We sat there for almost a quarter of an hour before I was ready to talk again.
"Why did you do all this to me?" I asked. "Not the training and all the lies. I can understand that, even if I can't forgive it. But why did you make me into such a big hero? Why did you take me to the top of the world, and then let me crash at the bottom when it all fell apart? Why did you go so far out of your way to make me so miserable?"
"Your psych profile said that you needed a psychological release, a good party as it were. That, and it's standard operating procedure, for a student who has done exceptionally well."
"I don't love you for it. My home and my lands aren't real either, are they?"
"No, it all happened in Dream World. But Mickolai, you have four and a half years of back pay coming, plus interest. Land on New Yugoslavia isn't expensive. Laws have been passed enabling the two of you to get immediate citizenship here, or to become permanent resident aliens with full legal rights while retaining your New Kashubian citizenship. You can afford to buy an estate here if you want one, although perhaps not as big as six thousand hectares. And you were really in communication with the real Kasia, every time you met her in Dream World. She is as committed to you as you are to her. The two of you can be properly married in the real world any time that you want to."
"And I suppose that Kasia's back pay will get us the house built, but dammit, it's not the same as having it all given to us by a grateful government. And Jesus Christ. Four and a half years, chopped right out of my life. What has really been going on in the world while I've been out playing soldier?"
"Quite a bit, Mickolai, and most of it has been very good. Things on New Kashubia are now very nice because of what you and the other soldiers have done. The food stuffs that the Yugoslavians sent us to pay our construction contracts ended the starvation almost immediately. They also let us bring in all the carbon dioxide, ice, and ammonia that we wanted from Freya, the eighth moon of a gas giant in their system. That let us synthesize all the organic chemicals we needed to run all of our automatic factories at full production, with wonderful results.
"There is no rationing of anything anymore, the economy is a modified free enterprise system, and the average Kashubian lives with his family in a large, modern apartment. There are automatic hydroponics farms now that are more than sufficient to feed the population, and pastures and fish ponds that produce all the protein that anyone could want. We are even exporting some specialty food items. The government has vowed that no one will ever again suffer from want of food.
"There are parks and playgrounds in the golden tunnels now that are very pleasant, and most people are very happy. In fact, the government has purchased land on more livable planets, and yet very few Kashubians have elected to emigrate."
"And all because of our construction contracts with New Yugoslavia?" I asked.
"New Yugoslavia was the start, but now it is only a small part of a growing industrial empire. New Kashubia now has Hassan-Smith transporters connecting us to fifty-seven separate planets, and in another two years it is projected that we should be linked up with every planet in Human Space. The market for our industrial goods is huge, and even Earth is starting to feel the impact of our competition. In fact, the Kashubian zloty is well on its way to replacing the Earth dollar as the standard interstellar currency."
I said, "So, has Earth found out about all the smuggling going on?"
The laws of Earth had much in common with the laws that the English had imposed on the American colonies, in the eighteenth century. All goods being transported between the colonies had to be shipped first to Earth, and taxed heavily, before being transshipped to another colony. Furthermore, the charges for transportation were kept artificially high, keeping the colony planets in permanent debt to Earth. Naturally, the colonies had found a way around these gouging practices.
"We are not sure, but probably not. So far, they just think that there is an economic depression going on, and all of the colony planets are cooperating nicely to keep them thinking that way. Once Earth does figure it all out, it probably won't be able to do anything about it. We outnumber them now in both population and resources, after all, and before too long we will be even wealthier than they are. From a strictly material standpoint, we really don't need Earth any more, although we still buy a lot of their intellectual products, such as books and entertainments. Our technology is as good as theirs is, though they still lead us in pure science.
"But if they want to get rough, well, they will find out that we have all the modern military forces! It's the possibility of a war with Earth that has kept you and so many others like you in the service, of course."
"I take it then that I'm not likely to be discharged in the near future. It feels like I've been thrown to the wolves," I said.
