The First Love Of Alipang Havens

[Copperfox]

Chapter 128: The Fire Spreads In New Directions

By mid-August, Hsiao Luo-Sher of Greater China's Aerospace Force Intelligence had succeeded in helping his blonde American bride Quasar to make friends with open-minded Chinese families of his acquaintance. Thus, Quasar was assured of company and moral support when Luo-Sher had to depart on an errand that she was not allowed to know anything about. It was an unregistered trip to India.

Colonel Hsiao had met with members of the Dacoits before, so he was a natural to attend the proposed meeting. Another non-Indian also familiar with India's covert services was coming: the Israeli-born Yirimyahu Kohen, who had been part of the multi-purpose winter operation in Zurich.

When Agent Kohen and Colonel Hsiao presented themselves at the assigned meeting place, both men were exhaustively scanned for any unauthorized hardware or substances anywhere on or inside their persons. Only then were they admitted, to find that a Russian-looking man had been screened just ahead of them. Standing beside this man was an Indian whose identity Hsiao and Kohen already knew: Naval Commander Ainesh Makhuda. "Welcome, gentlemen," said Commander Makhuda to the latest arrivals. "This is Boris Tasyomkin,* here to represent the interests of the Republic of Alchatka. You will find that my government also invited representatives from Canada and the Central Asian Caliphate. Everyone else you will see is Indian."

The first order of business was for Commander Makhuda to share information obtained by the Dacoits and by India's regular armed forces, showing that India had suffered some of the same hacking of automated combat systems as Greater China had suffered. Colonel Hsiao was able to assure his hosts that Beijing had not believed India to be responsible for the sabotage; now the latest intelligence reinforced the likelihood that the culprits were extremists within the Central Asian Caliphate, acting without their government's approval. So there was less danger than ever of hostilities breaking out between China and India; but at the same time, it was going to be more difficult now for either superpower to intervene in crises outside its territory.

Which led to the second item on the agenda. Boris Tasyomkin stood and addressed the others:

"Colleagues, all of you have already received my downloads for your data clouds, with details of my country's predicament. Let me give a short gist.

"As you know, the Republic of Alchatka came into existence only last year. One reason why it _could_ exist was that when the United States no longer existed, Alaska by reason of its geographical separation was given a decision period by the United Nations to choose if it wanted to belong to the Diversity States, to Aztlan, to Canada, or none of those. Meanwhile, because of the multiple factors that had severely weakened the Russian Federation, Moscow decided to relinquish Kamchatka and most of Chukhotka. It was to the advantage of these castaway Russian and American populations to join into a single new political entity, so that they would control the Bering Strait and play an important role in the exploitation of Arctic Basin resources.

"For our first year of independence, we Alchatkans thought we saw a bright future. But during that same year, the Russian Federation began to recover some of its drained strength. _Also_ during that same year, the pitiful weakness of the Diversity States was made ever more apparent. Add to that the lackluster response of Canada to the insurgent threat it has faced this summer, and the fact that Aztlan's essentially Marxist system is highly compatible with the views of Russian Stalinists, and Russia could see that there was _nobody_ on the North American continent north of Mexico who would be likely to offer serious aid to MY country if Russia decided to renege on its agreements and seize all of Alchatka.

"I trust that the Chinese officer in this room will take no offense when I say that neither the Alchatkans, nor the Russians, believe that China would exert itself to protect Alchatka, even if this current cyber-sabotage problem were not occurring. And the Pacific Federation has so many scattered islands to safeguard, that it simply cannot do much to help anyone militarily _outside_ its claimed oceanic zones. Accordingly, while we certainly would not _refuse_ assistance from either China or India, we are not positively requesting it. What we _are_ requesting, is that the superpowers _not_ become indignant if we seek such aid as we _can_ get. This will be, above all, aid from the nameless network which Agent Kohen represents. I now ask Ainesh Makhuda to speak again, as he and I discussed before the meeting."

Makhuda stood once more, and presented further data: the facts his own submarine had recorded about Russian submersibles picking up unknown cargoes dropped off by ships of the Venezuelan Alliance. This information was provided as evidence that the Russian Federation was covertly preparing for some surprise military action.

When the Indian officer was finished, the Mossad veteran rose to his feet. "Everyone here is welcome to brain-scan me for truthfulness on my statement that my organization is not planning anything hostile to the lawful government of any nation represented at this meeting. But if Russia invades Alchatka, we plan to make them regret it."

* That name is NOT properly pronounced "BOR-is Ta-SIGH-om-kin," but rather, "Buh-REES Tas-YOHM-kin."

