The First Love Of Alipang Havens

The exchange between Bert and Sylvia reminds me of video clip my philosophy professor showed in class yesterday. It was of an atheistic "Beyond Belief" conference several years ago, in which a female speaker was explaining how atheists deal with life after death. She said that first of all, people shouldn't be taught to like the idea of eternal life, and, secondly, we really do live after death, because our atoms recirculate through the universe. She showed pictures of distant galaxies and nebulae and tried to encourage her audience by reminding them that once, humans may have lived in those place, and now we can see the beautiful remains of the air they breathed. The class wasn't very inspired, needless to say. (Most of the students thought the idea was pretty humorous, though.)

At any rate, the Overseers' life-after-death scenarios remind me a lot of the poor woman's lecture.
 
Copperfox said:
Bert went to bed that night not _quite_ converted yet...but confirmed in a feeling he had already had for years: that exactly the wrong people were running things in America, and exactly the wrong people were locked up like lunatics.
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That's definitely true.
 
Over the next day's breakfast, Bert and the Major agreed that by splitting up they could see more of what there was to see in the Western Enclave. Yang would remain in Sussex, venturing out to nearby farms to talk to the families there about how their children were taught, and speaking with Grange volunteers as the chance presented itself. Bert, while still calling Mrs. Lathrop's house "the base camp" (and paying her for all the time till he would actually leave Wyoming altogether), would request the Energy Department helicopter to fly him west for a look at some of the mines and gas wells beyond the Powder River Basin.

The helicopter was there for Bert promptly enough that it would be possible to have lunch at some stopping point on the flight. For a little surprise, there was a fellow passenger in the helicopter ahead of him when it landed by the federal building: a light-brown-haired, not-bad-looking woman who appeared to be Bert's age or a little younger.

"You're Bert Randall from the Pacific Federation!" she declared, as if the Australian had been in doubt of this fact until she arrived to inform him. "I'm Odette Galloway, the new selectee for the post of Energy Ombudsman in the Wyoming Sector."

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Galloway." Bert would not let himself be bound to a strict requirement to address her as "Citizen." Soon they were airborne, and Odette was bombarding Bert with questions about Australia. So he essentially repeated to her the educational facts he had shared with Sylvia last night. And he was already thinking to himself that Sylvia was better company in _every_ way than Odette was.

After letting him talk for a long enough time that she could make a display of how attentively she was listening to him, Odette asked, "Is it true what they say, that Australia has five times as many women as men?"

Bert laughed, but not in a way that offended his new acquaintance. "Folks've been telling that story for longer than I've been alive! Sort of an outback urban legend, you might say. Sailors from other countries are largely to blame for spreading it, a wish-fulfillment thing. The only piece of reality supporting the story is that many Australian women--I mean decent ones, not cheap ones--used to be hugely interested in meeting American men, because it is true that a lot of Aussie men were a _teeny_ bit unappreciative of the Sheilas. We've gotten better in that area since the old days. Anyway, in the old days, Yanks coming to our ports would find good, respectable Aussie women wanting to socialize in wholesome settings, often interested in--what you would call a long-term partnering. So they _thought_ there must be a surplus of women down under."

Odette smiled at this, and held eye contact with Bert most insistently. "I can tell you this about the Enclave: what we have _here_ is a shortage of interesting MEN."

This remark set the tone for an uncomfortable flight for Bert. Being an unattached bachelor, he might have taken Odette up on her flirting had he met her under more normal circumstances; but under _these_ conditions, the more Odette told him about herself, the more it became evident that she was a willing and voluntary part of the same system which was treating Sylvia Lathrop, the Havens family, and young Debbie Gross as inferiors.

So Bert spoke amiably with Odette throughout the flight, but no more amiably than he would with a man. And when they were on the ground at a gas-well site, and had lunch together at the workers' dining facility, he resolutely refused to show any reaction to Odette's feet sliding up against his feet.
 
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When he finished eating, Bert excused himself to use the restroom, which included cleaning his mouth with a flask of dental rinse he customarily carried with him when travelling. If that young lady _weren't_ on the side of tyranny, he ruefully reflected, I would probably be cleaning my mouth with a specific idea of being more appealing to her. Not that Bert had ever been one to put fun ahead of duty. He had been working for the interests of his government, with no long breaks, for more years than the Diversity States had existed. But _some_ kind of recreation would have been welcome, if it had been something that would do no harm and would not go against his conscience. Not with _this_ Sheila, though. She had made her political allegiance abundantly clear during the helicopter flight. If he let himself do so much as talk flirtatiously with Odette Galloway, he would feel as if he were desecrating the graves of all the Christians he knew to have been murdered by the absurdly-named Campaign Against Hate.

