The First Love Of Alipang Havens

As the whole group went from the mag-lev to the light rail, one of the heavies attached himself to Evan, as if having prior instructions to watch him in particular. The fellow had a manner of speaking which sounded surprisingly refined, in view of what seemed to be his function.

"Citizen Rand? I'm a senior voting member of the district organization. My name's Dobie Marsalis--no relation to the old-time jazz musician, more's the pity. I do play a bit of trumpet and saxophone in my spare time; I even have a gig with other union members for the next Winter Solstice party. Note that my first name contains a buh-buh-bee, not a puh-puh-pee. It was people calling me 'Dopey' that kept me motivated to succeed in school, sort of a Boy-Named-Sue phenomenon. Of course, as you've probably found out since your discharge, these days there actually ARE some chromosome-sources who'll name a male bioproduct Sue. Be that as it may, I now hold a Master's degree in Political Science from Columbia University. You're the physical therapist, right? If it makes you any more comfortable, I hear two other citizens in this batch've also done time in Self-Esteem Centers. And no, the girl who hovered over you on the mag-lev ride from Georgetown wasn't one of them; I know who she is, and she was always a good enough brown-noser to avoid being arrested. That's right, we saw her with you, had a camera feed set up in your train car. I'm pleased to be able to tell you that your own behavior was quite correct."

This cordial monologue lasted long enough to see them boarding the light-rail train, at which time Evan was able to get a word in: "The other two who were, um, confined like me: did they also make the mistake of saying un-mutual things about the ways of the collective?"

"I expect so, but it doesn't matter. Your own case is known to the union's Mid-Atlantic District supervisor. It gives you a certain distinction. Don't worry, I don't mean in an adverse way; but she will want to talk to you before the meeting starts. I'll be conducting you to her office, where she'll explain, after which we'll join the others in the main assembly hall."

"Okay," said Evan, mentally praying for protection from any evil that might be brewing. "So tell me, Dobie, what's your healthcare specialty?"

"None. I'm a labor-governance facilitator. My three colleagues and I were assigned to this union by the Party Presidium, to provide it with some physical-persuasion resources and give it a fairer chance in dealings with other unions. Translation: if some other union is at cross-purposes with us, we help our co-unionists to stand firm and unintimidated."

Soon enough, the whole party arrived at the union's Baltimore headquarters. While Dobie's three friends guided the others to the assembly hall, Evan was led to an upstairs office. "You'll go in alone," Dobie told him, after each man had presented an eye to the iris-reader beside the door. "If this were any situation to sweat about, I would be in there with you--either to keep you safe, or, ahem, to do the other thing, depending on situational context. Relax, you'll know what this is about in less time than I've been bending your ear."

Entering the office, Evan beheld its occupant standing in front of her desk to welcome him: a Chinese-American woman whom he had never met before; she looked to be a few years older than himself.

"Good morning, Citizen Rand; the collective is all. My name is Carolyn Biao; I'm the district supervisor, and unlike Citizen Marsalis, I do have a healthcare specialty, as an optometrist. Have a seat." After shaking his hand, she resumed her own chair behind her desk. "And have a drink of Joy Nectar; this is a friendly interview, though I will need you to listen carefully and then follow the instructions you'll be given."

Accepting the chair and the refreshment, Evan quietly waited to hear what all this was about. He was not kept waiting much longer.

"You'll be wondering what brought you to my attention. I realize that you don't know who I am, but I know all about you. The reason why you went to the Self-Esteem Center was because, as physical trainer for a certain highly-placed man, you were in a position to learn things about his lifestyle. When he discarded his wife in favor of a new girlfriend, you told him to his face that what he had done was wrong. He retaliated by having you arrested for hate speech. Now, at the time you were arrested, I was inclined to approve of your punishment....because I was the girlfriend for whom he left his wife."

The whole Antarctic ice shelf seemed to materialize inside Evan's body. But his fear was allayed even faster than his bafflement had been. Carolyn Biao smiled, and made her voice as soothing as possible: "Don't be alarmed. Things changed before you had been incarcerated for even three weeks. In short, the scragger discarded ME likewise. This caused my feelings toward you to become far more tolerant. Finish your Joy Nectar, and then I'll explain what's on the agenda for today."
 
"Around the time you graduated from college," Ms. Biao told Evan, "there was a renewed reactionary movement on behalf of what the Judeo-Christian fascists called 'constitutional government.' It came frighteningly close to preventing the ultimate victory of the collective; we were fortunate that our decades of work in the educational system produced millions of new young voters at the crucial time, voters who wouldn't listen to the oppositional bigots. But it still is remembered by the public at large how those bigots claimed that our glorious diversity is really an ironclad conformity. So, since general elections have been abolished as no longer needed, union assemblies are occasions for us to prove that we DO allow more than one view to be heard. Here, take this tablet computer."

