Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

President was notoriously clean-living.
    ‘Very well,’ said Chingiz. ‘Something I did
not tell you before… I arranged for other cadres with
similarly relevant experience to make similar approaches to the
governments of France, Turkey, Brazil and Guangdong. They have
encountered asimilar lack of interest. So we have to face the
Sheenisov on our own. I need hardly tell you that we don’t
stand much of a chance, over anything but the short
term.’
    ‘I have a suggestion,’ Myra said. ‘If the
West is unwilling to assist us, then to hell with them.
Let’s cut a deal with the Sheenisov! All we want is our
territorial integrity, their withdrawal from Semipa-latinsk and
access to the markets, trade routes and resources of the Former
Union. What they want, presumably, is a passage across or to the
north of Kazakhstan, as they make their way west to the Ukraine,
which is the nearest soft target but still one that will take
them many years, perhaps decades, to assimilate. I don’t
think they’re ready to take on Muscovy or Turkey just yet.
It strikes me that these aims are not incompatible.’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ Chingiz said, ‘the option of our
switching sides has occurred to me, and to my Foreign Secretary.
The difficulty is that no one has ever „cut a deal“
with the Sheenisov. They have no leader, or even leadership
– at least, none that the world knows. They are indeed a
horde, without a Great Khan like my namesake. That makes them
difficult to deal with – in every sense.’
    ‘Ah, come on,’ Myra said, feeling bolder.
‘Even the anarchists had their Makhno. I don’t
believe a leaderless horde could accomplish what they have, even
in military terms. It’s applying guerilla tactics at the
level of strategy and of main-force confrontation – that is
novel, but it requires precise coordination. There is nothing
random going on here.’
    Chingiz’s lips set in a thin line for a moment. He shook
his head. ‘A system without a centre can achieve more than
we may intuitively expect, Myra.
    That after all is the lesson of the twentieth century, no? It
works in economics, and in nature, and to some extent in military
affairs too.’
    ‘Good point,’ Myra said. She didn’t want to
bring the deranged Green rumour about the General into this level
of conversation. ‘Let’s assume they have no
leadership. In order to have the co-ordination they display, they
must have horizontal communication between the units, and some
method of arriving at a common response… even if
it’s only some social equivalent of excitation and
inhibition in a neural network. In that case, any offer made to a
sufficiently large unit would be spread through the rest, as
would a response. It would still be worthwhile contacting
them.’
    ‘Hmm,’ said Chingiz. He steepled his fingers.
‘And what do you propose? Walking towards them until they
take notice, then talking to the first person able to understand
you?’
    ‘That’s about it.’
    ‘It sounds dangerous, apart from anything
else.’
    ‘Actually, I propose announcing my intention beforehand,
through whatever channels we have, then heading for
Semipalatinsk.’
    ‘Come, come,’ said Chingiz. ‘Things are not
that bad, not yet. You can still fly in, direct’
    ‘And out?’
    ‘Oh, yes. Air-traffic control is still functioning. As
are radio and television, on selected channels. It’s only
computer interfaces that are being blocked -by physical cutting
of landlines or by electromagnetic jamming. It’s incredibly
differentiated stuff -very clever. We couldn’t do
it.’
    She peered at his calm face.
    ‘What reports are we getting?’
    ‘About life under the Sheenisov? Hah. In somerespects,
life goes on as normal. There are certainly no democidal
activities. There are what the Sheen-isov call reforms. Workplace democracy, and so forth. They are very insistent about
that. Many businesses dependent on the net are failing –
they either reorient to the Sheenisov internal communications
system, whatever that is, or they pick up sticks and go, or they
are expropriated on the grounds of abandonment.’ He rubbed
his hands. ‘Needless to say, this is giving our republic a
temporary influx of people, of capital, and of comms gear and
computer capacity. Some refugees are destitute, but not
many.’
    ‘Any willing to join the fight back?’
    ‘No mass rallying to our armed forces, I must say. The