The First Love Of Alipang Havens

That night, after the hours for physically-present visitors had passed, a holographic call was made from the consulate in St. Louis to the hospital in Boston. As when he had been visited in person by Bert, Daffodil made sure to be wearing normal clothes when he became visible in a smaller but realistic form to the four persons on the other end.

First to speak to the Ambassador's son was a slender, black-haired, pleasant-faced woman who looked as if she were a few years older than Daffodil's 36-year-old mother. "Hello, Citizen Ford. My name is Ma'at Randall: a married woman for more than two days now, and so far not getting tired of it." She turned to kiss her nearby bridegroom, and the gap was filled by her son.

"Hello, Daffy. My name's Montu. Our first names are Egyptian, but my sister and I were born in Michigan."

Daffodil now got a word in: "Good to meet you, Montu. Does your new father call you Monty?"

Bert visibly took notice of this question, and answered it himself: "I hadn't thought of that; if he wants me to, I will. I suppose Ma'at could be Martha, and Meretseger could be Meredith; but I don't need them to change on my account--I'm used to pronouncing names of all ethnicities."

Daffodil turned his eyes to the demure but lovely teenage girl. "So you're Meretseger? Doesn't sound like an Islamic name."

"It isn't Islamic, and neither am I," replied the girl. "We have _ancient_ Egyptian names." Then she fell quiet, and Bert began talking; he told Daffodil various details of his getting to know this uprooted family--while still not saying a word about the situation which had stung Ma'at into her insane yet successful effort to win the Australian's heart in one desperate emotional onslaught. He concluded with: "I'm not tired of Ma'at either...nor will I _ever_ be, till death parts us. No offense to your mother, but where I come from, we believe in permanent marriage. It was an adventurer's impulse for me to take Ma'at as my own, but the impulse of a man who was taught to stay on board for the long haul."

"No offense taken," Daffodil said. "I can't deny that my mother, like a lot of Americans now, can't seem to continue uninterrupted a relationship of any kind--parental or any other sort--for more than a matter of weeks. As for that, Bert, I noticed that when you first told me about Ma'at, you spoke of loving her, but at first you _didn't_ mention marrying her." The blond boy deliberately slowed his words now, and intensified his tone, using what he had learned from his mother and other career diplomats about letting a listener read between the lines. "If you were hesitating out of concern for MY feelings, I can assure you that *I* don't get upset at the mention of permanent partnering; *I* don't call it hate speech."

Something in Bert's eyes, while hearing the last part of what Daffodil said, signalled back to him: That's right, I'm trying to protect my new family from getting in trouble with the Pinkshirts till I get them out of their vulnerable position. The Australian's next spoken words confirmed the telepathic part, as he announced, "In a matter of minutes after we end this conversation, I'll be heading for the St. Louis airport with my family and a consulate-security escort. I'm taking my family out of the D.S.A. tonight on a privileged diplomatic flight, and that will be the last that the Fairness Party ever sees of them."

"But Bert tells me that you've already done international travelling of your own," Ma'at told Daffodil; "so maybe one day you can come see us in Australia. And in the much nearer future, once the kids and I are safely settled, it will be all right with me if Bert comes _back_ to America and visits you again."

"Thank you, Citizen Randall. Pardon me, MRS. Randall."

"I'll keep in touch," Bert promised his young friend. "I'll present my research findings at the university _while_ I'm down under on this trip; then I should have leeway to fly up here again before ten days pass. Now, Daffy, how about you tell Meretseger and Montu a few things about your school experiences--like being an Equalityball captain."

So Daffodil began taking more control of the conversation. Besides anecdotes about school, he also described past encounters with foreign diplomats in Washington. He didn't feel like saying anything about the eight female aides his mother had employed in succession over the years of her ambassadorship; every one of them had consistently received more attention and respect from Daffodil's mother than Daffodil had.

The rest of what Bert said for his part was almost all about two subjects: the old-fashioned hard-copy newspaper produced by the man for whom Bert had helped to obtain the gill implants, and the doings of the adventurous Grange volunteers, with Alipang Havens not the least of these. It was especially intriguing to Daffodil to learn that the Grange man Henry Spafford belonged to a family which of its own accord had _requested_ placement in the Western Enclave.

When the time came to say goodbye, it was Ma'at who claimed the right to say the last words of substance to her husband's friend: "I don't regret having been in the Enclave, because it led to my winning a man more wonderful than I ever thought was even possible. That shows that good outcomes can result from unpleasant experiences; so maybe the same will be true in your life. I understand that you don't have the social opportunities with girls that you wish you had; but just as I was able to appreciate Bert for what he is, maybe soon some girl will appreciate you for what you are, AND be permitted to act on it. If love can bloom in an internal-exile reservation, surely it can bloom in other places as well. I'll hope for the best for you."

