The First Love Of Alipang Havens

Emilio's onboard g.p.s. was assuring him that no other aircraft were flying close enough to Sussex to pose any hazard as he came in. Still, he made a courtesy call to the small government office building in Alipang's hometown, to let them know he was bringing back the town dentist. The man operating the groundside radio told him, "Doctor Havens will find he's acquired a lot of domestic help while he was away. Some Sussex residents, and some Grange personnel, have been doing all they could to make his return as easy on him as possible, in the absence of his kinship collective."

Knowing that his brother-in-law would be awash in helpfulness enabled Emilio to cut ceremony short when he landed. As soon as Alipang and his suitcase were on the ground, Emilio, never having stopped his rotors, took Number 343 aloft again. He had his duties to get back to.

Having been set down as close to his home as possible, Alipang scarcely needed to stir before his reception committee appeared. Ahead of them all were Henry and Huldah Spafford, with Huldah's teenage brother Yakov Rosenbaum. Following these were numerous locals, including members of the Tomisaburo, Rochefort and Forrester families. Also visible were some Amish friends from the farms to the west, and two elderly ladies also from out of town: Tessie and Soledad, volunteers at the Crazy Woman Creek Grange Hall.

"Good to see you, big brother!" exclaimed the tall Apache -- saying "big" in a sense of age and maturity -- as he embraced the shorter man. Huldah, who was pregnant but not yet conspicuously showing, pressed close and remarked, "We've all taken shameless advantage of your house having full-time electricity; your refrigerator is filled with meals for you. Besides that, your pantry is loaded with non-perishables, and items in mason jars."

Various other friends, talking over each other, assured Alipang that all was well with the horses in his stable, that there were new patients for him to see, that NO new dentist had moved in anywhere nearby, that Amish wagons had transported the majority of those coming from outside Sussex, and that they would pray for Kim and the kids to return eventually in safety. When he had a chance, Alipang beckoned Tessie and Soledad to him and asked, "Who's minding the Grange Hall while you're down here?"

"None other than Jerry Sunderberg," replied Soledad.

Alipang gawked. "GERBIL?? Not all by himself, surely?"

"No, Sumerico is there too, getting him oriented," Tessie explained. "Poor Jerry, or Gerbil, is still a bit afraid of people, and he feels more secure being out of town while at the same time serving a useful purpose. If he does well, Agriculture will start paying him a salary to keep on doing office work for the Grange."

"I guess that makes sense." Now Alipang extended his bare, brawny arms in front of him. "So, does anyone want to know about my super-powers?" Affirmative answers to this came simultaneously from Jillian Forrester, Victor Tomisaburo, Gustave Rochefort, eight-year-old Ethan Reinhart, and several others.

"Try not to be too disappointed," Alipang went on. "I can't fly or turn invisible. They only treated the skin on parts of my body, including my hands here, to be more resistant to damage. The strengthening seems to work best against electrical shock and burning. So I can pull baking potatoes out of hot coals with my bare hands, and be useful at certain accident sites; but of course, the Party wouldn't want ANY exile to become an invincible super-mutant."

Greta Reinhart, Ethan's mother and an aunt to Ransom Kramer's sweetheart Lydia, asked him, "Is this change permanent?"

"From what they tell me, it's exactly as permanent as I am. When, God willing, you folks have a barn-raising for Lydia and Ransom one day, I might be able to come drive nails with my fists.... excuse me, I'm forgetting, you use pegs in drilled holes. I don't think my fingers will work as drills."
 
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Inside the Havens house, everyone found places to sit and eat -- or if they had already eaten, they helped serve, and added to the buzz of conversation. Alipang suspected that they were trying to prevent him from feeling the emptiness of the house; he loved them for this, but said nothing about it one way or another. Instead, he asked Henry: "So what have you been doing all these weeks up there by Crazy Woman Creek?"

Henry shrugged. "Raising the sheep; hunting and fishing; growing more vegetables and medicinal herbs; and joining Dorcas and Blake Hanley for worship on Sundays."

"Is the Everstrain bow working out for you?"

"So well that hunting is hardly a challenge anymore! The other day, I took down a pronghorn a kilometer off."

"Did you and Huldah ever catch a showing of Dan and Chilena's movie?"

"You mean Sectors of the Heart?"

"Yeah. In my first phone conversation with Chilena after I came out of sedation, she told me that Geothermal Sites of the Heart won't open for at least a few more days."

"Well, we haven't seen the first one yet. Did your sister say if the movies will be put onto old-style videotape?"

"They probably will eventually."

At this point, Jillian Forrester gently interrupted: "Doctor Havens, I heard from Terrance that YOU got to be in the second movie. A fight scene, was it?"

"A friendly fight," Alipang told her; "a match with my friend Yang Sung-Kuo."

"Then is there any chance that you would be allowed to go outside the Enclave along with your sister and brother-in-law, to appear at the big premieres?"

"Not likely. My part in the new movie amounts to a walk-on; and with my wife and children already outside the fence, the Party won't want to take ANY chance that I might try to skip the country, when they've invested bio-research money in me." Privately, Alipang felt sure that the authorities would never have any more worries about him escaping, now that they had him bugged for tracking. He did not mention this, however, because he didn't want his friends to feel bad for him because of it.

Conversation beyond this point remained mostly trivial. At one point, Alipang asked the Spaffords whether they had chosen baby names. Huldah fielded this question: "If it's a girl, we'll name her Eudora in honor of my mother. If a boy, we'll call him Quicksnake, a condensation of Henry's ancestor Quicker-Than-Snake who became the first Christian in his family."

As the dishes were being washed, Alipang had a sudden inspiration, and turned to Ulrich Reinhart. "Say, Ulrich, don't you have a neighbor who repairs shoes?"

The Amish farmer nodded. "My neighbor to the south, Jotham. He's taught both his sons and his daughters to repair shoes as well, since there DO seem to be awfully few cobblers in Wyoming Sector."

"Excellent! EVERY pair of shoes or boots I own is currently in need of some repair; and with my newly-armored feet, I literally DON'T NEED shoes at all, anytime before mid-August when I'll molt. When you go back to your farm, let me send my boots and shoes with you for Jotham to fix. I can send money along with you to pay him in advance; the scientists paid me a stipend for my participation in the experiment."

So it was agreed; and Huldah's brother Yakov cracked a joke about Alipang becoming a hobbit.

It was not until after eleven at night that the last friends departed, and there came for Alipang the inevitable moment of seeing an empty house around him. It was not pleasant. He chided himself for indulging in self-pity; after all, he knew that Kim, Wilson, Esperanza, Brendan and Baby Peggy were being protected from the violence occurring in Canada. Things could have been far worse. All the same, the house did feel terribly empty.

So, for that night, Alipang went to the stable and slept near the horses. They seemed to like having him there.

 
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Apart from attending church on the last Sunday in July, Alipang's days were mostly occupied with catching up on his dental practice. Besides his usual supply of patients in northeast Wyoming Sector, he found that the supervisors of the geothermal project in Yellowstone Sector were sending patients down to him when it was feasible to do so; he had acquired that good a reputation while he and Kim had worked in Yellowstone.

Dan and Chilena obtained permission through Isadora Cruller to bring video gear to Sussex and show Geothermal Sites of the Heart to Alipang and other locals. The new movie gave Alipang a few grim laughs -- especially since he knew enough about the cinema of the old Soviet Union to recognize the similarities in style.

More positively pleasing was what happened the day after the movie viewing. A man from the Agriculture Department, passing through Sussex enroute to Kaycee, dropped off a letter -- from Kim! Though the small war in Canada was interfering with physical mail, and Kim was not allowed internet communication even while in a foreign country, the letter had made its way from one helpful person to another, finally reaching the Western Enclave after days of travel. The envelope had obviously been opened and reclosed by censors, but none of its content had been blacked out; the Havens family had long since learned how to avoid inviting deletions. Kim had written:

My Most Darling And Beloved Filipino Fireball,

All of us are perfectly safe so far, not knowing how soon transportation will be equally safe again, but looking forward to seeing you. When the kids and I are able to return, we'll have plenty of hard-copy photos to show you of my side of the family. Mom's son Javier, my little brother, is especially remarkable to me. His very existence reminds me of a certain book you might remember, a book that mentioned restoring the years the locusts had eaten. Mom deserves that happiness.

Wilson has taught many of his cousins the basics of playing with sticks. Esperanza has learned some Arabic from Zahid. Brendan is progressing nicely in arithmetic. And Peggy has doubled the amount of hair on her head in just the time since we came to Winnipeg. Stories of YOUR exploits are popular on evenings when we don't have much to do or anyplace to go. They say that as soon as Canada restores peace, Canadian audiences will be able to see the new movie that contains your kung-fu scene with Mr. Yang.

Find constructive uses for your time, and don't worry about us.

Countless kisses to you,
Kimberly

This letter lifted Alipang's spirits immensely... just in time to brace him for something which, albeit unrelated to Kim and the children, still was unsettling.

On the first Thursday in August, Emilio's little helicopter landed in Sussex once more. The Texas Ranger lieutenant found Alipang in his dental clinic, and waited while he finished a cleaning for Lucinda Tomisaburo; then Emilio revealed the reason for this visit.

"I've got a surprise for you, Al, one which I hope won't prove to be such bad news as it might be. President Atkinson, with concurrence of the Party Presidium, has issued new orders for all Texas Ranger aviation assets. Everyone and everything in my detachment is to be transferred, with the exception of myself, three or four other Rangers, my Number 343, the medevac helo, and the large cargo plane we recently put back in service. A few Transport Police will be detailed to help us with remaining functions inside the Enclave. My Great Condor, the old-style gunship, and all our fixed-wing aircraft besides the big transport, will now be under Colt Finnegan's command."

"Is this because of new aggression by Aztlan?" Alipang asked.

"No. It's all part of preventing a frightful new rash of hate crimes."

"What? Please don't tell me someone's imagining a 'Ku Klux Quaker' threat AGAIN!"

"It's almost that. The Rainbow House has decided that the campaign waged by Islamic extremists in Canada might cause Christians in all unfenced parts of the Diversity States to launch their own campaign of Islamophobic violence."

"Really? And what will these horrible Christian bigots use as weapons?"

"That wasn't made clear. But the ORDERS are clear. Except for the remnant of my detachment staying inside the Enclave, absolutely ALL Ranger aircraft, and I mean including what routinely patrols Texan airspace, must patrol around the Great Lakes Cantonment until further notice, to prevent large-scale mob violence against the Muslim residents."

