Page 70 - An Evening with Maxwell's Daemons

Lost in the Jungle

would be simply to leave it hanging, the reader gasping at the horror
of it all.”
Rutger glared at him suspiciously.
“Are you being serious? If not, the hell with you. I know this
idea is cliché-ridden. But that is no impediment to getting it
published. You leave the nuts-and-bolts of writing it to me, okay?”
“I have a question,” said Izzy Azimuth. “We all strive to avoid
anachronisms when creating an alternate history. Are you sure that
night parachute drops were feasible in the early 1940s?”
“Of course I am!” Rutger snapped. “Thousands of paratroopers
landed in Normandy overnight on D-Day! Quite a few didn’t make
it, undeniably. Hmm. Maybe the recon squad in my story could lose
a couple of men in the jump. In fact, I could make the first part of
their mission a lot more dangerous, to up the ante. Thanks.”
“You won’t thank me,” said Hydrargyrum Diggers. “This story
is a typical male fantasy. Where are the women in this village? Who
do you think goes out and gathers these plants? Who takes care of
the sick and wounded, and would therefore know the capabilities of
their herbal pharmacopeia, and how to administer any of it? Maybe
the old wise women would have a say on whether or not to share
their secrets with these commandos. And this barely-disguised
‘white hunter’ narrative is not just sexist in the casual way of making
women invisible, it also denies agency to the Africans as a whole: at
every step, they are totally compliant and unselfish. You ought to
know that is a racist trope, as well.”
Perversity Tinderstack could not resist adding to the
condemnation, despite Schlager’s obvious discomfort.
“You know, Cyril left out a possibility, and Hydrargyrum’s well-
taken points brought it to mind. Once it is clear that the radio can’t
be fixed, and that the village is going to be mercilessly bombed into
non-existence, you just abandon them to a highly uncertain fate.
The Americans don’t tell the elders what the urgency is, or that
destruction awaits the whole village. That is cruel! I mean, the place
could have been evacuated pending the outcome of the trek to the
border. You could at least have your commander try to warn them.
You are treating them as collateral damage, not human beings!”

69