The First Love Of Alipang Havens

I'm glad they were able to get there in time to see Emilio!

Copperfox said:
"Ah, _there_ you are, Al!" She ran up to hug and kiss him, then added, "And I see you brought Daffy. Merry Christmas, Daffy; it's a merry one for Al and me, because we get to keep our Mom!" An instant later, she also hugged and kissed the teenager, who blushed frantically, and dared not put his own arms around her in return, fervently though he wished to.
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Oh, Daffy.:p
 
When Alipang and Daffodil were hustled into the master bedroom, Cecilia felt strong enough to sit up, with supporting pillows, and clasp her elder son to her in that position. "Oh, Al, I'm so glad I can tell you again that I love you and I'm proud of you!"

Once she had satisfied herself on that score, Cecilia beckoned Daffodil to her to be hugged also. "Don't think I forgot what you did for us. I must have played your audio recording a hundred times by now. I wish you could understand how much it means when I say, may God bless you and reward you."

"Thank you, Mrs. Havens. At least I'm closer to understanding it now, after living with you Biblicals for a month." Overseer Andrews not being in the room probably made it easier for Daffodil to say this.

Eric, meanwhile, was getting in his own hugging on Alipang. Ransom was also in the room, and remarked to Daffodil, "Emilio is taking a page from your book. Besides transcribing the voice-bites he has of Melody, he recorded himself singing some songs on the analog tape recorder; he says they're songs he plans to sing to his own baby, so Kim's baby will get to hear the same songs. And he recorded all of us talking on his data device, for Melody's benefit. That was done with the Overseer monitoring, so it's legal. You and Alipang need to get on that outgoing audio also."

"Do I belong on that?" asked Daffodil. "I say you do," Eric told him.

Second to comforting Cecilia, everyone was trying to fit everything into the remaining minutes with Emilio. Jed Brickhouse helped, by handling on his own such communication with Enclave authorities as was necessary to make sure they didn't frown too much on the Rangers' visit. This included the Ranger Vice-Commandant being truth-checked by voiceprint as he assured Captain Butello that no effort was being made to undermine the Overseers' authority, and that no one had been talking about the particulars of the energy-industry assets within the Enclave. Emilio made the time after all to inspect the letters from himself and Melody which Eric and Cecilia had kept--in order to make sure they WERE the same letters, not cunning forgeries. He also left with Terrance all the hard-copy photos of Melody that he happened to be carrying.

Alipang's voice message to his middle sister was this: "Melody, it's Alipang! We're doing all right here; I wish you could see what a horseman I've gotten to be. I love you, and I love my new nephew already, because he's your child and Emilio's. You've got a terrific husband, and you deserve every bit of it. Always remember, middle children are super! Here's a vocal hug-- HUNHH!! Keep on trusting that there Inexpressible Ultimate." This idiotic title for a denatured parody of God stuck in his throat; but it had the advantage that he was allowed to SAY it, and Melody would know that he meant the real God.

When the dataphone was presented to Daffodil, he kept his speech safe, keenly aware that what he said would be on record. "This is Daffodil Ford, the Tolerance House adjunct faculty member who's been studying the exile population. Everyone here has behaved commendably toward me. I'm glad I was able to make that recording with Chilena's collective before; the citizens here were all pleased with it. And I hope everything goes well with your bioproduct."

Eric Havens added a loving summation at the end, including a word for his new grandson: "Douglas Eric Vasquez, this is your Grandpa Eric. Just in case I never get the chance to give you a dental checkup myself, I'll tell you now: always brush your teeth, or use equivalent hygienic technology, within fifteen minutes after every meal. I love you, grandson."

Too soon, the appointed minute came when Reuben Torvill, returning to the Havens house, received from Emilio the booster ampule of the cardiac restorative, and administered it to Cecilia--terminating Emilio's excuse to stay. There ensued many tearful embraces; even Ransom got one from Emilio, just for being someone dear to the Havens family, although Emilio had never seen Ransom before today. When Alipang hugged his brother-in-law, he whispered hastily in his ear:

"Believers in here have been told by God to look for signs of evildoers in conflict with each other."

Emilio made as much of a relevant reply as he dared: "True word! Wish I could say more, but pray for us. If by any wild chance you meet a cop named Leroy Lincoln, he's probably trustworthy." Emilio hated to have to qualify his endorsement of Inspector Lincoln; but in view of the way Aztlano spies had posed as D.S. Marshals, he couldn't totally rule out an impostor someday posing as Leroy Lincoln.

As he climbed into his helicopter, Emilio shouted to those who were waving goodbye to him, "The eyes of Texas will be upon you!" And when he was belted in alongside Jed and starting up the engine, he muttered, "God willing, I'm going to MAKE that be true."
 
Chapter 72: Daffodil's Decision Day

On Christmas Eve morning, the morning after Emilio's visit, Cecilia felt much better; but everyone made her stay in bed except for a few carefully-assisted visits to the toilet. Alipang, Terrance, Ransom, Wilson and Daffodil, however, found something to do outdoors that day.

The city's public-address loudspeakers were activated for the first time since they had announced the Churchbusters show. This time, the announcement was not about entertainment:

"Attention, citizens of Casper! Some of you are aware that a helicopter from a district-level police force visited the city yesterday. It was here in connection with air-defense exercises occurring nationwide. Although your Fairness Party has all geopolitical conflict situations under control, your triumvirate has judged it best to take proactive measures, in case capitalistic bourgeois fascist reactionary deviationists might ever violate the airspace of the Enclave. Accordingly, able-bodied citizens are invited to volunteer for six hours of outdoor labor today, offloading construction materials from freight trains. Further instructions will be provided on site."

Alipang, who was near Daffodil when this was heard, remarked, "This is like what you say they do with the unemployed people who live in the Collective Dormitories, isn't it?"

"Yes; as a way to save the Earth by minimizing the use of motor vehicles, human pack trains are formed to move all sorts of things from train stops to working areas."

Alipang smiled sardonically. "Then let's rejoice that we aren't completely isolated from the proletariat outside the fence; we experience what they do! But I'm not seriously complaining. They only summon us to these unpaid-labor musters occasionally, and as you heard, for jobs of limited length."

"Yes, when we were brought here, we were expecting much more of this kind of thing," Terrance concurred. "But loudly as they deny the value of freedom outside the fence, the administration in here at least understands that they get more profit out of us in the long run if we're mostly able to work like free men and earn money."

Alipang put on a theatrical face. "Cities are built of bricks. The strong make many; the starving make few; the dead make none."

Daffodil stared at him. "Is that from Shakespeare?"

"No, Charlton Heston in an old movie. I'll tell you more about it after we get back from the mule train."

"I'll go with you!" Daffodil exclaimed. "One more worker will mean a faster finish, and the sooner back to Christmas." The others were taken by surprise, but apart from warning him against blistering his hands, no one tried to discourage him.

