The First Love Of Alipang Havens

At the moment Chilena came home, her youngest child, Irene Jasmine Salisbury, was carefully picking out a tune on an electronic keyboard for the guests. Having only turned six two weeks ago, Irene was mere months younger than Summer and Evan's fraternal twins Grace and Grant. Summer was gazing at the fair-haired girl wistfully. The one piece of information Dan had so far turned up on Summer's own children was the fact that Grace and Grant had been separated for their foster placement--naturally, in complete and callous disregard of friends of Evan's who would have taken the twins together for Evan and Summer's sake. So there were four, not three, searches to complete.

And possibly four sets of bribes to pay--although, of course, there was _officially_ no such thing as bribery in the Diversity States of America, corruption being officially a phenomenon which could _only_ happen in a society based on evil bourgeois private enterprise.

When Chilena entered, there was a smile on her face, but only a modest one. She didn't want to cause her guests, even for an instant, to hope there was fresh news of the Rand children, only to have to disappoint them. Hefting a cloth bag, she told everyone, "Zelda Hopper had a windfall, and shared some of it with me: Brazilian canned beef!"

Dan intuitively grasped his wife's low-level cheerfulness, and played along with it. "Evan, Summer, you're going to taste meat again!"

"In moderation," Chilena hastened to add. "Their stomachs wouldn't be able to take much at one time, after years of imposed veganism. I'm going to open just one can, chop the beef up very fine, and mix it with a lot of potatoes, carrots and green peppers. Everyone will get just a little of that politically-incorrect animal protein."

Summer did enjoy even a diluted flavor of beef in the casserole; it was as much the _fact_ of going against current convention, as whatever nutrition would be afforded by this very small meat intake.

After supper, she said to Irene, "When Evan and I had to be away from home the last couple of years, we didn't have any chance to practice telling any bedtime stories. Do you think you could tell us a story your Mommy or your Daddy told you?"

"That okay?" Irene asked her father, who nodded. The little one then both broke and blessed Summer's heart by sitting on Summer's lap for the storytelling.

"This is a story my Daddy told us. Once in a place not far from the Bubble-onian Caffle-fate, there was a boy named David, who was a security guard for a cotton farm. He could play music on a siffa-sizer too. David built a compact solar-flowered rail gun, to shoot the socially un-septable bears and lions that came to dig up the cotton plants sometimes. David had brothers who joined the Overseers. They had a come-on-ding officer named Salt. Salt liked to listen to music, but he used to throw things at the musicians.

"One day some inter-tolerant racist Nazis came to pick a fight with Salt's Overseers. The Overseers were scared because the biggest Nazi was wearing a cold fusion-flowered extra-skeleton for fighting. So David came to see Salt, and he said, 'Salt, you don't have to be scared of his tacky-knowledge, because I've got the Inky-spressible Ultimate to help me.' Salt said David could use his park-it-all beam, but David said, 'Thanks, but all I need is my rail gun.' The big Nazi said all kinds of hate speech to David, but David shot him with his rail gun, and the big Nazi's head fell off. So the other Nazis gave up, and Salt put them in a Tolerance House, and David sent the big Nazi's head to a tissue reach-and-rayshun lap-ratory. The head turned into a great singer, and he went on a concert tour with David. The end."

Evan laughed until he cried. Summer just plain cried, hugging and kissing little Irene with floods of frustrated maternal love.
 
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"They're doing a good job filling in the parts you don't have the original masonry for," observed Brendan Hyland's new friend. They, with Father Dunak Okigbo, were watching the lively progress on reconstruction of Saint Peter's Basilica in Onitsha, Nigeria. "As far as a quick completion is concerned, I would almost say that the Caliphate did you a favor." The new friend, a Catholic himself, was named Tiberiu Parnescu; he was Romanian by birth, but a naturalized Polish citizen by virtue of the fact that all of continental Europe west of the Russian Federation, _except_ for Poland, was under the rule of the European Caliphate. This Caliphate, a few days ago, had lost patience with the relatively moderate leadership of the Islamic Republic of Italy, and had ordered them by a fatwa to halt the outshipping of pieces of the original Vatican structures. The Vatican Mosque was expected to be under construction before another three weeks had passed. And the new Holy See was moving to completion faster from here on, using materials which _didn't_ have to be flown in from Rome.

That such a thing could be done at all in Nigeria, was thanks to Christian populations in Africa having offered more resistance to violent jihad than Europeans had done. Around the time when Brendan had been serving with the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, the nation of Nigeria had been under heavy attack by the Boko Haram Islamofascist organization. But the Nigerians had held firm; and eventually the surviving Boko Haram jihadists had found it easier to migrate northward, becoming part of the process of consolidating the new Egyptian Caliphate in Northern Africa. So a Christian environment had survived in Nigeria.

"It's good we have the entire Sistine Chapel, anyway," said Brendan, "and many of the historic statues. Those who come here, will know what they're coming to."

"And they'll know it's cleaner for the move," said Father Dunak, more quietly. The government of Nigeria, backed up by its already-existing Catholic archdiocese, had set a non-negotiable condition for its consent to let the Vatican be transferred here: that the whole ecclesiastical and religious hierarchy would adopt an enormous increase in transparency and accountability. From now on, any priest who committed certain abuses of office even _once_ would be instantly expelled from the priesthood for life, and would be subject to criminal penalties if applicable--not excommunicated from the Church itself if his repentance were judged sincere, but _never_ allowed to return to any form of ministry or leadership no matter what.

"Will you be able to stay long enough to attend the first full-scale Papal Mass that'll be held here?" Brendan asked Tiberiu. The uncertainty on this point was because, like the Pacific Federation, Poland had a practice of sending out highly informal emissaries on various errands, with the errands themselves being flexible in their duration. Tiberiu, though not wearing a uniform, was a Colonel in the Polish Army; Brendan's being technically a civilian helped them be at ease together socially.

"I expect I will be," Tiberiu replied, "since _our_ business here will be going on for quite awhile."

"Then shall we head for the meeting?" said Father Dunak, turning his eyes toward the nearest non-ecclesiastical building in view. Gathered in that building already were a number of men and women with military or law-enforcement backgrounds, the majority of them emigrants from the former United States of America. Father Dunak, and one representative of Nigeria's secular government, would be the only persons at this meeting who _weren't_ experienced in military or police duty. And apart from a Nigerian general in attendance, Colonel Tiberiu Parnescu would be the ranking officer present.

The three men began walking toward the duller, more modern building, where what awaited them was not going to be dull at all.
 