Odette, however, was in intercept mode as soon as he came out of the restroom. "Listen, Bert--" (she had gotten the idea for herself that she was allowed to address him by his first name) "--since you're interested in talking to caregivers of children, I can walk you over to the residential block where the workers with children live. You can do your interviews while I meet with the general manager and shift supervisors of this extraction site. Then I can cook you some supper in the evening; my assigned visitor quarters have kitchen facilities." Bert wondered how many men had been the targets of the inviting look in her eyes. Not that he was one to say that women had to stay locked up in a tower until the perfect prince came looking for them; but _this_ woman impressed him as being more on the side of the wicked witches.

"Thanks a lot, Miss Galloway, but...well...it's like this, Miss Galloway. You're a really attractive woman, but I'm....There's a lady who has a kind of claim on me, someone I deeply respect..." He saw no need to tell Odette that the woman he meant was the elderly Sylvia Lathrop, that her claim on him had nothing at all to do with romantic feelings, and that right now he would rather have another talk with Sylvia about God than enjoy with Odette all the earthly pleasures ever invented. Of course, if he had found Odette morally acceptable, he might have indulged in a flirtation with her AND spoken again with Sylvia later; but Odette was disqualified. Had he been pressed too hard, Bert could even have mentioned the performance artist in Rapid City, for Ma'at Wazir was far more appealing in personality than Odette while being not greatly inferior in looks.

It was with profound relief that Bert finally managed to fend the coquette off, without seeming to have crushed her feelings. He would not be surprised if he found out that she had some target she was working on simultaneously within the local population.

Visiting several gas-worker households as planned, Bert saw that they were provided with audio-visual aids for homeschooling, centered on the use of old-fashioned analog videotape so as to accommodate the restrictions on computer technology. The video lessons, wherever they had cause to mention any subject of interest to the Fairness Party regime, naturally held fast to political correctness; but Bert picked up indications that the parents had ways to work around this and still teach their faith to the children.

The last family he visited in an official capacity was an Arapahoe family, whose members gave him his first lesson in speaking their ancestral tongue. Invited to stay for supper, Bert found that he was not the only guest. Also joining them was a sturdy, long-haired young Native American man of college age, who had arrived at the site by horseback. When Bert tried greeting the other guest in Arapahoe, the younger man said, "Thanks, I recognize that, but I'm Apache myself. My name's Henry Spafford." He shook hands with Bert. "Most of my Grange work is done back east, around Powder River and Crazy Woman Creek. But in high bear-activity season, they need more Grangers near the mountains. I've done some hunting with a local pal of mine, but today I'm delivering letters."
 
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Major Yang had a productive if not dramatic day, concluding by combining supper at a farm house with interviewing the host family about _their_ approach to teaching the children. All the children of this household had some kind of work to do for the survival of the family; but all of them could recite poetry, right down to a four-year-old girl repeating centuries-old nursery rhymes. And some of the verses learned by the older children were their mother's original compositions, describing practical information about farming. For instance:

"Contour plowing's the proper motion,
So all the soil won't run to the ocean.
Make hillside furrows horizontal,
Or there won't be enough soil to fill a bottle."

These mnemonic rhymes were particularly impressive to the Chinese visitor. Since rhyming also existed in Chinese poetry, the Major could imagine translating the farm wife's little poems into Mandarin.

They invited him to stay overnight; but this house had no telephone, and it belatedly occurred to Yang that he had not learned how to call into the local telephone service from his cellphone. So, not wanting to worry Mrs. Lathrop, he decided to recross the six-kilometer distance to Sussex, although his ride up had been on a horse-drawn wagon and was not available to return by night. "I can run that distance without raising a sweat," he assured his hosts.

"But can you outrun wolves?" asked the father of the family. "We've heard 'em howling the last two nights."

"Thank you for your concern, but I don't need to outrun them," said Yang, pointing to his sidearm. "I'll be crossing open land where they can't surprise me, and I told you I have night-vision enhancement to my eyes. And my ammunition is expanding bullets; any hit will kill or disable."

So it was that the security officer from Beijing set off across the fields alone, trotting as fast as was consistent with watching out not to step in prairie-dog holes. The wolves came after him in the emptiest stretch of his route, with the sparse lights of Sussex not yet in sight. But the wolves knew nothing about somatic-enhancement technology.

There were three in front of him and two behind. He wouldn't need even the whole of the one magazine issued to him. He only paused to make sure he hadn't missed seeing any extra pack members, and to make sure these were not domestic dogs. Then it was one bullet into the foremost wolf of the three ahead, spin around to shoot both of the wolves behind, and spin back for the remaining two. The last of these two to die fell down lifeless three meters away from the Major. "Good karma that there weren't six of you," Yang muttered, swinging his gaze around even as he spoke, in case there _might_ be a sixth wolf.

There wasn't. Yang went more slowly from there, not because he was tired or emotionally shaken, but so that he would be more likely to hear if any Overseers came to investigate an instance of gunfire that they must surely have picked up on sensors. None came as far as he could tell.

For an instant, his policeman's mind weighed the notion that those wolves could have been purposely _brought_ to the area... But no, anyone planning harm to Yang would have had no way of knowing that he would be passing on foot through the wolf pack's hunting ground; and if they had wanted him to die by the fangs of wolves, they should have given him dud ammunition in his pistol.

