The First Love Of Alipang Havens

Copperfox said:
But Leroy Lincoln, a forceful man when he had to be, did not allow Freya's video record to be tampered with before the raw footage had been made known to authorities in the city, and transmitted unaltered to other authorities in Kansas City. Still views of the second group of Aztlano jets enabled confirmation that they had been carrying live bombs.
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Good for Leroy!
 
Characters like Leroy Lincoln, who don't have much onstage time, are in the story for the purpose of showing that the cause of truth is never the responsibility of only one hero or heroine; MANY warriors are needed for that fight. Emilio and his comrades foiled the physical attack on Kansas; Gloria Cervantes and HER comrades provided information which helped make the defense successful; and Leroy has ensured that, in the current incident, the lying party-line journalists won't be able to reverse the roles of good guys and bad guys.
 
Chapter 39: Cancer and Courtship

In a part of the North Dakota Sector which no one in the Havens family had visited, an elderly but brilliant thoracic surgeon, who was a Quaker by upbringing, had been settled some weeks previously. He had been arrested for protesting against persons his age (including his ailing wife) being euthanized; he would have been either quietly terminated himself, or else confined in a Self-Esteem Center, if some Pinkshirt had not noted that the Western Enclave exile population had no surgeon of his caliber. It was a plus that the surgeon was old enough to remember procedures that had been done with much lower technology than was now the standard. So Barney Jamison had been sent where he could be useful; and as a bone tossed to his feelings, he had been allowed to carry with him an urn containing the ashes of his wife Melissa.

Now, Eric, Cecilia and Terrance Havens, with a lately-returned Harmony and Pastor Abraham Zondei, sat inside the Casper train station--the October winds today being a bit too brisk to encourage unnecessary loitering outdoors. Dr. Jamison was expected to arrive today, so as to perform tomorrow the implantation of the artificial gills which had been fabricated for Miguel De Soto. Bert Randall had flown up to North Dakota to kill two birds with one stone: briefly to interview a few more exile families up there about their educational measures, and then to accompany the surgeon on the southwestward railway trip.

"Doctor Jamison's a man I never heard of before this situation came up," the pastor was remarking to his friends. "And no wonder, with his being way up at the north end. Why did they place him there, instead of in a more populated location? Eric, do you know?"

"From what I hear, it was decided by circumstances," the dentist replied; "that's circumstances spelled G-O-D-apostrophe-S W-I-L-L. On the day Jamison was being inprocessed in Rapid City, word came that an off-duty Overseer in the North Dakota Sector had been terribly mauled by a black bear while hiking. The one full-time surgeon assigned to the government hospital was away on a vacation at the time, so Dr. Jamison was flown to the outpost infirmary where the patient was. He saved the patient's life, and the Overseer Captain for that sector said he wanted Jamison to be housed in that area permanently. The Deputy Commander granted the request."

Cecilia smiled. Her ability to smile had been impaired ever since being forcibly transplanted to the Enclave; but it was refreshed lately by her pride in Harmony's aggressive efforts on behalf of Mr. De Soto. "I heard something, too, from Dalbir, the lady working with the Merchandise Service: she was told by a customer in Rapid City that the Overseers' own surgeon knew Dr. Jamison by reputation, and he didn't want Jamison in the same city, making him look inferior."

"I can believe that," said Pastor Zondei. "The very spirit of government monopoly."

"Since I have no part in the surgery," Terrance put in, "I hope I can corner Mr. Randall for some conversation. Harmony says he has lots of interesting anecdotes to tell; and ANY foreigner visiting us in here is a once-in-a-lifetime windfall."

Harmony leaned into her brother for a side-hug, while telling the pastor, "Since I got home, Terrance has been teasing me about my being the one who gets to have all the fun."

"Well, you do!" laughed Terrance, and kissed his sister while he laughed. "I would also like to ask Dr. Jamison if chest surgery did anything to prepare him for an operation on someone's neck."

Eric tapped his son on the shoulder that wasn't crowded up against Harmony. "If you weren't such a hard worker at the farms, you would have been there one night when your Mom and I were talking about that. I told her that John Wisebadger had heard that Jamison does have some ear-nose-throat experience. He got it back before medical professionals were so strictly confined to narrow specialties as they are today."

"As they are outside the fence, you mean," Cecilia corrected him. "Exile physicians have been crossing specialties by necessity for as long as there've been exiles."

"Not to mention Alipang becoming a Grange paramedic as well as a dentist," said Harmony.

Talk went on in this fashion until the train pulled up. "Cecilia, relax," Eric told his wife; "and Harmony, stay here and make sure she relaxes. I don't want your mother out in the chill more than she needs to be." Eric seldom said anything explicit about this, but he perpetually dreaded that the health effects of depression might be wrecking Cecilia's disease resistance.

Thus, Eric and Terrance Havens, with Abraham Zondei, ventured outdoors onto the platform, to look and see which cars of the train were passenger cars and which were freight cars. (Not enough exiles travelled regularly by rail to warrant having trains be devoted exclusively to passenger traffic.) Soon they beheld a man emerging who matched the description of Barney Jamison: tall, thin, and long-faced. The instant Terrance looked at the surgeon, he thought of Puddleglum from the Chronicles of Narnia.
 
Eric hurried to meet Dr. Jamison, extending his hand. "Welcome to Casper, Doctor! I'm Eric Havens; this is my son Terrance, and this is our pastor, Abraham Zondei. My wife Cecilia and daughter Harmony are inside the station."

Barney Jamison smiled faintly as he shook hands with all three men. "Pleased to meet you all. I hope at some time to meet Alipang Havens as well. I find it remarkable that I'm being afforded this rare opportunity to advance the level of health care on this reservation... because a dentist had a fistfight with a Chinese academician whom he wasn't even angry at. Not exactly the form God's providence has usually taken with me; but that's a discussion for another time."

"God keeps us watching for His benevolent surprises in here," Pastor Zondei told the surgeon.

"Sir, is there anything I can help you carry to the pedicabs?" Terrance asked.

"As a matter of fact, yes." Jamison handed four baggage-claim tickets to the young man. "Both ordinary luggage, and equipment cases. Don't be afraid to carry the equipment, it's very carefully packed. The baggage car is that one back there; that train crewman will turn the stuff over to you, and I'll join you as soon as the others get out here."

"Others, plural?" said the pastor, as Terrance was heading for the baggage car. "Did someone besides Mr. Randall come down with you from North Dakota?"

"One extra from North Dakota, and three from South Dakota. Our first extra person acquired was a general practicioner named Ursula Flint. She wanted--look, here she is now." A drab-looking, mousy-haired woman, hardly matching the colorful name, stepped out of the same coach the surgeon had ridden in, carrying a small overnight bag.

