The First Love Of Alipang Havens

On the day of the last Equalityball meet in the spring semester, Daffodil Ford gathered around him the team of which he was the captain. He and the boys and girls with him, aged nine and above, wore soccer-style uniforms; only now they were called football uniforms, because American football had been abolished in the Diversity States for being too similar to war. Each uniform was marked with an isosceles triangle, a symbol which could not by any stretch be interpreted as demeaning to any racial group, social class, lifestyle or gender.

Soccer football still was played in America; but wherever there were young people needing to be cured of aggression and individuality, Equalityball was the sport of choice. No one ever compared Equalityball with war.

Far taller than the other teens and children, Daffodil -- sometimes addressed as Daffy -- had a habitual slouch when conversing with them; it brought him closer, made him feel more blended into the collective. He was delivering his pep talk before they emerged from the locker room:

"I want you all to know that I'm really proud of the way you've played all season." He suddenly looked nervous and glanced over each shoulder before continuing. "Of course, you understand that I'm _equally_ proud of every one of you, with no distinctions; I'm also proud of the two team members who quit the team after the first game. No preferential treatment, no ranking of superiority, no comparing of performance. I'm just as proud of the other kids who'll be playing with us today, and of teams we've played with before, and of teams we've never heard of. What's everything?"

The twelve players before him exclaimed as one: "The collective is everything!"

"Right, right." For anyone paying attention, the captain sounded high-strung, as if worried that some unseen listener was going to give him a grade for the speech. "Now, I want you all really fired up with the collective spirit. What are we going to do on that field?"

"Exactly the same as the other teams!" shouted a girl.

"No better, no worse, and no differently!" shouted a boy.

"Good answer," Daffodil told them. "And who are we?"

The answer made the locker room reverberate: "The Isosceles Triangles!!"

Leading his team onto the field, Daffodil saw the other teams emerging from their lockers, too: the Semiconductors, the Polysaccharides, and the Transitive Verbs. All properly inoffensive team names. Each team had its own cheerleading squad as well; but as was customary at Equalityball games, the cheerleaders, female and male (all of them wearing skirts), all mixed in a single group as soon as they took the field. Once they had spoken together a bit, all thirty-four of them began chanting a basic cheer together:

"Equal outcomes, all the same!
Everybody wins the game!
No one better, no one worse!
All one team, and all one Earth!
YEEE-AAAAY EVERYBODY!!!!"

A marching band was playing also; but since no one could be flunked out of it, and since efforts at excellence were never rewarded, only the most charitable ears could affect to be enjoying its music.
 
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It was a practical advantage of Equalityball that it could be played by two teams, or by more than two teams at the same time, or even by only one team. Since the entire and only objective was for every player to do exactly as well as every other player, there could be any plural number of players, from just two persons on up to as many as the field could accommodate, and it didn't matter if one team had more players than another, though thirteen (counting the captains) was the usual number.

From the media box which overlooked the busy field and the packed bleachers, a sports announcer who had acquired his style while there had still been a United States was narrating the event.

"The excitement is tangible, citizens. All three of the visiting teams have a long history of cooperation with the Isosceles Triangles, and with each other besides. We're looking to see an uncommon level of precise coordination and uniformity of actions. They're lining up now..."

Daffodil, and the girl who was captain of the Polysaccharides, went to one end of the field, where they took positions similar to goalies, though not confined to a net structure. The two girls heading the Semiconductors and the Transitive Verbs did the same thing at the other end. All the other players lined up abreast at the home-team end, which is to say the end where Daffodil was. They were evenly spaced: one Semiconductor, one Isosceles Triangle, one Transitive Verb, one Polysaccharide, and so on. Every player had his or her own soccer ball ready to kick forward in a soccer-like manner. The officials made sure that every player was ready; then the signal was given, and the crowd burst out cheering as forty-seven young athetes went into motion together.

Among those cheering were Samantha Ford and Nalani Hahona.

It was forty-seven starting down the field instead of forty-eight, because one boy among the Polysaccharides had gotten himself expelled from his team last week, for asking why they couldn't play a sport which had winners and losers. A disapproving speech about that boy's non-collectivist attitude had been the main feature of the announcer's pre-game talk.

To be sure, the Equalityball players were an impressive sight, if a predictable one. Each one managed to keep kicking his or her ball straight forward at a controlled rate, while simultaneously watching the players to his or her left and right, so as not to drift ahead of them or behind. The unbroken rank of youngsters advanced in perfect order. The announcer, needing to say something, observed, "Citizens, in some games you'll see the players keeping the line dressed as far as keeping abreast, but taking different numbers of steps. But here you're seeing a sharp advance, all in step with each other as well as even in distance covered. I'm telling you, this is REAL sameness and unity!"

