The First Love Of Alipang Havens

"The Quakers," Josiah began, "are a Christian sect, also known as the Society of Friends, which originated in England. They are strict pacifists by conviction; early in their history, they refused to fight on either side in the English Civil War. In the colonization of North America, it was they who settled Pennsylvania, where they named their chief city the City of Brotherly Love. They were so successful in befriending the native peoples, that natives who would not trust any other white man would accept the word of a Quaker."

"And was it _always_ true that Quakers would _never_ harm anyone?" asked the Imam.

"Some individual Quakers would fight in life-or-death extremity. The famous American pioneer Daniel Boone was a Quaker; but when he had no other choice, he fought to defend his colony in Kentucky. Still, non-violence has always been the norm for the Society of Friends. As far as I know, they invariably opposed any and every war the United States waged in its last hundred years or more of existence."

"Then would you say it is completely _impossible_ for Quakers, even a tiny minority of them, _ever_ to become terrorists?"

Josiah nearly broke out in startled laughter. "TERRORISTS??"

Brendan raised a hand, as if he were in a classroom. "Imam, I think I know what you're talking about! Have there been acts of violence occurring in your district, with apparent signs that Quakers were the culprits?"

"Why, yes," the Imam affirmed. "Arson fires, vandalism, and several Muslim men badly beaten with clubs. In every instance, there was graffiti nearby, announcing that the crimes were committed by people calling themselves Ku Klux Quakers. The Ku Klux Klan, I _have_ heard of, and this looks as if Quakers were reviving that movement. We allow no Christians to live in the Cantonment full time, but some enter on business; and it is thought that the criminals are among their number."

"Sir, you must not have received any reports from the Western Enclave lately."

"In truth, I never see any news from there, except an occasional trivial item which tells nothing of substance. Are the Quakers also violent there?"

"Just the opposite. The Deputy Commander of the Campaign Against Hate, who until recently was the representative of the Indoctrination Department in the Enclave, had a special, pathological hatred for Christians and Jews--"

"Not for Muslims?"

"No; in fact, I'm told he had two or three Muslims working for him. But that's not the point. He hated Christians especially, so much so that he _fabricated_ an imaginary crisis, featuring imaginary violent Quakers. Every crime supposedly committed by 'Ku Klux Quakers' in the Enclave, was actually committed by his own personnel. The uncovering of this fraud severely discredited the whole Campaign Against Hate."

The Imam looked back at Josiah. "Did you not hear of this?"

"Only fragments of it," Josiah replied. "After all, I _have_ been living in Uganda for years, and--" He almost said that he knew nobody inside the Enclave save those he met on his brief stopover in Rapid City; but that would in a sense be a lie, since he had a son there. So he revised the words he would have said, and finished with: "And I have no friends exiled in the Enclave. But I am as confident of Mr. Hyland's honesty as you are of mine."

"Hmmm, if the _whole_ Campaign Against Hate was embarrassed, I would have thought that I would hear _something_ of it."

"It did receive some coverage in the American media generally," Brendan assured the Imam. "I can contact the Texas Rangers, and they can arrange for you to be provided with streamcast video."

"Yes, I would very much like to see that, Mr. Hyland; but my heart already tells me that you and Mr. Redfern are speaking the truth."

"Then will Miss Jalalu be moved to the Enclave?" asked Josiah.

"So she will. It will cost me nothing to gratify you in this matter, and it may cause you to remember me a little more kindly."

"Yes, I'll certainly remember you more kindly than if you left her in the hands of her worthless father."

"Now I have a question," said Brendan. "Has anyone from the Campaign Against Hate been offering you any particular advice in connection with _your_ supposed Ku Klux Quaker incidents?"

"Indeed they have," replied Al-Farag. "No less a person than Commander Vitaly Khloponin has urged me to commit my Purity Warriors to a joint operation with his Pinkshirts, to catch some Ku Klux Quakers in the act as they start their next raid."

Brendan moved closer to the Imam. "Sir, the Campaign Against Hate Commander _knows_ that the Ku Klux Quakers are fictional. But he would also be in a position to know that you _wouldn't_ know this. Accordingly, if he wanted to stir up trouble, and then make himself a hero by 'resolving' it, he might try using the same boogeyman."

"Another thought to consider," Matti put in. "Khloponin would need to be _positive_ that you didn't know about the Ku Klux Quakers being a fraud. So I'll bet that he has an agent planted in _your_ media organization, keeping track of what information does or doesn't reach you. Any such person will have to be rooted out."

"He's right," said Brendan. "Also, you'll need to get support from high up in the Party if you want to denounce Khloponin for this fraud, since up to now he's avoided all blame for what was done in the Enclave. You'll need to bypass the Indoctrination Department altogether."

"The State Department!" exclaimed Josiah. "I've--heard that someone connected with the State Department was assaulted by the fake terrorists in the Enclave. So the State Department's likely to support you in this."

"Allah be praised that you men came here," said the Imam. "Given their law-enforcement role, I imagine that those Texas Rangers now circling overhead have lie-detection apparatus in their possession? It would be useful to have such equipment, if I am obliged to unmask a traitor in my own administration."

"I'd be careful about saying 'traitor,' " Brendan cautioned him, "since the federal government, for whom the infiltrator would be working, isn't _supposed_ to be an adversary to you. But yes, I'm sure the Rangers will have lie-detection gear. We can ask them to land at the airport at the same time as we take our ultrasound unit back to our own plane, and they'll provide a lie detector for you."

"They can also facilitate arrangements for Salwa Jalalu to be flown out of here as soon as she can safely travel," added Josiah. He was not about to let the Imam forget that promise.

The Imam smiled. "Fear not, Mr. Redfern, the woman shall have her new home. And if Islamophobia is as non-existent as you maintain, she will be well treated by the Christians in the Enclave."

Josiah smiled back. "I guarantee you, she will be. If possible, I'll see that proof of her being well treated comes to your desk."

Matti stepped over to the cart on which his equipment rested. "Things are going to get lively in the Cantonment, I expect. But we still need to get back to the Enclave. Imam, we thank you for your cooperation with us; and may nothing but good ensue from it."


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Glenburne said:
What a question--the evil Ku Klux Quakers again, is it?
Click to expand...

Score one for you, Glenburne. ;)
 
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I just realized that it's been a long time since I wrote a regular EVENT SUMMARY; therefore, here is a review of what's been HAPPENING in recent chapters...

Samantha Ford flew to the Enclave, ostensibly to join in Daffodil's "important" work of promoting Equalityball; but she had not really done much before Isadora Cruller's moviemakers, who were filming Chilena and Dan's movie "Sectors of the Heart" in the Enclave, got her interested in acting in other productions... as a porn star. Bailey and Moonrose were not much more useful; they got into a physical fight with each other (offstage--sorry, guys) over a matter of petty jealousy. So Daffodil exerted his new authority a bit, to keep all three women apart from each other AND out of HIS way, while he continued genuine relationship-building with the exiles by such means as contributing to the Wyoming Observer. He also continued having his forlorn crush on Harmony Havens, in which at least he found sympathy from Emilio Vasquez, who liked the boy's modest attitude.

Terrance Havens kept busy too: helping Frodo Von Spock to come to a saving faith in Christ, inching closer to an engagement with his girlfriend Jillian, and acting as an extra in action scenes for "Sectors of the Heart." In the latter connection, he met actress Pulverizer Clarendon, who had undergone radical biological alteration to make her super-strong. Chilena told Terrance that the ever-increasing weirdness in the cinema business (including the artificial superwoman prospectively being cast as Shakespeare's Juliet) was making it ever more uncomfortable for her and Dan. On the happy side, though, Chilena had the satisfaction of helping Dynamo Earthquake, a.k.a. Denise Heathcock, to understand the Christian gospel.

The Chinese espionage service had intended for Peter Tomisaburo to be implanted with nanobots which would allow him to SEE radio waves as if they were visible light; this would allow him to pick up "blinker" messages from seemingly-random transmissions, which any communications interceptor would not even recognize as messages. This plan was to save Peter from the cancer hazard posed by the skull-implanted radio receiver he had been using to receive instructions from Beijing. Colonel Hsiao Luo-Sher planted the nanobots in Dan Salisbury without Dan's knowledge, because Dan would eventually meet Peter inside the Enclave; but the nanobots were accidentally transferred to Peter's son Victor, causing him great bewilderment when radio waves became visible to him. This mistake was corrected, but not without Peter coming very close to having his cover blown. Victor's confused actions while carrying the sensory-enhancement nanobots led incidentally to the discovery of an access to underground utility-service tunnels. Victor was briefly trapped in the tunnels, together with Veronique Rochefort and our favorite Filipino dentist; but Alipang made appropriate use of brute strength to force an exit for them. Alipang was left wondering whether the odd locations of the access hatches might reflect still more hidden schemes by somebody. Alipang also got to flex his muscles at one point by trouncing another labor-union thug, who had been bullying a minor worker on the movie set.