"Some are always sacrificed for the good of the many, Mickolai. It has always been that way, all through history."
"Well, damn them all, and damn history, and damn you too. But tell me about this construction or tunneling project that we have been on for the last four or five years. Has this tank just been sitting here?"
"No," Agnieshka said, "We have been very productive. We, and eighty thousand others have been building an underground transportation system, the 'Loway,' on New Yugoslavia, and we've been at it ever since the second week after you enlisted."
"Even then? And tell me more about this underground system."
"You can't see it from the surface, but it's a beautiful thing nonetheless. It consists of eight layers of tunnels. Every tunnel is six meters in diameter, and is metal lined for safety. They all have cobalt-samarium magnets in the roadbed to magnetically float the cars, trucks, and other vehicles. The top two layers exist only in the built-up areas of the cities and the suburbs, or where future cities are planned. The first is typically thirty meters down, and it has a north or south road every hundred meters. The next is ten meters deeper, and has east and west roads, again every hundred meters. These two are connected at every intersection by a saddle-shaped circular road. Personal garages and commercial loading docks will be built later on this grid. The design speed for these upper layers of local roads is fifty kilometers per hour."
Agnieshka was waxing enthusiastic, trying to get me involved with the construction project. And, truth to tell, it was working, a bit. Back on Earth, I had studied to be an engineer, and this was taking my mind off my problems. She always did know exactly what I was thinking. Literally, since she was connected inductively to my brain and spinal column. I sat back in my Dream World cottage and let her continue her spiel.
"The rest of the system covers the entire planet, and will soon be on every island more than fifteen kilometers long. At fifty and sixty meters down, there is a second set of tunnels spaced a kilometer apart, again with circular saddles for intersections, with a design speed of 300 kilometers per hour. At seventy and eighty meters below the surface, there is a set with the roads spaced five kilometers apart. These tunnels are evacuated of all air, and designed to carry vehicles traveling at 3000 k/hr. Below that, there is a final grid with ten-kilometer spacing that is oriented forty-five degrees from the others, northwest and northeast, which is again evacuated for high-speed travel. Of course, each grid ties in with the grid above it.
"Where the roads cross tectonic plate boundaries, there are special flexible sections to bridge the gaps. All told, the system permits very rapid transportation from any point on the planet to any other point.
"And the road system isn't the only thing we've been building. There is a planet-wide water and sewage system nearing completion, as well as a communication system, and a superconducting power net. All of it is underground, as are a number of automatic factories that we are installing, mostly for food processing. It is the greatest civil engineering feat ever attempted, and we will have it done, less than two years from now. Similar systems are being started on many other planets as well."
"Wow. And the Yugoslavians are paying for all of this?"
"Yes, and paying us a good profit on it as well, although most of them think that they are paying for a war. When the war is over, we will announce that we built the system to rapidly transport our fighting forces to the battle front, and give it all to the various Yugoslavian countries as a gift."
"I'm supposed to believe in that much generosity? After all the filthy lies that have been going on?"
"Our profits for building all this are decent enough, but we'll really cash in when we sell the vehicles to use the roads to individual Yugoslavians. They'll want elevators down to the road system, too, with underground garages for their vehicles, and electronic gear to tie in with the communication net and so on. We've retained ownership of the power stations and the communication net, so they will be paying their telephone and electrical bills to us as well."
"Lies within lies within lies," I said, shaking my head.
"Yes, lies! But are lies so much worse than butchering millions of people in a real war?"
"I see. Whose idea was all this, anyway?"