When the palm unit was in his hand, Evan asked, "What do I do with this?"

"Read your script. You are to play the role of dissenter, and this is what you'll say. It's very simple; Dobie is also playing dissenter, and he'll give you your cue. You and he will be on streamcast news: no less than Dynamo Earthquake will be videocording a short spot on the assembly, and she knows to watch for your spontaneous outburst."

"Planned spontaneity," Evan couldn't help muttering.

"Exactly," the supervisor agreed without any indignation. "When my parents lived in Beijing, they were assigned to several spontaneous rallies. But go ahead and read your speech; when you recite it, I want you to sound genuinely emotional about it."

Once Evan had it down pat, he gave back the reader unit, and soon was walking with Dobie to the assembly hall. "I hope you're more at ease now," said the labor-governance facilitator.

Evan glanced back in the direction they had come from. "I'm glad she doesn't hold a grudge."

Dobie gave him a brotherly shoulder-pat. "You really don't have a thing to worry about. She doesn't have anything against you, and _neither_ does she have the hots for you. So it'll be all business between you and her, insofar as you have _anything_ to do with her after today. This might be the only time you're called on to play dissenter; we like to vary the casting. But I hope you see what an improvement this is over past practices. Having secret ballots for union voting caused so much unpredictability!"

"Um, yeah, I remember how long and hard the unions worked to eliminate secret ballots."

"Yes, it was quite a struggle. It's funny to look back on it now; imagine un-mutual, anti-collective attitudes in a labor union, of ALL places! Now things are efficient: everyone has his voting instructions ahead of time, and the oneness of the collective smoothly advances into the future."

Just before the two men entered the assembly hall, they caught sight of Dynamo Earthquake herself, with a camerawoman, discussing something in the corridor. The journalist and the union enforcer exchanged thumbs-up signs.
 
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Entering the hall, what Evan first noticed was that there was no seating except on the leaders' platform. "It makes us look more enthusiastic and involved for the cameras if we're all standing up," Dobie whispered in his ear, adding, "You see the light elements flush with the floor? Give them a quick glance from time to time; they're the applause signals. They're down there so they won't show onscreen in the news video."

There were at least six hundred rank-and-filers in the hall. Dobie needed to go in front of Evan, to nudge people out of the way until the two assigned "dissenters" reached their assigned place to stand, where the camera unit would pick them up easily. They had barely made it there before the applause signals lit up for the first time. So Evan joined in loud clapping for Carolyn Biao as she came onto the platform. He didn't shout, because he was afraid it might cause his voice to crack later when it came time for him to speak his lines.

"Welcome, comrades in the cause of life!" exclaimed the union official, addressing an audience which included persons who had been parties to euthanasia procedures. "We are here, first to greet the newest members of our union for this federal district; all of you who have dataphones with you will find the new members' names and pictures being transmitted to you. Be sure to make them feel at home with us.

"Next, we are here to hold a vote on a question of expanding our working profile. The other district organizations are holding similar votes today. As you know, ever since the Fairness Party liberated America from the capitalist establishment, the Campaign Against Hate has maintained its own small corps of personnel among the Pinkshirts who possess the same career skills that would normally place a citizen under _this_ union's authority."

"Mutter now," Dobie whispered. "They don't have a separate light for that;" but indeed, at least twenty persons, apparently clued in, had already begun muttering. Evan remembered something he had heard of long ago: that theater directors wanting moderate crowd noises would tell their actors to say "Rhubarb and cabbage"--which, when repeated in a non-unison way, came out sounding like realistic mass mumbling. So, not too loudly, he said, "Rhubarb and cabbage, rhubarb and cabbage," until he noticed the others quieting down again.

Ms. Biao continued, "This arrangement was understandable in the first months of the new society, when there still were dangerous God-fascists holding out. The law-enforcement community _needed_ to have a spectrum of resources at their command while the racist Nazi Christian menace remained a credible one. But internal disobedience is practically gone by now; there is no longer such a threat level as to demand a high-alert status for noncombatant services. Thus, it now stands to reason that the Campaign Against Hate can afford to allow its secondary healthcare needs to be met by US, just as its higher medical requirements are _already_ met by the Physicians' Union. We therefore must choose whether we will proactively request that the Department of Indoctrination agree to our taking authority over those services in its operations. I open the floor for comments from our members."

