Konrad T. Lewandowski is a journalist, columnist, editor an chemist by profession. His writing career started in 1991 with the novel Ksin and the short story "Wisielica". Both of them are fantasy adventures, and he still returns to fantasy from time to time. But the mos popular of his heroes is a tabloid journalist in a series of SF short stories.Konrad T. Lewandowski has published five novels and a collection. The story "Noteka 2015" presented here won the Zajdel Award in 1995.

The day began early and badly, like a poor thriller. The doorbell woke me up; I opened the door and saw three humourless guys.

Well, not exactly humourless. Seeing me, two of them smiled, one even broadly. Such shocking lack of official seriousness was quite understandable - my unshaven face, unfocused eyes and dishevelled hair probably made me look like a hung-over badger.

"RadoslawTomaszewski, from The Sleazy News weekly?" asked the saddest man.

I glared at him. "Yes, it's me."

They produced their ID's - carefully, so that I didn't confuse them with guns.

"The Ministry of Defence," they said in unison.

"Gentlemen, there must be some mistake...."

"Can we come in?"

The question was obviously rhetorical. When they entered and closed the door, the one grinning widely announced: "It's about your articles concerning our Ministry."

"But... I made them all up!" I wasn't quite sure if, considering the circumstances, this was the best argument, but I really didn't know what else to say.

We know," said the smiling man. "That's why we are

here."

"Our country needs you," declared the saddest of my visitors. I felt dizzy.

•

It all began when The Sleazy News got a new editor.

There are a few iron rules governing the succession of asses on the editorial throne. First: short reigns followed long ones, in a dot-dash-dot-dash manner, reminiscent of the Morse code. Second: each dot-type editor began his rule with a complete reform of the paper, to make it more "marketable." Or, to put it simply, introduced some new, in his opinion absolutely brilliant, ideas for stories for morons. Those experiments invariably caused the circulation to collapse, the owner of the paper having to get rid of the experimenter and replace him with a solid, reasonable guy who soon brought the circulation back to normal. This was the dash-type. Still, after some time the owner got his hopes up again, and the cycle began anew. It wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact that each reform decimated the writing staff.

This time we got a dot: another progressive type. The new editor announced promptly that from now on we were not a tabloid, but a serious popular weekly. The trash authors panicked. Somebody ran to the computer and began feverishly changing a poor beet farmer who butchered his wife with a hoe into Comte Louis de Monaco, who strangled his lover with a live python, A few reasonable people decided to look for new jobs. And I got that idiotic idea. Hastily, I secured myself an interview with our new monarch.

"What was your previous speciality?" he asked half an hour later, looking at me suspiciously.

I mentioned the titles of several of my idiot-stories. Just as I feared, the editor was not impressed.

"We decided to dispose of the trash. From now on we are becoming more news- and reportage-oriented. We will also start up with Pan Tadeusz's sequels*'. Not the thir-

' Pan Tadeuszis a major Polish epic, consisting of twelve "books." There is also a pornographic, anonymous thirteenth book, much later than the original.

teenth book!" he added quickly, noticing my sudden enthusiasm. "There is a young, very talented poet, who will describe what happened to the Soplica family right up to the January Uprising."

"I see...." I had heard about the poet in question. He was undoubtedly the same guy who had had to marry the daughter of our deputy CEO - in a hurry. "I would also like to propose something completely new."

"Like what?" His face clearly showed that he had heard all such ideas before.

"I thought The News could publish a few super-top-secret documents from our General Staff."

"And how do you propose to get them?" His voice faltered; immediately he shrugged, as if restoring lost balance.

"I will make them up."

I could clearly read the hieroglyphs of his furrowed brow. On the one hand, I upset his whole concept of the paper, on the other... if I managed to stir some trouble... a parliamentary investigation... what publicity for The Sleazy Newsl

"Well..,." He sighed. "I think that, despite the new features, we will find some space on the next-to-last page. You may proceed." He dismissed me, clearly disgusted.

I came back home, inordinately proud of myself. Not only had I managed to neutralise the editor, but for the first time during my years at The Sleazy News I had a job that required more than three gray cells. Happily, I commenced writing. It was only my bad luck that six weeks later the President disbanded Parliament and declared himself the Leader of the Nation.

•

In the car the smiling guy - he introduced himself as Colonel Moraszczyk - produced my Military Commission file.

"You served your time in the army?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I was diagnosed with an allergy. Yardbird feathers."

He shuffled the papers loudly, visibly irritated. Then his face fell.

"Oh, yes," he sighed. "Allergy to feathers, as well as to grass pollen and dust."

"Which means barracks and camp," I summarised. When would they finally get to the point?

"I hope you're not a pacifist," said the one grinning broadly.

"I'm not, but I know many jarhead jokes." I was purposefully hitting them for a reaction, and I got one, just not the one I expected. All three men grew serious, even upset. I had a feeling they didn't know how to approach me. They had fallen uncomfortably silent.

We were driving by the West Station and turning into Aleje Jerozolirnskie, when an obviously pacifist pigeon shitted on our windshield. A good sign.

"Please, understand that we really want your co-operation." Moraszczyk said finally. "We are not your enemies."

"Who then?"

The saddest of the trio sighed with relief and turned. "Brigadier General Ryszard Jankowski." He offered me his hand.

"Also a general," said the merriest. "Major General Emil Stebnowski."

"So - what shall we do?" I asked, trying to hide my astonishment.

This time it was Moraszczuk who answered. "Prepare our country's defence, according to your tactics."

"We could've done it ourselves, but we thought you'd be a valuable consultant," Stebnowski added.

"I don't believe it!"

We were turning into the passage directly opposite the IKEA store.

"We have already designed the wide-band bearing-finder that you described in your articles," Stebnowski went on. "Right now the factory is preparing two thousand such units. Also, this morning we ordered all the armoured divisions to spread out."