"Dr. Havens?" She offered a hand that was unusually large for a woman's hand, and her handshake might have been uncomfortably tight for a man with weaker hands than Eric had. "I'm Ursula Flint; you'll understand why I couldn't bear to miss assisting at so uncommon an operation, performed by such a master surgeon."

"I did promise her she could assist," Dr. Jamison added. "She also plans to take back the oxygen equipment, once Mr. De Soto is able to live without it."

"A powerplant worker in North Dakota has lung cancer now, and will need to be on oxygen in the near future," Dr. Flint explained.

"I still don't see Mr. Randall," noted Pastor Zondei.

Both of the visiting doctors glanced behind them, after which Ursula Flint said, "Mr. Randall's new friends from Rapid City were busy with something as I disembarked."

Eric was mystified. "New friends? From the way you say it, I don't suppose they're more doctors."

Dr. Flint moved closer to Eric, the better to whisper. "Far from being doctors, I think those three need a doctor, and I don't mean for their lungs. The mother especially."

"A mother?" Pastor Zondei echoed. But there was no more time, and thus no more need, for him or Eric to express curiosity further; the answers to their questions now began to take shape.

A beautiful fourteen-year-old girl, and an eleven-year-old boy who bore an unmistakable family resemblance to her, exited the train, also carrying overnight bags. They were black-haired and more or less olive-skinned, possibly reflecting Middle Eastern ancestry. Each was wearing a warm sheepskin jacket which looked brand-new; but on each one's head was what looked like an attempt to imitate with cheap materials the winged headdresses of ancient Egyptians.

The boy called over his shoulder, "Mother, the people are waiting for us!" His sister, looking at the two doctors with whom she had been travelling, thus also saw the welcoming committee. Instead of speaking, she suddenly broke into some belly-dancing movements; the sheepskin jacket reduced the sensual effect, but that was just as well in the minds of the dentist and the pastor who were thus being introduced to the teenage performance artist. Seemingly knowing when to cut it short and not overdo it, the girl did a final twirl, and then gave a curtain-call bow. After which--her mother finally came into view, tightly grasping the arm of Bert Randall.

The mother, by her appearance, could not be any older than forty: thus, little if any older than the Australian she was latched onto. She was pleasant-looking; had probably looked just like her daughter when she was a teenager. Keeping her warm was a new jacket like those her children had. The first words of hers to be audible to those on the platform were addressed to the man she was clinging to:

"...at least eighteen pesos for that performance. And it put the idea in their heads that there can be entertainment on a train. I still want to contribute something." Not yet taking any notice of Eric and Pastor Zondei, she halted her forward stride; thus Bert, unwilling to drag her onward by force, also halted. The woman's tone became pleading, as she looked him in the eye. "Please don't be angry at me, darling."

"I'm not angry," Bert assured her. "I just don't want you to risk any trouble for yourself, until we've got you and the kids well out of danger. If the--" But he got no farther with what he meant to say, for the woman's arms urgently pulled at him till she drew his face into kissing range, and she began kissing him with what seemed a rare depth of passion. As for Bert: although he did not respond with quite as much fervor...he was definitely kissing back.

Even Cecilia and Harmony, able through the windows to see much of what was happening, were propelled out of the station building by curiosity. They had heard nothing of the Australian scholar being romantically involved with anyone, let alone with an exile woman whom he could not have known for very long.
 
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Neither of the peculiar woman's children showed any sign of displeasure at their mother finding a new relationship; if anything, they looked happy for her. And anyone who knew that Bert Randall was a prosperous and generous man, and knew that he had passed through the one city in the Enclave with really good shopping, could deduce how the woman and her children might have acquired their new cold-weather garments. But as Bert's hands began to roam a bit on this woman who seemed to welcome the caresses wholeheartedly, the boy tapped his mother's shoulder and hissed: "Mother! Those people want to know who we ARE!"

The mother shook herself out of her erotic trance, though not out of Bert's embrace. Looking at those who were looking at her, she said, "I'm sorry. My name is Ma'at Wazir, and these are my children by a former marriage. I say 'former,' because my first husband came close to making me a _formerly_ alive person. My daughter's name is Meretseger, and my son is Montu."

Meretseger did another twirl, with some arm-weaving, followed by a strange pose, as soon as her name was spoken. Her brother, once he was introduced, spoke pragmatically: "I hope we're not imposing. Which one of you is Eric Havens?"

"That would be me," said Eric, and shook hands with the boy. Then, to Bert: "Mr. Randall, have you been able to make any advance lodging arrangements for these unannounced fellow travellers? Not that we mind their being here, but John and Felicity Waddell were only expecting to board you and Dr. Jamison."

"No, there wasn't time," Bert admitted.

Meretseger finally confirmed that she had a voice. "Please, Dr. Havens, we couldn't stay in Rapid City." Then she shot a "Did I say too much?" glance at her mother, and fell silent.

Ma'at did not keep them waiting for more. "I couldn't _bear_ to be separated from Bert. Did he tell you about the first time he and I met, at the Rushmore Mall? He didn't know my children and me, but he fed us all, talked with us as if we were worth talking to, and didn't ask for anything in return for his kindness." She locked eyes with the Australian, who still had his arms at least loosely around her, before continuing. "I've been in love with him since that day, and I'll love him until I die." A short kiss punctuated this avowal of love. "And when I saw him again in Rapid City...I told him."

The smile on Bert's face was hard to read; it didn't seem false, but neither did it adequately tell what was in his thoughts. "You believers don't realize just how exceptional you are in the modern world; for you, true love is a matter of course. But in the outside world, one seldom finds a person who has it in her to love, to give herself, SO honestly and unreservedly."

Ma'at's eyes drilled into those of Eric and Pastor Zondei; then she faced her lover again and said, "Sweetheart, they're going to want us to sleep separately."

"We won't be any trouble," interjected her son. "We've slept in storage rooms, tool sheds, and outdoors on piles of pulled-up grass and weeds."

Abraham Zondei, though not knowing whether the Wazir family was already aware of his being a minister, decided he ought to set them at ease about their apprehensions of rejection. Shaking hands with Montu and then Meretseger, he modulated his rich, warm voice for the best soothing effect. "You don't need to worry. I'm Abraham Zondei, pastor of The Church of the Faithful; I know my congregation, and I can speak for them when saying that you folks will have whatever help you need."

Dr. Jamison called attention back to himself by saying, "Not that I'm against either love or hospitality; but don't we need to get ME and my equipment to where we're supposed to be?"
 