Eight successive persons--one of them the flirty girl from the mag-lev ride, but the others giving the impression of being more-established union members--raised their hands, had the parabolic sound pickups aimed at them where they stood, and offered comments which eagerly supported the effort to bring Pinkshirt medics under this union's roof. The comments were nearly interchangeable. Suddenly, Dobie made an inconspicuous gesture to Evan, raised his hand, was recognized, and began his own speech that was to precede Evan's part.

"Citizen Biao, I question the wisdom of this expansion--at least at this time. We already control the _training_ of all new secondary healthcare workers. If we wait a few more years, these new people in the caring professions, being our own trainees, will get the idea for themselves to call for membership in our union. This will be a more organic transition, one which will not create any friction with our brave defenders in the Department of Indoctrination." This ended his part; now it was Evan's turn.

Once he was recognized, Evan found what he thought was the best speaking pitch to minimize the likelihood of his voice cracking. He succeeded in uttering his own speech clearly:

"Citizen Biao, I worry that it may be too soon to say that law enforcement is able to relax. The level of un-mutual agitation may be low for the moment; but who knows what effect world events may have on our domestic population? Wasn't it in the news not long ago that white supremacists were on a rampage in Nigeria? Such unhappy news might embolden reactionary bourgeois elements within the Diversity States. If such events do force the Campaign Against Hate to step up its enforcement operations, there could be situations in which they can function more quickly and effectively if they have their own Pinkshirt medics as they do now. Therefore, I ask the union to delay any petition to the Secretary of Indoctrination on this subject, until our leaders first obtain studies from that department on how the suggested change would impact their emergency readiness."

There soon followed a show-of-hands vote, with every person in the room watched and videocorded. Evan and Dobie were the only Nay votes; the motion to request union control of Pinkshirt medics and medical technicians was carried. Both Ms. Biao and Dobie Marsalis were completely satisfied with Evan's performance. Evan himself was feeling a bit soiled; but he was grateful that he had not been required to say anything more explicitly anti-moral, such as advocating increased polygamy in America.

With the other newcomers, he was treated to lunch in the building's spacious cafeteria. No one showed any animosity toward him for speaking against the majority will; apparently, all of them knew that he had been following a script.

It was only later, on the mag-lev train heading back to Delaware, that Evan began to feel _really_ dirty. What made him feel so was the media screen in his train car. Dynamo Earthquake's "news" piece on the union meeting was being played. In it, Ms. Earthquake spoke dramatically about "fierce opposition" to the motion on unionizing Pinkshirt medics, and portrayed Carolyn Biao as some kind of heroine for "daring to stand firm" against this enormous opposition.

The rest of the way home, Evan tried to think only about the fact that he could not obtain ANY employment without the Secondary Healthcare Workers' Union granting it, and that he needed to provide for his family and stop depending on the Salisburys' generosity, willing though that generosity was.

That night, it took hours for Summer to succeed in making the man she loved feel better and less dirty.
 
I learned the "rhubarb and cabbage" trick from my actress sister Ricki. As for Evan's ordeal: one of the main themes of this novel IS the dilemma that so many Christians face, of how many concessions CAN be made without being guilty of disobedience to God.
 
Chapter 57: Playing Hardball

If Emilio Vasquez had found his introduction to undercover work distasteful, Brendan Hyland, already part of an undercover organization, found his introduction to space travel even more distasteful. As arranged for him by Colonel Parnescu, he took passage on a Chinese spaceplane out of a South African spaceport, accompanied by a French-speaking Swiss expatriate named Etienne LaClede. Brendan was using a Polish name for himself: Bronislaw Kowalski. His hair had been made blond for this mission, and a special fat-cell treatment had made him temporarily heavier than usual, as a precaution against the slight danger that someone at his destination might recognize him as having been one of the "evil white supremacists" in Reltseotu Smith's newscast from Nigeria. Ethnicity was not the only thing the Marine Corps veteran was pretending; he and Etienne had to pretend to have known each other for a long time...AND pretend to be adherents of a lifestyle which, for as long as Brendan could remember, had been treated by popular culture as nearly a sacrament.

Neither the American nor the Swiss considered it a sacrament, and by mutual consent they did NOT overdo the pretense. They mainly just talked in the hearing of fellow passengers about imaginary experiences in this lifestyle. Etienne was the elder of the two men, and had been in space before, so he fell naturally into the role of the more experienced pleasure-seeker.

Arriving on board the Orbital Palace, they took a turn at weightless flying inside the central atrium, then dined at one of the restaurants on the space station's rim with an exterior view. During the meal, Brendan silently meditated on everything that had happened to the woebegone planet below them, and mentally prayed for Jennifer, the children, and all persons of goodwill anywhere on Earth. His old friend Alipang Havens came sharply to mind, and Brendan prayed quite earnestly for him.