I was struck speechless. For the first time since kindergarten I didn't know what to say. The car stopped in the inner yard.

"You wrote three articles, right?" asked Jankowski.

"No, four," I stammered. "I left them all with my editor at The Sleazy News."

"Bloody hell! I knew that man was hiding something!" Moraszczuk looked very angry. "It appears that your editor was so frightened, he destroyed the last article on chaos strategy."

"Sure sounds like him," I murmured, thinking very fast. Where was it all leading? "Are we to plan some manoeuvres?"

The trio stared at me as if they saw a little green man.

"We are a top-secret special consulting group, created by the Leader of Our Nation himself," Stebnowski announced coldly. "Our task is to prepare for the defensive war that will begin in 96 hours at the latest. Our recommendations will be relayed immediately to the General Staff, and from there sent as orders straight to the front."

A hammer blow to the head would've impressed me less.

"You..." I swallowed, hard. "You mean the Americans aren't bluffing?"

•

The Parliament affair started in a most innocent way. Just one day in one of the dailies there appeared an article - thoroughly based on facts - revealing the connections of one MP with the Russian Mafia. The MP in question was a member of a small opposition party, without any chance of getting into any kind of government. The evidence was so overwhelming that Parliament almost unanimously revoked his immunity and excluded the black sheep from its ranks.

A week later, when everybody started forgetting the whole thing, another paper - not connected with the first one - published material discrediting another three MPs. This time one was from the coalition supporting the government, and the other two from a leading opposition party.

As before, the evidence was irrefutable. Published documents and photographs proved clearly that representatives of the Nation accepted thick wads of cash from the Ru_s. sian mafiosi in exchange for pushing the right buttons during a vote.

There was a gurgle in Parliament as in the crater of an active volcano. Many would have eagerly broken the neck of the whole affair, but there was the quite fresh precedent, having now the appeal of a splinter in the ass. All in all, the parliamentary majority - reasoning that, in effect, they would be one vote better off - ignoring the howls of the opposition, forced the three culprits to commit political seppuku.

And then the avalanche set off. Each day new papers, commercial radio and TV stations vied with each other to disclose the connections between consecutive MPs and the Mafia. Now it was usually the governing coalition that was hit.

Journalists turned into bloodthirsty head-hunters. Individual newspapers tried to outdo one another with their numbers of discredited MPs.

Parliament itself at first lost its collective head in amazement, and then started to play dumb.

In the meantime it was revealed that in the early nineties of the last century, the Polish police struck up a sort of informal agreement with "businessmen from behind the Bug River." In exchange for not touching Poles, the Russian rnafiosi were given a free hand in dealing with their own compatriots. They could hang them, burn, rape and behead, with our guardians of law turning a blind eye to it, under the condition that no Polish taxpayers would be found among the victims. Both sides kept the agreement conscientiously. And in the end, during the next twenty-five years, imperceptibly, two thirds of our MPs somehow found their way to the secret payrolls of commercial ventures dominated by Russian capital.

Those events didn't really interest me. In that time, when our Parliament resembled a burning store of explosives, I was working on a new series of articles that should help

pie to survive to the end of The Sleazy News'new editor's term. The army ruled - by a strange coincidence - by two Ivlinisters of Defence simultaneously (since the parliamentary majority appointed a new one, but didn't manage to dismiss the old one) seemed to me an entirely safe organization. The form and style of the General Staffs documents I borrowed from publicly accessible history books and a few thrillers.

All in all, what I had in mind was rather innocent intellectual play. I wanted to find a solution to a problem: how to fight efficiently against an enemy having a significant technological advantage. If we had an enemy reconnaissance satellite over the battlefield, and, a bit lower, strategic bombers, fighters, assault planes and helicopters, and then, under that umbrella, armoured units and infantry in APCs, how could anyone crack that pyramid, not having anything similar over his own soldiers?

The answer to this question was hidden in the theory of chaos and turbulence. The problem was how to avoid the concentration of your own troops before the attack. Because if you gathered armoured units in one place, so they could start an offensive, then the enemy, having well developed electronic intelligence and air superiority, would instantly detect them and within a minute eight seconds change them into a heap of scrap and filings, with an added bit of ketchup. And all of this long before enemy tanks appeared on the horizon. So, your units should gather only in the moment of the attack, not before, because otherwise you risked having them destroyed by the enemy air force.

There exists a natural phenomenon, exactly satisfying these conditions. It is a thunderbolt, hitting the ground from a cloud. Before the lightning, electrical charges are not concentrated in any single point, but just at the moment of discharge, they flow from the entire volume of the cloud. The questions was how to make tanks behave like charged particles of rain and ice, and an "armoured lightning" hit precisely where it was needed.

The thing that "controls" the phenomenon of lightning is the electrical potential's difference between the sky and

the ground. In the case of tanks, you can replace it with a radio noise - a column of tanks and armoured vehicles would certainly be a strong source of such. It is enough, then, to equip tanks dispersed over a large territory with bearing-finders, and at the proper moment to radio them with an order to attack. This kind of offensive manoeuvre could not be marked by a single arrow on a tactical map. It would be rather something like a bush, similar to a zigzag of lightning. But you could be pretty sure that the lightning would strike exactly the target you designated for it. If - moreover - you ordered the tank commanders to avoid all contacts with each other before reaching the enemy (in the case of accidentally meeting they should instantly drive away from one another), then the whole operation would resemble a so called turbulent flow. And since there is no mathematical theory describing turbulent flows, our tanks' movements would be completely unpredictable.