Goodbyes were said at last. Although Daffodil would have liked an in-person visit by Bert, this holographic visit had been _much_ better than nothing. And yes, it _was_ encouraging to be reminded that it still was possible for males and females to find each other and form relationships of mutual kindness and love.

Bert and Ma'at had found each other inside the Enclave.

Bert and Ma'at's love-relationship clearly was not shoving Meretseger and Montu aside, the way Samantha Ford's way of life shoved her son aside.

Bert, whose every word the boy accepted as truth, had verbally painted the Enclave as being full of people who were _alive,_ not mechanically playing their parts in the structure of "the collective."

Daffodil realized that Thundercrash Bellingham was the _only_ reason why he could wish to stay in the society he now inhabited; and that society was grimly determined never to let him and Thundercrash be together anyway. Therefore....

If there was any way to make it happen, Daffodil Ford wanted to live in the Enclave.
 
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The next morning, after a routine counselling session, Daffodil sent a text message to his mother. He didn't know where she was now, didn't even know if she still was at the space hotel; but global communications were good enough that the message would certainly reach her. He wrote:

Caregiver, I'm really glad that you left the standing instruction for Bert Randall to have access to me. He spoke to me remotely twice yesterday; and the second time, he introduced me to his new partner, a woman named Ma'at. She was an exile, but the Enclave administration allowed her to leave with him. She has a son and daughter who were both released with her, and they're all going to live with him in Australia.

A transmission acknowledgement assured him that the recipient would see the message whenever she looked at her messages. Lunch came and went, and his mother had not replied in any way. So in the afternoon, he sent another text:

Mother, I assume you have read my previous. To all appearances, our authorities have not been annoyed or alarmed by Mr. Randall and Mr. Yang touring inside the Enclave, just as they were not annoyed or alarmed by Dynamo Earthquake visiting there during the summer to interview Dr. Havens. Perhaps other visits, under controlled conditions, could be made. Although internal affairs aren't your professional territory, maybe you have some clue about whether the Department of Indoctrination is relaxing its attitude toward the exiles as much as it seems to me they are.

Supper came and went, and still there was no response from the Ambassador-At-Large. So Daffodil wrote:

Mom, it looks as if you're uncommonly busy. If work is ramping up for you, that might be all the more cause for me to pursue what I have in mind, since it would relieve you from looking after me. I am aware that the capital of the Western Enclave has its own public school district. Since my work at the Tolerance House was an adjunct faculty position, wouldn't it be possible for me to perform the same kind of work in an Enclave school? The challenge of working in so different an environment might be just what I need. Can you refer me to someone in an Indoctrination post who knows you, and could help me request such a job?

Sleep came and went, with not a peep from his mother. After breakfast, accordingly, he asked his Pinkshirt bodyguard, "Have you ever heard of someone _asking_ to be allowed to live in the Western Enclave?"

The drab woman with the colorful blouse mulled this for a moment, then answered, "No, I haven't. But I suppose it's possible. Might even be just the thing, on some occasion, to thin out the occupancy of some Collective Dormitory."

"Well, then, if this can be done without breaking any rules, would you please find out what your superiors think of the idea? I do know of one case like that, anyway, though in that case the persons wanting to enter the Enclave weren't citizens of the Diversity States, they were coming out of Aztlan."

"Merely asking about that shouldn't upset anyone. I'll see what I can find out."

"Thanks. Also, please be sure to let me know if by any means you hear before I do that my chromosome source has tried to contact me."
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Hours passed with no developments on either the Mother front or the Enclave front. Right after supper, however, Daffodil's mother turned up unannounced. With her were two beautiful young women whom Daffodil had never seen before, both looking to be in their early twenties; one was African-American, the other looked Swedish. All three women were dressed for a high-society party, doubtless one that would be sponsored by the Party with a capital P. The two strangers took no more notice of Daffodil than of the ventilator grates. As for Samantha, she pecked her son's cheek offhandedly, then spoke in more haste than was usual for her:

"Hi, Daffodil, you're looking well, I'm glad that talking with Bert Randall raised your spirits. Yes, I saw all three text messages, it's just that with Cassandra being suddenly reassigned, and no one familiar to me available to take her place, I'm having to interview candidates from the diplomatic intern pool. The interview process takes time, you have to try to identify the most qualified applicant. But your idea might have merit, so I put in a word with Indoctrination that I approved your making preliminary inquiries, they'll keep me in the loop, and you'll have some discretion in your communications on the subject, got to go now, dear, I'll probably see you next week, don't forget to love yourself!"

With that, Samantha and her current auditioners went sailing out of the room again.