They managed a peaceful night's sleep, though the station's spin-gravity being less than Earth gravity caused Brendan to dream about being a sea lion swimming underwater. In the morning, they breakfasted at a different rim-restaurant.

And as if by chance, a Korean safety guard struck up a conversation with them after breakfast, as they were strolling around the rim admiring the artwork on display. The conversation went on as all three men entered an elevator...

Whereupon the safety guard's tone instantly turned more serious, and his English more fluent. "Gentlemen, I give you the recognition code seven one five eight, green, brown, orange. This elevator is as well-shielded against spying as we can make it. Do you have any preliminary questions about the meeting?"

"I do," replied Etienne. "Will the General tell us today if Greater China has any objections to India taking part in the proposed operation? Or perhaps I should say, will he object if we ASK him about that?"

"He won't object to you asking. If his own superiors were not favorably inclined toward your plan overall, you would not have been invited here. But I can't predict what he will say about India."

Before long, and unobserved by any ordinary guests of the space hotel, Brendan and Etienne were soon led to a modest office, in which sat the hotel manager, who (though dressed in civilian attire) was also a general of the Chinese Aerospace Force. China having a limited supply of surnames, General Yang Pang-Zhu was no relation to Internal Affairs Major Yang Sung-Kuo.

General Yang's English was even less accented than the safety guard's had been at its best. "Welcome, friends. Have you eaten?"


 
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"We have eaten, thank you; your food service here is outstanding," said Etienne LaClede in Mandarin Chinese, then switched to English. "Are all of your employees on this space station members of your intelligence and counter-intelligence apparatus?"

"Only a few, like the man who escorted you here, are active members of that community," replied General Yang. "But no one gets hired to work here without having passed so strict a background investigation that he or she could be allowed to learn classified information if this were to our advantage. We didn't become the leading power by letting just _anyone_ work at high-profile sites like this. But please, gentlemen, have a seat."

Though he would be leaving most of the talking to Etienne, Brendan did say one thing as he sat down: "Sir, you understand that our organization is firmly decided on what it considers to be the most desirable course. What we tell you today _will_ be what our leadership initially proposes, so if you on your side have discretion to negotiate, we'll make plenty of progress toward the eventual content of the final agreement."

General Yang smiled in Etienne's direction, then faced Brendan again. "Mr. Kowalski, do you know how long a brick building can stand and remain usable? Without any major repairs, it does well if it lasts two or three centuries. We Chinese consider a brick building a _temporary_ structure, hardly more than a tent; we prefer stone buildings, which last much longer. We think for the future, beyond our own lifetimes. The period of time from the rise of Chairman Mao to the present has been _short_ by our standards." Now his smile reappeared. "Pardon me, I enjoy parading Chinese wisdom; but we also live in the present world, and we also have an interest in moving this business forward. Mr. LaClede, please give me a summation of what your organization wants to do."

Nodding, Etienne began: "When it became clear that Islamists were going to gain control over most of Europe, including my native land, a great many nations, corporations and individuals who had assets in secure Swiss banks pulled them out to avoid having everything confiscated. You should know that, since much of the wealth formerly in Swiss banks is now in Chinese ones. But what _remains_ in Swiss banks today is of interest to us.

"The free remnant of Europe, and those nations friendly to us on other continents, are subjected to intermittent aggression and provocation from Islamic extremists, from African Communists, from the gangsters' regime of Aztlan, and from the Venezuelan Alliance which is friendly to all the other troublemakers. You know that no one can wage war without information; and the operation we contemplate is intended to collect some very useful information about our enemies."

"Namely, how much money those enemies have on deposit with the banking system of the European Caliphate," said General Yang; "when it was deposited there, and when withdrawals were made. Your analysts would correlate those data with other intelligence about the actions of your adversaries. I know that before the Islamic takeover, you were a high executive at the largest of the Swiss banks; so you are capable of assisting in this mission. Pardon me, I'm just moving the discussion along, so that Mr. Kowalski doesn't grow impatient."

Etienne was not disturbed by his background being known; he had made no attempt to hide his real identity from the Chinese intelligence people. "Quite right. But our obtaining this financial information will be of much less value if the Caliphate is _aware_ that we obtained it. Accordingly, we need to penetrate the central bank _undetected,_ leaving no clues to our having hacked their database."

"As you doubtless know," Brendan inserted, "the Caliphate's main banking computers cannot be hacked online, because they _aren't_ online, and are kept shielded against remote sensors reading the electronic signals that occur within them. Technicians of our organization will have to be _bodily_ present where the computers are, to extract the information we need."

