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

“I can think of no higher calling than to become him.”

“Heck, boy, don’t make me cry,” groused the old man. “The tears short out the chair.”

Bernadette said, “So everybody thinks they’re at war. Even though American and Russian soldiers haven’t fired a shot in anger for forty years. Doesn’t anybody ever rumble you?”

“Of course,” Miss Wells said. “Every ten years or so you have a new crop of teenagers who can’t see anything to be afraid of. Who get suspicious. Who want to be free, to live their own lives.”

“And you can’t have that,” Laura whispered.

“Every ten years or so, they have to be reminded.”

“By what?”

“A bomb in the heart of Russia. A missile hitting America. Rogue strikes by either side. The devastation, the fear, the suspicion, the paranoia—that’s what prods the public back into their sheep pens.”

Laura said, “People die, because of what you do.”

“Isn’t it better that a few thousand are sacrificed in a burning tower block, than that the whole world burns up in nuclear fire?” She glared at Laura. “You’re judging me, aren’t you? Mort admires his future self. Why can’t you be like that? I’ve worked for peace for forty years. You don’t know how hard it’s been. Living in steel caves in the ground, the endless competition, knowing that if you make one slip you’ll be chucked out to live among the drones on the surface. It made me hard. It will make you hard. Will it really be so bad, for you to be me?”

Laura looked at her wrinkled face, pale from a lifetime underground. Her hair grey as a gun, pulled back severely from her forehead. Her eyes, so like Laura’s own, but wet, rheumy, old. Laura pitied her.

She asked, “What happens to Dad?”

“Dad?”

“In your timeline. You said he was arrested.”

“He was a refusenik,” the Minuteman snapped.

“A what?”

Miss Wells sighed. “In the lull, after the nuclear strikes while the negotiations went on, your dad and other officers waited in their airbases and missile silos. There was a mistake. An order to launch the V-bombers came. Dad didn’t believe it. He prevented a squadron from taking off.”

“How?”

Miss Wells smiled. “He always was handy with his fists.”

“He was tried,” the Minuteman barked. “By a Hegemony court. Found guilty of not following orders in a time of war.”

“But the order was a mistake!”

“What’s that got to do with it?” the Minuteman said. “He was shot. Along with all the other refuseniks.”

Laura’s heart broke a little bit. “Isn’t there a higher duty? To common sense? To the ordinary people who would have got blown up for nothing?”

“Oh, no,” Miss Wells said. “Orders are orders, and that’s all there is to it.”

Laura looked at Miss Wells, at her own face. No matter what kind of life she had to lead, could she ever care so little about what became of Dad?

She recognised something of herself in Miss Wells. Laura was bright, she knew that. She was strong too, dogged. She could survive in the Hegemony’s world if she had to. But Miss Wells had no compassion. A frozen heart. Miss Wells, this grown-up copy of her, after a lifetime of bad choices, was like a projection of bits of Laura, but not all of her.

Miss Wells was Laura. But she was less than Laura. This was like a nightmare of growing up.

Mum gripped her hand hard. “Never forget who you are,” she whispered.

“I won’t,” Laura said.

Bernadette said to Miss Wells, “So what do you want in 1962? Why are you chasing after Laura’s Key? Your Hegemony already owns the world, according to you. You own the whole future.”

“But the future is not enough,” Miss Wells said. “We want the past too… Come. Let me show you.”

Chapter 26

Laura and her companions huddled together in the middle of the huge main chamber.

Banks of screens, like tellies fixed to the walls, started to light up around the room. The images were military, of bomber bases and missile silos, bunkers and war rooms and citadels.

And a vast map of the world lit up on the floor, under their feet, the capital cities glowing green.

There was a whir and a squeal. The Minuteman came rolling across the world map towards them, with Mort striding at his side.

“Watch out,” Bernadette called. “You’re leaving skid marks on China.”

“Shut her up,” the Minuteman said.

Mort bunched his fist and marched towards Bernadette.

Mum stepped before him. “She’s a child. She’s pregnant. You’ll have to get through me first, Mort.”

Mort glared, but backed off.

He marched around, pointing at screens. “I’m not the only recruit. These are military centres around the world. Holy Loch in Scotland. The US Air Force command centre in Montana. Canada. Australia. India. China. Africa. All the major countries of western Europe, including West Germany. And the east—Poland. Hungary. Czechoslovakia. More than thirty bases inside the Soviet Union itself.

“These are all men and women of 1962, like me. All soldiers. All of us willing to do whatever it takes to bring about the shining future of peace and order the Minuteman has described for us.”

“All traitors to the countries you swore to serve,” Laura said.

Mort flinched at that.

Bernadette said, “In 2007 you already run the world. What more do you want?”

“But our hold is fragile,” Miss Wells said. “Here’s Agatha, interfering with this turning point in history—with the founding of the Hegemony itself. We must eliminate the chance of that happening again; we must guard against an invasion from some other future.”

Laura said, “I don’t understand. How can you control the past?”

Mort said, “By conquering it. By taking over 1962, as the Hegemony has taken over 2007.” He waved a hand at the banks of screens. “Here is the plan. As soon as I have your Key, Laura, I’ll be taking up that Vulcan nuclear bomber. And I’ll be flying it—”

“Where?”

“London.” He pointed at the floor map.

The green spot that was London turned black.

“You can’t be serious.”

The Minuteman said, “The news will flash around the planet. There’ll be panic, riots, the usual civilian