The realization that guest-logistics were at issue energized Cecilia. Stepping forward, she became the first person on the platform to coax Ma'at sufficiently loose from Bert for a handshake. "I'm a mother, too; I'm Eric's wife Cecilia. If need be, we can and will do some shuffling to accommodate you and your children ourselves." She caught the eye of the physician from North Dakota. "Dr. Flint, the Waddells' house is the first place we'll be going from here. We'll ask John and Felicity if they can take you as well as Dr. Jamison and Mr. Randall; I know they have a spare bedroom on a different floor from where the men were going to sleep." Returning her focus to Ma'at: "There's a lady near us for whom Harmony, that's my daughter here, does housework once a week. She would allow Harmony to sleep over a night or two at her house, which would vacate Harmony's room. Then your daughter could sleep in Harmony's bed--it's a single bed; and we would give you our one regular guest room. Your son could share my son's room, in fact have it to himself if Terrance goes to sleep over at one of the farms he works at some of the time..."

Once additional pedicabs had been secured for people and luggage--with Bert Randall paying for all the riders--the convoy headed for the Waddells' house, where Reuben Torvill would be waiting to meet the surgeon. A lunch would be provided for the number of bodies originally expected to be there, after which Dr. Jamison would be brought to the hospital where the surgery on Mr. De Soto would take place, there to lock up his equipment until it was needed. But while Felicity could probably make her larder stretch for one more guest, Ursula Flint, it would be asking too much to expect her also to feed the Wazirs without warning. So the Havens family would assume responsibility for feeding them; and Pastor Zondei offered to bring over some bread and smoked venison from his house.

In the forming up of the caravan, Eric made a point of occupying the same cab as Bert, while Cecilia persuaded Ma'at to ride with her. Though the erstwhile missionary had no authority over Bert, and had never met Ma'at before, he still was compelled to try to find out what was _really_ going on.

Bert, however, was actually _ahead_ of Eric. When they got underway, the Australian handed Eric a folded sheet of paper on which he had written a message earlier--meaning that Bert had expected to have to explain about his abrupt romance. Being as inconspicuous as possible about the fact that he was reading something, Eric perused the following:


Ma'at means it about loving me, and I feel I can really love her too. But time later for that. The practical: Overseer Deputy Commander began taking advantage of her just after first time I met her, threatened death to kids if she refused him. No exile can help her, but I'm immune to being shot, I think. Making display of kissing in public, to convince louse I want her for real. Have to try to get them to let her and kids leave Enclave with me when I go home. Good time for you to pray for me.

Eric's only spoken reaction to reading this--as always, taking into account the possibility of hidden listening devices being trained on them--was to say, "I've been praying for Miguel for a long time. Since the hope of the gill implantation was dangled in front of us, I've had a more specific prayer target. But I can pray for lots of people. After what you and Mr. Yang did to help, I'll naturally be praying for you also. Praying for all your needs."

Bert took back his note, crumpled it and thrust it into a pocket. "Thanks. You know that Lathrop widow up in Sussex? Ever since being a lodger with her, I've been thinking more than ever--and it isn't a new line of thought--about the way some people seem to have an _assignment_ in life, a duty station, a reason why they are where they are. Sylvia Lathrop had a reason to be there and be a hostess to Mr. Yang and me. We likewise had a reason to be in the Enclave, to make things happen for your newspaper friend. And now I feel as if I had an assignment from, well, from somebody, to be there for Ma'at."

"That sensation isn't much to build a marriage on, if taken all by itself." Eric was refusing to let himself believe that Mr. Randall would create such an expectation of permanent love in Ma'at's mind--for he did not believe that Ma'at was faking at all--only to dash it. He continued: "But that very same sensation can be _pointing_ to God's will, prompting you to dig deeper, to draw closer, however you care to put it.

"You're right that people have assignments. God sent Cecilia and me, with our eldest daughter whom you haven't met, all the way to the Philippines, for the purpose of causing us to adopt Alipang. Yes, God is a dispatcher, sending us to wherever we're needed, or to where we'll obtain something WE need. It could be that He's working both ways at once in your case; when His plan becomes clear, we may find that you are what Ma'at needs, AND she is what you need. But that remains to be seen."
 
Not having anything like her potential new husband's experience with covert activity and security concerns, Ma'at initially gave no thought at all to the hazard of being targetted for eavesdropping; she had found a sympathetic older woman in Cecilia, and wanted to unburden herself to her. Cecilia, for her part, figured that the probabilities were against their _actually_ being under any deliberate surveillance at the moment, and she chose to trust God that no harm would come from letting the Egyptian-American woman (for so Ma'at had identified herself) tell her story.

"When I escaped with Meretseger and Montu from the Great Lakes Cantonment, I had to make it up as I went along. We were given shelter in a Collective Dormitory in Indiana, and a food allowance; but I had no profession, and my children had no vocational training. They did get to go to a public school in Indiana--Vanessa Redgrave Middle School, it was called; but no encouragement was held out for them to hope for careers. I got the idea that, though letting us take refuge from the abuse we had endured in Michigan, the Fairness Party didn't want to let us make any public noise about the _fact_ of the abuse. They were trying to keep the Cantonment happy by letting men like my ex-husband play innocent."

"And at some point you got the idea of becoming a performance artist," said Cecilia, chiefly to prove she was listening. "You wouldn't have had any chances to do a show back in the Cantonment, when you were wearing a burka."

Ma'at smiled at her new friend. "Right you are. I hear that actors and musicians in past eras often lived in grim poverty; that's true again today, at least for some. Five or six people at our dormitory were members of the Street Entertainers Union, which gave them legal status to beg on the streets under a pretext of amusing bypassers. That union doesn't demand much in the way of dues, because the members have so little to give; I learned that the federal government gives annual subsidies to the union, supposedly for the benefit of the artists, but the union bosses really keep every centavo of the money.

"Nonetheless, even that existence was better than being physically beaten up at random intervals; so I enrolled in the union, which cleared my children (they called them 'bioproducts') to perform with me. I had been watching what other performance artists did, and I figured out how to blend in the fragments of knowledge I had about my ancient Egyptian ancestors. Local Pinkshirts looked on me favorably, just for the fact that I was promoting--if only as a game--a 'spirituality' completely contrary to the Jewish and Christian beliefs that they hate. No, I don't really believe that the mythical Egyptian gods exist. I wouldn't even _consider_ believing that ANY God exists, if not for the fact that now and then I'm startled by someone being kind to my children and me when there's nothing in it for them.

"As you can tell, Mr. Randall is the one whose generosity has made the biggest impression on me; but others also have done us good turns in the months we've lived in Rapid City. If not for them, it would have been bad for us, what with the Enclave not having Collective Dormitories."