"Yes, vital messages are carried from bank to bank in the Caliphate in _printed_ form, hard copy, by the most trusted couriers. There still is a counter-intelligence advantage in using LOW technology for some things. Western intelligence collectors in the previous decade were unable, no matter how good their equipment, to intercept pieces of paper sent from one terrorist cell to another." General Yang could with relevance have mentioned the handwritten message that Agent Peter Tomisaburo had sent out of America's Western Enclave, a message which he had seen; but there was no reason to tell the current visitors about it.

Etienne resumed: "Switzerland being Switzerland, and now occupied by the power elite of the European Caliphate, getting anywhere _near_ my former workplace will be as hard as penetrating the computers without anyone knowing it. We happen to know that you Chinese, and the Indians, have both worked on stealth methods for small spacecraft. We want our mission team to be able to come _down_ into Switzerland from space."

"And why aren't you simply asking the Indians to provide this kind of transportation for you? They certainly hate all of the Caliphates enough to want to do them harm."

"The Indians move cautiously." Etienne did not remark that China itself was the potential adversary to which India afforded the most attention. "What we are asking from _them_ in this situation is far less of a gamble for India than facilitating a covert landing from orbit with subsequent pickup. And we have something special to offer China for helping."

"And that would be--?"

"In addition to all the hostile entities I named earlier, Chinese Triad gangs have secret accounts in the Swiss banks. I know that your government is keeping an eye on the Triad resurgence ever since the new Republic of Hawaii began welcoming the gangsters. Our information raid on Switzerland can include collecting information for you about the Triad financial holdings."

General Yang nodded. "That would be of some benefit to us. But since you're not asking the Indians to fly you in from space, what ARE you asking them to do?"

"As long as there is no final agreement, we mustn't compromise the Indians. For this reason, Mr. Kowalski and I ourselves don't yet know what the Indians will be doing, though our superiors assure us that their part in events will not be anything harmful to Beijing's interests."

"Reasonable enough. Let me relay to my directorate the encrypted audiovisual record of our conversation so far; it will be assessed at the ministry level. I will have you brought to this office again when I have heard what they think of it."
 
Meanwhile, in the city of Wichita, Great Plains Federal District:

"Inspector, how much longer do we hold off?" asked a plainclothesman via scrambled cellphone. "The suspect will soon be back in the area where there were anomalies with surveillance cameras."

"We want to see if he meets anyone," replied Inspector Leroy Lincoln. He knew, as his subordinates knew, that it could not be coincidence that this suspect had temporarily been lost to their tracking on three past occasions because law-enforcement sensor gear had "coincidentally" failed in his vicinity. But they didn't have the authority to investigate these technical failures the way Leroy would have wished; they could only try to nab the elusive man physically, and anyone he might have come to Wichita to meet.

This manhunt had begun with information from the Texas Rangers, that some Diversity States Marshals had gone missing after seemingly returning from the scene of a border disturbance. One of the Marshals thus unaccounted for was an Asian-American, Vinu Dandekar. The man currently being shadowed by district police had been roaming around for many days now, representing himself as Marshal Dandekar.

But he wasn't.

Strong-stomached cops, visiting successive public restrooms after the suspect left them, had obtained enough DNA samples to prove that the man wearing Marshal Dandekar's uniform was not _anyone_ recorded in the citizen database of the D.S.A.

The fake Dandekar had visited labor-union offices for two specialties: the building and repairing of large motor vehicles, and metalwork including welding. But brainwave lie detection, performed on all workers identified as having met him, had verified that these workers _didn't_ know what specifically the stranger wanted. Only hints of his wanting some kind of heavy vehicles. And this much had come to Leroy secondhand, from the only law-enforcement body that had a free hand with the labor unions. The same law-enforcement body that was now compromised by someone impersonating one of its officers.

A female detective called. "Inspector, the suspect is within fifty meters of a doorway that's inside the area of the sensor glitches."

"Do you see any pedestrians, bicyclists or light-rail passengers who look as if they're heading to talk with him?"

"That's a negative."

"All right, we'll take the bird in hand. Everyone, it goes down NOW! Take the suspect NOW!"

Another policewoman, emerging from behind a corner near where the suspect was, jostled her way between bypassers, carrying what looked like an oversized yet lightweight shotgun. She kept it behind her back till she had a clear line of sight toward her target. What she carried was a far less lethal piece of ordnance than the flame guns of the Transport Police. Fired _above_ the head of the fake Dandekar, with estimated range pre-set, it sent forth a dozen marble-sized projectiles, which were tiny, limited-power infrasonic shock-emitters. These devices projected the force of their inaudible noise downward, not affecting any of the police officers, and not injuring any innocent persons who were nearby when the sound waves were unleashed. All that the infrasonic ammunition did was to disorient the suspect, which was enough; the arresting officers ran in and took him into custody without meeting any resistance.