"Did the Muslim administration within the Cantonment request this protection?"

"Not that I know of. But it's what the President commands. She's been on all the streamcast channels, direly warning against the danger of new Crusades and Inquisitions."

Alipang frowned. "What happened to her greater friendliness toward Christians?"

"It hasn't completely vanished. She does at least say that no one should think ALL Christians are bloodthirsty Nazis. But let me get to where YOU come into the picture."

"All right, I'm listening."

"You remember the Muslim woman Salwa Jalalu, whose relocation to the Enclave was facilitated by Brendan Hyland's team when they had gone to Detroit. The Fairness Party also imagines that SHE could be a target of Islamophobic violence -- you know, in contrast to all the tenderness and love she always enjoyed in the Cantonment. Her presence in the uranium mining region is the only reason ANY Texan personnel are to remain inside the Enclave. Hai-Sheng and I, and the others who stay, are supposed to park ourselves over there and protect Miss Jalalu from Islamophobes."

"Protect ONE woman, who ISN'T in any danger? While ignoring any other threat in or around the Enclave? The government must be awfully confident that Aztlan will NEVER try to invade us here."

"More confident than I am. Which is why, when I was in Rapid City receiving my orders through the triumvirate, I asked them if it might not be possible for the GRANGE to assume the duty of guarding Miss Jalalu. I pointed out that this effort could be placed under the on-scene command of a certain dentist who has already been known to assist the authorities."

"And they went for it?"

"They did. So I'm here to fly you to the Thermopolis Grange Hall, to chair a conference of senior Grange volunteers, which will plan duty rotations for the safeguarding of one kitchen worker at a refinery complex. Neighbors can resume looking after your horses while you're away. And you're caught up on your dental patients by now, aren't you?"

"I suppose. But those other Grangers had better be prepared to accept the sight of me arriving barefoot, just like a hobbit."
 
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Chapter 124: Plentiful Provocations


Above the waters that separated the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of what had formerly been the state of Michigan, a Texas Bear aircraft was flying southward. Being Captain Colt Finnegan's ship, this plane bore the designation Texas Ranger Aircraft Number 10. All two-digit numbers in the Texan aviation inventory belonged either to these Tu-95 air-defense upgrades, or to special emergency-service planes. Single-digit numbers were reserved for V.I.P. transport craft, including the one Tu-95 airplane which had been configured for passenger use -- the same one in which Emilio Vasquez had once accompanied Jessica Trevette into Aztlan. All other fixed-wing airplanes of whatever size, including ultralights, had numbers in the 100's. Gliders, hovercraft, and lighter-than-air ships were in the 200's. All helicopters came in the 300's. Counting absolutely everything that could in any sense fly, the Texas Rangers currently possessed a total of 113 aircraft.

And almost all of them were now being compelled to burn fuel and flight-hours on a completely meaningless mission.

But a good Christian, and a good Texas Ranger -- of which Colt Finnegan was both -- could identify the possibility of something good even in a frustrating situation. Since he had to pretend that there was danger of Christian or perhaps Jewish mobs charging into the Cantonment for "kinetic negotiations," the Ranger Aviation Commander had suggested to the Party bureaucracy that his force ought to practice integrating its efforts with the Cantonment's own emergency-management capabilities. Gaining approval for the idea, Finnegan could thus invite onto his ship the same physician couple who had cooperated with that ultrasound-scanning team in the case of Salwa Jalalu.

Doctors Hassan and Gazbiyya Tamir -- the latter protected from pious criticism by the fact that she both wore a burka and was escorted by her husband -- now sat in the cabin of Texas Aircraft Number 10. Gazbiyya sat in the co-pilot's seat, and Hassan in the flight engineer's place, allowing both to see outside. The plane's safety was not compromised, because it, like the Great Condor helicopters, had alternate control positions. The actual co-pilot and flight engineer were seated at secondary consoles farther aft; if Captain Finnegan had suddenly been killed and all cockpit controls disabled, even the main onboard computer wiped out, these two men would have been able to get the ship home on autonomous instruments from where they sat.

Having this degree of backup, and not being in a combat situation, Colt Finnegan could afford to give much of his attention to his guests. Up to now, all talk had been innocent, covering such reasonable subjects as how much help each aircraft type in the Texan inventory could provide in medical evacuation if some disaster caused numerous casualties, or how many female physicians and medics the Rangers had at their call to ensure female casualties being treated only by women. Hassan had recorded copious notes in his tablet computer to reflect these legitimate discussions; anyone questioning him should easily be satisfied that he and his wife had made good use of their airborne time.

But now, Hassan stopped entering notes for a moment, and leaned forward in his seat, so that his head was less directly behind Finnegan's. "Captain, let me tell you now: I am as sure as I can be that our current Imam-Governor has not played any part, not even by mere negligence, in the offensive launched into Canada from the Muslim Cantonment." Hassan was referring to that Imam who had replaced the Imam who had replaced the deceased Imam-Governor Bassem Al-Farag, the middle Imam having been ousted as a confederate of Commander Vitaly Khloponin, former head of the Campaign Against Hate. "I grant you, my reasons are somewhat subjective, but they are convincing to me. For one thing, I have some experience in studying speech patterns; and the anonymous messages that have been streamed by the unseen leaders of the terrorist campaign are very different in wording from what we usually find being said by the latest Imam-Governor. Meanwhile, Gazbiyya has picked up clues hinting at outside influence upon the incursion into Canada."

Finnegan accordingly turned his gaze toward the other Doctor Tamir, or toward her burka; and a voice emerged from that burka.

"In the course of examining seven female patients at Harun Fuad, I discovered that each of them had some already-killed viruses of an unfamiliar strain in her bloodstream. These viruses were identical to each other, but were not any species, natural or engineered, known to exist on the North American continent. As you know, we are under some restrictions on internet use, which means I can't track down the origin of those viruses. But I find it significant that these patients all came from families which do not have any man who works in any segment of the maritime cargo business. My husband isn't the only one who likes to play detective. I believe that those seven women all had -- some sort of contact -- with men from overseas, EVEN THOUGH their family circumstances should have made it highly unlikely for them ever to meet such men at all. Which suggests that the foreign men had SECRET dealings with local families, and that those local families have something to hide."

"In a logical world," remarked Finnegan, "a law-enforcement figure like myself should be easy for someone like you to approach with clues like these."

"But in the here and now," replied Hassan, "our Cantonment authorities do not consider you Texans as having any need to know."

Gazbiyya released a half-laugh. "They expect you to fly your airplanes, and leave all investigations on the ground to them. These airplanes are your burkas with propellors."

"Well, Doctor Tamir and Doctor Tamir, I appreciate the heads-up. Maybe your clues WON'T prove to have any bearing on my people's patrolling assignment; but I'll discreetly pass the information to other Rangers, just in case it might be relevant to us. At least it gives us something to think about, while we soar through the heavens protecting your folks from a lynch mob which DOESN'T exist and ISN'T going to attack you."

Finnegan almost reciprocated the disclosures by telling Hassan and Gazbiyya about his own efforts to modify the air mission; but he decided that, nice folks though they were, they really DIDN'T need to know.

 
Around the same time as Colt Finnegan was conversing with the Tamirs, it was night in Beijing, and the Yang family was gathered in the modest living room of its apartment for prayers before putting the three girls to bed. One of the girls, Yang Ting-Ba, was saying, "And bless our Australian friends..."

...when the father of the household felt an impulse to look out the balcony window. For the rest of his mortal days, Yang Sung-Kuo would thank and praise Jesus for giving him this impulse at this moment.

Lieutenant-Colonel Yang's first actions were twofold. Lunging with a hand outstretched, he hit a switch that was routinely installed in the living quarters of high-ranking Chinese law-enforcement officers. The switch activated a magnetic repulsion field, which gave the apartment at least some protection against laser beams, rockets and bullets fired from outside, and very good protection against particle beams. At the same time, Yang shouted to his wife and daughters, "On the floor, NOW!!"

Helping Tupsim to force the bewildered girls down to the floor, Yang was the last one down himself. The weakened laser beam coming in through the window, half its energy stopped by the magnetic field, just barely grazed the top of his head, setting his hair on fire. As he extinguished himself, they could all hear and feel the shuddering of their apartment as rockets or bombs hit nearby parts of the building. Hustling his family out of the apartment and into the corridor, Yang grabbed his dataphone, thumbing a button which would link the device to all electronic media in the building. "Air attack!" he shouted. "Everyone get to the stairways and down to the street!"

There was confusion, even panic, among many of the Yangs' neighbors in the building; but fortunately for everyone, the latest generation of Chinese architecture was extremely durable and fire-resistant. Many residential structures of older design would have collapsed into charred rubble under the assault of the flying machine Lieutenant-Colonel Yang had glimpsed flying toward him.

He had seen a Monkey Cloud, a robot fighter jet of China's own Aerospace Force. And the big drone's nose-mounted laser had been aimed precisely at the Yang apartment.

There was no followup attack, however, as the building's occupants hurried outdoors in case the building might collapse after all. The Yang family emerged unhurt, apart from the scorched head of the head of the scorched household. Mercifully, only a very few residents had been killed, and a few more injured. Yang Sung-Kuo ignored his own burn trauma as he rendered first aid to a boy who had been gashed by flying pieces of glass.

Only later did he even find out what had become of the attacking robot plane: it had self-destructed before other Monkey Clouds could be scrambled to stop it.

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

"The self-destruct signal did not originate from our Aerospace Force, any more than the order to attack Beijing did," said General Po, the female internal-security officer who had been promoted to replace the downfallen General Shuei. She was briefing as many officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as had been able to get to this secure auditorium, while Beijing reeled from a surprise attack that was shocking despite the smallness of the loss of life. "We are certain that whatever adversary gained control of Monkey Cloud 32-775 destroyed it in order to prevent us from obtaining clues to the system-hacker's identity."

A medic had applied restorative nanobots to Lieutenant-Colonel Yang's burned scalp as he arrived. No one else in the room was hurt; but the question of whether Yang had been targetted on purpose did not immediately come up.

A Colonel Meng, who was not personally known to Yang Sung-Kuo but who was next in seniority to Po among officers present, raised his hand and interjected, "All senior intelligence analysts concur that India could not have been responsible for this act of sabotage and terrorism. The Indian government has no reason to do such a thing, being on good terms with us at this time. It is conceivable that the Indian mafia is involved, but this is not the most likely explanation."

