The First Love Of Alipang Havens

The next day, Philippe had to resume working with his father on an appliance-repair job. He had scarcely taken his leave before a providential phone call came, from Pastor Peter Ionesco of Sussex Gospel Church, who told Alipang: "The Forresters clued me in to your non-adulterous non-affair with the adult-movie star. I can help you line up more friends to maintain seamless proof of your integrity."

Grateful for this, Alipang made a related request: that the pastor hold his nose and meet with Samantha himself today, to hear her justifications for the peculiar curative program with Tim Govinda. "Who knows, the Holy Spirit might nudge you to suggest something to her that would be _within_ her comprehension."

When Tim and Samantha finally got out of their respective beds -- by which time, Alipang had attended to the needs of the horses -- Alipang hastily gave them a bite to eat, then told Samantha about the proposal for her to meet the pastor. She surprised Alipang by not arguing against this. Before long, then, the disreputable diplomat was out of his hair for awhile, and he could try something else with the mental patient. Collecting his hunting gear, he said, "It's a fine day. Come outside with me, and show me how fast one of your four-legged identities can run." Anointing the boy's face with sunblock which Samantha had supplied, he then led Tim out the back door.

Alipang was encumbered with his weapons, a backpack, and two canteens (he didn't care to drink from a canteen also used by someone with _such_ filthy habits as Tim). The boy had no encumbrance at all. But when Alipang indicated his desired easterly direction, which would take them into fallow fields outside of town, and started jogging in that direction, Tim's mightiest efforts could not begin to keep up with what for Alipang was a leisurely pace. Dropping back alongside the sometime Chief Justice, he asked, "Are you being a very short-legged animal? _Please_ try to keep up."

Tim not only never did come anywhere near matching his host's running speed; he ended up at a standstill, begging to be carried. So, not meaning this to be a boot camp, Alipang obliged. Rearranging his own cargo, he permitted the boy -- who was only a few centimeters shorter than he was, though much thinner -- to climb on his back. They proceeded in this fashion for the last kilometer or so, till they arrived in the field where Alipang was hoping to kill a grouse or two for his kitchen.

When Tim understood that this was hunting, he "helpfully" began howling like a coyote. The unexpected outburst, coming before Alipang had his bow ready, caused several game birds to take wing and escape. Alipang still did not show anger at the boy; he merely whispered, "We're using the stalking method, hunting quietly."

Moving on to another field -- with Tim on his own feet once more -- they had better luck. Alipang shot one grouse on the ground, and had his next arrow on the string quickly enough to fell a second grouse on takeoff. Once the second bird was killed, Tim could no longer stay silent. Barking like a retriever, he ran to fetch the nearer of the two grouse. Afraid that the boy would actually pick it up with his teeth, Alipang overtook him and ordered: "Wait! You don't want _these_ in your mouth as they are. They may have lice on them. If you want to help, just pull my arrows loose, and wipe off the blood as best you can on some weeds."

Tim did as he was told. Shortly afterward, Alipang grasped one grouse by its ankles and held it before the boy's eyes, head down and wings loosely spread. "Look here, son, but don't touch. See the undersides of his wings? Those are lice crawling around; they like to be on the wings for some reason."

"Does that mean we can't eat them?" Tim asked.

"We exiles can't afford to be too picky. I'm going to chop the wings off both grouse with my axe right here. That should get rid of most of the lice. Back at the house, I'll pluck the birds on the back porch. We'll discard the feathers; don't want verminous feathers in pillows, thank you kindly. Then I'll wash my hands in lye soap, and proceed to cook the birds _very_ thoroughly."

Tim seemed to absorb the sense of what Alipang explained; but he grew queasy and threw up when he saw the wings being hacked off. Alipang allowed himself a small wisecrack at this: "Was that one of your herbivorous identities being grossed out?"

= = = = = = = = = = =

Coming home, Alipang found a note left for him by one of the older married couples in town: they, and two more such couples, had all been recruited by Pastor Ionesco to sleep at the Havens house tonight and safeguard their local dentist's reputation. The note also reported that word had come of the Rands being expected in Sussex tomorrow, and added that Samantha was getting acquainted with more local residents. For this evening, the presence of the half-dozen seniors would also serve to show Samantha the same thing which hopefully she was seeing with _every_ exile she met in town: that Biblicals, "even" elderly ones, could refrain from fits of homicidal rage when in the company of a "relational progressive."

Tomorrow, then, with Evan and Summer here, Alipang would feel confident that he had reliable helpers; and perhaps Michael, Anne-Marie, Grace and Grant would find rapport with Tim.

 
On Friday morning, as if to show the youthful Samantha that older people who were never allowed to receive telomere preservation were not necessarily collapsing into dust, Alipang's elderly guests did all the morning chores for him. This included mucking out the stable, and leading Sammy, Lacey, and the currently boarded horses out to the nearby pasture. During these proceedings, Tim shot various questions at Alipang's friends, demonstrating the paucity of his knowledge about real animals.

When the six local visitors went home and things quieted down at the Havens house, Alipang informed his "out of town" guests that he would shortly be doing a tooth extraction. "If you think you can keep His Honor occupied while this goes on, I'll be able to give him another dose of reality orientation afterwards."

"I'll manage," Samantha promised. "I really do appreciate your willingness to become part of this project." These words were accompanied by the most sincere-looking smile he had yet seen from her. Samantha becoming the kind of pest that Dana Terrell had briefly been about a year ago remained implausible, but Alipang would not object to her viewing him as more definitely a fellow human being.

The scheduled patient, a farmer named Larry Bessemer from the boondock-ish northeast corner of Wyoming Sector, had a _severely_ rotten tooth to be rid of. This was not because of hygienic neglect on Mr. Bessemer's part; it was because this particular premolar had been damaged (and one of its neighbors knocked clean out) in a beating administered three years ago, by the now-deceased Overseers Huddleston and Vargas. The damage to the surviving tooth had crept up slowly over time, what with the overall shortage of dentists in the Western Enclave, but now it could no longer be ignored.

Kim was not there to provide an acupunctural pain-block; there was only their herbal analgesic to lessen the pain of the extraction. But Mr. Bessemer endured the pulling as cheerfully as any man in his situation could be asked to, being glad _finally_ to be rid of that tooth.

When Larry Bessemer had paid his bill -- with sacks of grain for Alipang's horses, a most welcome currency for the dentist -- Alipang started back to the house, carrying the extracted tooth. He intended to show it to Tim, and thus initiate a conversation about the way that the teeth of every vertebrate species were designed to fit the needs of that species. The point would be to try to induce the boy to consider whether intricate details like the genetic pattern for teeth could _really_ change as quickly and magically as Tim was inclined to believe they could.

But as he came to the back door of his house, Alipang heard a racket inside, which gave him the foreboding that the delusional child had been confronted with some _less_ tactful and indirect challenge to his fantasies. Dropping his little exhibit in his haste, he lunged inside.

The kitchen and living room, in his absence, had been transformed into a battleground: several dishes broken, something spilled on the kitchen floor, chairs overturned in both rooms, and the landline telephone in the living room smashed. In the center of the living room -- fleetingly reminding Alipang of the old play The Miracle Worker even as he dashed to intervene -- Samantha Ford and Tim Govinda were locked in jungle combat. Both of them were showing bruises even to a split-second glance, but Samantha was clearly winning by this point.

In fact, she was beginning to strangle the raving boy, and her beautiful face was disfigured by a more homicidal expression than Alipang would ever have expected to see on those features.

When Alipang pulled the woman off of her adversary, she screamed and fought him as well, her self-control blown to the four winds. She could not, of course, prevail for an instant against Alipang's strength; but he was _ever_ so glad that no camera was set up to record this one-sided struggle. There could be few things that Alipang would have liked _less_ than having a computer-altered video of his brief clinch with Samantha being made part of the next Zimmo Garland movie.

When he had made sure that the defeated Tim still was breathing, and had forced Samantha to sit down under threat of getting strangled herself, he demanded to know what had set off this battle. When Samantha told him what sort of animal behavior the psychotic boy had attempted, Alipang found that he believed her.

"Perhaps," he told her, "scientific objectivity might now call for you to find lodging elsewhere for awhile; my friend Sylvia could put you up. The Rands should be arriving anytime now; let them help me with Tim." He could not refrain from letting her see him running his eyes over the damage from the fight.

Seeing a scattering of ceramic shards on which her host's eyes rested, Samantha asked meekly, "Was that platter-looking thing valuable to you?"

"Not in hemispheric pesos. That was the one and only dish Kim and I had which we had been able to bring away from Richmond after your Party arrested us for not being pantheist-slash-atheist-slash-redistributionists." He did not snarl this; the information itself did the snarling.

Samantha's voice shrank. "Oh. I, I'm sorry, Doctor Havens. I'll pack up my things. Tomorrow or the next day, we can talk about the next phase of Tim's treatment."
 
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One of Alipang's neighbors, a Mrs. Juniper, had happened to be outdoors, close enough to hear the racket as it drifted out the windows of the Havens home. She ran to Alipang's door in alarm. She knew enough about her dentist to know that there was no way on Earth he would commit any act of unjustified violence; but not much time had passed since Nash Dockerty's "Ku Klux Quaker" fraud, and she was afraid that somehow a violent incident was being _staged_ as a way to slander Alipang.

She banged on the door, then opened it without awaiting a response -- to see Alipang bending over the boy Tim Govinda, of whose existence and insanity she was also aware. Alipang looked up from examining Tim for possible broken bones, to see his neighbor staring at him.

But this was not happening in one of the old-time television soap operas, where someone was always discovering an innocent person in a situation that only _looked_ incriminating. Mrs. Juniper's first words to Alipang were, "I know that you didn't hurt him. But what happened?"

Tim had recovered enough consciousness that he now supplied the first answer: "Biodiversophobia! She refuses to believe that I was _born_ this way, and she hatefully interfered with my self-actualization! She's un-mutual!"

Alipang offered an alternate explanation, in English: "He appears to have behaved toward Miss Ford in a fashion that qualified as violating her personal boundaries."

Able to hear sounds of Samantha moving around upstairs, Mrs. Juniper said, "So then the movie star beat him up?"

"It was definitely not one-sided; Miss Ford suffered almost as much damage as Tim did."

Mrs. Juniper trotted into Alipang's kitchen, found a clean dishtowel, and moistened it for the purpose of cleaning the scratches visible on Tim's face and arms. "But he's so scrawny!"

"Well, Miss Ford isn't the first person to find out the hard way that someone smaller than you may be a lot more ferocious than you." Not one to brag, Alipang didn't say out loud that he himself had taught this lesson to many a man larger than himself.

The first-aid kit he kept for his Grange work enabled bandaging Tim where it seemed to be called for. Samantha, with baggage already packed, came back down the stairs as this was going on, and exclaimed, "Hey, what about some first aid for ME?"

Mrs. Juniper only glared at her, while Alipang replied calmly, "The loser of the fight got first attention; besides, you didn't even _ask_ for help till now. But here you go;" and while Mrs. Juniper stayed with Tim, he gestured to Samantha to sit on the sofa while he went to work examining her wounds. This required him to expose a bit more of his patient's skin than her torn sundress already exposed; but he had his neighbor looking on, as witness that what he was doing was _only_ in his capacity as a paramedic.