When they joined the crowd at the train station, they saw Overseer Andrews standing atop a parked pedicab to give instructions. "Captain Butello will be landing here shortly, but I can give you your initial orders. The train that just pulled in contains ferroconcrete blocks and other building materials. All of these things have to be moved from the train to the federal building, and stacked there. Afterwards, workers actually skilled in construction trades will be hired in the normal fashion to reinforce that building against possible bombardment. You may use any conveyances available to you, including horse-drawn sledges; civilian government workers will direct you where to place the materials as you arrive at the destination. You must, as nearly as possible, complete the moving of all the materials before dark. If the work is done to Captain Butello's satisfaction, the rest of your holiday will be yours to enjoy."

Alipang made sure that Phosphorus Andrews was made aware of Daffodil's wish to take part in the work; she asked the boy to confirm this himself, and he did, so she merely shrugged.

As working teams were getting organized, Ransom told Daffodil, "From what I hear, this is the first time the Overseers have done anything conspicuous in Casper since before you did your show here. They were hanging back for awhile, but I guess this is to show us that they still have authority."

The ensuing hours of toil were uncomfortable and strenuous, but no one was cracking whips or threatening death to slackers. Daffodil strove mightily to put in his manly share of work. Alipang's party kept him with them, and changed the kind of tasks he did periodically, to vary his exertions. Captain Butello arrived while the work was on; she was startled to see the Ambassador's son working like a proletarian, but did not chide him for it. By the time the sun sank, Daffodil was also sinking.

The Overseer Captain pronounced the amount of work done to be sufficient, and released the "volunteers" with a wish for a happy Solstice. Daffodil was no longer able even to walk; but Alipang and Wilson propped him up on a horse to carry him home. Once back at the house, they all highly praised the boy's determined efforts to be useful.

The look of approval Harmony gave him caused Daffodil to feel as if he had done something downright heroic. And there were no Tolerance House administrators hovering over him to tell him that his feeling of satisfaction wasn't collective enough.

 
Though not specifically trained for physical therapy as his brother-in-law Evan Rand was, Alipang had related knowledge from years of martial-arts training, knowledge he had passed on to Terrance. Thus, the two brothers went to work on the aching Daffodil, prying the cramps loose from his distressed body one cramp at a time. "Cramps are sneaky things," Alipang told their patient. "As you try to stretch out one cramp, that very action gives another cramp a chance to flank-attack you."

"Sometimes literally in your flank," Terrance agreed.

"Make that everywhere!" Daffodil grunted.

"Tell us the specific places," Alipang directed him. "We'll try slightly different stretches, twists, pulls and pounding--keep the enemy off balance. And when we've gained some ground against the stiffness, Kim will put in some acupuncture needles to facilitate relaxing the worst places."

"It's almost suppertime," Kim told her husband. Her two younger children, in fact, were already putting together a supper tray which they would take up to Grandma; it was their proud mission not to eat anything themselves until they had assisted Grandma to eat the modest amount that Dr. Torvill judged was all right for her.

"You go ahead and eat, sweetheart," Alipang told Kim. "Terrance, you can also go eat, as soon as we finish the hamstring stretches and another set of side-torso stretches; I can handle the rest with Daffy's cooperation. When you're done eating, Kim can do the acupuncture part, and I'll eat. By the time I'm done eating, it'll probably be okay to remove the needles and give Daffy his supper."

Trying to be jocular and hide the extent of his discomfort, Daffodil forced a smile and said, "No need to save more than two kilos of that venison for me."

When the part calling for Terrance's hands was finished, and only Alipang remained beside the patient, Daffodil quietly asked him, "Why do I ache so MUCH? Everyone's always considered me very fit."

"Even a small change from accustomed exertions can make a difference for the worse. And what I gather from your own accounts of Equalityball and suchlike activities, is that you always worked mostly on aerobic fitness. Which is good, of course, but it doesn't prepare you for heavy exertions against RESISTANCE. Those blocks, toolcases and lengths of steel rod that you carried, forced you to prevent them from sliding or tilting or flopping out of your control. Hours of that struggling took a toll from your body.

"The Christian faith is like that in some respects. We can't just kick soccer balls and swim in pools; metaphorically speaking, we have to heave and strain at boulders, even let our hands turn raw and blistered."

A puzzled look sneaked out past Daffodil's pained look. "But a lot of the Biblicals I've spoken with, including members of your family, have talked about your faith being a free gift."

"Actual salvation IS a free gift. But what we call 'working out' our salvation, the service we perform for our Savior, is anything but passive. It calls for everything we can give."

"Everything you can give--to do what?"

Alipang postponed his answer till they had done some further work with Daffodil's arms. Then: "The working out can be all sorts of things. For some believers, the emphasis is to be on telling other people the truth; and remember, your own government and those of Aztlan, the several Caliphates and the Venezuelan Alliance are the ONLY ones on Earth which treat this telling as a crime. For other believers, the main assignment is to show excellence in practical careers, thus giving honor to God by showing the world that our faith DOESN'T make us useless for worldly purposes."

Daffodil managed another smile: this one more natural, because the worst of his muscle spasms were over by now. "Careers like being a combination dentist, paramedic and bear hunter?"

Alipang smiled back. "Don't forget the number-one item on my resume: shovelling snow for outdoor theater events in winter."
 
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Meanwhile, up in Sussex, the Tomisaburo family was looking after Avery Glass and his daughter Lenore, whose train from Rapid City had pulled into Sussex not long _after_ Alipang and the rest had scrambled down to Casper because of Cecilia's heart attack. When first meeting Peter Tomisaburo at the train station, Lenore Glass had expressed complete sympathy with Alipang's actions: "I've lost my mother, and I don't wish that grief on anyone. The Havens were perfectly right to go and be with her."

Mrs. Tomisaburo had expressed confidence that Avery and Lenore would be able to get seats on a Casper train on Christmas Day, when far fewer exiles would be going anyplace. "That's a faint memory of how holiday travel _used_ to be," the elderly dentist had remarked. Afterwards, a good supper, plus hearing Christmas carols very well performed by a carolling party that included the Rocheforts and the Hanleys, had helped the visitors feel better about the unavoidable change in Christmas plans.

On the day of Christmas Eve, Peter Tomisaburo had the idea to telephone, not the Havens house in Casper, but the Pressman house in Casper where the girl Jillian Forrester was staying. Leaving a message there, Peter eventually received a return call, in which Jillian reported the good news that Cecilia was out of danger.

Though honestly glad that Cecilia had not died, Peter was secretly more preoccupied with what had to interest him in his capacity as a Chinese deep-cover agent: namely, the surprising development of two Texas Rangers coming inside the Enclave. He wondered if the passive radio receiver in his skull would soon bring him orders for some action having some bearing on that strange turn of events. But no signal came for the time being, so he was able to resume acting like an American internal exile--and go to church.

The Christmas Eve service at Sussex Gospel Church was timed earlier in the evening than its counterpart in Casper. The other Peter in town, Pastor Ionesco, preached an unusual sermon for Christmas time: about Mordecai in the Book of Esther. Part of the rationale to tie this into the holiday was to liken the murderous Haman to the murderous Herod. The main point about Mordecai was that he acted for the well-being of the Persian king he served, even though that king was terribly slow to show any appreciation. "Friends, because Mordecai prevented THAT king from being murdered, he prevented the throne from being taken by some successor who probably would NOT have married Esther. Without Esther in the position of a queen, there would have been no voice to speak effectively against Haman's genocide plot. Thus, it was because Mordecai was willing to do his duty without immediate reward, in spite of temporary unfairness, that the very nation of Israel was able to continue existing. If there had been no Israel, God would have needed to do many things differently in order to achieve what He planned to achieve through the coming of Jesus..."