It was anticlimactic, after first the Texas Rangers and then the Great Plains District Police Force had been after this man for so long. But the result was what counted.

Leroy beckoned two of his most trusted men to his side. With his face turned away from any known spy camera, he _mouthed_ words to them: We must make sure the Rangers know we got this man.

The Texas Rangers were the only law-enforcement officers in the Diversity States, besides his own core group of district police, who Leroy was _totally_ certain could not be in league with whoever had arranged this masquerade. Right now, the order of the day was to get as much interrogating done on the fake Dandekar as possible, in case someone dirty among higher-ups might contrive to move the suspect out of Leroy's reach.

Leroy hated working blind, but had hopes of this captured impostor providing some light.
 
As soon as the prisoner was securely restrained, one of Leroy's men took a mouth-swabbing to reconfirm the DNA, another stored the iris-patterns of the prisoner's eyes in a data module, and then the first officer prompted him to say something and so recorded his voiceprint. This was the work of less than a minute, while the Inspector himself was converging on them in his propane-fuelled police van, his driver going as fast as was possible without endangering the swarms of human sheep on their little bicycles. Sheep Leroy considered them--not with hostile contempt, but with pity, for he knew that the sheep-nature had been imposed on them by force and fraud.

Once the van reached the arrest scene, everyone moved with great haste. The phony D.S. Marshal, handcuffed and blindfolded, was bundled into the van; the female officer who had stopped him with the infrasonic weapon was now holding a trank pistol aimed at him; and as the van got moving again with flashers blazing, Leroy was making an encrypted call--to the Texas Tu-95 currently on patrol over Kansas.

"The fish is hooked! Come see him before they make us throw him back in the water!"

The van drove to Wichita's Mid-Continent Airport. There, they did not have long to wait before Colt Finnegan's Bear bomber came in for a landing. Captain Finnegan left Greg Jessup in charge of the ship with engines idling, then came running across the pavement without waiting to zip up his cold-weather jacket. With him came Sally Pitt, his cyber-warfare specialist. Leroy's party with their prisoner met the two aviators halfway.

Finnegan pointed a videocorder at Leroy, who stood alongside the prisoner and spoke: "The date and time of this recording are verified by the system clock. I am Inspector Leroy Lincoln, Great Plains Federal District Police. This prisoner was arrested on this date by my officers in Wichita. His real identity is undetermined at the time I speak, but he was pretending to be Diversity States Marshal Vinu Dandekar. He had been seen by a number of citizens in this false identity in recent days. The true whereabouts of the real Marshal Dandekar are unknown at present."

At the same time, Sally was copying onto her own data device all the biometric data the arresting officers had collected, including the DNA pattern. She did not say--no one said aloud--that Gloria Cervantes might be able from this data to discover for them who the impostor was; but this was what she, and Finnegan, and Leroy were all thinking. Speed was of the essence. The information had to be put in the hands of Ranger Commandant Brittany Pierce, and she would pass it along to Senorita Cervantes.

Everything these law officers were doing was perfectly legal; it was proper procedure to share information between law-enforcement bodies when a case concerned them both. But Leroy and the others were hurrying because of the possibility that someone _higher_ in the system was dirty and would want to cover up what was going on; they could not count on ever laying eyes on this prisoner, or learning anything from him, once he was incarcerated and subject to higher-ups taking charge of him.

Colt Finnegan had been for transporting the impostor physically to Texas; after all, the real Vinu Dandekar had gone missing in Texas, which gave Texan authorities a basis to argue for jurisdiction. But Leroy, who had been walking the tightrope since the Fairness Party had first grabbed power in America, had told his aviator ally that it would be better to acquiesce to the likely demand of the Marshals' Service to assume custody of any prisoner taken in this missing-officers case. "By not seeming to fight them over jurisdiction," Leroy had explained, "we have more chance of picking up clues from them in the future."

When the rapid handing over of data was finished, including a file on the fake Marshal's visits to labor unions, Captain Finnegan hastily shook hands with Leroy in farewell. Sally Pitt, glancing at the prisoner, told the local inspector, "I met the real Vinu Dandekar once. This guy isn't so identical as to suggest face alteration, but he is a fair likeness, which suggests that the substitution was _well_ planned by whomever."