"We don't _need_ collective this-and-thats," remarked Cecilia, "because we practice mutual help here, _without_ having to be supervised by the government in how we do it."

Ma'at suddenly looked afraid. "Please, Mrs. Havens, don't be angry! I didn't mean to disregard the kindness _you're_ showing to us! I was only--"

She got no farther, before Cecilia enfolded her in a motherly hug, and poured over her the soothing balm of gentle words: "Don't be afraid, you poor darling, I'm not annoyed, I was just trying to give you confidence in our friendliness." Feeling the younger woman relax into her embrace, she went on: "I've seen Rapid City, and I got the feeling that the Overseers themselves _want_ it to be at least somewhat like bigger cities, in all the _negative_ ways."

Ma'at made so bold as to hug Cecilia back. "Certainly in the sense of having a powerless underclass. My children and I made our own three-person powerless underclass."

Cecilia kissed Ma'at's forehead. "And is this leading to an explanation of why you don't want to return to Rapid City?"

"Yes, Mrs. Havens." The raven-haired woman paused to look all around her, finally having a thought for the possibility of being overheard. Especially, of course, by the Cheyenne Indian pedicab driver who was barely a meter away from them. But the driver turned his face back toward his passengers right then, to mutter, "Don't worry, lady. The Havens family knows me, and they know that you could not possibly dislike the regime any more than I do. So tell Mrs. Havens whatever you want to tell her." And he looked ahead once more.

"Oh," said Ma'at in a tiny voice--then resumed her narrative to Cecilia. "Literally the very day after Bert had left town after our first meeting, Nash Dockerty, the man in charge of all Overseers inside the fence, watched an outdoor performance of ours, on the street that runs along the Dakota Hogback. I knew of him, though I hadn't met him up to then. He was easy to spot, by that odd cross between a Pinkshirt uniform and a business suit that he wears. On an impulse--not a wise impulse!--I improvised a little nursery-rhyme routine for him to hear, saying something like "Hickory dickory Deputy Dockerty, drinking the chicory, setting the clock-erty!' "

"That's really funny," Cecilia told her. "But I'll bet the Deputy Commander wasn't amused."

Ma'at sighed. "No, he wasn't. I found out, a bit too late, that he doesn't like to hear the word 'deputy' from his rank title in the same breath with his last name Dockerty; feels like anyone saying 'Deputy Dockerty' is on the way to ridiculing him."

The pedicab driver swivelled back once more, to say, "I know the type. So full of his fake dignity, he gets furious at the slightest sign of what even _might_ be disrespect. In his case, it would help if he didn't wear that stupid pink suit. None of the regular Pinkshirts go around in literally NOTHING BUT pink."

"He was outraged at me; waddled right up to me, knocked me down, and aimed a taser at me. Montu jumped in the way to shield me, and took the shock charge instead of me." Ma'at's tone went sarcastic. "You couldn't ask for a better start of a relationship, so _naturally_ I became Dockerty's plaything. There wasn't a chance to run away, as there had been when I lived in the Cantonment; all I could do was keep trying to appease him, to protect my children and myself. But there was no telling if he would get tired of me and then--do still worse things.

"When Bert reappeared, on his way back down from North Dakota Sector, I saw that this was my chance, my only hope. Maybe God planned it, for I did get an opportunity to see Bert when the Deputy Commander had other things to do. I couldn't reproduce as make-believe acting the begging and pleading I did; I was shameless, because I was desperate. In short, Bert promised to pretend he was crazy for me, and that he would tell the triumvirate that he wanted to take me and my children with him to Australia. He did in fact tell them, pointing out that they should have no objection because we would not be rejoining the American population at large, we would be going right out of the country. They took it under advisement.

"If you're wondering: no, Bert has not possessed me carnally. Unlike that walking fungus, Bert is NOT one to use a woman's vulnerability for his own lust. But he has to _pretend_ he's doing so. On the train last night, he and I shared a sleeping compartment; he let me fall asleep in his arms, with our clothes on, but did nothing more sensual than that, I swear it."

"I believe you," said Cecilia. "And of course we'll be praying that this works out for you."
 
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* * My thanks to TDL member HammerDoc, an actual doctor, for providing me with more accurate information on how a gill implantation could actually work!


Ma'at and her children made it to the Havens house without mishap. Meanwhile, Doctors Jamison and Flint, with Bert Randall, arrived at the Waddell house, where John and Felicity introduced them to Dr. Torvill who was Miguel De Soto's physician.

Over lunch, Dr. Torvill confessed, "I've never been anywhere near a gill implantation. Have you found them difficult, Dr. Jamison?"

"The two procedures I assisted at, and one I was in charge of, were not too difficult, if all the surgeon cares about is getting finished. But any surgeon worthy of the name will be concerned about what accidents could happen in the future to the recipient of the gills. By their nature, gills have to be both exposed to the ambient environment, AND connected to blood vessels...which means that some impact or laceration incident could rip the gills LOOSE, thus ripping the connected blood vessels OPEN."

Bert Randall raised his eyebrows. "But surely that hazard can't be much greater than the possibility of ordinary cutting that can happen to anyone's neck anyway!"

Dr. Jamison visibly suppressed an instinctive annoyance at a layman presuming to comment, then answered: "You're right, it isn't much greater, but it's not the SAME hazard. Every gill prosthesis I ever saw created at least a slight protuberance or irregularity in the skin surface; thus, there's always the possibility that something could snag it. Like suddenly pulling an electrical plug out of its socket."

"Miguel doubtless will consider that risk an improvement over slow death," observed Felicity. To this, Ursula Flint replied, "He may still have the slow death, only even slower. His cancer will still exist, and no telling what other body functions it may impair besides breathing."

John Waddell shrugged. "Nonetheless, and I've heard Miguel say this himself, the added time of earthly life, even if measured only in months, will be worth having -- for the sake of his wife, and of his work." Dr. Flint nodded assent to this.

Reuben Torvill resumed speaking to Dr. Jamison: "In those cases you worked on personally, before being exiled, were any of them cases where the gills were going to become the patient's ONLY means of breathing?"

"No, but I have read about several such cases -- mainly when lungs had been terribly traumatized and there was a lack of availability of tissue regeneration. The gills did work; the shortest-lived recipient I knew about lasted almost half a year, and she had been very badly hurt. Another one I read about lasted more than two years; and as far as I know, the rest of them are still alive to this day."

"How functional are they?" asked Bert.

"Near enough to normal -- except that they have to be gradual about physical exertion, and they can no longer talk without a voice synthesizer, because of course their lungs can no longer blow air over the vocal cords. That's what will happen to Mr. De Soto, and don't bet the farm on his being given a synthesizer. But he'll still be able to write."