Using that idea, I put together four detailed articles, disguised as secret staff documents. The editor sniffed at them a bit, grumbling that writing about the Polish army "to raise the nation's spirit" was good at the time of Poland's partitions, but in the end he bought the articles. We managed to publish three parts. The political earthquake reached its peak. At the moment when public TV joined the game of exposing the Russian Mafia's associates, the parliament or - more precisely - the government coalition - discovered that the action was prepared and started by military intelligence. Without the Prime Minister's knowledge, but with the President's full - although discreet - acceptance. When the House of Representatives tried to decide from which street lamp in front of the Regent's Palace the Head of State should be hanged, the hunt for Russian "businessmen" started all over Poland. All those who were caught were then put into railway trucks and sent behind the Bug river, under convoy. In the general confusion a few of the nastier persons "ran away to Manchuria."

Of course, the PM didn't know anything again.

The coalition went into legislative frenzy. They would have undoubtedly passed some terrifying things, if there were not right-wing MPs, which - as some Russian ma-fioso was quoted as saying - were "not worth buying." At least that time the Polish right wing, armed with chair legs taken apart in the canteen, proved its superiority in the conference hall. The foyer was a place where the radical right wing party "Samosierra" earned everlasting glory; its MPs, charging along the corridor, crushed and dispersed four rows of Parliamentary Guards with their sheer momentum. In the conference hall, the coalition members outnumbered them, but were poorly armed and in the end were pushed to the left wall. In effect, First Speaker Mirski, whose staff was broken when he crawled out from under the ruins of the rostrum, and was treated additionally with a bottle of petrol, could do only one thing: call the police and the fire brigade. Which he did. That was the end of the proceedings of the fifteenth term of Parliament.

It was certainly something to see, the more so as the press gallery worked at full speed, without any breaks. But the next day, when I came to the editor's office of The Sleazy News, the porter blocked my way. He gave me my pay for the articles and declared that I had never been seen in the office, no one knew me, no one had even heard my name - the managing editor's instructions and that's that. I could easily guess that my boss, seeing the army getting the upper hand, was scared shitless.

So I was suddenly unemployed but had more time for newspapers. The international response to the Polish events was surprising. The Germans tried to hide their satisfaction with difficulty. After all, by cutting off all the Mafia's routes we did them a good deed. The Czechs presented a similar opinion. In a word, the Polish 'rampart' was again operational! The Slovaks followed our footsteps with enthusiasm, while the Hungarians decided that they would like to, but they were afraid to. Ukraine was the other way around. Bielorussia and Lithuania temporarily played dead. Russia sent us a very formal note of protest, but at the same time President Walanow, whose preroga-

tives were limited - because of the Mafia families' influence - to purely honorary, out of pure joy drank himself stiff. The European Union threatened another postponement of the discussion of Polish membership. But the most hysterical reaction came from the United States.

President Nancy - a Democrat - delivered a passionate speech to Congress. Invoking his democratic lineage and the democratic traditions of America, he demanded the restoration of democracy in Poland. He promised not to be stopped by anything at all, and to use all available means. Then there was a purge in the CIA, which got the information about Polish events by watching TV. That is to say, appropriate reports existed, naturally, but were stuck in piles of similar documents. Some clerks put some papers on the wrong side of the desk and the effect was as with Nostradamus' prophecies, whose accuracy can be seen only in hindsight. In effect, for some days after the President's speech, basketfuls of heads of up-to-now management were carried out from the CIA offices.

•

"The Americans aren't bluffing," said Stebnowski seriously. "Our intelligence also missed one bloody important thing."

"Exactly what?"

"A secret agreement regarding control over Russian nuclear weapons. Because the official government in Moscow wasn't able to guarantee anything in this matter, the Americans came to an understanding with the representatives of major Russian mafia families. Those agreed to make sure that Muslims get no warheads, but demanded a free hand in Poland. We were to be deprived of Interpol protection, unofficially of course; Russian mafia investments in Poland were to be free from American competition; and the CIA was to relay information about the activities of our police. The United States government accepted those conditions without hesitation."

Poland was to become the base of Russian mafia. Well, it was just a tiny, little Yalta.

"So we have to expect war with Russia," I croaked.

"Not with Russia," Jankowski said. "The Russian mafia families divided the army among themselves, so every clan has only one, at most two, divisions. They have now achieved a balance of power, and any family sending their division to Poland risks the other clans taking advantage of it and expanding their influence. Every godfather prefers to have his own tanks nearby, and nobody will take any risks for the others. So the Americans are the ones to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. They have a better excuse because they would be fighting for the restoration of democracy. They also have better reasons to try, because just this morning some mafia strongmen announced that they will make up their losses in Poland by selling pluto-nium to the Middle East. Nancy reacted as if he got kicked in the ass."

I listened with clenched fists.

"All right," I drawled, when General Jankowski finished. "Let's get to work."

•

When I got tired of reading newspapers, it was time to choose one of them and offer my services. For some reason I didn't feel like joining another tabloid. Thinking is a strange addiction: painful to the unaccustomed, and the accustomed as well, because they cannot stop. After writing articles on chaos tactics I still didn't feel satisfied and - against logic - I wanted to write something clever once more. I noticed the advertisement of a magazine called Bold Thought. It looked promising, so I wrote down the address of the editorial office and left home.

After disbanding Parliament the monarchists came to the conclusion that it was now or never and decided to go for broke.

Ten steps from the staircase I became a member of a dignified mass demonstration singing loudly but off-key a hymn to the Virgin Mary. After two blocks it turned out that the anarchists had the same idea. They, for a change, wailed a famous protest song. Both groups held each other

in such contempt that they didn't even deign to notice each other. For the length of three tram stops both mobs marched side by side, each on their own half of the street, jointly blocking all traffic. I don't know what happened next, because I went my own way. After that I passed a square in which some undoubtedly left-wing voters booed the left-wing deputies who let themselves get busted when all Poland was looking. For some reason nobody demanded the restoration of democracy too loudly. On the contrary.

The city was at ease. Everybody seemed relieved that we were no longer forcibly held to European standards.