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The building was spacious enough, but simple, most of it consisting of a single room in which any available chairs, benches and stools had been collected for seating. The Nigerian civil-government official had been chosen for having the benefit of cutting-edge brain-imprint language learning; he was _genuinely_ fluent in most major languages of Africa AND Europe. This enabled him to render courtesy to the foreign visitors by greeting them in their diverse native tongues, though all present either knew English or had someone to translate for them. The Nigerian general gave his own welcome simply in English. The substance of what both men said to the assemblage was thus: "The Nigerian government will not at all oppose the goals you have made known to us, but we choose to preserve some deniability for ourselves. Thus we will not hear, and are not recording, what will be said here. When you leave this building, you will be able to say truthfully that you listened to a talk by Father Okigbo concerning the progress of the New Vatican construction, many of you being in fact known Roman Catholics. And Father Okigbo will also be able to say truthfully that nothing more belligerent than church reorganization was discussed in his hearing."

After the government linguist and the general excused themselves, Dunak Okigbo spent fifteen minutes telling various reasonably interesting things about the transplanting of the Holy See, and answered another ten minutes' worth of questions. Then he led a non-controversial prayer, after which he sat on a pallet and put on a sleep helmet which would render him harmlessly unconscious until it was deactivated. Thus he would not leave the building until the others left, yet as announced he would hear nothing.

Tiberiu Parnescu took over the meeting from there.

"Friends, all of us have this in common: that we either were citizens of the old United States of America, or at least believed that the world was better off _with_ the United States existing than _without_ it.

"As the world is now, most of Europe is irrevocably lost to European civilization, and we do not have the consolation of being able to point to a strong America as preserving what was good about Europe. To be sure, some elements have survived, _even_ in the Diversity States, certainly here and there all across the Hemispheric Union, and here in Africa, and in the Pacific Federation. There are plenty of places left where one can hear a Mozart symphony or gaze at French Impressionist paintings. But the world lacks a strong, resolute republic which will safeguard the _ideas_ of a just and rational civilization for future generations..."

"If there are even _going_ to be any future generations," interjected one American emigrant, who had been a police detective in Arizona until the Aztlan takeover had forced him to flee with his family for their very lives. "I'm not certain that the very next thing from here won't be the literal Antichrist regime of the Book of Revelation."

"You're Todd Carpenter, aren't you?" said Colonel Parnescu, not upset by the interruption. "I read your resume myself, a good one. It's perfectly possible that we _are_ so close to the Biblical Tribulation, that no long-range plans for earthly improvement have any more application. But until God lets us know _clearly_ that this is so, we must in conscience continue trying to advance truth and freedom. Jesus said that we would be blessed if, when He does return, He finds us in the very midst of serving Him faithfully."

Brendan Hyland raised his hand. "And if I may say so, Colonel, I think the _reason_ why God isn't giving us an exact schedule with no uncertainties, is in order that we _won't_ say it's too late now to accomplish anything."

"Fair enough," conceded the former Detective Carpenter, and settled down.

"We will work while it is yet day," Colonel Parnescu continued. "And there are two basic fronts on which I believe we should be operating. No one here has to take any orders from me, but I offer my recommendations. First, and this is the theater for more open, above-board action, _Poland_ needs to be defended. We are not _yet_ under open attack there, but it could happen. The advocates of radical Islam have not forgotten that it was the Poles who prevented a Turkish conquest of Europe in the days of Sobieski. New special-forces units, consisting of some of you gathered here today, could be a great help in keeping modern Poland free.

"Second is the more subtle theater of action, really a matter of culture war. America is that theater. Even if the majority of citizens of the Diversity States _wanted_ to be liberated from their current tyranny, which they don't, and even if China would stay out of the situation, which they wouldn't, we have no realistic option of restoring constitutional government there by force of arms. But there may be ways in which we can _encourage_ the American people to move back in the direction of their former ideals. They gave up their freedom by gradual stages; perhaps they can regain the appetite for freedom in the same way."

"I hope so, sir," put in Brendan. "But you know that any dictatorship has built-in mechanisms to _prevent_ people from starting a dissent movement."

The Colonel nodded. "That's true. But no dictatorship is omnipotent. My immediate superior in the Polish Army is the son of a shipyard worker who marched with Solidarity. He believes, and I believe, that there are things we can do."
 
"Whiplash, come! Come on, boy, back this way!"

Members of the Diversity States Forest Rangers -- another paramilitary body which had survived the dissolution of the United States, absorbing the Park Service and Wildlife Service in the turnover -- had fewer legal restrictions on owning pets than most citizens had. Ranger Mark Terrell thus could be accompanied on patrols by his genetically-enhanced border collie Whiplash. Mark's privileges as a Forest Ranger were also reflected in the matter of _where_ he was: close to the Western Enclave, in a tract of Nebraska prairie near the Enclave's easternmost extremity. Apart from the Campaign Against Hate's own personnel, only Forest Rangers were allowed to come so close to the outer minefields of the Enclave perimeter without Overseers halting them and demanding to know their business. The buffer zone around that perimeter, after all, was a nature preserve of sorts: one of many areas where permanent human habitation was no longer allowed, since the government liked to keep its human sheep in well-defined sheepfolds. The tracking chip implanted in Mark's body would show up on g.p.s. monitors, verifying that he was "authorized personnel."

The circumstances of his being tracked were paradoxically liberating for the Forest Ranger; it was taken for granted that he would not be doing anything forbidden, so on patrols he could mostly do as he pleased.

"Whiplash, are you all right? Come on, boy!"

Whiplash came in view of Mark's night-vision corneal implants a moment later. The dog was carrying what seemed like an uncommonly straight stick. Suddenly, Mark recognized it for what it was: an arrow. This caught his interest at once. He knew that no one _outside_ the Enclave was allowed to use any kind of bow except in approved sport-archery locations. Dwellers _inside_ the Enclave were permitted to have them in lieu of firearms, due to the predators sharing the reservation with them; but why would an exile be shooting into the outside world, where he could never go to retrieve his arrow? Theoretically, there could have been something for the unknown archer to shoot at _within_ the perimeter, and the shot could have been strong enough that upon missing the target it would fly clean past the fence; but it was a strain on probability....

