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“More of the Ukraine has been liberated by the ever-glorious Red Army of the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union,” the announcer declared in proud tones. “The Fascist sharks and the Romanian sucker fish that cling to them continue to retreat.”

“Sucker fish!” Stas exclaimed in genuine admiration. Some Party writer had probably won himself a bonus for that. The Romanians and Hungarians were usually jackals in Soviet news broadcasts, sometimes vultures, sometimes Hitler’s lackeys. But that was a new one. Stas wondered if it would stick or be forgotten tomorrow. He hoped it would last. He liked it.

Then he laughed out loud, because Isa Mogamedov bugged out his eyes and opened and closed his mouth several times. Stas hadn’t dreamt the Azeri could turn into such a convincing fish.

He’d missed a little of what the newsreader was saying. Well, no great loss. He knew things were going well here in Russia. That he was eating supper at this new air base and not at the old one told that story far better than the announcer could.

“In Egypt,” the man said, “the English government has confirmed that the transport carrying the theater commander, General Montgomery, was shot down by a Nazi fighter. General Auchinleck has been named to replace Montgomery.”

That the Germans could shoot down an English theater commander was not good news. The generals involved were no more than foreign names to Stas.

“On the Continent, English and French troops have made only the most minimal gains against the Hitlerites in Belgium,” the newsreader continued scornfully. “Fighting of a scale and seriousness to match that which the Rodina has suffered since the German invasion has yet to be seen there.”

“Right!” a flyer near Stas said. “Just right!” He pounded the table with his fist to show how right it was. Several other pilots and bomb-aimers nodded.

Stas wondered whether he was the only fellow in the whole squadron who’d been issued a working memory. Germany and the USSR didn’t border each other. Hitler never would have had the chance to invade the Soviet Union if Stalin hadn’t got greedy. Stalin had assumed that, with the Nazis bogged down in the West, they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it if he helped himself to a chunk of northeastern Poland.

Which only went to show that, unless you were doing geometry, you shouldn’t run around assuming things. Marshal Smigly-Ridz yelled for help from the Fuhrer, and he got it. And the Western democracies hadn’t minded a bit when the Nazis took on the Soviet Union. In fact, they’d even pitched in themselves for a while.

But saying something like that on Radio Moscow would be the same as saying that General Secretary Stalin, the wisest and most beloved of all men, the great leader of the people’s revolutionary vanguard, had screwed the pooch when he tried to steal Vilno or Wilno or Vilnius or however you wanted to spell the worthless place. Since General Secretary Stalin obviously hadn’t, obviously couldn’t have, screwed the pooch, the newsreader came out with this bilge instead.

And he expected his audience to believe him. Stas paused thoughtfully. No, that might not be quite true. The newsreader expected his audience to behave as if it believed him.

He would get what he expected, too. Stas imagined himself standing up here and announcing to his comrades what had really led up to the German invasion of the USSR. He also imagined what would happen right after that. If someone had a pistol handy, he might not even live long enough to get arrested. Whoever plugged him would win a commendation, and probably a promotion to go with it.

If nobody here happened to be armed, his comrades would grab him, wrestle him to the ground, and hold him till the NKVD could take charge of him. His troubles would be just starting then, not ending. All things considered, getting shot would be better. At least then everything would be over with at once.

People from Leningrad and from the Ukraine to Siberia (but not to Vladivostok, lost to Japan thanks to some more of the great General Secretary’s brilliance) would be listening to Radio Moscow right now. The ones who did still remember the way things had actually worked would be making the same automatic calculation Stas had just made.

They would come to the same answer he had. How could anyone who didn’t aspire to martyrdom possibly come to any other answer? You had to live, as much as the war and the Chekists would let you.

No one would ask any inconvenient questions, not out loud. That was the point of this exercise, of the terror that had ruled this broad land since the Revolution.

Stas wished for some vodka-not something he was used to doing. Even thinking this way was dangerous. The more you did it, the more likely you were to slip. And if you slipped, they would catch you. Hell, sometimes they would catch you even if you didn’t slip. They’d catch you on general principles, or because they needed to fill a quota and one of the guys they were really after had gone fishing that day before they could clap the handcuffs on him.

The newsreader went on to brag about the marvels of Soviet productivity. Stakhanovite aluminum smelters from a Magnitogorsk plant had set a new record-another new record! — in outproducing norms by 350 percent. A shock campaign in a coal mine near the Don River produced similar stunning results. Of course it did. All you had to do was believe what Radio Moscow told you.

Herb Druce kissed Peggy’s cheek on the platform at the Broad Street Station. “Off I go again,” he said. “Nevada this time-can you believe it?”

“Just barely,” Peggy answered, which wasn’t far from true. To someone from Philadelphia, Nevada was nothing but alkali desert, jack-rabbits, and Hoover Dam. She had trouble seeing how anything out there could be big enough or important enough to require the services of an ace troubleshooter like her husband.

She didn’t say so. They never talked much about what Herb was up to where other people could hear. Herb didn’t talk about a lot of it even with her.

“All aboard!” The shout rose from the conductors. The PA system announced the train’s imminent departure.

“See you,” Herb said, and climbed onto the train, attache case in hand.

“Love you!” Peggy blew him a kiss. He was already finding his seat; she didn’t think he saw her do it.

She let out a long sigh as she left the platform, left the station, and headed for the family Packard, which was parked not far away. You couldn’t do much driving on the crappy gasoline ration the government doled out, but today Herb didn’t feel like coming down here on the streetcar with his attache case and a couple of big old suitcases. This trip would be longer than usual, so she’d splurged and driven him.

Peggy sighed again when she slid behind the wheel to go home. She didn’t know all the details of what Herb would be doing out there in the Great American Desert. From what little he’d said, she didn’t think he knew all the details yet, either. He’d find out more about what was going on when he actually got there. But it looked as if he’d be gone for weeks, not days.

She put the car in gear and swung out into traffic. There wasn’t much. Everyone else had to worry about the crappy gas ration, too. She zipped along on the way home, as she and Herb had zipped along coming down to the station. That was the one good thing you could say about rationing. Traffic jams were a thing of the past.

You could get a little bit of gas. Peggy didn’t know what she’d do if one of the tires went, though. Hardly any rubber goods were available to civilians. An article in the paper had talked about a burning tool mechanics could use to cut new and deeper treads into tires that had gone bald. That didn’t sound safe to her. Then again, riding around on bald tires wasn’t exactly safe, either.