The police peacefully directed the demonstrations' routes. The demonstrators demanded many different things but democracy was not among them. It looked as if we finally had got our favourite system - dictatorship without terror.

The editor of Bold Thought looked me over critically.

"Can you satisfy the intellectual aspirations of our readers?" he asked doubtfully.

"I think so," I said emphatically. "I want to propose a cycle of popular science articles which would systematize our knowledge of reality. First astronomy, then elementary particle physics, together with superstrings theory and composite folds, then the theory of gravity, which has many connections with the state of modern philosophy. From philosophy I would like to proceed to psychology, sociology and history," I said in one breath and waited for the results.

"And you know all those things?"

"Yes. I also have some idea of how to put complicated scientific problems in simple terms."

There was a moment of silence. The editor still looked at me suspiciously.

"All right, write it," he said at last.

Holy Jesus! I almost cried for joy. At last I had found proof that I didn't belong to a dying species of thinking beings on Earth. Until that moment I had only faith. I ran home with my hair windblown, trampling on my way a protest by Polish Mothers carrying slogans against femi-

nists or perhaps the other way round. I pulled out my most secret notes from the bottom of the drawer. After an hour the room was full of open books and I was working feverishly.

I should have guessed it was too beautiful to be true. Two weeks later in the editorial office of Bold Thought I heard, "You know that your article will have to wait for the next issue, because our proof-reader didn't understand the word 'blasar.'"

"What?" I protested. "But I wrote in black and white that it is a stream of matter emitting very strong gamma rays, pointing toward Earth. When such a stream is observed from one side, we call it a jet. Its source is a rotating black hole with an accretion disk!" "You know, this accretion disk..." "Damn you! One paragraph above I wrote that this is the form taken by matter falling into a black hole and that it looks like Saturn's rings!"

"You know, this is so complicated... Why must our readers force themselves to work their way through it?"

"Because such things happen in the universe and intelligent people should know about them!"

"But your article must be read very carefully and with understanding.... If you overlook one sentence, you won't understand anything." "Is that a fault?" He didn't say either yes nor no, but from his face both

could be read.

"I wrote this article logically, in Polish and as simply as possible, but no simpler!" I said. "The astronomers who gave me their professional advice complained that I was trivializing, because I didn't write that the accretion disk appears because matter falling into the black hole conserves the moment of momentum...."

"You know, our readers do have aspirations, but..." "If they have aspirations, let them aspire!" "You know, perhaps the next article will provoke fewer doubts. What will you be writing about?"

"About the structure of the atom," I said morosely. "It will be an introduction to the theory of composite folds."

"Very good. See you in a week."

I worked full of misgivings. It turned out I was right because what happened next would be funny, if it weren't true.

"Unfortunately, we can't accept your article. It is too obscure."

"Obscure?!"

"For example, you use words such as 'photon,' without explaining their meaning."

"You must be joking! Everybody knows what a photon is. We can make a quick test. Hey, everybody!!!" I shouted to the whole office. "Who knows what the word 'photon' means?"

Several pairs of sheepish eyes looked my way. Finally someone said, "It is the name of the photographer's shop in my quarter of the city."

I sat down with a loud crash. Miraculously, the chair didn't collapse.

"They teach it in the first year in high school!" I howled.

"You see, our readers are humanists who didn't like physics and math in school. They often mention it in their letters. Perhaps you could write something about parapsychology or Extra Sensory Perception."

"You say, they are all humanists?" I sighed tiredly. "You should have told me that your readers are undereducated!"

"I think we should stop this conversation. Our readers buy Bold Thought because our magazine gives them the sense of belonging to the elite. We don't intend to change this state of things with irresponsible articles. We will replace your article with sexological counsel."

"Very good!" I said. "When two or three people come together, they should first call a sexologist."

"That is an insult! Leave immediately!!!"

I left. After that I started to ponder where I'd find the nearest editorial office of some nasty, lying, but honest tabloid. Then I got drunk. The next morning I was awakened by the doorbell.

No, it cannot be single tanks!" Jankowski said firmly. "A single tank is too weak. We need at least a platoon."

"My theory still holds in such a case," I answered thoughtfully. "Provided that they don't form larger groups before the attack...."

"This can be done," was Jankowski's answer.

"I'd reinforce this group with an APC," suggested Stebnowski.

"So we would have five large vehicles in all." I shook my head. "Too many."

"Let's have one tank less," decided Stebnowski. "We shouldn't give up the infantry support."

"Right," agreed Jankowski, and they both looked at me.

"Yes," I said. "I agree; it's a good idea."

Suddenly the door flew open, and Colonel Moraszczyk stormed into the room.

"The Danes have given Bornholm to the Americans as a base of attack!" he announced. "At this very moment troop-carriers are landing and unloading marines, and landing craft are passing through Copenhagen even now."

"What about aircraft carriers?" Stebnowski asked.

"Three of them on the North Sea, two on the Adriatic."

"Our fleet?"

"As planned: regrouping around Pomorska and Gdariska Bay. We've already opened the middle part of the shoreline."

"Opened?" I was shocked.

"We cannot defend the entire shoreline against such technological superiority. We've concentrated on the regions with favourable landing conditions."

"So you will allow them to get ashore?"

"We plan to surrender Kotobrzeg without a fight," explained Stebnowski. "We'll take the fight further inland, and the rest depends on your theory."

"Better come back to our tanks," said Jankowski. "We still have to discuss communication and supplies."

"No communication," I answered. "We'll only need to send an attack signal to each group. Is this feasible, with all the jamming?"

it.

Moraszczyk turned and left the room again.

Jankowski nodded. "You can't jam all frequencies at once, so that shouldn't be a problem. However, it would be good to have a continuous source of news from the battlefield."

"Let's send journalists," I said. "As many TV staffers from neutral countries as possible. With all possible passes."

