The City of Mirrors
Page 155
“You should know me better than that. On top of which, once we give her to Donadio, we’ve got nothing. No cards to play.”
“So what, then?”
“Well, have you given any more thought to Fisher’s boat?”
Peter was speechless.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Apgar continued. “I don’t trust the man any farther than I can throw him, and I’m glad you tossed his ass out of here. I don’t tolerate division in the ranks, and he was way out of line. Also, I have no idea if that thing will even float.”
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing.”
Apgar let a moment pass. “Mr. President. Peter. I’m your military adviser. I’m also your friend. I know you, how you think. It’s served you well, but the situation is different. If it were up to me I’d say sure, go down swinging. The gesture might be symbolic, but symbolism matters to old warhorses like us. I hate these things, and I always have. But by any measure, this isn’t going to end well. Like it or not, you’re the last president of the Texas Republic. That pretty much leaves you in charge of the fate of the human race. Maybe Fisher’s full of shit. You know the man, so that’s your call. But seven hundred is better than nothing.”
“This place will come apart. There’s no way we’ll be able to mount a coherent defense.”
“No, probably we won’t.”
Peter turned back to the window. It really was awfully damn quiet out there. He had the unsettled sense of observing the city from some distant future time: buildings empty and abandoned, dead leaves rolling in the streets, every surface being slowly reclaimed by wind and dust and years—the permanent silence of lives stopped, all the voices gone.
“Not that I’m objecting,” he said, “but is this first-name thing going to be a habit?”
“When I need it, yeah.”
Below him in the square, a group of boys appeared. The oldest of them couldn’t have been more than ten. What were they doing out there? Then Peter grasped the situation: one of the boys had a ball. At the center of the square, he dropped it on the ground and kicked it, sending the rest scurrying after it. A pair of five-tons pulled into the square; soldiers disembarked and began to set up a line of tables. More were hauling out crates of weaponry and ammunition to be distributed among the civilian inductees. The boys took only cursory notice, lost in their game, which appeared to have nothing in the way of formal structure: no rules or boundaries, no objectives or way to keep score. Whoever possessed the ball tried to keep it away from the others, until he was bested by one of his companions, thus starting the mad chase all over again. Peter’s thoughts took him back many years, first to the formless contests that had diverted Caleb and his friends for hours and their contagious youthful energy—just five more minutes, Dad, there’s still plenty of light, please just one more game—and then to his own boyhood: that brief, innocent span in which he had existed in total obliviousness, outside the flow of history and the accumulated weight of life.
He turned from the window. “Do you remember the day Vicky summoned me to her office to offer me a job?”
“Not really, no.”
“As I was leaving, she called me back. Asked about Caleb, how old he was. She said—and I think I have this right—‘It’s the children we’re doing this for. We’ll be long gone, but our decisions will determine the kind of world they’re going to live in.’ ”
Apgar gave a slow nod. “Come to think of it, maybe I do remember. She was a cunning old broad, I’ll give her that. It was a masterpiece of manipulation.”
“No chance I could turn her down. It was just a matter of time before I surrendered.”
“So what’s your point?”
“The point is, this patch of ground doesn’t just belong to us, Gunnar. It belongs to them. First Colony was dying. Everyone had given up. But not here. That’s why Kerrville has survived as long as it has. Because the people here have refused to go quietly.”
“We’re talking about the survival of our species.”
“I know we are. But we need to earn the right, and abandoning three thousand people to save seven hundred isn’t an equation I can sit with. So maybe it all ends here. Tonight, even. But this city is ours. This continent is ours. We run, Fanning wins, no matter what. And Vicky would say the same thing.”
A moment of stalemate passed, the two men looking at each other. Then:
“That’s a nice speech,” Apgar said.
“Yeah, I bet you didn’t know I was such a deep thinker.”
“So that’s it?”
“That’s it,” said Peter. “That’s my final word. We stay and fight.”
* * *
64
Sara descended the stairs to the basement. Grace was at the end of the second row of cots, sitting up, her baby resting in her lap. The woman looked tired but also relieved. She offered a small smile as Sara approached.
“He’s fussing a little,” she said.
Sara took the baby from her, laid him on the adjacent cot, and unwound the blanket to examine him. A big, healthy boy with curly black hair. His heart was loud and strong.
“We’re calling him Carlos, after my father,” Grace said.
During the night, Grace had told Sara the story. Fifteen years ago, her parents had moved out to the townships, settling in Boerne. But her father had had little luck as a farmer and had been forced to take a job with the telegraph crews, leaving the family alone for months at a time. After he’d been killed in a fall from a pole, Grace and her mother—her two older brothers had long since moved on—had returned to Kerrville to live with relatives. But it had been a hard life, and her mother, too, had passed, though Grace shared no details. At seventeen, Grace had gone to work in an illegal saloon—she was vague about her duties, which Sara didn’t want to know—and this was how she’d met Jock. Not an auspicious beginning, although the two were, Grace asserted, very much in love, and when she’d turned up pregnant, Jock had done the honorable thing.