Daffodil sat still for a minute, staring into the nearby empty space in which his mother had stood for the same amount of time. Then he reflected on the fact that, since he was allowed to follow his line of inquiry, this could reasonably include using something Bert had given him:

A postal address by which a letter could reach the exile Alipang Havens.
 
While I pause between chapters, though it is not yet time to write another summary, I will remind my readers that _previous_ summaries can be found on Pages 83, 85, 90, 93, 97, 104 and 109.
 
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Chapter 43: Fishing in the Dark


Alipang had not forgotten his wish to publish an interview with Avery Glass, his fellow dentist. John Wisebadger had, as promised, run interference for him with the authorities, and had in time been able to assure Alipang that no one seemed to mind the interview proceeding. Alipang's more recent receiving of advice from Yang Sung-Kuo, advice to gather information, fitted well with the older intention. But it was Lenore Glass, Avery's daughter, whom Alipang ended up interviewing, simply because her father had a heavy patient load in Rapid City and Lenore was more free to take a train over to Sussex.

For one night, Lenore became Sylvia Lathrop's latest boarder; it was at the Lathrop house, and borrowing Sylvia's audiotape recorder, that the interview took place. Lenore had made it clear ahead of time that she was prepared to be frank and open. A portion of the talk went like this....

ALIPANG: You have experienced the loss of cherished relationships, both by reason of death, and by reason of betrayal. Your mother died, but your husband left you intentionally. How would you describe the difference between those two kinds of loss?

LENORE: There's definitely a difference in whom you can get mad at. My mother's passing was not any human being's fault; her physician had done the best he could for her. As far as her passing made me angry, it was all anger at the world, at luck, at God if you will. By contrast, my husband left me because he had "progressed"--that is, progressed from one style of being selfish to another style of being selfish. It was almost comically easy to resent him for not caring how he hurt me and hurt our children.

ALIPANG: It sounds to me as if your grievance against your unfaithful husband is more focussed, more specific than what you felt about losing your mother.

LENORE: That's right. I at least had happy memories of Mom, and I knew that no mortal person had killed her deliberately; so I didn't have her loss gnawing at me all the time. But every good memory of my marriage was retroactively ruined by my husband's desertion. What I had once thought of as wonderful, was all turned rotten. He poisoned the well. Yet there's more to be said about my feelings about Mom's death. One way in which it was worse after all than the divorce.

ALIPANG: Would that be a matter of how it made you feel about the universe itself?

LENORE: Yes. In a way, it was understandable that a no-good man would break his promises. Less threatening to the ultimate moral order. I could resent him, yet feel the hope that maybe there was a God Who would hold him accountable for abandoning me. But with my mother dying when she should have lived many more years, it was like the very God I hoped would punish my ex for deserting me, was Himself deserting me.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The interview also dwelt on the hope of creating some kind of medical university within the Enclave; Lenore was able to pass along some of her father's views on how this could be done. But it was the forsaken wife's confiding of deep sorrows that made the interview come alive. Alipang was freshly saddened for her, though he had already known what had happened to her preceding her exile; he and Kim would redouble their prayers for Lenore. Still, the direction the interview took was a tactical advantage for the Wyoming Observer, because by letting stand the statement of Lenore's doubts about divine justice, the article would prevent the Observer from looking as if it would only allow a sugar-coated religious viewpoint in its pages.

When the interview ended, Alipang gently hinted, off the record, that he hoped Lenore would be able to tell him other things at other times, about events in the Enclave capital. Rapid City being at once a place of importance to the internal exiles, and a place where most Grange personnel seldom had any cause to go, it was a yawning gap in Alipang's ability to gather clues about--whatever he would need to have clues about.

Lenore seemed willing to help. She certainly had no reason to love the regime. Alipang, however, did not let her know anything about how Mr. Yang had prompted him to create informants. It was not quite outside the realm of possibility that one day, the Overseers might offer to let Lenore see her children again.... IF she would do them a modest favor, like informing on fellow exiles who tried to keep something secret.
 
Copperfox said:
Lenore seemed willing to help. She certainly had no reason to love the regime. Alipang, however, did not let her know anything about how Mr. Yang had prompted him to create informants. It was not quite outside the realm of possibility that one day, the Overseers might offer to let Lenore see her children again.... IF she would do them a modest favor, like informing on fellow exiles who tried to keep something secret.
Click to expand...

That would not be good.
 
Tilly De Soto leaned closely over her husband. The very action painfully reminded her of how she had been expecting soon to be leaning over him to say goodbye. She probably still would have that experience, but it had been postponed indefinitely. She was leaning close to him now because, though his gill implants were doing just fine at giving him an active life again, the cancerous mass compressing his lungs from the outside was preventing those lungs from inflating, and thus choking off his speech though not his life.