Mark blinked. It had been so perplexing for an arrow to be here at all, that he had not immediately noticed his dog's effort to point something out. There was a _reason_ why the super-collie's jaws gripped the arrow near the nock end rather than in the middle; and Whiplash was actually gesturing with an upheld forepaw, to draw attention--to the _paper_ that was wrapped around the shaft of the arrow. The dog had kept the paper clear of his mouth, and thus clear of his saliva which might damage any writing. Though only able to read a few words for himself -- and even that much made him one of the most successful dog mutations -- Whiplash had a good understanding of the _concept_ of written language, and could understand that his master might wish to see what had been written.

Accepting the arrow from his dog, Mark detached the paper with a feeling as if he were in a fantasy story, handling some enchanted artifact. Writing by hand on a material surface, after all, had become so rare in the D.S.A. and other advanced nations. Even before he saw any of the words, his mind was already rocketing high with speculations.

This could not be part of any organized, recurring system developed by the exiles to pass uncensored communications to the outside; satellite surveillance would have noticed any such repeat visits to the buffer zone as would be called for by such a system. But perhaps a one-time effort by someone--? Mark unrolled the note and began to read:

"To Whoever Finds This: I have acted alone, with no one else knowing that I was planning to shine my flashlight into the darkness of present-day America. I alone am responsible, and because the rulers have sentenced me to death anyway by refusing modern medical care to me, I have nothing to lose...."

Heart beating faster, the Forest Ranger stopped reading and re-rolled the paper. The odds were astronomically against any observer, even with today's intrusive technology, taking any special notice of what Mark was doing. It was known that Whiplash often fetched things for curiosity and plain fun on these patrols. What matter if he fetched sticks?... "Whiplash, listen. I need you to see if there are more arrows like this one. Keep out of the infrasonic mine zone, but see what you can find."

After some forty-five minutes of searching, the border collie had rounded up three more arrows. This, Mark thought, surely was enough to investigate; only, investigate how?

The daring thought came: why _should_ he tell the Campaign Against Hate about these notes? If he turned in only the arrows, or maybe turned in nothing at all...?
 
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It was almost a poetical thought, the way these ancient-style missiles had soared above a zone of 21st-century technology. The mines that were laid both inside and outside the perimeter were not explosive devices, but emitters of low-frequency sound waves; if triggered, they would utter a burst of noise too low in frequency to be heard, but strong enough to stun any person close to them. The Forest Ranger knew of just one incident in which an exile had tried to escape and had been stopped inside the fence by an infrasonic blast; this had been later than the several early instances of deadly force being used by the Overseers. But Mark had never heard of anyone trying to break _into_ the Enclave. Why was the regime equally concerned to keep citizens _out_ of this reservation as to keep the exiles in it?

These notes from the mysterious Miguel De Soto had been the occasion for Mark first to conceive of the question, and they might be a clue to the answer. He had read the first one while Whiplash had been searching for others; after its preamble, it had said:

"You have probably been told that the Christians and Jews who make up almost the whole exile population of the Western Enclave are fanatical troublemakers, preaching hate and threatening violence. This is a cynically fabricated lie, and would be recognized as a lie by anyone who has lived among them. They have been my neighbors for the whole time that my partner and I have been confined here; all of them have known I was an atheist; and all of them, with NO exceptions, have behaved courteously and cordially toward me.

"Every tyrant likes to give the peasants an imaginary enemy, so that they won't realize that the tyrant himself is their enemy. The believers among whom I live have been cast as that imaginary enemy. So think again about the propaganda you have been force-fed.

--Miguel De Soto, Political Prisoner."

A cursory glance at the additional notes showed that no two of them were exactly identical in content. With only so much room to write on each piece of paper, Citizen De Soto must have purposely avoided duplication, having much on his mind that he wanted someone to know.

Mark's own parents had vanished in the initial purges of Bible-believers when the Diversity States had been established, not so long ago. Since the notion that central government was always right had already been strongly advocated even before the overturn in America, Mark had resigned himself that his parents' disappearance must have been their own fault for being nonconformists. But now he wondered about that also. If the stranger with bow, arrows and paper had been driven to _such_ a desperate act of defiance, in the need to be heard before he died...then perhaps the Campaign Against Hate, and all the entities enforcing the new order of things in America, _were_ concealing something that was not to their credit?

Mark knew--from his parents--that there used to be novels written about future dictatorships, novels with titles like "1984," "Brave New World," "Fahrenheit 451," "Logan's Run," and "The Shadow of the Torturer." In every such story, some character who was charged with _enforcing_ the system, found himself questioning the system's legitimacy. All of those novels were banned in the D.S.A. now, and in their place were poorly-written hack-jobs warning about the sexist racist Nazi Christians who were hiding behind every tree. But Mark Terrell, till now a contented cog in the system, suddenly felt a delicious shiver of fear...as he realized that he was on the verge of turning into something like George Orwell's protagonist Winston Smith.
 
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Copperfox said:
If the stranger with bow, arrows and paper had been driven to _such_ a desperate act of defiance, in the need to be heard before he died...then perhaps the Campaign Against Hate, and all the entities enforcing the new order of things in America, _were_ concealing something that was not to their credit?
Click to expand...

Perhaps.:p
 
Mark Terrell did finally decide to turn over the arrows to his superiors, minus the notes. But before coming off patrol, he washed every arrow thoroughly in a pond, and then handled them all over with his own hands. He hoped that, in the event of a DNA check being done on the arrows, only his own DNA would stand out. Strange, that he felt this uncanny desire to protect a man who was both a dissenter and a total stranger.

In the end, no DNA test was ordered; headquarters figured that the simplest explanation was plausible, and an exile had simply missed his target while hunting or practicing. Or at most, that the archer had been interested to see what response the security system would make to the arrows flying over the fence. But the Forest Ranger came off shift with a chill inside: he had committed himself to hiding something from his superiors.

He didn't dare to look at the four pieces of paper again until he and Whiplash were home and it was an off-duty day. The apartment had no other human occupant; Mark was between lovers currently. He considered himself to be an uncommonly chivalrous and generous romantic, for he hardly ever initiated the breakups himself. Now, for the first time, he wondered whether he ought to postpone _beginning_ any new affairs...because any new lover would be at risk of sharing the blame for Mark's guilty secret.

With the moral support of his mutant border collie leaning against him on the sofa, he unrolled one of the three unread messages. This was written with smaller letters, as if Miguel De Soto had known that his facts would be crowded in the available space. It began with a disclaimer like the first note, then continued:

"The whole justification of this confinement is based on a false proposition, that believing in a particular deity automatically makes people dangerous EVEN if their deity advocates peace and forgiveness. The Campaign Against Hate, insofar as it ISN'T itself guilty of hate, only proves in its Enclave policy that Overseers don't have to hate us, to be oppressing us. It is no comfort to a murder victim to be told, 'At least your killer didn't hate you.'