Distant sirens announced other police vehicles coming to the airport--probably D.S. Marshals. The fliers walked briskly back to their plane, and Leroy's party stashed the prisoner in their van again, to drive back to the arrivals area. To the officers who presumably would be claiming custody of the fake Marshal Dandekar, Leroy would say truthfully that Captain Finnegan's crew had been assisting in the fugitive search at the same time as conducting air-defense patrol, and had been interested in seeing the prisoner. Since no attempt had been made to dispute subsequent custody, the dirty Marshals--if they were dirty, which was by no means proven--would have no pretext to complain about how Leroy had managed things.

But the Texas Rangers would now have clues to go on, as they tried to figure out what lay behind the strange incidents on the ground along the Aztlano border.
 
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Zella, Leroy Lincoln belongs to the equivalent of a state police force; and like the Texas Ranger characters, he was a true-hearted policeman _before_ the government over him was radically changed. Leroy was first seen in the same chapter that introduced Gloria the spy; both of them were shown giving a secret briefing to the Rangers. Which prompts me to do an instant reader-poll. It is not _necessary_ for Inspector Lincoln to appear onstage for the rest of this novel; but would readers _like_ to see more of him?
 
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Copperfox said:
Zella, Leroy Lincoln belongs to the equivalent of a state police force; and like the Texas Ranger characters, he was a true-hearted policeman _before_ the government over him was radically changed. Leroy was first seen in the same chapter that introduced Gloria the spy; both of them were shown giving a secret briefing to the Rangers. Which prompts me to do an instant reader-poll. It is not _necessary_ for Inspector Lincoln to appear onstage for the rest of this novel; but would readers _like_ to see more of him?
Click to expand...

I meant the guy pretending to be Vinu Dandekar.

I think I'd like to see more of him.
 
On board the Orbital Palace, Brendan and Etienne went to enjoy massages that were free to guests; paid another visit to the zero-gravity atrium; ate lunch at a restaurant new to them; watched a holographic projection of a live Chinese dance performance from Beijing; and at last were fetched back to General Yang's private office.

The man doing the fetching this time was a different safety guard, bigger than the Korean. His name badge said "Nyunt Zeyar." Etienne asked him, "Are you Burmese?"

The hulking fellow broke out in a boyish grin. "Right the first time! Westerners hardly ever know, but you got it."

"I've been around," said the Swiss.

"And likely to be around some more," added Brendan.

"With company," Nyunt Zeyar murmured cryptically.

Unlike the Korean safety guard, the Burmese remained with the two guests when they entered the office, taking a parade-rest position close to the desk.

"I have communicated with my superiors," General Yang informed the secret-army representatives. "Since you had passed earlier brainwave scans, establishing that you are not knowingly acting to the detriment of Greater China, they were amenable enough to considering your request for space transport on your planned mission. I am now empowered to carry negotiations to the next phase. I myself, acting for the Chinese Ministry of Defense and our Aerospace Force, will meet with _your_ superiors. As a good-faith gesture, we will permit your side to choose the place for that meeting. There should be no reason why a suitable agreement cannot be reached--provided that two stipulations are met."

Etienne faintly raised an eyebrow. "And those would be--?"

"First, about India. We do not presume to tell you that you can't have relationships with the Indians, nor even to insist that they be excluded from _this_ operation. But we do stipulate that no Indian nationals be given access to sensitive Chinese information, such as classified specifics of our spacecraft's performance attributes. Also not anything from the bank to be penetrated that affects China. Neither do we ask you to give away to us any secrets the Indians may have shared with you. If possible, we will recommend some kind of compartmentalization: the Indians working on a different area of the project than we do, making your own organization the go-between to coordinate us.

"Second, and this is the most ironclad point, we will require you to take one man of ours with you, so that we will receive a report on the mission from a witness whose loyalties are with us. Our man will not try to tell you what to do, but he will help to verify what you did. The man we have selected is one who has an artificially-induced eidetic memory, so he will remember everything that happens around him. At the same time, though he is trustworthy, he does not know any seriously classified information of ours, so that if he were captured, no important secrets--other than this mission itself, of course--could be gained from him."

Brendan looked at the Burmese man. "Mr. Zeyar, does the General mean you?"

"He does, Mr. Kowalski. My enhanced memory retention enables me to describe to the General the actions and conversations of guests here. A sort of backup system to the usual security sensors."

"Then you're a mutant?" asked Etienne.

General Yang answered this, reclaiming the conversation thereby: "Strictly speaking, no. A mutant has alterations at the chromosome level, done before his birth. Zeyar's enhancement is properly a somatic alteration, similarly to when we alter some of our soldiers to feel pain at only twenty percent normal intensity. Real chromosome alteration has proven disappointing."