"Good idea," agreed Stebnowski and stood up. "I'll handle this."

He left the room.

Somewhat stunned, I stared at Jankowski. "Where did they go?"

"They will send information to Headquarters," answered the general. "You'll excuse us, but we will not let you enter the defence centre. Our more conservative colleagues would collapse. And there is also the issue of professionalism. Your ideas have to be translated into a quite hermetic language of orders, and then we would not like to have a civilian around; there's also a problem of confidentiality. And, last but not least, it would be too crowded in there." "Too crowded?"

"We are not the only discussion group," said Jankowski. "The electronic combat department adopted a computer virus maniac, and air force headquarters admitted a group of merry boys from...never mind what newspaper. I hope you don't feel offended."

"Of course not. It's very interesting." At that moment Moraszczyk came back. "We've already got the Americans' strategic plans," he said shortly, and explained, "Our man in Washington was promoted as a result of the last staff restructuring."

"That's what I told you...." murmured Jankowski. "They don't want to conquer all of Poland, but rather to humiliate and ridicule our army," continued Moraszczyk. "Their assumption is that given a good licking plus propaganda plus economic sanctions, the Head of State will resign and launch a free election. Their mass media are already full of 'big shooting game' and 'hunt for the Polish dictator.'"

"Does that mean they will use all the most state-of-the-art equipment?" I asked.

"Positive," said Moraszczyk.

"And how do we look in this whole mess?"

"We are about one generation behind," answered

Jankowski. "We have some world class equipment, but we

rnay use it only at the crucial moment. The rest is fit for

delaying actions only, and one fifth of what we have is a

I junk, good only to use as moving targets."

"So we sustain the good old tradition of the September campaign?" I summarized grimly.

Jankowski turned to Moraszczyk. "Which way will they come?" he asked.

The colonel spread a map of northern Poland on the table.

"They will land their troops somewhere east of Kolobrzeg, but no farther than Jamno lake." He indicated it on the map. "The exact point is not determined yet. Then the official version is that they will go for Warsaw, but in fact they don't intend to go further than Bydgoszcz. They believe they will have all their political goals realized by then."

"Poland is a big enough country," I murmured. "Sticking such a wedge into us is a risky business."

"That's why they'll make use of all their technological superiority," explained Moraszczyk. "They'll take care that nobody comes into shooting range, not even a mouse...."

He stopped, as the door flew open and Stebnowski stormed into the room, trailing along a cart with six TV sets. "Gentlemen..." he gasped. "Let's connect and adjust these babies. Each one to a different information service."

"Maybe technicians could handle this better?"

"It's a top secret matter," answered the general, putting a small pile of remote controls on the table. "The fewer people who see you the better."

A quarter of an hour later the TV mosaic in the corner of the room started to work, without sound for the moment. All four of us bent over the map.

"The core of our armored forces is already located in the Notecka and Bydgoska forests and Tucholskie Wood," announced Stebnowski.

"Then the main tank battle should take place in the Krajenskie Lake District," I stated.

"More or less," Jankowski agreed. "Till then we intend to carry on mining and delaying actions, based mainly on small, very mobile units in all-terrain vehicles. They are ready and waiting in a forest complex near Bialogard."

"So what we can do?" I asked.

"In truth?" answered Stebnowski. "We can win one battle and use that fact politically as much as possible. Our army is not able to resist such an enemy for more than a month. A prolonged war against the United States is impossible - our economic potential is too small for this."

"In short, we have to pass through a needle's eye, not even knowing whether we are camels or not," I summarized.

"Correct," said Jankowski. "That's why we count on your theory to help us."

"What do you think about dispersing our tank platoons in the forests along Brda and Gwda rivers?" asked Stebnowski matter-of-factly, cutting short our discussion.

I looked at the map with more attention.

"Yes, I agree." I nodded. "Krajenskie Lake District is almost bare of forests. Americans won't be afraid to go there."

"There is one more issue to be handled: supplies," Jankowski reminded us.

"For one battle it is sufficient that every vehicle has full tanks and a complete supply of ammunition," I answered. "Is it possible to fill them up at the departure points?"

"Yes, but it's not enough. We have to find another way," said Stebnowski firmly. "Your theory forbids the actual delivery of supplies to fighting forces."

"Not at all! This was discussed in the fourth paper, not published in time. You have to deliver a can of fuel and a couple of shells to every farm in the area of potential operations. Our tanks will get their fuel passing through. Do you think we can count on our people's patriotic feelings?"

Stebnowski frowned. "We have to get to it quickly," he decided.

He and Jankowski left their places at the table.

"Are the radio noise bearing-finders installed in all tanks?" I asked.

"This was taken care of first of all," Stebnowski assured me. "Now it is necessary to maintain radio silence right up to the moment of direct contact with the enemy. Our troops should locate the enemy and listen for the attack order. Platoons should maintain visual contact with each other."

"We will take care of this," promised Jankowski. "One more thing. Air support. What about it?"

"The troops will get it as late as the beginning of their attack. Till then, we'll leave the Americans with the upper hand in the air," answered Stebnowski.

"Our best planes are hidden as deeply as our tanks," added Jankowski.

Both generals left the room in a hurry. I was left alone with Moraszczyk. He dug out a box of flag markers and started to pin them all over the map.

"An old method, but more efficient than any modern computer." He smiled.

Then he asked for a hotline connection with Headquarters, covered his ears with headphones, and stopped talking altogether.

Time rolled on, while I watched the flag markers on the map gradually encircle Krajenskie Lake District, closing the sack from the south, west and east.

Two hours later the lights went out.

"Here we go," said Moraszczyk's voice in the darkness. He paused for a while to add, "They have just smashed the power plant in Turdw. And in Kozienice. And Ptock Refinery. Let's wait for emergency power."