"I can specify a case in which a civilian was wantonly murdered here in the Enclave, by Overseers, without even the excuse of the victim trying to escape. On November 13th of last year, in the South Dakota sector, north of Rapid City, two Overseers named Vargas and Huddleston made an intimidation raid on a fellowship of Mennonites, who are absolute pacifists. They piled up hymnbooks, along with some furnishings from the place of worship, and fired a particle beam into the heap. As the items burned, a twelve-year-old girl named Eva Lederburg tried to salvage one hymnal from the edge of the flames. Both Overseers drew sidearms and shot the girl dead, laughing as her body fell on the fire.

"Vargas and Huddleston went unpunished for this murder, having made the ridiculous claim that a twelve-year-old girl from a pacifistic sect had attacked them with a deadly weapon. The two Overseers contradicted each other as to what weapon Eva Lederburg had been carrying, but this didn't matter. You can be sure that these men had been told ahead of time that they had a license to kill.

"Whoever you are, seeing my words, I am stating facts, not spinning opinions. There were more than twenty witnesses to Eva's murder. The rulers who pretend that Christians are a terrorist threat are not merely mistaken; they are lying on purpose. They want to silence faith because it offers a moral authority other than the so-called Fairness Party, and the Fairness Party is as much a jealous god as it is a false god.

-- Miguel De Soto."

Mark's head was spinning when he got through this one. He had been indoctrinated, like others of his generation, to believe that belief in God had been invented in the first place from NO other motive than a desire to perpetuate slavery, racism, private ownership of property, and other evils. But he could not convince himself that the unseen Mr. De Soto would have gone to so much trouble to draw someone's attention, anyone's attention, to a fiction or a delusion.

Taking a deep breath, Mark proceeded to read the remaining notes. One reported, without unnecessary details, three separate incidents in which exiles had been, not slain, but personally violated and humiliated by three different Overseers. The last note was like the first one Mark had seen, a more general indictment of the Campaign Against Hate and its reservation arrangement.

The fear was growing in the usually brave and self-confident Forest Ranger. He didn't know which he feared more: the possibility of disciplinary action for his having kept these notes a secret, or the possibility that everything Mr. De Soto said was true. In the latter case, everything Mark believed in would have to be called into question.

And it was supposed to be Christians who were destined to see their superstitions exploded.

Mark read all of the notes again, then another time, storing their information in his head. Then he destroyed the four pieces of paper, and tried to think about something else for awhile. That night, however, he dreamed that a twelve-year-old Mennonite girl stepped out of a cadaver-recycling unit, to stare him in the face and say accusingly, "Why are you on the side of the men who murdered me?"
 
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The Next Reader's Aid for the Plot of
"The Possible Future of Alipang Havens" ​


This time, what I'm going to do is remind my readers of the _motivations_ of some of the characters: what they want, wish, hope for. Proceeding in no particular order after Alipang himself.....


ALIPANG HAVENS wants to promote the physical safety and well-being of his fellow exiles, while at the same time serving as a living model of the Christian life. Though frustrated that he can't simply _fight_ their oppressors, he looks to God for deliverance and vindication.

RANSOM KRAMER would like _very_ much to be able to punish the men who murdered his father and brother for being Christians and loyal Americans. But since this is unlikely to work out, he is allowing himself to think of romance, with the Amish girl Lydia Reinhart.

OVERSEER DANA PICKERING _would_ have liked somehow to induce Alipang to love her, but that's academic now. She has been transferred out of the Enclave, to "protect" her from Christian influence.

BILL SHAO and LORRAINE KRAMER feel a decent, upright attraction to each other, and I'm probably going to cut them a break and let them get married without any major catastrophes.

HENRY SPAFFORD, Alipang's Apache friend, wants to know what was going on the night he and Alipang were overcome by chemical fumes at that airplane crash site.

BRENDAN HYLAND, though safe from persecution because he and Jennifer moved to Africa, still wishes to do anything in his power to help resurrect the American spirit of liberty in the Diversity States.

CHILENA and DANIEL SALISBURY have been walking a tightrope of compromise, accepting all manner of restrictions on the practice of their faith, in return for being free themselves, and not having their children confiscated by the dictatorship. Now that they are in a position to help their friends Summer and Evan, they hope that all the concessions they have made will now pay off, making them _more_ able to get results within the system.

SUMMER and EVAN RAND, recently discharged from their unjust imprisonment, are desperately longing to regain custody of their four children, who were farmed out to four foster homes.

EMILIO VASQUEZ, the Texas Ranger married to Alipang and Chilena's sister Melody, wants to protect his wife and his unborn child, and fellow Texans generally, from a threat still not fully explained: the aggressive actions of the People's Republic of Aztlan.

SAMANTHA FORD, an ambassador-at-large for the Diversity States, wants to think of herself, and have others think of her, as a magnificent stateswoman--when in fact she does no more work than she absolutely has to, preferring to live for her own pleasure.

DAFFODIL FORD, Samantha's teenage son, wants to be allowed to be masculine, and interested in girls, without being told every minute that this makes him a horrible brutal caveman.

MAJOR YANG SUNG-KUO, both on behalf of his own government and for his own curiosity, is very interested in finding out what is going on with the internal exiles of the Diversity States.

PASTOR ABRAHAM ZONDEI, who ministers in Casper, Wyoming, where Eric and Cecilia Havens live, is concerned about an apparent new policy on the part of the Campaign Against Hate. They have begun introducing cultic lunatics into the Enclave, and Pastor Zondei suspects that this is intended to fabricate new "hate crime" charges against Christians if the Christians contradict the cult fantasies.
 
Chapter 22: South Dakota in September


August had ended, and so had the ability of the cancer-stricken Miguel De Soto to be normally active. He still edited the Wyoming Observer, whose circulation continued to grow, but he was writing less and less of the copy. There were plenty of contributors to step into the gap; for instance, Kuruk Niteesh the gas-well worker had published not one but three articles about the enterprise he worked for, all the content being vetted by officials of the Department of Sustainable Energy.

Miguel now spent about half of every day wearing a cannula in his nostrils to feed him oxygen from a tank. When the Adenoid-Cystic Carcinoma constricted his lungs to the point where he would need oxygen all the time, it was going to be tricky keeping a fresh tank always filled. Miguel and his wife Tilly saw who their friends were, as help materialized for this business. Among the helpers was Eric Havens, who as a dentist had experience handling cylinders of compressed gases. And Eric, with Reuben Torvill, now found Miguel sufficiently "weakened" (his term, not theirs) that he would listen gladly to them telling their myriad reasons why they believed in an eternal Heaven after death.