Something softened in Samantha's face as Alipang carefully rendered aid, including applying a disinfectant to places where the insane boy had bitten her. Alipang was certain that she was NO closer now than before to having an inclination to feel sexual desire for him or any male; and he was in fact correct about this. But Samantha _was_ at least finding that she could feel _gratitude_ toward a male, maybe even respect.

"Miss Ford," said Alipang, "I fully believe your word that he first assaulted you, not the reverse. But I want you to think about something. During all the years when Americans of your political bent were working to create the regime you have now, you never missed an opportunity to make parents look bad, so that the very _idea_ of the family would be eroded and finally discarded, in favor of 'the collective.' If an actual mother, in those days, had been physically attacked by a child large enough to inflict injury, and in defending herself had injured the violent child in turn, you would _never_ have accepted her testimony of self-defense; you would have _wanted_ to believe that she was just one more lying child abuser. And if anyone defended the mother in that case, you would have pretended to believe that he was making excuses for all the _genuine_ child abusers.

"You serve a system which is composed of unrelenting lies from top to bottom; but I will still take your side when, as now, I believe you to be telling the truth. You see, truth matters to us primitive God-fascists." Having said this, he fetched a lightweight jacket from a closet, beckoned her to stand up, and gently placed the jacket on her.

"This will make it less obvious that your dress was torn. You'll want to report this incident at the federal building right away, after which you can change clothes there. And I must choose to trust you to tell the truth to the office personnel -- since _they_ probably won't hold you accountable if you lie."

Many thoughts were manifestly swirling in Samantha's head. Suddenly she clasped Alipang's hand. "Thank you. I believe you can do His Honor more good than I can." Then she turned her gaze at the disapproving Mrs. Juniper, who was cradling Tim in her arms as if he were her own son. "Citizen, I suspect that you despise me. But for what it's worth, I'm learning to feel some respect for you people."
 
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After Samantha and Mrs. Juniper departed in different directions, Alipang settled Tim on the couch, gave him a drink of water, and sat on one of the chairs that he had just set upright again. "How do you feel now, Tim?"

"I feel like a daring vanguard in the cause of diversity, Citizen Havens. Narrow-minded reactionaries like Citizen Ford will have to learn to make way for the karma of the versatile oneness."

Alipang sighed. "Son, if you're being an animal now, it's a parrot. You're just reciting back the phrases that someone taught you. Was it in Boston? Was that where they got you talking this way?"

"Citizen Havens, you're forcing the fluid reality into the paradigms of linear sequence. The 'when' and 'where' don't matter. As I comprise all species, I equally comprise all times."

"Tim, if you're that good at absorbing vocabulary, you must have _some_ ability to reason. Think about what just happened here. You claim to be all kinds of animals at once. If that is true, then when you -- touched -- Citizen Ford, and she reacted in anger, why didn't you change into something like a grizzly that could kill her? Why let yourself take scratches and bruises that you could have avoided?"

Tim sat up. "What a loosh you are! Do you think I wanted to _kill_ her? I wouldn't kill anyone; _you're_ the one who's killed people! Yes, I know about that."

"But I didn't kill _you_ when you tried to knife me, did I?"

"I never tried to knife you!"

"Okay, let's _say_ that you never tried to knife me. That leaves the question of your fight with Miss Ford unresolved. Even with not wanting to kill her, you _still_ could have avoided getting hurt yourself. You could have changed into a turtle and hidden inside your shell, or changed into a bird and flown away. If you actually can change form in any way that has an effect on things around you, why didn't you change in a way that would have protected you from being hurt?"

"Who says I am hurt?"

"Son, if I didn't have a soft spot for all children, I'd prove -- never mind. I have a question for you. Whoever taught you collective-speak, whatever time-warp they were in, did they teach you the saying, 'Perception is reality'?"

"Of course they did; it's a foundation stone of jurisprudence."

"No, son, it's a foundation stone of a certain philosophy: a philosophy which, before it grew old and cobwebby, was known as post-modernism. But every day that everyone lives in every land or generation, _life_ proves that it's wrong. Because life never stops tossing things at us which our perceptions _didn't_ create. Think about yourself asking me to carry you, when I took you out grouse-hunting. If you could _really_ turn into a gazelle or a cheetah, then you _wouldn't_ have had any difficulty keeping up with me.

"I think that at some point in your life, something _happening_ in your life was too painful for you to face; so you took refuge in believing you could change shape. Then you could get away from whatever--"

Tim began loudly mooing.

 
In the afternoon, Alipang had four more patients to see in his clinic behind the house. Annette Rochefort came over to watch Tim while Alipang was thus occupied. The day's patients ended his dental appointments for the week. Mrs. Rochefort afterwards informed him that every word she had spoken to Tim had been answered only with animal noises.

While in his clinic, Alipang had suddenly remembered to think about the impending molt of his right hand and right foot. The skin on his earlier-molted body parts did not yet seem to have re-toughened itself at all. Alipang actually felt worried about this for a moment, until he remembered that he had made it through all of his life up to this summer _without_ having any part of his epidermis artificially fortified.

Once Mrs. Rochefort had gone home with his thanks, Alipang connected to his living-room telephone jack the extension phone from the master bedroom, to replace the phone broken in Tim's battle with Samantha. Then, remembering an illustrated book that Kim had used in homeschooling their children, he gave the book to Tim to peruse. Reverting to human speech at last, the boy asked, "How do you power this up?"

"It's highly sophisticated; it actually responds to the motor-nerve signals of your body. Just let your brain tell your fingers to move the cover aside, and you'll be able to start reading by separating the thin sheets of organic fibrous material." While Tim was enjoying two-dimensional photographs of animals he had pretended to be, Alipang sat down with his record book of patient visits and updated it.

Less than an hour later, Mrs. Forrester called to say that she would be providing him and the boy with some supper for tonight. The next call after that was from one of the workers in the federal building, letting him know that a train carrying the Rand family was due to pull into Sussex just after sunset.

General chores, and eating the supper kindly supplied by the neighbor lady, filled in the intervening hours. When Alipang judged the time to be right, he saddled up Sammy, then placed himself and Tim on the stallion's back. In compensation for two riders, Alipang allowed Sammy to move at a lazy-donkey pace; this was safer for Tim anyway. Rambling this way and that as the sun sank lower, with Alipang telling the boy anecdotes of horse-riding incidents, they came to the train platform just minutes before the freight train with just a few passenger cars arrived from the north.

Alipang stayed on Sammy's back, holding Tim firmly in place on his saddlebow, until the train had come to a full stop. A station custodian who knew Alipang then held Sammy's reins for him, while the fifteen or so disembarking passengers emerged onto the platform. Descending from the saddle, Alipang still kept Tim under control, never knowing what mischief he might make.

The station was not crowded, so almost all of the Rands caught sight of Alipang at the same instant. Summer, her right hand busy carrying a suitcase, waved a greeting with her three-digited left hand... and this time, did NOT seem self-conscious about it. Thank God, that's one trauma she seems to have been able to put behind her, Alipang thought.

Michael, Evan and Summer's firstborn, who was in the neighborhood of Wilson's age, was first in his family actually to come up to Alipang. The warrior-dentist, his left hand resting authoritatively on Tim's right shoulder, extended his right hand. As soon as Michael clasped it -- the complete outer skin slid off of Alipang's hand like a glove, remaining in Michael's grip for the instant it took for the boy to register what had just happened. "AACK!" Michael squawked, and dropped the bizarre skin-glove as if it were poisonous.

The seven-year-old twins, Grace and Grant, squealed with surprise. Anne-Marie, the middle child, picked up the shed skin, looked at it, then looked at the friend of her parents. "This is the skin they experimented on, isn't it?"

"Yes; as you see, it gives me the ability to be in more than one place at the same time."

Alipang got a laugh out of them with that one. Then it was on to introductions. Alipang was heartened by the fact that Tim actually _talked_ to the people he was meeting.
 
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Back at the house, after rubbing down Sammy and checking that all was well with all the stabled horses, Alipang dug up some canned beans, venison jerky, and other available foods to offer to the Rands, also allowing Tim to eat again. When Grace blurted out a question about how Tim's face came to be bruised, Alipang told her simply, "He was in a fight. I'll talk to your parents about it later, but please don't make Tim talk about it now. Let's hear some about the physical therapy work your Daddy's been doing."

Evan obliged his host; and between his anecdotes about Saint Labre, Summer interspersed questions to Alipang about Grange activity. Alipang could tell that she was fishing for hints of whether evacuations or other major upsets were impending. He gave her such cryptic answers as he could in the presence of children, trying to convey that no severe danger was known to be imminent. She and Evan got a chuckle out of Grange hunters having been assigned at Gas Hills to protect Salwa Jalalu against bloodthirsty Islamophobic fanatics who did not even exist.

After this late supper, Evan and Summer undertook to clean up, while Alipang broke out board games and books to occupy the youngsters. It was not long before the twins were nodding off, so Alipang showed Evan and Summer where everyone was to sleep. Alipang himself was going to go to sleep last, in a bedroll on the stairway landing, a strategic position from which to respond to anything that came up with anyone.

Before older children and adults went to sleep, Michael Rand found himself engaging in his most substantial conversation yet with Tim. It began with Tim unconsciously displaying his judicial cluelessness, by trying to relate coherently the labor-union disputes which had been his predominant kind of case on the Supreme Court. But in time, the deranged boy turned to his favorite subject: becoming all the animals in the world. After listening to these ramblings for a quarter of an hour, Michael suddenly asked Tim a question:

"Do you remember how old you were when you _first_ realized that you could be all these creatures?"

Whether because this time it was not an adult challenging his fantasy, or for some other reason, Tim didn't bother with "correcting" Michael on the subject of "linear time" versus "fluid reality." He simply gave a direct reply: "I think I was the same age as your twin siblings are now."

This refreshing directness did not escape Alipang's notice; he began paying closer attention to the dialogue between the two boys.

"Being all those animals must have lots of advantages," Michael said, keeping his facial expression carefully neutral. "Being faster, being stronger, plenty of things. I'll bet it's one advantage that you can stop people from doing things you don't like.... maybe, say, from _touching_ you in ways you don't like."

No quasi-legal or quasi-metaphysical babble now came from Tim's mouth, only the word "Yeah."

"I sure would have liked it if I could have been different animals a couple of years ago," Michael continued. "Some really mean people forced our parents to leave us. Of course, that was before _you_ were on the Supreme Court, or I'm sure you would have helped us. Anne-Marie, Grant, Grace and I were all separated from each other, too. And I.... had to live with adults who did things I didn't like at all. I wasn't allowed to leave there, and I was told that if I complained about what they did, that would be hate speech."

Michael had Tim's attention as thoroughly as Alipang's. Summer was with the twins upstairs, but Evan was also following his elder son's every word.

"Did they touch you like not any fun?" Tim asked solemnly.

"That's right. No fun at all -- at least, not for ME. What a lucky break it would have been for me if I could have turned into an eagle and flown away."

"Yes. It's good to be animals."

