Danton looked Keith in the eyes. "You mentioned earlier, something
about sometimes thinking you should be an Oligarch. You really feel
that way, Keith?"
"Why not? We didn't have a choice whose side we would fight on. We were
conditioned from the time we were old enough to think, and we fought
the Oligarchs for fifty years. Three-quarters of the world's population
rubbed out. And then we had a world that didn't want us--unless we were
three other people. We fought to destroy the old values, help build a
new society. But let's face it, Captain--those old values we destroyed
were our own! We helped destroy our own kind of world. So what does it
mean? It means we should have fought _for_ the Oligarchs, and that we
really sympathize with them. Their system is a war system, probably
still is. With them, there would always be a place for a fighting-man.
A soldier among the Oligarchs could expect honor and privilege."
Danton had nothing to say. He had thought in a similar way more than
once.
Van Ness said, "Wrong, Keith. We've committed ourselves, and now we
have to go on to the end of the road."
The words drifted with the wind across the glassy lake. You walked
along the road, Danton thought, while the road was visible and you
walked it to the end. And neither road nor the end was your own
choice. Maybe the only glory was in walking it bravely. But maybe, as
Keith had said, they had been on the wrong road. The Oligarchs, had
they conquered, would have always provided an honorable place for a
soldier. Banners, flags, women, the rise of battle fever, the ecstatic
explosions of power, the enemy dead.
Keith fired once into the forest wall. A shape fluttered away over
the tops of the trees, then fell, crying at first, then screaming
like a woman. "We've been followed by those things for about a mile
along the shore edge," Keith said. "They don't seem friendly. They're
intelligent. Big, with wings, and old-style weapons. Very old.
Explosive powder stuff."
"Martians," said Van Ness.
* * * * *
Danton said, "I caught a look at some human beings just before we hit
the lake. Maybe I was seeing things that weren't, but there seemed to
be ancient amtracs, old-style cannon, marching men."
Keith nodded. "This whole business is crazy. A highly advanced
technology with spaceships in the air--and centuries-old amtracs and
gun-powder on the ground! If this is all a dream and we're really on
earth in a psyche-cell, somebody's got a devil of an imagination!"
An explosion, then the whine of steel missiles sent the three on their
stomachs among the small sharp shells. Danton raked the forest with
flash-gun fire.