There Won't Be War

“It used to belong to some Indian tribe,” the driver said. “I can never remember which one. They’re all gone now to Indianola.”

“What’s that?”

“Indianola is the new industrial suburb in Mississippi where we’re relocating all the Indians in America.”

“They used to be all scattered around the country, didn’t they?” Vargas asked.

“They sure did,” the driver said. “But it was sloppy that way.”

“Seems a pity, though,” Vargas said. “Indians have been in the country a long time, haven’t they?”

“They were always griping anyhow,” the driver said. “Don’t worry, they’ll get used to our way of doing things.”

The secret installation was in a tangle of hills some thirty miles west of Ground Zero. General Gatt came out of his temporary headquarters to greet Vargas. There was a pretty young woman with him. Gatt had thoughtfully brought along his mistress, a young lady named Lola Montez—not the original one, a relative, these names tend to run in the family—who immediately put her arm in Lupe’s and took her away for cigarettes, dope, coffee, bourbon, and gossip. Generals’ mistresses are good entertainers and it’s traditional for the military to be hospitable.

Once the two generals were alone, they could settle down to business. First some small talk about how the armed forces security groups were successfully doing away with anyone who felt that things should be handled in a different way. Most of these malcontents were quiet now. It was amazing what the Central Committee had been able to do in the way of cleaning things up.

“It’s a beginning,” General Gatt said. “These ideas of social perfectability have been around as long as there has been a military. But this is the first time we’ve had all the soldiers on our side.”

General Vargas asked, “What are you going to do about local groups who want to do their own thing or worship their own gods—that sort of stuff?”

“If they really want freedom, they can join the military,” Gatt said. “Our fighting men enjoy perfect freedom of religion.”

“And if they don’t want to join the military?”

“We tell them to shut up and go away,” Gatt said. “And if they don’t, we shoot them. It saves a lot of arguing, and helps us avoid all the cost of keeping prisons and guards.”

General Gatt explained that one of the great advantages of universal peace was that world government could finally afford to put some money into worthwhile projects.

“Oh,” Vargas said, “you mean like feeding the poor and stuff like that?”

“I don’t mean that at all,” Gatt said. “That’s been tried and it hasn’t worked.”

“You’re right,” Vargas said. “They just keep on coming back for more. But what sort of worthwhile project do you mean?”

“Come with me and I’ll show you,” Gatt said.

They left General Gatt’s office and went to the command car. The driver was a short, thickset, Mongolian-looking fellow with long bandit moustaches, wearing a heavy woollen vest in spite of the oppressive heat. The driver saluted smartly and opened the door for the generals. They got into the command car and drove for twenty minutes, stopping at a huge hangerlike building all by itself on the desert. Guards let them through a concertina of barbed wire to a small side door that led inside.

The building was really huge. From the inside it looked even larger. Gazing up toward the ceiling, Vargas noticed several birds fluttering overhead. But amusing as this spectacle was, what he saw next took his breath away, leaving him gasping in amazement.

He said to Gatt, “Is this real, John, or some optical illusion you’re projecting?”

General Gatt smiled in his mysterious way that seemed so easy but was not. “It’s real enough, Getulio, old boy. Look again.”

Vargas looked. What he saw, towering many stories above him, was a spaceship. Lupe had shown him enough drawings and diagrams in newspapers like The Brazilian Enquirer and others of that ilk for him to know what it was. It was unmistakably a spaceship, colored a whale gray and with tiny portholes and a dorsal fin.

“It’s amazing, sir.” Gatt said, “Just amazing.”

“Bet you never knew we had this,” Gatt said.

“I had no idea,” Vargas assured him.

“Of course not,” Gatt said. “This has been kept a secret from everybody except the ruling council. But you’re a part of that ruling council now, Getulio old boy, because I’m appointing you a freely-elected member of it as of today.”

“I don’t get it,” Vargas said. “Why me?”

“Come inside the ship,” Gatt said. “Let me show you a little more.”

There was a motorized ramp that led up into the interior of the ship. Gatt took Vargas’ arm and led him up.