With wispy inhalings and exhalings, Miguel De Soto told his wife: "I feel...I may... not be...able...to speak... at all...anymore... after...today. So if...this is... the last time...you hear... me speak... I want...it to be...me saying...that now... that I... know God... I know... to be...grateful... to Him...for letting... me have... such a...princess. I...love you...forever."

This got Miguel hugged around the shoulders by a tearful woman; Tilly had had to be reminded a few times not to block off the gill intakes on the sides of his neck, but now she had absorbed the precaution. The new conditions didn't interfere with her kissing him, nor for that matter with his kissing her back.

When Tilly had cried enough and kissed Miguel enough, she found other things to do, allowing him to begin reading his correspondence.

There were many ordinary letters, some of which could serve as filler if a given edition of the newspaper didn't seem to have enough material. The Wyoming Observer had gotten past its infancy period, when even one substantial article and one drawing by that Montefiori girl had seemed like enough to circulate. The technology level had not improved, but Miguel still was being supplied with sufficient paper and toner for the copy machines that served him as printing presses. (Energy Department personnel had taken over providing these things.) He had even, since his operation, been given new ribbons for the impact typewriters, as a congratulatory gift from the Indian couple with the Merchandise Service. Now each issue of the Observer could have no fewer than four hundred copies, and that with multiple pages. Now that he wasn't dead, Miguel was confident of maintaining a regular twice-a-week publishing schedule. There were even some seventy officially paying subscribers.

One envelope in the mail was thicker than the rest. What it contained was not only written by hand in pencil, but written on unmatching sheets of paper, on both sides of every sheet. Of course, many exiles considered themselves lucky if they could get their hands on any form of paper that could be written on. This was a manuscript, with a title:

"He Came Around the World to Round Up Sheep"
by Huldah Rosenbaum​

It was an account of how the young shepherdess and her father had been assisted in a difficult situation by the researcher from Australia, whose unprecedented visit to the Enclave had been unknown to them until the morning they laid eyes on him.

Miguel read it through with his editor's eyes. The young lady wrote eloquently, and seemed to know the line she must not cross when describing the conduct of the authority figures she and her father had encountered that day. It crossed Miguel's mind to hope, for Huldah's sake, that she had not formed a crush on Bert Randall, because another woman had gotten in first dibs on the dashing Aussie--not to mention that Bert would have been unlikely ever to appear inside the Enclave again even if he had stayed unattached. But if Huldah did feel anything of the sort for Bert, she didn't indulge herself in wearing her heart on her sleeve. It was a good article; he would use it soon, practically unaltered.

Noting that the Rosenbaums lived near Frontier Plaza, Miguel realized that this was farther west than where Kuruk Niteesh lived; thus, the pool of contributors to the newspaper was expanding geographically.

Miguel might yet live to see the Observer somehow become a real force in the life of the Western Enclave.
 
TO MY READERSHIP:


Since Wyoming is a real place, next north from Colorado, it occurred me to be embarrassed not to feature more specific facts about its geography than I've been doing. So I have studied more about the state, and soon I will be retroactively inserting a few new geographical references in old chapters. The past plot action won't be changed, but I'll have the setting for it a little better described.
 
After his visit to Casper on the occasion of Barney Jamison's successful operation on Mr. De Soto, Henry Spafford returned to his cabin west of Sussex, where he passed several days harvesting and drying his crop of medicinal herbs, and otherwise tending to his own affairs. This interlude was ended by the arrival of one of the horses boarded at Alipang Havens' modest stable. Riding the horse was one of Henry's other Sussex-based Grange acquaintances, the middle-aged Sumerico Bivar.

"Henry, I really wish you had a telephone here!" exclaimed the older man, who was dressed for camping and had his bow and arrows with him. "We got word that there've been more bear attacks in the foothills. Alipang can't come this time, because he's got a rush of patients anxious to be seen before the snows make it harder to come to him from their towns and farms."

"We expect to get a phone installed soon," the Apache replied. "My crop will help to pay for it."

Henry and Sumerico soon reached the Crazy Woman Creek Grange Hall, where they switched their horses for the fearless Canadian stallions. Their first day's travel from there was uneventful; but on the second day, something happened of great interest to Henry.

Sumerico was grumbling as they rode, about a well-known fact which annoyed all Grange volunteers: the destruction of most farm animals years ago, by that final United States Presidency which had been leading up to the advent of the Fairness Party regime. The destroyed livestock had mostly NOT been used to feed the poor people about whom the government pretended to care; and meanwhile, the same government had not destroyed wild predators--as Enclave residents were in a position to be painfully aware.

While the Hispanic gentleman was talking, Henry's ears picked up a distant sound of airplane engines from somewhere behind them.

"Think of all the nature preserves they've got!" Sumerico was harrumphing. "They could have stashed all their bears and wolves and cougars in those!"