Out in space, meanwhile, China's Moon colony became the target of more than one devious covert scheme. China, in a diplomatic move, allowed two, then all four, of the competing Muslim Caliphates to send women to the Lunar Orchard as diversity for the Lunar settlers' gene pool. Some of these women were exposed as carrying weaponized mutant pathogens in their bodies, apparently a means by which their governments would have attempted extortion upon Beijing. This plot was thwarted, thanks to Yael Meyerling, the Israeli woman in the colony; but another plot, at once more subtle and less murderous, went undetected. The subtler plot was engineered by the Chinese Triad gangs, with the assistance of Aztlano dictator Tonio Formentera.... and of two Diversity States citizens. These two, former Enclave Overseers Luminessa Tigobo and Faye Miller, were also selected to help the Chinese Moon colonists make nice diverse babies. And they would also use secret biotechnology--not to kill anyone in the Moon colony, but to gain mental control over them.

In China, based on the information provided earlier by the secret army's operation in Zurich, numerous corrupted military and law-enforcement officers were denounced and arrested. Our friend Yang Sung-Kuo personally arrested his once-admired boss, General Shuei. Yang's part in the cleanup caused him and his family to be targetted for murder by the Triads; it was accordingly decided to place the Yang family out of assassins' reach by creating a pretext for them to live and work in America's Western Enclave (where they would have Peter Tomisaburo as a secret contact man). This was not to be the only outside visit to the Enclave; the secret army, working through its sponsor nations like Uganda, arranged a goodwill gesture to the D.S.A. in the form of offering medical technology of a sort that would be well suited for Enclave use. Finnish inventor Matti Siermaala was to be the scientific brains of this delegation; accompanying him would be Brendan Hyland, eager to be reunited with his old friend Alipang, and Josiah Redfern, hoping to meet his test-tube son Daffodil for the first time.

Denise Heathcock succeeded in persuading her superiors to allow her to create, under carefully controlled conditions, a TELEVISION TALK SHOW for the exiles. Eric Havens and Emilio Vasquez were among the Christians to be interviewed on this program. Another interesting adventure for Emilio was when he finally got to practice piloting the high-tech attack helicopter assigned to his aviation detachment. Continental Marshal Yelena Gorshkovskaya rode with him on this flight, and then informed him about the initial visit to the Enclave by Matti Siermaala's medical-technology team.

Alipang formed an opinion that the top aristocrats in the Fairness Party regime were watching events in the Enclave for entertainment, like a reality-TV show. He was in fact, right-- SO right that, when Vice-President Anselmo realized that Alipang had guessed it, he actually made changes in policy to maintain the "freshness" of the adventure being acted out by the exiles. Alipang had been apprehensive that, as more labor was being brought in for the purpose of creating the new Yellowstone Sector, hardened criminals would also be brought in, so that the exiles having to defend against these would be a "new level" of amusement beyond their fending off predatory animals. Anselmo changed this, by ordering that violent convicts being sent to the Enclave would be programmed NOT to commit any violence. Thus, instead of a straight-up combative situation, Alipang and others like him would be confronted with challenges to their charity. The first challenge coming to Alipang's neighborhood was a convict nicknamed Gerbil, who -- so far unknown to Alipang -- was one of the culprits in the murder of Wilson and Quinn Kramer.

Criminals aren't the only additions the Enclave population is to receive. Owing to new civil unrest affecting the Secondary Healthcare Workers' Union, circumstances became favorable for Evan and Summer Rand, with their children, to be placed in "protective custody" in the Enclave.
 
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Chapter 101: Much Ado About Everything


"Hickory dickory, Deputy Dockerty, drinking the chicory, setting the clock-erty!"

In the Southern Hemisphere it was close to winter; but northern Australia remained warm--which was a welcome sensation for Ma'at Randall. She had experienced enough cold weather in Michigan and South Dakota to last her a lifetime. Here, at her new home, she could sit outdoors under the big baobab tree, wearing shorts and a halter top; and after months of good nutrition and good living conditions overall, she looked very good indeed in that ensemble--since her new baby was no longer inside her, but cuddled in her arms. And here, proving to herself that she now enjoyed safety from oppression, she could sing to her son the same nonsense ditty which had gotten her in trouble when she had been a struggling performance artist in Rapid City.

Allen Randall had been removed to incubation at a safe point in his development, in order that his father might meet him before heading off on another low-profile diplomatic mission for the Pacific Federation. Bert had had to meet with Santiago Sanchez and other similar "backdoor ambassadors" in the Western Hemisphere Union. Little Allen had not suffered any detriment by the early exit; a variant on tissue-regeneration therapy had caused him to reach fully normal at-birth development within days after he emerged from his mother's body.

Allen's two half-siblings were not with their mother at the moment; but this was not because they felt any jealousy toward the baby. Meretseger and Montu both loved their new father so much as to rule out any such resentment of his begetting a child on their mother. Montu right now was inside the bungalow, studying advanced algebra online. Meretseger, fifteen years old by now, was at a theatrical rehearsal--for her part as the main featured dancer in a musical play. This left Ma'at in peace and quiet, to nurse her new son and talk to him about how blessed he was to live in freedom.

Suddenly, a kiss descended onto the top of her head. Realizing who had come up from behind her, she leaned her head back so her husband could kiss her mouth.

"Bert! How did you get here without making a sound?"

"Easy, love. I parked the hovercar a kilometer away, then walked in to surprise you."

"Allen, say hello to your Daddy;" and Ma'at passed the baby into Bert's cautious arms. The two parents kissed again above their offspring, and then Bert began some serious cuddling of the baby.

"Are there at least _parts_ of what you did or learned that you _can_ tell me?" asked Ma'at.

"Yes, there are, darling. You remember the Chinese chap I travelled with, right? Yang Sung-Kuo?" When his wife nodded, Bert went on: "He was very involved in arresting the high-level Chinese officers who recently were exposed for selling out to the Triads; and it caused him to be marked for assassination. So Beijing pulled a sly one on the thugs: transferred Yang and his family to America's Western Enclave."

"Is that really a good idea? The Enclave was designed to confine unarmed people, not keep _out_ armed assassins."

"True, but they do keep tight control over who gets in there. And that area was never of special interest to the Triads, so it's most unlikely that anyone _already_ in there is in their pay. I believe the Yangs will be all right there, until China becomes safe enough that they can return home."

He found other things of interest to tell Ma'at... until she suggested that they go inside. Montu greeted his Dad warmly, then went outdoors for awhile--almost as if he _knew_ that his parents would like some privacy. Bert put his baby son down for a nap, after which he and Ma'at enthusiastically made up for lost time.

And as they lay in each other's arms, Bert flawlessly concealed his agitation over one item he was _not_ at liberty to tell his wife.

Santiago had passed along to Bert certain information uncovered by espionage agents of his government. It seemed that the Venezuelan Alliance had reached an agreement with the Triads, and the sovereign Hawaiian government, to work together... on something which was thought to involve the theft of information about the Pacific Federation's anti-spacecraft military capability.

The fact that the Pacific Federation was capable of using railgun volley-fire to shoot down Chinese spaceships on their way out of atmosphere was not supposed to be an _aggressive_ threat against Greater China; only a deterrence factor, keeping the Chinese from getting too pushy in the Pacific. Like many deterrents, this was more useful if _not_ overplayed. But if Triad racketeers got hold of some of the high-quality armaments which Australia and Japan maintained for defense, _they_ might well be glad to do some grave damage to China's aerospace activities--and let the Pacific Federation take the blame.

The most immediate question in Bert's mind, waiting to be answered by his _real_ superiors rather than by his nominal superiors at the University of Sydney, was: would it be he, or some other emissary, who would fly to Beijing within the next thirty hours, to share intelligence with the Chinese and make sure the Pacific states _didn't_ get blamed?

 
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In the home of Eric and Cecilia Havens, Tommy Salisbury was practicing a skill with which he had some familiarity, whereas most American children in this generation had none at all: cursive handwriting. Tommy's movie-star parents were away on location, shooting their last remaining scenes for the movie Sectors of the Heart. Isadora Cruller, being made aware of the poetic talent of the son of her leading players, had asked the boy to make up a song lyric to some folkish melody, a lyric which would fit the movie's plot; the resultant song would be played over the ending credits. He was working in cursive, and his writing was extremely clear for anyone who had ever learned old-fashioned script; but until it was typed out, Ms. Cruller would be scarcely more able to read it than a typical child in the Diversity Pioneers would be.

The circumstances of his life had compelled Tommy to pick up early his parents' cunning at making survival concessions to the system without ever _completely_ giving in to the system's lies. He had written, and burned, five previous drafts of his song lyric, before arriving at this version which satisfied him. It was to the tune of the Civil War song "Kingdom Coming." The exile population would even be supplying the instrumental accompaniment for the recording of the song; some bluegrass musicians had been located in the Nebraska Sector, and any instruments they lacked would be provided for them. This was another little bit of respect accorded to the exiles.

