Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

room, past the opened crates and
labelled stacks of Myra’s archives. ‘Some of the
books in here are so fragile, I fear sometimes one photon
could…’ She smiled, and handed Myra a mug of
coffee.
    ‘Oh, thanks.’ It was cold in the library’s
still, stale air. She clasped her hands around the
china’swarmth. ‘Is there anywhere I can go for a
smoke?’ she asked.
    ‘Oh, sure, come on down to the basement.’
    The basement seemed hardly changed; the big table that took up
most of the room brought back memories – the long
discussions and arguments around it, the adventures planned
there, the afternoon she’d talked with Jon and Dave, and
gone with Jon.
    Along the way, Irina had picked up her own mug at the
kitchenette cubby-hole. She sat down opposite Myra and shoved an
ashtray across the table. In the unforgiving light she looked
older; she’d obviously had the treatments, but the weight
of her years still pulled at her face; it didn’t sag, but
it showed the strain.
    ‘Well,’ Myra said, lighting up, ‘uh, that
thing you said? About the place being watched? Why’s
that?’
    Irina moved her hand as though flicking ash. ‘Police
mentality,’ she said. ‘Obviously if we study the
post-civilised, we’re potentially sympathetic to them, and
to the enemy within.’
    ‘The what?’
    ‘The Greens.’ Irina laughed. ‘The FU and the
Greens, it’s like it used to be with the SU and the Reds.
In the good old days of the Cold War, being interested in the
other side at all was suspect, no matter how useful it might be.
And of course the same on the other side.’ She smiled. T
worked at the Institute of American Studies in Bucharest. Se-curitate on my case all the time.’
    Jesus. You must be nearly as old as I am.’ Myra thought
the remark tactless as soon as it was out of her mouth, but Irina
preened herself at it.
    ‘Older,’ she said proudly. ‘I’m a
hundred and ten.’
    ‘Wow. Hundred and five, myself. Had the earlier
treatments, of course, but I’ve just had the nano
job.’
    ‘Ah, good for you, you won’t regret it.’ She
smiled distandy. ‘You know, Myra Godwin, you are part of
the history. Of this Institute, and of the societies it was set
up to study. I supervised a student a few years ago in a PhD
thesis on the ISTWR.’
    ‘Never thought I’d end up in charge of my very own
deformed workers’ state.’ A dark chuckle. ‘Not
that I ever believed that’s what it was, or is,’ Myra
hastened to add. ‘Or that such a thing could exist. Ticktin
cured me of that delusion a long time ago.’
    ‘Hmm,’ said Irina. ‘It was Mises and Hayek
for me, actually. Ticktin didn’t rate them very highly. Or
me.’ She laughed. ‘Used to call me
„Ceau§escu’s last victim“.’
    ‘Well, yes,’ Myra said. ‘Never found the
liberals terribly persuasive myself, to be honest. The question
that always used to come to mind was, „Where are the swift
cavalry?“ ‘
    Irina shook her head. ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘Oh, it was something Mises said. If Europe ever went
socialist, it would collapse, and the barbarians would be back,
sweeping across the steppe on swift horses. Well, half Europe was
– not socialist as I would see it, but as Mises would see
it – and where are the swift cavalry?’
    Irina stared at her. As though unaware of what she was doing
– the reflexes of a habit she must have thought was
conquered coming back – she reached across the table for
Myra’s cigarettes and lit one up.
    ‘Oh, Myra Godwin-Davidova, you are so blind. Where are
the swift cavalry, indeed.’ She paused, narrowing her eyes
against the stream of smoke.
    ‘What mode of production would you say exists in the
Former Union?’
    ‘The post-civilised mode?’
    ‘A euphemism.’ She waved smoke. ‘What would
your Engels call a society where cities are just markets and
camps, where most people eat what they can grow and hunt for
themselves, where almost all industry is at the village level,
where there is no notion of the nation?’
    ‘Well, OK, it’s an old-fashioned term,’ Myra
said, with half a laugh, ‘but I suppose technically you
could call it barbarism. Technologically advanced barbarism, but
yes, that’s what it is.’
    ‘Precisely,’ Irina said. She looked at her
cigarette with puzzled distaste and stubbed it out. ‘There
are your swift cavalry. Look outside our cities, at the Greens.
In fact, look inside our cities.