Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

rallied.
    ‘Oh, well. I should have read them by now, and if not,
it’s too late for me.’
    The bustle around them was increasing. Vehicles were whining,
horses and camels were whinnying and spitting. Some children,
even some adults, were in tears at leaving this place, which for
all its duress had not imposed any too severe privation, and
which was familiar. Some folk were assiduously picking up the
glassy stones, whether as talismans or as trade-trinkets Myra
couldn’t tell. The thousands of former prisoners were
dispersing to all the round horizon.
    Half a dozen other men were converging on where she stood,
gathering around, talking in Korean or Japanese, smiling at her
and climbing into the back of the truck. Nok-Yung came up and
shook hands.
    ‘We’ll keep in touch.’
    There was so much to say, so much that could not be said.
    ‘We’ll meet again,’ Myra said. ‘All
the best, guys. Good luck with the commies.’
    ‘Hah!’ Nok-Yung raised a clenched fist and grinned
at her. ‘You’ll be with us some day, Myra,
you’ll see. Goodbye, and thanks!’
    He threw his bag in the truck and sprang into the
driving-seat, then laughed as Shin Se-Ha climbed through the
opposite door and flourished the control-panel under his nose.
Still shouting and waving, the men drove off, bumping across the
steppe, resolutely north-east.
    Myra watched them out of sight and then mounted her horse and
rode back to the town. Only once did she look behind, and saw
that there was nothing left to see.
     
    The airport of the capital of the International Scientific and
Technical Workers’ Republic had only one terminal building.
It was a big, open-plan space, dotted with franchises.
They’d never bothered with Customs, or Immigration Control.
Between the floor-to-ceiling windows – with their charming
views of steppe, runway, apartment-blocks, gantries and more
steppe – hung equally gigantic posters of Trotsky, Korolev,
Kapitsa, Gagarin and Guevara. The idea, many years ago, had been
to make the concourse look Communist: a bit of macho swagger.
Right now it had the look of a place about to fall tothe
commies, rather to Myra’s disgust. Crowded with people
sitting on too much luggage, their expressions flickering between
impatience and resignation with every change on the departure
screens. For heaven’s sake, thought Myra –
Semipalatinsk was a hundred miles away, they were
over-reacting.
    Her own flight’s departure-time was not for another
hour. She confirmed her booking at the check-in, made sure her
luggage was on board, and declined the offer of waiting in the
first-class lounge. Instead she made her way to the old Nkafe
franchise, and sat down with a coffee and a cigarette, to rest
her feet and indulge in a little nostalgia.
    In the good old days before the Third World War she’d
sipped many a coffee here, with many a man on the other side of
the table. Always a different man, and almost never one that
she’d liked: ugly, jowly military men for the most part,
jet-lagged and stubbled, in creased dress uniforms heavily
medal-lioned; or diplomats or biznesmen, sleek and shaven
and cologned in silk suits. And always, hanging around a few
metres away, outside the glowering ring of bodyguards, would be
the photographers and reporters, there to record the closing of
the deal. The ISTWR had never gone for secret diplomacy –
openness was the whole point of tradable nuclear deterrence.
    It had worked fine, until the nuclear war.
    The Germans had launched the War of European Integration
without a nuke to call their own. This hadn’t been an
oversight – it had been essential to the element of
surprise. Once their first wave of tanks was safely over the
Polish border they’d made Myra a very generous offer for
some of her tradable nuclear deterrence. Myra’s frantic
ringing around her clients had found no one willing to deal:
notfor any amount of money, on the entirely rational basis that
the Third World War was not a good time to sell. Myra had
considered cutting them out and selling the Germans the option
anyway, but her business loyalty had got the better of her. It
had also got the better of the German occupiers of Kiev, and the
German civilians of Frankfurt and Berlin. She still felt guilty
about that.
    For want of company, she flipped down her eye-band and
summoned Parvus. For a laugh, she sat his virtual image in the
seat across the table from her.