One of the very last changes Tommy had felt a need to make was replacing the words "butter churning" with the absurd but politically correct "soy-milk churning;" he didn't want to provoke any new outside pressure for the exiles to be deprived of animal-derived foods. The name "Lightning Green," which he had been instructed to work into the song, was the name of the character played in the movie by Tommy's mother...

It's a fine big land for our collectives,
In Wyoming and around:
Lots of room for us to learn directives
That will help our minds be sound.

Folks of every color and alignment
Find a home when transferred here.
Everybody has a good assignment,
So there's nothing left to fear.

DeathstructionCorp is gone; the Grange is here to stay;
So the Enclave has collectives coming, living life the oneness way!

Here's to Lightning Green, so well enlightened
That the Party trusts her far;
Where a man would panic, she's not frightened,
She's a Western Enclave star!

With the racists gone, and haters learning
How to get along with all,
She can feel at ease with soy-milk churning,
And her horses in the stall.

DeathstructionCorp is gone; the Grange is here to stay;
So the Enclave has collectives coming, living life the oneness way!

Some of the word combinations were heavy mouthfuls phonetically. Tommy's father was to be allowed to sing his son's song; Tommy would urge him not to sing too fast. As for the _meaning_ of what he had just written--the boy could only console himself by the thought that any _other_ lyricist Ms. Cruller might have recruited would surely have made the words _more_ Marxist in spirit.

He sang the finished product for his grandmother Cecilia; she lavished him with praise, anxious that he should not feel that she thought him a sellout, given the circumstances. Tommy was emotionally nauseated at his own work, but grateful for Grandma's loving supportiveness.

Soon they were given something more purely cheerful to think about, when Sarbar Pitafi came over from Casper's merchandise center to bring news. He addressed Cecilia: "I know you heard that a highschool friend of your older children had passed through Rapid City on business, but had to hurry on again to a job outside the fence. Well, I got word from the government office that he's back in the Enclave already!"

Cecilia brightened up at this. "You mean Brendan Hyland, right?"

"That's the name. The two men he's working with have to stay in Rapid City for now, since their specialty will be put to use at Sioux San Hospital first; but Brendan _isn't_ needed there at present, so he's making a beeline for Sussex to see Alipang! He sends word that he'll also come by here to see you before long."

"Thank you, Sarbar, and God be praised!" exclaimed the longsuffering Havens matriarch. "The collective hasn't been able to extinguish all _individual_ friendships!"
 
As Brendan, Matti and Josiah flew from the Cantonment to the Enclave, Denise Heathcock was flying in the opposite direction. The Collective Network had given her an assignment _outside_ the Biblical reservation for the sake of her own reputation, lest anyone in the big cities might imagine that she had _become_ a Biblical. She was to be shown around Harun Fuad Hospital in Detroit by Gazbiyya Tamir--which, the network executives reckoned, would reduce the annoyance that male Cantonment residents might feel at a woman acting important on their turf. Denise would wear a burka while interviewing the lady doctor for streamcast about the Salwa Jalalu case; the spin on this would be how wonderful the Party was for taking the trouble to fly in specialists to help one battered woman. Extra commentary on "The Glance" would commit one outright lie, by saying that the violent father was being sentenced to a Self-Esteem Center. No one would contradict this, as "The Glance" was not shown in the Great Lakes Cantonment. In reality, since the victim was being removed to safety without the necessity of the criminal being punished, nothing at all was being done to Yusuf Jalalu--apart from reducing his welfare money due to one less person in the apartment.

Denise was glad that she would not have to speak the lie about Mr. Jalalu with her own mouth.

Her absence would allow Federal Police Chaplain Martina Caldwell to videocord several installments of "In The Enclave Today" as the sole host. The first such segment was a one-on-one conversation with Mrs. Huldah Rosenbaum Spafford, formerly of Greybull Valley, now of the Crazy Woman Creek area.

Martina spent much of the session in a rather neutral manner, encouraging Huldah to narrate her love story of meeting and marrying Henry Spafford; this naturally including how Henry had rescued Huldah's father Yitzhak Rosenbaum from an attacking wild boar. Not until three-quarters of the program was finished did Martina bring up anything of a religious nature....and then it was to become evident that the Oneness Priestess was getting more than she bargained for.

"Huldah, you seem like a highly educated woman, although your job is with an agricultural collective...."

"It isn't a collective in the sense you have in mind, Ms. Caldwell; we _own_ the sheep we're raising. I grant you that they were provided by the government; but such 'gifts' are simply compensation for all the property that was forcibly _confiscated_ from citizens like us when the population transfer was decided on. Excuse me, though, did you have a question?"

"Um, yes." Martina silently resolved to edit out that retort. "You seem like an educated woman, so you must be aware that Christianity, at its very roots, owes its existence and its momentum to a savage hatred for the Jewish people. Thus, I'm eager to hear how Henry Spafford was weaned away from hate-thinking sufficiently that he _would_ marry a Jewish woman."

Huldah frowned. "I'm going to assume that you want an _actual_ answer. Here's the actual answer:

"Since I was nine years old, I've been familiar with a sort of dualism, if that's the proper term, in the positions taken by enemies of Christianity, when the subject of the connection to Judaism came up. Half the time, people would say that Christianity, in its doctrines, was so _radical_ a departure from Judaism that you couldn't say there _was_ any connection worth mentioning. The rest of the time, they would say exactly the reverse: that Yeshua Himself, and all of His original followers, were absolutely traditional as Jews, never intending the _slightest_ break from established customs. The second claim drew the conclusion that the original Christian faith had no identity _apart_ from simply continuing Judaism unchanged. Both views, though they were mutually exclusive, had the same purpose: to discredit Yeshua's assertion that He was the Messiah, and to dismiss the New Testament creed of salvation through faith. My father, and rabbis we knew back then, cared _only_ for the predetermined assertion they _wanted_ to come to, the denial of Yeshua's divine status; for the sake of that denial, they didn't care if those two useful arguments contradicted each other. Well, that isn't quite accurate; they did sort of reconcile the two arguments by saying everything was the Apostle Paul's fault.

"But both of those claims are simply false. The teachings and actions of Yeshua _were_ organically rooted in what the Hebrew Scriptures taught, yet they also took people _beyond_ the rigid rules and ceremonies, _adding_ something that was the true extension of our faith. And where Paul speaks of liberation from the Law, he has precedent in Yeshua saying that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

"It never was the _whole_ Jewish people that rejected Yeshua; in fact, thousands of them _joined_ His following not long after His Resurrection. But precisely because the gospel of salvation freed them from the exhausting effort to maintain 'perfect' performance of the Law, these Messianic believers had less and less cause to go on thinking of themselves as utterly separate from the goyim. It was left to the NON-Christian Jews to make a point of still _calling_ themselves Jews -- like the way that Israel split into two kingdoms after Solomon's death, and only one of the kingdoms could continue using the _name_ 'Israel.'

"Sadly, mankind at large remained stupid. Many generations after the New Testament era, people in churches forgot their Jewish ties... thought of _only_ the Messiah-denying Jews as being the 'actual' Jews... and chose to start hating Jews as a group -- hating them for being different, as you Party members are fond of putting it. But this was _not_ the fault of Yeshua, nor was it the fault of any of the New Testament authors. Anyone who studies the New Testament _without_ having made a prior decision to disbelieve it, will _easily_ see that nothing in it provides any excuse for bigotry and oppression. _People_ made up the excuses for bigotry; but the Holy Spirit can set anyone free from those wrong attitudes."

Martina tried here to regain control of the conversation, saying, "Yes, of course: the spirit of Oneness, the spirit of Mother Universe, crosses all barriers and reveals that everyone's the same."

Huldah chose her next words carefully, not wanting this whole interview to be rejected for showing _even_ to fellow exiles. "Whatever you take the words 'Holy Spirit' to mean, my point is that Christianity IS NOT based on hatred of Jews or of any other human beings. It is easily demonstrable from the Bible that _every_ instance of any church persecuting Jewish people was a matter of that church _disobeying_ Yeshua.

"And Henry Spafford, as an Apache Indian, has no association at all with any churches that ever persecuted my ancestors. Thus he had no prejudice against me, nor I any grievance against him."

Now Martina tried once more to score a point: "Ahh, but is it not true that Henry _wouldn't_ have married you if you had never decided to believe in Jesus Christ?"

Instead of looking tripped up, Huldah smoothly replied, "Of course it's true! Would _you_ enter an intimate relationship with someone who was determined to deny and oppose all the beliefs that you held most precious? But if I had remained an unbeliever where Christ was concerned, Henry not marrying me would not have meant that he had any _malice_ against me; it would only have meant that we were walking different roads."

With that, Martina Caldwell quietly gave up trying to look smarter than her guest.