"And what do you plan to do to safeguard against the snagging hazard when Miguel's implants are in?" Dr. Torvill asked.

"Have him wear a high collar," said Dr. Flint. She had said the same thing to the surgeon during the train ride, so repeating it now did not cause Jamison to miss a beat.

"But not if it dries up the moisture that he'll need in his gills!" Torvill interjected.

"Quite correct," replied Jamison. "Now, something I won't do is to connect the gills to the carotid artery, nor to the jugular vein. Sioux San Hospital is going to let me have some non-allergenic synthetic vessel grafts; I'll run these from the gills, down farther inside of Miguel, connecting them to the pulmonary arteries and veins. Thus the gills will step directly into the place of the lungs in the path taken by blood. I'll make adjustments to the routing of the new pulmonary paths, to try to prevent future expansion of his cancer from squeezing any major vessel shut: a bit of my thoracic specialty. At the same time, I'll try not to burn Miguel's bridges; that is, I'll preserve lesser arteries which keep the lung tissue itself alive, and leave it still possible to reconnect his lungs in the event that his cancer ever CAN be removed altogether.

"If all goes well, Mr. De Soto will be able to write about his own operation in his own newspaper. Which reminds me, Mrs. Waddell: do you folks have any copies of the Wyoming Observer in the house?"

"Yes, we have six different issues: collector's items, you might say."

"Good. Later, when I can wind down, I'll want to read them. Hardly any copies have made it up to where I'm settled, and I never gave the paper any thought before the present situation came up. Like younger people on the outside, I'd gotten conditioned to everything being online. But now, I'll want to see how good a newsman I've kept alive."
 
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Final preparations the next morning went well. Having unanimously agreed that they lost nothing by allowing the operation on Miguel De Soto, the members of the triumvirate had decided that they positively had a stake in its success. Thus, over several days, they had facilitated the business for Barney Jamison; they had even, extraordinarily, allowed him outside communication, albeit monitored. He had made a call to the people making the gill units, another to someone who could obtain a rare non-computerized blood-oxygen reader for him, and a third to consult with a fellow surgeon who had performed similar operations. In the last instance, Jamison had been able to pass greetings to his grown children, whom the colleague knew how to contact.

The device to measure oxygen levels in the blood would become a permanent asset of Casper General Hospital. Normally, hospitals in the D.S.A. were under the authority of the powerful Department of Distribution; but because of the political maneuvering by which Distribution had been excluded from authority in the Enclave, the Department of Sustainable Energy supplied administrators for the few hospitals in use within the perimeter. The hospital administrator in Casper was a niece of the Energy Undersecretary who was part of the triumvirate; she knew nothing about the healthcare professions, but this did not inhibit her from issuing pronouncements of what medical interventions warranted the budgeting of electricity for hospital facilities. She was so thrifty with kilowatts and callous to human lives, that the hospital was only even open three days a week on average.

Fortunately for Mr. De Soto, the administrator had been instructed by her aunt that in this case, inpatient care for him was to be provided as long as needed.

Doctors Jamison, Torvill and Flint, and a newly-arrived Irina Stepanova, scrubbed for the operating room; Torvill and Flint would both be assisting the surgeon, while Stepanova, who had not had time to be briefed on the procedure, would merely observe it for her own edification. Also scrubbing were a surgical nurse and an anaesthesiology technician, both of these being exile women who had been found in the Nebraska Sector and flown here to help. Closed-circuit television cameras would allow more than a dozen other persons to follow the operation visually as well; among these watchers would be some Grange volunteers, because as paramedics they were sometimes called on to assist with emergency surgery in the field. John Wisebadger and Henry Spafford, who had aided Dr. Stepanova in the case of Ulrich Reinhart, were two of the Grangers present, Lynne Wisebadger also being with her husband. It was an educational opportunity not to be missed.

Alipang Havens would have been here too, if not that he had been needed to fill in on short notice for two other Grange riders who were down with bad colds. He privately saw irony in this being the specific reason why he had to go out in the chilly weather he hated; but this didn't prevent him from praying steadily for Miguel while riding his Canadian horse on carnivore patrol.

Minutes before the newspaper editor was wheeled into the operating room, Tilly De Soto bent over him, willing her love for him to sustain his life. "Darling, the surgeon granted me the privilege of reminding you about the sensations you'll experience _after_ the implanting. So listen closely. The transition from using lungs to using gills will be done in careful steps while you're still unconscious; your lungs _won't_ be shut down until Dr. Jamison is certain that the gills are working properly. Now, because the gills will be taking over the oxygenation and CO2-purging of your blood, when you wake up you won't feel the normal sensation of your lungs filling and keeping you alive. This change from what everyone is accustomed to may scare you; you may _imagine_ you're suffocating. But don't panic -- you won't _actually_ be suffocating!

"Remember that Dr. Jamison has the means both to oxygenate your blood externally while you're on the table, and to measure how much oxygen is in your blood at any time. While you're unconscious, he'll temporarily install ONE gill prosthesis on one side of your neck, and graft it to your pulmonary vessels: more than enough to sustain you safely when you're not exerting yourself. He'll have this gill take over oxygenating your blood by slow degrees, shutting off the lung connection temporarily but not irrevocably, watching the blood-oxygen level all the way. If there's any doubt that it's performing as it should, he'll temporarily implant the _other_ gill, with an alternate routing of pulmonary connections which he already charted out as a fallback option. Then he'll gradually shift the blood function from the first gill to the second, and compare the effectiveness using the alternate graft placements. Whichever placement works better, he'll perform the permanent implantation of both gills accordingly."

A smile spread across Miguel's dark Cuban face. "I knew I loved you for something, Tilly: I love you for your talent explaining technical things to laymen! When this is over, _however_ it comes out, I want you to write the story."

Tilly kissed him, remembering the passion of their youth. "Never mind the however; it's _going_ to work! We're _going_ to have that extra time together!"

"Of course we will, querida. Oh, remember to give credit to Harmony Havens, and everyone else who had a hand in making this happen -- even the triumvirate, because you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

"What, are you getting soft in your old age?"

"Only getting smart about choosing my battles. And give _yourself_ credit...for being a better wife than I ever deserved to be blessed with." Only at this point did Tilly's tears escape her; but she recovered quickly enough to be able to pray with him before he was taken out of her sight.
 
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(I couldn't avoid making this a long chapter)

Both within sight of the closed-circuit television screens, and elsewhere, there was abundant praying in progress that day. Pastor Zondei, and those members of the Havens family residing in Casper, stuck close to Tilly. Apart from non-exile government employees, only two persons in the vigil-keeping crowd _weren't_ praying for Miguel. One of these was the bizarre Frodo Von Spock, who was boasting (mostly unheeded) that it was his own psychic vibrations which would preserve Miguel's life. The other was the belligerent Aretha Shabazz, who had the day off work, and had come to Casper to find out if this exceptional favored treatment was being given to someone white. Once it was confirmed for her that the patient in surgery was a man with skin as dark as her own, Aretha was mollified--until the next time something would give her an excuse to feel resentful.