General Po now ordered a holographic world globe to be projected, with the Eastern Hemisphere toward the people in the seats. A section of western China was highlighted. "Records show that, over the preceding ten days, Uighir separatists have spoken among themselves in hints, to the effect that they expected a reversal, a turnabout -- a change of conditions, in which the strong would find their own strength turned against them. This may indicate that some of them had cause to expect just such an action as someone taking control of a Chinese fighter robot to strike at Beijing. If Uighir fanatics are involved, there is the further possibility that they received help from the Central Asian Caliphate -- probably rogue elements rather than the actual government of that Caliphate.

"But because the damage done tonight was so small; because the sabotaged Monkey Cloud did not even try to strike any government offices or military assets; we do not believe that the unidentified adversary was any part of a plan to overthrow our government, or to detach any territory from Greater China. Instead, we speculate that the attacker wanted us to be worried about whether we could still control our automated warfighting machinery. If we are afraid that our own weapons might cease to obey us, we will be inhibited from taking any military action that is not absolutely necessary. Thus, tonight's raid might have been intended to cause us to assume a more passive posture in world affairs generally, to hold back from projecting power. Unfortunately, even if correct, this hypothesis does little to narrow down the list of suspects. China's interests extend everywhere, so almost anyone might have something to gain by causing us to be hesitant in foreign policy."

Yang Sung-Kuo now raised his own hand for permission to speak. When recognized, he stood and said, "General, you will recall that I witnessed some events connected with the effort by the Triad gangs to fortify themselves in Hawaii and Aztlan. The Venezuelan Alliance was selling armaments to Aztlan, though we did not deem Venezuela's role in the Triad business to be substantial enough to warrant reprisals against that bloc of nations. Now, however, with Aztlan weakened and anxious to regain strength, my hunch is that the Venezuelans -- confident of NOT being seriously under suspicion from us -- might well be pleased to see us becoming hesitant to intervene in events of the Western Hemisphere. Then they could profit by selling Aztlan weapons of a higher quality than anything we have so far permitted them to sell."

General Po nodded. "That is a realistic possibility, Lieutenant-Colonel Yang. Although the Ministry of Internal Affairs is technically not concerned with foreign policy, I recommend that you instruct all security personnel under your command at the United Nations to keep a close eye on the delegates from the Venezuelan Alliance."

"As you direct, General." Yang sat down, inwardly beginning to pray that the friends he had made in the Diversity States would not be endangered by anything that Venezuela and Aztlan might be cooking up. Of course, he also prayed for protection for his OWN people.

 
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Several hours after General Po's meeting, a submarine of the Indian Navy was prowling in the eastern Pacific Ocean, about halfway between the Hawaiian Islands and the Aleutian Islands. The Pacific Federation had never expected it could interdict all sea traffic passing by its widely scattered territories, and particularly had no objection to naval activity by the friendly Indian government; but Commander Ainesh Makhuda nonetheless was proceeding with maximum stealth. He had parties less friendly than the Pacific Federation to think about.

"Sound transient at forty-three degrees relative bearing, sir," announced the sonar chief. "It matches the sound of the previous module drops."

The sonar chief was referring to the fact that, on four occasions in the seventeen days the Indian submarine had been patrolling this sector, merchant ships from Peru -- a Venezuelan Alliance member nation -- had dropped submersible watertight cargo modules out of airlocks in their lower hulls. Each module had later been retrieved and taken in tow by what seemed (going by acoustic signatures) to be a specialized Russian submarine equipped with external robot arms. Each time, the retrieving vessel had moved off in a direction which might have led to the Aztlano coastline, though farther north was also possible. The Indian sub had mission-defined limits to how far it might follow, so the destination remained uncertain.

But the inference was obvious enough that the Venezuelan Alliance was out to provide somebody with something, while avoiding detection.

"Chief of the watch, prepare to dive to maximum safe depth," Makhuda ordered. "This time, we're going to deploy our bottom-search robot to study that module ultrasonically _before_ the recipient comes and hauls it away."

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

In Seattle, Northwest Federal District, Diversity States, Chief Justice Tim Govinda stood in a spot he remembered nostalgically: on the podium of the chamber of the All-Species Council. He waved fondly to the honorable giraffe and the honorable Galapagos tortoise, before turning toward his new adult advisor, Felipe Contreras.

"Pee-pee-pa-dee, diddly-doo," the boy declared, in his best imitation of a meadowlark.

"An excellent point, Your Honor," said Felipe with an admirable straight face. "But I urge you to remember that most of the humans watching the streamcast of your speech will not be so enlightened as you are where the oneness of all life is concerned. In order to allow for their inferior spirituality and help them along in their evolution, please confine yourself to human language."

The delusional boy grinned mischievously. "Arf, arf! Just kidding. Yes, I'll speak English." Satisfied, Felipe retreated, and Tim began his address:

"Fellow biological manifestations of Mother Universe! I am honored to be with you again -- although, of course, everything is _always_ with everything else anyway in the circle of existence. In the time since I assumed my place on the Supreme Court, great progress has been made in the upholding of nature. For instance, the creation of geothermal power stations inside the Western Enclave, which proves that no one ever needed to unleash the plagues of radioactive materials and fossil fuels. But more work lies ahead of us.

"Outposts of anti-evolutionary superstition and prejudice remain, displaying their true character in the form of cruelty to animals. I have in mind especially the primitive practice of bullfighting...."

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

Meanwhile, a solitary Texas Tu-95 was flying west along the D.S.-Canadian border, piloted by Ranger Lieutenant Greg Jessup, with Ranger Zorah Lodge as co-pilot. The fact that this multi-role warplane was operating _anyplace_ other than around the Great Lakes Cantonment, was thanks to Colt Finnegan's finagling talents. Finnegan had told Party officials that there was always a possibility that crazed racist Christians might attempt direct border crossings into Canada, bypassing the Cantonment in order to launch Islamophobic attacks on innocent Muslims from a different direction. Since Finnegan had refrained from adding, "It's about as possible as my flapping my arms and flying to Nepal," he had won his point, and so at least _one_ of his top-line aircraft was free to work where it might actually serve a purpose. Jessup's patrol route ran from the western tip of Lake Superior to Puget Sound and back.

"Sir, I'm hearing something peculiar from one of the satellite channels," remarked Zorah, as they passed over what had once been the north end of Idaho. "A newscast, but -- weird!"

"All right, tune me in," said Greg. Soon he was hearing a childish voice speaking about how killing a bull reflected the madness of war. "That's the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court!" he laughed.

Zorah lifted an eyebrow. "Justice Govinda? I never paid much attention to him. I knew he was young, but here he sounds like he's five years old!"

"He might as well be, for all the use he is to anyone...." Greg's voice trailed off as Tim Govinda's voice chirped on. Then he called Sally Pitt, who was manning the cyber-warfare technician's position. "Sally, I want you to trace the streamcast audio Zorah picked up. I want you to try to determine if it's being relayed to the Libertad de Aztlan network."

Less than two minutes later, Sally reported back: "Yes, sir, it's going to Aztlan. In fact, every media system Aztlan has that is set up to accept broadcasting from the D.S., is receiving this speech."

"Thanks. Keep an eye on it." Greg looked at Zorah. "He's telling the _Aztlanos_ that bullfighting is all wrong. Not that I ever cared for bullfighting myself, but.... I have a bad feeling about this."
 
Using all her remaining secret contacts in the Diversity States to manipulate events there from afar, Jessica Trevette had had several reasons to maneuver the Fairness Party regime into wasting Texas Ranger forces on meaningless busywork. One reason concerned the population of the Texas Federal District itself. Not being anywhere near as close to being Deity as she imagined she was, Jessica was decidedly not omniscient; thus, she did not know that the Texas Rangers had a plan on hold to secede from the D.S.A. and join the Mexican Alliance. But she knew the nature of Texans generally, which was why she and other Party leaders had agreed that Texas must never have a Governor who had been _born_ in Texas. Governor Steven Jiang was a native of Chicago, who despised everything Texans stood for.

And today, Governor Jiang had his chance to pull off an insulting gesture that should either help to break the will of Texans to resist the Party, or prod some into raising such protest as would give him an excuse to make arrests. Right now, there were barely enough Rangers actually inside Texas to man their offices minimally... and a surfeit of D.S. Marshals had been "helpfully" brought in, with the concurrence of the Supreme Court and Continental Marshal Gorshkovskaya. Today, the majority of these "substitutes" were clustered protectively around Jiang and his chief male aide and companion, Sugarstar Hamilton, as they watched a remarkable ceremony.

This was taking place in Austin, the one large Texan city where socialists and heterophobes felt at ease.

The only Texas Rangers present were Commandant Brittany Pierce and Vice-Commandant Jed Brickhouse. Martha Pollock was holding down headquarters duty, while Wade Sampson was with the Commerce Inspectors currently guarding the Texan-Aztlano border, trying to keep them on task.

"Show no feelings, no matter what," Brittany had told Jed just before their train arrived in Austin. "We're powerless to interfere, _this_ time." She knew that many guns would be ready to target them if they tried anything. But they were both silently praying for the victims of the coming demonstration of "enlightenment."

When his audience was complete -- including, naturally, representatives of the Oneness Channel and the Collective Network -- Steven Jiang sent out his amplified voice across the wide plaza which fronted the largest Oneness Temple in Texas: "Fellow citizens, the collective is all! I welcome you to this joyous occasion, in which we celebrate the correction of an unfortunate oversight in the workings of the Genetic Health Service.

"Certain G.H.S. workers in this district were lax in enforcing our standards for procreative perfection. Four women of this district, pressured and coerced by their patriarchalist domestic partners, were allowed, or better to say forced, to conceive embryos with a risk of defects. One of the women, for example, had a great-grandfather who had died of a heart attack, indicating clear danger to her offspring. But never fear, friends in the collective: the danger in all four cases has been averted!" At this point, Sugarstar gave the cue for the Marshals and other bystanding government employees to raise the pre-planned spontaneous applause.

"The under-performing G.H.S. workers, and the selfish, un-mutual male partners of the women in question, are being sent to Self-Esteem Centers for non-punitive reprogramming," Jiang continued. "The improperly-timed embryos are about to be released into the embrace of Mother Gaia. It remains for us only to rejoice that four women are now liberated from the slavery of traditional tribalism; they will receive all the help they could possibly require to learn the _progressive_ ways which had been kept hidden from them. Citizen Priestesses, please proceed."