Eric's consequent commitment to remain in the city of Casper meant, in turn, an occasion for his son Alipang to undertake some further intra-Enclave travel.

More than a year ago, during the first winter the extended Havens family had spent as exiles, Eric Havens had been needed for eleven days in Rapid City, the capital of the Enclave. This had been where, the previous May, they had all been inprocessed after getting off the airplane at the former Ellsworth Air Force Base, northeast of town. It had been a dental clinic attached to Sioux San Hospital, on Rapid City's west side, which needed Eric to cover the patients of a fellow dentist who had injured himself...in a suicide attempt.

The same dentist, now thought to be mentally more stable, was there to this day; but now ordinary sickness had put him out of commission for awhile. Accordingly, Alipang was going in his father's place to serve as a relief dentist; and Kim was going with him. Lorraine and her son would be able to run the household in Sussex while Alipang and Kim were in Rapid City; Lydia Reinhart was possibly going to come to Sussex and do some cooking for them, and Bill Shao might be dropping in. This excursion into South Dakota, then, would be something for Alipang and his wife in particular to share, free from worry about their children for a few days; and the dental clinic would be able to pay Alipang and Kim in cash for every patient seen. Kim too, because her acupunctural contribution was considered legitimate here as well.

The railway passed by Keystone City, the location of Mount Rushmore. Neither Alipang nor Kim would even glance in that direction. They didn't want to think about the fact that the Rushmore Monument had been changed. The four faces now depicted on it were those of Margaret Sanger, Mao Tse-Tung, Angela Davis and Che Guevara.

They knew they were getting close to Rapid City when, through the train windows, they sighted Harney's Peak, the adjoining mountain which was the highest land elevation in the Diversity States not to be part of the Rocky Mountains. Overseer Base Number One was upon, and inside, that mountain. Coming closer to town, Alipang and Kim also could see the Dakota Hogback, a ridge line that cut right through the city in a north-to-south direction.

"I forget," said Kim teasingly, as one of her hands patted her husband's knee, "did we ever have a honeymoon?"

"We started to, but we were shot at. I guess we're safe now, though, because we're not allowed to drive cars anymore." Alipang drew his wife closer to himself.

"Maybe we can find the time on this trip, you know, to do a few honeymoon-type things;" and she brought her mouth against Alipang's, not to remove it anytime soon.
 
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Hmm... Maybe Mark and Dana will meet and do some good with what they've been learning about the people in the Enclave.

Copperfox said:
BILL SHAO and LORRAINE KRAMER feel a decent, upright attraction to each other, and I'm probably going to cut them a break and let them get married without any major catastrophes.
Click to expand...

That made me laugh.:D

Copperfox said:
HENRY SPAFFORD, Alipang's Apache friend, wants to know what was going on the night he and Alipang were overcome by chemical fumes at that airplane crash site.
Click to expand...

So do I.

I hope Alipang and Kim enjoy their time alone.
 
Several pedicabs were on hand when the train pulled into the station; but the choice was made easy when one driver called to Alipang and Kim by name. This driver proved to be none other than Ignacio Balubal, cousin of their Filipina friend Rita Magpatoc.

"I was told to expect you here," said Ignacio as he helped the couple put their luggage in the pedicab's rear compartment. "And Dr. Glass has prepaid me to fetch you, so for you this ride is free!" (Dr. Glass was the dentist Alipang was temporarily replacing.)

"But what brings _you_ here?" Alipang asked. "Did a fare in Lance Creek want to come all the way to Rapid City, and then you were just too tired to pedal home to Wyoming?"

"No, I've moved the wife and kids here for keeps. With government permission, of course. I learned that a recent intake of new exiles who _would_ have gone to Wyoming, had their itinerary changed at short notice, and were being settled right in Rapid City instead. I guessed a trend; you know what we hear about the regime liking to concentrate populations; so I went where it looked like the work was."

Kim looked at her husband. "Maybe the Overseers are afraid that we'll corrupt any additional exiles assigned to our neck of the prairie."

"That may not be a joke," muttered Ignacio. "But it may be something not safe to talk about."

Alipang switched to speaking in Tagalog. "If you want, we can pretend to have a quarrel, and Kim and I will get off, to protect you." This was not said in annoyance at Ignacio, but in a genuine desire not to be a cause of trouble for a friend.

"That won't be necessary; I'm just being cautious on principle." And for the rest of the ride, Ignacio talked about his children, the Havens children and the Magpatoc children.

Their destination was a place within sight of Sioux San Hospital: an apartment complex reserved for persons working at the hospital or its associated clinics. Elevators here had been permanently disabled and sealed off, as a measure to save electricity, and the spare apartment set aside for Alipang and Kim was on the fourth floor. So Ignacio carried the heaviest of his customers' luggage up the stairs. "One good thing about being exiled in this reservation," the cabbie remarked before parting, "is that I can walk away from my vehicle, and I _know_ it won't be stolen--both because of the honesty of my fellow exiles, and because constant surveillance would spot any crooked exception."

When Ignacio left them alone, Alipang and Kim noted the time. They had more than two hours of privacy before someone representing the dental clinic would come by to take them to supper at an actual restaurant--a type of business which, inside the Enclave, not counting workplace dining facilities, was so far only available here in Rapid City.

Positively pouncing on each other with loving enjoyment, Alipang and Kim Havens made _very_ good use of the next hour and forty-five minutes.
 
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The person who came to pick them up from their temporary apartment was Lenore Glass, daughter of the dentist Avery Glass. Lenore, whom Eric Havens had met one time briefly, was in her late thirties, thus a couple of years older than Kim. But she _looked_ much older, probably because of a less healthy lifestyle.

"We hear there are two restaurants here in Rapid City," said Kim after Lenore had introduced herself, "one belonging to Life Quality Incorporated, and the other to Workforce Food Service."

"That's right. Like the parent companies, the restaurants do not totally duplicate each other's functions. The Black Hills Lodge, the one owned by Life Quality, is open more hours, but apart from having breakfast specialties, it offers much less variety on the menu. Workforce Food's establishment, the Rushmore Inn, where we'll be going this evening, is located in the old Rushmore Shopping Mall; it's only open for lunch and supper, and not even lunch on Mondays or Tuesdays, but there are many more menu choices."