"I can't prove it," replied Henry, "but I suspect that powerful union bosses and suchlike people want to be able to use those preserves as their private recreational parks; thus, THEY don't want to bump into creatures who don't buy into veganism."

Though not covering much new ground, the conversation went on; and Sumerico went on complaining. Of course, Henry realized that Sumerico, as a city dweller, could not so safely complain at home. They were within sight of two farmhouses at the moment, but with no mirror-men around. And then--

With a rapid upshoot in the noise, the fixed-wing airplane passed above their heads, whooshing from east-northeast to west-southwest, at an altitude of less than a kilometer. It was a twin-engine propellor job, like the one Henry and Alipang had seen on the night of the Fourth of July; Henry had no memory of that night, but had been told afterwards what kind of plane had crashed. As for this one: was it only Henry's imagination, or had he glimpsed some sort of vapor trail streaming out of the underside of its fuselage?

Two or three minutes later, as they kept riding, Henry noticed that their horses were walking a bit more slowly; and Sumerico stopped complaining. Neither the horses, nor the older man, were in any distress; but they certainly seemed more relaxed. Sumerico even smiled--somewhat vacantly, Henry thought.

So now the young Apache turned his attention upon his own state of mind. That Overseer plane MUST be doing what the Australian Bert Randall had been sure they were doing: spreading chemicals designed to make the exiles more passive. Well, do I feel more passive now? Henry asked himself.

As a matter of fact, so he did. With no such huge dose as he had received when standing within a few paces of the crashed plane before, he was not at all incapacitated; but he did feel now as if nothing was so urgent as he might suppose. Did it really matter about the wild predators? But Henry knew that it DID matter. So, remembering Mr. Randall's words about not letting the psychotropic formula change his personality, he began consciously trying to feel LESS relaxed and apathetic.

What helped him the most was the thought that, if they wanted to, the Overseers could just as easily spray their chemicals over the bears, to make THEM less aggressive. Yet the grizzly which had almost munched Ulrich Reinhart last April was proof that the Overseers didn't see any reason to tame the wild beasts.

Henry's will prevailed; like Alipang, he still despised the Overseers. He considered telling Sumerico about the vapors. But then he reflected that this tampering with human minds must have been going on for the whole time that the Enclave had existed, if not longer; yet as far as he could tell, it had never rendered any Grange volunteers unable to cope with dangerous carnivores. Thus Henry held his peace. He would keep an eye on Sumerico, just in case the psychotropic dose might threaten to impair the older man's performance; but he would not speak to Sumerico about the chemicals unless there was a compelling reason to do so.
 
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Alipang and Kim Havens were glad that their quasi-nephew Ransom was away today, working for the Britt Gavilan family northwest of town. Had he been present, there could just conceivably have been an uncomfortable situation for him.

Dental patients were coming in from considerable distances, to be seen while there was no snow to contend with in the travelling. Not that the trains didn't still run in winter; but even there, the passenger cars available to exiles were left unheated in the name of "energy conservation." Today, two families well known to the Havens family had shown up at the same time, from opposite directions. From Lance Creek at the eastern edge of the Wyoming Sector had come Oscar and Rita Magpatoc, with their children Carmela, Pilar, Santos and Felipe. From the Amish area to the west had come Hezekiah and Lois Reinhart, with their still more numerous brood headed by daughter Lydia.

It was Carmela Magpatoc, almost exactly the same age as Lydia Reinhart, who was, without knowing it, the potential cause of uneasiness.

At the Havens household's visit to the Magpatocs last spring, Ransom and Wilson had both felt instantly attracted to Carmela, though nothing had been said about it to Carmela or to any of the Magpatocs. Wilson had simply shrugged off the feeling, since he was just enough younger than the Filipina beauty that he would not expect her ever to be interested in him. But Ransom, a bit older than the son of Alipang and Kim, had dwelt in his mind on Carmela for at least a little while. Then he had turned his attentions to the Amish maiden Lydia, who lived closer by and who more definitely showed her own liking for him. Yet the barrier of Amish isolationism had not so far been seriously dealt with -- whereas an eventual marriage with Carmela would present no such problems to Ransom.

There was an additional, very private reason why Wilson Havens, though just as susceptible to feminine allure as any boy stumbling into adolescence, was never in serious agonies over any girl he found charming but couldn't have. Wilson's secret defense in this area was the existence of the girl cousin, Aunt Chilena's daughter, who bore the first name of their Grandma Havens. Wilson had not seen the Salisburys since the great relocation had parted them. The Enclave component of the extended family did receive letters with news of Chilena, Melody and their households, and Wilson wrote his share of outward-bound letters; but for whatever cause, Cecilia Salisbury never wrote specifically to Wilson. All the same, Wilson had never forgotten the perfectly innocent fun he and Cecilia the Younger had shared as children: bicycling, canoeing and so forth.