The combined cheerleader squad picked up on the announcer's words, beginning a chant of "Unity, sameness! Unity, sameness!" Their cheering, in turn, seemed to inspire the players to still greater care in staying together. The speed at which they traversed the field was much less important than their all staying exactly together, though of course the crowds were always more pleased if Equalityball players could advance rapidly without losing the evenness of their line. All four teams outdid themselves at NOT outdoing each other; their steps were so simultaneous, the movement of their forty-seven soccer balls so uniform, that an onlooker could have imagined them to be parts of one machine, completely incapable of separate action.

Samantha was thrilled for her son. Although he had not yet had a chance to do anything physically in the game, she knew that the measured conformity of his teammates' movements was largely the fruit of his leadership. Daffodil and the other captains would have their part to perform each time the line came to their respective ends of the field: as the kickers turned to start back, the captains would look for any discrepancy in uniformity of the turning movement, and would take whatever action would best help straying players to get synchronized with the collective again.

The captains were thus the only players ever expected to do anything original or spontaneous in Equalityball. The high efficiency of corrective actions Daffodil always showed gave his mother confidence that he would be following in her footsteps as a leader of collectives--as one of those who kept the proletariat in order.
 
Equalityball games did not come with any rigid scheduling--neither for actual time passing, nor for the number of times the field was traversed. They were like early video games: keeping up the effort until you "died." If any player seriously stumbled, the officials might halt the game, encouraging everyone to pretend that the stumble never happened and they had simply played long enough.

Still, even in a non-competitive sport, there was a sense of urgency to do well with the spring season coming to a close. As the line of kickers came up to Daffodil's end of the field, they were still in perfect formation; and all of them turned smoothly, needing no help from Daffodil and the Polysaccharide captain. Going back in the other direction, they continued to hold a flawless line all the way to the end they had started from, and again turned in so splendid a unison as to invite comparison with the state-ordered mass dancing displays in China. On the third run along the field, subtle signs of strain began to show--like the nervousness of a baseball pitcher who has a no-hitter going and doesn't want to blow it; but still they kept their formation.

At the third about-face, Daffodil had occasion to tap his own foot lightly against a ball that was almost getting away from the Transitive Verb girl kicking it, so she could regain control of it without moving far beyond the others. Daffodil had to admire, then, the alertness of the other forty-six kickers: all of them paused for the approximately two seconds needed for that girl to resume her place in line, and the simultaneity of their next run was preserved.

The announcer was keeping up his commentary on all these points of technique.

During the twelfth run of the field, as again they were moving away from Daffodil's end, some of the younger players began to waver. But older ones were alert to assist them, sometimes even taking hold of the younger ones' arms to hold them upright and on course. Soon, every one of the four captain-goalies was having to help someone at almost every circuit. Daffodil made the most dramatic assist: on the ninth time of the line coming to his end, TWO boys near him--one of his own teammates, and a Semiconductor--began to stumble and fall as they tried to make the turn smoothly. Daffodil moved so fast that he caught the Semiconductor boy, then still was in time lunging laterally over four meters' distance to catch the Isosceles Triangle boy. The Polysaccharide captain helped make sure that the line paused while Daffodil was getting the wobbly boys back in position.

In the end, the formation completed forty-seven lengths of the field, the same as the number of ball-kickers, with their group coordination still pretty good. This seemed to the officials to be a suitable time to call a halt and congratulate the players on their endurance. The crowd's applause attested to the spectators' satisfaction with the collective performance.

Samantha, with Nalani for once letting her have the moment to herself, went onto the field as the officials and the cheerleaders were happily chatting with the players. She deliberately hugged eight or ten players chosen at random before coming to her son; after all, there might be cameras on her, and the public expected its government officials to be impartial where the young were concerned. But at least when she came to Daffodil, she hugged him a bit longer than she had hugged total strangers.

When she pulled back, she could see her son's eyes gazing at her--gazing DOWN upon her, in fact--looking for approval. So she gave it, in the way her politics demanded. "Son, I'm so proud of....proud of ALL you players equally, exactly equally. Everyone was the same; it was wonderful! It was the collective!"

Daffodil somehow didn't appear quite as thrilled as he was supposed to be at the collective being praised. But he accepted the flask of Joy Nectar that his mother handed to him to drink, then politely inquired after Nalani's welfare. Later, Samantha might actually find time to tell him about the Alaska trip, and even to ask him about classes.
 
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Sad to tell, Zella, the movement to eliminate all competition, claiming to promote kindness but really aiming to strangle the motivation for excellence, is not just in a sci-fi story; it's been at work among us for decades. My inspiration for "Equalityball" comes from an actual attempt at non-competitive sport, as far back as 1970 or earlier, called "Earthball." Not to mention the trophies and awards that schoolchildren receive now, basically for just existing.

But will it make you feel better about poor young Daffodil if I tell you that I intend for him eventually to meet Alipang's family?
 
SeaStar, I'm portraying a world in which originality and independent achievement are punished. The more you learn about trends in much of the REAL world today, the less my story will seem like science fiction.
 
