When Johnny comes marching home

摘要

The war was a terror, but it was the peace that terrified. Like the vast bleak mysteries of adulthood - so much space and empty yet, quiet yet, unmarked by anything of ours - after the battlefield that was school. Like school, the war was none of our doing, it had simply happened to us and was always obviously sur-vivable. Now we had somehow to make things happen on our own account, with no idea what would happen if we failed. The aliens didn't help - but that was the point, rather. They weren't here to help. None of us understood them, quite. Not an invasion or an occupying force - because of course we hadn't lost the war, exactly. They might have been ambassadors or tourists, traders or artisans or thieves. Or weapons inspectors, because if we hadn't quite managed to lose the war we most certainly had not won it.