"While we're on the way there," Alipang prompted, "you can bring us up to date on your father's condition." Soon the three of them were boarding a light-rail train for the northward run to the Rushmore Inn; and Lenore did as Alipang had asked.

"What my Dad has is just a cold; he wouldn't miss more than a day of work, if not for the fact that he's had so _many_ colds living here. You know that we used to live in New Mexico, right?"

"Yes, my Dad told me about that before," said Alipang. "I can sympathize with people who don't do well in a chilly climate."

Kim got the conversation back on topic: "Lenore, are you saying that Dr. Glass used up his medication limit?"

"Exactly. He's had his two antiviral prescriptions for the year--which puts him back in the days when people _couldn't_ instantly get rid of a cold. So you'll be substituting for him for at _least_ tomorrow and the next day. But that isn't the..." She suddenly changed course. "Don't let me make your evening dull and gloomy. There's a really good supper to look forward to."
 
At the Rushmore Inn:

"Look at this, Kim! They're offering lo mein; that's not so far different from pansit! That's for me!"

"Go for it, Al, go for it. Lenore, thank you again for treating us. I think I'll have the spinach lasagna. You were right, they do have a good variety. How do they afford getting all the supplies?"

"You already know that both food-service providers have shareholders who are mine and powerplant workers, with enough money to invest. Well, some of the civil-government officials in Rapid City _also_ have money invested in the two companies, which makes it feasible to bring in various grain, fruit and vegetable products that can't be grown inside the Enclave. I mean, _besides_ the supplies of such things which Overseers would have on _their_ tables in any event. The officials joining in the investment naturally get preferential treatment when voting their shares in matters of company policy; but they're delighted to have the _opportunity_ to invest in something that can actually generate free-market growth, as they wouldn't be able to do outside. And exiles are still benefitted by the existence of these privately-owned businesses."

"Our waitress sure acts as if she has a stake in the success of the Rushmore Inn," Alipang noted approvingly.

When Alipang and Kim had been servers together at the dear old Filipino restaurant back in dear old Smoky Lake, they and the cooks had needed to please the customers, or The Pansit Paradise would have become The Failed Restaurant. But in the course of their married life, well before the time of their arrest and internal exile, they had seen the triumphant advance of the very things they and Alipang's father had fought against: government control of all business, and labor-union control of employment. Restaurants, among other establishments, had become part of a locked-in system where the consumer no longer had any clout; thus, _exactly_ as had been the case in the Soviet Union, waiters no longer needed to earn success. Anyplace diners went on the outside now, with a very few exceptions where an independent eating place was allowed to exist for one reason or another, there was no reward to the servers for extra effort, and no penalty to them for any bad behavior short of a bodily assault on customers. Thus the restaurant experience, like water, had descended to the lowest level possible.

So this was refreshing.

Less pleasing was the turn the conversation would soon take.

Lenore Glass became relaxed enough that, after their food had been served, she felt she could get away with telling her guests what it was that she had postponed talking about before. "Quite apart from his predilection to catch colds, and this is a more serious matter, my father is suffering increasingly from arthritis. The right nanobots injected into his joints would fix all that; but they won't _give_ him those nanobots. If something doesn't change, he won't be able to continue practicing dentistry for longer than one or two more years."

Alipang fingered his chin pensively. "And the Enclave hasn't existed long enough yet for the authorities to have made clear just what their plans are for people's retirement."

All three companions fell silent. All three were imagining a hard-faced man wearing a pink shirt, proclaiming that Avery Glass had outlived his usefulness to the collective, and it was time to celebrate the completion of his life.

"There are nutritional supplements that help arthritic joints," Kim volunteered, to break the silence. "And in here, unlike some of the federal districts outside, there's no law against using such supplements. I might be able to do something for Dr. Glass with acupuncture besides."

The old dentist's daughter smiled again. "I appreciate that. You can see him _after_ he gets over this cold, just to make sure you don't transmit the virus to any dental patients."

"And perhaps," Alipang mused, "we can talk to someone about reinstating some professional training on the reservation. Your father would have a whole second career, if he could teach dentistry formally."

"Your father largely taught you, didn't he?"

"Yes, one on one. But if they plan to keep us in here indefinitely, the authorities really need to start making more provision for the rising generation, which certainly includes organized higher education." Alipang did not say...he had never even said to Kim...that he wondered sometimes whether the lack of college operations meant that the regime expected to celebrate the completion of _every_ exile's life, at a soon enough point in time so as to have no need of new college graduates in the exile population.

This was the kind of thought that kept Alipang's prayer life active.

But it didn't prevent him from enjoying his lo mein.
 
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The next two days proceeded unremarkably. Alipang had plenty of patients to see, and a few of these told him that they remembered being treated by his father on that previous occasion of substituting for Avery Glass. As for the urban dentist himself, Dr. Glass talked with Kim on the telephone, and showed great interest in Kim's suggestions for coping with his arthritis.

Among the patients were some from the new exile intake which Ignacio had reported. When Alipang cautiously questioned them, each one had the same thing to tell: that the Overseers at Base Number One had said there was use for more people in Rapid City itself, as it would be the first location for any widening of the exiles' industrial role.

This, if true, argued against the likelihood of extermination being on the Overseers' minds.

On the second evening, that is the evening after the first workday at Sioux San Dental Clinic, Alipang and Kim had the leisure to ride along the Dakota Hogback in Ignacio's pedicab. From a high vantage point, Alipang could see the old civilian airport located south of the old U.S. Air Force base. He already knew that this field was home to aircraft used by Overseers and officials within the Enclave. In the aircraft-parking area, though it was too far to be positive, he thought he could see twin-engined planes like the one whose crash he and Henry had responded to in July. Which by itself did nothing to solve that mystery.

On the third evening, they were able to put a phone call through to Sussex. In that conversation, an ecstatic Lorraine informed them that Bill Shao had proposed marriage to her not an hour before the phone rang. She had naturally said yes, though stipulating a long enough engagement that there would be time to sort out how this would affect the Havens household. Kim, while overjoyed for the widow, mightily regretted not having been there to see Lorraine's jubilation firsthand.

There was a third workday for Alipang and Kim, Avery Glass being not yet back up to speed. Alipang had given two cleanings, while Kim and her Chinese needles had not yet been required to anaesthetize anyone...when there was a sound of movement from the waiting room.

All at once, a mirror-uniformed Overseer, carrying an automatic weapon, stepped into the treatment room. Alipang and Kim scarcely had time to be startled, before the Overseer lowered his gun as if satisfied there was no danger, and withdrew from the room. In his place, three unarmed persons (unless they bore concealed weapons) entered: a woman, a man, and another woman. The man wore a business suit which was entirely pink, while both women wore suits which looked far more masculine than the man's suit.