Although I believed myself prepared for something like that, I felt a lump in my throat. A minute later the lights were back, and the monitors went operational again. Moraszczyk froze as he pressed the earphones to his head.

"Nancy has just delivered an ultimatum," he said after a while. "We have forty-eight hours. The plants were attacked to make us appreciate the message."

We turned back to check what was on TV. Two western stations were showing Plock in flames and one was regaling the viewers with Turow's disembowelled generators. The other screens showed President Nancy's concerned face.

"The Germans are under pressure to join the economic sanctions and let the Americans in Rugia," Moraszczyk went on. "Kanzler Halentz temporizes, telling stories about historic conditions."

"The Yanks risk their necks for the Russians, as we do for the Huns, and it's all a nice snafu," I concluded.

•

There was not a single attack the next day. Instead, the TV stations showed pictures of the US marines corps deploying and redeploying in Bornholm, putting heavy equipment aboard the landing craft, plus some demonstrations of patriotism in Polish towns. The comments had it that our society was profoundly manipulated and out-duped; there were also few spots of a lone, bush-concealed Polish tank. The American media gave voice to a group of military experts, who demonstrated the novel weaponry and explained patiently why no GI Joe or Jane could be hurt in Poland.

Jankowski and Stebnowski did not come even once. I was not enjoying Moraszczyk's company much, as he was in a continuous process of relocating the flag markers and therefore was not very talkative. I found out that there was a nice, fully fitted suite next door. That was the territory I was allowed. A trayful of food was always placed on time by the threshold, and Moraszczyk kept intercepting it. My chaperone, or should I say, my watchdog, was -unlike me - always vigilant, swallowing some pills from time to time.

Twelve hours before the ultimatum was to expire the Americans turned off the teletransmitters in most of our bigger cities and extinguished the radio mast in Gqbin.

"Third time is lucky...." Moraszczyk sighed heavily.

Jankowski returned shortly.

"We have every reason to believe that we are going to be ready as scheduled," he declared. "We did what we should. Now let's put our faith in God and Chaos."

Chaos was unleashed precisely at the time forewarned by President Nancy. In an instant the radio went mute and the active radar systems were disintegrated. We were not sure how many American aircraft swarmed over Poland but it was a swarm big enough for our air defence to score several acked downs. The American media were bamboozled, as the planes were undetectable.

"How did they manage, for goodness' sake...?" I asked i Jankowski. "Random fire...?"

The general smiled. "I trust I am authorized to disclose jthat military secret," he said. "Sometimes a stealth, invisible, radar-fooling, IR-proof unit may be spotted from the roof. A fact a few American strategists seemingly over-I looked while planning their raids."

To recoup from this unpleasant surprise, the Yankees I downed with high precision the statue of the Warsaw Siren, and afterwards they started systematic elimination of military targets in Western Pomorze. Why, thousands of plywood-and-canvas dummies were hurt, with coke baskets inside to lure infrared detectors. Responding to this, lour enemy used intelligent ammo, which, who knows why, [focused on uprooting our wayside weeping willows.

"A goal scored by our boys from Intelligence and E-Com-Jbat Department!" said Jankowski when he stopped laugh-ling.

"Our boys?" I repeated.

"Very much so. They succeeded in smuggling 'the description of Polish tank standard camouflage' into the com-mter target database...."

The situation grew even funnier when, after procedural >re-bombardment, the fearless marines commenced land-Ing on the beaches between Kolobrzeg and Sianoze_ty. rreenpeace immediately gave a catalogue of endemic flora md fauna species that were put in utmost danger by American bombing and launched off their global campaign, "Protect sea-holly, not American way of life!"

But the first military anti-American obstacle was not to be seen before reaching the Kolobrzeg-Koszalin motorway. Fortunately a Swiss TV team was there. The latest version of the Abrams series appeared in the right upper screen. The tank smoothly bypassed land obstacles and was about to reach the motorway when - all of a sudden -something resembling a hypertrophic spider crawled out from a roadside ditch. It was fifty centimetres in diameter, the same in height, with a pot-like frame. Untangling its ten multi-jointed limbs, it ran with incredible agility to the tank, leaped on its armour, glued itself to it and boomed off. A second later exploding fuel and ammunition reincarnated the Abrarns into a flame-belching shell.

I could not believe my eyes. Meanwhile, further tanks appeared on the screen, and so did more mobile spider-mines. Hell broke loose. Judging by a few nervous jumps and the picture frames going still, I gathered that the Swiss reporters had abandoned their cameras and taken leave.

"The itsy-bitsy spiders are doing well." There was pure tenderness in Jankowski's voice.

For some time I could not utter a sound. "Are they really ours?" I managed a question, eventually.

"Why do you always think Poland is an everlastingly third world, backward country in all life's aspects?" The general sounded irritated.

"But why this degree of complexity? I am somewhat familiar with controlling mobile, walking robots.... To achieve this degree of speed and smoothness, one would need incredible VLSI processors.... And if we consider the overall size.... After all, we have never been in the first league of processor making...." I was thinking aloud. "Who sold us the technology, may I ask?"

"That's true, we were not born in Silicon Valley," Jankowski admitted. "That is why there are no electronics in the spider. Almost."

"What then?!"

"Remodelled nervous system of a spider, daddy-longlegs, with annual nutrient store. If I am not mistaken, the killer instinct of that animal has also been employed."

I was amazed and then I had a seizure of national pride. It was a very lovely seizure.