So those wolves did not represent anyone's plan to kill Yang Sung-Kuo in particular; they only represented the Fairness Party's callous indifference to the lives of internal exiles in general.

Continuing on, Yang wondered whether any of the locals might have use for five wolf carcasses. Probably not. But just by lying there, the slain wolves would offer a carrion meal to other meat-eaters, diverting _those_ beasts from raiding farm livestock for awhile.
 
When Yang found his way back to Sylvia's neighborhood, it was to see Sylvia herself watching for his arrival at the head of her street.

"Mister Yang, thank God you're all right! Are you the sort of fellow who has to look for adventures? I got a phone call, not ten minutes ago, from one of the Agriculture office girls on duty at the federal building. She had received a message from the Overseer outpost, that they had watched you by satellite imaging, shooting a whole pack of wolves as they rushed you!"

"Well, yes, I did. Them or me, you know. I owe my compliments to the manufacturer of my borrowed sidearm; it handles very smoothly."

"Anyway, the office girl said that the satellite-view monitors said that they could tell you weren't harmed; that's why no Overseers were sent out to you. But they say someone will drop over tomorrow, to replace your spent cartridges."

"Kind of them. But I'm sorry you were alarmed; here I thought I was going to _spare_ you from worry by being back tonight."

"Oh, bless you, youngster!" The old widow surprised herself, and surprised her lodger still more, by impulsively hugging him. "Since you _weren't_ hurt, it's for the good that you came back. There was also a call from Mister Randall. But come on, let's get indoors, I'm a bit chilly." So they began covering the last few dozen meters to the Lathrop house.

"What did Randall have to say?"

"Just that he's leaving the gas-extraction site sooner than he had expected to. Said he didn't feel like staying any longer than he could avoid. A Grange volunteer, one of Alipang's buddies, was there, and Mister Randall borrowed a horse from the Arapahoe family he'd had supper with, so he and the Grange man could ride out that night to a campsite. Mister Randall will accompany Henry, that's the volunteer, all day tomorrow, to get to meet the people Henry will be seeing."

"All right, thank you. I suppose I'll hear more about it when Randall gets back." Arriving at the house, the Major opened the door for his hostess.

Inside, Sylvia asked if Yang would like some herbal tea before sleeping.

"Yes, I would. And while you're making it, allow me to ask you a question."

"Shoot." This word was hardly out of her mouth before laughter followed it. "Maybe I should have used a different word."

Yang was a man who seldom laughed, but at least he smiled. Then: "Citizen Lathrop, you're too smart a lady NOT to know that it was MY country which was responsible for you American dissenters being confined in this territory that the Trevette administration filled with predators. Someone like you could have been eaten by those wolves. Why don't you hate me? I know you're not _hiding_ hatred, you Westerners aren't skillful enough at hiding emotions. I can tell that you really _don't_ hate me. So why don't you?"

Sylvia was unperturbed by the blunt question; had Yang known it, she had been spoken to far less courteously by Pinkshirts, back in the transitional months when the Enclave had been in the process of being marked off. "I have several excellent reasons for not hating you, Mister Yang. For one, it was the Campaign Against Hate, a totally homegrown blight, which had begun doing violence to believers even _before_ your country used its leverage over America's international debts. It's quite likely that the Pinkshirts would have murdered _more_ Christians and Jews than they did, if your government hadn't urged the milder option of segregating us.

"Also, you're a scholar. Obviously you've had military training, but I understand everyone in China gets that. As a scholar, you aren't responsible _even_ for whatever your government by its own initiative may have contributed to our persecution. And I have hopes that whoever sees or hears the report you may give about our people in the Enclave, will become _less_ inclined to dehumanize us."

The Major nodded slowly. "So far, I can find _only_ good things to say about you exiles...provided someone will in fact listen to me. It isn't giving away too much if I tell you that those I work for are thinking all the time about the role of religious believers in our own society. Except for the radical-Muslim separatists, all religions appear to be behaving well. So part of our task is to look at strongly religious communities outside of Greater China, to get a better idea how typical, how dependable, this good behavior is."

"When it's _actually_ practiced, Christianity can be counted on to produce law-abiding, civilized people." What had stirred itself in Sylvia last night--something Bert had not told Yang about--was again active in the elderly saint. "Here, the water's boiling....Have you ever heard about an American Christian called William Lloyd Garrison?"

"No, I haven't."

"He was born more than two hundred years ago: not a long span of time as you Chinese view time, but ancient history to us juvenile Americans...Here's your tea; have a seat someplace. Garrison was among those who influenced Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He campaigned non-violently both for racial equality, and for women's right to vote. He is a normative example of how men conduct their lives if they _really_ believe in Jesus Christ...."

And Sylvia was in her element again, the element of communicating truth.
 