The Swiss nodded. "As with all the genetically modified food crops that left people malnourished, until nations finally began going back to the original plant species."

"You have the idea. We find it works better to build _above_ an undamaged genetic foundation. When you return to Earth, day after tomorrow, Zeyar will accompany you. I will want his personal impressions of all the members of your organization whom he meets. During the rest of your pretense of being tourists, he will be your guide on the station. Feel free to talk with him about unclassified subjects. He's going to be your comrade, so get to know him."
 
Supper...live entertainment recommended by Nyunt Zeyar...transmissions back to Earth...sleep...a sauna visit...breakfast... observation deck, and long irrelevant conversations with the Burmese guide...exercising in the low-gravity fitness center... lunch...more conversations while rambling... additional instances of the two emissaries talking for the benefit of strangers, in order to give the impression of being in a woman-hating lifestyle that they really wanted no part of... an interesting visit to the spaceplane dock... supper...more live entertainment...sleep... return communications received from Earth...breakfast... more chat with Nyunt Zeyar, who actually was not bad company, since he liked normal family life just as Brendan liked it...

And at last, the flight back to Earth was impending. General Yang--acting like a hotel manager, not like a military commander--spent time with his visitors _outside_ the private office for the first time, in a recreation area that could be closed to the general customer population. With barely two hours left to go before the shuttle flight, Nyunt Zeyar contrived to separate Etienne LaClede from Brendan, to tell the ex-banker about his own qualifications to assist on a covert mission, these qualifications mostly consisting in a familiarity with space flight, and extensive training with weapons both lethal and non-lethal.

This enabled General Yang, for the first time, to talk only to Brendan.

"I wanted to tell you something which would not be tactful to say in front of Mr. LaClede, what with his being a former Swiss banker. You must be aware that it used to be _highly_ common for people in some parts of the world to blame all the world's evils on international bankers."

"Yes, I'm aware of it," Brendan assured him. "What was ironic was that some who feared and hated the bankers were fanatical Marxists, who didn't want _anyone_ to have a private bank or a private anything else; yet others who hated the same bankers were libertarians, who loved free enterprise, but just didn't want any business acting too much like a government." He wondered whether General Yang was hinting at realizing that he, Brendan alias Bronislaw, really was an American, since the indignation against international bankers had been strong among Americans ten or twelve years ago. But if the Orbital Palace manager did guess Brendan's origin, he did not seem concerned about it.

"There was truth in the hue and cry," General Yang continued. "Top financiers did consider themselves above the law, and they did interfere with history in many ways. No doubt you know, for instance, that there were those who exploited America's military intervention in Afghanistan in order to profit off the opium trade. Their self-serving conduct was an insult to courageous Americans who honestly were fighting to advance the cause of civilization."

"Interesting to hear you say that, sir."

"I can say it easily enough, Mister...Kowalski. Though operating here in a covert capacity, I'm a military man at heart, and I respect brave soldiers. I understand that many American expatriates have found their way into your organization. As long as they are doing nothing that harms China, I wish them only well."

"Thank you on their behalf, sir."

"Moreover, I can offer them consolation of a sort for the loss of their country. The evil international bankers actually did have plenty to do with America's downfall, and without even the justification of having a loved homeland of their own whose interests they were promoting. They cared for nothing but their own pleasure and advantage. But you may notice that I speak of them in past tense."

Brendan had not been thinking about that point of grammar; now his eyes widened slightly. "What--did something happen to them?"

"Yes, it did. In their arrogance, they forgot that no amount of money can make a man invulnerable. Their continued corrupt behavior became an annoyance to our people....so we killed them."

Brendan's eyes widened a lot more. "You killed ALL the big international bankers??"

"Enough of them to change the balance of behind-the-scenes power in the world. The survivors profited spiritually, you might say, by the realization that we could get to them at any time. If you dig deeply enough in the recent affairs of some nations, you will find that some aspects of their economies have been improved by the discontinuation of certain unethical practices...but enough of this."

"It's worth knowing, sir; but why have you told me this?"

"Partly because my letting you in on such a secret should help to assure you that we are dealing fairly with your organization. Also, to say that Mr. LaClede was _never_ one of the evil bankers himself, but that he knows much of the same secret history about which I have just hinted to you. Make sure you value his knowledge. But now, I suppose you need to get packed for the trip home. I expect that both of you are eager to get back to...the _women_ you love."
 
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Just don't like him TOO much. Remember that, like the other Yang in this story, he still is serving a dictatorship, and will obey the orders of that dictatorship, even if innocent people suffer by it. On the other hand, Yang Sung-Kuo was not unreachable by God's redeeming grace, was he?
 
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