"But you know what, Tim? Even _without_ my having the power to be all the animals in the world, I found out that there still _was_ something better in the world than what was happening at that commune. Because someone in Alipang's family, his brother-in-law Daniel, did some really smart things to help my family. As I say, you weren't on the Court then to be able to help us; but Daniel talked judges into letting me out of the commune with the bad touching, and letting my parents and the other kids be together again. So now, although I can't fly or breathe water, I can get help when I need it, from people who love me."

For a moment, Alipang thought Tim was going to resume his animal noises. Instead, the underaged politician said, "That sounds like an instinct with positive evolutionary tendencies."

"Well, something like that," Michael agreed.

And Alipang, who had not yet shared with any of the Rands his own suspicion of Tim's delusions being an escape mechanism in reaction to past abuse, took Michael's independent addressing of the same idea as a confirmation.

An hour later, while bedding down, he noticed like an afterthought that the skin areas due to re-harden had at last begun re-hardening.
 
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The last plot summary is located here:

http://www.narniafans.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24514&page=194

Here's a review of what's happened since that summary:

The lady scientists Integer Swift and Noreen Verble completed the skin alterations on Alipang -- around the same time that propagandist-author Trip Conklin was murdered by extremists in the Great Lakes Muslim Cantoment. These fanatics, extensively reinforced by outside Islamists, went on to launch a terror campaign in Canada. Kim Havens and her children, visiting with Kim's mother and other family members in Winnipeg, had refuge from the violence, but were hindered from getting back to the Diversity States. Canadian authorities, blindsided and bewildered by the unexpected assault, wasted their time interrogating Kim as if she could have had something to do with the terrorists. At least she was able to get a letter through to Alipang.

Within the Enclave, Henry Spafford's wife Huldah is now expecting. The ex-convict called "Gerbil" got an office job with the Grange Association. Chilena and Dan set out to promote their latest movie (the one in whose making Pulverizer Clarendon had her heart attack). But not everything is good there. In its usual manner of getting everything backwards, the Fairness Party insisted that there was now a terrible danger of "Islamophobic" violence being committed by the unarmed, well-controlled common citizens of the Diversity States. Accordingly, the Texas Ranger aviation branch was ordered to divert ALL of its air-combat assets to patrolling around the Cantonment, guarding against racist mobs which did not exist. Emilio Vasquez was left in the Enclave, but with most of his personnel and both of his armed helicopters gone. In the same connection, Alipang and other Grange members were assigned to a task as unnecessary as that of the Texan aviators: "protecting" Salwa Jalalu, the woman from Detroit, against equally non-existent perils. During this absurd mission, Alipang formed an innocent friendship with a female dentist named Vera Strother.

The Party-hack Governor of Texas, Steven Jiang, took advantage of the situation with Texas Rangers being forced into meaningless duties outside of Texas, to rub the Ranger Commandant's nose in his contempt for everything Texans hold dear. The Rangers do not plan to forget this.

Tim Govinda, the mentally-ill pre-adolescent boy who had been made Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as the Party's way of weakening that court, had lost the stabilizing guidance of his cousin Chida -- she having been extradited to India to stand trial for past crimes; this left Tim open to the influence of Aztlano agent Felipe Contreras. Felipe manipulated Tim into giving a speech condemning the custom of bullfighting, which would give the Emilio Formentera regime an excuse to act outraged against the D.S.A. once more. Cassie Magruder, the Transportation Department airship pilot in Wyoming, was to become a victim of Aztlan's fake indignation: as she flew her dirigible on an observation patrol to help Emilio's reduced contingent, a missile fired by the Aztlano gang Los Malignos killed her and her companions.

The Atkinson administration, true to form, responded to this act of war by trying harder to appease El Presidente Formentera. Besides increasing the amount of free electrical power supplied to Aztlan, President Atkinson had Tim Govinda kicked off of the Supreme Court. The deranged boy ended up in the custody of Samantha Ford -- who was the only one of "the great diplomats" to be still inside the Enclave, since Moonrose Quickpace and Bailey Melville had gotten themselves fired from Equalityball coaching for their own malfeasance. Samantha, who had just worked with fellow actress Hydrogen Forbes in Zimmo Garland's latest sordid movie, found Tim difficult to handle... and was faced with an irony as Tim accused HER of not being "progressive" ENOUGH. Remembering how her own son Daffodil, now David, had benefited by knowing the Havens family, Samantha hired Alipang to help manage the lunatic Tim.

Meanwhile, ethnic insurgents in Greater China succeeded at hacking into the Chinese Aerospace Force's computer networks, causing one of the robot fighter jets to attack a residential neighborhood in Beijing. In fact, the armed drone went straight for the building where Yang Sung-Kuo lived, almost killing him and his family. In the aftermath of this, Colonel Hsiao of the Aerospace Force (the man who married the strange American girl named Quasar) went to India to be given classified information by military and intelligence officers of that country. Also involving himself in this situation was Diversity States Ambassador Benito Salazar, who made the sycophantic offer to let China use the combat aircraft of the Texas Rangers, because these would be unconnected with the defense network which had been compromised. Thus the Fairness Party curried favor with Beijing -- and the Texas Rangers were farther than ever from restoring their mission readiness for air defense.

The Hemispheric Union passed a resolution against allowing Mexico to help the Texans; this was brought about by the scheming of the Venezuelan Alliance -- which was also covertly collaborating with the plans of the Russian Federation to invade and conquer the barely year-old Republic of Alchatka. David Redfern and his co-worker/lover Vonetta Ashford, working for Ambassador Vibol Ritisak, learned that the Venezuelans had made a secret threat to Washington, that if the D.S.A. did anything Venezuela or Aztlan didn't like, a soybean blight would be unleashed against American farmland. The secret army started a mission to end this bio-warfare threat, while also lending aid to the beleaguered Alchatkans.

Carolyn Biao, the East Coast labor-union official under whose authority Evan Rand had worked for a time, became part of the Fairness Party's own response plan for the threat of induced food shortage. To prevent hungry Americans from turning against their government, the unions were to trick different groups of civilians into fighting each other.

The shadow of danger prompted scientist Matti Siermaala to depart the Enclave at last --but not without company. Zamoria Carter, the Rapid City nurse who had been assisting him in his work, had fallen for him, so they got married and left the country together. Returning to Africa, they visited Brendan Hyland, who had been wounded while fighting invaders from the Egyptian and Babylonian Caliphates. At the same time, in Wyoming Sector, Eric Havens proactively took part in forming plans for evacuation in case the Aztlanos might invade from Colorado. But exiles tried to keep life moving ahead all the same. Lenore Glass and her brother Larry, children of elderly dentist Avery Glass, continued to work at establishing the new medical university in the Enclave capital; and Aero-Aquatics, the government-owned corporation in charge of the big recycling center in Nebraska Sector, opened a second plant in Casper, which enabled Harmony and Terrance Havens to come back and live with their parents again.

Inspector Leroy Lincoln from the Great Plains Federal District submitted a request to the government, going as high up the ladder as Vice-President Harrison, for the Texas Rangers to be given some kind of armament to compensate for their sudden disarming in aviation. He was told that at least one compensation was available: particle-beam projectors, the same ones formerly belonging to the now-disbanded Campaign Against Hate, could be mounted onto the otherwise non-combatant aircraft still in Lieutenant Vasquez's possession.

With his pointless "protective" assignment ended, Alipang found himself back at his own house, with Samantha and Tim to look after. Neighbors, including Alipang's Haitian-American friends the Rochefort family, assisted him in various ways. When Samantha and Tim proved utterly unable to stay under the same roof without conflict, Alipang received permission from the triumvirate to have the Rand family transferred to Sussex to help him in Kim's absence. Although the Party had ousted Tim from his post, it still had a stake in being able to say that the former Chief Justice was being treated in SOME way for his psychosis. And fortuitously for Tim's case, the Rand family has more experience than it ever wanted to have with the traumas that can cause a child to withdraw from reality.
 
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Chapter 131: Not So Calm Before The Storm

Lieutenant Walter Ayodele of Nigerian Army Intelligence, travelling in civilian guise, had come to New York City to join in the hunt for the Venezuelan Alliance agents who were waiting to release their botanical plague against the collective farms of the D.S.A. Joining Danny Alyard (whose wife Tashonda had been sent away to safety after one of the secret army's agents had been wounded by a sniper in lower Manhattan), the Nigerian officer had quickly gotten past the odd coincidence of their similar last names, and followed the ex-detective's lead in scouring the neighborhoods which had once been so familiar to him.

The secret army had not even bothered seeking the help of the federal district police, who were only accustomed to bullying unarmed civilians. Not to mention the Atkinson administration being devoted to appeasement. But the searchers had their own technological support, including overhead satellite imagery and compact snifferbots, to help them track the suspects who had been identified by higher-level intelligence assets.

Given the tight limitations the Diversity States government imposed on people even _being_ in rural areas (a policy rooted in the Sustainable Communities Initiative of the previous decade), it was thought that the agricultural saboteurs would find it easier to hide out in the city, until they actually received orders either to execute or to abort the attack on the soybean crop.

It was an August day as hot as any known to New York _before_ the Fairness Revolution -- since the nation's new difficulties with electrical power had compelled the Party Presidium to discontinue the weather-control services in what were usually favored areas. Danny, long settled in Ireland, felt much more discomfort than Walter; but he kept at the hunt.

The latest clues transmitted to their dataphones led them to the Kim Jong-Il Collective Dormitory, scarcely two kilometers north of Battery Park. Three other agents were already converging on the building as Danny and Walter disembarked from a bus to join them. The one woman in the trio, a Polish woman Danny didn't know, had activated her nano-bodysuit to assume the appearance of a Commerce Inspector's uniform. Opening one of the entrance doors of the dormitory, she exclaimed: "Attention, citizens! Distribution Department spot inspection in progress! We are searching for any unauthorized food items! Everyone file out this door!" The two men with her also had the chameleon-like suits, and they now also changed appearance.

Being supernumerary searchers, Danny and Walter didn't have nano-bodysuits; but without needing to be told, they walked over to cover the opposite entrance of the building. The proletarian occupants began emerging from the first door; they were all thin enough that Danny was instantly sure _none_ of them was carrying any extra food. But the real question, of course, was whether any of them were infiltrators with faked identification, carrying something intended to _destroy_ food.

An answer offered itself, in the form of a man with a backpack dashing out the door that the two backup agents were watching. Danny and Walter both fired trank darts at the fugitive; they both scored hits, but the man must have been pre-immunized, for he kept running. Danny touched a button on a wristband he wore, sending a coded "In Pursuit" signal to other agents, as he and Walter gave chase. Walter, younger and longer-limbed, raced ahead, but Danny kept as near to him as possible.

The two agents had scarcely gone far enough to be out of sight of their three colleagues, when they felt a faint shudder in the air. Both realized that this must mean some form of sonic weapon discharging. The trio at the dormitory entrance possessed such weapons, as another means of non-lethal subdual. At the same time, Danny's wrist device gave a blink of light that meant reinforcements were coming; they would be keeping track of the status of the other agents, so Danny pressed onward in Walter's wake.