Copperfox said:
Sad to tell, Zella, the movement to eliminate all competition, claiming to promote kindness but really aiming to strangle the motivation for excellence, is not just in a sci-fi story; it's been at work among us for decades. My inspiration for "Equalityball" comes from an actual attempt at non-competitive sport, as far back as 1970 or earlier, called "Earthball." Not to mention the trophies and awards that schoolchildren receive now, basically for just existing.

But will it make you feel better about poor young Daffodil if I tell you that I intend for him eventually to meet Alipang's family?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know (although I'd never heard of Earthball). On the surface making everybody feel like a winner sounds good, but when it's taken to the logical conclusion of the argument - as depicted in your Equalityball - I can see how ridiculous it really is.

Yes it will.
 
Wow....just wow...Equalityball... As impressive as those children might be with staying in line and all, what a sad thing this world has come to. It was especially sad reading that the boy wanted affirmation from his mother and she seemed to want to give it but wouldn't because of law.
 
Chapter Eight: The Gulag Anniversary


"Welcome to my home, Alipang-ama-ni-Wilson, with all of your household!" boomed Oscar Magpatoc, the fattest Filipino man Alipang had ever known--and the head of the only Filipino family not previously known to him that he had so far met within the Wyoming portion of the Western Enclave. The Magpatocs lived in Lance Creek, east of Casper, where Oscar held a more stable job than many exiles possessed: he worked for the government-owned corporation Aero-Aquatics. Alipang had brought his whole household, including Lorraine and Ransom, to the Magpatocs' house for the first time.

Brendan Havens looked back and forth between his father and their host as the two men shook hands, then piped up, "That means 'Alipang the father of Wilson,' right?"

"That's right, young man," replied Oscar, shaking Brendan's hand next. "Our ancestors in the home islands, before the Spanish came, identified a man that way, assuming he had any children to put their names at the end. I used your elder brother's name because he's the firstborn, but of course Wilson's father is just as much your father and your sister's father."

Coming into the house, besides the visitors, were four pedicab drivers, all of them related to the Magpatocs, who had brought the visitors here from the train station for free.

"Everyone find a seat, and have some tea," urged Rita Magpatoc. "That and water are the only beverages we can offer at present." She turned to her own firstborn, a darkly beautiful fifteen-year-old girl on whom Ransom and Wilson were already silently developing crushes. "Carmela, please pour the tea."

Carmela's younger sister Pilar, close in age to Esperanza Havens, brought forth two bowls containing crackers--not a particularly Filipino snack, but they were what the Magpatocs had available as an appetizer--and set them down where almost everyone would be able to reach one bowl or the other without difficulty. Her five-year-old twin brothers, Felipe and Santos, eyed the crackers hungrily, but clearly had been taught enough manners to wait. Kim glanced at her husband as this was going on, her eyes asking him, Should we really have brought our whole family to eat the Magpatocs out of house and home?

Alipang's eyes transmitted back his reply, a reply made clear by their side glance at the backpack Alipang had just now taken off: These canned goods we've brought for them, plus the free dental checkups I'm going to give all of them including the four cousins before this visit is ended, will compensate them.

When everyone was settled, Oscar asked Alipang, "How exactly did you get the cash money to enable all seven of you to take the train here?"

"You won't believe this," Alipang laughed. "I got the money from an Overseer!"

"You can't possibly mean the one you've described to me, the one who usually does your lock checks?"

"No, not Kasim. This was a female Overseer, new to the Enclave or at least to our part of it. For reasons she wouldn't tell, she chose to have her teeth cleaned by an exile dentist instead of the government dentist reserved only for government personnel. And she paid generously." Alipang fell silent after that much, allowing the younger generation to pick up the conversation and carry it whither they would. He was wondering about that woman Overseer, what really had caused her to come to him. Not that he was aware of any rule that the Overseers _couldn't_ use health services provided by exiles; but it was unusual, and Alipang had never lost his instinct to investigate the unusual. Of course, since the unusual conduct had originated with a reasonably attractive woman probably in her twenties, any investigating Alipang did would be with his wife involved and informed....
 
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Copperfox said:
"That's right, young man," replied Oscar, shaking Brendan's hand next. "Our ancestors in the home islands, before the Spanish came, identified a man that way, assuming he had any children to put their names at the end. I used your elder brother's name because he's the firstborn, but of course Wilson's father is just as much your father and your sister's father."
Click to expand...

That's interesting, identifying a man by his son. In most cultures it's the other way around.
 
"Do you play chess?" Pilar suddenly asked Esperanza.

"Yes, Ransom taught me. He learned it from Quinn, before Quinn had to go home to Heaven."

"Then let's play a game of chess after supper! I got a chess set for my birthday."

When everyone sat down to a supper of baked trout, turnip greens, dried apricots, and half a baked potato flavored with lemon juice per person, the impending chess game turned into a subject for adult conversation. Lorraine began it by asking the hostess Rita, "How did you come by a chess set for your daughter? New chess sets surely can't be still in current production on the outside; after all, chess is based on war."

