The Valley-Westside War

The house where she and her folks stayed was in Westwood Village, a couple of blocks south of the UCLA campus. It was made from the rubble of the stores and apartments that had stood there when the bombs fell. The house was built around a central courtyard. The style came from Rome through Spain to the New World. It gave both light and shade, and worked well in the California climate.

The windows that looked out on the world were small and barred. Liz could see the UCLA campus through the north-facing ones. She could, yes, but she didn't look that way very often. It hurt too much. Most of the big hospital buildings at the south end of campus never got built in this alternate. The war took care of that, as it took care of so many other things. The buildings that did survive were in sad disrepair. Some of the earlier ones, built before there were any earthquake codes, had crumbled in one shaker or another.

Somebody banged on the big brass knocker bolted to the front door. “You want to get that, Liz?” her father called.

Well, no, not really, was the first thing that crossed her mind. But that was the wrong answer, and she knew it. “Okay,” she said out loud, and went to the door.

Before she opened it, she looked through the little window set above the knocker. The Westsiders patrolled Westwood Village pretty well, but robber bands still skulked in other ruins and came out to raid every now and then. There were freelance thieves, too.

She relaxed when she recognized the man standing in the street. Unbarring the door, she said, “Come in, Colonel Morris.”

“Thank you, Missy,” the Westsider said. In the home timeline, that would have made Liz want to spit in his eye. Here, he was just being polite. His English sounded old-fashioned to her. The language here hadn't changed as much since 1967 as it had in the home timeline.

“Dad!” she yelled. “It's Colonel Morris!”

“Be right there,” her father said.

“Hello, Jeff. How are you doing?” Colonel Morris said when Liz 's father came to the door.

“Not too bad. Yourself?” Jeff Mendoza held out his hand to the important Westsider. When Colonel Morris took it, his clasp also locked thumbs with Liz 's father. Handshakes like that were an ancient joke in the home timeline. They hung on here.

Both men wore baggy wool trousers tucked into boots and equally baggy linen shirts. Colonel Morris used a wide leather belt with a fat, fancy brass buckle. He wore an Old Time wind-up wristwatch on a broad leather band. Westsiders couldn't make anything that fine, but they could keep some that were already made ru

Dad's belt looked like the colonel's. Some styles here still reflected the ones in fashion when the Fire fell. So did some of the language. Some things had changed, though. Liz 's wool skirt reached to the ground. Minis were scandalous. Her shirt was like the men's. It even buttoned the same way, which drove her crazy.

“ Liz, why don't you get us some improved water?” her father said.

“Okay,” she said once more. Men ordered women around here a lot more than they did in the home timeline. Women mostly put up with it. The ones who didn't got thumped, and nobody said a thing except that they had it coming. The people who went on and on about how enlightened the Westside was were all men.

Liz poured water from a big earthenware jug into two earthenware mugs. With the aqueducts gone, water was always the biggest worry in this Los Angeles. She added one part strong brandy to about five of water. The brandy was what improved it, not because the booze got you drunk-brandy did that much faster by itself-but because it killed enough germs to keep you from getting the runs.

She politely served the guest first: “Here you are. Colonel.”

“Groovy, sweetheart,” he said, and she didn't crack a smile. If somebody in 1967 had heard someone else say Bully, by jingo!, it would have sounded just as old-fashioned in his ears.

“Thank you,” her father said when she gave him his water. You didn't have to talk like a hippie here. You didn't have to. no-but you could. Dad turned back to Colonel Morris. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“You'll have heard it's probably war with the Valley?”

“I've heard it. I hoped it wasn't true,” Dad answered.

“Well, it is.” Colonel Morris said. “We're going to collect a toll at the top of the pass, and they don't like it. I hope we'll be able to buy some more of those fine muskets and revolvers you sell. They're the next best thing to Old Time guns.”

“I'll see what I can do,” Liz 's father said. As far as anyone here knew, the guns he sold came up from a cousin's shop in Sandago. They really came from the home timeline. People there used them as trade goods in several low-tech alternates. Dad went on, “Do you really need the toll enough to fight to keep it?”

“The City Council says we do.” The City Council was the band of nine nobles who ran things in the Westside. The title made it sound as if they were elected, but they weren't. A lot of names from the days before the war hung on, even if they pointed to different things now. Colonel Morris added, “I'm loyal to the Council and obey its orders, of course.”

“Of course.” Dad didn't even sound sarcastic. The West-side officer had to say stuff like that. The City Council's spies were everywhere. Colonel Morris couldn't know Dad wasn't one of them.

“Do you really have to follow orders even when they're dumb?” Liz asked.

Colonel Morris blinked. Dad sent her a look that said she'd got out of line. A mere girl wasn't supposed to challenge authority. For that matter, nobody in the Westside was supposed to.

“That's a heavy question, sweetie,” Colonel Morris said, by which he meant it was important. When he said sweetie, he meant Liz wasn't. She was only a girl, somebody he could patronize. She wanted to pick up a chair and clout him over the head with it. Maybe that would knock sense into him. Or maybe not.

Instead, she smiled-sweetly-and said, “Well, have you got an answer for it?”

Dad coughed. She wasn't supposed to push like this. She didn’t much care, not when the Westsider insulted her without even knowing he was doing it.

“I have the only answer I need,” Colonel Morris said. “Whatever the City Council tells me to do, I do it.”

I'm just following orders. How many people in how many alternates said the same thing? How much grief did they cause when they did? Too much- Liz knew that.

“How long will we have to wait for the guns?” the colonel asked Liz 's father. He tried to ignore her now. Was that better than patronizing her? Was it worse? Was it as bad in a different way?

“It'll be a while, sir,” Jeff Mendoza answered. “Long way down to Sandago.” It wasn't even two hundred kilometers. If traffic on the 405 wasn't bad, you could get to San Diego in a couple of hours. You could in the home timeline, anyhow. If you were traveling in a horse-drawn wagon in this alternate, the town with the rubbed-down name was more like a week away.

“Well, do what you can,” Colonel Morris said. “We need those guns, especially the six-shooters. See you later.” He sketched a salute to Dad, nodded to Liz, and left.

After the door was barred behind the local, Dad turned to Liz and said, “You can't poke him with a pin whenever you feel like it, you know.”

“I guess not,” she said. “But he ticked me off.”

“He didn't even realize he was doing it.”

“That's the point,” Liz said. “I sure knew.”

“What am I going to do with you?” Her father sounded half a

“Send me home. I don't like it here very much,” Liz answered. “Or if you can't do that, let me go up to the campus.”

“You know we won't send you home. You know you don't really want to go home, too.” Now Dad do