A colorfully-clad swarm of women, all the Oneness Priestesses currently in Texas, now advanced front and center. Among them was the one who had presented an interpretive dance at the memorial ceremony for the late Pablo Sotero. The Priestesses led four pregnant women, all of whom were very obviously so heavily drugged that they could hardly think. Flower crowns were placed on the heads of these four women; then the Priestesses began a song in three-part harmony.

The music of this a capella number was from Beethoven's Ode to Joy. The singing women, most of them young, did indeed look improbably joyful as they sang: smiling brightly, tossing their hair, making bird-like gestures with their hands, a few of them even flinging confetti at high points in the song. The words they sang had been written, at the Governor's request, by Sugarstar Hamilton:

"Come, potential humans, leave these bodies you in-VAAYY-ded;
It was not your turn yet, but you'll be reincar-NAAYY-ted!
Choice removes you, Gaia soothes you,
Karma proves you don't belong;
Someday when your turn does come, you'll know the wisdom of our song!"

On the second verse, they transposed up one key for effect.

"Come, exploited sisters, prove you are not weak and FRAAAIL things!
Mother Universe now frees you from disgusting MAAALE things!
Down with breeding! You're not needing
Cavemen leading you astray;
Now embrace diversity, and celebrate the oneness way!"

Sugarstar had borrowed the phrase "oneness way" from the ending-credits song in the recent and highly-popular movie Sectors of the Heart. Its application here would not have delighted lyricist Tommy Salisbury. The four most attractive-looking Priestesses in the choir now drew close to the mothers whose babies were about to be killed; each Priestess embraced and kissed one of the drugged women, then led her to the Oneness Temple, which contained all necessary facilities for the performance of compulsory "choice."

Governor Jiang offered a simple conclusion: "Those four female citizens now rescued from reproductive bondage will be mentored in relational diversity by our worthy Priestesses. Henceforth, no God-fascist will be able to use them as captive, subservient breeders. Thank you for joining us, friends; the collective is all!"

Brittany Pierce and Jed Brickhouse endured witnessing this travesty in mute helplessness, knowing they were being closely watched. Not until they were safely back at Ranger Headquarters, hours later, did Jed say to Brittany: "By God, our secession is no longer an if, it's a how-soon."

"Right," replied Brittany. "But I want to time it so as to give me the best chance of putting a bullet through Jiang's head first."

"I favor aiming one meter lower."
 
In a mostly-unused school auditorium in one of North Dakota Sector's small towns, State Department employees Bailey Melville and Moonrose Quickpace had gathered eighteen of the Enclave's most recently-relocated exile children, aged from seven to twelve, to orient them to Equalityball. The children, already knowing of the game's existence, had been enticed by the promise of new clothing, since they and their siblings and parents had arrived at Ellsworth Airfield or Saint Labre School with only two changes of issued clothing plus winter coats and flimsy boots.

The new clothing offered in the auditorium consisted of red Pioneer neckerchiefs, and jackets whose backs were emblazoned with the words, "THE COLLECTIVE IS ALL." Getting the children lined up to receive items in their sizes, Bailey enthused: "You see, we try to make sure you can still enjoy the best features of life outside the Enclave."

The youngsters did not complain about the fashion statement; clothes were clothes.

There ensued a demonstration of Equalityball, in which the two heterophobic women, with arms around each other's waists as if they were in the Rockettes, kicked two soccer balls ahead of themselves in unison, up one aisle of the auditorium and down another. After this, Moonrose told the young audience, "We're going to experiment with something new in the sport this month: separate teams for boys and girls. After all, everyone really is better off with members of their own gender. In fact, right now we're going to show you something that will help you get in the right spirit."

On a two-dimensional video screen, Moonrose and Bailey began playing a lengthy video that made it very clear what they regarded as the right spirit.

Several of the children stared in ambivalent fascination; but the majority, led by the eldest girl among them, stood up and started out of the auditorium. "You can't leave!" cried a surprised Bailey. "You'll forfeit your scarves and jackets!"

At this, the mutinous children dropped these items back on the table where they had lain, then continued out the door.

"Stop! You can't do that, it's un-mutual!" shouted Moonrose. She and Bailey both dashed out in pursuit....

.... to behold a man and woman in Forest Ranger uniforms, accompanied by a black-and-white border collie.

"Citizen Melville, Citizen Quickpace," growled Mark Terrell, "you are exceeding your job description. You're not authorized to force any exile to be present at any activity of yours."

"Nor are you authorized to show these kids what the database told us you were going to show them," added Dana Pickering Terrell.

"But it's educational!" protested Moonrose.

"Maybe in Zimmo Garland's educational system," Dana retorted. "But it's triumvirate policy that, in most instances, exiles are not to be coerced into doing or accepting anything strongly hostile to their values. And both of you already know that. It's a shame Daffy wasn't around anymore to remind you."

"This is meddling!" Bailey suddenly screeched. "You spied on us! You have no right to interfere!"

"Now, that's funny," said Mark. "We expect exiles, in fact all citizens, to accept being under surveillance all the time. Are you two not citizens?"

Just then, Whiplash the enhanced border collie trotted into the old school building by the auditorium entrance. Going straight to the stage, he carefully closed his jaws on the power cord for the video screen, doing nothing that would cause him to suffer electric shock, and pulled the plug out of the socket.

Of course, what had been showing was of no interest at all to him.
 
President Megavolt Atkinson had really been looking forward to partying with her female bodyguards at the women-only club Hecate's Hangout; but in view of her being President and what all, she reluctantly decided that she had better deal with the priority-flagged information that had come in just after her early supper at the Rainbow House. And since misery loves company, she tracked down her part-time lover and full-time political ally, Vice-President Reed Harrison. He was already at his men-only club, Dashing Dukes, when the summons reached him.

Once Meg and Reed were alone together in a shielded office, Meg played for her sole male consort a comms recording, in the voice of Texas Ranger Zorah Lodge. (Lieutenant Jessup had allowed Zorah to make the report -- both in order to give her credit for first noticing the situation, and because he expected that Party officials would sooner listen to a woman than to a man.)

"To the President and the Party Presidium, classified Top Secret Sensitive: this is Texas Ranger aviator Zorah Lodge speaking, submitting a communications intercept report. The attached audiovisual, radio-spectrum and stream-printer data detail a sudden upsurge of internal military and paramilitary communications in the Aztec-Maoist Republic of Aztlan. This upsurge began less than one minute after the conclusion of the animal rights-related speech given in Seattle by Supreme Court Chief Justice Timothy Govinda. It is known that Govinda's speech was seen and heard on the Libertad de Aztlan multi-media network.

"The Aztlanos appear to have improved their encryption; consequently, we do not know what was being said among them. But by following the sequence of who called whom and when, we speculate that Aztlano forces are preparing to execute, or at least to threaten, a military strike across their border with Wyoming, using Govinda's criticism of their culture as a pretext.

"The Aztlanos of course have never attacked in that direction before, since this might damage the power lines by which the Diversity States provides them with electricity. It is possible, however, that they now are hoping for a new source of outside help, which might make them confident that they can weather a temporary national brownout. If so, they may believe that they can extort new concessions from us by threatening to target missiles on our Western Enclave power stations.

"You will shortly be receiving, by a separate channel, the recommendations of Captain Finnegan for discontinuing the Great Lakes Cantonment protective mission and relocating Ranger air-defense assets to the Enclave and its immediate surroundings.

"As an addendum, the Northwest Federal District Police have advised us that the Chief Justice's advisor, Felipe Contreras, has left the country."

As soon as the introductory voice message was finished, Meg and Reed gave a cursory perusal to the cryptological data, though much of it was over their heads. Then Reed asked, "So, shall we do as the Texans recommend?"

Meg's reply, though not angry, was quick and firm: "Of course not! The current mission of the 'Sky Rangers' is far more important, because it affects the social stability of the whole national collective!"

"But Meg, we both _know_ that there is not, never was, and isn't going to be, any possibility of Judeo-Christian mobs invading the Muslim Cantonment to commit hate crimes."

As a preventive measure against any estrangement between them, the President leaned in and kissed the Vice-President before saying, "Reed, you've been with the Party long enough to know that facts must _always_ be subordinated to the agenda. We've eased up on the Biblicals in many ways, because of their value to us as the most reliable and motivated workforce. I want to continue this leniency; but we dare not let it go so far that they think they can commit serious acts of disobedience. _That's_ why we promoted the pretense that we believe in a threat of Judeo-Christian Islamophobic violence -- to keep the Biblicals worried just enough. Isn't it better merely to keep them aware that a crackdown against them _could_ happen, than to stage an _actual_ crackdown that impairs their economic productivity?"

"I suppose. But what _will_ you want to do if in fact the Aztlanos threaten to damage our infrastructure?"

"The logical thing, the thing that expresses the Fairness Party spirit: punish someone on our own side, then promise to double the supply of electrical power going to Aztlan. If they had ever been paying us for the power, we could make it free henceforth; as it is, with the 'racist' Tim Govinda being disbarred, they should be happy."

Reed laughed. "The other members of the Supreme Court should be even happier, to be rid of that bizarre brat."

 
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Chapter 125: Learn Something Every Day

The nature of the new Grange assignment did not require the use of horses. Alipang, and other Grange volunteers nominally under his command, arrived at the Gas Hills uranium complex by train. Since Alipang had only had to come from as far as Thermopolis, most Grangers well known to him were not on his train. The only familiar faces were Chung Sun-Kim and Ladira Garvey, of whom the latter was to be one of three rotating female bodyguards who would be staying right alongside the supposedly-endangered Salwa Jalalu, to the point even of one always sleeping in her quarters at night. Ladira and Sun-Kim were sitting within talking range of Alipang, while the window seat next to him held a Granger he had never met at all: a young man of partial Crow Indian ancestry, named Owen MacRory, who looked like a compact version of Henry Spafford. (Henry would be coming down later as part of a relief contingent.)

"I confess I've never been close to a uranium refinery before," Alipang told the others; "nor even happened to read much about them, though I do know how a nuclear power plant runs."