Hearing this message, quite different from the standard baby-in-the-manger speech he had been expecting, put at least a dent in Avery Glass' resentments over being treated unfairly in life. Then, returning to the Tomisaburo house after the service, Avery and his daughter were granted a treat when Peter Tomisaburo got a phone call through to the Eric Havens residence. "Alipang's on the line," said Peter, handing the receiver to Avery.

"Al, is your mother all right?" asked Avery.

"God be praised, she is." Alipang's voice was heavy with sincerity. "And what a blessing that my own brother-in-law had the privilege of being one who helped her TO get better! I'm afraid even to guess whether Emilio being allowed inside the fence foretells any improvement in conditions for us; but taken as a thing in itself, it was an AWESOME Christmas gift for all of us to see him."

"I should think! But since the men-there-and-women-here plan has been canked by circumstances, what's going to happen now?"

"Well, do you remember my parents' friends John and Felicity Waddell? If you can get down here tomorrow or even the next day, they'll be able to board you at their house, and we'll still have our Christmas visit."

"Mr. Tomisaburo says we'll be able to get tickets for tomorrow. He and his family have been wonderful to us, by the way."

"Excellent. Now, could you put your daughter on the line?"

When Lenore Glass took the receiver, it was to discover that Cecilia Havens had taken over at the other end. "Merry Christmas, Lenore," a dentist's wife said to a dentist's daughter. "Al and Harmony want me to go to sleep now, but I wanted to say hello to you first."

"You mention a son and a daughter," observed Lenore. "Does that mean everyone else there has gone out?"

"As a matter of fact, it does. Including our guest Daffodil. He wore himself out working outdoors today; but Al, Kim and Terrance helped him recover, so he was finally able to eat. And now he's at church. We made Eric go there too; he's been so anxious and attentive, it exhausts me."

"Well, don't exhaust yourself, Cecilia. You've said hello, now say goodnight."

"After I add this, Lenore. You and I share a common burden: each of us has grown children who ARE still living, but whom we CAN'T visit. When you're down here, maybe you and I can talk about that."

"A two-person support group? I'll take it; it's more than we've been offered by administrators in Rapid City."
 
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Copperfox said:
"After I add this, Lenore. You and I share a common burden: each of us has grown children who ARE still living, but whom we CAN'T visit. When you're down here, maybe you and I can talk about that."

"A two-person support group? I'll take it; it's more than we've been offered by administrators in Rapid City."
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I hope they can help each other.:)
 
The Church of the Faithful had a Christmas Day service besides the Christmas Eve one--both because they could, and because attendance was far from completely duplicative. John and Felicity Waddell, for instance, no longer cared to be up late at their age, so they went to the Christmas morning service. The two instrumentalists played their Bach duet both times; but Abraham Zondei would not repeat his night sermon in the morning. Rather, the morning sermon would be a sequel to the one before.

Alipang, Harmony and Daffodil were the only ones in the Havens household besides the convalescing Cecilia who had not been in church on Christmas Eve, so they became the only ones who DID go in the morning. The others busied themselves with home festivities. On the walk to church, Harmony clasped hands with both her companions, which was a comfortable familiarity with her big brother, and an intoxicating privilege for the besotted Daffodil. Trying to conceal what a thrill it was, he spoke to Harmony in as normal a voice as he could contrive:

"Um, Harmony? Last night, Citizen, I mean Pastor Zondei talked about why the Virgin Birth WASN'T the same thing as ancient myths about gods having human offspring, because your God isn't interested in physical pleasure. But he left me uncertain about the implications of that. Since Joseph the construction worker didn't get to have any genetic input into Jesus, does that mean that your religion is actually as much concerned to diminish masculine pride as the Fairness Party is?"

Harmony put him at ease with a kindly smile. "Your question is a refreshing change from people saying that the gospel demeans women! But no, Joseph was not being scorned by not being a chromosome source for our Savior. If Jesus was going to be human, He had to spend time growing in a mother's body; but the Virgin Mary did not MAKE Him what He was any more than Joseph did."

"That," Alipang put in, "is why it's misleading to call Mary 'the Mother of God.' Because Jesus is part of the eternal God, He never had a beginning to His existence. Mary could only be the mother of His human nature; NO mortal, male or female, could ever be a parent to His God-nature. In His true identity, Jesus did not and could not OWE anything to any created being. It was Jesus Who bestowed a privilege on Mary by letting her give Him birth, not Mary who contributed the slightest bit of anything at all to His Lordship."

"But about Joseph," Daffodil persisted; "are you sure that his part in the story isn't a message that men aren't allowed to enjoy relations with women? The teachers at the Tolerance House told me that, once I had learned the collective disciplines of a healthy society, the restrictions on my interactions would be lifted, and I would be free to engage in pleasure-pastimes at will. They said it was you Biblicals who preached an ONGOING suppression of natural desires, though in almost the same breath they would also accuse you all of gross hypocrisy, doing perverted things in secret."

Harmony sighed. "Daffy, do you think that Al and Kim had their children transmitted to them as holograms? They enjoy a love life that your teachers would envy if your teachers had any sense; it's the fact that they do it ONLY with each other, that your teachers hate. If God sends me a husband, I expect to enjoy my life with him thoroughly, in ALL aspects."

It was unnerving to Daffodil to have the object of his hopeless yearning say such things WHILE she still held his hand. He was grateful when they arrived at church, where there would be other things than his private infatuation to think about.

Pastor Zondei's second installment, as it happened, centered on Joseph: less on the fact that he WASN'T involved biologically in the birth of Jesus, than on the fact that he WAS involved in caring for Jesus. The merits of adoptive parents--including Eric and Cecilia Havens--came in for high praise; for, as the minister put it, "The making of a child's life is not only a collision of gametes; the job is not finished at birth. A child's life needs to be made by years of love and attention and guidance. Even though Jesus, as God, had no need of mortal assistance to make Him divine, yet we can be sure that Joseph, besides working to supply His earthly needs, also did plenty to make Him at home in human life. Joseph did not create the goodness of Jesus, any more than he created the material body of Jesus; but Joseph doubtless did much to ENCOURAGE the goodness of Jesus."

The morning sermon offered further illustrations of how a righteous man could feed the spirit of a child, whether biologically related or not--though the pastor did balance this with an affirmation that preserving closeness between those who WERE biologically related was a good thing. By the time the closing prayer and closing hymns came, Daffodil had been diverted for awhile from his crush on Harmony Havens, because a very different kind of wish had been brought back to front and center in his mind.

With full awareness, Daffodil Ford was wishing very much--EVEN though it would have made Harmony his aunt--that Alipang could have been his father.
 
As the worshippers rose to mingle after the service ended, Harmony spotted a couple in the back and hastened to greet them. They proved to be Bill and Lorraine Shao, who had managed to have this day free--in return for Bill working last night at Station 27--but had arrived a bit late. Daffodil and Alipang soon were also speaking with the Shaos; and the very fact of encountering them at all reminded the teenager of what he had heard about Lorraine. This woman, who like Cecilia Havens was lovely for her age, was like a creature out of mythology to Daffodil; for there had been a time when she had admitted to needing the forgiveness not only of a man, but of a _military_ man.