A steady warmth enclosed the memory of Cousin Cecilia in Wilson's mind; and although he could not have defined sharply what he felt for her, the fact that she was outside the fence made him feel sure somehow that he would not stay confined _inside_ the fence for all of his earthly life. Just occasionally, as if discovered for the first time, another fact flickered into view in Wilson's brain: the fact that he and Cecilia were not _blood_ relatives.

Alipang, Kim and Lorraine could see that Wilson was at ease concerning Oscar and Rita's daughter. They also felt sure that Ransom was not now carrying any torch for Carmela either; nor had Carmela been given any cause to think of herself as courted by Ransom. But the adults were glad nonetheless that the boy would not be confronted with the sight of both Carmela and Lydia standing before him at the same time. The Magpatocs, unable to make it back to Lance Creek on the same day, would be eating supper at the Havens house, then would sleep the night as boarders of Sylvia Lathrop; Ransom would be with the Gavilans through supper before starting for home, so hopefully he would not so much as lay eyes on Carmela, or at most only briefly.

Since the Reinharts _would_ be making for home on the same day, Alipang and Kim saw all of them first, while the Magpatocs were visiting with Lorraine and the Havens children. The Amish family did not need anything extraordinary, mostly just cleanings--which made it easy for Alipang to talk to them while he worked on each in turn with the others watching.

"Say, Hezekiah, you remember how the secular agencies played a tug-of-war with us when the Enclave was first founded, don't you?"

The Amish farmer nodded grimly. "Yep, the Distribution Department on one side, and the Indoctrination Department on the other side. Indoctrination won, so we were 'blessed' with Overseers instead of Commerce Inspectors."

"I was thinking about that just recently." Alipang could say this truthfully, _without_ mentioning that Yang Sung-Kuo's private note to him had specially urged attention to the subject. What followed was also true: "It made me think about Second Chronicles twenty, when King Jehoshaphat was threatened by more than one enemy nation at the same time, but God told him that He, that is God, would fight the battle for His people."

"And the way God did it was to make the enemy soldiers fight each other!" volunteered Hezekiah's school-aged son Seth.

"That's true, Seth," Alipang affirmed. "Those pagans must have had generations of rivalry among themselves, besides all being enemies to Israel; so all God had to do was turn those rivalries loose. Maybe the different chieftains had an argument while they were marching toward Jerusalem, each leader wanting to be the one who would personally take Jehoshaphat prisoner, or something like that."

"Now that you bring it up," said Mrs. Reinhart, "I don't recall our preacher speaking about that passage anytime since we got relocated to the Enclave."

Hezekiah looked at his wife. "You're right. Funny thing, too, because that passage is a natural for an Amish sermon."

Alipang caught Kim's eye, and saw that she understood what he had just done. He would subsequently talk to the Magpatocs about the same Old Testament episode, for the benefit of _their_ fellowship in Lance Creek. To any other patients coming in from outside of the immediate Sussex area, he would also feed the same suggestion. He might vary it with other Biblical examples of competing wrongdoers in strife with each other, such as when the Apostle Paul had gotten the Pharisees and Sadducees arguing against each other over the resurrection.

God willing, this job of benign programming would have increasing numbers of Christian exiles alert to the possibility of intramural conflict among the present-day oppressors. Then, IF there was any way that the exiles could turn such a situation to their own advantage, more of them would at least be awake to the possibility.

It was a bread-on-the-waters action, a speculative effort; but what wasn't, under these conditions? If God had particularly meant for Alipang to receive the advice that Mr. Yang had offered, then this was as good a way as Alipang could think of to go to work on it.
 
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When Ransom came home, he responded to the news of who had been here in just the way his mother would have wished: he was sorry to have missed seeing Lydia, but showed no sign of disappointment at not having seen Carmela. So the Amish-insularity issue still was an issue, but romantic flip-flops apparently were not.

That night, before getting in bed, Alipang sat where he could use the light of two candles to begin writing a letter. It was addressed to someone _outside_ the Enclave, and someone with official standing to boot--but someone who had given Alipang permission to write to him, by previously writing to Alipang. The addressee of the letter was Forest Ranger Mark Terrell, assigned in the Great Plains Federal District.

Dear Ranger Terrell,

You probably are aware of the landmark occasion we had here in the Enclave, being visited by non-D.S. citizens, from Greater China and the Pacific Federation. Even though some consider me a narrow-minded man, I can still appreciate the implications of international friendship, transparency and cooperation. After all, we are told so often that disunity is the greatest of all evils.