 
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Numerous internal exiles did in fact watch In The Enclave Today with interest, as regularly as they had opportunity. The Havens family had obtained an analog videocassette of the segment in which Eric and Emilio had been interviewed. But people still placed more trust in the Wyoming Observer. Miguel De Soto's brainchild was now sufficiently respectable that the Department of Distribution had picked up supporting it where the Department of Indoctrination had left off; while original text of the newspaper still was in the form of impact typing or even hand lettering, official duplication had increased, with facsimiles reaching all corners of the reservation.

Near sunset of the same day when his nephew Tommy had finished writing "Collectives Coming," Alipang said goodbye to his last dental patient of the day, and walked from his dental office to the house. He carried with him the latest edition of the Observer, which he had not yet had a chance to read. He could smell the supper that Esperanza was preparing: a version of pansit, thanks to a horseback peddler who had come through Sussex offering nice thin noodles which would work for the Filipino staple dish.

"I feel as if I'm on Luzon again," sighed Alipang as he came in through the mud room in back. "That's minus the gangs, the mosquitoes, and ten degrees Celsius of temperature." He did not add snakes to the minuses, because it happened that Wilson had killed a rattlesnake yesterday, and its flesh would become the meat component in that portion of the pansit eaten by Wilson and Alipang. Pork would be the meat in everyone else's pansit; but Alipang knew that Kim still would rather not be openly reminded that her husband and her eldest child ate snake meat.

After greeting his wife where she sat in the living room, Alipang gestured to her to stay where she was; whatever remained to do of table-setting, he would attend to. Kim's delivery was not very far off now, and Alipang was always trying to relieve her of doing any work. On this occasion, however, he saw that his children had already taken care of setup.

"SIX places?" he said into the air as he looked at the kitchen table. "What, have you heard from Big Brendan?"

"Yes, Papa," replied the younger Brendan. "He telephoned a couple hours ago, while you were pulling Sarah Fowler's tooth." Esperanza, who had taken the call, added, "And he thought he would be here in time for supper."

Alipang beamed at the thought of his one-time comrade meeting the kids. "All right, if everyone feels able to wait a bit, we'll give Big Brendan more time to reach us. I'll read an article from the paper to you. It's by Daffy Ford."

"Is it about Equalityball again?" asked Wilson, sounding ready to be bored. The first article contributed to the newspaper by Daffodil had been a bland, inoffensive report on the introduction of non-competitive sports into the Enclave.

"No, this one's about the big party we had with Grandma and Grandpa the other day." Alipang sat down beside Kim, kissed her once more, then began reading the article out loud:

FOUR YEARS OF ADJUSTMENT AND GROWTH FOR LEADING ENCLAVE COLLECTIVE

The Havens domestic collective in Wyoming Sector has often been brought to public attention, always in commendable ways. Now they have attracted the friendly attention of a Native American community, the Utes-- proving again that they are no strangers to diversity. Three generations of the Havens socio-genetic stream, led by Citizen Cecilia Havens of Casper and her partner Eric, welcomed these indigenous persons, along with more than a hundred other well-wishers."

"I wish Daffy could put that 'partner' terminology behind him," Kim griped.

"He does understand the difference," Kim's lawful husband assured her. "I think he was just trying not to get Miguel and Tilly in any trouble for printing un-mutual vocabulary-- the more so since Dad's their Associate Editor. But on the good side, you'll hear that he does bring in the word 'family' as he goes along." Then Alipang continued:

On the occasion of the Havens family celebrating the completion of four years of productive work and relationship cultivation in the Enclave, six Ute Nation members-- representing nearly half of the adult population of their tribe in all of Wyoming Sector --joined the festivities and performed their traditional Bear Dance. Two of the bear heads used for the dancers' costumes came from bears which had been terminated by Doctor Alipang Havens of Sussex in the course of his animal-control work for the Grange Association. Three men in the dance ensemble had only just gotten time off work to come to Casper, being employed on construction sites in the rapidly-developing new Yellowstone Sector. Martha Six-Clouds, choreographer of the presentation, explained to this correspondent that the Bear Dance is supposed to mark the coming of spring, the time when bears emerge from hibernation. But since not all of her dancers were available to perform earlier, their artistic collective had decided they might as well combine their slightly-delayed performing debut with paying respects to the Havens family.

One reason why the Utes are fond of the Havens family is because, amid the growing efforts to create a medical university for Enclave residents, Alipang and Kim Havens have strongly advocated the inclusion of Native American holistic medicine in the curriculum of such a--

Alipang's reading was interrupted by a heavy pounding on the front door. A manly voice, barely recognizable even to a dear friend after the years apart, shouted, "I'm from the Principal's office! I'm here to confiscate all knives from law-abiding students and give them to the worst marsh-crawlers I can find!"

"It's Big Brendan!" Alipang's younger son yelped excitedly, leaping to open the door. The door swung open, revealing one of the tallest men ever to come through it; the child announced to the visitor, "I'm _Little_ Brendan!"

Entering and shaking the boy's hand vigorously, the Marine Corps veteran grinned heartily. "Now I know why the guys call me Godfather-- because I am one!" An instant later, Alipang, the crown of whose head barely came up to Brendan Hyland's collarbone, virtually disappeared into his old friend's exuberant embrace. "A plane was going my way and allowed me to hitch a ride," Brendan added, as he bear-hugged his bear-hunter friend.

Kim spoke for her momentarily-smothered husband: "God bless you, Brendan, it's been too long! How's Jennifer?"

"She's fine; and we've got _five_ children by now! I'll show you all their pictures after we eat that food I'm smelling."

Now Alipang spoke for himself again: "Kim's carrying our fourth. Little Brendan introduced himself to you; this is Esperanza, or Essie; and this is Wilson. You picked the right evening to come; we've re-created the Pansit Paradise for you!"
 
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Remembering at the last minute how Brendan loved spicy foods, Kim dug out a jar of curry powder that she had picked up someplace in their first year as internal exiles, and gave it to their guest to use at will on his pansit. Alipang asked Brendan to say grace; and when the Marine veteran concluded this by crossing himself and kissing his crucifix, Alipang was reminded of a long-unanswered question.

"You know something, Brendan? We never seem to get any _Catholics_ here in the Enclave! Now, I know that back in 2019, when things were starting to look bad, the _serious_ Catholics began looking at emigration; but that situation had not resolved itself by the time we got arrested and relocated. People we knew who were still inside America, outside the fence _and_ free to write to us, may have tried at times to tell us what was going on with American Catholics; but their letters were censored. Chilena and Melody would probably know something, and they're _inside_ the fence now; but there's just been too much _else_ going on, for me to think of asking them about that. So tell me now: where _did_ all the Catholics get to?"

Brendan was actually glad to be handed a conversation topic which didn't intrude on his secrets. "They went several ways, Al. Some did emigrate: almost all of these to Africa or Latin America, because only those regions have a strong Catholic presence now. Did you hear that the Vatican had to be transplanted to Nigeria?"

"We heard a little about that," said Kim.

"And the new Pope is from Brazil. All of continental Europe west of Poland is lost to us, re-invented as the Islamic Realm of Europe. At least my family, living in Onitsha, doesn't have to travel far to see the Pope celebrate Christmas Eve Mass. And Mother Church pays me a salary now."

"Not as a priest, obviously," remarked Kim.

"As a security guard and investigator. The Boko Haram Islamic terrorists faded away from Nigeria when the new Egyptian Caliphate withdrew support from them to mollify the African Union; but the Neo-Marxists took their place in the predator niche. Oh, Al, you'll find this amusing: last year, I led a patrol in a firefight against Neo-Marxist guerrillas who had penetrated dangerously close to the New Vatican; and an American woman reporter named Reltseotu Smith, covering the incident, _fabricated_ a smear story that MY team was committing racist genocide!"

"From Fairness Party zombies, that doesn't surprise me," Alipang told him. "But I don't know the woman you mentioned. Maybe Denise knows her."

"Who's Denise?"

"Ah, right, you would know her as Dynamo Earthquake. The Collective Network journalist who's reporting the Enclave beat now. Born Denise Heathcock; and whatever her reporting was like before, at present I have to admit she's giving us Biblicals pretty fair treatment."

Falling silent to eat some of his food, Brendan caught sight of the Wyoming Observer which lay now on a countertop. This provided him with more conversation material once he had gotten halfway through his pansit. "Speaking of journalism, I've had the chance to browse a couple of back issues of your Enclave newspaper. I understand its founder is a native of Cuba?" Brendan was concealing the fact that he really knew all about the career of Miguel De Soto _before_ Miguel had been exiled to Wyoming. Miguel had been a particularly courageous dissenter against the new wave of collectivism which had finally sunk the United States, and this made him a good guy in Brendan Hyland's tablet computer.

"Yes, Mr. De Soto's Cuban.... and dark-skinned enough that even old Mrs. Lewiston at East High would have a hard time pigeonholing him as a _white_ supremacist."

"Ha! As for that, Mrs. Lewiston won't _ever_ make any phony racism charges anymore. I learned that she passed away, but that she repented and received Jesus as her Lord before she died."