"It was Cousin Ignacio who bought it for her," said Rita, indicating one of the pedicab drivers who were in the extended family.

"I was visiting my sister and her husband in Rapid City," Ignacio Balubal explained. "You know that the greatest amount of outside merchandise available for us is there. And there, if nowhere else in the Enclave, you can find chess sets and other competitive games--all manufactured _before_ the Diversity States was born."

"When war games and war toys were pulled out of stores, that would have left plenty of existing merchandise to liquidate," remarked Oscar; "and the relatively small numbers of us exiles would mean _plenty_ of chess sets for us."

Ignacio resumed: "It was a natural way of compensating the game and toy manufacturers--or more accurately, of bringing a little more money into the state-owned corporations which took over the toy manufacturers. And since we don't get to have television or computers, it was right to expect that we would grab up forms of recreation that _were_ permitted, all the more so with pastimes that stimulate the mind."

Carmela looked thoughtful. "Why would they _encourage_ us to be smart and competitive, when they do all they can to destroy those qualities in citizens outside the Enclave?"

"I can answer that," said Alipang to the girl. "No authoritarian regime, even one which claims to have abolished war, can really afford to have _every_ citizen be dull and unambitious. There would be no one to run things. Your own father keeps Lance Creek's sewage-treatment plant running smoothly because he has a sharp mind and a belief in improving himself. You know that much of our exile population is benefitting outside infrastructures by its skilled labor in the energy industry. Maybe, as time passes, they'll find more uses for our talents and our work ethic."

"Even though they despise us?" Oscar asked.

"In past centuries," Alipang told his host, "Jewish persons were despised in many European countries--yet they were still in demand for some kinds of employment, because of their belief in education, hard work and responsibility. As for Jews then, so for us now. When the Enclave is more organized, more stable and self-supporting, who knows what further use the government may make of us? Daniel and his friends in Babylon were promoted to high rank among their own captors, because God had made them wise and capable..."

"But then they had to guard against being lured into being unfaithful to God," observed Kim.
 
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Interesting how this current world despises most things of the past, but we can see that, by keeping around some things from the past and certain peoples, they deep down know that some of those things are good, even if they outwardly fight it.
 
After supper and a little time for digestion, Ignacio and the other pedicab men excused themselves and set forth again on their pedal-powered taxis. There was every possibility of their finding more passengers; Lance Creek had grown larger through the same national transformation which had altogether closed down several of the small Wyoming towns in its vicinity. Wyoming natives in those towns who were classified as dissenters--either for having Biblical beliefs, or simply for not wanting to leave the part of Wyoming affected by the change--had been relocated in Lance Creek, many of them in truck-trailer structures like the structures used as dental clinics by the elder and younger Dr. Havens. And like the incoming exiles, they had been denied all use of automobiles.

The reduced party took to amusing itself in various ways, except for Alipang and Oscar, who resumed serious discussion. "Since you work for a public utility," Alipang said, "you have some kind of industrial contacts, if only through the people who provide and service the waste-treatment equipment. Have you heard anything lately about more private enterprise being allowed in the Enclave, on a larger scale than individual activities like my dental practice?"

"You know about Life Quality Incorporated and Workforce Food Service, of course," replied his host, referring to the only two really large businesses inside the Enclave so far that were genuinely owned by private shareholders who were exiles. The uranium and coal mines, and the electrical stations fuelled by those mines, were government property, as were the municipal water districts and the main interchanges of the telephone system; but the two private corporations, which had been given various assets of previously-existing companies with similar functions, had the job of providing many daily services for the workers of those industries. There were overlaps in the services Life Quality and Workforce offered, so there was even some degree of free-market competition between them; and both of them were supporters of the effort to make machinery available to exile farmers. Oscar continued: "But I am hearing talk about a possible new enterprise down in Nebraska--our corner of Nebraska, I mean. A giant recycling plant, for metal, plastic, paper and glass from all over the Diversity States."

"More ways to hide all the dirty work from the diversidorks," Alipang mused; "but still, another step toward something like prosperity for us. Hmmm, wasn't it Ezekiel who told the Israelites in Babylon to work for the well-being of their place of exile as long as God willed them to be there?"

Their conversation was interrupted at this point by the girl Carmela, who came to stand beside her father with her eyes on Alipang. "Dr. Havens, Ransom and Wilson were telling me about the visit you had with your parents in Casper just before you came here. They said you had some kind of party with them, to _celebrate_ being exiled. I didn't want to question them about that while your younger kids were in hearing; but they won't hear me saying now: what _could_ there be to celebrate about our all being penned up on this reservation?"

Alipang looked past the girl, assuring himself that Esperanza and Brendan were not in the same room, then answered: "Not much, really. And thank you for waiting with your question. This is one of the ways in which Kim and I are trying to shelter each of our children from the full impact of reality until they're old enough to take it better: we celebrate the anniversary of our own relocation. Tell me, Carmela, do you know what May ninth means for the Russian people?"