One more example of how the world for which Daffodil was conditioned, was turned upside-down by Christianity. Except that with every day he spent among the exiles, Daffodil felt more and more that it was _their_ way which was right-side up.

The boy was close to saying something about this to Lorraine, when he uncannily felt a hint of warmth from one of his pockets. It was the pocket in which he was keeping his dataphone. He _knew_ that he had shut off the power to his phone upon entering the church...but when he brought the phone out to look at it, sure enough, it was now powered on.

Which meant that the Overseers had switched it on remotely.

They already knew _where_ Daffodil was by means of the tracking chip inside his body, but the chip did not transmit to them all the sounds occurring around him. So the Overseers had activated the dataphone, and he knew that it could be made to serve as a sound pickup for them. But why now? In his time among the Biblicals, Daffodil had heard sermons more nearly seditious than anything said last night or today; but as far as he could tell, those messages had been of no importance to surveillance monitors. What was more alarming to them about a Christmas sermon?

Then it struck him. The Overseers _weren't_ worried about what Abraham Zondei said from his pulpit to his fellow exiles; but they were concerned to hear if Daffodil showed any overt _response_ to the preaching.

As long as they could count on the diplomat's bioproduct to be the proper young atheist who had played Captain Turgenev in the Churchbusters dramatization, it was all right that he heard preaching. It would simply count as part of getting to know the people to whom he was a kind of ambassador. But if Daffodil were, for instance, to say aloud to Pastor Zondei, "I want to follow Jesus too..."

That could mean harsh reprisals falling upon Alipang and the rest.

With a stab in his soul, precisely because of the realization that he was not supposed to get converted, the boy now realized that he DID wish to become a believer. But to announce any such decision would probably bring the roof down on his new friends. For their sake, he dared not make that step.

It was a relief of sorts, after lunch, when Avery and Lenore Glass arrived at the train station and were brought to Eric and Cecilia's house. Their coming gave Alipang's family someone else to talk to, so they would not be questioning Daffodil about what was troubling him.
 
Bill and Lorraine, along with Pastor Zondei, went to the Waddells' house for Christmas dinner (and Ransom would join them there for part of the day); but the Eric Havens home was full enough and lively enough without them. When Daffodil returned there with Alipang and Harmony, even before Avery and Lenore came, there was an avalanche of gift-giving in progress. It was not something Daffodil had thought about, because he was accustomed to gifts being exchanged on New Year's Day, a custom the Fairness Party had adopted from the Soviet Union; and none of the Havens had presented any gift requests to him, since he had already given all of them a treasured gift when he brought them the sound of Chilena's voice.

All the gifts given on this Christmas had either been made by the givers, or bought by barter from some fellow exile who had made them. The first gift presented to Daffodil was a drab-colored woollen scarf knitted by Esperanza. "It's the first scarf I ever made," she confessed to him. "We didn't even have any knitting needles till this year, anyway. I was already working on it before we met you, but I didn't have anyone picked to get it until I picked you to get it."

"Well, it's perfect," he assured the girl, as he was trying it on. He saw no need to tell her that he had been exposed to wool once before, more than six years ago, and had suffered a fierce allergic reaction. He had undergone anti-allergy treatment after that; and the failure of this new scarf to cause an immediate rash on touching his skin attested that the treatment had been successful. There was a different shortcoming to the gift, literally a shortcoming: the scarf's length was only barely enough to enable him to tie it at his throat, with no ends hanging down for visual effect. But he told Esperanza, "This is neat and handy: keeps my neck warm, and doesn't get in the way of anything else. Thank you very much, Esperanza."

When Avery Glass and his daughter arrived under Wilson's escort, they had a gift which was for everyone, and which everyone welcomed: a large case of jugs of orange juice, an item which was not completely unknown in the grocery stores of the Enclave, but was only available occasionally outside of Rapid City. "This is one modest advantage of living in the Enclave capital," said Lenore as she and her father made their presentation.

Dinner was as convivial as meals with the Havens family customarily were; and though Cecilia could not yet eat as heartily as the others, those others rejoiced that she was recovered enough to have walked downstairs to sit with them. Even given the cruel dilemma that inhibited him from declaring openly for Jesus Christ, Daffodil nonetheless basked in the warmth of mutual kindness and love that came naturally to these exiles. Being advised ahead of time that Avery and Lenore were not believers, and catching hints of this in their table conversation, Daffodil found it ironic that he was feeling sorry for them for what they were missing.

Not until dessert was served--some sort of pudding which Daffodil had never encountered before--did Avery Glass begin talking about a man whom Daffodil had heard about from Bert Randall: Doctor Barney Jamison, the Quaker surgeon from North Dakota Sector, who had installed Miguel De Soto's gill implants, and who later had been beaten almost to death by unknown attackers.

"When Barney had just been admitted to Sioux San Hospital, they called me in to repair the damage to his teeth. Only three days ago, I visited him in rehab. He still has trouble walking, after all this time. They won't let him have tissue regeneration--even though the blows to his head impaired his eyesight! It fades in and out; even at best he needs new corrective lenses, and part of the time he's virtually blind. He won't be able to perform any more surgery unless that's cured. All he'll be good for is to consult."

"That's better than nothing," sighed Eric. "If the triumvirate would just ask Washington for approval to start a medical college inside the fence, you and he could both teach there."

Hearing this ignited a thought in Daffodil's mind.

"Barney's got one student already," Avery continued; "and this student has a crush on her teacher."

Eric suddenly looked more intently at his colleague. "What, do you mean Ursula Flint?"--referring to the plain, heavy-set female doctor from the same sector who had come down with Doctor Jamison and assisted him in the procedure for Miguel. "It did look to me as if she might be feeling something for him."

"I saw it, too," Harmony chimed in. "Doctor Flint isn't a glamour girl, but she has as much of a heart as any other woman. Doctor Jamison's a lot older than she is, but she's old enough that she probably doesn't care about that so much."

"She visits him as often as possible," Avery told them. "It was touching, early on, to see her feeding him some lame excuse for food out of a recycled-cardboard container. If I'm not being deceived by sentimentality, I believe he's even starting to feel something for her in return."

"Oh, I hope so, for both of their sakes," Kim interjected.

After the meal was over, Avery revealed in a cryptic way that it had not been by chance that he had mentioned cardboard. Leading Alipang aside from the rest, the aging dentist inconspicuously placed a piece of thin cardboard in the younger dentist's hand. Alipang's instincts caused him to pocket this as if it were of no importance....as if it were no more important than the warning message that Yang Sung-Kuo had left with him.

As Daffodil had been glad to have Doctor and Miss Glass divert people's attention from his emotional disquiet, now Alipang was to be glad when Daffodil reclaimed attention and diverted people from the fact of Alipang having a secret. For Daffodil now had something to speak of that was independent of his spiritual yearnings.