"Wow, that's great! If she could come to repentance, maybe-- certain other hard cases also can."

"Eat your pansit, Al," Kim interjected.

With Alipang eating, Brendan continued, but not about Miguel De Soto. "The ladies piloting the plane I rode had that same edition of the paper with them. Even if your family doesn't _receive_ much news in the Enclave, it seems you get _into_ the news a lot. Count on the Havens family to be able to host a good, friendly party, even in the Enclave! Tell me, who's this girl Daffodil that wrote the article about your family?" Brendan hated to have to deceive his friends this way, but it was better not to admit that he already knew _plenty_ about the biological son of Josiah Redfern.

"Daffodil's a BOY, not a girl!" exclaimed Esperanza. "That'll tell you what's happened to names for children in America. And he used to be in school with a _girl_ named Thundercrash."

"Daffy's mother works for the State Department," added Wilson; "and from what we hear, she's been trying for all of his life to make him the sissy wimp of the millenium."

"But she wasn't able to stop him from liking girls," said Kim. "And the poor kid at least has good taste; he has a crush on Harmony."

 
"So how do you come to know young Mr. Ford?" Brendan asked. "I do know that Al saved the kid from being killed by a mob over the winter; but what's the back story?" Thus Brendan came to be told about how Daffodil had made a splash as "Captain Vladimir Turgenev" in Trip Conklin's "Churchbusters of the Galaxy" live-action show. Also about his allergic reaction to Joy Nectar, his obtaining new musical instruments for The Church of the Faithful in Casper, his intercession for Barney Jamison, and other highlights.

"He sounds like a good kid, NO thanks to the Fairness Party," Brendan observed. Josiah would be fascinated to learn all this information about the boy; but because it had been by covert means that Daffodil had been identified as Josiah's genetic progeny, they could not yet admit to knowing the kinship. So Brendan changed the subject again.

"Say, I didn't finish telling you about my fellow Catholics. Now, you remember, back in our highschool days, there were already a lot of them being suckered in by so-called 'liberation' theology."

Alipang nodded. "Sure-- Marxism with a few rosaries tossed in."

"The ones who turned that way were no threat to the Party; so _they_ can still be found in the Diversity States. They conform to the policies of the Oneness Temples, and they _never_ get sent to the Enclave. Then you have the ones who _neither_ abandoned Mother Church, _nor_ escaped as the United States collapsed. Thanks to decades of accumulated grievances against Rome, some true and some fake, _those_ Catholics became favorite scapegoats for--well, for practically anything. Those who weren't killed outright, or so utterly brain-erased that you might as well call them dead, were sentenced to the concentration camps."

"Yeah, we only recently learned for sure that there _were_ such camps--based, I understand, on a F.E.M.A. program dating back before the Fairness Party got started. Released inmates from the camps have lately begun trickling into the Enclave, though I'm still not aware of any of those being Catholic."

"Probably aren't. The concentration-camp guards indulged in _very_ cruel fun with their Catholic prisoners, especially priests, nuns and monks." Brendan had learned this from the rescued prisoner Darcie Beale; but this was another fact he could not tell Alipang. "It left most of them unfit for the labor force--although international pressure is now prodding the Trevette regime to provide those victims with some rehab."

Alipang laughed grimly. "Even without Catholic victims, we're seeing _some_ people come in here needing a cure. Like one fellow called Gerbil, who was in a Self-Esteem Center, and who now has a building-repair job here in Sussex."

Brendan kept the talk shifting from topic to topic. Using his dataphone to project holograms of Jennifer Hyland and their children, as well as images of the New Vatican, he easily filled the first hour after supper with telling about how things were back in Nigeria (and this without even getting around to telling how his missing eye had been regenerated)--but naturally never mentioned the secret army. Then he recounted some of what had happened with his party in Detroit; became an appreciative audience for songs sung by the Havens children; and listened to anecdotes about the movie production going on here in Wyoming. Only after all this did he return, as if by chance, to finding out more about Daffodil Ford.

Having heard about Equalityball and such trifles, Brendan found another tangent to pounce on when it was mentioned that Daffodil was a supporter of the effort to provide higher professional education to young exiles. "Both of the men I'm travelling with will be interested in that business," he told Alipang. "Matti Siermaala is an inventor from Finland-- got out of there because he was tired of being a Dhimmi. The ultrasound scanner we're working with is all Matti's baby. Then there's Josiah Redfern, the medical technologist who assists Matti. Josiah's a veteran of that lesser, inferior armed force that's guilty of not being the Corps..."

"You mean he was in the Army?" asked Wilson.

"To put it in the vernacular, yes." Brendan was laying the service rivalry on thick, because he was nostalgic for the old days when the Army and the Marines traded boisterous insults. "But unlike some soldiers, at least Josiah knew which end of his weapon the bullets came out of, so he managed to wax a few terrorists in Iraq. After the war, he pursued a healthcare career; and that's the kind of work he does in Uganda, where he has his own wife and kids. I expect you'll be seeing Josiah more than once while we're in the Enclave. Al, I think you're going to like Josiah; he's almost as good with a knife as you were."

Immediately after uttering that last sentence, Brendan stood up sharply from the living-room chair where he had been sitting. "Knife! Senior moment! Hang me if I didn't almost forget what I _brought_ for you, Al! Merry Christmas, or something." Saying this, he reached into a pocket... and brought forth a genuine Filipino balisong knife, which he opened properly if not very dashingly.

"This is for you, Al, straight from the Philippines; made by a knife-maker named Yabut Ramirez, who used to be an anti-terrorist fighter himself. But that's another story." Closing the knife again, Brendan handed it to the appreciatively grinning Alipang. "The blade on this one's two centimeters longer than on your old balisong from Virginia. Use it in good health--or _don't_ use it, and _other_ people will be healthier."

Alipang let out a long breath, and pulled in another one. "God bless you, brother, I missed you SO much!"
 
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Since Ransom was now living with Lydia Reinhart's aunt and uncle, the room he had formerly used was available for Brendan to sleep in-- but not before he had regaled the Havens family with tales of his exploits in Afghanistan. He held back the most gruesome parts to tell after Esperanza and Little Brendan were put to bed.

The next morning, Brendan began to be introduced to local friends of his hosts, such as the Forresters, the Tomisaburos and the Rocheforts. But at the same time, a much more businesslike meeting was taking place at Old Natrona Airport on the west side of Casper. This was a meeting that Brendan would have loved to sit in on.

It started as the Undersecretary of Sustainable Energy was shown into the office of Texas Ranger Lieutenant Emilio Vasquez. Rising with Emilio to greet the triumvirate member was Federal Police Inspector Leroy Lincoln-- someone who had every right to visit the office of a fellow law-enforcement officer, but whose coming had not been told in advance to the Undersecretary.

"Thank you for coming, Undersecretary," said Leroy. "Please, have a seat. You're aware that this room is now surveillance-shielded, are you not?"

"Yes, Lieutenant Vasquez told me, soon after he assumed his duties here, that he was having the place upgraded. So by all means, tell me what I'm here for."

Emilio supplied an initial answer to the question: "To give Inspector Lincoln a more substantive understanding of his patrol beat. If you would kindly watch that image space--?" A large holographic projection was activated: a movable, zoomable three-dimensional map, which currently featured most of Wyoming Sector, with small adjoining portions of Nebraska and Yellowstone Sectors.

Leroy stood by one edge of the terrain simulation. "My police contingent, and the other contingent, were posted here in the first place for the sake of continuity in keeping the peace, once the Overseers were withdrawn. But so far, our work has all been on a save-kittens-from-trees level. You know that there never were any Ku Klux Quakers. The exiles simply _don't_ commit crimes. As for the true felons who have just recently begun to be relocated here, the reports I get say that all of _them_ have undergone massive personality suppression. So there's nobody for us to arrest.... at least, not among the _civilian_ population."

The veteran politician responded evasively: "Well, things _can_ change. You know the saying about a kilogram of prevention."

"Of course we do," Emilio told her. "But Leroy wondered, and I also wonder, exactly _what_ we're preventing."

Leroy continued: "Last year, the only sizeable police entity inside the Enclave was the Overseers and Pinkshirts under Nash Dockerty; of Transport Police, there were just enough to guard the trains and airfields. Now, you have significant numbers of Transport Police _and_ Texas Rangers _and_ Forest Rangers _and_ Commerce Inspectors _and_ us District Police, plus even the Grange Association acquiring a degree of policing power. When I first learned about the new arrangement for the Enclave, I was one of many cops who figured right off that Washington had in mind a plan for the watchers to watch each other--like the way the Soviet Union had multiple paramilitary bodies that balanced each other, so that no one faction would have all the guns and be able to stage a coup. But now that I've been in here for awhile, it seems as if that juggling act is the _entire_ justification for the new pluralism in Enclave law enforcement. Therefore, since our _whole_ mission is the prevention of new Nash Dockertys, we district cops have a right, and a need, to know _more_ than superficially what goes on in the five sectors."