Zella said:
Yang shooting five wolves so calmly was pretty impressive!
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Imagine him being portrayed by Jet Li if a movie were made of this story. Of course, Yang had the advantage of being able to see the wolves as clearly as if he were in daylight. I would expect such technology to exist by the year 2025, though economic or medical considerations might cause it to be actually given to only a limited number of persons.
 
The nocturnal ride to the campsite was made with careful slowness, lest the horses step in holes and injure themselves, though there was some moonlight. Once made aware that Bert was carrying a gun that could slay large animals, Henry told him to stay ready to use it. The pistol did not, however, prove to be necessary. The horses did shy away from one stand of trees on the way, and Henry saw what might have been a black bear moving in the shadows there, but whatever was there didn't come any nearer. Eventually Henry fell to asking Bert questions about Australia and other distant countries which the young Apache would never get to visit.

The time thus passed pleasantly enough until they sighted the camp. Literally sighted it, for two handcrank-powered generator lanterns were lit and there was a fire besides. Gabe Ellison, an African-American Grange volunteer who was joining Henry for the current duty tour, was butchering a skinned and gutted carcass by the light of those lanterns. With Gabe was his Irish setter Clementine, who barked a greeting upon recognizing Henry by scent.

"Gabe!" Henry called. "Now I see why you didn't want to come to the gas rigs today: you were planning to have a party without me!"

"Not much of a party," Gabe answered. "The guest of honor here was no good at conversation, and he thought my horse was on the menu." Henry and Bert were now close enough to see that the dead animal was a cougar. Gabe continued, "But Clementine distracted him from the horse, and gave me a chance to use my over-and-under."

"Your what?" responded Bert. He had heard that phrase used to describe a type of rifle, but he knew that no exile would possess a rifle. "By the way, my name's Bert Randall; Henry let me come along."

"Gabe Ellison. Here's my over-and-under;" and the black man displayed a sort of double-decker crossbow. There were arrows on both strings currently--no doubt a precaution in case the smell of dead flesh might attract more carnivores. Of course, Gabe kept the weapon pointed in a safe direction. "It was mighty handy an hour ago; took both shots to kill this painter. This weapon's my pride and joy; God softened the hearts of the Overseers to make them allow me to have it."

Bert now dismounted. "I've never seen a repeating crossbow before; but yes, it must be a huge advantage to be able to get off a second shot before having to recock it."

"Charles Ingalls would have liked to have this."

"Charles who?"

Henry, now also dismounted, came to Bert's assistance. "Charles Ingalls was an American pioneer farmer, who for much of his life had only a single-shot musket for hunting. He had a daughter named Laura, who grew up to write books about their family's adventures, which is why some Americans know who Charles was. By the way, Charles was also good at getting along with Indians."

"Which is one reason why his daughter's books are out of print now," said Gabe. "The Ingalls family were Christians, and the modern establishment doesn't want any white Christians in past eras to get any credit for making friends with nonwhites. But tell me, Citizen Randall, is that an Australian accent I hear you speaking in?"

"It is, mate, so you can call me Bert. 'Citizen' is my evil twin. I don't suppose you've even heard that I was allowed into your Enclave?"

"Nope. We don't have television here, unless you count some sets only usable for playing old-style videotapes. What's up? Surely Australia isn't planning to start an Enclave like this one?"

"No, we're not. But my being here is part of a research project, about how American children are being educated these days. And I don't mind telling you, the average exile child seems to be smarter than the best your public schools can turn out in the rest of the D.S.A."

Gabe looked at Bert more closely. "Then you're a sociologist?"

"Close; I'm a language specialist. But guess what? I've also gone hunting more than once in my life. So if you like, I'm ready to assist you in whatever disposition you plan to make of that carcass."

"Good, I appreciate that. If I'd known you men would be here tonight, I would have kept the carcass whole, and had you help me to hoist it into a tree for the night. But since I thought I was on my own for the night, I went ahead and quartered this painter. So you and Henry can help me keep the fire going to smoke it. The fire will help keep away scavengers at the same time."

"So you plan to eat your guest of honor?" The thought did not shock Bert, who had been around the world many times.

"Sure do. No worse than eating possum, which some of my great-grandparents did."

Bert, Henry and Gabe had plenty to occupy them that night, and Henry stood guard for the remaining hours of darkness after all had been done that could be done tonight with the cougar meat. So it was not until the morning that Bert learned two things which somehow had not come up yet in conversation: the fact that Henry had also been an object of Odette Galloway's come-hither behavior, and the fact that Henry had been at the site of that Overseer plane crash in July.
 
Ooh, cool bow.

Is this going to give Henry a chance to find out more about what was in the plane that crashed?