"This is an opportunity for me to practice the skills I'm supposed to be cultivating, with an intervention. I can get a ride, maybe even a flight, up to Rapid City, and request that they let this Barney Jamison HAVE tissue regeneration."

This aroused plenty of interest, and plenty of new talk. Thus Alipang, who was clearing the tables just like his old days as a waiter, soon had his chance to inspect the crumpled little rectangle Avery had given him. Something had scratched the cardboard just enough that letters could be discerned in good light. It was the act of a man who had no pen, and perhaps a man who expected that he would excite suspicion if asking for a pen. The letters were:

NO KKQ JB ​

Alipang tensed. This could only mean, "There ARE NO Ku Klux Quakers; Signed, Barney Jamison." So the surgeon was aware of the false explanation for his being assaulted, and had wanted Avery Glass to do--something--with his testimony of that knowledge. Now Avery Glass had placed the hot potato in Alipang's hand. It could not just be ignored; but Alipang would tell no one in his family about it.

The only persons he might tell would be those who had become "informants" to him in the time since Yang Sung-Kuo had urged him to develop informants...and the few persons in authority who seemed to have become friendly to him.

The most helpful recipients of the information would probably be Forest Rangers Dana Pickering and Mark Terrell.
 
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Chapter 73: Post-Holiday Homicide

On the morning after Christmas, Aztlano President Tonio Formentera stood atop El Monte de Formentera, formerly Pike's Peak, and watched the sunrise. With him was a small party which included his agent Vinu Dandekar, four bodyguards, three presidential mistresses, two visiting Triad gangsters, a Shaman of Solar Influence...and the bound victim, a middle-aged woman this time, whom the Shaman would be sacrificing after the sun was clear of the horizon. It was a set routine by now that sacrifices were offered on this mountain every morning from the day before Winter Solstice through what used to be Epiphany, with El Presidente attending as many sessions as his duties permitted. While bestowing caresses on one of his mistresses (the other two being on loan to the two Chinese criminals), Formentera thought back nostalgically on the process by which he had gotten rid of Christmas in the former Southwestern United States.

In 2021, as Greater China imposed its will on the bankrupt and now fragmented United States, the poor, the parasitical and the predatory had streamed into the newly-formed People's Republic of Aztlan. The poor and the parasitical had allowed themselves to be deluded that a redistributionist paradise awaited them; now they would get "their share." The predatory, or anyway the more intelligent thugs among them, had known from the start that it would not be that sweet an arrangement; they knew why United States citizens were stampeding to get out of Aztlan before their escape was cut off. But the predatory had been content, because they would be able to prey upon the poor, the parasitical, and whoever had not been quick enough about evacuating California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. And they had expected, correctly as events were to show, that they would also make money by catering to the more depraved sorts of tourists from wealthier countries.

The Neo-Marxist leader, who had concocted charisma for himself by mixing paganism with his totalitarianism, had urged patience upon the gang leaders with whom he had made his alliances. Let the peons loot the stores and gulp the liquor for the first few months; let them also keep churches going if they chose...while the Mexican government was doing what Formentera knew it would do, unknown to the stupid masses. The Mexican government, having first provided the barriers that would cut off the Diversity States from direct surface contact with Aztlan, would next erect identical barriers to cut off Mexico from Aztlan. The reconquista was a one-way trip. No escape farther north, either--for the Canadians also understood what was brewing, and had set up their own border fence. Mexico would be left with those of its people who knew better than to expect infinite welfare handouts; and the Aztec-Maoist Party would be left with dominance over a disorganized, unarmed population that suddenly found the free goodies running out.

Formentera had known that the Catholic Church would be unable to oppose what he was doing; it was in retreat everywhere, except in parts of Africa and South America. Protestant churches would not offer any trouble either, since most of them had either settled for hiding inside their church buildings, or gone so far as to _join_ the Neo-Marxist movement outright in the name of "economic justice." Thus, once his subjects were fairly well confined (some able to escape by sea, but most lacking the means for this, or else resigned to the new regime), the founder of the Aztec-Maoist Party had been free to start shutting down churches--provided he made the token gesture of offering an alternative spirituality. So he had made rousing speeches about how the ever-shining light of the Sun represented the spirit of equal distribution in the universe, and so on; _then_ he had moved to shut down the churches.

Just to be sure he had the bulk of the people with him, he had not started _public_ human sacrifices until December of 2021--although he had been performing _private_ ritual murders since before he even got to be a head of state. One reason why he was confident of China's rulers being at least tolerant of his administration was because he could embarrass them if he revealed to the United Nations that Beijing had _known_ about his human sacrifices, and had _still_ permitted him to assume power in Aztlan. Of course, he knew that overplaying this card would not improve his life expectancy; but as long as he didn't overplay it, it was an asset for him.

The dictator came out of his reverie long enough to give a polite listen as the Shaman spoke his incantation; after all, Formentera had composed the incantation himself. Updating the "circle of life" cliche in view of the Solar idiom, the incantation spoke of "the orbit of life."

This nuance was lost on the victim as she died.

"Good slicing," Vinu Dandekar complimented the Shaman. "If El Presidente approves, there's no reason why you couldn't start performing some of the televised ones out of Los Angeles."

The Shaman gave the spy a smile and a nod. "I already had my turn doing several of them, while you were planted in the Diversity States. We each serve the Eternal Fusion in our own way."

Formentera placed Vinu in charge of the cleanup, while he, his guards, the Chinese Triad men, and the three women headed for the presidential mountain lodge nearby. Between times of recreation, Formentera and his guests would be discussing how much more the Triad would be able to furnish Aztlan in the way of weaponry.

 
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As Tonio Formentera, facing east, had invoked the Sun's metaphorical blessings in the morning, so his heir-presumptive would invoke those amoral blessings in the evening of the same day, facing west. Emilio Formentera, with guards and retinue of his own, was off the California coast on board a well-built, luxurious sailing sloop. As it happened, this yacht had once belonged to one of the evil international bankers whom the Chinese had gotten around to exterminating. There were also gangster guests on Emilio's roomy boat: in this case, representatives of the Indian mafia. The Aztlano leadership knew how to play Chinese and Indian gangsters against each other, much as it played the legitimate governments of China and India against each other. But if either set of criminals had precedence, it was the Chinese--not because Indian gangsters were inherently weaker, they weren't, but because the Indian gangsters were fewer in number. So the Rajput Racketeers, as some called them, had to settle for being hosted by El Presidente's firstborn son.

Their entertainment on the yacht, however, was as good as their competitors enjoyed in the mountain lodge. Besides women and refreshments, they had the comical talents of Sunki Pavatea, the Hopi Indian koshare. What the Indian gangsters didn't know was that neither they, nor the Formentera family, would be enjoying Hopi comedy anymore after this evening. Sunki had another engagement.

A former U.S. Coast Guard seaplane, manned by members of the gang Los Bucaneros, was flying security patrol above Emilio Formentera's yacht; but this plane, though retrofitted with the latest available avionics, had no means of detecting the latest in stealth submarines. And by Sunki's arrangement, one such compact submarine, belonging to the secret network of freedom fighters, was closely shadowing the sailing sloop.

