Short Fiction by Mack Reynolds (ready to read books .TXT) 📕

“Two people in love,” he said blankly, unbelievingly.

Leonid Shvernik and Paul Koslov were bent over a map of the U.S.S.R. The former pointed out the approximate location of the radio transmitters. “We’re not going to use them until the last moment,” he said. “Not until the fat is in the fire. Then they will all begin at once. The K.G.B. and M.V.D. won’t have time to knock them out.”

Paul said, “Things are moving fast. Faster than I had expected. We’re putting it over, Leonid.”

Shvernik said, “Only because the situation is ripe. It’s the way revolutions work.”

“How do you mean?” Paul said absently, studying the map.

“Individuals don’t put over revolutions. The times do, the conditions apply. Did you know that six months before the Bolshevik revolution took place Lenin wrote that he never expected to live to see the Communist take over in Russia? The thing was that the conditions were there. The Bolsheviks, as few as they were, were practically thrown into power.”

“However,” Paul said dryly, “it was mighty helpful to have such men as Lenin and Trotsky handy.”

Shvernik shrugged. “The times make the men. Your own American Revolution is probably better known to you. Look at the men those times produced. Jefferson, Paine, Madison, Hamilton, Franklin, Adams. And once again, if you had told any of those men, a year before the Declaration of Independence, that a complete revolution was the only solution to the problems that confronted them, they would probably have thought you insane.”

It was a new line of thought for Paul Koslov. “Then what does cause a revolution?”

“The need for it. It’s not just our few tens of thousands of members of the underground who see the need for overthrowing the Soviet bureaucracy. It’s millions of average Russians in every walk of life and every strata, from top to bottom. What does the scientist think when some bureaucrat knowing nothing of his speciality comes into the laboratory and directs his work? What does the engineer in an automobile plant think when some silly politician decides that since cars in capitalist countries have four wheels, that Russia should surpass them by producing a car with five? What does your scholar think when he is told what to study, how to interpret it, and then what to write? What does your worker think when he sees the bureaucrat living in luxury while his wage is a comparatively meager one? What do your young people think in their continual striving for a greater degree of freedom than was possessed by their parents? What does your painter think? Your poet? Your philosopher?”

Shvernik shook his head. “When a nation is ready for revolution, it’s the people who put it over. Often, the so-called leaders are hard put to run fast enough to say out in front.”

Paul said, “After it’s all over, we’ll go back to the States. I know a town up in the Sierras called Grass Valley. Hunting, fishing, mountains, clean air, but still available to cities such as San Francisco where you can go for shopping and for restaurants and entertainment.”

She kissed him again.

Paul said, “You know, I’ve done this sort of work⁠—never on this scale before, of course⁠—ever since I was nineteen. Nineteen, mind you! And this is the first time I’ve realized I’m tired of it. Fed up to here. I’m nearly thirty-five, Ana, and for the first time I want what a man is expected to want out of life. A woman, a home, children. You’ve never seen America. You’ll love it. You’ll like Americans too, especially the kind that live in places like Grass Valley.”

Ana laughed softly. “But we’re Russians, Paul.”

“Eh?”

“Our home and our life should be here. In Russia. The New Russia that we’ll have shortly.”

He scoffed at her. “Live here when there’s California? Ana, Ana, you don’t know what living is. Why⁠—”

“But, Paul, I’m a Russian. If the United States is a more pleasant place to live than Russia will be, when we have ended the police state, then it is part of my duty to improve Russia.”

It suddenly came to him that she meant it. “But I was thinking, all along, that after this was over we’d be married. I’d be able to show you my country.”

“And, I don’t know why, I was thinking we both expected to be making a life for ourselves here.”

They were silent for a long time in mutual misery.

Paul said finally, “This is no time to make detailed plans. We love each other, that should be enough. When it’s all over, we’ll have the chance to look over each other’s way of life. You can visit the States with me.”

“And I’ll take you on a visit to Armenia. I know a little town in the mountains there which is the most beautiful in the world. We’ll spend a week there. A month! Perhaps one day we can build a summer dacha there.” She laughed happily. “Why practically everyone lives to be a hundred years old in Armenia.”

“Yeah, we’ll have to go there sometime,” Paul said quietly.

He’d been scheduled to see Leonid that night but at the last moment the other sent Ana to report that an important meeting was to take place. A meeting of underground delegates from all over the country. They were making basic decisions on when to move⁠—but Paul’s presence wasn’t needed.

He had no feeling of being excluded from something that concerned him. Long ago it had been decided that the less details known by the average man in the movement about Paul’s activities, the better it would be. There is always betrayal and there are always counterrevolutionary agents within the ranks of an organization such as this. What was the old Russian proverb? When four men sit down to discuss revolution, three are police spies and the third a fool.

Actually, this had been astonishingly well handled. He had operated for over a year with no signs that the K.G.B. was aware of his activities. Leonid and his fellows were