It stopped being lovely when all the "spiders" were used up - we had only a pilot batch of them - and when the US Army reached Bialogard. There they met our light forces, equipped with lightly armoured Tarpan cars. Each vehicle had an MG, a compact A AC/AT missile launcher and five crewmen. All of that was not enough to block their powerfully air-aided newest mutations of Abrams and armoured vehicles. Our boys sacrificed much for the country, of which the American TV's most liked their bowels. Apparently in order to mask their previous failures, they were zooming in on flaming, decomposed pieces of the Polish soldiers. And they had plenty of material to shoot and choose from. Without air protection and support two thirds of the Tarpans were destroyed before they could reach visual range. American F210s and Patton armoured choppers husked our offroad vehicles one by one. Fortunately, not with complete impunity. Someone over the big water must have seen a falling chopper once or thrice, and thought it would be wise to thumb over a Polish history book, since some voices could be heard on the American TV that the triumph of the "Call to Democracy" operation would not be as spectacular as it had been forecast. But for now, they were rather lonely voices. The American ram was efficiently crushing our troops, clearing the way up to Szczecinek. They failed to achieve one thing, though. Surprisingly enough, they failed to ridicule the Polish Army.

It was high time I turned my theory into practice. It was the fifth day I was passing in the company of Colonel Moraszczyk and his pinned flag markers. My head was killing me from all that TV, The American commanders were well aware of the fact that arriving in Krajenskie Lake District they entered a net woven with our tanks. But that's what they wanted. They wanted to accept the battle on our terms and to make a presentation of what the genuine worth of the American values and antitank missiles was. To increase their air protection, they called for another aircraft carrier in the North Sea and more

planes in Bornholm. Then they calmly sacked Czarne and Debrzno, and slowly, in two columns, moved towards Noted river.

Our tanks, scattered in the woods by the Gwda and Brda rivers, did not seem dangerous. At first, the Yanks tried to seek and destroy them from the air, but our tree-climbing snipers with hand AAC bazookas persuaded them to reconsider the idea. And so they did, satisfied with airdropped mines covering all the exit roads from the woods - and leaving the area. They assumed there must come a time when the Poles would leave their bushes and commence regrouping, and that would be the minute to get the world acquainted with some new, cute Polish jokes. As if there were no Polish jokes already: all American shows entertained the viewers with the notions of "stoned stiff loaded Polacks" and their "completely little tanks." And one riddle: "What does a Polish dictator do in the thickets by Noted?" was winning particular popularity. They pronounced the river's name "noteka" (rather than "Notech").

It looked as if no gentlemen from the American headquarters ever read The Sleazy News. God be thanked for that! When the flags with white stars were pinned as high as Sepdlno, Stebnowski came back. He and Jankowski gave me expectant looks.

"What about the mines?" I asked.

"Our engineering squads removed some of them," Stebnowski answered. "Let's hope most of our vehicles will not use the roads."

"We shall begin, shall we?" My voice trembled to a somewhat alien tune.

Both generals left the room.

A quarter hour later Polish fighter-bombers appeared over the Krajeiiskie Lake District. Instead of bombs they started to drop hundreds of bizarre looking satchel-sized packages. After landing, each container inflated automatically into the shape of a tank. A small electric motor made the device crawl forward; an infrared projector and mag-

netic field generator pretended to be a fuel engine and armour.

"It is the idea of the wags from air command," Moraszczyk announced.

Three minutes later the air was thick with American planes. Then the Polish squadrons came flying. From the ground it looked a bit like a fireworks show. And suddenly a hard porno movie started on one of the TV sets. After a while I heard the voice of the speaker explaining that for some unknown reason it was an image received from the reconnaissance satellite placed over the battlefield.

"Second point for the boys from electronics," Moraszczyk said. "You've got to admit it is our greatest success since breaking the Enigma code! And it is something to look at too...."

While staring at a girl having an orgasm in identical thirty second breaks I though the plan had to succeed now.

Then Jankowski came with the news that soon our best close support aircraft, first and second generation Scorpions, would take off.

"Do we have any airfields left?" I asked amazed.

"Most of them," the general answered quietly. "For this occasion we had ready floating airstrips hidden under the surface of several lakes."

A minute later CNN announced that American computer specialists had finally solved the trick with the willows and removed the destructive file from the targets database. The biggest difficulty for them was the fact that this file had some qualities of a computer virus. Anyway it was over and the intelligent missiles regained their efficiency.

Flags which marked our tank platoons moved completely chaotically. Moraszczyk kept watching TV screens. With one ear he listened to the TV comments; with the other, news from Headquarters. Stebnowski came back and said that all orders had already been given and the only thing left was to wait. We sat down and looked at the map.

It looked as if I had screwed up everything. While the flags with white stars formed straight defensive lines, ours were tossing around them like Mr. Brown's particles.

And suddenly some order started to come out of the chaos. White-and-red flags arranged something like a ring surrounded the Americans' positions. Then the ring blurred, turning into the most beautiful fractal in the world! As far as Moraszczyk could copy it on the map it was a classic tree fractal. It differed from other fractals of this type only in that it was formed from the edges toward the center, i.e. inversely. And the centres of crystallisation were American panzer columns.

In their communique's they started to talk about the increasing strength and precision of the Polish attacks. Our and their tanks burned on the screens. Airplanes rushed like crazy over the fields and rooftops. Moraszczyk desperately looked for any signposts and landmarks. Polish tanks entering the battlefield were breaking radio silence, adding to the noise level and accelerating the growth of the panzer fractal. Our omission of a concentration step caused the extension of detect-destroy reaction time in the American command system. A satellite was cramming their headquarters computers with the binary porno film, stretching the time even more. In the meantime the fractal assault expanded like an avalanche. The American command centre - naturally producing most of the radio noise - was attacked concentrically from all sides at once. Loose groups of Polish tanks, seemingly not worth any attention, miraculously joined together in armoured fists just under the Americans' nose. That is, it seemed miraculous to the Americans. In some commentaries even the word "magic" was used. Then they used it more and more often.... In the headquarters in Borholm they didn't believe in magic.

That's why half the American planes taking part in the battle looked for a Polish armored force concentration zone....

