Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

sometime. Not.’
    He opened his fingers like dividers and straddled the
continent. ‘West Coast…’ He sighed.
‘La-la Land. They got a rival claim in to be the successor
state, so diplomatically we don’t get on, but between you
and me and the gargon here – ’ he absently
waved his other hand, snapped fingers, pointed totheir glasses
‘ – we’re the best of friends.’ He
brought the heel of his palm down on the middle of America,
masking off a large area between the Appalachians and the
Rockies. ‘Compared with how we get on with the rest. The
Mormons, the militias, the fundies, the White Right, the Indians
– name it, we lost to it.’
    ‘Yeah, well,’ Myra said. ‘I had
heard.’
    ‘Lucky for us,’ he went on, ‘they’re a
bit down on scientists. They got oil and minerals, all right, but
with Flood Geology they won’t find much more of it. This
ain’t rocket science. Speaking of which, we and our La-la
friends got all the aerospace and comp sci and nuke tech experts.
At least, we got the ones who didn’t die trying to convince
some hick inquisitor with a mains supply and a jump-lead that
they really, really didn’t know where the alien bodies were
buried. Or where the crashed saucers were stashed.’
    ‘You’re kidding.’
    ‘I wish. Turned out more people believed in the UFO
cover-up than ever believed in the Jewish bankers. When they got
their hands on some of yer actual eevill guvmint
scientists … you can imagine the fun they had.’
He had a thousand-yard stare, past her, for a moment. ‘Some
of the scientists confessed. In astonishing detail. Names, dates,
places, A-to-Z files.’
    The kid serving tables put down another couple of bottles.
Myra smiled at him, shoved him a few greasy gigalira notes, waved
a cigarette at Jason.
    ‘Any of it true?’ She laughed uneasily.
‘I’ve sometimes wondered, like about the diamond
ships…’
    Jason blinked, shook his head. ‘Oh, no. Total
corroborative hallucination. Like alien abductions, or
witches’ sabbats. They’d heard the stories
too, see?
    Hell, maybe some even believed it themselves, who’s to
say. The diamond ships, nah, that was just black tech from way
back. Your basic Nazi flying saucer. Neat idea in principle, but
it never was practical until the right materials came on-stream
with the carbon assembler.’
    Myra leaned back, refilling her glass, wishing she could
consult Parvus. ‘You’re telling me,’ she said,
‘that East America has border security problems too? Well,
let me put your mind at rest. We’re not about to embarrass
you by asking for ground troops. Or even
teletroopers.’
    ‘God, if it was that…’ Jason had the long
gaze again. ‘No, it’s a bit more complicated.
You’re going to Ankara next, right?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘You’re going to ask the Turks for ground
troops.’
    ‘I don’t know where you got that idea,’ Myra
said, carefully not denying it. Ankara wasn’t on her
itinerary at all, but she was very curious to know why Jason
thought it was, and what bothered him about it.
    ‘Sources,’ Jason said. ‘Anyway, that’s
what I’m here to tell you would be a very bad idea. If you
want to get any help from the US, that is.’
    ‘Hmm,’ said Myra. She glanced at a soldier
trawling a souvenir rack a few metres away. ‘I’m just
looking at a US-made GI uniform, US KevlarPlus body armour, a US
Robotics head-up with Raytheon AI, a US Colt
Carbine-14…’
    ‘Yeah-yeah-yeah,’ said Jason impatiently.
‘Valued customers. Old friends. Doesn’t mean
we’d be happy to see their standard-issue US Army boots
tramping all over Central Asia.’
    ‘Even to stamp on the Sheenisov?’
    Jason leaned his elbows on the table, steepled hishands in
front of his face to mask his mouth, and spoke quiedy.
    ‘Look, Myra, these ain’t communism’s glory
days. I mean, in our glory days we’d have been
pounding them with B-52s round the clock, for all the good that
would have done. I understand your, ah, fraternal allies have
tried that in their own inimitable way, with Antonovs. I’ve
been authorised to let you know – off the record, and
deniably – that if you come to New York or DC you’ll
be welcome, and your requests will be listened to
sympathetically. But. Our threat assessment of the Sheenisov
– where the fuck did that name come from? – is
pretty low-key. If a motorised horde of Mongols in plastic yurts
want to