"Isn't it when they remember beating the Nazis in World War Two?"

"Very good. Now, since our current rulers particularly admire the old _Soviet_ regime which established that holiday, and since it suits them to pretend to believe that we Christians are the same thing as Nazis, they considered it appropriate to start the really big push in population transfer three years ago on May ninth. It was their glorious victory over the terrible danger of people hearing about the grace of Jesus. My own family, including my parents' household, was hustled out of Richmond and Smoky Lake on May eleventh of 2022, and had our final assignments of residence by May nineteenth. Kim's mother and sisters had already moved to Canada and South America before the takeover, so they were safe. Chilena and Melody were exempted from exile because of their ties to 'acceptable' elements of society, and we haven't seen them since then. We do get letters from them, and they've been able to confirm that Kim's relatives are still free and well; but no visits, and no direct communication with the Tisdale side. So no, the migration wasn't a happy time; but nonetheless, each year in the Enclave, we've made the anniversary as festive as we can for the kids."

Carmela lowered her eyes, then raised them again. "I bet you plan a _bigger_ celebration for when we're let _out_ of the Enclave someday."

Alipang looked at Oscar, saw that Oscar seemed to approve of the course of this conversation, then told Carmela, "I honestly believe that the only place we can go to from the Enclave will be up to Heaven; but yes, that will be a _much_ bigger celebration, complete with my seeing my birth mother and my birth sister."

 
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That night, the Havens family, counting Lorraine and Ransom, slept wherever the Magpotoc house had usable space for them. Alipang was happily reminded of crowded family reunions back in good old Smoky Lake.

By the next morning, word had already spread that there was a dentist in Lance Creek. Alipang and Kim had not yet finished breakfast when the first knock at the Magpatocs' door came. This was already a familiar occurrence when Alipang visited exile communities which had no dentist in residence. Lorraine, who had already finished eating, undertook to speak with the locals who were coming to ask for help; she assured them that Dr. Havens never travelled without a basic dentistry kit, and that he worked on a very flexible ability-to-pay honor system.

By the time Alipang, and Kim in the role of his assistant, were ready to see patients, the patients were getting organized, with no quarrels breaking out over precedence. A neighboring family offered their patio as a temporary clinic, because it was well lighted by the sun (which was helpful, even though this was a weekday and electrical power was not shut off), and contained a reclining chair which could be used as a dental chair in the absence of the real thing. Carmela Magpatoc, who had never seen a dentist at work except on the six occasions in her life when she had been a dental patient herself, was so fascinated by the proceedings that she begged to be allowed to relieve Kim from the duty of recording the names of patients, the service given to each, the pay arrangement in each case, and Alipang's notes about future treatment some individuals were going to need for which he did not now have the equipment on hand. Having already noticed that Carmela was a keen-minded girl, Kim willingly consented to abdicate the secretarial position for today.

Almost every patient had something to offer in return for the checkups and cleaning (and in one case, an extraction). Only two patients, elderly persons, received their care entirely free; but the others did not grumble at this -- for unlike many of the citizens outside the Enclave, they were not programmed to demand a free ride through life, nor programmed to feel contempt for the elderly. No one was asked to pay more than he or she could afford; a few paid with cash, one couple gave some useful household tools, one man paid with a very welcome train pass, and others paid with food. Of the food offerings, Alipang and Kim passed the perishable items along to the Magpatocs, and to the neighbor family providing the space for the dental activity.

After a lunch break, Alipang and Kim saw still more patients; it really was true that dentists were scarce inside the Enclave. One Orthodox Jewish woman, who was a very recent arrival from outside, was able to inform Alipang that healthcare professionals in all specialties were being given somewhat more latitude about personal faith (and thus were less likely to be sentenced to internal exile), because the government was anxious to slow down the emigration of such professionals to Canada and Mexico, both of those countries now having LESS government control over health care than was the case in the Diversity States.

Not long after the newly-exiled woman, a man settled into the dentist's chair who was fair-skinned, fair-haired, blue-eyed, crewcut and overweight. This man had hardly sat down before he said to Alipang in a Deep Southern accent, "Doc, I saw that y'all did a checkup on a JEWISH gal ahead of a whole lotta good Christian folks. Is that a habit with y'all? Y'know, this here Enclave--" (and he pronounced the word with the first syllable rhyming with "hen," instead of the proper French-derived pronunciation) "--is s'posed to be OUR territory."

"Excuse me, sir," Alipang politely told the man, "but since you're concerned with keeping patients waiting, let's move this along. Please don't speak unless necessary for the checkup. Now open wide." When the man was quiet and had a dental hand-mirror crammed into his mouth, Alipang softly said to Kim, "I was just remembering the day we marched for Deputy Dawg."

