Fractions_ The First Half of the Fall Revolution - Ken MacLeod [158]
Wills’s eyes narrowed behind his rain-spattered glades.
‘Are you threatening me, citizen?’
‘No, I’m—’ She realized the gun had turned with her body, and was pointing straight at Wills. By now, not doing that sort of thing had become a reflex to her. She lowered the muzzle. ‘Sorry, Wills,’ she said. ‘You know we can’t do – what you suggested. Even to say it takes us near—’ She moved an open, stiff hand up and down: an edge.
‘We’ve got to do something,’ Wills said. ‘If we don’t—’
‘Do what we’re supposed to do,’ Janis snapped. ‘Call in a chopper, vac the barbarians out and trash the place.’
‘Not enough, comrade, not for the comrades.’ Wills tipped his head back very slightly. Janis knew he was right. The lads and lasses wanted revenge. If they didn’t get it, a provoked incident and an itchy trigger might give them a slaughter to remember.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘We trash the place first, let the barb watch it, then vac them.’
Wills looked at her for a moment, then nodded and smiled as if they’d been having a friendly discussion, and gave the order. The citizen-soldiers whooped, the barbarians wept as the houses went up in flames around them. More steam than smoke rose to meet the evacuation chopper. Another batch of bawling orphans and sullen new citizens sent to six months in the resettlement camps, and then a life in the shanty-towns. It happened to every village that didn’t join up with the Republic’s militia.
They called it the shake and vac.
That night they made camp in a village of proper houses, built of stone, whose street was bypassed by the main road. It was the sort of place that had always been part of the Kingdom, and had rallied, however reluctantly, to the Republic as a protection against the barb. The unit had no intention of alienating the inhabitants by billeting in their houses, and settled in an old building that had once been a local primary school. It had a good high wall around it, and a kitchen and canteen that could be used – even, to their delight, showers that worked.
Wills brought his tray of dinner to the table where Janis sat with three other soldiers. Most of the light in the canteen was the glow from the kitchen at the far end of it. They all had their glades on. The false colours of the food were unappetizing, but the smell overrode that. They ate quickly, from habit.
After a while Wills said, ‘You were right, you know, Taine.’
She looked up, wiping her plate with bread. ‘I know.’
Political discussion was free in this army. Janis hadn’t felt the need to take part in any until now. She was still reluctant, unwilling to take her mind away from the memory of that shocking, familiar voice. But it was not to be avoided – it was part of what the memory meant.
‘Why do we have to do it?’ she said. ‘Don’t think I’m soft. I got good reason to despise these people. But why can’t we just leave the barb alone if they leave us alone? Why do we have to force them to take sides when most of them will choose the other side?’
‘It’s civil war,’ Wills said. ‘There’s no neutrality. They think the same way. What harm had that poor bastard done to them?’
Janis pushed her plate away. There was still some meat on it. She lit a cigarette. Nearly all the comrades smoked. She’d accepted one cigarette, once, in a tense moment, and then another…Moh had been right about life-expectancy.
‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘maybe he tried to make them take sides, and they saw that as harm.’
The others at the table shifted. She could hear the quiet rattle and clink of gear. Somebody snorted.
‘You’re something of a new citizen yourself, aren’t you, Taine?’ Wills said in a low voice.
The gun was solid and heavy between her feet. Silence rippled outwards across the room.
She looked at Wills, and saw someone standing behind him. Another cadre, she thought, come swiftly to calm the situation. She glanced away from Wills to see who it was.
Moh’s mocking eyes looked back at her, his slyly smiling lips mouthed