But even for the most fervent of Christian believers, it is hard to be _literally_ doing nothing but pray for hours on end. At one point, standing where they would not disturb others, Henry Spafford and Lynne Wisebadger fell into an unrelated conversation.

"I was at Hezekiah Reinhart's farm again the day before yesterday," the young Apache told his elder comrade's wife. "He tells me that his daughter Lydia is getting in deeper all the time with Ransom Kramer."

Lynne's eyes widened. "You don't mean _physically,_ do you?"

Henry was embarrassed over having given an impression he had not intended. "No, no, I just mean in her emotions toward him! Ransom, by all accounts, has acted even _more_ pure and chaste with her than most _Amish_ boys themselves would be in the rumschpringe; and the Reinharts--Lydia's uncle and aunt as well as her parents--all think very highly of him for it. But he _does_ have feelings for Lydia as well. So something will have to give eventually, unless John has made more progress opening up the Amish community than I've heard of his having."

Lynne gravely shook her head. "No, nothing's changed yet. The Amish understand their population problem, and they see the merits of John's arguments for their becoming more ecumenical with other kinds of Christians; but they'll have to be worse off before they consider breaking with tradition."

"But they _have_ changed traditions in the past," Henry objected, "or they wouldn't even be AS liberal as they are today."

"Their Bishop would say that's the very point; he would say that they've made enough concessions. Looking at Ransom and Lydia, Lydia could actually marry Ransom in a non-Amish wedding when they're old enough, _without_ being shunned by her people, provided that she _hasn't_ made the conclusive baptismal commitment which is their passage to adulthood. She would never be 'fully' Amish then, but neither would she be cut off from her family as a traitor. Alternately, Ransom could convert to the Amish faith, and that would solve _every_ problem from their community's viewpoint. Doctrinal purity would prevail, and they would still have a valuable addition to their gene pool."

"Yeah, the genes of Ransom's parents should be good enough for anyone's family tree. But I don't like to think of Ransom having to repudiate his father to satisfy prissy pacifists."

Lynne smiled. "They probably would never throw the military career of Ransom's father in his face. And you know what? I'm not the only one who thinks it could be for the boy's own good to turn Amish. I don't know if Alipang has said this to you, but he has told John and me that he worries about Ransom. He worries that Ransom is boiling inside with a frustrated wish to punish the men who murdered his father and Quinn."

"So absorbing Amish ways might help him to reject the vendetta?" As a Christian, Henry understood forgiveness; but as an Apache, he could sympathize with the desire to avenge murdered kinsmen.

"That's the idea. Anyway, it'll be more than two years yet before Ransom can reasonably get married, even in this agrarian existence we now lead. So there still is time to see how God handles Ransom's courtship with Lydia."

Henry nodded. "Speaking of courtship, have you seen the instant family that our Australian friend seems to have collected? I got a glimpse of him with the mother just after I got into town; they were all over each other. What's with that?"

"I only know that Mr. Randall's trying to get them OUT of the Enclave."

"Can that be done?"

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

This was not a day on which all nagging questions would be resolved...

But it was the day on which a reprieve was granted to Miguel De Soto.

The gills worked, and the patient was expected to be ambulatory in a day or two. Upon regaining consciousness, Miguel found that even without the aid of an oxygen tank he could still inflate his failing lungs enough to whisper a few words at a time. So, as if in a hurry to get things said before he lost even that much speaking ability, he thanked the surgical team, sent word to thank Bert Randall and Harmony Havens, told his wife how much he loved her, and gave honor to God for the good outcome.
 
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Chapter 40: The Aroma of Rats


"Hey, Dana, there's no rush; neither of us has to report on duty for another two hours."

"Oh, I wasn't leaving, just looking to see if Whiplash was okay. Was last night good for you, Mark?"

"If you have to ask, you must be in doubt of yourself, or else in doubt of my appreciation of you. Come here, and we'll discuss it further...."

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

The female Overseer and the male Forest Ranger had scarcely needed a single day after they first met, before they became an item. No one in either the Campaign Against Hate or the Forestry Service had any objections to their involvement, since they worked in the same geographical area. And in Mark Terrell, Dana Pickering had found a man close to herself in tastes and interests--compatible enough to relieve her from the last lingering ache of her former desire for that Filipino dentist. As it happened, the new romance was also making Dana forget, for the time being, the religious talk she had had with the dentist's wife.

Once they were in their different uniforms and had reported to their different chains of command for the day's assignments, Dana and Mark had separate patrols to make, but within the same region of Nebraska. Mark loaned his enhanced border collie to Dana, and made plans to meet her for a hasty picnic lunch at an easy-to-recognize landmark: an electrical substation two kilometers east of the Enclave perimeter.

Dana and Whiplash were first to arrive at the rendezvous point. The Overseer had barely shut off her electric motorcycle, when the collie gave a peculiar whine. Mark had taught his new lover how to recognize the mentally-boosted animal's vocal signals; this one meant that Whiplash had sensed something out of the ordinary, but did not yet consider it a threat.

So Dana said, logically enough, "What is it, boy?" And Whiplash, understanding the question, led her to the fence which surrounded the substation.

Underground power cables led from one of the generating stations inside the Enclave to this location on the outside; only after this point were there power lines visible above ground. Though required to keep this knowledge to herself (as far as she knew, even Mark didn't know), Dana knew that the partly-buried route for current was part of the effort to prevent the American proletariat from realizing how dependent they were for electricity on the output of the Enclave power stations. How even the canine genius accompanying her could be thinking about the power grid was a mystery to Dana.

Whiplash prowled all the way around the substation's fence. Once when he looked back at her, Dana told him, "Sorry, boy, I don't have access to go inside there." Whiplash actually nodded, and continued inspecting the site with nose and eyes. Eventually he returned to Dana and uttered a distinct bark-growl-bark combination, combined with a deliberate gesture by a raised forepaw.

"I'm sorry, boy, I don't know that one. Let me call Mark;" and she got on the radio. When she reached the ranger, he told her he could be there in eight minutes. While she waited, Dana looked inside the fenced enclosure herself, from every side. The metal-skeleton structures, the coily-springy-looking things, the service panels: none of it had ever made much sense to her. Yet she had been close to electrical substations before, both inside and outside the Enclave; might there be anything here visibly different from the usual drab sights of such an installation?

