The Birth of People's Republic of Antartica, стр. 133
Lykantropovin realized that his opportunity lay in going to the attack immediately. He first launched a campaign against nature, renovating the largest camps for heat and supplies, blasting away the glaciers that threatened the deep-water harbors at Elephant, King George, and Livingston. Lykantropovin knew that he had to provide the wretches security, not because he pitied them, but because he had to turn their sympathies, their hearts, from the Hielistos and to the charity of the Ice Cross. He also rebuilt Elephant Island into a fortress that dwarfed the one at Anvers. He then launched an armada of new ice-cutters and retook the South Shetlands from Clarence Island to Deception Island. The East German Ice Cross officer Dietjagger must have been part of that sweep. And while we South Georgians huddled at Golgotha, Lykantropovin sent a fleet against Anvers Island.
It was Cleopatra’s luck that now turned the hem side out, as the Norse said. It could not have been accident that Jaguaquara, relieved of his command and shunned as a lesser butcher, led the main assault at Anvers. Lykantropovin might not have known how crucial it is that a commander accompany his forces on the ice—loyalties can change as suddenly as the weather. His quick victories along the South Shetlands may have left him overconfident. From the fortress at Elephant Island, Lykantropovin directed Jaguaquara, by undependable courier and radio, against what he presumed to be the heart of the Brotherhood of the Ice, Grootgibeon and the Ice Cross defectors at Arthur Harbor.
Jaguaquara’s bombardment was expert, ripped the cliff face of the caves, drove the Hielistos into the deep fells. The pirate fleet was also blasted, and Jaguaquara closed the net with beach landings. The capitanes de los Hielistos, led by one called Hector the Fat, were ready to quit and pleaded with Grootgibeon to ask for terms. Jaguaquara sent Fives O’Birne into the fortress under a truce flag with Lykantropovin’s demand for unconditional surrender. Fives O’Birne told the capitanes they must accept chains, and insulted Grootgibeon, meaning to separate him from the pirates. At this, the capitanes recognized that Lykantropovin meant to slaughter them all. They also knew they could not break the siege. Grootgibeon made an honorable gesture, too late, too naive, and offered to travel to Elephant Island to negotiate a surrender. Fives O’Birne boasted that the only part of Grootgibeon he would take to Lykantropovin would be his head.
What was required to break the impasse was a heart that could tolerate any treachery. I suppose that Cleopatra’s namesake might have clasped her lover and her asp to her breast and sunk into glorious defeat. A name is a name, true, but some names, say I, are warning. Surrender was not Cleopatra Furore’s temperament. She rose to intervene in the Hielistos’ counsel. She descended from the fortress with Fives O’Birne, Babe, and her hall-guard, and went aboard Jaguaquara’s flagship.
Some said she stayed there a day, some said a gale blew from Graham Land and buried the siege in a tomb of ice. Nothing moved but the skuas in the sky and the tongues in the liars. Grandfather was not in the fortress, was trapped on Graham Land, and was not a reliable witness. He said that every capitan in the fortress knew that Cleopatra meant to sell everyone to everyone, the “whore of Babylon” forging a Babylonian treaty. Cleopatra was never helpful on the particulars. It was said that she directed Jaguaquara to inform Lykantropovin by radio that she would negotiate only with him, and not before he returned her mother’s corpse. If this was so, she must have known it was a mad demand. And did she actually, as I was told later, kiss Grootgibeon when she rose from the counsel table?
The end was metamorphic, all were melted and thrashed. Cleopatra, daughter of Brave New Benthamism, revealed the pagan root of the Charity Factor; in Christian terms, it is called Judas-talk. Jaguaquara surrendered himself and his fleet to Cleopatra. Cleopatra made Jaguaquara the warlord of Anvers Island. And as a taunt to the impotence of the Ice Cross to best the self-named queen of slaves, Cleopatra was said to have ordered a cutter sent to Lykantropovin, manned by the Ice Cross officers who had originally defected with Grootgibeon, each with his fingers cut off. Peter Grootgibeon’s corpse was nailed to the boom spar.
At Golgotha, the South Georgians shuddered before my translation of Grandfather’s story. After all, it was not of some distant country Grandfather spoke, but our world—Grootgibeon was dead less than a year. And Lazarus was so outraged at Cleopatra’s debasement that he tried to reject what he learned. He said Grandfather offered two distorted and farfetched portraits of Cleopatra: Either she was a conspirator rivaling a mythical empress, or else she was a pirate’s treasure. He said it was the most obvious slander Grandfather could tell to paint Cleopatra a prostitute who had raised herself up by seduction to rule through the tempted. He said Grandfather lied. He said Grandfather was insane.
After two weeks of confession, Grandfather started to repeat himself, and to rant and babble. I do not think his mind was gone, more his concentration. I thought to put specific strategic questions to him about the Hielistos, for myself and my sealers. The answers made our plight look worse. My sealers grew resigned; they embraced their morbid fatalism. Our escape plans were set aside as folly. The sealers said the South was a tomb for those who would not fight and that whatever course was taken next, it must be decisive. Germanicus spoke forthrightly, said it would be better to die a pirate like the Hielistos than to wait for starvation or slaughter at Golgotha. I could not disagree,