If I may say so, a good degree of unity is something my fellow Enclave residents and I seem to enjoy. We have diversity in particular beliefs, and even two business corporations in active competition with each other; but I'm not aware of any exile positively hating any other one. In such organizations as we are allowed to have, chiefly the Grange Association, there is no one trying to pull overthrows and power grabs at anyone else's expense....

"Al, is that something you _have_ to finish tonight?" Since marrying Alipang, Kim had never been a whiner, but her voice right now was _closer_ to whining than was normal for her: say, only ninety light-years away from whining instead of a hundred light-years. There was, at any rate, a shade of pleading in her tone.

"No, sweetheart, I don't have to finish it tonight; I just needed to get enough written so that I wouldn't lose the train of thought. This much ought to be enough." He did not say to her, would not say to her, that he was daring to hope that a dissident Forest Ranger might become an ally for--whatever it was he was hoping to accomplish. Since Ranger Terrell had himself used a cryptic sentence to convey his own indignation over the murder of young Eva Lederburg, Alipang was counting on him to recognize the phrase "a narrow-minded man" as really meaning "an ARROW-minded man," thus a tie-in to Miguel De Soto's former arrow-borne messages. After all, if Yang Sung-Kuo, a foreigner, could feel a wish to do the exile community some good, perhaps an American Forest Ranger would feel the same way.

Blowing out the candles, he slid into bed, and into the warm embrace that awaited him. "Did something happen today that you haven't had time to tell me about yet?" he asked Kim, but indulged in a long kiss with her before letting her answer him.

Once emerging from that kiss, Kim whispered, "Nothing today. But I'm convinced that something happened on our summer trip to Rapid City. I believe that our time alone, without the kids hanging over us, was a more _productive_ time than we realized...."
 
I'm guessing Mark will end up being an ally.

Copperfox said:
Once emerging from that kiss, Kim whispered, "Nothing today. But I'm convinced that something happened on our summer trip to Rapid City. I believe that our time alone, without the kids hanging over us, was a more _productive_ time than we realized...."
Click to expand...

Ooh!
 
Chapter 44: Reshuffling the Deck

Getting clear of Nigeria before that country's government could take her to task for blatantly lying about events near the New Vatican, net-journalist Reltseotu Smith had moved on to a different assignment altogether, over in Uganda. A man named Petunia Morrison--originally Patrick Morrison, but he had changed his first name by his own free will--had flown over from America's Northwest Federal District, on behalf of that district's remarkable All-Species Council. He was meeting with every Ugandan official who would talk with him, urging them to try something similar. It need not be _overly_ ambitious in reaching out to fellow beings; in view of Uganda being the chief sanctuary for the world's surviving gorillas, Morrison was merely proposing an All-PRIMATES Council.

Reltseotu gave Morrison plenty of interview time, also interviewing such human Ugandans as would spare any time for her. There were not many of these, because Ugandans also knew what Reltseotu had done in Nigeria. So it was not long before they were asking for clearance to do video in the gorilla habitat. But it took intervention by Chinese journalist friends of Neutron Invincible to GET that clearance.

At last, on a day of mild temperature and light rain, Reltseotu and Petunia were set down in the gorilla preserve. At least they had avoided the heavier rainfall of a Ugandan summer, as the local cameraman pointed out to them. A businesslike animal warden made a fourth in their party; after some ordinary talking-to-the-camera sequences had been videocorded for both the reporter and the inter-species politician, the warden led them to within fifty meters of the nearest gorillas. "All right, you folks have been well briefed on gorilla protocol. These ones here are as good to meet as you could ask for; they're accustomed to people approaching them properly, and they've never given a tourist any trouble for as long as I've--"

But before the warden could finish his routine advice, Petunia Morrison began something which was not routine at all--not routine for a great-ape habitat, anyway. Ignoring the warden and addressing the camera, he declared, "I will now prove that our hirsute cousins are in every way our spiritual equals, by communicating with them through INTERPRETIVE DANCE!"

It was not really the animal warden's fault that Mr. Morrison got away from him: the warden in all his career had never seen any tourist or scientist fly into a wild exhibition of twirling and leaping and posing while being watched by the silverback leader of a large gorilla family. Fortunately, though, the warden WAS ready with his tranquilizer gun when the silverback, not a great fan of improvisational dance, charged at Petunia with a warning roar.

The tranquilizer shot might have been better spent on the dancer-statesman. The flicker of time between the gorilla patriarch starting to charge, and the dart putting him harmlessly to sleep, was enough to put the fear of death into Petunia Morrison; and it was with far less grace than in his dancing that he stampeded away, running right into Reltseotu and the cameraman. The cameraman only had the wind knocked out of him; but Reltseotu, falling over a log behind her when Petunia bowled her over in his panic, broke her right arm.