Two minutes before Mark wheeled up to her, Dana believed she had spotted what was different: a sort of box, less than a meter high, standing on the concrete platform, attached in some way to one of the metal skeletons.

When Mark joined them, Whiplash was quick to repeat to him the vocal signal and paw gesture which had been unknown to Dana. "He said that to me, too," Dana told her lover. "What does it mean?"

Mark patted the collie's head. "It means that he thinks there is a human-made object here which is out of place. He would use the same signal if he suspected a bomb, only then he would be urgently warning us to get away. Do you see anything that looks wrong?"

"Yes, I do; look at that box thing in there, the one with the two small placards on the right side. I'm no electrician, but I don't think any substation I was ever close to had a box like that."

"Good catch, sweetheart. Let's report this to both our superiors, and suggest that they call Sustainable Energy to ask about it."
 
Dana's supervisor, when she reported the anomaly, had her transmit an image of the unidentified box via her dataphone, so that he could relay it to the nearest Energy Department office and ask about it. Mark's supervisor kept him waiting longer for instructions; so the couple decided to start eating.

When Mark's supervisor called back, it was to say that he had spoken to Dana's supervisor. "The Rangers say that Energy says that it's a matter the D.S. Marshals are concerned with. Remain where you are; someone will be with you soon." This made a sort of sense to Mark. The Diversity States Marshals' Service had a role in safeguarding public utilities, a matter usually outside the jurisdiction of the Campaign Against Hate; the Marshals were also more likely than the Pinkshirts to be investigating environmental crimes, unless these crimes were thought to be religiously motivated.

So the two lovers finished eating, slipping in many kisses as well. Presently, a helicopter approached. Its markings, and the uniform of its pilot, bespoke the Department of Sustainable Energy; but when it landed and two men got out, the passenger was a Marshal. Acknowledging the Overseer and the Ranger, the Marshal had the Energy employee unlock the gate in the substation fence, gesturing for Dana and Mark to stay outside. Inside, the helicopter pilot, seemingly also an electricity expert, went to work with instruments neither Mark nor Dana recognized, seeming to be doing some kind of diagnostics both on the strange box and on the normal fixtures of the substation. Only when this procedure ended did the two men remove the box and come out with it, locking the gate behind them.

"So what IS that thing?" Mark asked.

The Energy employee, ignoring the question, stowed the box on board the helicopter, then made a radio call to someone. The Marshal told Mark, "Sorry, need-to-know restrictions. I can tell you that it relates to an ongoing investigation of ours."

"Is there anything we should be doing?" Dana asked.

"Although this is not a direct concern of either of your agencies, you certainly should inform the Marshals' Service if you encounter anything like this again. Thank you for your alertness; now I must be going." And sure enough, the helicopter was airborne again in less than two more minutes.

"Well, that made the day lively," Dana remarked as their visitors receded into the gray October sky.

Just then, Whiplash did something which clearly was not random play. He turned his body in a clockwise circle, then in two counter-clockwise circles, then in three clockwise circles. Dana looked expectantly at Mark, who interpreted:

"Whiplash says that he thinks that Marshal is not to be trusted. I don't know why; HE doesn't know why; but that's his feeling."

Dana and Mark each felt uneasy for the remainder of their separate patrols; and they felt uneasy together that night. Contemporary propaganda insisted that all evils arose from religious believers and from the always-invoked boogeymen of "corporate interests;" government was supposed to be the shining force of civilization and justice, protecting the collective against those menaces. And yet...a border collie, his abilities magnified by government scientists, had the feeling that somehow an armed and uniformed _representative_ of the federal government was not what he should be.

There was no possibility of an impostor; that Marshal, and the technician-pilot with the Energy Department, were both known persons in the federal database. But were their _actions_ really in order?
 
Sergeant Emilio Vasquez was one of several Texas Ranger aviation personnel who were debriefed by no less than Commandant Brittany Pierce after the successful air-defense mission over Kansas. In a commercial office building which no outsider would expect the Commandant to use for important business, she availed herself of a shielded room and gave each reporting subordinate a one-on-one meeting.

Emilio spoke to his Commandant almost entirely about technical aspects of the mission--about the part he had played in preventing the Aztlanos from even suspecting that there was any opposition ready to intercept their bombing sortie. Only when he was finished did Pierce say anything of consequence.

"I know that you hands in the flight crews have been wondering what form the Aztlano ground action would take this time, if indeed there was ground action concurrent with the latest air offensive. I don't know as much yet as I want to; there's been no word lately from certain special sources you know about." On a screen, where Emilio could see it, she called up a map of West Texas. "But some kind of action went on during the last three days, at the five locations you see marked."

"I see that none of those locations is very near to any Ranger facility," Emilio noted.

"Correct. Anyway, at each of those five spots, the D.S.-Aztlan border was breached, and--judging by all satellite intelligence that was made available to me--each time by a party from the Lagartos gang, using holographic-blur devices to make it unclear to imaging how many of them there were, or how they were equipped. In every case, D.S. Marshals were the only law-enforcement officers on the scene, but they were marvellously quick to respond, always confronting the border violators before they could penetrate more than half a kilometer into Texas."

Emilio frowned thoughtfully. "Looks like they had good information, as well as contempt for our jurisdiction. Any chance that our 'special sources' are also giving info to the Marshals, without telling us that they're doing so?"

"No, they wouldn't do that. Whatever the Marshals knew, they found out some other way. As for jurisdiction, the excuse I've been given is that the Marshals expected an environmental danger, which gave them a pretext for intervention. At each interception, there was a firefight; and in each instance, the blurring equipment of the Aztlanos was so powerful, and the combat so close-ranged, that some of the Marshals became as hard for the satellites to see as the invaders were. But each time, the Marshals reported driving the Aztlanos back with no friendly casualties, but also with no prisoners taken."

"Sounds terribly neat and tidy somehow....Commandant, do you read detective stories?"

"No, I live enough of them without reading more besides. What's on your mind, Sergeant?"

"The misdirections that the bad guys in mysteries often use, to camouflage what they're up to. Commandant, think of this. If you were a highly-placed Marshal, and you were dirty--sold out to the Flechadores or some other Aztlano gang--there could be a time when you would want to help some of your gang buddies cross into this country, without anyone knowing that any such crossing had happened. In this Big Brother era, as you know, any hope of secrecy requires ingenuity. What if you, the dirty Marshal, staged a border clash...and used the stealth equipment of the 'aggressors' to hide what your own people were doing as well? Some of your Marshals, who were in on the scheme, could change clothes with an equal number of Aztlanos! Then the Aztlanos could walk on into Texas disguised as D.S. Marshals, until other cover arrangements were made for them; and the Marshals they replaced would become the 'retreating aggressors,' going into Aztlan, to be brought back at a convenient time. With no prisoners and no casualties reported, there would be less cause for anyone--like US--to inquire into who was who."