The chase was threading its way through late-afternoon pedestrian and bicycle traffic; but the proletarian throngs just got out of the way. The years of programmed, passive dependency on government had rendered even Manhattan residents much less defiant than Danny remembered them from his old days as a beat cop.

In an alley next to a ration dispensary which had once been a fashion boutique, the quarry turned at bay just as Walter was about to catch him. Turned at bay... and pointed a hand at him, the way the disbanded Overseers might have gestured if about to fire their wrist-mounted tasers.

Danny, coming up behind, had just time to see that something was indeed mounted on the backpack wearer's wrist -- before the air trembled again, and this time the pavement trembled with it, and Danny's ears were stabbed with pain. The fugitive had his own sonic weapon, and was shooting it at Walter. The Nigerian fell to the pavement, stunned; but like the ones carried by the three senior field agents, the sound projector had a short effective range. Danny was staggered by the sound waves, but not incapacitated. Drawing his non-metallic 10-millimeter slug pistol, thumbing a control for low-velocity shots, he fired two bullets into each of his adversary's legs.

The presumable Venezuelan agent was not as badly hurt as if Danny had fired at full power, but he still fell down screaming in pain. At the same time, hundreds of civilians fled screaming in terror at the sound of shooting....

And a realization struck Danny: it was possible that the sonic weapon discharged behind him had not been one belonging to his fellow agents after all.
 
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Seeing no sign of immediate peril to his own person, Danny took his next actions with the efficiency of a long-time police veteran. First, he crouched alongside the suspect, and rendered the man unconscious with something more low-tech than the trank darts. A hard fist to the head was not something the suspect would have any immunity to, and unconsciousness should prevent him from activating any suicide device. Then Danny slapped flesh-fuse packs onto the wounds he had inflicted in the suspect's legs; the shots not having ruptured either femoral artery, this would be enough to ward off any danger of the man dying anytime soon.

The value of taking a live prisoner for questioning, plus the fact that the sonic projector the fugitive had used was not one with a lethal power level, was the reason why Danny had not ministered to Walter first. Now, moving to the Nigerian's side, Danny found him already starting to regain consciousness. Noises were coming from several directions; crowd panic might explain them all, but the noise might also reflect some kind of counterattack by the opposing agents.

An entrance to the ration dispensary was close enough that Danny took the chance of moving a few paces away from his companion and their prisoner. Opening the door and letting his gun be seen by the frightened civilians inside, he shouted, "Police emergency! We need all of you to vacate this building until further notice, and move away to the north!" As the human sheep obeyed him, Danny made an encrypted call on his dataphone, trying to reach the trio who had been inspecting the Collective Dormitory residents.

There was no answer; so Danny switched to the command channel.

"Prime Top, this is Old Badge! Track my location! Team at Kim Jong-Il Dormitory possibly down, assistance needed! Agent confirmed down at my own location also, and one suspect in custody." As soon as he received an acknowledgement, the former detective turned his attention back to Walter.

"Lieutenant, do you feel able to shoot?"

"Maybe in another minute or two," groaned Walter. "Are there hostiles coming?"

"Don't know yet, but the mission commander is on it. We're holding here till friendlies pick us up. Just be ready."

Some tense waiting followed. No one came to attack Danny and Walter, but there were sounds of gunfire from two or three places out of their sight. Danny didn't try to follow communications that were not addressed to him; he was concentrating on watching for any sign that someone in the panicky crowds outside his refuge might be about to pull a hidden weapon.

Almost half an hour passed before the call came: "Old Badge, this is Prime Top. Hostiles neutralized. Unscheduled assistance was received. See the man in orange clothing about to approach your location; he is friendly, repeat friendly."

Soon afterward, the indicated man came in sight, an Indian or Central Asian by the look of him. Danny emerged to meet him, gun in hand but not aimed. The newcomer said, "Namaste. With your permission, we'll talk inside."

When they were inside the dispensary, Danny asked, "Are you a Dacoit?"

The other nodded. "Very good. But of course, any agent of your organization would be expected to know about us. As my own agency is on cordial terms with you, and we have enemies in common, we have come to lend you a hand in stopping this act of agricultural bio-terrorism. Together, I'm sure we'll thwart them completely." He glanced at Walter. "Is your partner all right?"

"I will be in a little while," replied the Nigerian. "And thanks for joining in."

"There are enough targets for us to share," said the Dacoit. "The Babylonian and Egyptian Caliphates are not confining themselves to waging war against the African Union; they are also substantially collaborating with the Venezuelan Alliance in facilitating Aztlano aggression."

Danny sighed. "Makes me feel nostalgic for the old days, only having to contend with ordinary gangs." The veteran cop was glad that his age (considerably older than Josiah Redfern) excluded him from the ranks of regular front-line agents in the secret army; he had been brought in for this operation because of his familiarity with New York City, but now he looked forward to being safely back at home with Tashonda.
 
El Presidente Emilio Formentera of Aztlan maintained a situation room at his palace in Los Angeles. It served its logical purposes, but also featured a recreation module, with bar, gaming terminal and bed, which would rise out of the floor. He and Jessica -- who was gradually growing more accustomed to being addressed as Jacinta -- both found it stimulating to make love surrounded by incongruous data displays and command consoles.

Mere hours after the secret army, assisted by the Dacoits of India, had neutralized the soybean-blight threat in the D.S.A., Emilio held a briefing with his top officers and gang leaders. Then he sent them away, so he and "Jacinta" could have their own, more enjoyable conference. This did not _quite_ consist entirely of pleasuring each other; they actually did have some business to discuss. Particularly since Emilio had entrusted Jessica with arranging hospitality for Venezuelan and Russian military personnel who had official cause to visit Aztlan.

"How many takers for the latest Solar Influence invitation?" asked Emilio, between kisses. He was referring to the Aztlano human-sacrifice custom, which had never been discontinued, only made less blatant.

"Three Venezuelans: Naval Captain Robles, Army Captain Inofrio, and Sergeant-Major Torres. Well, strictly speaking, Inofrio's a Peruvian. Six Russians: Lieutenant-Colonel Abalkin, Commanders Yegorov and Shurovskiy, and Warrant Officers Turin, Gamzatov and Osipov. They'll remember their visit with pleasure, and be positively _hoping_ for a chance to come back someday and wield the knife again."

Emilio drew her closer. "That's your way of saying that they'll need no artificial urging to act in our interests in the future."

"Exactly, querido -- proving that it was right to reserve our scant supply of influence nanobots for other subjects. The men who settled for more ordinary pleasures in our cantinas won't feel so distinctly grateful, since they can get the _same_ pleasures back home. So _those_ are the men we need more of a handle on."

"All right, I agree. Considering that we encouraged our allies to attack Alchatka, and that now they're suffering heavy casualties because of the Indian, African and Pacific intervention, we need to be smart in our efforts to preserve goodwill. And indeed, it seems to be working; Admiral Nemtsov has already promised to provide us covertly with those heavier surface-to-surface missiles I was requesting."

The prospect of inflicting more death upon defenseless victims was an aphrodisiac to Jessica. She would not let her lover do any more talking until she had -- expressed her excitement. Finally, then, she remarked: "But this doesn't take away the thrill of doing, or watching, a face-to-face killing. Which leads to my next question: how did Nora Daley succeed with the trial run of strength adjustment?"

"Fifty percent. Fidel North didn't survive the procedure, but Vitaly Khloponin came through satisfactorily. Nora was afraid that I would kill her for losing Fidel--"

Jessica grinned maliciously. "And of course, you _allowed_ her to be afraid."

"Naturalmente. But I wasn't really angry at her; I had known all along that there were hazards for the subjects, and she learned from the failure with Fidel. We can probably turn out at least four more new luchadores before it's time to hit the Enclave." The Spanish word for "wrestler" had come to be attached to the men undergoing strength enhancement.

Their talking and loving went on for awhile.... until one of the terminals announced an incoming text message for El Presidente. It was high priority: from no less a person than Emilio's sister and assistant, Lupita.

"Look at this, Jacinta! Lupita says that some of those movie-making idiots are flying in to Las Vegas; they're asking permission to select filming locations on our soil, for that new movie we heard about. The one that says how noble and good we Aztlanos are, and how everything is the fault of the usual racist Christian capitalists."

"Sounds good!" laughed Jessica. "I suggest that we welcome them, and keep them busy. Let Meg and Reed over in Washington imagine that their olive branch is accomplishing something. Time enough later to decide whether we want to let the movie-makers live."

 
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"G.p.s. deception penetrated," announced Petty Officer Lavinia Barker, who was manning one of two cyber-warfare stations in the Combat Information Center of the command-and-control ekranoplan Kookaburra, Pacific Federation Navy. "Contact A-27 at bearing 346 is three, repeat three Baba Yagas, altitude 2,050 meters, vector toward Anchorage." She was referring to drone fighter-bombers which were the Russian Federation's version of China's Monkey Clouds. The Monkey Clouds (which were still grounded, owing to China's ongoing problem with hackers) had come into being through the theft of United States technology, but the Russians in turn had paid money to China for an export version of the Monkey Cloud, on which they bestowed a name from _their_ folklore.

And now these Russian aerial robots were on their way to attack a civilian population which included _other_ Russians.

"Three Baba Yagas, aye," replied the task force operations officer. "Weapons coordinator, per availability protocol, assign sonic and particle in order." By "availability protocol," he was referring to the constantly-updated queue of naval vessels, aircraft and shore positions data-linked in his task force's combat network. The cloud of military computers, on the Kookaburra and on units subordinated to her, had already received the same report that Petty Officer Barker had spoken to her superior, and these computers would be aware of which units possessing sonic-blast projectors and particle beams were best placed to reach the bogeys, yet not so heavily engaged with other enemies as to be unable to spare their weapons against the Baba Yagas. The system could work autonomously, and _would_ work autonomously in the absence of human input; but there was always a place for the conscious judgment of living persons, which was why the task force still _had_ humans in the C.I.C.

Missiles were not to be launched against the Baba Yagas, because the fighter drones mounted high-grade electronic countermeasures against missiles. But beam weapons would get through. The sonic blasters would fire first, because they had a wider spread, and should at the very least shake up the Baba Yagas; then, with luck, the particle beams would destroy the bogeys before they got their own ordnance away against Anchorage. Thus the judgment of the taskforce operations officer.

That officer, the ranking human in this compartment, was Commander Bert Randall (holding the temporary rank of captain, though as an admiral's aide, not the captain of this ship), his reserve commission re-activated for the first time since before the United States had fallen. The Pacific Federation's chief weakness was the immense breadth of oceanic territory it had to defend; thus, when intervening in the defense of Alchatka, the Federation's military needed _every_ warm body it could put in uniform. The intervention had a pragmatic motive, in that anyone conquering Alchatka would own the Bering Strait outright, thus controlling the Federation's best access to Arctic Ocean resources. But this did not preclude having moral and personal considerations as well.

The Moscow regime had freely agreed to the formation of the Republic of Alchatka, and was now treacherously reneging on that agreement -- an agreement in which Bert himself had played a modest role, in his capacity as a diplomatic courier. So Bert felt professionally insulted by the aggression he was now actively opposing. Besides, he had made many friends in Alchatka back during his times there; and some of those were dead by now.

