, his thoughts turning around and around. What crippled lives people were forced to lead. The proles in Britain were at least fed and protected like cattle — as long as they accepted this cattle-like role. While the people here in the black ghettos of America had no such comforts, they did at least know who they were and what they were. But along with this knowledge was the fact that they were forced to live in a state of constant rebellion.
“I really don’t know which system is the worse to live under,” Jan said. “Yours or mine.
“No system of oppression should be condoned. And there are far worse ones in the world. The great socialist experiment in the Soviet Union was always hampered by the Czarist heritage with its obscene bits of madness like internal passports and labor camps. Whether the state there would have withered away in the end as Marx predicted we will never know. By the time of the Retrocession they still had not industrialized their basically peasant economy. It was an easy slide back to an almost feudal culture. Many died, but many have always died in Russia. The commissars and upper echelon party leaders took the p lace of the nobility. The titles might be different today, an of the Czars transported ahead in time would feel right at home there now.
“The rebellion must spread to Earth,” Jan said.
“I agree completely. We must work for that day…
The door was suddenly flung open and Willy stood there, gasping for breath, a gun in each hand.
“Trouble,” he said. “Bad trouble. Worst I ever seen.
Nine
“What happining?” Montour asked, shifting his speech quickly into the demotic.
“Dey’s all around. More of the bolly dogs I never seen. Right around New Watts, shooting at anything moves. Wid big heat guns to burn dere way in…”
His words were interrupted by the distant roar of fusion cannon, overlaid with the sharp crackling of gunfire. It was loud, close by. A hard knot of fear formed in Jan’s middle and he looked up and saw both men were looking at him.
“It’s me they want,” he said. Reverend Montour nodded.
“Very possibly. I can’t remember the last time they raided in strength like this.”
“There’s no point in running any longer. Those fusion guns will burn these old buildings flat. I’m going to give myself up.”
Montour shook his head. “We have places where you can hide. They put the fires out as they advance. They just use the guns to burn their way in.”
“I’m sorry. No. I’ve seen too many people killed recently. I can’t be responsible for any more deaths. I’m going out to them. I will not change my mind.”
Montour stood for a moment, then nodded. “You are a brave man. I wish we could have done more for you.” He turned to WiIly. “Leave dem guns here and show this gen mum where the bolly dogs at.”
The two pistols thudded to the floor. Jan took the scholar’s hand. “I’ll not forget you,” he said.
“Nor I, you.” Montour took a spotless white handkerchief from his breast pocket. “Better take this. They tend to fire first.”
Willy led the way, muttering angrily to himself, through passageways and connecting buildings. They had to move aside as two gunmen ran by, dragging a third man whose clothes were soaked with blood. No end, Jan thought, no end ever.
“Fuckin’ bolly dogs jes out dere,” Willy said, pointing to a door, then turned and hurried back the way they had come.
Jan shook out the folds of the handkerchief and stood to one side of the door as he eased it open. A burst of rocket slugs tore through it, screaming away down the hallway behind him.
“Stop shooting!” he called out, waving the white cloth through the gap. “I’m coming out.”
A shrill whistle blew and the sound of firing began to die away. An amplified voice called out. “Open the door slowly. Come out, one at a time. Hands on your head. If your hands aren’t there, if I see more than one man, I’m going to fire. All right — now.”
Jan laced his fingers together on top of his head and eased the door open with his toe, then walked slowly forward to face the ranked police officers. They were impersonal as robots behind their riot masks and shields; every weapon was pointed at him.
“I’m all alone,” he said.
“That’s him!” somebody called out.