Copperfox said:
Imagine him being portrayed by Jet Li if a movie were made of this story. Of course, Yang had the advantage of being able to see the wolves as clearly as if he were in daylight. I would expect such technology to exist by the year 2025, though economic or medical considerations might cause it to be actually given to only a limited number of persons.
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I don't know who that is.:p
 
Chapter 32: The Outside World Is Way, Way Out


Two days prior to Bert Randall's visit to the natural-gas extraction site, serious rioting began in the city of Cincinnati. It was not, however, a riot against federal authority, nor even a federally-prompted purge against Christians and Jews. Rather, it was a gang war between two labor unions: one for construction of buildings, the other for construction of railways. These unions, in their short history since organized labor had been redefined as part of creating the D.S.A., had repeatedly clashed over the question of whether buildings directly associated with the railroads were to be considered regular construction or railway construction. A lucrative project--lucrative, mostly, for whichever set of union bosses gained control--had been announced by the Midwest Federal District in May for the city of Cincinnati and its environs; and emotions had risen higher than usual.

Lawyers for both sides had already been arguing before the Supreme Court for months now. But recently, several members of each union had been assaulted at recreational clubs; each union had accused the other of starting the trouble; and now...

Cincinnati's Lincoln Park, with many of the nearby city blocks, was engulfed by men and women wearing the colors of the rival unions, fighting each other like animals with no consideration for gender. The prohibition of civilian firearms was not much consolation to those who were being clubbed, knifed, sprayed with caustic household products, and struck by flying chunks of pavement.

There were three main elements of law enforcement in the Diversity States. The forces of the Campaign Against Hate had no jurisdiction over this riot, because both sides had the same variety of racial backgrounds, and there was no religious motivation involved. Each federal district had its own police structure, like the Texas Rangers, or the Purity Warriors of the Muslim Cantonment (these forces being more or less answerable to the Fairness Party); and the Midwest District Police were out in force--but only to protect non-belligerent civilians and the surrounding buildings. Union members participating in the colossal brawl could be arrested by district authorities only for doing or threatening harm to targets OTHER THAN rival union members. The third main element of modern American law enforcement comprised those forces which were based neither on geography nor on ideology, but on type of mission, such as the Distribution Department's Commerce Inspectors. The current union-against-union battle fell in the sphere of a third-element force which had the last word in many of the less ideological cases:

The Diversity States Marshals' Service, which answered only to the Supreme Court.

Operations Marshal Barbara Weckerling, whose rank was held by only three other persons and was just below the Continental Marshal who ran the service, had been placed in command of the federal forces on the scene. On foot, in armored ground vehicles and in helicopters, they were making ready to use assorted non-lethal weaponry on the rioters. Letting the District Police function unhindered in getting noncombatants to safety and arresting those offenders they could arrest was a pretext for the Marshals to delay their own intervention...

But Barbara Weckerling knew a further cause for delay, a cause unknown to all but a few of the most trusted Marshals present. The Operations Marshal was waiting to hear from Supreme Court Chief Justice Sherman Lake on a highly-encrypted communications channel.

And Chief Justice Lake was waiting for something of special interest to himself.
 
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Well, that's one way to get yourself a little breathing room--let your twin problems fight to the death. :rolleyes:
 
But there's more to it than that, Glenburne....


In his private office in Washington, Sherman Lake sat at a terminal which allowed him both to stay in real-time contact with Operations Marshal Weckerling, and to follow several visual and data-stream accounts of The Battle of Cincinnati, as Weckerling had already dubbed it. This was the kind of crisis over which the Department of Labor might logically have been given authority; but some territory in the political landscape had to be kept for trial lawyers, the lawyers having been major players in the factions from which the Fairness Party had come into existence. Thus, lawyers had been front and center as long as courtrooms had been the battlefields. Now, it was becoming a job for that element of law enforcement to which the lawyers had the closest ties.

The data flow included the reporting of cameras and thermal-sensor devices that were looking for signs of anyone getting killed in the fighting. No deaths were yet reported, though some wounded rioters might have died if not for the proximity of District Police paramedics. Chief Justice Lake had decided that seventeen was a good ceiling number--a number which would seem random, not chosen by design. If there were as many as seventeen fatalities, he would have to order the Marshals to act even if he had not yet received the optimum answer to a certain hovering question. In the absence of deaths, he had set a time limit after which he would order the Marshals into action.

Besides the handful of senior Marshals in his confidence, only a few other close allies knew what was really going on. These included two of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, Fatima Ruskin and Wanda Shang--who were also seated in front of online terminals in the same shielded office.

Chief Justice Lake, as he watched events--noting that at last two deaths were confirmed, though not yet knowing the affiliation of the casualties--was sipping a rare and well-aged cognac which had been given to him by an officer of the railway-construction union, and smoking a cigar of genetically-modified tobacco which was almost perfectly non-toxic, this from a box given to him by an officer of the building-construction union. The competing efforts of both unions to buy preference from him, Ruskin and Shang had been one of the main reasons why the litigation had gone on for this long. Sherman Lake was marvellously eloquent when speechifying about how evil the United States had been for letting lobbyists buy members of Congress--but Lake had never waited for bribes to find him, he had always aggressively solicited them.