Owen, who had been recommended for this operation by a Grange man who had been at the conference with Alipang in Thermopolis, grabbed his chance to speak up and be helpful. "My family lives near the nuke-power plants west of Gas Hills; we do animal control ranging from there to the southwest corner of the Enclave perimeter. We often visit the Gas Hills complex to buy and sell stuff. The first time I saw the evaporation ponds, and heard what they're for, I got scared that I was going to get cancer or turn into a mutant zombie out of the old movies."

"Those are for evaporating water that was in contact with the actual uranium, aren't they?" said Sun-Kim. "I don't blame you for being uneasy -- though obviously you're not worried now."

"They assured me that it's _only_ the water that rises into the atmosphere; the uranium stays where it is, and gets processed further."

"Then does that mean they make a slurry down in the tunnels, like with potash mining?" asked Alipang.

"Yes. It's called in situ mining. Water is pumped _into_ the mine shafts to dissolve the ore, then the uranium slurry is pumped up to the evaporation ponds to dry out. They call the mixture a 'pregnant' solution, which sounds dumb to me, but that's what they call it. And that's how they get the uranium out of the ground."

"I hear that before the Fairness Revolution, Gas Hills had open-pit mining," put in Ladira.

"So they did. But apparently in situ is considered more eco-friendly."

Ladira changed the subject, now addressing Alipang: "Doctor Havens, all of us know that there _isn't_ any racist Islamophobic plot to break into Gas Hills and murder this Jalalu lady. Do you think that it's a cover story to increase protection FOR THE MINING COMPLEX ITSELF, like if someone wanted to sabotage that?"

Alipang shrugged. "It's possible. In fact, that makes _more_ sense than accepting that the triumvirate _still_ imagines big secret Christian lynch mobs lurking behind every tree, even after the Ku Klux Quaker nonsense was exploded. What do you think, Owen? Did any rumors ever come your way about threats to the energy industry hereabouts?"

"Not openly. But I spoke to your Texas Ranger brother-in-law two days ago when he came by our settlement, and he spoke of looking for more ways to keep watch against anyone coming at us from Aztlan, by air or otherwise."

Sun-Kim snorted. "God knows, back before China ate up the Koreas, the North Koreans never would quit sending infiltrators against us. Here, with our own oversized North Korea to the south and west of us, I think Lieutenant Vasquez is right to be on his guard."

The four Grange volunteers kept up this discussion for the remaining quarter-hour of their train ride. At the Gas Hills railway platform, then, they were met by no less a person than Energy Ombudsman Bill Shao.
 
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"Great to see you!" Bill exclaimed, shaking Alipang's hand first of all. "I need some friendly company, since my job won't let me be with Lorraine."

"She's with Ransom now, right?"

"That's right. Spending time with him before he gets actually baptized into the Amish faith. She jokes that, since when he's baptized Ransom will be as good as married to Lydia, her visit with him constitutes his bachelor party. Says that a visit from his Mom constitutes a tame enough bachelor party for even the stuffiest Amish person to find permissible."

Alipang did not reveal what he had heard about Samantha Ford's recently offered notion of quality time with the now-escaped David. Let normal thoughts of mother-love be guarded against the bad taste Samantha's Freudian suggestion would impart. Aloud, he replied: "It isn't as if the Reinharts _wouldn't_ let Ransom see his Mom often enough even after he _actually_ marries Lydia."

"True; but Lorraine's told me that she's sure it'll still feel different once he's officially Amish and she isn't."

Alipang sighed. "No doubt. But as Ransom's Dad once remarked to me, you can't step in the same river twice, because the water moves. Anyway, speaking of water--" He pointed at the refinery buildings nearest to where they were standing. "Are those the pumping stations for the mine slurry?"

"No, they're the primary and backup denitrification stations for the wastewater; sort of downstream in the process."

"Um, if you say so. But to get back to matters more within my competence: my party includes three more men and one woman besides the four of us you see; those others are in a far-end car that hasn't come even with this little platform yet. Meanwhile, has Gabe Ellison's group arrived from Frontier Plaza?"

"Not yet, but we expect--"

Bill was cut off by a harsh voice, barely recognizable as female: "Citizen Shao! How come you didn't call me to let me know my protection was here?" The coherent part was followed by a mush-mouthed cursing part. Not Salwa Jalalu, but Aretha Shabazz, was bearing down on the Ombudsman and the Grange personnel. Bill swung around to face her.

"Aretha, they're not _your_ protection, they're here to protect Citizen Jalalu."

"They're here to protect against the _________ Islamophobes! And the white-supremacist ___________s around this Enclave don't even know the difference between a fully-practicing Muslim and a _progressive_ who's just open-minded with Islam. So I'm in as much danger as that _______ Salwa is! I want my _rights!_ No one's going to cheat me out of my rights!"

"Miss Shabazz--" Alipang began to interject.

Recognizing who he was, Aretha interrupted: "You're that racist dentist's pet Asian! What the _____ do you want?"

Forcing a polite expression onto his face, Alipang told her, "I wanted to point out to you that, with the _number_ of law-enforcement auxiliaries being assigned here, we'll be covering every avenue of approach to your places of work, lodging and recreation. So you'll be just as well protected against those Islamophobes AS IF we had been specially detailed to guard you in particular."

"Well, that _better_ be true, you dumb ________ Flip!"

Ladira Garvey now intervened on her team leader's behalf, stepping up very close to the leathery, ornery African-American woman. "Just a minute, Citizen Shabazz. Although I happen to know that Dr. Havens himself doesn't care if someone calls him a Flip, _you_ know that the word is a racial slur on Filipinos. Which makes you a hypocrite. If you expect us to take _any_ care to protect you from Islamophobes, you need to apologize to Dr. Havens _right_ now."

This challenge, from a muscular woman who could have annihilated her physically, gave Aretha pause -- but less because of intimidation, than because it required her atrophied brain to handle some actual thought. At last, she recovered and said, "All right, Dr. Havens, I'm sorry I called you a racial name."

Alipang smiled at Ladira, then smiled exaggeratedly at Aretha. "It's all right, Miss Shabazz. Precisely _because_ I'm one of those horrid Christians, I forgive you. And I promise, if any Islamophobes or white supremacists come hunting for you, they'll have to get past me first."

This was going to be a dreary assignment.

 
Xinjiang Region, Western China:

American diplomat Benito Salazar, despite living in China for many years, had never before heard of the Xiongnu Empire. This was because he didn't spend much time in the provincial areas of western China. But since coming to the historic city of Horgos, on Greater China's border with the Central Asian Caliphate, he had encountered written and spoken references to the fact that a non-Chinese nation, the Mongol-related Xiongnu Empire, had ruled Xinjiang about two thousand years ago. Some of the Uighirs in Xinjiang would speak about the Xiongnu period, and other long-lost epochs of Asian history, as if they were no farther back than Grandfather's teenage years.

It didn't require a rocket scientist to realize that there still were members of Greater China's ethnic minorities who would rather have been ruled by someone other than the Han Chinese.

Never having much of importance to do in Beijing, Benito had been intrigued when Communist Party officials paid him the courtesy of including him in low-classification briefings on the investigation of the runaway Monkey Cloud robot plane which had strafed a Beijing apartment building. Since discontented Central Asian Muslims as a group remained suspects in the system hacking which had caused the fighter-drone to run amok, Beijing was concerned to maintain goodwill with ordinary civilians in the northwest while still hunting for culprits. Thus, an Aerospace Force colonel, on behalf of his government, had asked Benito to go on a speaking tour in Xinjiang, reminding the locals how wonderful China was.

Though not the brightest lightbulb on the shelf, Benito had realized that using him was a can't-lose arrangement for his hosts. If the round-eye American met with scorn among the Uighirs and other non-Han folk, the Chinese government would be no worse off, while if he succeeded, Beijing's aim of preserving stability would be helped.

So it was that Ambassador Salazar, who could speak decent Mandarin Chinese, was addressing over twenty thousand Xinjiang residents gathered at a wind farm, the nearest wind farm to Horgos. The windmills had been temporarily stopped in order to provide quiet for his speech. Streamcast media crews were present to report on the event.

Benito had the benefit of a top-line outdoor sound system, but was not using any electronic device to translate his Chinese words into the Uighir language. Instead, he had a live interpreter, an important Party official of the city. Hao Chi-Sheng, though a Han Chinese herself, enjoyed a mastery of all the indigenous languages used in Xinjiang; and she felt that Benito's talk would go over better if the interpretation was performed by a living person who was known to have taken the trouble to study Uighir in the traditional way, rather than by artificial knowledge-implantation.

It seemed to be working. The audience had not been forced at gunpoint to attend, but they were listening with a reasonable appearance of interest.

"No one can appreciate better than the peoples of Asia," said Benito, "just how universally precious and vital unity is. It was unity which enabled you all to defeat the white colonial regimes and regain your freedom. It is unity which makes Greater China the world's leader in science and technology." Even Benito, product of Marxist-leaning American schools though he was, knew perfectly well that a great deal of China's technology had been stolen from the former United States; but even if he had not been indoctrinated all his life to believe that the United States had been the ultimate in evil, there was no point in mentioning that fact before this audience.

He watched Hao Chi-Sheng as she interpreted his latest portion. She was very smooth at her work. If she had not been so drab and plain-looking, he would have been strongly attracted to her. In any event, she was helping him to make a good impression.

But Benito was destined never to find out how much applause his speech would have received. As he was beginning the next part, a sudden screaming and pointing broke out in the crowd. The audience could see something above and behind him....
 
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Hao Chi-Sheng carried a radio receiver planted in her skull, much like the one the deep-cover agent Peter Tomisaburo had formerly carried in his head. Unlike Mr. Tomisaburo, Miss Hao had easy access to medical care that was advanced enough to counteract any cancer-causing effects of having an electronic device active right alongside her brain; therefore, there was no reason for Miss Hao's intracephalic device to be removed.

Moments before the cries of alarm began in the crowd, Hao Shi-Cheng had heard a few phrases standing out from the low-volume frequency-sweep that her receiver did when not instructed otherwise. The phrases had seemed to indicate that, although the Aerospace Force and the People's Navy had grounded all robotic aircraft, some saboteur had contrived to penetrate military cyber-networks SO cleverly as to activate a GROUNDED military drone and get it airborne. But she heard nothing about WHERE this had happened; it was not her duty to track runaway robots; and she was in the middle of a simultaneous translation job that was important in its own right. Thus, she would have dismissed the new cyber-warfare attack from her attention -- if the flying robot in question had not turned out to be right behind her.