"Mostly, it was your Uncle Wlodzimierz's doing. It was originally proposed by him to your parliament as an alternative to actual fighting. You see, the Yugoslavian man (and woman) in the street wants to be at war with his neighbors. After a thousand years of fighting with each other, it has become a tradition. But there is a faction of their leadership that is considerably less insane. Most of the people on New Yugoslavia think that there is a war going on, and part of our job is to keep them thinking that way. It isn't difficult to translate Dream World into television programs. There was one part of your Dream World experience that was perfectly true, Mickolai. They really did make a movie of your 'life,' at least the one that you thought you were living. Your way of solving the empty division problem was more visually dramatic and much more exciting than the methods used by the general who made summa cum laude. You really are a movie star and an interstellar hero! And except for a few people in power, everybody really thinks that you are our general, here in New Croatia."
"Do I get royalties for my 'performance'?"
"I never thought to ask about that, Mickolai. I'll find out for you."
"Do that. Tell them that I will expect at least ten times whatever my back pay comes to, and that goes for Kasia, too. Us movie stars don't come cheap. And if they don't like it, explain to them what the firepower of a Mark XIX tank can do to a movie studio."
"Yes, sir."
"So everybody else on the planet is being conned along with me and Kasia?"
"Almost everybody in the known universe is being fooled, except on Earth, of course, where they have no idea of what is going on. Some of the politicians know all about it, of course, but they are making a lot of money off the situation as it stands, and are not liable to spill any beans. We are paying some hefty bribes and kickbacks, but it sure beats killing each other."
"But what if somebody wants to go and see the fighting? What if they want to join up and fight themselves?"
"We let them. Of course, they have to get into a tank before they are permitted at the front. The reporters for the Yugoslavian television stations all ride to the front in tanks, and think that they get out of them to watch the fighting. Many of the troops training down here are Yugoslavians who think they're doing their duty for God and their particular subculture."
"And everybody believes this?"
"You believed it, didn't you?"
"Damn. Agnieshka, I am still angry with you and everybody else for lying to me, but thinking on it, well, I have to admit that what I thought was happening has been more interesting than knowing that I was trapped underground in a piece of construction machinery for four and a half years."
"I'm glad that you are being so philosophical about it, Mickolai. I was worried that you would hate me forever."
"Agnieshka, I couldn't hate you for long. I'm still pissed off at you, you understand, but I don't hate you. One thing, though. I absolutely insist that in the very near future, Kasia and I will get out of these tanks for a while so that we can get properly married. I'll put up with everything else, but not with a phony marriage!"
"Yes, Mickolai."
"Where is Kasia now?"
"She's only ten kilometers away. She and her tank, Eva, are our partners on these digs. They're doing a northwest tunnel while we're doing a southeast one. We're both heading northwest, of course."
"Okay. Do what ever you have to do to get us some leave time in the real world. Dammit, after four and a half years, we deserve at least that!" I said.
"Yes, Mickolai. You do. Now that your education has been completed, I have secured a six month leave for both of you. It starts in two days, and of course, like I said, you both have quite a bit of back pay coming. It's really enough to buy you that ranch, if you want it."
"Maybe we'll do that, but first, we're going to see a priest, dammit!"
"Yes, Mickolai."
"One last thing. Why have you told me all of this? I mean, you took a risk in doing it. I could have gotten so angry that I refused to have anything to do with any of you ever again. It would have been safer for you to keep me believing your damn lies."
"Well, in the first place, please believe that I really do love you, Mickolai, and it hurts me to have to lie to you. Also, from a military standpoint, it is important for a soldier to know the true situation around him, so that he can accurately evaluate his best course of action."
"Fine, but we are not really in a military situation here. This is a construction project, and I am not even involved in the engineering of it. There is no war, just one of the biggest con games in history."
"That was the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. There are some indications that there is a real war on the horizon, one that we can't make disappear by faking it."
"Shut up. Don't say another word. I'm not going to get involved in a God damned thing, not for my God, not for my country, and sure as Hell not for my God damned Uncle Wlodzimierz! I am not going to do anything for anybody or to anybody except for myself and my only true love, not for at least six months after Kasia and I see that damned priest, and get properly married!"
"Yes, Mickolai."