If the Supreme Court of the Diversity States had decided between the two unions back in June, or indeed even as late as last week, this crude gang war would not have erupted. But the three bribe-taking Justices had been enjoying themselves raking in the money and gifts, while the other six Justices were obliviously enjoying their own sense of importance, until rank-and-file members of both unions had lost patience with the lack of results.

The primary information being monitored by Fatima Ruskin and Wanda Shang was financial. There were two secret bank accounts in Brazil, to both of which all three of these Justices had equal access. One account, being watched by Shang, was receiving online deposits from the president of the railway-construction workers; the other, watched by Ruskin, was receiving them from the president of the building-construction workers.

Unknown to any of the workers who were mauling each other in Cincinnati right now, THIS was the actual fight.

"Another fifty thousand pesos from Building Construction! Just when I was counting them out."

"Railway Construction's putting in twenty thousand, which added to their previous total bumps them ahead again, but only by five thousand."

Half to himself and half to his two confederates, Sherman Lake mused, "I wonder whether they would be trying harder if we were letting them each SEE what the other was offering?"

More minutes passed, and another five of the battling workers died. The railroad workers were pulling ahead in damage inflicted: it was now confirmed that only two of the deaths (one early and one recent) had been on the railway side, though non-fatal injury seemed more equally distributed.

The time mark was reached before the maximum death count. "Totals from both unions?" the Chief Justice hastily barked.

"Four million, three hundred thirty thousand pesos from Building Construction," said Justice Ruskin. "Four million, two hundred fifty-five thousand pesos from Railway Construction," said Justice Shang, "and no sign of them offering any more."

"Now we know who is in the right," Chief Justice Lake declared in his famous judicial voice. To the Operations Marshal, then: "Weckerling! Proceed with Railway Construction as target! Railway Construction is the aggressor!"

"Acknowledged, Railway is the perps;" and Barbara Weckerling sent her Marshals into action.

The riot-control weapons being used were not very discriminating, in a mob of people who were as closely intertangled as revellers at an orgy; but that was all right, since the weapons were designed to inflict no lasting damage. Infrasonic bombs were dropped into the crowd, their vibrations shaking everyone up and disrupting their actions; then pacifying gas, essentially the same as what was put in chemtrails only in a stronger dose, was released. Wherever it WAS possible to handle rioters individually, building-construction workers were treated as innocent bystanders; and those of their union who were temporarily incapacitated were informed of their innocent status as soon as possible.

"Are we going to take it as far as having the Railway Construction President arrested for this?" asked Ruskin, the least senior of the three Justices.

"I wouldn't think so," replied Shang. "The poor fellow deserves to get SOME benefit for his money."
 
On the outskirts of Onitsha, Nigeria, many kilometers away from the reconstructed Vatican, a modest decorative fence had been placed around a modest plot of ground. On that ground, two American-born men wearing outdated uniforms of the United States Army and Marine Corps were preparing to hoist on a flagstaff the first United States flag to be flown in any official capacity anywhere in the world since the abolition of the United States. The flagstaff was on a paved section; the two military veterans were avoiding stepping on the unpaved ground.

Representatives of several news agencies were watching, and so was a diverse crowd--which included Brendan Hyland with his wife and children. A number of other Americans, men and women, began to take turns approaching the fence from every side that bordered the unpaved portion of the enclosure.

First of all, a man opened a box, leaned over the low fence, and poured about four liters of loose soil onto the ground. "This earth was part of Arlington Cemetery," he said in a strong, projecting voice. "Workers who were forced by their unions to pave the cemetery over saved some of the soil, in hopes that it would one day become part of something freshly memorializing American patriots."

Next a woman, wearing a T-shirt with a U.S. Navy anchor emblem, displayed a small metal wheel. "This was a valve wheel on board the United States battleship Arizona. When the Arizona Memorial was abolished, and the sunken ship itself was consigned to recycling, one underwater worker was able to detach and carry away this piece of the ship." Then she tossed the wheel onto the center of the unpaved space inside the fence.

Another woman opened a canister, pouring more dirt into the enclosure. "This soil came from two other military cemeteries which were shut down the same way Arlington was shut down--one in California, shut down shortly before Aztlan was founded, the other in Missouri, shut down only last year."

A teenage boy came inside the fence, and from the edge of the paved section he tenderly poured ashes from an urn onto the ground. "These are the ashes of my grandfather, who was a chief petty officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. Half his ashes, really; he asked that half of them be scattered at sea, and they have been. He wanted the other half to be brought to some place where American heroes were still honored."

A man, older than anyone else in the ceremony, flung in three handfuls of cartridge casings in different calibers. "Most of those bullets were fired on a shooting range used by Air Force commandoes, but some were fired in battle in Kuwait and Iraq."

There were another two dozen persons with reverential offerings to the new memorial site. When all of them had had their moment, the flag detail began very slowly raising the colors. Brendan, and many others like him, stood at attention. And Father Dunak Okigbo signalled a small choir to begin singing:

"To fallen soldiers let us sing,
Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing;
Our broken brothers let us bring
To the mansions of the Lord..."