The yells of the crowd were followed closely by a mighty crash which drowned out Benito's amplified voice. Turning, Chi-Sheng beheld an airplane, a type she didn't recognize but bigger than a Monkey Cloud, knocking down one of the windmills behind the speaker's platform. That windmill was far enough away that its fall would not bring it onto the platform -- but a second windmill, along the same vector, was close enough that IT would hit there.

The Chinese woman had enough kung-fu training to be practiced in quick response to an emergency. It took her scarcely a second to perceive the danger; and while Benito Salazar stupidly gawked, she grabbed him by one arm and yanked him after her. Leaping to one side, she had him and herself out of the way before the second windmill shattered the platform.

The now-damaged robot plane itself, in a shallow descent, hit the ground almost a kilometer beyond the wrecked stage. Fortunately, it did not explode; and the people in the crowd had mostly had the sense to try, like Chi-Sheng, to flee laterally, out of the big drone's path. Some were still killed, but not nearly as many as if the crowd in general had frozen in place or milled randomly.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Benito found himself admitted to yet another meeting of military officers, this time in a government office building in Horgos. He greatly regretted not having had a chance to thank Chi-Sheng for saving his life; she had moved on to help casualties as soon as she knew he was unhurt. But Benito had uniformed men requiring all of his present attention. They, in turn, gave him the impression that they respected him at least a little, unlike many Chinese he had dealt with before. After an intelligence analyst reported what base the crashed plane had come from and various details of its short flight, talk turned to the subject of combatting civilian panic while the investigation continued. This then led to acknowledgement of what Benito had been doing.

"You were doing well with your presentation before the emergency," one many-medalled officer told him. "It does you credit."

Another officer, seeming by his uniform to be from a different branch of service than the first, added, "Accordingly, as our government solicits international cooperation in our search for the infiltrators, it will want you personally to facilitate our communication with President Atkinson in this matter."

"Of course, I'll be honored to assist you," Benito assured them. "But if I may ask a question, is this hacking threat so big as to paralyze your strategic defense capabilities?"

The man who had briefed everyone took it on himself to answer: "You are not cleared to know our estimates of how long the peril is likely to continue. I can, however, tell you that it has us worried -- as worried as anything HAS worried Beijing since the Triads tried to take over our Moon colony. Common sense declares that any adversary, maybe even a different adversary from the one attacking our combat computer networks, might be tempted to gamble that our inability to rely on automated armaments will continue long enough to let the enemy strike us hard, even invade us outright."

"Then may I now offer a suggestion?" said Benito. "As I understand it, the airplanes taken over by the unknown hackers operated on control originating OUTSIDE themselves. Couldn't you use aircraft with all internal controls? Like, with living crews? If only as a stopgap?"

The Chinese officers looked at each other. Then, a man who had not heretofore addressed Benito replied, "We have such craft in storage, of course; but it would take some time to make them ready for action again."

"Then let MY country provide you with aircraft!" exclaimed Benito triumphantly. "You know about the Great Condor attack helicopters and upgraded Tu-95's we possess. If we lend these to your military, they should be immune to whatever cyber-attack methods your hacker is using, so you would have at least some air-patrol assets not affected by the danger of runaways. That would give you time to press on with your investigation and catch the saboteurs."

"Are you sure YOUR country doesn't need those bombers and helicopters?" the intelligence analyst asked mildly.

Benito was on a roll with boot-licking. "What the WORLD needs is a secure, strong Greater China! I know that the Fairness Party Presidium will rejoice at the opportunity to assist the government which freed America from its Nazi Christian corporate oligarchs. What's more, the long-term loan of our aviation assets to China will be taking those assets AWAY FROM the renegade militaristic elements in our own society. It's a win-win situation, as we used to say in America: helping you against un-mutual racist reactionaries whose identities you don't know, and at the same time disarming the un-mutual racist reactionaries we DO know in the D.S.A.!"

The analyst raised an eyebrow. "Do you mean to say that your own Texas Rangers are the racists in the Diversity States? If so, how is it that they're allowed to possess ANY military ordnance?"

"It's a coalition-government kind of deal," said Benito. "But in my own opinion, the D.S.A. can no longer afford to leave heavy weapons in the hands of bigots who hate everyone who's different from them. They've been provoking the Aztlanos for years, even as they scheme to reinstate theocracy within our borders. But now, having this other cause to take away their air power without SEEMING to bear ill-will for them, we can painlessly set back their treacherous agenda."

The gathered military men from the Xinjiang Region all inwardly realized how odd it was to hear this puny American imitating the same kind of propaganda that had been fed by Beijing to past generations of the Chinese people. Nonetheless, it WAS true that even a small number of mission-ready manned combat aircraft, which were not subject to whatever was taking over automated aircraft from the outside, would be a great help right now. And crews for the borrowed planes and helos could be made ready quickly through artificial knowledge-implantation.

Manned fighting aircraft, in larger numbers than the D.S.A. was able to offer, could simply be purchased from other countries by the richest country in the world. But all of the officers in the room understood that Beijing would be especially pleased by the spectacle of so feeble a nation as the Diversity States falling all over itself to curry favor with China....
 
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Back in Wyoming:

All through his first evening and first full day at the Gas Hills compound, Alipang did not get a chance to speak with Salwa Jalalu, the woman whose alleged peril was the alleged reason for so many Grange hunters being detailed here as guardians. He did, however, learn plenty about uranium processing from the miners and other workers. And he had conversations with numerous men and women who wondered why he was walking around barefoot. Not being sworn to secrecy, he told them about his epidermal enhancement.

A few, just a few of the exiles who made up most of the Gas Hills workforce became a bit withdrawn once they realized that Alipang had received so much special attention from the triumvirate. It was as if they were suddenly afraid that this brown man might have become a brown-noser for the rulers, and might have actually been sent here to uncover discontent. Remembering his own experiences as a target for entrapment, Alipang couldn't blame them. But, since as usual he had his portable dental kit with him, he gained goodwill in one quarter: with a lady about his own age named Vera Strother, the one full-time dentist serving the Gas Hills personnel.

Vera was a Christian exile, whose husband Calvin had been murdered like so many others during the engineered anti-Christian riots in 2021. In befriending her, Alipang -- keenly aware that other people were aware that his wife still was absent from the Enclave -- made sure never to be alone with her for a single instant. All he meant to offer Vera, and all he wanted to be _perceived_ as offering, was professional assistance, lightening her load with patients. He even insisted that she still receive payment for any patients he treated, since he was getting a stipend for his assignment here anyway.

Interestingly, though it had no practical effect on Alipang's actions, Vera revealed that she knew about what had happened to Henry Spafford last autumn. But if she knew the role Alipang had played in liberating Henry, she did not mention it. This was fine with Alipang, who didn't want to appear as if he were fishing for compliments from a single woman.

Finally, on his second full day at Gas Hills, he did get to speak with a single woman whom he had perfectly valid cause to speak with at length. Half an hour after lunchtime ended, he happened on Salwa Jalalu, sitting at an outdoor table near the dining hall. She and another kitchen employee, an elderly white woman whom Alipang had heard addressed as Lindsay, were eating their own lunch after cleaning up from everyone else's.

Strolling up and sitting on the bench of a vacant table near theirs, Alipang said to the women: "Good afternoon, ladies! Lunch today was excellent. I liked everything, but especially those noodles. Are they made here?"

"Yes, they are," Lindsay replied. "I worked on them myself. Say, aren't you the chief of the new security detail?" Her eyes took in the bow, quiver, axe and belt knife that he always had about his person.

"So I am." Alipang turned slightly toward Salwa, who had not so far met his gaze. "Miss Jalalu, I hope you feel safe instead of threatened with us here."

Salwa's voice was no more than softly audible: "Of course, of course, you are wonderful to me, sir, I am honored beyond my deserving." Alipang was convinced that she was being timid rather than sarcastic. He exchanged a glance with Lindsay, who seemed to understand what was in his mind even before he spoke again.

"Miss Jalalu, I know some of what has happened to you. Besides having been briefed officially, I'm a close friend of Brendan Hyland, who was on the team that scanned you at Harun Fuad Hospital. What's more, I know something generally about socieities like the Great Lakes Cantonment. I'm not asking you to repudiate Islam, nor am I pressuring you to believe that the harm you suffered was in any way the direct _fault_ of Islam itself; but I _will_ tell you that, as far as I and those like me have any power in the matter, you _don't_ have to be frightened and submissive when living here."

Salwa finally looked straight at him, but only to show an expression of still more fright and submissiveness. "Please, sir, has anyone been accusing me of complaining?"

"No one has!" Lindsay interjected emphatically; and Alipang was quick to follow up.

"I haven't heard one word against you, either. I'm trying more or less to tell you the exact opposite. I already know that the management is very pleased with your work, and that we Grange members are as much your friends as Lindsay here is. In fact, we all think highly enough of you, that we would not be angry at you even if you _were_ to complain about something. Since I'm a man, you might be uneasy bringing something up to me; but I hope you feel free to tell the female Grangers about anything which disturbs you."

Salwa gave the first bit of a smile that Alipang had seen from her. "Yes, thank you, Ladira and the others are most patient and kind to me."

Lindsay's onlooking smile was more conspicuous. The older woman reminded him of Ingrid Plesser who worked with Terrance and Harmony at Earth's Treasures.
 
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Alipang was excusing himself when Salwa exclaimed, "Wait, please, Doctor Havens! You have been so reassuring.... there IS one more thing I want to speak about with you. Lindsay and others have urged me to be free with my thoughts, just as you have now done; so I wish to ask you a question."

Sitting down again, Alipang told her, "I'm at your service."

"You and your family are well enough known among the internal exiles, that I feel you must be good at answering questions which pertain to your religion."

When she hesitated, Alipang quipped, "Well, by transplanting us here in the first place, the Fairness Party was giving my family a sort of credentials for our faith. Please go on."

"Thank you. That is exactly what I was thinking about: your being transplanted here. Since America is a _Christian_ nation, why is it that the American government forcibly confines many Christians in the Enclave, while Muslims in the Cantonment are allowed to leave it if they wish?"

"Intelligent question. First, you need to understand something. Many people use the _word_ 'Christian' simply as a convenient label, as when Jews in this country used to assume that virtually any American who _wasn't_ a Jew, must be a Christian. But the true definition of 'Christian' is much narrower, and our numbers are fewer, than the vague use of the word has made it appear. As for the leaders of the Fairness Party, they are decidedly NOT any sort of Christians; they desire, and live their lives for, absolutely _nothing_ but the attainment of power and pleasure in the material world.