"You say district cops, plural," the Undersecretary observed. "Why isn't the other Federal District contingent represented here?"

"That's my doing, ma'am," Emilio explained. "I still barely know the officers in the other group, whereas Inspector Lincoln has worked jointly with Texas Rangers before. We're starting small; but the others will be informed."

Leroy gestured at the terrain projection. "This has been programmed to display the locations of peculiar events which are known to have occurred in the Enclave. 'Peculiar' means anything from Deputy Commander Dockerty building his camouflaged air-defense base, on down to unusual behavior by farm livestock. We can superimpose indications of other data, such as what times airplanes have flown along this or that standard flight route, and see if anything correlates. But we need your knowledge to ensure _useful_ correlations. One thing I do know is that similar event analysis helped _you_ to verify that Dockerty was faking the Ku Klux Quaker incidents."

"True enough," she conceded. "But why ask _only_ me to help you?"

"Because Lieutenant Vasquez tells me that you're the most capable and trustworthy of the triumvirate members."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Inspector. Let's take our tour of Enclave history. And _subject_ to any need-to-know restrictions in my standing orders from the Party Presidium, I'll answer your questions as best I can."

The virtual tour took them all day; Rosa Cantu provided lunch for them after the first three hours. Emilio and Leroy busily recorded in their data devices all manner of clues and leads which, though not glaringly exposing any clear threats of treachery, would bear further investigation in the near future. One item, however, was to prove provocative of _immediate_ interest.

Emilio knew by way of Alipang about the two oddly-placed access hatches to the utility-service tunnels under the Sussex area. These two hatches were minimally marked by green dots on the 3-D map. With most of the research proceeding in chronological order, it was hours after lunch before _one_ particular overlay, out of all possible overlays, showed features coinciding with _both_ of those tunnel-hatch locations. This overlay was of things pertaining to new construction for the geothermal-plant project in the new Yellowstone Sector.

"Look at this!" Leroy exclaimed, pointing. "It says this line is where some new track is to be laid for trains running to and from the new sector, crossing what used to be part of the Enclave perimeter. See how it goes right by the hatch that was inside the culvert?"

"All right, zoom in, all the way in," said the Undersecretary, sounding as if she were encountering something unknown.

Extreme magnification revealed that the planned railroad track would pass within two meters of the hatch Victor Tomisaburo had fallen into. Emilio, who had had the scene of that incident described to him, declared, "I'm getting an idea about this! When they lay that track, the little motor-road will probably be demolished in the process; and then the tunnel hatch that _was_ inside a culvert, could end up in the open air."

Leroy followed up: "Which means that someone could come up out of the tunnel if the train was stopped there, and sneak on board--or go the opposite way, _leaving_ the train and vanishing from sight. It's an area with trees, so the satellites might miss seeing the person who did that. And if the overhead-surveillance monitors didn't realize that someone was sneaking, they wouldn't see cause to go into the penetration mode that would detect _underground_ motion."

They zoomed back out, and Emilio saw that a symbol for some structure was right on top of where Alipang had fallen through the _other_ unexpected hatchway. "Undersecretary, I know that there _isn't_ any building there now. Can you tell me what's _going_ to be constructed there that has bearing on Yellowstone development?"

"A communications relay station, like others you've seen," she replied. "It will help coordinate both air and rail traffic."

"All right. But in Texas, stations of that kind are hardly ever directly connected to major infrastructure-support utility-tunnel networks. Do any pre-existing radio-link stations in the Enclave have their own hatches into those tunnels?"

"Except for two right in Rapid City, no, they don't. And you have my word, in this I'm not required to hold anything back from you. I don't _know_ why unnecessary manholes were installed at those two spots _before_ anything of consequence was built."

"Then we have something out of the ordinary to investigate," announced Leroy.



 
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The top decision makers for the Pacific Federation, at their transnational capital in Micronesia, did not keep the scholarly secret agent in Australia waiting long to hear that he was indeed selected to speak to the Chinese.

As when Melody Vasquez had been made a secret courier for Mexico's President Andreas Garcia, so Bert Randall was implanted with knowledge which he himself would forget, until he met the man who was awaiting him. This was Aerospace Force General Yang Pang-Zhu, director of the Orbital Palace. That location provided Bert's cover story. Bert was openly known to have researched contemporary education techniques; and for his benefit, Beijing was trumping up an experiment in how micro-gravity might affect the mental concentration of schoolchildren. The Australian would spend more time talking with the Chinese experimenters than with General Yang; but he wouldn't _need_ to be with Yang for very long. The space station management would even have allowed Bert to bring his family, but Ma'at was too nervous about the idea of flying so high into outer space.

Not until the second day of his first-ever visit to the space station was Bert escorted to the secret conference room by a station safety guard named Nyunt Zeyar. Inside this electronically-shielded chamber, besides Yang Pang-Zhu himself, sat three other figures who seemed Chinese; but their exact appearance was obscured by personal blur-projectors, and they did not speak. Vee-Eye-Pees from Beijing, no doubt, Bert thought.

"Welcome to High Earth Orbit altitude, Mr. Randall," said the General. "Nyunt says you're getting around very well in low and zero gravity."

"Thank you, sir. Though never _here_ before, I've been in space before." His tone of voice altered. "But... now... as... programmed... my blocked memory is being awakened."

"Then have a seat, and kindly proceed," the General told him, trying not to sound excessively like issuing orders.

His voice normal again, Bert reported all of the raw intelligence data which had been entrusted to him. It took more than an hour to tell everything that Argentinian, Australian, Mexican, Fijian and Japanese agents had been able to gather about the theft of Pacific Federation weaponry information and weapon-making components, and their possible installation in Hawaii by persons up to no good. During this, the blur-cloaked persons occasionally stirred in place, as if perhaps communicating with each other in some way that was concealed from Bert.

When Bert was finished, Yang thanked him, and continued from there: "Before anything else, allow me to give you, for your government's benefit, the assurances of my government that we _don't_ suspect the Pacific Federation of plotting anything hostile to Greater China. You would never _actually_ open fire on our aircraft and spacecraft without strong provocation, and we don't provoke you. But we are not so completely certain that _India_ could not be involved in some plan to weaken us."

"INDIA??" Bert sat up straighter, so sharply that in this low gravity it almost lifted him out of his seat.

"Oh, I'm not saying they _are_ implicated, only that it's a _conceivable_ possibility. What makes it conceivable is the fact that, admittedly not the Indian _government,_ but a major Indian ocean-freight carrier, has been revealed by our own intelligence network as having secret business ties with the Triad gangs."

"Then you think that the rail-gun and sonic-projector components which are possibly being smuggled, could be travelling on board Indian seagoing vessels?"

"That's right. But without certainty on this question, even China can't altogether ignore United Nations opinion. Having our own Navy halt and search an Indian cargo ship would be received almost as an act of war. But _your_ Navy, Mr. Randall, enjoys very cordial relations with India's merchant marine. With tact, and the guarantee that no _Chinese_ military personnel would interfere with any Indian ship, your government should be able to persuade India to allow _your_ inspectors to board ships of theirs peacefully. After all, it's your own military establishment that's being stolen from; yet you would no more be accusing India's _administration_ of wrongdoing than China is accusing you."

"I'll see what I can do about that, sir."

"Good. We will provide a handy liaison for you. An Aerospace Force officer named Hsiao Luo-Sher is getting married today, in Hong Kong, to an American woman-- who calls herself Quasar, of all things. We'll have them go to Sydney for their honeymoon, to a hotel we're entering in your dataphone; you can 'happen' to meet them anytime after your Earthward flight lands in that city. Colonel Hsiao will have means of preserving secrecy when you talk with him about classified subjects."

"Any special signals I'm supposed to use to let him know that I _have_ classified stuff to discuss when I see him?"

"Yes, a simple enough code, which can be mixed with other words in a normal-seeming sentence: Three Nine Eight Four, Blue, Orange, Gray."

Bert repeated this back. He would remember it. Less than twenty minutes later, he was at the zero-gravity atrium, conversing again with the Chinese civilian experimenters.

 
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"In the multiplication table for any odd number, the multiples will alternate between being odd and even," declared Yael Meyerling. Lori Purdue repeated this after her.

At the time, these two women were clad in environment suits, walking on the exposed Lunar exterior, making routine maintenance checks on that portion of the Lunar Orchard's antenna array which was above the dust-blanketed surface. Here an adjustment, there a calibration, with the short logic-recitations in between as they walked from place to place. It was a sort of work that Lori had never expected to do in her spoiled-princess life, but she found it tolerable after all. She and Yael had by now been with the colony long enough to be qualified for this hard-vacuum job; and lately it seemed to be NO ONE BUT women who were assigned to such tasks. Yael had had to remind General Director Dong that she and Lori were both pregnant by Professor Chun; Dong had then promised that they would be relieved of in-vacuum duty when they began to grow too large for their environment suits.