Ma'at and the children had been, and still were, horribly upset about Dad having to go to war. Bert had been able to tell them truthfully that he was obligated as a reserve officer to answer the call; but truth be known, he would have volunteered if he had not been ordered to return to service. He was most heartily sick and tired of thugs and bullies being allowed to do as they pleased in this world.

When his recommended counterattack procedure succeeded in taking out the Baba Yagas before they could strike Anchorage, Bert silently asked God to forgive him for _wishing_ that those robot jets had had _live_ pilots on board, so that someone _would_ die for being on the evil side. But he certainly didn't need to be ashamed of being glad that he had helped to save civilian lives.

Internal conversations with his conscience presently had to be suspended anyway, as Kookaburra itself came under attack by Venezuelan surface craft with their own stealth technology. The secret army's swimmer-drones had eliminated much of the enemy's water-going strength, but not all of it. The next hour and a half was livelier than anything in Bert's recent memory; but in the end, the ekranoplan lost only four crewmembers.

As the unofficial chaplain of his ship, Commander Randall conducted the funeral service for the fallen. And he promised himself that his shipmates would not have died for nothing. With the help of the Indian Navy (some of whose aircraft had come to the ekranoplan's aid in this latest engagement), the good guys were gaining the advantage in this war; and Bert Randall intended to keep things that way.

He would be overjoyed when he could return to academic life; but when that day came, God willing, he would not be bashful about telling sea stories to his children.
 
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Early on the third morning after the battle in which the task force including Bert Randall had successfully interdicted the threat to Anchorage, the President and Vice-President of the Diversity States were urgently summoned out of bed. This was a simple enough matter, since they were in the same bed. They had spent the night in the Elijah Muhammad Bedroom, which in United States times had been called the Lincoln Bedroom.

Megavolt Atkinson and Reed Harrison were informed by a girl on the Rainbow House staff that there were two foreign military officers waiting to speak to them confidentially. When the alpha couple of the Fairness Party had gotten dressed and come to the Oval Office, the visitors proved to be Naval Commander Ainesh Makhuda of India and Army Colonel Tiberiu Parnescu of Poland -- the former a friend of the nameless army, the latter one of its leaders. Commander Makhuda had been wounded in one of the battles against the would-be conquerors of Alchatka, and had offered to make use of his recuperating time by being part of this not-too-strenuous errand.

"Welcome, gentlepersons, what can we do for you?" said Meg.

"You can listen to what we _have_ done for you," replied Colonel Parnescu. "Your country was under threat of having its food crops devastated by a mutated blight. This threat has been eliminated. Agents of the multi-national network I represent, with assistance from India, have done what your own security forces could not even begin to accomplish: they tracked down all of the Venezuelan and Aztlano spies involved in the scheme, and confirmed that all their specimens of the genetically modified parasite had been rounded up." Parnescu did not reveal that the Indian assistance had been in the form of Dacoits; activities of that elite special force were outside the need-to-know of anyone in the Fairness Party.

"What has become of the bio-terrorists?" asked Reed.

"By _not_ telling you that," Makhuda told him with barely-concealed scorn, "we leave you with deniability. Since you are so terrified of offending the Aztlanos who bomb you and kidnap your citizens, let it be understood that your administration played no part at all in catching the infiltrators. But I will tell you one thing: Indian mafia groups, those connected with that woman Chida Govinda who is now in prison in my country, were cooperating with the bio-warfare plot. So if any 'Rajput Racketeers' make pretended friendly overtures to you in the future, you'll know not to trust them."

"But now to bring up the principal reason for our visit to you," Parnescu interjected. "You have been relieved from a pressing danger. At the same time, the Russian-Venezuelan-Aztlano coalition which has been waging war against the Republic of Alchatka is taking heavy losses. We believe that they were hoping that Greater China would help them to at least a small extent; but as you know, China's delegation to the United Nations has condemned the invasion in no uncertain terms. The Chinese aren't fighting _against_ the aggressors, but neither are they lending any support to the aggression. Thus, the people you're so afraid of 'provoking' are becoming less and less able to threaten you."

"Meanwhile," added Makhuda, "China's own difficulties with ethnic separatists in its western provinces remain real and serious. The non-network-dependent combat aircraft which you gave them, the new-style Tu-95's and the Great Condor helicopters, are seeing actual service and proving actually useful to the Chinese. Which leaves your Texas Ranger aviators without air-combat assets."

"We can remedy this," said Parnescu. "We can provide new aircraft of the same types the Texan pilots were trained for, so that the Rangers will be re-armed, without having to ask Beijing to return the particular aircraft lent to the Chinese Aerospace Force."

Reed looked at the Romanian-Polish officer intently. "And what would you want in returm?"

"Nothing that would injure you. It has been gratifying to us that your government closed down its concentration camps and rehabilitated the survivors in your Western Enclave. Creating that new university for exiles was a commendable step as well. What we now ask is a natural next step from there: allow the exiles to create, and hold elections for, some kind of official governing council for themselves."

Before either of the trivial totalitarians could sputter indignation, Makhuda provided a qualifier: "You could still keep this council under the Enclave triumvirate's authority. That works with the Ombudsmen you appoint from among the exiles, and with the Grange volunteers who work under Forest Ranger leadership; this new step would simply give exiles more tools to manage their own daily affairs, in ways that would enhance their labor productivity."

Parnescu frowned slightly. "Madam President, Mister Vice-President, we know how heavily you really depend on your internal exiles to support your energy and agricultural infrastructures. I recall a piece of advice, whose source you disdain, but which still is good advice: 'Do not muzzle the ox that treads the grain on the threshing floor.' There's no danger of the exiles rising up in bloody revolt and killing you.... however much you pretend to believe there is such a peril. So concede to them something you can afford to concede, and we'll help you in turn. There doesn't have to be any loser in this transaction."

Meg, knowing that the two officers were only making sense, commanded herself to smile. "Very well, gentlepersons, shall we schedule a more formal meeting on this matter? Other Party officials should be included in the dialogue, to negotiate such questions as how _many_ aircraft you propose to give us."

"As long as you don't keep us waiting long," replied Parnescu, "that's perfectly reasonable."

"We're talking in terms of hours, not days," Makhuda clarified.

 
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In Winnipeg, much though they enjoyed the company of mother-side relatives, Kim's children were increasingly missing their Papa, especially little Brendan. Kim, Elizabeth and the other adults followed all the war news from Alchatka, since it had a bearing on their freedom to travel by air back to their home on the reservation. They also awaited another letter from Alipang... but the manner of its delivery was to surprise them.

Alipang's latest letter, which was devoted in large part to his progress in dealing with ex-Chief Justice Tim Govinda, was hand-carried to Maurice LeGrand's house by Dan and Chilena, whose prestige gave them greater "pull" to obtain air transportation than their "poor relations" enjoyed. Dan and Chilena allowed themselves to accept a dinner invitation, since it was already afternoon when they arrived; but they made it clear that they were not staying for long.

Over dinner, everyone got to hear Kim reading her husband's letter out loud (Alipang had kept his narrative clean enough to be read to the children, although any situation involving Samantha Ford was not likely to be altogether wholesome). Afterwards, Dan kept Wilson, Esperanza and Brendan occupied, so Chilena could hold a private conference with Kim.

Kim came right to the point: "Have you and Dan come to _take_ us back to the D.S.A. with you? We've been here long enough by now that _even_ Mom is willing to admit that Al has a right to see me again. And since you were _with_ Al to be able to take his letter, I'll bet you saw for yourselves how eager he is to have us home again."

"We _can_ take you back," replied Chilena; "everything's cleared. And yes, my brother wants you back to the millionth power. But both he and Emilio are still uneasy, still _not_ convinced that the Aztlanos won't attack the Enclave. So Dan, the old finagler, came up with a plan."

"You don't mean some way to make the Aztlanos friendlier, do you? We get to see streamcast news here; we know about Neutron Invincible and her efforts to kiss up to President Formentera with her flattering movie script. Has Dan devised some improvement on that?"

"No, he hasn't even _asked_ to be allowed to have anything to do with that. He doesn't believe the Aztlanos are interested in being nice. No, Dan's finagling is on a personal scale."

"Meaning a way to get back with Alipang but _not_ worry him?"

"That's about right. We wanted to remove Cecilia, Tommy and Irene from Casper anyway, to keep _them_ safe; Mom and Dad and Harmony and Terrance all understand that, and approve. But what Dan obtained permission for was this. We'll fly you and your kids with us back to Wyoming; you'll have two or three days with Al in Sussex. Then we'll collect you and your kids again, together with our own kids, and take you _outside_ the Enclave again. But not back to Canada. All of us will be on American soil, not far from the Enclave. Al's hostage value still holds for this. And we found a pretext for having you out there, thanks to Denise Heathcock. She's going to do a multi-part interview with the 'household collective' of the famous dentist and bear hunter. it can be made to tie in to both Dan's and my movie work, and the liberalization in the Enclave."

Kim clasped her sister-in-law's hands. "And where's the price tag for all this?"

"Well, it won't surprise you that when Denise interviews you, you must say _nothing_ but praise for the government. In addition.... Dan and I will have to act in a movie which ridicules old-time televangelists." Seeing the sudden distress on Kim's face, Chilena quickly added: "But it still doesn't _quite_ come out and say that God isn't real, or that the faith is a lie. Dan and I prayed about it, and felt a peace that this concession _didn't_ amount to being ashamed of Jesus."

"Poor Dan," Kim sighed. "I know he feels like a terrible wimp sometimes, having to make these compromises to be able to help others."

Appreciating the right-on-target sympathy, Chilena hugged Kim. "Yeah, he does. That's why I keep reminding him that if he _hadn't_ gained the good graces of our show-business hierarchy, he _wouldn't_ have been able to free Summer and Evan's children from bondage."

Kim nodded, squeezed Chilena, then stepped back. "All right, let's get with Dan and my mother and sisters, and enlarge the conference."

Half an hour later, Elizabeth told her youngest daughter, "I think this is the best arrangement you could have asked for. You'll have time with Al, then go on standby while -- hopefully -- the business with Aztlan supporting the Russians and Venezuelans gets resolved some way. And you _shouldn't_ be in any danger in the D.S.A. now."

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

Jessica Trevette didn't have as many planted operatives still loyal to her in the D.S.A. as she would have liked, but she had enough that they could help her to stir up trouble.

After some hours of assorted recreational activities shared with Lupita Formentera, Jessica sat at a terminal and composed a message. Once encrypted, it would be delivered by the best means available to her: delivered to eighteen scattered agents of hers, back in the country whose President she had been less than a year ago.

"The soybean-rust delivery having failed, Atkinson and the Presidium will of course have cancelled the plan for engineered food riots. And enough time has passed without any Islamophobia incidents, that you can no longer milk that fabricated threat to social order. But there's always another option. You can work from the very fact that the prediction of Islamophobic riots fizzled, and create scapegoats out of those who believed in the scapegoats. Have provocateurs tell proletarians that those who accused Jews and Christians of plotting to murder Muslims, were themselves the real villains. You can always take still another twist later, and bring it back to blaming the Biblicals. But for now, discontinue ALL accusations against religious types, and accuse generic, secular troublemakers of 'causing division and conflict.'