The woman who had been last to enter, the oldest-looking of the trio, said, "Citizen Tisdale...Citizen Havens." (She clearly had done her homework, finding out Kim's maiden name in order to use it to belittle Kim's marriage to Alipang.) "First, let me mention that we appreciate your actions on the night of that plane crash; second, let me also mention that we hear nothing but good about your dental practice."

The pink-suited man then asked, "Do you know who we are?"

"I confess I don't," Alipang told him. "You are probably aware that we don't have much in the way of news media in Wyoming."

"Good newspaper, though, given the resources available," remarked the younger of the business-suited women.

The older woman gestured toward the younger one. "She is the Undersecretary of Eco-Sensitive Agriculture for Western Enclave affairs. He is the Deputy Commander of the Campaign Against Hate for the Western Enclave. I am the Undersecretary of Sustainable Energy for Western Enclave affairs."

Kim's eyes widened. "You're the triumvirate!" The ever-so-admired Soviet Union had liked setting up trios of leaders; and here stood the trio that wielded regional authority over all the exiles.

"Be glad we're not a quartet," chortled the man in pink. "If the Department of Distribution were represented in our deliberations, you might not have had such an excellent spinach lasagna the other night."

"I know you dignitaries have your own dentist," said Alipang, "so what can my _wife_ and I do for you?"
 
The Undersecretary of Eco-Sensitive Agriculture took a step closer to Alipang. "It's what my Department wants. Because we expect population growth within the Enclave during the coming decade--indeed, we're facilitating it by permitting internal exiles to have so many bioproducts--Enclave agriculture will have to grow along with population."

"Sustainability in all things," the older Undersecretary of Sustainable Energy editorialized. Her colleague then went on:

"This in turn will mean more activity for the Grange Association. And the larger any non-governmental entity becomes, the more imperative it becomes to keep that entity under the supervision of public authority."

"Government is the antidote for hate," recited the Deputy Commander of the Campaign Against Hate, not sounding as if he believed the slogan himself. "You, Citizen Havens, would not have been comfortable enlisting as an Overseer; but what Agriculture has in mind is nothing adversarial to your traditions."

The woman who was supposed to be doing the talking on this subject, grabbed her opportunity to resume talking. "Yes, as I was saying, the Grange Association will need to be tied more closely to my Department. We plan in the near future to select at least one present Grange member in each of the four sectors of the Enclave, and give these persons federal status, as a liaison between the government and the farming population. If you become one of these contact persons, you will be passing information in both directions, facilitating compliance with regulations while also giving your friends a voice in the Enclave capital."

"What would happen to his dental practice?" Kim asked.

"Your partner could continue it, and without having to move away from Sussex. Our needs would not take much more time away from his practice than is currently consumed by his volunteer patrolling for the Grange; and with us, he would be paid for his time. What we would gain would be the benefit of his positive reputation among the Wyoming exiles; his word would be trusted whenever he spoke on our behalf."

"And you would never be asked to say anything against your superstitions," the man in pink assured Alipang.

"That's true, you would not. You would literally not be doing anything that wasn't constructive."

"My own Department will be recruiting similar contact persons for the industrialized areas," the older of the women pointed out; "but you are not really connected with the mines and the power plants, so Agriculture gets to approach you."

"Tell me," the younger woman asked Alipang directly, "what is your gut reaction to the offer?"

Instant refusal was not so easy as Alipang would have expected. If he accepted the job, it could mean inducing the regime to see more legitimacy in Christians; and there might be some quid-pro-quo benefits to others around him....Then he remembered the movie "It's A Wonderful Life," which he had seen for the first time in his first Christmas season in America, watching it with Chilena after a carolling excursion. He remembered George Bailey being offered a job by Old Man Potter. A question came to his mind.

"You seem to be giving me a free choice. If you told me, 'Accept the job or we'll kill your family,' obviously I would accept the job to save their lives. As it is....Tell me, Undersecretary: if I took on this duty, is there any chance that I would be able to obtain, for my friend Miguel De Soto, the advanced cancer treatment that would save HIS life?"

Though she was not very much older than Alipang, the Agriculture bureaucrat now gazed at him as if he were an ignorant child. "Surely, Citizen Havens, you understand that human resources, like environmental resources, need to be supervised and controlled by qualified policymakers. We cannot be swayed by individual sentiment. Our actions must be kept in harmony with the great circle of life, or else we could not achieve the greatest good for the collective."

"That, I take it, was a long-winded No."

"If you must be so linear, yes, it was a No."

"In that case, Undersecretary, you can do either of two things. You can force me at gunpoint to accept this job, and then try to convince me that you do care about the people after all; or you can allow me to continue seeing dental patients."

The Agriculture Undersecretary, and the Deputy Commander, looked as if this were a somewhat less fawning reply than they would have preferred to hear; but it was the Undersecretary of Sustainable Energy, seemingly the first among equals in the triumvirate, who concluded the interview.

"Very well, DOCTOR Havens." There was perhaps a trace there of grudging respect. "Although you would have been useful to the Agriculture Department, you are also useful to society doing what you already do. There's no penalty for your not becoming an official. Have a good day."
 
The remainder of that working day featured no other extraordinary incidents. In the afternoon, Kim took a phone call from Avery Glass, announcing that he would be able to return to work tomorrow, and asking the Havens to come after supper to his apartment--which was in the next building from the apartment they were using in Rapid City.

Dr. Glass, when they finally met him, projected an aura of weariness, almost of defeat. He was aged beyond his years. Kim, not prying for now into the old man's private life, busied herself with attempting an acupuncture treatment for his arthritis, a procedure that the daughter watched carefully. She found that she could relieve the pain in his hands, but of course this did not make those hands stronger for actual exertions; all the same, it would count for something if Dr. Glass could enjoy periods of time without his hands hurting. Kim taught Lenore the whole procedure, with Lenore's father as a willing guinea pig, then made a gift to her of two acupuncture needles to use thereafter.

Avery Glass wanted to pay for the needles, realizing that Kim could not easily replace them; but she told him, "You and your daughter have covered so many of our expenses being here, this is the least we can do."

"Then let me buy you breakfast tomorrow," the veteran dentist countered, "before you board your train for Wyoming." This was acceptable to Kim and Alipang.