"The number seven, for instance, has the multiples fourteen, twenty-one, twenty-eight, thirty-five, and so on," said Yael, to be echoed by Lori.

Lori's two fellow Americans, Faye and Luminessa, having somehow come to be immeasurably trusted and respected by everyone in the colony, had been persuading the leadership to entrust more work to female judgment; and yet Faye and Luminessa themselves never seemed to do any work anymore. Right now, in fact, Faye was intimately entertaining Mr. Dong, and Luminessa was with Mr. Yap. Najoud, the Baha'i girl from the Parthian Republic, was employed in the waste-processing work which had formerly been Yael and Lori's territory, and male workers who also had this assignment kept leaving it all to Najoud while they enjoyed their turns with Faye and Luminessa. But no outgoing radio transmissions gave anyone on Earth any hint that the colony's routines had changed.

"But there is no odd-even alternation in multiplication tables for even numbers; as long as an even number is multiplied by any WHOLE number, the answer will ALWAYS be even."

This kind of mathematical review was part of a mental-discipline exercise long privately practiced by former Mossad agent Yael Meyerling. She had been accustomed to doing it for years before she ever came to the Moon; it kept her centered, as the old cliche-phrase had it. The technique now enabled her to be the only person in the colony... who did NOT believe that Ms. Miller and Ms. Tigobo were superior beings and could do no wrong. This meant that, while outwardly pretending to be as mesmerized as the others, Yael could secretly attempt to deprogram someone else, and so gain an ally to help her thwart whatever it was that Faye and Luminessa were up to. It was logical for Yael to start with someone who had become her friend; and since Lori had needed intellectual sharpening anyway, no one would suspect that anything out of the ordinary was intended by the Israeli woman drilling the small-time beauty-queen in logic exercises.

"Consequently, however far one carries multiplication tables, there will always be three even-number answers for every one odd-number answer. Yet in the mathematical universe, there cannot actually BE three times as many even integers as odd integers.... The explanation is found in PRIME numbers. Except for the number two, all prime numbers are odd numbers, and these fill the odd-number gap."


Part of Yael's original espionage training had been in the skill of catching clues from a person's voice inflections WITHOUT the use of any special equipment. Both in the repetition of the math principles, and in all other talking that Lori did, Yael was fishing for signs that the younger woman was coming out of the mental fog.

And, encouragingly, Lori WAS beginning to sound more like the way she had sounded before Faye Miller and Luminessa Tigobo had suddenly transfigured themselves into unelected co-queens of the Moon.

Very soon, Yael hoped, Lori would be recovered enough that Yael could instruct her to help with a plan. Lori's part need not be complicated-- maybe just involving the other two Americans in a conversation as a distracter. One way or another, Yael and Lori would set up an opportunity for Yael suddenly to jab Faye and Luminessa with ampules of a truth drug. Being pregnant should actually be an advantage here; Faye and Luminessa were not likely to see expecting mothers as any threat. Once placed in a controllable state, those odd, non-violent saboteurs could be made to tell everyone else NOT to interfere with Yael, while the Mossad veteran interrogated them.

Then, as soon as she got answers that made sense, Yael would start calling Beijing on every possible comms channel, to make sure that at least SOME who heard her warning would NOT be among the possible Earthside traitors who might be part of the ambiguous plot. Hopefully, she would thus be able to put a stop to the takeover of the Lunar Orchard, BEFORE whoever had planned it could accomplish whatever it was they were trying to do.

 
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Chapter 102: Connecting More Dots

The Collective Network had been pleased with most of the new streamcasting talent being tried out on "The Glance;" but the management had no intention of retiring Denise Heathcock, alias Dynamo Earthquake. She was too popular with the vital demographic of man-hating women, even though Denise herself had never actually hated men just for being men.

So, following her visit to Detroit and before going back to the Enclave, she was sent on a few assignments of the sort which had formerly been commonplace for her. First after Detroit, she and Freya Vanaheim rode the mag-lev trains along the controlled traffic corridors of the Diversity States, down to western Kansas, where Denise was ordered to interview citizens who had witnessed the air battle in their sky last year. The theme was finding out whether the stresses felt by these proletarians had faded. The journalist was very clearly instructed _never_ to let the persons interviewed say anything negative about the Aztlano aviators who had tried to bomb them; all talk was to be directed along lines of whether Aztlanophobic racism was continuing to be an issue in the Great Plains Federal District.

A suggestion by Denise that she could add to this material an interview with Federal Police Inspector Lincoln, who had witnessed the air attack, was coldly slapped down. After all, Inspector Lincoln had been so troublesome as to make sure it was publicly known that the Aztlanos had been trying to kill Diversity States civilians in residential areas.

Wrapping up her interviews in Kansas, she did a series of puff-pieces about such subjects as the nation's schools making ready for a new season of Aquatic Oneness. For input from schools and other institutions especially distant from her, she interviewed some school principals and equivalent supervisors by talking to their holographic projections. Getting all these done in a single day, she took Freya and visited that outer edge of Wyoming which separated the Western Enclave from the People's Aztec-Maoist Republic of Aztlan.

At an electrical-power control center west of Cheyenne, Denise interviewed two Energy Department workers who lived together and worked together here. She and they had some freedom of wording, but it was predetermined what the general substance of the conversation must be.

"Hello again, citizens, the collective is all! I'm Denise Heathcock, and today I'm at a distribution point of the Great Plains power grid, speaking with Citizen Fawn Seavers and Citizen Odette Galloway, both of whom have important jobs directing and routing energy into three worlds, as it were."

"It's great to meet you, Citizen--can I still call you Citizen Earthquake?" said Fawn, the fairer-haired of the two electrical technicians.

"Of course. Reality flows like electricity." Denise had not lost the knack for tossing in empty phrases which _sounded_ as if they meant something.

"Three worlds is a good way to put it," Fawn continued. "The regular district population is naturally affected by our work here; that's one component of our job. Electricity goes across the border to our progressive sisters and brothers in Aztlan, as reparation for all the generations of Anglo-American bigotry. And another share of electricity goes the opposite direction, across the Enclave perimeter to support the Biblicals on the collective farms."

Odette now made her contribution, sounding far from enthusiastic: "Yes, it gives us profound satisfaction to know that the wind farms of America are helping to sustain life in the Enclave, so that God-fascists who used to live by parasitism as fat cats in imperialistic business corporations can return to the soil and make an honest living in agriculture under the Party's guidance."

Denise preferred to let Fawn and Odette do as much of the talking as possible. She still was trying not to utter any direct lies with her own mouth; and it was a _whopping_ lie to say that the power grid _outside_ the Enclave was sending power _into_ the Enclave. The government still wanted to keep the public thinking that "green power" was _entirely_ meeting their energy needs. This was why the significance of the late Nash Dockerty's treason inside the Enclave had been kept obscure. And of course, the new movie Sectors of the Heart was aimed at reinforcing the government-fostered belief that peasant-like agrarian living was what _everything_ in the Enclave was about.

The fabricated and vacuous interview droned on. Before the end, Odette Galloway took the chance of saying something unscripted; but it contained nothing outrageous. "Citizen Heathcock, you surely remember that Native American agricultural worker, Henry Spafford, who was at the scene of the plane crash last July?"

"Yes, he has a cohabitant partner now, a Citizen Huldah Rosenbaum. By all accounts, they're very happy." Denise had come far enough along spiritually, that she _would_ have identified Huldah as a _wife_ to Henry if not for the expectations of her boss.

"I was acquainted slightly with Henry Spafford when I had a job handling the power flow inside the perimeter. I once helped him to acquire, um, a high-quality tool for his Grange work, and later got a nice thank-you note from him. If you see him when you're back inside the Enclave, would you please tell him that I said I'm _really_ glad that things are good for him?"

"I promise, I'll tell him." Denise already knew about Henry having saved Odette's life last autumn, so she had no doubt that Odette's good wishes for the Apache man were sincere. It would feel nice, when Denise could speak with Henry, to be telling the _truth_ to somebody.

 
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The month of May in the year 2026 was a "blue moon" month, meaning that two full-moon nights were squeezed into it, at the beginning and the very end of the month. The second full-moon night, which was Sunday the 31st, was to become a major cultural event at Rapid City's old civic center: the Blue Moon Stun-Jazz Concert.

Daffodil Ford was the organizer who was making this happen. Like Equalityball, stun jazz was an interest which exiles could partake of _without_ violating their consciences. Thanks to his gentle, sincere temperament, the young man had been enjoying assistance with his "internal diplomacy" from various quarters, including the Wyoming Observer-- though no help was coming anymore from Samantha Ford, the ambassador turned erotic movie star. Daffodil scarcely saw anything of his mother these days, nor did he _want_ to see her the way holographic cameras were seeing her now. But starting with the two young female musicians in Casper for whom he had obtained new instruments, Daffodil had managed, between Equalityball events, to assemble a network of internal exiles who had musical talent. Of those who could actually get away from regular work to participate in the current project, most were familiar with basic jazz, and it wasn't so hard to get them experimenting with the sudden changes that made it _stun_ jazz.

