The Difference Engine by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling Page B

Comanche and Karankawa, by Mexican raiding-parties, and by the thousand nameless hazards of the wilderness. Small wonder then that Colonel Travis should receive my orders too late; and place his confidence, tragically, in the reinforcing-party led by Colonel Fannin. Surrounded by an enemy force fifty times his own. Colonel Travis declared his objective to be Victory or Death — knowing full well that the latter was a surely fated outcome. The defenders of the Alamo perished to a man. The noble Travis, the fearless Colonel Bowie, and David Crockett, a very legend among frontiersmen” — Messrs. Travis, Bowie, and Crockett each had a third of the kino screen, their faces gone strangely square with the cramped scale of their depletion — “bought precious time for my Fabian strategy.”
    More soldier talk. Now he stepped back from the podium and pointed up at the kino with his heavy polished cane. “The forces of Lopez de Santa Anna were arrayed as you see them here, with the woods upon his left flank and the San Jacinto river-marshes at his back. His siege engineers had dug in around the baggage-train, with emplacements of sharpened timber, represented thusly. By a forced march through Burnham’s Ford, however, my army of six hundred had seized the wooded banks of Buffalo Bayou, unbeknown to enemy intelligence. The assault began with a brisk cannon-fire from the Texian center . . . Now we can witness the movement of the Texian light-cavalry . . . The shock of the foot-charge sent the enemy reeling in confusion, throwing his artillery, which was not yet limbered, into utter disarray.” The kinotrope’s blue squares and lozenges slowly chased the buckling red Mexican regiments through the checkered greens and whites of woods and swamps. Sybil shifted in her seat, trying to ease the chafing of her hoop-skirt. Houston’s bloodthirsty boasting was finally reaching a climax.
    “The final count of the fallen numbered two Texian dead, six hundred and thirty of the invader. The massacres of Alamo and Goliad were avenged in Santanista blood! Two Mexican armies utterly defeated, with the capture of fourteen officers and twenty cannon.”
    Fourteen officers, twenty cannon — yes, that was her cue. Her moment had come. “Avenge us. General Houston!” Sybil shrieked, her throat constricted with stage-fright. She tried again, pulling herself to her feet, waving one arm, “Avenge us, General Houston!”
    Houston halted, taken aback. Sybil shouted at him, shrilly. “Avenge our honor, sir! Avenge Britain’s honor!” A babble of alarm rose — Sybil felt the eyes of the theatre crowd in upon her, shocked looks that people might give a lunatic. “My brother,” she shouted, but fear had seized her, bad nerves. She hadn’t expected it to be so frightening. This was worse than singing on stage, far worse.
    Houston lifted both his arms, the striped blanket spreading behind him like a cloak. Somehow he calmed the crowd by the gesture, asserted command. Above his head, the kinotrope wound slowly down, its flickering domino-tricks whirring to a stop, leaving San Jacinto frozen in mid-victory. Houston fixed Sybil with a look of mingled sternness and resignation. “What is it, my dear young lady? What troubles you? Tell me.”
    Sybil gripped the back of the seat before her, closed her eyes tight, and sang it out. “Sir, my brother is in a Texian prison! We are British, but the Texians imprisoned him, sir! They seized his farm, and his cattle! They even stole the very railroad that he worked on, a British railroad, built for Texas . . . ” Her voice was faltering, despite herself. Mick wouldn’t like that, he would scold her performance . . . The thought put a jolt of vitality into her. She opened her eyes. “That regime, sir, the thieving Texian regime, they stole that British railroad! They robbed the workers in Texas, and the stockholders here in Britain, and paid us not a penny!”
    With the loss of the kinotrope’s bright play