Kim simply nodded. She also remembered the day in their youth, back in Virginia, when Wilson Kramer had been a target of major slander, and there had been a march to show support for him. The radical group W.A.L.N.U.T. (World Association of Legal Networks for Urban Transformation) had tried to make the march look like a neo-Nazi rally, by sending some of their OWN people onto the marching route with "White Power" signs. Kim understood exactly why her husband had mentioned that day; she, like him, was smelling a human-sized rat here.
 
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Mr. Corbett, the seeming redneck bigot, needed no more than a routine cleaning; in fact, as far as he could judge without any technological imagery, Alipang felt certain that Corbett had received state-of-the-art dental treatment sometime within the past year. When the cleaning was finished, Alipang told his patient, "I know that you will have cash. One peso will be enough."

Looking a bit surprised, Corbett rose from the chair and handed over a Hemispheric one-peso coin with its image of Che Guevara. A moment later, he looked much more surprised when Alipang grasped his arm with a strength he had no hope of opposing--not even with the self-defense training he had not admitted to having. "Kim, put the rest on hold; Mr. Corbett and I need to speak with the nearest Overseer." Then he hauled the bewildered patient through the living room where more local residents waited.

"How many of you people know Mr. Corbett," Alipang asked, "and how well?" He soon learned that some of the Lance Creek citizens were slightly acquainted with Mr. Corbett, but he had not lived in town long enough for anyone to know him in depth. So he told them, "I need some of you to come with me, please. I mean it about needing an Overseer."

Hustling Corbett out the front door, Alipang strode to the nearest major street, along which bicycles were gliding to and fro. Kim and Carmela were among those following him. Looking around, he soon spotted a surveillance camera with sound pickup on a utility pole. Facing this camera, he waved and spoke directly to it:

"Hello! Calling any Overseer on duty! Overseers, I'm requesting your attention! As you will already be aware, I'm Alipang Havens, the dentist from Sussex. This man beside me came to see me, and as I was beginning his checkup, he uttered what I know you would identify as hate speech! He attempted to get me to agree on giving unwarranted preferential treatment to my own faith-group; so please come and take him off my hands."

The two Overseers who had been waiting three blocks away on their electric motorcycles looked at each other. This was not how it was supposed to turn out--not based on the impression Kasim Rasulala had given them of Dr. Havens. But they couldn't ignore a call for them to move against "hate speech." So they paused just long enough to make it less obvious that they had been lying in wait, then revealed themselves and cruised up to where Alipang and his witnesses were standing.

"Here you are, officers, this is the man," Alipang declared, pointing to Corbett. "My wife Kim, and this local girl Carmela Magpatoc, both heard his hate speech as I did."

The Overseers had no choice but to pretend to arrest their planted provocateur. Once they had taken Corbett away, Alipang hurried back to resume caring for actual patients. Only when he was where he could be fairly certain that no devices were spying on him, would he remark to Kim, "That guy probably doesn't look so great in his pink uniform shirt."
 
The dental patients kept coming as long as there was daylight, including one of Oscar Magpatoc's pedicab-driving cousins; the actual residents in Oscar's house were waiting until tomorrow morning for their own turn in the chair. One of the Overseers from before came by for a routine lock check on the Magpatocs and their neighbors, but said nothing about Mr. Corbett.

Everyone's supper at Oscar and Rita's home that evening consisted largely of food payments made to Alipang that day, including smoked rabbit meat from someone who had snared the rabbits a kilometer outside of town. Fresh milk, from cows at one of the nearest farms, was also on the table; by tacit agreement, the adults let the children and adolescents have all the milk. After supper, Alipang provided the evening's entertainment by performing lengthy recitations from Shakespeare plays, along with explanations of what the Bard of Avon had been talking about.

After an excerpt from The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Rita Magpatoc told Alipang, "We've met incoming exiles who were recent enough to have seen some of the Revised Shakespeare Series before they left the outside world. They all agreed that, even apart from the obvious changes in story content, the very _language_ in the plays, the whole sense of the poetic, was utterly ruined in the 'corrected' versions. I confess I never heard any original Shakespeare before tonight; but now that I've heard you, I have a clearer idea of what a farce the Revised Series is."

"I'm pleased that you like my little presentation," replied Alipang.

Kim interjected, "Shakespeare was what Al used to court me."

"Is it true," said Oscar to Alipang, "that your brother-in-law is the top male performer in the acting ensemble for the Revised Shakespeare Series?"

"I'm afraid so. I don't blame him for it. It wasn't Dan who painted himself into a corner by taking his opportunity to be in show business; his professional acting career began _before_ the Diversity States did, and then they _built_ that corner around him and painted the floor around him. But judging from what information we're able to get in here, by Dan's helping them to deconstruct Shakespeare and other great playwrights, he obtains for himself and Chilena more freedom in their faith life than most Christians enjoy on the outside, and they _don't_ have to be part of anything in the media which directly attacks the gospel of Jesus."