Exactly one musician joined the ensemble who _wasn't_ an exile: Frigate Vandermarck, the woman who was a crew member for Sectors of the Heart. Her part of the moviemaking work had been completed just in time so that (obtaining the approval of Isadora Cruller) she could join the rehearsals which Daffodil had arranged. An old hangar at Ellsworth had been made available for this purpose by Captain Sally Brewster, head of the Transport Police for the Enclave. Frigate owned and played a tenor saxophone, and found the young concert producer ecstatic to have her, as he was short on wind instruments. Frigate was teamed up with the trombonist and the clarinetist from Abraham Zondei's church, and with a trumpeter named Roger who had been found in Nebraska Sector. The other musicians --meaning five acoustic guitarists, an upright-bass player, and plenty of singers and percussionists-- were stimulated to better progress on their own parts by the coming together of their horn section.

The extremely valuable bass player, an attractive middle-aged lady named Tamara, suggested to Daffodil that they open the concert with the old pop song "Blue Moon," in keeping with the blue-moon evening on which they would perform. "Besides," she told him, "it'll give all our vocalists a share in the action right at the start, before we get into the true jazz numbers of which some will be instrumentals." Daffodil was glad to accept her guidance-- reflecting that even _this_ much help from a near-stranger was more like mothering than what his actual mother had been accustomed to doing.

Martina Caldwell, speaking for Denise Heathcock, promised Daffodil that his concert would be videocorded in full: in holographic format for showing outside the Enclave, and in analog video, to be shown to exiles the same way as In The Enclave Today was shown. When Denise returned on the day before the concert, she confirmed Martina's promise, and indeed contacted Neutron Invincible to ensure that excerpts from the concert could be played on "The Glance."

This event being an outreach to the exile community, admission to the concert was free for as many as could get there; and for sure, the community response was much more favorable than it had been for the "Churchbusters of the Galaxy" live-action play. Daffodil found occasion to speak with Trip Conklin, and soothed that writer's feelings by saying, "Now I'm seeing benefit from the way that _you_ made me a celebrity."

"I knew you had the makings of a star," Mr. Conklin replied to this. "Your name is an audience draw already."

Daffodil was relieved to know that persons not present at the civic center _would_ be able to see and hear the concert later. This particularly meant Alipang Havens and his household in Sussex; Kim Havens was greatly depleted by her almost-concluded pregnancy, and Alipang was not about to leave her side even though he liked Daffodil very much. Cecilia Havens was now in Sussex also, to help look after her daughter-in-law, and would soon be joined by Melody Vasquez. But many others who had become known to the youth _were_ able to be at the Blue Moon Concert, including Chilena and her family. Chilena's daughter Cecilia Ruth had a date of sorts, though the circumstances made for an overkill of chaperoning: Gustave Rochefort, to whom Wilson had introduced his favorite cousin. At least Cecilia Ruth would be able to say she had been to a concert with a boy who _didn't_ seem robbed of all self-confidence like boys outside the fence.

Chilena was to give a speech of greeting to the crowd, before Daffodil introduced the musicians and commenced the program. Her celebrity status would reflect prestige on Daffodil's efforts; and without taking anything away from the concert's own importance, could become a publicity tie-in with the movie that Chilena and Dan had just been shooting in the Enclave. (As for that, one girl guitarist in the stun-jazz ensemble had also played in the bluegrass ensemble that recorded Tommy Salisbury's ending-credits song: another tie-in with exile talent.)

The front row of seats in the auditorium was assigned to dignitaries. All three triumvirate members chose to attend, making Daffodil at once proud and nervous. Other persons of importance were also seated there, such as Mark Terrell and Dana Pickering in their capacity as Forest Rangers, Transport Police Captain Brewster, Saul O'Keefe representing the Texas Rangers, the Salisburys of course... and Yang Sung-Kuo with his wife and their three daughters.

But Daffodil had been empowered to reserve seats in the second row. Included among his own chosen guests were Barney and Ursula Jamison; Miguel and Tilly De Soto; Avery Glass with his daughter Lenore; Cassie Magruder the airship flier; Moonrose Quickpace and Bailey Melville, sitting at opposite ends from each other; and, as a supreme delight, Harmony Havens, accompanied by her father Eric. Terrance would also have come, but couldn't get away from Gaia's Guts.

Quietly taking seats two rows behind Eric Havens were Josiah Redfern and Matti Siermaala.

"I'm sure I'll enjoy this," Josiah told his Finnish comrade, not needing to say out loud that witnessing _any_ legitimate achievement of his long-lost son would be a thrill. "But I'm still sad that no one in this country observes Memorial Day anymore."

"God forgets no one," replied Matti, "including your fallen Army friend Pablo Alvarez."

 
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Even with the Department of Indoctrination being no longer seated in the triumvirate, entertainments were still technically the territory of that Cabinet Department. Accordingly, Pinkshirt Fidel North was allowed to be prelude to the prelude, uttering words few enough to be said in a single breath: "Welcome, citizens! The collective is all! Permit me now to introduce the actress-- Chilena Salisbury!"

The applause was energized in large part by the fact that the exiles, many of whom knew very little about the Salisburys, knew much more about the exploits of Alipang Havens, whom they knew to be the brother of this movie star. Сhilena came to center stage in the awareness that this was merely the latest walk on the high-visibility tightrope she and Dan had had to tread for years now.

"Thank you, Fidel North! And thank you, Undersecretaries and everyone joining us tonight, for caring to witness the artistic fruit borne by a work of social cooperation! Such cooperation has been seen on the sets of our new movie, Sectors of the Heart, in which a number of real-life Enclave citizens acted on camera; but now the cooperation has led to an occasion when Enclave people can be the _main_ performers. The musical skill needed for a concert was here to be found among the residents of the Western Enclave; but as the local population has to spend most of its energy on practical necessities, tonight's event could not have taken place if someone with imagination and the will to achieve had not labored to _create_ the opportunity. Everyone who will be performing tonight is grateful to the young man who, as of now, has moved from being an actor and an athletic coach, to being a producer!

"What is about to occur on this stage will be proof that residents of the Enclave possess not only a steady work ethic in their normal occupations, but also the gifts of artists and intellectuals. It is my hope that, for the greater good of the nation, these people --my own relatives among them-- will in the future be given _further_ opportunities to excel constructively. The Fairness Party correctly declares that we must always think of the future. It is for the _sake_ of the future that I go on record as hoping that the Enclave will soon be authorized to reactivate one or more of the institutions of higher learning which existed in this region before. They have potential teachers, and gifted students; I hope that those gifts and that potential will be allowed to evolve productively.

"But these things, of course, come step by step. I'm excited to see _this_ step happening. So I now yield the stage to... MISTER DAFFODIL FORD of the Department of State."

As Daffodil came forth to his own round of applause, Chilena made her way back to her seat. The hug Dan gave her, she could interpret as his stamp of approval for her grabbing the chance to put in a word for the exiles' hope of starting their own medical university.

"Thank you, thank you," Daffodil began; being applauded and cheered AS A DISTINCT INDIVIDUAL was not a frequent experience for him. "The collective is all... yet it is made up of its components. I, personally, would not have been _alive_ to produce tonight's program, if not for the brave action of the brother of Chilena Salisbury. I refer to Alipang Havens, whose father and an additional sister are present with us this evening. Alipang is preoccupied right now with the well-being of his domestic partner, and I wish only the best for them." Daffodil would rather have called Kim Alipang's WIFE; but like Chilena (and like Denise Heathcock), he knew he must proceed cautiously, and not forfeit what had been gained so far.

"You have come tonight to hear the first stun-jazz concert ever staged inside the Western Enclave since the Enclave was first organized. Note, though, that as a diplomat in training, I have learned that _adaptability_ is an indispensible virtue. The _majority_ of tunes you will hear are in fact stun jazz numbers; but as an accommodation to the limited available time that our musicians had for preparation, some allowance was made for what songs they already knew. For this reason, and also in consideration of the selection of instruments we have, a few songs on the schedule will be from the rhythm-and-blues genre, in arrangements which allow for good utilization of the excellent vocalists who have joined us."

In the audience, Professor Siermaala whispered to Corporal Redfern, "That young fellow sounds marvellously intelligent."

"An eagle raised among turkeys," Josiah whispered back.

The teenage producer continued: "Jazz singing, I mean of the period _after_ Dixieland jazz, traditionally emphasizes the individual singer. But with so many fine singers participating, we could not neglect to include songs in the show that would let them display their skill in three-part harmony. After all... HARMONY makes the world better. So sit back, friends, and let us begin!"

As Harmony Havens was grasping the fact that yes, he HAD meant her, Daffodil withdrew from the stage. Seconds later, a male bass vocal signalled the start of the song "Blue Moon."
 
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