“So what, then?”
“Well, have you given any more thought to Fisher’s boat?”
Peter was speechless.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Apgar continued. “I don’t trust the man any farther than I can throw him, and I’m glad you tossed his ass out of here. I don’t tolerate division in the ranks, and he was way out of line. Also, I have no idea if that thing will even float.”
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing.”
Apgar let a moment pass. “Mr. President. Peter. I’m your military adviser. I’m also your friend. I know you, how you think. It’s served you well, but the situation is different. If it were up to me I’d say sure, go down swinging. The gesture might be symbolic, but symbolism matters to old warhorses like us. I hate these things, and I always have. But by any measure, this isn’t going to end well. Like it or not, you’re the last president of the Texas Republic. That pretty much leaves you in charge of the fate of the human race. Maybe Fisher’s full of shit. You know the man, so that’s your call. But seven hundred is better than nothing.”
“This place will come apart. There’s no way we’ll be able to mount a coherent defense.”
“No, probably we won’t.”
Peter turned back to the window. It really was awfully damn quiet out there. He had the unsettled sense of observing the city from some distant future time: buildings empty and abandoned, dead leaves rolling in the streets, every surface being slowly reclaimed by wind and dust and years—the permanent silence of lives stopped, all the voices gone.
“Not that I’m objecting,” he said, “but is this first-name thing going to be a habit?”
“When I need it, yeah.”
Below him in the square, a group of boys appeared. The oldest of them couldn’t have been more than ten. What were they doing out there? Then Peter grasped the situation: one of the boys had a ball. At the center of the square, he dropped it on the ground and kicked it, sending the rest scurrying after it. A pair of five-tons pulled into the square; soldiers disembarked and began to set up a line of tables. More were hauling out crates of weaponry and ammunition to be distributed among the civilian inductees. The boys took only cursory notice, lost in their game, which appeared to have nothing in the way of formal structure: no rules or boundaries, no objectives or way to keep score. Whoever possessed the ball tried to keep it away from the others, until he was bested by one of his companions, thus starting the mad chase all over again. Peter’s thoughts took him back many years, first to the formless contests that had diverted Caleb and his friends for hours and their contagious youthful energy—just five more minutes, Dad, there’s still plenty of light, please just one more game—and then to his own boyhood: that brief, innocent span in which he had existed in total obliviousness, outside the flow of history and the accumulated weight of life.
He turned from the window. “Do you remember the day Vicky summoned me to her office to offer me a job?”
“Not really, no.”
“As I was leaving, she called me back. Asked about Caleb, how old he was. She said—and I think I have this right—‘It’s the children we’re doing this for. We’ll be long gone, but our decisions will determine the kind of world they’re going to live in.’ ”
Apgar gave a slow nod. “Come to think of it, maybe I do remember. She was a cunning old broad, I’ll give her that. It was a masterpiece of manipulation.”
“No chance I could turn her down. It was just a matter of time before I surrendered.”
“So what’s your point?”
“The point is, this patch of ground doesn’t just belong to us, Gunnar. It belongs to them. First Colony was dying. Everyone had given up. But not here. That’s why Kerrville has survived as long as it has. Because the people here have refused to go quietly.”
“We’re talking about the survival of our species.”
“I know we are. But we need to earn the right, and abandoning three thousand people to save seven hundred isn’t an equation I can sit with. So maybe it all ends here. Tonight, even. But this city is ours. This continent is ours. We run, Fanning wins, no matter what. And Vicky would say the same thing.”
A moment of stalemate passed, the two men looking at each other. Then:
“That’s a nice speech,” Apgar said.
“Yeah, I bet you didn’t know I was such a deep thinker.”
“So that’s it?”
“That’s it,” said Peter. “That’s my final word. We stay and fight.”
* * *
64
Sara descended the stairs to the basement. Grace was at the end of the second row of cots, sitting up, her baby resting in her lap. The woman looked tired but also relieved. She offered a small smile as Sara approached.
“He’s fussing a little,” she said.
Sara took the baby from her, laid him on the adjacent cot, and unwound the blanket to examine him. A big, healthy boy with curly black hair. His heart was loud and strong.
“We’re calling him Carlos, after my father,” Grace said.
During the night, Grace had told Sara the story. Fifteen years ago, her parents had moved out to the townships, settling in Boerne. But her father had had little luck as a farmer and had been forced to take a job with the telegraph crews, leaving the family alone for months at a time. After he’d been killed in a fall from a pole, Grace and her mother—her two older brothers had long since moved on—had returned to Kerrville to live with relatives. But it had been a hard life, and her mother, too, had passed, though Grace shared no details. At seventeen, Grace had gone to work in an illegal saloon—she was vague about her duties, which Sara didn’t want to know—and this was how she’d met Jock. Not an auspicious beginning, although the two were, Grace asserted, very much in love, and when she’d turned up pregnant, Jock had done the honorable thing.