Of course, identifying WHO ARE the generic troublemakers will be at your discretion. What counts is getting Americans fighting each other again, as many proletarians brawling as possible. If the Texas Rangers are getting replenished with aircraft, then let's keep them busy supporting riot control. We don't want them concentrated and ready to defend the Enclave."

Of course, not nearly all of the mid-level officials who had previously been preparing to ignite food riots were agents for Jessica. But those who _were_ Jessica's agents, would have means to conceal from their own government the fact that they were behind the _unauthorized_ riots that would soon break out against Meg Atkinson's will.

And one of Jessica's agents was Carolyn Biao of the Secondary Healthcare Workers' Union, former supervisor of Evan Rand.
 
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Chapter 132: Fingers on the Triggers


Before making ready to travel, Chilena had one other subject to raise with Kim in private.

"Kim, has Wilson said anything surprising to you lately? Something about his personal feelings and what he wants for his future?"

Kim's oval face took on a look of alertness (not anger) to match the look of apprehension (not outright fear) on Chilena's squarish face. "Are you saying this because, perhaps, Cecilia recently said something surprising to you?"

The two sisters-in-law stared at each other for five seconds. Then, exactly simultaneously, Kim declared, "Wilson wants to marry Cecilia," and Chilena declared, "Cecilia wants to marry Wilson."

They stared at each other again; then Chilena added, "Cecilia told both Dan and me at the same time." Kim immediately replied, "Wilson spoke to me here; he hasn't told Al yet."

"What, was he afraid?" Knowing her brother's tender heart, Chilena conveyed genuine disbelief that Alipang would ever be harsh with any of his children.

"Wilson wasn't _afraid_ to tell his Papa, but he wanted to put off telling until he had made use of this time AWAY FROM Cecilia, so he could pray about the whole thing. And after lots of prayer, he believes it IS pleasing to God for him and Cecilia to be married -- when they're adults, of course. Are you for it, Chil?"

"Are _you_ for it?"

"I asked first."

They are not related by blood.... nor are they _siblings_ even by a legal technicality. If this is what Wilson and Cecilia want, then, whether they realize it or not, they're _also_ doing it for Al and me. What Al and I could never do. God give joy to them. "Yes, Kim, Dan and I are both for it. That's one way to guarantee that Cecilia and Wilson each will have a good and faithful Christian spouse." And there will be a following generation of children who are descended from Al _and_ me, with me still having Dan and Al still having Kim. We get to have our cake and eat it too!

Tearing up, Kim gathered her sister-in-law into her arms. "I'm for it too! And if they make it through a five-year courtship, they'll have proven their commitment."
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Maurice LeGrand, Baeline's husband, kept a surprise in store for Kim concerning the means by which she and her children were finally to fly back from Canada to Wyoming. On the appointed morning, the surprise landed right in front of the LeGrand mansion: two brand-new Great Condor helicopters, one piloted by Texas Ranger Sergeant Saul O'Keefe, and the other by no less a personage than Ranger Vice-Commandant Jed Brickhouse. Each combat helicopter had only its one pilot on board, which meant that between them they could fit in and carry Kim, her children, and all their luggage. The connection of Kim's husband to a respected Texan aviator was, of course, the reason why the Vice-Commandant had been able to justify this detour on the tryout flight of the new choppers.

After loving goodbyes with her mother and other kinfolks, Kim requested that all of her children except Baby Peggy be allowed to fly with Jed Brickhouse, while she and Peggy rode with Saul O'Keefe; the greater part of the luggage would go in Saul's Condor. This was nominally to give Wilson, Esperanza and Brendan the interesting opportunity to speak with a very high-ranking law officer (who was _not_ a toady for the Fairness Party); but it was really to allow _Kim_ to speak privately with a Ranger who was acquainted with the Havens family.

The Great Condors leaped aloft with breathtaking speed, but then set a no-nonsense course, at their cruising speed of over 350kph, to reach Sussex before nightfall. Kim asked Saul to tell anything he could about Alipang and his parents and siblings, and about the status of Texas Ranger aviation. The sergeant had little to report on the former subject, but more to tell on the latter, even confining himself to unclassified information.

"I believe you knew that almost all the Texas Rangers were pulled out of the Enclave, to join in play-acting that they had to protect the Cantonment against an imaginary Crusader invasion. But the Rangers who had been with Emilio are finally being allowed to return to him." The big man sighed. "I suppose that the death of Darya Sinkiewicz finally seeped through the brains of Presidium leaders, to convince them that there _was_ cause to furnish air defense to the Enclave. And as you see, courtesy of Polish and Indian sponsors, we have this new replacement gunship for our use."

The survival needs of an internal exile had sharpened Kim's ability to detect clues in the words uttered by authority figures. "Excuse me, did you just say gunship, _singular?_ Why not the plural?"

Saul favored her with a humorless laugh. "Good catch, Mrs. Havens. This is a matter which, stupid though it is, _would_ be classified if we had a government with any sense; but as it is, they've blurted it out on the Oneness Channel and the Collective Network already.

"When those foreign representatives offered to pay for replacement aircraft of the types we're trained with, the Main Party Presidium replayed all its usual drivel about not wanting to be 'guilty of belligerent racism.' The President and Vice-President were for accepting the aircraft, but many other voting members were opposed. At last a 'brilliant' counter-proposal was raised by somebody. The Presidium would agree to let us be given aircraft, provided that identical aircraft were _also_ given -- to the Aztlanos!"

Kim's eyes widened. "My God, what _krins!_ That defeats the _whole_ purpose of the offer!"

"It certainly is _intended_ to defeat the purpose. But Commandant Pierce, and others who were permitted to give input, judged that it could still work for the best if we at least DO get replacement aircraft. The Condor the Vice-Commandant is flying will be handed over to the Aztlanos after it lands your children in Wyoming; and two Texas Bears will go to the Aztlanos to 'balance' the two being given to Captains Finnegan and Jessup."

What Saul _didn't_ tell Kim was a detail which _was_ classified. The Texans, and the secret army that was trying to help them re-equip, were agreeing only to a letter-of-the-deal delivery of the actual _aircraft_ to the Aztec-Maoists. No ordnance would accompany the two Bears and the one Condor, and none of the combat-related software would be downloaded to any of those aircraft. The delivery, as per Brittany Pierce's stipulations, would proceed in such a way that the Texans turning over the aircraft would be safely gone before the barbarians even realized how nearly useless the things were.

"I don't _suppose_ that the Aztlanos have to give _you_ any of the fighter jets that _they_ use," growled Kim.

"Of course not, ma'am. As long as the _slightest_ trace of a remnant of a memory of the United States exists, the Fairness Party _will_ keep on beating the fluking dead horse of having to restrain _American_ militarism."

Saul regretted that he couldn't lighten Kim's worries by letting her know the trick the Rangers would be playing on their enemies. But _surely_ being back with her husband, after a delightful family visit, would lift her spirits.

And so it proved. That night, having reached home in plenty of time, Kim practically _kicked_ all of her children out of the house for a sleepover (pre-arranged by Alipang) at the Rochefort home. Tim Govinda was similarly farmed out to the house which had been made available to the Rands. This gave Kim and Alipang the priceless, and almost unheard of, gift of some time A-L-O-N-E!

That night, and all the way till dawn, they shook their house to the foundations.

Not until morning did Kim tell Alipang about their son and their niece. Alipang's first reaction
was "REALLY!" -- not with outrage, only a pure blindsided amazement. But then, he had a flicker of thought similar to what had passed through Chilena's mind. So he said, "If they practice the same discretion and purity as you and I did, they have my blessing."
 
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Dave Swims-In-Flood was as glad to see the Enclave detachment being reassembled, as he was glad NOT to be pestered any longer by Victoria Sherwin, formerly Victoria Tabor, now that she had landed a Mormon husband and settled full-time in Yellowstone Sector. Also not pestered any longer by the physician's assistant Myra Brooks at Saint Labre. Danger was ahead for the Texas Rangers, but this Cherokee-blood Ranger found physical danger a relief, after the irritation of many days of wasting his time.

Dave was one of several Rangers crowded into the Lieutenant's secure office for a meeting with Inspector Lincoln. The meeting began with Leroy Lincoln recounting, for the benefit of Rangers who had been outside the Enclave, how he had prevailed on Vice-President Harrison to green-light the provision of particle-beam weapons for the Rangers' use. Then he glanced at Emilio Vasquez, who took over from there:

"We've got four of the five beam projectors mounted on board the four-engine cargo plane, two on each side. I was able to talk Sustainable Energy into giving me a radioactive-material container which will be able to recharge all four of those weapons two times. Brianna Wallace will command that ship, with Tom Noritaka as co-pilot. Since we're still short on helos, and Fu Hai-Sheng has weapons experience, he'll be combined gunner and cognitive-radio tech; and Quincy Forsythe will be flight engineer and particle-beam recharger. That gives us one good platform for air-to-ground attack. But it will be completely vulnerable to airborne threats, and my Number 343 with the fifth particle beam won't be much better off. The Tu-95's flown by Finnegan and Jessup will have to cover a far wider area; so the only real air-to-air protection we're going to have will be our one Great Condor."

"We'll kick butt with that," Saul O'Keefe assured him. "Perlita's fitting in just fine." Saul was referring to Ranger Perlita Ramirez, one of the reinforcements gained before the temporary breakup of the Enclave detachment; she was replacing the sorely-missed Darya Sinkiewicz.

Emilio nodded. "And Glenn Souter, as our very newest and youngest chopper flyer, will have his main assignment piloting the medevac, secondary as my optional co-pilot for 343."

Leroy gestured for attention. "I've scrounged one more air-defense asset. You all know about the single railgun mount at the air-surveillance station in Frontier Plaza?"

"We do," replied Uriel Morales. "A good enough weapon, a step heavier than rail rifles, and with targetting sensors. But I learned not long ago that they only kept a token box of TEN projectiles for it!"

Leroy smiled. "That's where my scrounging comes in. Just yesterday, I paid a visit to Earth's Treasures over in Nebraska Sector, looking for any available recycled materials that might be usable for Enclave defense purposes. You guys remember that oddball Frodo Von Spock, who works there now? I should say, he DID work there."

Emilio's eyebrows rose. "What do you mean, DID work?"

"All in order. To continue, Winnie Drucker was away from the plant, and Frodo showed me around. I told him I was mainly looking for usable metal, so he told me there was some excess left over from a shipment of aluminum that had gone out. I looked in the bin he indicated.... and it contained a hundred or more aluminum slugs. My dataphone's spatial function confirmed that they were the _exact_ dimensions for ammo rounds in a rail gun like the one at Frontier Plaza."

Now Emilio's eyes narrowed. "Do you mean that Earth's Treasures had shipped out a freight load that ALL consisted of railgun ammunition?"

Leroy's own eyes returned a look of understanding. "That's what Frodo led me to understand. Everyone in this room can guess that there could have been something dirty about that shipment -- the more believable, when we're being forced to hand whole _aircraft_ over to the very gangsters who've _killed_ people of ours."