Neutron Invincible still would have something to show on The Glance; but Petunia Morrison soon was to find himself being permanently banned from the entire nation of Uganda--while Reltseotu, more immediately, was slated to be medevacked to Uganda's premier hospital, Mulago National Referral Hospital in northern Kampala.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Black Ugandan paramedics sedated Reltseotu on the scene, and a black Ugandan helicopter pilot flew her to her destination. Mulago Hospital had sorely deteriorated under the Idi Amin dictatorship, and had been slow to recover after Amin's arrival in Hell; but by now it was in excellent shape. When Reltseotu came to her senses on an emergency-room bed, a black Ugandan female doctor and a black Ugandan male nurse were standing close by; but in response to something being said about ultrasonic scanning of her fracture, a WHITE man came into view, bringing the imagery equipment.

The white man looked to be in his early forties....just the age, Reltseotu realized, that a man might be who had served in the horrible old United States Armed Forces before enlightenment had come to America. And yes, oh dread unspeakable, he DID have the same kind of he-man air and martial bearing as that macho-Christian goon Brendan Hyland.

"Are you guys EVERYWHERE?" she groaned aloud.

The medical technician's eyes beamed what might have been a knowing look, as if he knew enough about the reporter to know her contempt for military primitives. But all he said in response, and that with a boyish smile, was, "You mean guys from Wisconsin? Yeah, we did kind of scatter, once we didn't have the Green Bay Packers to cheer for anymore."
 
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The doctor and the nurse concealed their amusement at Reltseotu's disquiet. They both knew the history of their white imagery technician--or technologist, in more accurate healthcare parlance--and valued him considerably more highly than they valued the entire media establishment of the Diversity States, Revised Shakespeare Series and all.

Josiah Redfern, whose birthplace in northern Wisconsin had been swallowed by the Great Lakes Islamist Cantonment, had once been part of a thankless effort to introduce Muslim people to American-style freedom. As an infantryman in the United States Army, he had killed more than his share of Ba'athists and Al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq--and along the way, had lost the hearing in his right ear thanks to the explosion of an I.E.D. His medic buddy Pablo Alvarez had died saving his life that day; and Josiah had resolved to become a physician after he got out of the Army, to live Pablo's dreams in Pablo's place. But God's plans had forced Josiah to modify his own plans.

In September of 2008, while using his G.I. Bill benefits, living with his Uncle Brett, and attending a private college in New York City which offered a pre-med program, Josiah had simultaneously been working as a campus groundskeeper, hoping to have a little money saved up at such time as he might marry. But while his late start in higher education had meant he was five or six years older than the average of his classmates, Josiah had found love with all the impulsiveness of a teenager--though this was wholesomely disciplined by his resolute Christian principles. He had fallen in love with a female classmate named Melody Johnson: a girl who had needed a great deal of love, understanding and patience, for she had not had good luck with males before meeting Josiah. When the two pre-med students got married, Melody had already been pregnant with fraternal-twin boys by a different man; their conception, to put it delicately, had not been voluntary on her part, but she didn't blame the two babies for that crime, nor did Josiah.

The twins had caused additional worries by being born prematurely, but happily they had both survived. Having two sons to care for almost from the start of their marriage had sunk the M.D. ambitions, first for Melody and then also for Josiah, even though Melody's parents had done much to assist the couple. Josiah had settled for the shorter time it would take to train as a medical technologist, and so was at least approximating Pablo's dream. Two additional pregnancies for Melody, bearing daughters to Josiah, had prevented her from ever getting more than a Bachelor of Science degree, and that much only thanks to online courses. But their family life had been all she could ask for in that dimension of life: Josiah loved the twin boys as if they had been his biological sons, they loved him as their true father, and the daughters who _were_ biologically Josiah's offspring did not lag behind their brothers in loving and being loved.

Now the boys, and the elder of the girls, were all in high school, and the younger girl in middle school--but not in the Diversity States. When Josiah, and Melody's father, had seen what was coming upon their beloved homeland, they had regretfully cleared out, moving as nearly as possible their entire extended family to a country which had religious freedom: Uganda.

Thus Josiah was able to practice both his faith and his career in freedom...but he was not about to tell the despicable propagandist just how much went into his current career. He performed his ultrasound scan of Ms. Smith's broken arm, as announced; but the imagery served another purpose as well.

Soon afterwards, out of Reltseotu Smith's sight and hearing, Josiah showed his findings to persons other than medical: "Yes, she has a tracking chip, a clever job, stuck _inside_ her collarbone."

"Our own implanting will be quicker and dirtier, but subtle enough," said Colonel Tiberiu Parnescu, one of those to whom--with the connivance of the hospital--Josiah was reporting. "When she is next unconscious, we'll give her _another_ chip, one that will report to us."
 
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