"Freddie is dead. Because they tell us, that's no reason to believe. How can we believe? We saw Freddie alive, but now they tell us Freddie is dead. Far away, two thousand miles. Over the mountains. Did we see him die? He's dead. Oh, he's dead. But we'll never learn to live with it. Don't you see? How can we believe? How can we know? We saw him alive. Now he's dead."
Freddie was flying a Karadi plane against the last strongholds of free man in the Rocky Mountains. Not because Freddie had wanted to pilot the dart-swift craft particularly, but because they had made him. The Karadi announced their own human losses readily, almost as if they took great pleasure in the impressive figures. "They told you this?" Mr. Friedlander asked.
"That Freddie's plane was shot down. That he is assumed dead."
"You saw nothing in writing?"
"They sent a man."
"You knew him?"
"No. He wore good clothing. He drove up in a sleek Karadi car."
"Quisling."
"Freddie died a hero's death, he said. Against the rebels."
"Rebels? Trying to preserve their own freedom? Freedom which we lost because the bombed cities couldn't survive?"