THE LAST CRUSADE
BY GEORGE H. SMITH
It was part of a picture in part of a building that had
once been the Louvre. And somewhere back in his lost
memory, it was also a name for "Whitey"....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Julius Caesar named this place 'Lutetia Parisiorum', which means 'themud town of the Parissii'. Later on people got around to calling it'the city of light,'" Marty Coleman was saying.
"Well, Julius was sure as hell a lot closer to the truth than thoseothers," I tell him. We was sitting in the mud in what's left of somebig building and me and Joe White was listening to Marty, our Sergeant,talking like he always does. When I says the sergeant was talking Imean he was talking over the C.C., the Company Communication Circuitbecause what with having our mecho-armor on and the other side raisinga little hell, we couldn't of heard him any other way.
"Yeah, I guess you're right, Ward. There isn't much light around hereanymore," Coleman admitted.
"The only light you ever see around here these days is a flare or arocket going over," White says in that funny flat voice of his.
From time to time Coleman would lift the headpiece of his armor abovethe pile of rubble in front of us and take a quick look out over thebig open square toward where the enemy was holed up on the other side.About half the time he'd draw small arm or automatic fire.
"Those birds must have infrared eyepieces too," he says as he sets down.
"Ah they ain't even got mecho-armor," I says.
"No, but they have body armor and helmets with quite a bit of stuff inthem."
"I'll bet they ain't got anything like we got." I was feeling prettyfine right then thinking how much better off we was than the poor joesin the infantry. We don't just fight in our suits, we live in 'em. Theyain't only a mechanized suit of armor, they're our barracks, messroomand latrine and all radiation and rain proof. We got more fire powerthan a company of infantry and more radio equipment than a tank.
"You know there's lots worse ways of fighting a war," I says. "Youclimb into one of these babies and they seal you up like a sardinebut at least you're warm and dry and you don't even have to use yourown feet to walk. You got a nice little atomic power pack to move youaround."
"You couldn't move the legs of one of these things if you had to," theSergeant says.
"It ... it just seems like a kind of funny way to fight a war," Whitesays, talking like he always did, as though he had to hunt for everyword before he said it.
"What's funny about it? They been fighting it this way for ten years,haven't they?" I demands.
"I guess so ... I don't know...."
"Yeah, ten years. And the last five of it we've spent crawling back andforth in what used to be Paris," the sergeant was talking again. "Justthink ... in the old wars they used to call it Gay Paree."
"It's gay all right," I says, following a movement on my ground radarscreen. A beep had shown up, indicating activity over where the enemywas. Their guns was silent now but across the mud pools came theirvoices, voices that from time to time cut in on our circuits andcompeted with the voices of our own side.
Suddenly a girl was talking, a girl with a soft voice that was likewarm lips against your ear. "Hello there, you fellows across the line.It's no