"Dan is making a gamble," observed Lorraine, "that the concessions he makes to dumbing down the secular culture will pay off in the form of having opportunities to lead entertainment-industry figures to Jesus. And since entertainment is almost the _only_ export America can offer the world anymore, maybe Dan is positioned to do more good than most of us will have any chance to do in our lifetimes from now on."

Rita looked uneasy. "Still, you must forgive me if it all makes me feel that poor Dan is just being used, with any positive result from it being doubtful."

"Maybe so," said Ransom. "But in the whole history of the world, Christians have never faced any tyranny that had so _much_ power to watch every move we make, as the current tyranny has. We can't just hide in catacombs anymore--they can _find_ us in the catacombs. Apparent compromises like Dan's may be the only option _left_ for us, besides immediate martyrdom." He stopped suddenly; his mother, Alipang, Kim and Wilson all realized that he was remembering his departed father and brother.

Carmela picked up the thread of conversation: "My parents talk a lot about seeking God's will for what we do in these conditions. It _isn't_ simple. But we can at least remember what Paul told the Colossians: to do our work, whatever our work is, as working for the Lord. If nothing else, our being conscientious about responsibilities will do something to validate our witness for Jesus."

 
Copperfox said:
"Hello! Calling any Overseer on duty! Overseers, I'm requesting your attention! As you will already be aware, I'm Alipang Havens, the dentist from Sussex. This man beside me came to see me, and as I was beginning his checkup, he uttered what I know you would identify as hate speech! He attempted to get me to agree on giving unwarranted preferential treatment to my own faith-group; so please come and take him off my hands."
Click to expand...

Good for Alipang!:D
 
Reminding everybody: what you are seeing here is "The Possible Future of Alipang Havens."

Chapter Nine: Weak Link Seeks Weak Link

What had formerly been one of the little rural towns near Sussex, Wyoming, was now a walled base for the Overseers; and in one of its barracks rooms, Overseer Third Class Dana Pickering was waking up. Once awake, she realized that she had been dreaming about a particular man, and not for the first time. Several men wanted her -- most obnoxiously, the senior dentist at the central medical center for government employees only, back in Rapid City, a man she had resolved henceforth to avoid -- but it was none of them who had been in her intriguing dreams of late.

Having time to spare, Dana treated herself to a shower. Unlike the exiles, the Overseers had the regular use of hot water. Then she donned her mirrorlike uniform, and went to the chow hall for breakfast, where she had food choices not available to exiles. Some officers who had been out on night patrol were eating supper, before turning to amusement and then going to bed. The first colleague to sit down with Dana, however, was Overseer Second Class Kasim Rasulala.

"Morning, Dana. Enjoy me while you still have me; today will be my last day cruising Wyoming."

Dana's eyebrows lifted under her medium-brown hair. "What happened?"

"Captain Butello says she's confident that the racism front is quiet around here. She's having me transferred to the southeast end, to keep an eye on the farmers along the Platte River. She told me she's counting on me to keep them in line the way I did here."

In her admittedly brief time in the Enclave, Dana had not encountered even one person who by any stretch could be termed a racist -- unless it were Kasim himself. But she said nothing about it. Nor did Kasim say very much more; he ate quickly, and soon was on board a helicopter which would carry him and one other Overseer, with their motorcycles, to points well south of Sussex. By separate paths, the two of them would weave back and forth among the farms, pass through Sussex at different times, and then visit more farms north of there, finally ending back at the base.

The last thing Kasim said to Dana before leaving, wearing his best fake look of mature wisdom, was: "When you take over my beat, make sure you keep an eye on that newspaper they started in Casper. Might have a lot of hate speech."

This was Dana's first intimation that she would succeed to Kasim's responsibilities, and it left her startled until Captain Maria Butello sat down in Kasim's just-vacated chair and softly told her to finish her breakfast. Not long afterward, the older woman was giving Dana more information inside a locked and soundproofed office.

"No doubt Kasim told you a version of his transfer that exalted him. The reality is that, although he hasn't done anything that calls for disciplinary action against him, he did show poor judgment recently. He recommended an entrapment -- and for once, his target _wasn't_ anyone white. He was out to get an Asian man, in fact the dentist you went to in order to avoid that slimewad Jacobsen."

Forcing herself not to show any emotional reaction, Dana casually said, "You mean Alipang Havens?"

"The same. We had a man pose as a patient at the place where Dr. Havens was at the time, in Lance Creek. The undercover man tried to get Havens to agree with some slurs against a non-Christian; but not only did Havens not buy it, he himself called for Overseers."

"Well, Captain, if there was need, we could have just made up an accusation against Havens anyway." Dana tried to sound as if she would have been just as happy for Alipang Havens to have been arrested for NO reason.

"Yes, we could have. But you have to understand, we're not here to _destroy_ these Christian psychotics. Much as there have been mental patients who were still great artists, the exiles have many highly talented people among them...."

"Are you serious, Captain? Aren't we told that faith in the supernatural erases all intellectual quality and makes a person unproductive?"