"As such, they are hostile to any belief in a living, personal, all-powerful Creator. But there is an easily-understood reason why they are _more_ hostile to Christianity than to Islam. Whatever great achievements Islamic civilization has to its credit, A CONSTITUTIONAL, REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT is not among them. Say what anyone will about Crusaders and Islamophobia, the indisputable fact is that it was _Christian_ civilization that created representative government in the modern world. And the Fairness Party _hates_ representative government, possibly even more than it hates religious faith."

Salwa's eyes widened. "But Party officials will say that their Party _does_ represent the people, because _every_ citizen has the possibility of rising to high rank in the party."

"That, Miss Jalalu, is what we call a half-truth, which makes a great lie. A common citizen can indeed join the Party and rise within it.... but he or she can do this _only_ by the permission, and on the terms, of the elite circle which _already_ rules from the top down. He or she cannot _change_ the system, he or she can only rise by _conforming_ to it. This is revealed in the fact that no one can be promoted to the Party's upper levels unless he or she is seen to perform an act of the flesh which both you and I find revolting; it's a way of shutting out those who have a different code from that of the Party."

Now the woman's eyes narrowed. "So in your case, Doctor Havens, is it some new step of progress that you have been given real authority over those who are now standing guard here?"

"Not really -- because those I lead are fellow exiles; and the stated expectation of the leaders in Rapid City is that, if my team does have to use force against anyone, it will only be against fellow exiles, not against any non-exile personnel in the Enclave."

Lindsay, who had been listening to the whole conversation, decided now to insert a lighter note. Leaning close to Salwa, she stage-whispered, "That means that Doctor Havens is not allowed to kill Aretha Shabazz. Too bad." Salwa actually laughed a bit at this.

Alipang was able to talk further about what went into making a Christian and what went into making a Christian society, before the two women had to get back inside the dining hall and resume work. He came away with a greater feeling of God's providence at work than he had felt so far during this assignment. He wished he could tell Kim about it. At least he could write her a letter; it _might_ reach her in Canada before she would finally return to the Enclave anyway.
 
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Chapter 126: The Blunders and Blindness of Bosses

The Canadian authorities, though long out of practice in counter-insurgency tactics, were gradually gaining the upper hand, rooting out the scattered saboteurs and terrorists who had been causing phenomenal disruption relative to their modest numbers. Some Canadian Muslims had harbored and helped the Islamofascist fighters, but others had helped the police to catch them. With Winnipeg out of danger, Kimberly Havens and her extended family had been able to return to Maurice LeGrand's mansion, and Kim had _thought_ that she and her children would be flying back to Wyoming anytime now.

But they were delayed further: not by the sentimental wish of relatives to keep them around longer, but by the Canadian government showing a sudden and surprising interest in Kim.

Obeying an online summons, Maurice and Baeline -- with Wilson insisting on tagging along -- brought Kim to a police station, while Elizabeth and Esteban looked after Kim's other children. After being absurdly searched for hidden weapons, Kim, her son, her sister and her brother-in-law underwent probing by an ultrasonic imager similar to Matti Siermaala's apparatus, only this one was computer-controlled. Once ultrasound had verified that none of them had unauthorized microchips or nanobots inside their bodies (which incidentally relieved Kim from years of wondering whether she did have a microchip inside her), Kim was separated from the others and led to a small room where a brainwave scanner was set up.

"Don't worry, this won't hurt at all," a policewoman told her. "It's only to check the accuracy of answers you give us." When the woman had connected Kim's head to the device, a plainclothesman began questioning her.

"Is your name Kimberly Tisdale?"

"If we follow the modern fashion of not taking a husband's last name, then yes. By the customs I believe in, I'm Kimberly Havens." This answer, like those that would follow it, was confirmed as true.

"Why was your family relocated to the Western Enclave in the first place?"

"The Fairness Party didn't want any Christians or Jews in the general population to enjoy positions of prestige. That included every kind of healthcare professional. I'm sure you already know that my husband's a dentist. But _even_ the Party wasn't stupid enough to discard so many of its skilled professionals altogether; so we were slated for internal exile, as opposed to being imprisoned in Self-Esteem Centers."

"Your files reveal that you are an acupuncturist. How did you learn this?"

"From a Chinese-American gentleman called Hung. It was before the Fairness Revolution, before Al was even practicing on his own, but at a time when government control of all healthcare fields was tightening. My father-in-law foresaw that federal caps on the payments that care providers could receive would make it hard for Al even to buy the supplies he needed. So Eric, that's Al's Dad, urged us to look into any alternative-therapy options that might make up for the difficulty of buying what we needed for the dental practice. I was already acquainted with Mrs. Hung, so it wasn't hard to make a deal. Mr. Hung taught me acupuncture for pain blocking, and in return Alipang gave some free dental care to the Hung family. This was before the federal government prohibited all independent bartering of services."

"Your husband is known to be a physically dangerous man. Your brainwaves read honest when you say that the Diversity States government was against you for your faith; but are you _certain_ that your family's arrest and relocation had no connection with violent actions on your husband's part?"

"Sir, I _know_ that it had _nothing_ to do with any violence by Al. It happened that circumstances, what you would call chance, kept us clear of the government-manufactured riots in 2021, so Al had no occasion to hurt anyone then. And when the Campaign Against Hate began its more official pogrom against Biblicals, Al knew he _couldn't_ fight them, because he had me and the children to think of. So he submitted to arrest without resisting."

The detective took on the air of a prosecutor making some brilliant move in court. "But you're not _happy_ about your confinement, are you?"

"Why should I be pleased at being robbed of liberty? But Al and I realized early on that things could have been _much_ worse for us. If not for being kept apart from so many loved ones, like my mother and sisters, I would in fact have said that our life in Wyoming Sector was a _paradise_ compared to what could have happened to us."

Kim's interrogator began paying closer attention to the brainwave readouts as he thrust home with the question he had been leading up to: "So you couldn't be planning some kind of _revenge_ on the system, could you? You do realize, don't you, that acupunctural skills can actually be used to _kill_ people? Is it possible that you were hoping to _meet_ some of the religious insurgents operating in Canada, and offer them your services as an assassin, in return for their helping you to strike back at your enemies in the Diversity States?"

Kim's jaw dropped. "That's the most ridiculous thing anyone has _ever_ said about me! Do you want a _direct_answer? NO SUCH THING as you are suggesting was ever in my thoughts at all! Do you know _nothing_ about the Christian faith?"

Pausing long enough to see that his equipment still declared Kim as truthful as ever, the detective then replied in a less aggressive tone, "Actually, not much, I suppose. I'm into Rasta-Inuit Zen, myself."

Kim scowled. "May I leave now?"

"Yes. I apologize for seeming to accuse you; but the attack on Canada was so unexpected, that in its wake we're feeling a need to pry into _anything_ that might be a clue to hidden threats. This interrogation will be shared with Diversity States law enforcement.... but there's going to be a tiny glitch that erases the parts where you called the Fairness Party stupid, and referred to the 2021 riots as being manufactured by them. It's the least I can do for you."
 
In Rapid City:

The actress Hydrogen Forbes, who had portrayed one of the "heroic" Commerce Inspectors protecting the poor naive Biblicals from the evil capitalistic schemes of WhiteMaleCorp in the movie Geothermal Plants of the Heart, didn't have enough union tenure to get another major movie role right away. (Thanks to telomere preservation, an actress could REALLY BE physically the same as a twenty-year-old when over the age of thirty; thus, even ingenue roles were often all sewn up by established actresses.)

Aware of Bailey Melville and Moonrose Quickpace getting transferred out of the Enclave together for their excessive insulting of the real-life Biblicals, Hydrogen -- Jenny to some -- tried to get approval to take over managing Equalityball in the North Dakota Sector; but the triumvirate was moving to get all Equalityball teams under exile management, since most exiles found playing this game to be one of the most harmless concessions they could make to the regime. And she couldn't sing well enough to become a vocalist with the Blue Moon Stun Jazz Orchestra And Chorus. Therefore, partly because she liked living someplace where she was allowed to eat animal protein despite not having a very high social status, Hydrogen made sure to collar Zimmo Garland as soon as he flew back into Rapid City with a new low-budget "adult" script to produce.

Also right on the scene to lay claim to the "edgy" director's attention was Samantha Ford. This led to a longer and more meaningful conversation between Samantha and Hydrogen than they had ever had up to now... which in turn led to their immediately beginning to share living quarters, to the gratification of both. On their first night together, the two women held a sort of brainstorming session for ideas of what they might do in improvisational scenes in the new movie. This included some talk about the use of the computer imagery of Josiah Redfern which Zimmo had used once by now. The imagery still existing, and Josiah having no legal recourse against it being used again, Hydrogen took the lead in speculating how the Christian military veteran and expatriate might be made to seem to be enjoying himself creatively in the company of both actresses at once.

But although all was green-light for the continuation of Samantha's cinema career, she was not destined for long to go on enjoying her preferred all-female environment in off-work hours. For on the very day after her first night with Hydrogen, a message reached her directly from President Megavolt Atkinson, formerly Secretary of State. Because the former Ambassador-At-Large had striven so faithfully to root out all masculinity from her own male bioproduct, Meg wanted Samantha to assume temporary custody of another boy, a pre-adolescent who in his case needed to be purged of the evils of racism: none other than Tim Govinda, erstwhile Chief Justice of the Diversity States Supreme Court.

When Samantha texted back a question about how Tim could possibly be guilty of any hate crime, she was told that the government of Aztlan had cried racism to the Hemispheric Union when Tim spoke against bullfighting on a streamcast. The President explained that since the Aztlanos had suffered so much previous racial slurring as to provoke their aerial attacks on the Diversity States, it was imperative to do better at appeasing them. Meg and Samantha both knew perfectly well that those air attacks had really been connected with Aztlan's campaign to kidnap skilled professionals from the Diversity States to keep Aztlan's infrastructure going; but both diplomats were bound to their core principle of never missing any chance to blame all the world's problems on white supremacists and-or God-fascists.

Thus Ms. Ford acquiesced. That evening, with one day's videocording finished, she went to Ellsworth Airfield to meet the Atmosfleet plane which was bringing in the deposed Chief Justice. Hydrogen went with her for moral support.