Next morning, therefore, Dr. Glass met Kim and Alipang at the Black Hills Lodge, completing the couple's introduction to the restaurant community of Rapid City. (Lenore had to go to work before the others got together; she was a telephone operator.) All of them included Swedish pancakes in their breakfast, a treat Alipang and Kim had not tasted in more than two years. And as it had been with Lenore when dining at the Rushmore Inn, talk became a little more open when there was food in the stomachs. If anyone was listening in by technological means, it could scarcely be a shocking revelation to them that most exiles didn't greatly like being exiles.

Kim thus grew bold enough to ask point-blank: "Dr. Glass, why did you become so depressed a year and a half ago?"

The old man smiled grimly. "You mean, why did I try to kill myself. It was because I felt a more than common sense of injustice about MY being stuck here. No offense, but I never was religious; they tossed me in here simply because I wouldn't shut up and pretend I liked having my income slashed by a government monopoly of health care. Yes, Alipang, I know that your father did the same kind of protesting, but in his case the regime also had his religion to hold against him. So I felt extra-specially picked on.

"With hardly any warning--you remember that the government made the formation of the Enclave as much of a sudden surprise as was possible--I was rounded up in the VERY first batch of internal exiles. That makes me what the Navy used to call a plankowner; Larry, one of my sons, was in the Navy before they disbanded it. I learned sailor slang from Larry, for all the good it does me in this miserable, freezing wilderness. I can't visit my wife's grave anymore, nor see any of my old friends. Lenore is the only one of my children I can see now, and I'm cut off permanently from ALL of my grandchildren, including Lenore's kids."

"Was Lenore married?" asked Alipang. "She hasn't said anything to us about that."

"She wouldn't. The subject is even more painful for her than it is for me. Yes, Lenore once was married; she resumed my last name after the divorce. Her husband left her 'in order to fulfill his true self;' and a court awarded HIM full custody of their children, because he promised to 'open their minds to new, progressive ways of living.' Lenore had not been exiled at the time I was; but they got around to exiling her after she made noise protesting the theft of her daughter and son."

"Kim and I can feel for her. My sister and brother-in-law on the outside sent us a letter last week, telling us how they're helping a couple we know in a matter of stolen children."

"That couple is still married," Kim clarified. "They had their kids taken by the courts because they--that is, the parents--were arrested for dissent. We have yet to find out if they'll get anywhere in reclaiming the kids now that they're out of prison."

"I'm afraid I can't be optimistic for them," grumbled Avery Glass. "America has gone down the toilet. You, Alipang, made the right decision when you declined that offer from the triumvirate; no sense in becoming PART OF the disease. My daughter was utterly ripped off by the system. Rotten luck for her, but a lucky break for me. She arrived in town, and sought me out, mere weeks after my suicide attempt. Of course, Lenore hadn't known about my attempt before she was exiled. I'm sorry for her having to be here; but as for the effect on me, having at least one family member with me is the only thing which has kept me from relapsing into suicidal urges."

"For what it's worth," Alipang told him, "you and Lenore can visit OUR family in Wyoming anytime, and be welcome. And our family will add you to the list of persons we pray for."
 
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Chapter 23: More Cracks in the Wall

The train on which Alipang and Kim rode back was routed through Casper; after a sleepover at Eric and Cecilia's house, they would switch to a different train for the home stretch to Sussex. It was good to have a little discretionary money they could spend.

Arriving at the station on Saturday afternoon, they were not met by Alipang's parents or brother, but by Roxanne Baylor, an eleven-year-old girl from the dentist's neighborhood. "Dr. Havens," she explained, "your Dad Dr. Havens couldn't be here on time, because he was helping Mr. and Mrs. De Soto take care of some problem with the oxygen tanks. Your Mom has to cook for extra company, because there's been a surprise visit by the Wisebadgers. And your brother Terrance was needed not long ago to help put out a fire--nothing too serious, but he's busy helping the people sort out the damage now. If you don't get a pedicab right away, they say you should ride light rail to get close to the house."

As it turned out, all pedicab drivers currently on the job happened to have picked up other fares and pedalled off before Alipang and Kim finished disembarking; so they thanked Roxanne, giving her a one-peso coin for her trouble, and started walking to the nearby light-rail platform.

A man in shabby clothing came into their view, pulling a large handcart behind him and looking like a young version of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. Only, instead of cans of milk, this cart contained refuse of types which could be safely burned in an incinerator. This was how rubbish or garbage was categorized in the Enclave (and in many places outside it): easily bio-recyclable, industrially recyclable, and safely burnable. Public waste receptacles were labelled accordingly; and proper use of the respective receptacles was a rule whose observance Overseers frequently paid attention to. This man, unfamiliar to the travellers, had apparently just emptied the burnable-trash receptacles all around the train platforms, and was now hauling his cargo to an incinerator. The non-toxic ash that would remain from the burning of this trash, would go to soil-sustaining efforts.

When the cart-puller laid eyes on Kim, he began to say one thing: "Now, that's better! Were you brought here for--?" Then he changed it to: "Did the overland train just bring you, citizens? I don't think we've met." He turned his gaze toward Alipang, now looking worried.

Alipang had an unpleasant feeling about this man; but even before coming to this mild version of a gulag, he had not been in the habit of doing bodily harm to everyone who gave him an unpleasant feeling. So he simply replied, "Yes, we just arrived from Rapid City, stopping over enroute to Sussex. My name's Alipang Havens, and this is my wife Kimberly."

"Havens?" The trash collector's eyes widened, and he shrank back almost imperceptibly from the Filipino man. "Would you be the brother of a Terrance Havens?"

"Yes. I'm the adopted brother, he's the homegrown brother."

The junior Tevye grew more nervous. "I see. Would you, um, would you tell your brother something for me? Would you tell him you met the garbage man, and I've, I've been behaving myself?"

Now it was Alipang's eyes which widened--not a conspicuous sight, since his eyes weren't very big to start with--and his mouth took on an amused, good-natured smile. The smile was genuine enough that the man before him was not stampeded into panicky flight by what Alipang said next: "I know who you are! Terrance told us about you in a phone call! You're Archangel Frodo Von Spock!"

The cart-puller cringed a bit, but seemed to realize that he was not going to get beaten up. "I don't say 'Archangel' anymore. I'm just plain Frodo Von Spock. I've evolved into a phase in which I disseminate my healing vibrations more subtly."

"Okay, then, you keep doing that," Kim told the cowardly degenerate--albeit a degenerate who perhaps was learning to mend his ways. "Maybe we'll talk again sometime, about where the best and purest vibrations come from. Al, shall we move along?"
 
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