These were the words of Randall Wallace's song from the old Vietnam War movie "We Were Soldiers." The singers, some Nigerian and some American, did the song full justice; Brendan was not the only veteran weeping as they sang. The flag-raising was timed so that the colors would be in place at the top of the flagstaff just as the song ended. This ended the formal ceremony.

A middle-aged woman in the uniform of a U.S. Air Force first lieutenant stepped up now as a spokesperson, talking to all the journalists about how this little monument would serve to acknowledge the American roots of emigrants who had now settled in to be productive citizens of Nigeria, and yada yada yada.....

Todd Carpenter, the former police detective whose acquaintance Brendan had first made at the secret meeting which Father Dunak and Colonel Parnescu had arranged, fell in alongside the Hyland family as they walked away. "It isn't much," Todd sighed; "but we do owe thanks to the Nigerians for permitting us to have this. They could have refused."

When he was certain that no reporter would hear them, Brendan told his friend, "This whole event, though it does genuinely honor our dead, is also a way to trick our enemies. All through the slow decline of the United States, it grew more and more typical for us to build memorials, and light candles, and play guitars, and bring flowers, and write little poems....INSTEAD OF taking action against whoever was attacking us. You could almost say that we died of sentimentality. So let our enemies think that we STILL don't know how to do anything more than teary-eyed gestures. Let them think that today's event is a farewell gesture, and our lives from this point will be resigned and obscure. Let it be the LAST thing they expect, that even with our America gone, we would regain the will to DO something in the name of all that our America stood for."
 
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As ever, Zella, I appreciate your active interest.

The character of Sherman Lake, and others like him in my story, serve to illustrate a sober truth which is too little understood. We hear MORE than enough talk about "special interests" corrupting the purity of government; and it can make us forget that government itself IS ITS OWN special interest. In the absence of a solid moral code, those who rule in any nation WILL be selfish, making every decision for their own personal advantage and gain, regardless of who else gets hurt.
 
There were numerous federal-district police officers in evidence on the mag-lev train platform nearest to the Salisbury residence, along with Department of Transportation inspectors. Since yesterday, the media had been full of reports about railway-construction workers having been responsible for massive assaults upon innocent building-construction workers; thus, law enforcement was keeping an eye on workers in all segments of the railway industry.

"Maybe we shouldn't have brought Grant and Irene," remarked Evan Rand to Dan Salisbury. "Things look a little tense around here." The two men and their wives had brought with them one child of each family--in Summer and Evan's case, the _only_ child of theirs whom they had gotten back up to now. Cecilia and Tommy Salisbury were at school; the recently-liberated Grant Rand was not yet inprocessed for his new class, while Chilena had obtained a day off for Irene on the pretext of how wonderfully edifying it would be for the child to behold Pinkshirts at work.

For they were informed that it would be three female Pinkshirts who would be escorting six-year-old Grace Rand home from Vermont.

"No one's grievance is against children this week," Dan assured his friend; and Chilena added, "Remember why we brought these kids in the first place." On the heels of her words, Grant said, "No more bad dreams for Gracie!" Both of the small children present in this welcoming party had been told that Grant's twin sister had been suffering nightmares in Vermont--which was true enough; and it had been Dan's idea that the first persons to greet the returning Grace should be children her own age, less intimidating than adults. For Dan could not be sure that Grace would trust even her own parents at first, after the amount of abuse she had endured from grownups.

Summer hunkered down to coach her son and her friends' daughter one more time; she kept her maimed left hand out of Grant's view as much as possible, for he had not yet gotten used to that. "Listen again, kids. The train will pull up right _there,_ and I'll stand facing the door of the Pinkshirts' car. Irene's female caregiver will be with me. Grant, your male caregiver will stand to the left, and Irene, your male caregiver will stand to the right. You two children will walk four steps toward Grace, _only_ four steps; don't go any closer to the train than the Pinkshirts will be. You two will be the first ones to say hello to Grace, but we grownups will let the Pinkshirts know that we're the ones picking her up. Don't _touch_ Grace until she touches you first, but smile at her and tell you're glad to see her."

"I don't _remember_ ever seeing Grace before," Irene pointed out. "What color's her hair?"

"Almost like yours, honey, just a little lighter; and longer than yours, if they didn't cut it. We'll see soon."

All four adults felt the agony of suspense, but Summer felt it more than the other three combined. Chilena, for her part, did the most continuous and coherent praying. The train they were waiting for was announced; it came up alongside the platform, with the reserved Pinkshirt coach easily distinguishable; the doors opened. Summer began waving hello before she could possibly tell whether her little daughter could see her yet. Waving with her right hand, of course.

There, flanked and backed by the women in pink, was Grace Rand!

Grant and Irene advanced as instructed; but already at the first glimpse, it looked as if Grace would not need their precautions. She didn't look at all frightened of the adults waiting to meet her--because she looked as if she had no ability left TO be afraid, or to have any strong emotion.

