Free Russian Spring by Norman Spinrad Page A

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    Representative Sigmunsen: “We can’t simply sit back and watch lunatic Marxists turn Peru into an American Lebanon. If we don’t step in and restore order now, these maniacs will spread their subversion to Colombia, Bolivia, even Brazil, and who knows, someday we may even find them at the Rio Grande. My mail tells me that my constituents are overwhelmingly in favor of dealing with the situation now.”
    Bill Blair: “You’re suggesting that we send ground forces into Peru too?”
    Representative Sigmunsen: “Only to establish and protect bases for helicopter gunships and tactical fighters. A major air commitment should be enough to enable the Peruvian freedom fighters to gain the operational initiative.”
    Bill Blair: “And if it doesn’t?”
    Representative Sigmunsen: “Well, Bill, as Caesar said at the Rubicon, we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”
    —
Newspeak
, with Bill Blair
     
    AIDS VACCINE STILL NOT REACHING AFRICA
    “While the Western world enjoys its so-called Second Sexual Revolution, millions are still dying in Africa, and the number of new cases is only now beginning to decline slowly,” Ahmad Jambadi, Secretary General of the World Health Organization declared at the United Nations today after a ten-day fact-finding tour of the African continent.
    “The World Health Organization simply does not have the funds to begin to deal with the problem,” he said, “either in terms of hiring the manpower needed, or securing an adequate supply of the vaccine at current prices. The Western drug companies simply must donate what is necessary out of the enormous profits they’re making in their domestic markets. The fact is that the cost of manufacturing a dose is a tenth of what they’re charging. Now that AIDS is no longer a major problem in the developed world, there is no further civilized excuse for not dealing with the African situation in the only way possible, as a global community.”
    —
Le Monde
     
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    III
     
    It took Jerry Reed about twenty-four hours to get unzoned, with André Deutcher walking him through it.
    André let him crash out for a few hours, then appeared in his room at about 2:00 P.M. with a room-service waiter and a pot of powerful black coffee. He drew open the curtains to wake Jerry with a golden bath of bright sunlight, handed him a cup of coffee and a handful of pills, which Jerry regarded blearily and dubiously.
    “Two hundred units of B-complex, a gram of C, five hundred milligrams of kola extract, three hundred milligrams of phenylalanine, all perfectly legal,” André assured him. “Though if you want something stronger, that too could be arranged. ESA does not consider it dignified to require people to piss into bottles, let alone stick its nose into the odious results.”
    The pills, two cups of coffee, and a long steaming shower in a bathroom the size of an ordinary hotel room later, Jerry was feeling almost human.
    “So,” said André, as he emerged in the thick blue terrycloth robe provided by the Ritz, “while you are dressing, let us discuss important matters. What shall we have for lunch? Would you prefer cuisine minceur, cuisine bourgeois, fruits de mer, perhaps Provençale?”
    “Uh . . . maybe you know a place where we could get some eggs Benedict?” Jerry muttered in an attempt to sound sophisticated.
    André Deutcher was archly scandalized. “Come, come, Jerry, be serious!” he exclaimed. “A man’s first meal in Paris must be an event to remember, anything less would be an insult to the honor of France, not to mention the ESA expense account.”
    “Then you choose, André,” Jerry told him. “To tell you the truth, I wouldn’t know cuisine bourgeois, whatever that is, from Taco Bell.”
    Outside the hotel, instead of the Citröen limousine, a sporty little red two-seat Alfa-Peugeot convertible waited at the curb with the top down, a noisy, head-snapping, old-fashioned gas-powered demon