"Though the Aztlanos won't get as much benefit as they think they will," Dave put in.

"Thank God for small favors. Anyway, I commandeered the ammunition, and made a call to the Transport Police at Frontier Plaza. They should be getting in touch with you shortly, Emilio, to negotiate changing that rail gun of theirs from fixed mount to some kind of mobile platform, now that you'll have enough ammo for the weapon to do some good."

"Yes, and the new recycling plant here in Casper may be able to whip up additional slugs for us," said Emilio.

"I can help oversee that," offered Bob Chesterton. "But Leroy, what were you going to say about the space cadet?"

Leroy smiled involuntarily. "I commandeered Citizen Von Spock at the same time as I commandeered that slightly suspicious ammunition. We probably can't _prove_ that Ms. Drucker was sending railgun rounds to someone undeserving; but if something like that _should_ be the case, I felt that it could be bad for Frodo's health to be still at Earth's Treasures when she got back. So I took the liberty of judging that your air-detachment headquarters could use a new custodian."

"Why, yes, what a coincidence," Emilio told the Inspector in the most innocent of tones. "I had just been thinking that we needed someone for full-time cleanup work."

"I'm glad to leave you all in Frodo's capable hands," said Leroy; "because I'm afraid you _won't_ be in MY hands anymore. My police contingent, and Eileen O'Hennessy's contingent, have both just been summoned back to our districts."

"What for?" asked Saul.

"Something in the way of another wave of kinetic negotiations."

"Riots?" Dave muttered. "For what imaginary cause NOW?"

"No one seems to know," Leroy replied. "Bunches of civilians are starting to fight each other all over the place. Not as bad as the last major wave of riots, but at the same time it seems _more_senseless. So _many_ different reasons being alleged, that there's no pattern to it."

The air of optimism in the office faded, and Emilio frowned. "I'll bet the _timing_ is the pattern. It wouldn't be the first time that planted agents of Aztlan were able to start trouble on Diversity States soil. Anything to weaken our defense readiness." He put out his hand to clasp Leroy's. "We'll miss you here, Inspector; you've been a big help. God go with you in Kansas, and watch your back."
 
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The day after they had said goodbye to Kimberly, Wilson, Esperanza, Brendan and Peggy, another round of goodbyes came for Maurice, Baeline, Zahid and Susan. Elizabeth and Estaban Zapata with their preschooler son Javier, and Sharon and Federico Trujillo with Federico's teenage son Pepe and the boy Orlando who'd been begotten upon Sharon, were to fly back to South America. They were booked on a hypersonic airliner -- which could fly right _over_ the Diversity States, because it was not owned or operated by anyone _from_ the Diversity States, nor landing in any part of that country.

The flight to Buenos Aires would actually take less time than Kim's ride by helicopter to Wyoming. Home again after the airport farewell, Susan sat down to write a letter to her youngest sister, describing that parting. Little did she know that events would quickly make her letter out of date. For a less happy arrival awaited the Argentina-bound family members than had been Kim's lot.

All seemed normal as the high-price airliner taxied up to the terminal. But less than a minute before the boarding ramp would have been extended, a large high-boost hovercraft came barging onto the field. Racing crazily toward the hypersonic plane, it interposed itself between the plane and the terminal building. Elizabeth was at a window where she could see the machine; it bore the colors and logo of her husband's and Federico's own Chilean-based corporation. The hovercraft lifted itself above regular ground-effect altitude, coming up level with the passenger windows. Also seeing this, nine-year-old Orlando exclaimed, logically enough, "What's that doing here??"

Out of a topside hatch emerged a man whom Elizabeth had met from time to time, a man with whom Esteban had some kind of dealings: the investigative journalist Santiago Sanchez.

With some kind of data device in one hand, Sanchez remotely activated the dataphones carried by the Zapatas and the Trujillos. Four duplicates of his voice barked urgently: "Senor Zapata! Senor Trujillo! Unbuckle now, get your families moving, and come on this craft with me! Bring your carry-ons, but forget your checked luggage! This is life and death!"

Taken aback as the airline crewmembers were, things got still more out of the ordinary. Apparently hacking into the liner's controls, Santiago's device caused the disembarking door to open prematurely. In a further takeover of control, Santiago's voice now could be heard over the plane's internal speakers: "Senores y senoritas, remain in your seats another minute! No one among you will be in danger, _provided_ that I can quickly evacuate the persons I have called! It is only they who have enemies out to kill them, so the _faster_ I can remove them, the safer the rest of you will be!"

Federico Trujillo was quickest to respond to the emergency. Prodding the others along, he saw to it that they had their salvageable belongings with them. Santiago helped them, one after another, to cross onto the hovercraft.

"For God's sake, what is going on?" demanded Elizabeth, even as crewmen helped her and the others to get buckled into their new seats.

"Saving your lives is going on," replied Santiago, who then turned and handed a tablet computer to Estaban. "Senor Zapata, you may be glad now that you gave me access codes to some of your accounts. Because of this, you are NOT completely bankrupt. This tablet contains your new access codes to all money of yours that I was able to transfer out of reach of your enemies."

"You're going too fast!" protested Sharon. "What the heck IS happening?"

"A nostalgic return to the old Argentinian tradition of overthrowing governments. You're fortunate that I'm so snoopy about politics. I found about this sooner than the Hemispheric Union did. I couldn't _prevent_ the revolution, but I was in time to ensure that you--"

He was interrupted by a shuddering vibration that filled the hovercraft and jarred the bones of its passengers. "That's a sonic weapon!" exclaimed the boy Pepe.

"So it is," the journalist-cum-spy affirmed. "It's _our_ sonic weapon, the rear mount. Benito just fired it to discourage our pursuers -- men who would have murdered all of you, my friends. The latest 'people's revolution' is being conducted by, and solely for the profit and benefit of, the Venezuelan Alliance and its Aztlano friends."

"And they hate me, I suppose, because I'm a supporter of Mexico and Andreas Garcia?" said Esteban.

"Exactly. Certain friends of mine, the ones you never met, are saving other targets the same way I'm saving you. In a few minutes, I'll have us on a stealthed plane bound for Chile, where you'll be safe. But God only knows when you'll be able to set foot in Argentina again."

Federico sputtered curses, then regained control of himself. "Bless you, Senor Sanchez, we owe you a great debt."

"I'm only glad to help. And the whole _hemisphere_ is going to need help, with the neo-pagan and socialist axis pressing ahead. They're losing in Alchatka, but they made sure that the Russians absorbed most of the casualties there. And with Argentina dragged into their camp, they'll be able to make things rougher for the Mexican Alliance, which means rougher for the pobrecitos in the Diversity States."

The sonic-blast gunners on the hovercraft, both front and rear, had to shoot several more times to drive off the hit squads, as they made for their escape aircraft. Fortunately, it was intact, since their enemies had not known to whom the plane belonged. Soon, as a bewildered Javier clung to his mother, the whole party was airborne....

And Elizabeth, while grateful for being rescued, was at a loss to think how she would explain the sudden turn in her extended family's fortunes to Susan and Baeline.
 
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The same tissue-regeneration technology which had restored Brendan Hyland's missing eye last year, had now cured his battle injuries in plenty of time for him to attend an intel briefing being held in Onitsha. The invading Caliphate forces were being steadily driven out of all African Union territory; but the African Union, and the secret army whose organization overlapped it, had other concerns to keep track of.

The briefing was being given by a Nigerian Army colonel who was unfamiliar to Brendan, but known to the recently-returned Walter Ayodele. Others listening to the briefing, though not saying anything, included two men who were both officially dead, but serving in the shadows as intelligence analysts: Morton Tannenburg, former U.S. Navy officer and husband to retired spy Gloria Cervantes, and Sunki Pavatea, former jester to the ruling family of Aztlan. The latter would soon be catching a flight to China, together with an African Union official named Thomas Guduza.

"We have concluded," the Nigerian colonel was saying, "That the plot to devastate agriculture in the Diversity States, although it was a genuine attack, was above all a _diversion_ from the primary plan. The soybean-blight operation did not require many personnel, and the footsoldier-types among them could be supplied by Aztlan.... which left the Venezuelans and Bolivians free to use their expert agents in Argentina, setting up what has proven to be a painfully brilliant coup. Our failure to foresee it in time, our having to receive our first and belated warning from a _journalist,_ constitutes the first unqualified _defeat_ we have experienced since our network first became active."

An Indian Dacoit, the only other man on the platform with the colonel, now softly interjected: "You must not condemn yourselves; meaning no offense to the Roman Catholics present, NO mortal is EVER completely infallible. Not ever. My own agency was as totally surprised by the Argentinian overthrow as you were -- though to be sure, South America has never been our highest priority."

"Thank you for saying so," replied the Nigerian. "But now, damage control is the order of the day. All of you, before you leave, will be be given DNA-coded, hand-carry data files on how we are proceeding to reprogram and re-secure our communications networks, to prevent our adversaries from exploiting the contact information they will have captured from our friends in Argentina. The files will also provide, subject to need-to-know for each recipient, the names and assignments of agents who will be detailed to work _against_ the new pro-Marxist government in Buenos Aires.

"Looking elsewhere, although it has not yet been made public, the Russian Federation is about to write off its losses and concede the continuing sovereignty of the Republic of Alchatka. An announcement is expected to be made at the United Nations within the next forty-eight hours. Those of you acquainted with a certain Australian gentleman named Bert Randall will be interested to know that he is going to be receiving a couple of medals for his role in defending Alchatka.

"Sadly, another friend of ours will have to receive his medals posthumously. As you will recall from the last briefing, the last offensive effort by the Russians was to include bio-warfare with an extraordinarily lethal flesh-eating micro-organism. I am now free, but saddened, to report that when Mossad veteran Yirimyahu Kohen led the raid which destroyed the holding laboratory in Vladivostok, he himself was exposed to the flesh-eating virus before it was eradicated. They were unable to save him."

There was a moment of silence. Brendan, for his part, remembered how Yirimyahu and his Moroccan friend had assisted in the Zurich operation.

The Dacoit broke the silence with a change of subject. "My own government has managed to negotiate acceptable terms for the procedures by which we will prove to the Chinese that we are not in any degree responsible for the cyber-warfare being waged against Greater China. In what used to be called a quid pro quo, for all information we give the Chinese in this connection, they will reciprocate by giving information of interest to us, especially information that will help us against Indian mafia groups."

A smile crossed the Hindu's face. "But there are things we know that we _won't_ be telling the Chinese. A few of you in this room will be made aware, eventually, of what I have in mind." What he meant, what would be shared with top leaders in the secret army, was the fact that Vietnam, though not the originator of the cyber-warfare troubling Greater China, was watching for a chance to take advantage of Beijing's distress to declare independence.

The Nigerian colonel kept the briefing moving ahead, with further discussion of China's difficulties. Enough damage had been done to Chinese robotic assets that relatively-obsolete equipment like the aircraft received from the Diversity States really _was_ proving needed and valuable.