Five D.S. Marshals and three Transport Police were escorting the deranged boy. Had they cared to mention it, they could have told Samantha and Hydrogen how Tim had spent the flight urging everyone around them to practice changing into animals. As soon as they officially delivered the boy to his new guardian, they were clearly glad to part company. As for Tim, once introduced, his first words were to the slightly younger of the two "exotic" performers:

"You're Hydrogen Ford, right? Samantha's sister?"

Hydrogen, less male-phobic than Samantha, smiled easily. "No, my last name is Forbes, not Ford. Just a coincidence that we have similar last names."

"Then you're not Daffodil's aunt? Too bad. I liked him when I met him in that hospital. Say, do you ever change into any birds?"

"No, I can't say as I do."

"Well, you know," Samantha put in, "there is plenty of diversity to be enjoyed in the world even when we stay in human shape." As she said this, she was mentally running through the possibilities here. If she could satisfy everyone that Tim was not a racist, and make his mind a bit clearer, while at the same time training him into the same gender orientation she had long tried vainly to train her son for, this would be a good step in restoring her prestige with the State Department and the wider diplomatic community.

 
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Samantha and Hydrogen had eaten supper at the Black Hills Lodge, and Tim had eaten on the airliner. Nonetheless, after a pedicab ride took the unlikely trio most of the way from the airport, once they were walking and passed by some trees, Tim suddenly shouted, "My giraffe-self is hungry!" He then began snatching leaves off the lowest branches, to eat them. Alarmed at the thought of a child making himself sick while _she_ rather than some institution was responsible for him, Samantha forcibly restrained him. Hydrogen helped to disarm the scene by telling Tim, "We need to leave these trees intact, in case any giraffes or elk who _can't_ so easily switch to human form need them for food."

The apartment the two women shared was one designed to accommodate "non-breeders;" it had only one bedroom. So the two newly-appointed caregivers kept the boy awake and occupied for as long as possible, in hopes that in a sleepier condition he would be more compliant with whatever sleeping arrangement they finally settled on for him. Killing time was not difficult, as it was easy to persuade the young lunatic to talk about his experiences on the All-Species Council in Seattle and then on the Supreme Court. He seemed, however, to have erased from his own memory the day of the frightful shootout at the Presidium.

At last, Samantha and Hydrogen were able to put the boy to bed on the sofa, with a genuine bearskin rug over him. Then they headed for bed themselves. But at the most inconvenient moment imaginable, Tim sprang up and charged into the bedroom, barking and howling and babbling something about "the pack all sharing the same den."

There was no peace for the two adults until Samantha had the inspiration to force-feed a dose of Wonderflexin to the boy. This made him tractable and a half, and before much longer he was asleep on the designated sofa. Fortunately for him, the chemists who had created Wonderflexin had taken more precautions to make overdose deaths unlikely than Samantha had bothered to think about.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Unlike Samantha, Hydrogen had some cooking skills. In the morning, as she had also done on her first morning getting up with Samantha, she went to work in the kitchenette to prepare breakfast. Or anyway, she tried to.... but soon was interrupted by Tim, who was now an orangutan, climbing up onto the counter.

Resolving to be more diplomatic with him than she had so far managed, Samantha signalled Hydrogen to give her time for her attempt. Climbing up on the counter with Tim, she said to him: "Your Honor, do you realize what kind of population group we are surrounded by here in the Enclave?"

Tim nodded solemnly. "The religious looshes, who hate everyone who's different."

"Well said, Your Honor. No wonder they needed you on the Supreme Court. Karma willing, you'll be reinstated there in a matter of months. But while you're on sabbatical here, you should practice honing your people skills. _Because_ the Biblicals don't have the wisdom of oneness, they don't have your ability to realize all your co-existing forms. If you show off this talent in front of them, it may fill them with so much envy that you won't--"

Just when Samantha, and the onlooking Hydrogen, thought that this was getting through to the boy, he abruptly shouted, "Grooming!" and grabbed clumsily at Samantha's long hair with both hands. His lunge, and her automatic but belated reflex of pulling away from him, resulted in both of them falling off the countertop in a heap, with one of Samantha's knees whacking painfully against the doorhandle of a floor-level cupboard.

In a backhanded sort of way, it could be said to Samantha Ford's credit that she had never gone into such a rage against her own son as she now flew into. Summoning up an inner strength which till now she had never summoned except for jealous fights with other women, she clutched Tim by his shirt front and one armpit, heaved him up from the floor, slammed him down again on his back, and leaned a knee onto his chest as he stared in disbelief and pain.

"You stupid little piece of gutflak!" she shrieked. "Listen to me! You're _not_ a giraffe, you're _not_ a wolf, and you're _not_ an orangutan! All you are is a fluke-brained boy that I'm getting tired of already, and since I'm in charge of you, I'm telling you to _stop_ this crazy fantasy!"

In an instant, Tim was in tears. "But it _isn't_ a fantasy! I was _born_ this way, and you're talking _hate_ speech!"

Samantha was struck mute with an uncomfortable revelation. Ever since she was twelve years old, she had been accustomed to believing that she could silence any challenge to her preferred way of life by claiming that she had been born the way she was choosing to be, and that anyone saying otherwise was a hateful bigot. Now, Tim Govinda was using her own weapon on her; and why was she not feeling herself in agreement with him? In part, it was because she had never had a self-serving stake in arguing that people could be born as inter-species shape-changers.

This new line of thought, like a sunbeam puncturing a cloud mass, might have led her to unanticipated understanding of -- something. But it was interrupted by women from neighboring apartments clustering at the door to ask if someone were in trouble.

Hydrogen assured the women that there was no emergency, only a routine matter of a primitive throwback boy being taught to respect female authority. Samantha forgot the self-doubt which had barely begun to penetrate her narcissism, and the making of breakfast could resume.

But at least the former Chief Justice grew somewhat more docile and obedient.
 
Sounds like Samantha has got more than she bargained for. Hopefully it will wake her up, although I'm not betting on that.
 
On the afternoon of Samantha's first full day with Tim, Inspectors Leroy Lincoln and Eileen O'Hennessy, commanders of the two federal-district police detachments posted in the Enclave, met with the triumvirate in a spy-proofed office inside Harney's Peak, to hold a video conference on an encrypted channel with Vice-President Reed Harrison and Continental Marshal Yelena Gorshkovskaya, on the subject of losing their air cover. Harrison was authorized by President and Party to decide the issue; Gorshkovskaya was included mostly for her own information.

The Undersecretary of Sustainable Energy opened the discussion: "Citizen Vice-President, Citizen Continental Marshal, Inspector Lincoln has a concern to raise, in view of the near-total removal of the Texas Rangers' armed aviation assets from the Diversity States. It relates, naturally, to the possibility of military demonstrations by the Aztec-Maoist Republic of Aztlan. Inspector O'Hennessy is not actively concurring with Inspector Lincoln, but is ready to play her part in anything which ensues from this conference."

The Vice-President's image nodded. "Inspector Lincoln, you may proceed."

"Thank you, Citizen Vice-President. I can state that Texas Ranger Lieutenant Emilio Vasquez has the same opinion I do of the situation. Since I'm a little higher than he is in law-enforcement seniority, he asked me to speak for him today."

At this point, the Distribution Undersecretary interjected, "In addition, and this does not contradict anything Citizen Lincoln says, Citizen Vasquez is busy trying to devise the best use of all airborne assets remaining to him. Begging your pardon, Inspector, please continue."

"An appropriate elaboration, Citizen Undersecretary. Citizen Vice-President, Lieutenant Vasquez indeed is doing as Distribution just remarked. Giving his Great Condor and light gunship to Greater China, along with all--"

Gorshkovskaya interrupted, not angrily but just a bit rudely, "Inspector Lincoln, the Tu-95's and armed helos in question have not been given outright to China, only sent on loan."

Harrison took over from there, his voice friendlier than the Continental Marshal's: "You can hardly disagree with me when I remind you how seldom it is that the Diversity States is able to perform a meaningful service to that People's Republic which enabled the Fairness Revolution to succeed and has remained a role model for us."

"I realized the importance of that right away!" said O'Hennessy. "I even scheduled in-service training for my officers on the subject."

"Thank you, Inspector Hennessy," replied the Vice-President, in a thank-you-but-now-shut-up tone. "Inspector Lincoln, are you and Lieutenant Vasquez worried only about the loss of _combative_ capability, or more generally about a decrease in air-transport and reconnaissance capability?"

"Of course, Citizen Vice-President, air transportation and recon both have their importance; but there are still airplanes, helicopters, and one lighter-than-air ship available to us for those purposes, given a little inter-agency sharing...."

The next interruption came from the Undersecretary of Eco-Sensitive Agriculture: "My own subordinates, the Forest Rangers and Grange volunteers, are already starting to fill the reconnaissance gaps by riding on scout patrols in available aircraft."

Leroy calmly picked up his thought again: "Agriculture has also added pertinent information. But we are worried foremost about airborne combat resources -- because now we don't _have_ any."

"You do realize, do you not," said Harrison, "that our Chinese allies have been facing _actual_ armed insurrection lately, whereas you are only worried about _potential_ conflict?"

"Yes, sir; and I'm aware of the uniqueness of a situation where it's exactly our _lower_ tech level that makes our aircraft useful to the Chinese when their automated command and control is impaired. I've watched the video of the training sessions my colleague Inspector O'Hennessy held. But right now, here in the Enclave, we have nothing stronger than small arms and non-lethal police weaponry, in the air or on the ground, with which to oppose any incursion by Aztlan. And they _were_ mighty steamed by Chief Justice Govinda's anti-bullfighting speech."

"But our State Department has been on the job to placate the Aztlanos -- not only by deposing the Chief Justice, but also by increasing our output of electrical power to Aztlan. What more could be needed?"

Leroy drew a deep breath. "Citizen Vice-President, you recall that the pacifying gestures of our disgraced and deceased previous President _failed_ to halt the aggression by Aztlan. And your increase of power to Aztlan was so big that, even with Spirit Smoke Station operational, it's meant a decrease in the power allotment to the Enclave."

"Surely you don't expect _Washington_ to go without power, do you?" snorted Gorshkovskaya. "Let the exiles be reminded that electricity is a privilege! It isn't as if this were winter; they won't freeze in the time required for the rest of the geothermal plants to come on line."

Although the analogy was not very close, Leroy couldn't help thinking of Ebenezer Scrooge saying, "Let them die, and decrease the surplus population."

 
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