Free The Last Frontier by Alistair MacLean Page A

Reynolds, besides the uselessness of violence, of killing, what right have I to take the life of any man? We are all our Father's children, and I cannot but think that fratricide must be repugnant to our God.'

'You talk like a pacifist,' Reynolds said roughly. 'Like a pacifist before he lies down and lets the jackboot tramp him into the mud, him and his wife and his children.'

'Not quite, Mr. Reynolds, not quite,' Jansci said softly. 'I am not what I would like to be, not all. The man who lays a finger on my Julia dies even as he does it.'

For a moment Reynolds caught a glimpse, a glimpse that might almost have been imagination, of the fire smouldering in the depths of those faded eyes, remembered all that Colonel Mackintosh had told of this fantastic man before him and felt more confused than ever.

'But you said -- you told me that -- '

'I was only telling you why I didn't take part in the rising.'

Jansci was his gentle self again. 'I don't believe in violence if any other way will serve. Again, the time could not have been more badly chosen.-And I do not hate the Russians, I even like them. Do not forget, Mr. Reynolds, that I am a Russian myself. A Ukranian, but still a Russian, despite what many of my countrymen would say.'

'You like the Russians. Even the Russian is your brother?' Mask it as he tried with politeness, Reynolds could not quite conceal the incredulity in his question. 'After what they have done to you and your family?'

'A monster, and I stand condemned. Love for our enemies should be confined to Where it belongs -- between the covers of the Bible -- and only the insane would have the courage, or the arrogance or the stupidity, to open the pages and turn the principles into practice. Madmen, only madmen would do it -- but without these madmen our Armageddon will surely come.' Jansci's tone changed. 'I like the Russian people, Mr. Reynolds. They're likeable, cheerful and gay when you get to know them, and there are no more friendly people on earth. But they are young, they are very young, like children. And like children they are full of whims, they're arbitrary and primitive and a little cruel, as are all little children, forgetful and not greatly moved by suffering. But for all their youth, do not forget that they have a great love of poetry, of music and dancing, and singing and folk-tales, of ballet and the opera that would make the average westerner, in comparison, seem culturally dead.'

'They're also brutal and barbarous and human life doesn't matter a damn to them,' Reynolds interjected.

'Who can deny it? But do not forget, so also was the western world when it was politically as young as the peoples of Russia are now. They're backward, primitive and easily swayed. They hate and fear the west because they're told to hate and fear the west. But your democracies, too, can act the same way.'

'For heaven's sake!' Reynolds crushed out his cigarette in a gesture of irritation. 'Are you trying to say -- '

'Don't be so naive, young man, and listen to me.' Jansci's smile robbed his words of any offence. 'All I'm trying to say is that unreasoning, emotionally-conditioned attitudes are as possible in the west as in the east. Look, for instance, at your country's attitude to Russia in the past twenty years.

At the beginning of the last war Russia's popularity ran high. Then came the Moscow-Berlin pact, and you were actually ready, remember, to send an army of 50,000 to fight the Russians in Finland. Then came Hitler's assault in the east, your national press full of paeans of praise for "Good old Joe" and all the world loved a moujik. Now the wheel has come full circle again and the holocaust only awaits the one rash or panic-stricken move. Who knows, in five years' time, all will be smiles again. You are weathercocks, just as the Russians are weathercocks, but I blame neither people; it is not the weathercock that turns, it is the wind that turns the weathercock.'

'Our governments?'

'Your