Being trusted by the Formenteras--the only good thing to have come from all the times he had been forced to watch human sacrifices without saying a word of protest--meant that Sunki had been allowed to rove the boat without being closely watched. No one thought that a descendant of a desert tribe would have nautical knowledge; but Sunki had acquired such knowledge, specifically for his plan to escape...

...while seeming to have died in an accident.

Over the course of the current pleasure cruise, the presidential jester had made subtle alterations to the rigging of the fore-and-aft mainsail. When his moment came, when the seas were rocking enough that the accident would be believable, one yank on a hopefully-unnoticed cord would set off his exit.

The moment worked out better than Sunki had dared to hope.

The yacht was running on a northward reach. The man slated to be murdered was being held in a sitting posture near the starboard rail. Emilio Formentera's plan was to kill the victim--for he was playing the shaman role himself this evening, for the fun of it--immediately after coming about, when the sacred electromagnetic spectrum of the Sun would be shining onto the bound man. This victim, so Sunki had heard from no less than El Presidente, was a former U.S. Navy officer, one who had stayed too long at San Diego Naval Base, making sure that all classified material was destroyed before the Aztec-Maoists could get their hands on it. Over the years since his capture, this Naval officer had withstood all the torture that the Aztlanos could inflict on him, without divulging anything they wanted to know. He seemed to have some kind of advanced conditioning to reinforce his human courage; it made him resistant to mind-altering drugs, which unfortunately had meant still more torture for the wretched hero. Sunki could see, anyone could see, the marks of horrible injuries on him.

But because Emilio had opted to perform the sacrifice amidships....the Hopi clown's heart leaped with the sudden prospect of _finally_ being able to _rescue_ a Sun-sacrifice.

As the sloop came about, and as Emilio Formentera hoisted his knife, Sunki pulled his trigger-cord; in the same movement, it came free, and he tossed it away, so no one would realize that it had any connection with what ensued. At the same instant, he shouted, "Boss! Look out!"--for the boom of the big mainsail was swinging free sooner than it was supposed to, about to smash into anyone in its path. Before even completing his outcry, he grabbed Emilio and forced him down onto the deck, out of the way of the mainsail boom. The boom continued into him; but with his clown's agility (and the advantage of foreknowledge), he moved _with_ its impact, like a boxer rolling his head with an incoming punch. Yelling now as if in fear for himself, he wildly flailed his arms, just like a frightened man seeking support in a fall...but what he caught hold of was the captive Naval officer.

The captive thus was dragged overboard with Sunki. But since the jester's first observed action had been to _save_ Emilio from harm, no one who remained on the yacht even thought to suspect that Sunki could have been doing anything _against_ the interests of Aztlan's reigning dynasty. Indeed, they searched earnestly in hopes of rescuing the faithful clown; but they found nothing, since the stalking submarine had quickly sent out divers, who slapped air-masks on both Sunki and the would-be sacrifice, and helped them into into the safety of their vessel.

The way things had worked out, with his being able to reinforce the appearance that he really had perished in an accident, AND his being able at long last to _rescue_ an intended victim, led Sunki Pavatea to reflect that maybe there was a God after all.
 
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On Saturday morning, another person who was contemplating the existence of God was taking care of business whose completion would allow her more aggressively to pursue spiritual answers for herself.

Denise Heathcock, still known professionally as Dynamo Earthquake, had not yet finished enough of her planned short interviews to take the break she wanted to take from her daily program. So, having come to the city of Tupelo, she hurried things along by pouncing on _every_ pretext for an interview, or even a tour of something. Tupelo, near the north end of the former state of Mississippi, fell within the Inland Southern Federal District rather than the Gulf Coast Federal District, and it was the _only_ Mississippi city within its district to have remained in use after the reorganizing of population by the Fairness Party. Around it now spread collective farms and small wilderness preserves.

The southern December being sufficiently mild for outdoor activity, Denise had already visited two of the collective farms for news features; now, in the city, she was coming to Tupelo Buffalo Park. With her was Freya Vanaheim, the same camerawoman who had been with her on the day of the air battle over Kansas.

When the United States had existed, a zoo had been the main feature of this park. But that, of course, had had to change when almost all animal ownership in the D.S.A. had been abolished other than inside the Western Enclave. In celebration of the freeing of other species from human control, all the animals in the zoo had been euthanized--except for some carnivores, which had been sent to the Enclave. Pollinator insects, and a few songbirds, were now the only animal life on the roster. The sole reason why the _word_ "buffalo" could remain in the park's name was because the American bison was, as the Party wanted all its proletarians to be, strictly herbivorous.

"Here, this is where we'll have the opening shot; start with the statues in full view, then zoom in on me." Denise took up her position at the main park entrance, which had been completely redone since the national turnover. The sign identifying Buffalo Park was now supported by the upheld hands of two statues--figures which had no particular connection with the history of Tupelo, but which were dear to the heart of President Trevette. One sculpture was of John Lennon, and its pedestal bore the inscription "Imagine There's No Heaven." The other sculpture was of Stephen Hawkings, and on its pedestal were the words "Heaven Is A Fairy Story." Never having visited this park before, in its old OR new form, Denise was surprised to see these inscriptions, in view of the thoughts of eternity which had been haunting her lately. But she was a broadcast professional, and before the camera started recording, she was her usual streamcast persona. She talked for her audience about the history of Buffalo Park, and about the botanical gardens which had replaced the zoo. When she had spoken enough intro, she and her camerawoman proceeded to tour the gardens, getting views which could accompany later voice-overs.

Deep within the grounds, a bonus presented itself. Three federal-district policemen were guarding a working crew whose orange jumpsuits revealed them to be from the Parchman Farm Self-Esteem Center. These men and women were busy at various groundskeeping tasks, including renewal of the weatherstripping on the windows of park buildings. As all of them carried tracking chips in their bodies, it was unlikely that they would try to escape; and since the firearms of the policemen were DNA-coded, an attempt to seize and use those weapons would serve no purpose. Thus, the senior man of the three guards felt at ease to talk with the famous Dynamo Earthquake, who for her part saw that this encounter (when combined with some of the scenery shots) could be made long enough to be a segment in its own right.

After some warmup conversation about the work of the district police in Tupelo generally, Denise had the leading officer tell her about the offenses the various convict laborers had committed. All but one of them proved to be serving their sentences for ideological deviationism. The last, however, was a leathery man whose crime was unauthorized animal-protein consumption. "Multiple offenses; the most recent time, he was found catching catfish in the Yalobusha River," the policeman explained.

The convict suddenly spoke up uninvited: "I was going crazy from all the soy, soy, soy, soy, soy!! And the last time they let me see a doctor, he DID find I had anemia! You want a story, Ms. Earthquake? You tell your viewers that _every_ Fairness Party leader gets to eat meat anytime if they want to! _There's_ your collective equality!"

Taken aback by the daring outburst, Denise had no response for a moment. Her savvy camerawoman, however, made the save, telling the officer, "Don't worry, we'll edit out that part. We have enough already, that Ms. Earthquake can finish with a stand-alone monologue elsewhere in the park."

The lead guard nodded. "Very good, citizens. I look forward to watching the streamcast."

"Ain't like that old 'Soylent Green' movie!" the defiant prisoner shouted. "They don't eat people, they just don't let the people really eat!"