Three hours after the beginning of the counterstrike, the Wiecbork-Wysoka-Naklo-upon-Notec triangle was seething like the contents of a witch's cauldron. On the map, the Polish fractal was systematically eating away at the American positions. The marines fought with their

typical professionalism, but they could do nothing with the fact that any time their squads started to call intensively on the radio for support, instead of reinforcements Polish tanks came from the least expected direction.

Despite this they defended themselves and their air supremacy was becoming more and more visible. Our Scorpions were crumbling away at an alarming rate and we simply didn't have more of them. The gap between our and their military technology also had its effect. The struggle lasted until dusk and continued at night. When it seemed that in spite of all we would knock our brains out on this wall, the wall collapsed. About 2 a.m. the American command centre stopped clattering. The battlezone started to move northward.

They were withdrawing!

At dawn the remains of our forces from Biatogard came into action. They were too weak to close the encirclement but the Americans, with their disintegrated command system and communication links chopped to pieces, were not able to regroup. Their broken troops running away from the cauldron on Noted, having met no resistance on the way to the sea, were stopping and claiming air evacuation. And again instead of transport helicopters Polish tanks appeared. Near Czluchdw our T-85s and their choppers came at the same time. It caused a number of shocking scenes just as during the evacuation of Saigon over 30 years ago. It was a pleasure to see them bolting in their choppers, hung like bunches of grapes, and abandoning hardware.

Where help didn't come on time American soldiers started to surrender. Their first question after throwing down their arms was, "How did you do it?" Some of them repeated shocked that it was impossible for American technology to fail. It was necessary to organize psychoanalytical aid for them.

About 10 a.m. the air fights stopped, and an earthquake started in Washington D.C. Morning news showed burning Abrams and columns of American POWs over and over again. Editorial offices were stormed with viewers' phone

calls demanding a stop to the transmission of the catastrophic film and air news about Poland. The Republicans in Congress woke up, and one of them remembered that Kosciuszko also had the title of the Leader of the Nation. President Nancy was said to have a serious case of flu.

In Europe the Council of Elders in Brussels passed a resolution that defeating the American forces was a highly unfair act. The British Foreign Affairs Minister maundered about the Polish-American peace border on the Notec river, when journalists interrupted his morning tea. A moment later BBC announced a sensational report from the Polish command centre where alternative methods of command were being used...

On the TV screen there was a headquarters with a map of the Krajenskie Lake District spread on a table over which a few nuts with wands, pendulums and very wise looks on their faces leaned. In the corner a man dressed in black was sitting with goggle eyes as he had chronic constipation; he was piercing a wax model of the latest Abrams with long pins, again and again. Next to a wall a shaman in a trailing robe was jumping up and rhythmically hitting his head with a rattle.

Some generals were walking around this panopticon. When one of the "experts" started explaining something to them, they nodded in dignified assent.

"What the hell is this?" I blurted out.

"You don't think that we will really tell them how we did it?" Stebnowski answered. "Just think - " He smiled -"how many New Age specialists will the Pentagon have to employ? It is better than a bombardment...."

"Damn you!" I gasped,

"Of course we count on your discretion," Jankowski added, "You can't describe it in The Sleazy News"

"It's out of the question. Can I go home now?"

"It's not over yet," Stebnowski said.

Indeed it wasn't over. At 4:05 p.m. Poland declared war against Denmark for its collaboration in the aggression.

A quarter hour later three of our Halny fighter-bombers attacked Copenhagen. Two of them performed a precise bombardment of the traffic lights control center. The third one demolished Tuborg Brewery. Beer foam flowing through the windows of the smoking brewery impressed the natives no less than a mushroom cloud.

The supermodern traffic lights control center, based on a fuzzy logic processor, was hit with four missiles and became schizophrenic. Traffic in Copenhagen and all Zealand was paralyzed.

For the punctual and scrupulous Danes it was the end of the world.

On the way there and back the Polish planes hid in German airspace over Uznam and Rugia Islands, to avoid any contact with American fighters. The Germans reacted to this incident with a gentle diplomatic note: "Yo, yo, may it be the last but one time...." Stebnowski copied Kanzler Halentz's beer baritone very well. The Danish air defense was surprised because at 4 p.m. the radar staff finished work and went home. If anybody asked, the American satellite was still emitting the 30-second porno film, plunging oversea computer specialists into despair.

To be frank we have to admit that we underestimated the Danish Queen. That respectable old lady took personal command of the army and in a few hours made the mad city back into a capital. She mobilized what was handy and asked for help the from NATO allies. Unfortunately, it happened that the only things at Queen Margaret's disposal were twin Homosexual Airborne Brigades - a lesbian and a gay one. The second, six hours after sounding the alarm, had already lost sixty-percent of its personnel because of desertion. The lesbian brigade came in full strength, but agreed to go into the fight only if they would be equipped with atomic bombs and their first target would be Warsaw. In the meantime, the Germans were silent and the French reacted to the situation with mass demonstrations under one slogan: "We don't want to die for Copenhagen!" The Russian mafia carried out their threat and sold plutonium to Pakistan. Consequently the Americans

immediately stopped bothering with the problem of democracy in Poland. When it came to light in whose interest American boys had been getting a beating upon the Notec, Congress - under the pressure of public opinion - forbade Nancy any military operations in Europe. Thrown out with the bath water, Danes were stranded and started to think intensively who had them join NATO and what for. In the end, they accepted German mediation to resolve the conflict with Poland.

"We've made a big mess," I murmured to Stebnowski. "The Americans got a rap on their knuckles, NATO turned out to be not worth a hoot, and Germany is left as the only country in Europe with anything to say. Was this our aim?"

"It's no use crying over spilt milk!" the general answered. "We have to get used to it. You don't think, Mr. Toma-szewski, that what once was would last forever, do you? History never ends!"

Warsaw, January 1995

Translated by Brunon Stefanski and Krzysztof Bartnicki