Britanny Pierce was utterly silent for a moment. "That's one I never thought of. It requires more than one Marshal to be dirty, and more than a little dirty. But if your speculation is true, they may not yet have retrieved all the Marshals who ducked across the border. I'm going to have to see if we can spot any infiltrators posing as Marshals, or find any other evidence of the switch.

"Emilio, you weren't due for another air sortie in the next four days anyway. Stand by at your old station; we'll say it's to let you bring ground Rangers up to speed on the air ops, and then to give you some off-duty time. But if I find cause to believe that the Marshals have pulled a sleight-of-hand, then you're going to be getting a change of assignment. Your performance on the Tu-95's has been excellent...but you just might be even more suited for undercover work."
 
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At Dulles Airport a passenger spacecraft landed, fresh from the Orbital Palace. Among those waiting to meet the disembarking passengers were the entire Daniel Salisbury family of Georgetown, Delaware, and the soon-to-be-entire Evan Rand family, currently of the same address. Evan and Summer only lacked their Anne-Marie now; and she was about to appear in the concourse. They were anxiously hoping that the sight of his sister would have a healing effect on their son Michael, who still had a haunted look, and still recoiled from being touched by any adult male.

Their thoughts of praise and thanksgiving to God, though unspoken by necessity, were sincere and vigorous, when Anne-Marie was released to them by her escorts, and Michael swept her into a joyful bear-hug. Even Summer held back her motherly eagerness, letting her firstborn have the first embrace, before she took her turn squeezing her newly-liberated little girl to her heart.

Chilena, as a performer in her own right, was the first to ask Anne-Marie how she had felt giving her one professional space-ballet performance before being released. All of them had seen it on a streamcast, but they wanted to hear her personal recollection of the event.

"I liked doing it; it really did feel like flying. If I could have gone on as a dancer and NOT been taken away from Mom and Dad, then I would never have quit. But I'm glad to be away from those women who were in the audience. Well, I don't mean all of them; but the way some of them were acting...."

"Easy, sweetheart," said Anne-Marie's father. "Now of all times, we don't want to be accused of hate speech. Let's just be happy we're together."

Tommy Salisbury, about the same age as Anne-Marie, helped to change the subject. "Anne-Marie, I've got a surprise for you; I didn't even tell my Mom and Dad. I wrote a poem for you! Dad, can I recite it to her now?"

"Of course," Dan replied. "Only, next time you want to ask permission for something in a public place with Pinkshirts around, remember to ask your mother if she's present, rather than your father."

"Okay, Dad. Anne-Marie, here's your poem. I call it 'The Solid Angel'...

A dancer free from gravity
Performs a flying flourish;
The audience can't really see
The hardness of her courage.

A full-up load of love and faith
She carries like a cargo.
She flies up high, but she can't wait
To fly for home tomorrow.

They're cheering and applauding her,
Like she's a fellow airhead;
But she puts value on the Word,
Which will remain when they're dead.

Now she can put down roots again,
While in her heart is lightness;
The chick returns to Mother Hen,
And celebrates the rightness."

"I love it!" the young ballerina cried, and swiftly kissed the poet.

Turning red, yet also grinning triumphantly, Tommy replied, "Remind me to kiss you back, about six years from now." With that, the two families headed for the mag-lev platform for the ride home to Delaware. No one disturbed them....but the airport surveillance system had recorded Tommy's recitation.

That poem was not open sedition; but it was just sufficiently non-conformist that the Pinkshirts who heard it made a call to the offices of the Oneness Channel....

The next day, a media crew showed up at the Salisburys' front door. The talking head in charge, a man named Fluttery Madsden, asked to speak to Chilena, regarding her as head of the household. He did not mention the fact that he knew of Chilena's childhood family from way back; he was the son of Burt Madsden, a W.A.L.N.U.T. activist who had maliciously stirred up trouble for Christians in Smoky Lake. When Chilena asked Fluttery what was his business, he explained; and in speaking to her, he used her maiden surname, which was often done toward married women as a way of deliberately disregarding their married state -- even though for movie-star purposes, Chilena had been able to enforce her insistence on being publicly called Chilena Salisbury.

"Citizen Havens, your fans have known for weeks now that you and your partner started your own little pleasure-commune with persons you knew back in the dark days before the Fairness Revolution; but so far you've never offered to let the television audience watch your pleasures. We've come to ask if we can arrange to broadcast one of your home orgies for the proletariat; it would be a tremendously popular show -- it could even become a weekly series!"

Chilena drew a long breath. She did not KNOW that her son's poem had been heard by the Pinkshirts, but she realized that it was a possibility; and this visit could be an entrapment tactic, to force her and her husband actually to commit the degeneracy which they had passively allowed people to think they were committing in their home, or else be exposed for the "crime" of not being low-lifes. The latter alternative probably would not lead to their arrest, since even the current regime had not QUITE sunk so low as to make wanton orgies an outright requirement (apart from the perversion requirement for attaining high political office); but it would injure their career -- and this at the very time when they needed to be making money to recoup what they had spent on helping Evan and Summer get their children back.

It was out of the question to expose the Rand children and the Salisbury children to the filth Mr. Madsden was calling for; but perhaps she could avoid it by other means than the angry refusal she wanted to make.

"Well, of course Dan and I like to keep our wonderful fans happy; but there's an issue here which concerns the long-term harmony of the collective. You see, since it was my partner's idea to start this commune in the first place, he's worried that public perceptions of his actions might inadvertently encourage patriarchal attitudes. If he were seen indulging in an orgy on television, some unreconstructed males in the viewing audience might construe this as him -- and thus also YOU, the media people -- giving permission for males to be selfish and exploiting and un-mutual. My Dan has too strong a social conscience to let himself be a cause, even accidentally, for tribal caveman crudeness to achieve a resurgence."

Fluttery Madsden was tripped up. He couldn't press his request now without looking as if he were preventing the popular acting couple from showing their respect for the ideals of the Party. So he gave it up; and afterwards, his superiors told him he had done the right thing.

Still, the Pinkshirts kept the Salisburys in mind. Another time, perhaps....
 
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Awesome Story!

I love that poem "Solid Angel" It reminded me of myself. Since I was a ballerina once. Would you mind if I printed it out and put up on my bedroom wall?
 
Beth: I made up that poem on the spur of the moment, as a way to give the child character Tommy a bit more part in the action. I would be honored to know that my verses found a lasting place in your life.

--Your Make-Believe Dad
 
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