As soon as Dynamo and Freya had walked out of sight of the working party, they were startled to hear from behind them two gunshots, and what seemed like the sound of a falling body.
 
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In a mountainside mansion in Bolivia--one of the member nations of the Venezuelan Alliance, whose leaders rivalled the Fairness Party in pathological hatred for free enterprise, free speech and Judeo-Christian beliefs--secret agent Gloria Cervantes was wound up to the ultimate in tense expectation. She allowed the man with her to believe that it was expectation of being pleasured by him...when it was actually expectation of killing him.

Isandro Puentes, the owner of this mansion, kept in it a laboratory for explosives and chemical weapons. He never acquired a girlfriend whom he did not feel sure he could trust with secrets; therefore, he felt he could indulge himself in bringing his girlfriends here. Making this easier as a rule was the fact that many of his girlfriends came from among the younger, prettier priestesses of the Mother-Earth cult in Bolivia. Gloria, though unable to pose as one of these, had done a good job of pretending approval for the neo-pagan establishment; so now, here she was, about to be expected to put out. It made Isandro feel more manly to pursue his pleasures in the same place where he prepared to murder political adversaries of the ruling oligarchy in Caracas.

The Venezuelan Alliance being in collusion with the People's Republic of Aztlan to increase the power of totalitarianism in the Western Hemisphere, most of Isandro's targets were citizens of the rival Mexican Alliance, which had become the main force for freedom in the Hemispheric Union. Gloria's superiors had learned that his next assignment would be to murder the politically-active Argentinian writer Santiago Sanchez, who was lending his voice to those who wanted to stop Aztlano aggression in North America. But Gloria, though not knowing Sanchez personally, was determined to keep him alive, by halting the threat at the source.

"If there can be liquid music filling a solid body," Isandro was telling her, "that body and that music are yours."

"Then I'll try to stay on key for you," she replied, and for the first time this evening she took something off. What she took off was an elaborate neck pendant...which contained a highly sophisticated sonic device. When she pressed a tiny button on it three times, its ultrasonic waves disabled the surveillance cameras in the laboratory. Before Isandro had time to wonder why his ears felt uncomfortable, Gloria, smiling seductively, shot a ferocious blow to his larynx, crushing it in like an egg. To make sure he had no time to do anything to her, she almost simultaneously grabbed the machete at his belt--something else that made him feel manly--and half-severed his head.

The assassin's corpse had scarcely fallen before the executioner was taking a canister out of her purse. This canister contained imitation Gloria Cervantes bone fragments, produced by a laboratory very different from the Puentes laboratory. The explosion and fire that were about to happen would slowly consume the canister; what would seem like her own charred remains would later be found beside the authentic charred remains of Isandro Puentes. To enhance the illusion, she shucked off her dress and shoes and dropped them on the floor, revealing herself clad in shorts and a sports bra beneath. Isandro had not had time to evaluate her fashion statement; but she could evaluate his ordnance well enough to ignite his laboratory with his own materials. Then she would escape through a window, a silent airship with blur-projector camouflage would pick her up from the mountainside...

...and Gloria Cervantes would be officially dead.

Actually, retired from secret-agent work, though still retained as a part-time consultant.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

On New Year's Day of 2026, the supposedly-dead Gloria was to receive the news that her new life would be even better than expected. She was at a secret site in the Falkland Islands, which (together with the South Sandwich Islands) was now the surviving outpost of Great Britain's pre-Caliphate society. She was being debriefed by Tiberiu Parnescu...when he allowed himself a broad smile, and told the Mexican beauty: "Now I have a surprise for you, and I believe you'll like it. Your colleague Sunki Pavatea is entitled to tell you what it is, because it's thanks to him that we CAN give you the surprise."

The Hopi Indian, his body paint now gone, entered the room with the words, "Happy New Year, Gloria!"

"And a happy New Year to you too. I'm already happy to be out of the game; what are you adding?"

Sunki was smiling even more hugely than the Polish colonel; smiling with sincere gladness was a pleasure he had almost forgotten. "Let's say I'm providing you with help for your future desk job. I've learned about the United States Naval Intelligence officer you were going to marry: the man you've never forgotten since he was reported slain in the line of duty."

"Yes, what of him?" Gloria didn't dare to hope that the spy-clown could possibly mean what this was sounding like.

But Sunki did mean it. "I was blessed, the day after my extraction, to learn...that he DIDN'T die after all!" As he said this, Sunki moved clear of the door by which he had entered, and another man entered the room. This man had been athletic once; now his body was hunched, scarred and lamed, but medical science was already at work repairing him. And to the woman whose eyes now stared out of her head, Commander Morton Tannenburg was the most beautiful sight in the universe.

Shrieking incoherently, then weeping uncontrollably, Gloria clung for many minutes to the only man she had ever truly been in love with. It took all those minutes before she could even master her stupefied breathing enough to be able to kiss him; but once she was able to kiss him, she did it fervently enough to dispell any doubts the would-be human sacrifice had held of his welcome. So he gave himself over to that joyous clinch. Eventually, coming up for air, he told her, "It was Mr. Pavatea. He saved my life, and brought me to you."

Gloria looked at the Hopi jester, then back at Morton. She and Sunki were both at new beginnings in their careers; but Gloria had ended her previous phase by killing a man, though he certainly had deserved to die, while Sunki had ended his previous phase by saving a man from death. "Morton? With your permission--?"

At this, Morton also smiled. "This once, with my blessing! I'd do it myself if I were the woman."

So Gloria flung herself onto Sunki Pavatea, and gave him a kiss that was considerably more than a trivial peck, much more substantial than what she had had to give him that night when they pretended to be having a fling. This done, she released him with the words, "I hope you'll soon have a good woman to do that for you full-time." Then she was back in Morton's arms; and the sight of them together was a spirit-lifter for both Sunki and Colonel Parnescu.
 
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With her true love restored to her beyond all hope, Gloria felt as giddy as a teenager on her first date; but she was grimly resolved not to lose one minute now that she and Morton were together again. "I don't care how much rehab you may need," she told him. "I need to be there with you, carrying your burden with you." Turning to Tiberiu Parnescu: "Colonel, since the Falklands aren't under Fairness Party control, can we get a church wedding today? Like, within the next two hours?"

Colonel Parnescu laughed. "Yes, I'm sure it can be arranged. But you don't need to be so frantic; it isn't as if you would lose your good looks after _three_ hours."

"I won't get _mine_ back in three months," Commander Morton said ruefully.

Gloria tugged him into another kiss. "Querido, if I were to go blind right now, after seeing you as you are this minute, I would be content that I had seen the most wonderful sight in mortal existence."

"Both of you still need to get your new identities drawn up," the Colonel pointed out.

Gloria nodded impatiently. "And we will. But right now, the love of my life is standing here, and all I want to do is get married to him in the sight of God and the church--then start _acting_ married."

Parnescu directed a male secretary to assist the reunited couple in obtaining their wedding--at which they both made it clear they would want Sunki to be a substitute father and give away the bride. Agreeing to this, the Hopi clown said goodbye to them for the present, and sat down to confer with Colonel Parnescu.

