THE H-BOMB GIRL by Stephen Baxter (beach books txt) 📕

in the big military power centres, like Whitehall in Britain, the Pentagon. The industrialists who grew rich selling bombs and planes and tanks to both sides. The scientists who came up with new types of weapon.

“Even before 1962 they all knew each other, across the world. A five-star general in Washington understood a field marshal of the Soviet Union far better than he understood President Kennedy.”

The military-industrial complex was horrified by the fitful Phoney War of Sunday 28th October. If you had a peace it had to be secure, so you could make money out of selling weapons. If you went to war you had to push it to a conclusion, to win, so you could make money out of rebuilding the loser and rearming the winner. This wishy-washy excuse for a war was no use at all.

“But of course you wouldn’t want total annihilation either,” Miss Wells said. “Like the Sunday War. That went too far. The purpose of war is the resolution of conflict. If everybody ends up dead, what’s the point? You can see that the whole global situation needed managing competently.”

“I can see you need your bumps felt,” Bernadette said.

The big, secretive players began to talk to each other, American to Russian, British to Chinese, in the lull on Sunday 28th.

“In those first few hours,” Miss Wells said, “the Hegemony was born.”

If the politicians were too stupid to run things, the military and industrialists would do it for them. The Hegemony, led by soldiers and businessmen from across the world, became a secret government that ran the planet. But it was all behind the scenes.

“Nobody wanted to alarm the public,” Miss Wells said. “Or to have anyone bleating about democracy or human rights. The work was too important for that.

“And I was in it from the start,” she told Laura. “You were. After Dad was arrested, I was put in a sort of military college. The Hegemony knew it would need bright young people to run things in the future, and I was one of them.”

All Laura could think about was Dad. Arrested? Why?

“So I was there, Laura. I was there in 1964 when the new Labour government was brought down. Anthony Wedgwood Benn? Too socialist by half.

“I was there in 1969, aged twenty-one, working on the American technical team that landed men on the Moon. We started testing nuclear weapons up there on the Moon in 1970.

“I was there in 1973 to help President Nixon hush up the Watergate scandal.

“I was there to help Thatcher and Reagan get elected in 1979 and 1980. Our sort of people, they were.

“I was there in 1989, when the New French Revolution, two hundred years after the first, put our lot in control in France. They were always an awkward bunch, the French. Not any more.

“And I was there in 1990 to help throw Nelson Mandela back into jail, and prop up apartheid South Africa.”

“Joel was right to leg it, then,” Bernadette whispered.

“I’ve been there all my life. Working to make sure the Hegemony’s grip is absolute. You could say I grew up with it. I was involved in the Fire Power movement in 1967, and the Live Hate concert at Wembley in 1985…”

“And thanks to you,” Bernadette said, “the Cold War just goes on and on and on.”

“Yes. All over the world, in Berlin and Cuba, across the North Pole and in the depths of the Pacific, American and Russian forces face each other, bristling with nukes. We’re in a state of unending war.

“But nobody gets hurt. That’s the point. Peace has reigned since 1962. And it always will. Peace Through War!”

“The real point of your Hegemony,” Bernadette said, “is that you get to boss everybody about.”

“You rule them by fear,” Laura said. “Fear that more bombs will drop.”

“But it’s for their own good,” said Miss Wells.

“The lady’s right.” There was a whir.

The Minuteman was approaching in his motorised chair, with Mort at his side. Now they were side by side their similarity was obvious. Mort and the Minuteman, like Laura and Miss Wells: two editions of the same person, plucked from different times. The Minuteman’s chest was half-covered by a big band of campaign ribbons and medals, and his epaulettes had tassles.

“The Minuteman,” said Miss Wells reverently, “is on the Hegemony’s Inner Council.”

Bernadette scoffed. “He looks like a cinema usher. Hey, mate. Got any choc ices?”

Laura giggled.

“Silence,” Mort barked.

Mum seemed on the verge of tears. “Mort. You betrayed us. How could you?”

“Veronica. Babe. It’s not like that. It’s a question of higher loyalties. I was recruited by my own older self. Who comes from a future where he—I—have been working for the elimination of war for forty years. How could I refuse a commission like that?”

Laura said, “You lied to us. You hid equipment in our house. You came sniffing around my school, trying to get at my Key. How noble was that?”

“What do you know?” Mort sneered. “In the future, I’ll be a hero.”

The Minuteman barked, “This is the nature of peace and war, when atomic devastation is hanging over all our heads by a thread. In an age like this, you need soldiers in charge. Because only soldiers understand war. That is the principle of the Hegemony and always will be.”

“So,” Bernadette asked insolently, “what happened to you? Fall out of a bomb bay?”

“I’ll have you know I gave up my health in the Phoney War. I was stationed on a B-52 that flew out of Mildenhall Air Base. Came down over Soviet territory. Never walked again. Did my job, though. Did my duty. And that’s the point. And this man here,” he said, glancing at Mort, “is going to face the call in a couple of hours’ time. If it comes he will do his duty just as I did. Won’t you, Mort?”

Bernadette said, disbelieving, “So you’ll fly your plane even though you know you’ll be crippled?”

“Yes, ma’am! This man is my future,” Mort said, and he put a hand on the Minuteman’s shoulder.