Captain Butello laughed, and patted the younger woman on the shoulder. "That's only what we tell the proletariat! The fact is, there are some very smart and hard-working Christians here in the Enclave; they already practically run the uranium and coal mines, and the natural-gas wells, and there are sure to be other uses for them. As long as we have them under control, they are a valuable resource. Treat them that way. We only arrest persons who make trouble. We'll talk again tomorrow, before you go on long patrol."

Dana was turning all this over in her mind that day, as she did local patrol north of the base. The exiles were valuable. She shouldn't be surprised to hear the Captain say so; it took very little time spent among them to see that almost all of them were model citizens.

Especially the Filipino dentist in Sussex.

The man Dana had been dreaming about.
 
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A teenage boy on a chestnut gelding rode into Sussex on a Tuesday, having come up from the south by virtually the same route Kim Havens and Lynne Wisebadger had used in their trip to and from Casper. The young man was Kim's brother-in-law Terrance Havens, and his cargo consisted of the thirteen remaining copies from his original consignment of thirty-two newspapers. The other nineteen copies had gone to farm families along the way, including the Italian-American sheep-ranching family whose daughter had contributed artwork for the premiere issue.

The first two editions of the new newspaper originating in Casper, the Wyoming Observer, had been distributed in whatever ways the publisher could find. These and the third edition were spaced four days apart; set days of the week had not been established, since supplies of necessities like toner for the copying machines were unpredictable. But for this third edition, half a dozen delivery riders had been recruited. They could go places where the trains didn't run.

Riding into the town square, Terrance called out the invitation for people to buy his newspapers, as newsboys had done a century before. Customers materialized in a hurry, and the thirteen papers were sold in a hurry. Terrance did not hold back a copy for his big brother, because he was confident that a used copy would find its way to Alipang's dental office within two or three days.

Although Terrance had not announced to Alipang an exact time to expect him in town, it had been known that he would be coming up with copies of the Observer. A local girl who recognized the dentist's brother--in fact, one who felt a keen interest in him--ran to notify Alipang of Terrance's arrival, hoping to be invited to stay for lunch so she could flirt with the younger Havens brother. Lorraine, receiving the report, pretended not to realize how anxious the girl was for this very thing, and casually said to her, "Thank you, Jillian, it's helpful to have advance warning. Could I persuade you to stick around and help me make lunch, then eat it with us?"

Jillian Forrester did not fight very hard against the suggestion, though she would have to share Terrance with all of the Havens household of Sussex. Ransom and Wilson, who were not much younger than Terrance despite Terrance being Wilson's uncle, were particularly pleased at his visit.

When everyone was seated for lunch, Alipang asked his little brother to say grace. This was Terrance's last chance to say anything for the next ten or fifteen minutes, as everyone else present including Jillian bombarded him with their own news. When there was finally a lull, Terrance remarked, "We may need TWO newspapers in Wyoming!"

Alipang picked up on this: "I understand why you went ahead and sold all your copies of the Observer on the street; but can you give us a preview of what's in it, so we don't have to wait for SOME knowledge?"

"The headline story," Terrance told him, "is one that you've already heard of through the Grange: federal approval for exile farmers to have the use of machinery. Now all of us will be less dependent on wild game, on the earnings of relatives employed by the mines, and on food parcels from outside."

"Let's wait and see if they deliver," grunted Alipang. "Do you remember what we learned about the soil-renewal project when we first settled here?"

The younger brother nodded. "Yes. A year before the change to Diversity States, the last U.S. administration processed the carcasses of millions of farm animals that had been slaughtered because of the new forced-vegetarianism policy, turning them into soil. Some of that soil was brought right here to the Powder River area, to the sandstone beds which oil had been extracted from, to make that area better for farming. It was perfectly good soil; but they just dumped it on the rocky ground, making no effort to mix it in, so some of it was lost to wind erosion."

"And more would have been lost without our exile farmers taking the initiative to get as much of it cultivated as they could," said the elder brother.

"But maybe Agriculture has its act together now. Their ranking official in Casper specifically told Mr. De Soto that they were going to pay more attention to what they were doing than the way it was with the soil renewal."

"That's good news," Kim said. "Al and I were a little worried about next year. One way or another, people have mostly got food reserves to survive the next winter; but the reserves will be gone by next year. It's good timing for the government to allow us modern cultivating."

Jillian spoke up: "They really have to allow it, since they keep on exiling more people into the Enclave."

Terrance gave his admirer a smile, which made her day, then continued: "Another story, something they hadn't been expecting to publish, is a biography on the newest Overseer assigned in this region. Al, that's the same one who came to you for a checkup, Dana Pickering. She actually came to the Observer office and asked to be interviewed; even provided a photo of herself in civilian clothes. She said she wanted to be seen as human."

"I already see all of them as human," replied Alipang; "the catch is, that 'human' can mean almost anything, from noble and saintly to degenerate and evil."
 
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