Summer flung a worried look at Evan, but he hastily told her, "It's all right, they just sedated her a bit."

The Pinkshirts took no notice of the parents of the child they had escorted. One of them recognized Chilena, and said to her, "Citizen Salisbury, are you ready to accept custody on behalf of your commune?" Answering yes, Chilena put one of her eyes against an iris-reader the woman offered her: the modern equivalent of signing for a delivery. Grant and Irene allowed nothing to stop them from approaching Grace as per the plan; although Grace did not speak, she took hold of her brother's hand, which Irene interpreted as permission to clasp Grace's remaining hand. The junior members of the welcoming committee led the tranquilized girl toward her mother, while Chilena was making sure the Pinkshirts were satisfied of proper procedures. The trio of harpies did not bother speaking lies about how splendidly Grace had been treated; enough lies on that subject had appeared in written form before now, but the Rands and the Salisburys knew the truth.

While Evan praised his son for doing his part perfectly, and Dan did the same for his daughter, Summer gathered the unresisting Grace into her arms, weeping uncontrollably. Soon all other eyes in the group were upon this mother-daughter tableau. For nearly a full minute, Grace showed no reaction to her mother's embrace; but the prayers of Evan, Dan and Chilena were not being ignored...for presently, though still not speaking, Grace passed her own little arms around her mother's neck.
 
Ambassador-At-Large Samantha Ford had finally made it to the hospital in Boston where her son was a patient again. By the time she came, nanotechnic brain treatments appeared to have conclusively overcome Daffodil's convulsions; but convulsions had been replaced by a bottomless despondency, in which the boy could scarcely be persuaded to eat.

Cassandra Jefferson had proceeded straight to the Rainbow House, where she would be acting in Samantha's place at a meeting with Vice-President Anselmo and the just-returned President Trevette. Cassandra knew everything Samantha knew about the allegation of a takeover conspiracy by the Supreme Court. So Samantha had no excuse not to pay attention to her son; and for once, she wasn't _trying_ to find excuses for neglecting him.

"Daffodil?" No response to that. No response to her touching his face.

She tried again: "Bioproduct--no, _son,_ it's your _mother_ here. I'm back from Canada." Hearing the words "your mother" seemed to make some impression on the boy; his eyes, at least, now focussed on her. So she continued, "I hear the Isosceles Triangles have made a great start in the Anarchathlon season. Even though you haven't been able to be there, I know that you did a lot before now to enhance their physical fitness..." She trailed off, as it became visible that her son was struggling to find a reply.

When she tried another touch, on his arm this time, Daffodil finally spoke:

"Fitness. It can mean muscle tone and aerobic endurance. It can also mean qualification for a job or assignment. Or suitability to be in certain company. Even, sometimes, the abstract rightness of a course of action. Where is my fitness? Where, to shorten it by one syllable, do I fit?"

"Daffy, son, you can fit _anyplace;_ you can do anything you put your mind to."

"Maybe. But do it _for_ whom? Do it _with_ whom? Why do anything myself, when I don't get to _have_ a self? Nobody on Earth _dislikes_ me as far as I can tell, but nobody at the Tolerance House is _allowed_ to like me positively as an individual. Pardon me, is the word 'individual' hate speech? I can't seem to remember the regulations on that point."

It suddenly struck the mother that she had not kissed her son one single time in the past eight years. Daffodil Ford had not been kissed by his mother, nor encouraged to kiss her, for a longer time than the Diversity States had yet existed. Now she leaned in to kiss his cheek; but the teenager showed no reaction, favorable or unfavorable. "Of _course_ you're an individual," she told him; "there are already Party officials who know your name, and who predict great things for your political career."

"Does a career come with a life?" Daffodil asked. "I'm not allowed to have any close friends, male or female; I'm lucky if I see you for one day out of two weeks; and I still don't know who my male chromosome-source was."

"Daffy, it's for your good that you've been taught not to think in those old patriarchal tribal parameters; your father is the collective!"

The boy frowned. "Mother, do you realize _why_ I got better for awhile after Bert Randall visited me? It wasn't because he renewed my oneness with the collective! It was because he was being a friend to ME, specifically to me! As if I would matter, as if I would count for something, even _without_ any collective to be absorbed in."

Samantha came close to following an impulse: an impulse to use her prestige to give her son some kind of job on her own staff. It would mean they _would_ see each other daily, and the boy still would be learning the ways of the Fairness Party. This might be the missing remedy--! But then she realized that now, of all times, was not _fitting_ for such a move. Because now, unlike other times, there was a possibility of her being in physical peril because of the situation she had been drawn into, and if Daffodil were in her immediate vicinity, any peril to her would be peril to him.

She felt like an idiot saying it, but the one thing she could come up with to say to her son was, "Don't overstress yourself, dear. I'll come by again this evening, and we'll talk some more."
 
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