This line of discourse prompted more memories for Brendan, including the visit which he and the late Etienne LaClede had paid to the Orbital Palace. Putting his hand up suddenly, he asked the colonel:

"What about the Chinese space station? There have already been _two_ attempts to capture their Moon colony, a lot farther away; is any attack foreseen against the orbiting hotel?"

"We know of none. But no doubt the possibility has already occurred to the Chinese."


 
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On board The Orbital Palace, General Yang Pang-Zhu had in fact instituted a regimen of constant proactive efforts to detect any kind of sabotage, be it in the computer systems or otherwise. Although the government of the Central Asian Caliphate remained on fairly good terms with Greater China, citizens of that Caliphate were currently barred from visiting the space station, lest one of them, perhaps unknowingly, might be carrying nanobots that could attack the station's control apparatus. And Aerospace Force technicians, their numbers reinforced from Earthside, carried on redundant inspections, interior and exterior, around the clock.

All of this cautionary activity.... was barely enough.

As the young woman called Amethyst sat at a systems-monitoring console, she was joined by safety guard Nyunt Zehar, who looked over her shoulder and asked, "Running routine diagnostics again?"

"Yes, and I just messaged the shift supervisor that I'm seeing something odd."

"A diagnostic showing a fault?"

"No, all indications normal, but the diagnostics aren't quite _happening_ in their usual _sequence_ following the list of station components."

"Let me have a look...." Nyunt watched the appearing lines of data which announced that this antenna, that water-reclamation tank, and so on, were functioning properly. It took four seconds for him to recognize the discrepancy: no diagnostics were being shown for any of the airlocks. Upon realizing this, it took the big Burmese just one more second to hit the console's top-priority emergency-warning switch.

A whooping alarm sounded in every part of The Orbital Palace, followed by Nyunt's voice enunciating his clearest Mandarin Chinese, with the communications system automatically translating him into Spanish and English as well:

"Attention, all persons on the station! Emergency alert! (Attention, all persons on the station! Emergency alert! Attention, all persons on the station! Emergency alert!) Atmosphere loss drill! (Atmosphere loss drill! Atmosphere loss drill!) Persons in living quarters, activate local seals! (Persons in living quarters, activate local seals! Persons in living quarters, activate local seals!) Persons in public areas, follow instructions of safety guards! (Persons in public areas, follow instructions of safety guards! Persons in public areas, follow instructions of safety guards!) Life-support chambers are available in all sections! (Life-support chambers are available in all sections! Life-support chambers are available in all sections!) Go only where you are directed! (Go only where you are directed! Go only where you are directed!) Do not look for companions, leave that to station personnel! (Do not look for companions, leave that to station personnel! Do not look for companions, leave that to station personnel!) Follow orders of safety guards! (Follow orders of safety guards! Follow orders of safety guards!)"

Nyunt and Amethyst, like other station technical personnel working on the inside, were wearing what they called rescue suits: nanotechnic outfits which could be made airtight in an instant by a nanobot-controlled alteration in the fabric's consistency. Only the wearer's head was uncovered, and helmet-airtank combinations were kept available at all workstations in greater numbers than the maximum need. Once donned and sealed, the helmet rig would provide the wearer with twenty minutes' worth of oxygen under exertion, over half an hour if at rest. Amethyst had grabbed helmets for herself and the Burmese as soon as she understood what he was announcing; less than seven seconds after Nyunt completed his announcement, both of them were ready to close their helmets at once if necessary. Even before they put their visors down, the helmet intercoms could receive any instructions coming from their superiors.

If the shift supervisor had been in any doubt about the meaning of Amethyst's reported discrepancy, he was enlightened rapidly enough by Nyunt's correct emergency announcement. The noises of terrified people, but also the sounds of efficient reaction to danger, were already filling the station. The latter kind of sound included automated airtight doors closing off each major section from its neighbors. (Under the present conditions of robotic machinery being suspect, these doors would also be double-secured by manual means.) With no time to wish each other luck, Nyunt and Amethyst were shortly directed to separate locations to assist in shepherding the civilians to the life-support chambers. It would be for the technicians in full-capability spacesuits to search for the signs of presumed sabotage in the airlocks.

They could not find the sabotage as rapidly as the sabotage found them. Less than three minutes after Nyunt had completed his warning, every airlock on the whole station simultaneously blew open, inner and outer doors together. Several observation windows in the wheel of the station were also blown out of their frames.

It had not been enough time for every vulnerable human being on the station to get inside an airtight shelter; but General Yang, thinking ahead, had devised an added lifesaving measure. With the blasting open of each airlock, a sturdy net was automatically deployed over each of the openings. There were nets for the large windows also. This contraption could not stop the air from escaping, but it caught and stopped any _person_ beginning to be sucked out into space. Then, before the outrushing atmosphere could give way to complete vacuum, the rescue-suited safety guards could grab the civilians and haul them to those life-support chambers which were kept open longest against precisely such a need.

The Chinese tradition of long-range advance planning proved its value on this day. Many of The Orbital Palace's guests suffered from decompression trauma, but not one of them perished. And with watchstanders in Beijing keeping current on the station's condition, rescue spacecraft (which had stand-alone support systems unaffected by China's plague of cyber-sabotage) would reach the station before the air supply in the sealed shelters ran out. The Indian space station would also send its own on-call spaceship to help as soon as the Indian crew became aware of the catastrophe.

Yet no amount of planning could eliminate the quirks of fate. Just one person on the space station did perish, and not by decompression and asphyxiation. This man had been in a food-service area out on the station's rim when the alarm was given, and (though not having a rescue suit on) had been personally supervising the escape to shelter of the diners and workers there, getting them all out ahead of himself... when a window had flown off into space, the roaring wind had yanked a microwave oven loose from its moorings, and the appliance had flown straight at the officer while he was preoccupied getting the last few bewildered restaurant customers moving in the direction they needed to go. No one else was struck by the flying oven, but it broke the neck....

...of General Yang, who, however strange the manner of his passing, died in the line of duty.

The Greater Chinese Aerospace Force was left not only to mourn the passing of a brave officer, but also to seethe in angry frustration at not being able to determine just _how_ the atmosphere-containment control systems of The Orbital Palace had been so expertly and viciously hacked. This, however, did not prevent Nyunt, Amethyst and other station personnel from being honored along with the late Yang Pang-Zhu for their meritorious actions.
 
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Chapter 133: Run, Hide, Cringe... or Stand

"The fact that we contribute to our nation's security," said the oversized hologram of the late Yang Pang-Zhu, "does not release us from the responsibility to uphold the honor of Chinese civilization in all of our dealings with non-Chinese." This was a playback of the speech the General had given to all his personnel when The Orbital Palace had been about to receive its first paying visitors. "The ancient obligation of a host to his guest remains real and vital. Those who face the hazards of outer space to stay with us will be entrusting their lives into our hands; and whether we happen to like them personally or not, their trust binds us in a duty to preserve their lives as if they were our own relatives."

The holorecording stopped here, and a uniformed man took the podium of the United Nations General Assembly. He was Aerospace Force Colonel Hsiao Luo-Sher, who had been a valued associate of the deceased General -- and who had been chosen by Beijing to succeed Yang in command of the space station, once it was deemed safe to reactivate it.

Reltseotu Smith, Benito Salazar, and other Diversity States diplomatic figures, watched attentively from their section of the assembly hall. This gathering was not being streamcast live; that is, not in any officially-approved fashion. Reltseotu's body, still unknown to her, still contained the tracking device which the secret army had implanted while she had been in Uganda, and this device was enabling members of that covert force to hear everything she heard.

"Respected delegates!" Colonel Hsiao began. "Although Greater China is known as the world's leading military power, let it be remembered that my patron and mentor, Yang Pang-Zhu, did not die in the course of _taking_ anyone's life; he died _saving_ lives, and these the lives mostly of non-Chinese. In that benign spirit which he displayed to his last breath, my government is undertaking a plan which, while working _against_ the skulking enemy who sabotaged our space station, will yet show consideration for the humanity of others.

"The intelligence services of some of your governments have already been informed, as a courtesy, of what we intend; I shall now announce it openly. We already know that the extreme separatist faction in the Central Asian Caliphate represents at least one component of the force waging asymmetrical warfare against Greater China...."

At these words, Benito Salazar cast a glance toward the Central Asian Caliphate's delegation. They did not appear overly worried, and Hsiao's very next words explained why:

"The lawful government of that Caliphate has rendered us cooperation to our satisfaction in this matter; and although certain changes in our posture toward them are unavoidable, we do not hold them blameworthy for the acts of terror and sabotage in western China and in space. Yet the menace _does_ exist; and the Islamic radicals in question are unlikely to be the _only_ parties involved.

"Those who follow events in the Western Hemisphere will recall what has gone on in the Republic of Aztlan during the past fifteen months." When he said this, the Colonel faced toward a holorecorder array which was securely linked to the Bi-Continental Assembly of the Western Hemisphere Union; for despite the timezone difference being inconvenient for people in the Americas, the Hemispheric Union was also in session, following the discussion in its parent organization.

"The previous Aztlano administration," Hsiao continued, "collaborated recklessly with Triad gangsters, and with adventurists from the Venezuelan Alliance, in ways contrary to the interests of my nation. Such combinations are the way of the world in our time, and must be assumed to exist in the current situation. Since the terrorists who murdered General Yang are plainly callous to people's lives _regardless_ of nationality, it is in the best interests of all of you that they should be rooted out. Accordingly, steps are _now_ going to be taken to find information.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Yang Sung-Kuo of Internal Affairs, whom all of you know as one who looks out for your safety, has deployed a strong force to interdict all exits from this building. No one _can_ depart this building until our business is complete."

Benito and Reltseotu looked at each other; neither of them had any idea of what was coming next. But a hint was given by the appearance of ten of Lieutenant-Colonel Yang's troopers, marching in to stand alongside the speaker. Each was carrying a trank rifle, and each also had a flechette pistol.

"Some of you now seated here may possibly possess knowledge which could assist us in catching the terrorists. You are accustomed to enjoying a diplomatic immunity that shields you from ever being questioned; but history assures us that diplomatic immunity has never been a mathematical absolute. All of you_will_ be questioned, under brainwave lie-detection."

An angry roar began, but was cut short when Hsiao Luo-Sher drew his own sidearm and fired three shots into the air (well aimed, so as not to hit any light fixtures).

"I said that we would show consideration for your humanity, and I meant it. None of you will be interrogated by _Chinese_ authorities; and the Muslims among you will not be subjected to interrogation by non-Muslims. Four governments which have peaceful relations with my own government have agreed to conduct the brain-scan sessions. Each person in this Assembly will be permitted to choose which government interrogates him or her: the government of India, the government of Australia, the government of Morocco, or the government of the Parthian Republic. My own government has agreed to accept without challenge the results obtained by our colleagues.

"Random selection -- literally by drawing names from a bowl, in view of the computer-network problems we face -- will decide who goes first. But we will so arrange it that no country's delegation has all its members out being questioned at the same time. Thus, the normal business of the General Assembly can, and shall, continue. The Secretary-General, notified in advance of this proceeding, has recommended that, during the period in which the interrogations are occurring, it might be best for everyone to use the time to listen in on deliberations in the Bi-Continental Assembly, since no one there is being interrogated at present...."
 
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