"Mister Pavatea, you've heard what Commander Tannenburg related about the sacrifices in Los Angeles. I didn't want to show doubt in his presence; after all, he checked clean when tested for brain tampering. But since you were AT more than fifty of those ritual killings...does his account ring true with you?"

"Yes, it does. Emilio Formentera, more than his father, loves to play cat and mouse: for instance, line up six victims, kill five, and then make a big deal of 'deciding' that five's enough for that day. I never actually saw Commander Tannenburg in the position of the reprieved victim--at least not knowingly; I knew nothing about him one way or the other until the morning after I rescued him at sea. But in the absence of positive cause to think he's been programmed with false memories, I go with assuming his tale is true as told."

Parnescu lowered his voice, though the office was now secure against eavesdropping. "But what about...the special guest murderer?" No one but the Colonel, Sunki, and the men on the retrieval submarine, had yet heard what Morton Tannenburg alleged about the unexpected person whom he had seen volunteering to perform one of the ceremonial slaughters. "That's a high-powered warhead if it's true; but it could have been _staged_ for Tannenburg's benefit, without the need of brain tampering. Just cast a double, or maybe even a good hologram."

"It would be feasible to do that," Sunki conceded. "But WHY do it? They couldn't foresee that Morton Tannenburg would ever live to tell a tale to us; if he had not been in my reach when I made my getaway, he would have died under the ritual knife."

"So how do you know they didn't _know_ you were going to make that escape? If they wanted to pass disinformation, that was a golden opportunity: trick an honest captive into genuinely believing the disinformation to be true, then put him where you _would_ take him to freedom with you."

Sunki drew a long breath. "I have to go with my judgment of the Formenteras as people. They're not that sophisticated. Shallow cunning they have, but not real genius. Also, not much ability to overlook what they would consider treason from their own self-serving viewpoint. If either the father or the firstborn son had figured out that I was spying for their enemies, they would never have let me leave Aztlan alive."

"And what if they _haven't_ let you leave alive? What if, without your knowledge, they caused you to be infected with a slow-acting pathogen, one designed to kill you, say, six months from now?"

"Hmmm...I grant you, their Triad friends are subtle enough to think of that. Shall I get myself analyzed for uninvited viruses?"

"Absolutely. Not only you, but me, Gloria, and everyone who's been in contact with you, in case it's contagious. If there's no pathogen, I'll accept your judgment that they never did figure out you were our agent. And if I accept that...then I'll also have to accept that the guest murderer Tannenburg saw in Los Angeles was genuine." Parnescu sent a hasty message to the biological laboratory that was at his disposal.

"That would open a _barrel_ of worms," observed Sunki; "and we'll need good judgment to make those worms work for our purposes."
 
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Denise Heathcock alias Dynamo Earthquake had reverted to live reporting on New Year's Eve, doing fluff coverage on stun-jazz musicians and non-competitive athletes for the Collective Network. But she turned even this activity to her own purposes, working in extra interviews for later use. Her daily program had already used up her features done in Seattle; but with her turn-of-the-year interviews, she was pulling ahead again. She didn't allow herself to worry about whether any of the new women being tried out on her program would supplant her before she was ready to retire; she had bigger tofu-blocks to fry.

On the afternoon of New Year's Day, she interviewed four men as a group: men who had been college football stars just before the breakup of the United States, and who had thereafter served three months or more in Self-Esteem Centers for seditiously arguing in favor of competitive sports. With armed Pinkshirts watching them from just off camera, the four ex-athletes all said the correct things about how primitive and bourgeois and sexist and hateful they had been, and how much better it was to live where the collective was all. Denise knew that she was supposed to give the men condescending approval for their enlightenment, but it needed all her acting ability to do so. Her mind kept remembering the exile dentist, the Asian-American man whose white wife loved and revered him _without_ feeling a need to neuter him.

After completing this interview, she responded to a message on her dataphone which directed her to call...the Diversity States First Undersecretary of Indoctrination, who was also the Commander of Overseers. Vitaly Khloponin, born in the then-Soviet Union in 1978, had migrated to America in 2019, because the Russian Federation had not gone far enough back toward Stalinism to suit him, and he foresaw great possibilities for despotism in the Fairness Party. His foresight being vindicated by the takeover, and having already gained personal favor with Jessica Trevette, Mr. Khloponin had been a shoo-in to head the Campaign Against Hate, which corresponded closely enough to his fondly-remembered K.G.B.

Overseers, Pinkshirts, primary and middle schoolteachers, journalists like Denise, and even the leaders of related labor unions, were answerable to the powerful Undersecretary Khloponin, who himself had to answer only to Secretary Arista Penfield, President Trevette and the Party Presidium. Arista Penfield was content to control entertainment media, fine arts, publishing, higher education, and the Youth Pioneers, giving Khloponin a free hand in his areas; Khloponin was certainly the only superior with whom Nash Dockerty in the Enclave normally had to concern himself. Carlos Anselmo also fitted in there somewhere; Denise knew that the Vice-President was able at least sometimes to influence the actions of the Indoctrination Department; but by all accounts, there was no love between Anselmo and Khloponin.

What does he want with me? A little nervously, Denise checked for video acceptance; yes, the Secretary was allowing visual. His face, all of its lines devoted to scowling, appeared, saying "The collective is all! Citizen Earthquake, are you in good health?"

"I am, Citizen Undersecretary. How can I be of service?"

"A simple matter. Of course I follow all your broadcasts; I like the tactic you devised for providing opportunity to new reporters without entirely dropping off the screen yourself. And you admirably captured the spirit of events at the All-Species Assembly. In general, I want you to continue as you are doing, for as long as you judge to be best. Your well-verified Party loyalty entitles you to some autonomy. Only, I want a small revision to be made on a piece you haven't aired yet: the police interview in Tupelo."

No one had seen that video yet; the journalist could only suppose that either the policemen had passed a report on the encounter to the Pinkshirts, or else Pinkshirts had been following her with surveillance equipment at the time she met the working party in Buffalo Park. But she knew no reason why Undersecretary Khloponin would be displeased with her work. "Do you want me to fly back to Tupelo?"

"No need. A change in the voice-over material will be enough. A malcontent prisoner complained to you about being made to eat a healthy diet. I want you to keep his complaint intact; but then do a freeze of his image, and add your clarifying words over that still view. You can say your lines right now, right where you're standing; I can record them, clean up the sound electronically, and have them inserted in the report once the visual edits are all completed."

"What do you want me to say, sir?"

"Say that the convict--excuse me, call him a re-education client--is a notorious Biblical fanatic, whose obsession with meat is a natural outgrowth of the depraved Christian concept of _eating_ the very body of their own prophet."

"Ummm..." Denise remembered that she was being watched by a higher authority than the Secretary of Indoctrination; but by the accounts of persons like Wayne Schell and his congregation in the Mid-Atlantic District, God was _much_ more forgiving than Vitaly Khloponin. The duration of her hesitation was so short as to pass unnoticed; then she said into her phone what Khloponin wanted her to say. She didn't dare to ask him if her impression was correct that the "client" in question had had the completion of his life celebrated just after the interview.

But she did dare, if only barely, to hope that God would not now reckon her as having ruined her own last chance for salvation.
 
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