American Empire: Blood and Iron - By Harry Turtledove Page 0,266

of the men still there were on the point of giving up. They’d drift away, go back to being Whigs, and try to pretend their fling with the Freedom Party never happened, as if they’d gone out with a fast woman for a while and then given her up for the homely, familiar girl next door.

“Don’t quit,” he said earnestly. “That’s all I’ve got to tell you, boys: don’t quit. We are making this country what it ought to be. We never would have seen passbook laws with teeth if there hadn’t been Freedom Party men in Congress. That bastard Layne might have won the election if it hadn’t been for us.”

Some of the men looked happier. Kimball knew he wasn’t the only true-blue Party man here. But somebody behind him said, “Maybe things’ll get better anyhow, now that we’re not stuck with reparations any more.”

That was Kimball’s greatest fear. To fight it, he loaded his voice with scorn: “Ha! I know about Burton Mitchel, by God—I’m from Arkansas, too, remember? Only reason he got into the Senate is that his daddy and granddad were there before him—he’s another one of those stinking aristocrats. You ask me, if he does anything but sit there like a bump on a log, it’ll be the biggest miracle since Jesus raised Lazarus.”

A few people laughed: not enough. Kimball spun on his heel and stalked out of the Freedom Party offices. He’d never been aboard a slowly sinking ship, but now he had a good notion of what it felt like.

And he got no relief out on King Street, either. Up the sidewalk toward him came Clarence Potter and Jack Delamotte. Potter’s face twisted into a broad, unpleasant smile. “Hello, Roger. Haven’t see you for a while,” he said, his almost-Yankee accent grating on Kimball’s ears. “I expect you’re pleased with the pack of ruffians you chose. By all accounts, you fit right in.”

Kimball’s hands balled into fists. “First time I ever heard your whiny voice, I wanted to lick you. Just so you know, I haven’t changed my mind.”

Potter didn’t back away, not an inch. And Delamotte took a step forward, saying, “You want him, you’ve got us both.”

Joyously, Kimball waded in. The tiny rational part of his mind said he’d probably end up in the hospital. He didn’t care. Potter’s nose bent under his fist. As long as he got in a few good licks of his own, what happened to him didn’t matter at all.

Sam Carsten was sick to death of the Boston Navy Yard. As far as he could see, the USS Remembrance might stay tied up here forever. He expected to find cobwebs hanging from the hawsers that moored the aeroplane carrier to its pier.

“There’s nothing we can do, Carsten, not one damn thing,” Commander Grady said when he complained about it. “The money’s not in the budget for us to do anything but stay in port. We ought to count ourselves lucky they aren’t cutting the ship up for scrap.”

“They’re fools, sir,” Sam said. “They’re nothing but a pack of fools. There’s enough money in the budget for them to let the goddamn Confederates off the hook. But when it comes to us, when it comes to one of the reasons the Rebs had to pay reparations in the first place, a mouse ate a hole in the Socialists’ pockets.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Grady said, “the Army’s feeling the pinch as hard as we are.”

“It doesn’t make me feel better, sir,” Carsten answered. “It makes me feel worse.”

“What kind of a Navy man are you, anyway?” the gunnery officer demanded in mock anger. “You’re supposed to be happy when the Army takes it on the chin. Besides”—he grew serious once more—“misery loves company, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Carsten said. “All I know is, I want us strong and the CSA weak. Whatever we need to do to make sure that happens, I’m for it. If it goes the other way, I’m against it.”

“You do have the makings of an officer,” Grady said thoughtfully. “You see what’s essential, and you don’t worry about anything else.”

“Long as we are tied up here, sir, I’ve been trying to hit the books a little harder, as a matter of fact.” Sam scratched his nose. His fingertips came away white and sticky from zinc-oxide ointment. A wry grin twisted up one corner of his mouth. “Besides, the more I stay belowdecks, the less chance I get to