 

[Copperfox]

Thanks to sympathetic law-enforcement officers on both sides of the D.S.-Canadian border, a fresh exchange of messages became possible for Alipang and Kim at almost the speed of e-mail, for as long as Alipang had easy access to Lyra Bender who could handle the Enclave terminus of the exchange. Not only Kim Havens, but Wilson, Esperanza and Brendan Havens as well, were able to pass various news and endearments to the husband and father of their household; and Alipang was able to make it official that, miss them though he did, he _would_ prefer that they be in a safe place while the Aztlano situation was in doubt.

One added message that surprised Alipang came from the husband of his mother-in-law:

"Dear Doctor Havens the Younger,

The few times I got to speak to you before your family's relocation to Wyoming were enough to convince me that you are a man of great integrity and honor. You would have made a good gaucho. The things that Kim and your children say about you reinforce my impression. Without even saying anything about the immediate international circumstances, I admire your willingness to approve of your dependents enjoying a vacation in which you cannot share -- your wish for them to receive some blessing, regardless of your sacrifice of being without them.

Please do not resent Elizabeth, and indeed I am confident that you do not resent her, for her particularly strong desire to keep Kim here longer even if there had been no crisis in Canada or the Diversity States. You surely understand how hard it was for Elizabeth not to see or embrace her youngest daughter for years on end; and now, for awhile, Elizabeth can enjoy watching Kim play with Javier.

Maybe someday the world will change, and you will be free to come and go as you please. Until then, you have my esteem and respect.

Wishing you all good things,
Esteban"

Reading the printout of this letter that Ranger Bender had given to him, Alipang smiled at the part about the world changing. He knew that this part would have been censored if Esteban had been sending a letter through the physical postal system which was usually an exile's only link to the outside world.

By Sunday, August 16, enough pits and foxholes had been dug in the area Lyra Bender was responsible for, that Alipang and the other Grangers helping in this work were released. Gabe Ellison had a handle on the job of pretending that Salwa Jalalu needed to be protected from her own exile friends; so Alipang decided he would head for Casper and his parents' house. First, though, he attended a worship service at Shinar House, the church which had sprung up for the benefit of workers at Gas Hills. Its pastor was a Chinese-American woman by name of Karla Yan; happily, she was nothing like the Oneness Priestesses in the Oneness Temples.

Pastor Yan preached about the time in the Book of Acts when the Apostles Paul and Barnabas had been mistaken for Greek gods. The take-away message of the sermon was: "No Christian should need to be told that you must never knowingly steal the glory which belongs to Jesus. But I _will_ tell you that, as you work to _uphold_ the glory of Jesus, you should try to be so authentic that people who see your light shining won't be too far off if they decide you're something out of the ordinary."

After saying his goodbyes at Shinar House and at the uranium complex, Alipang caught a train for Casper. Since the shoes he had left with Jotham the Amish cobbler for repair had not caught up with him, he was going to need to buy a new pair at the merchandise center in the city; for his left foot was due for its first shedding of the toughened skin on Wednesday.

Once his train reached Casper, he had the pleasant surprise of seeing his siblings Harmony and Terrance hand in hand, awaiting him on the platform. As he group-hugged with them, he asked, "Did you two ask for time off work just so you could cheer me up? If so, the cheering up is working!"

"No," Terrance replied. "We've been transferred."

"Gaia's Guts is so successful," Harmony elaborated, "that Aero-Aquatics is opening a _second_ Gaia's Guts in Casper. In a rare spurt of logical management, workers at the Nebraska plant whose real homes are in Wyoming are the ones assigned to open the new location."

"It'll be smaller, at least to begin with," said Terrance; "so we're calling it Gaia's Gizzard."

"Now, let's get back to the house!" exclaimed Harmony. "Mom needs help eating her cooking."

Only later, inside the home of Eric and Cecilia Havens, did Terrance silently hand a written note to his elder brother. It read:

"On our next to last day working at the original plant, I chanced to see a bunch of tubs containing hundreds of little aluminum slugs, a size that could be ammo for small-caliber rail guns. I wouldn't have thought it odd, since authorities in this country do have rail rifles; but Winnie Drucker had a fit, telling me those tubs were none of my business. That MADE them seem suspicious. So far, no one's arrested me. But brothers are supposed to share things, so I'm letting you share my puzzlement about that ammo, if that's what it was."

When Alipang had read the note through, he nodded to Terrance, then slipped the piece of paper into the flames in their parents' wood stove. Of course, the reason why a wood stove was burning in August was for cooking. The appeasement to Aztlan was causing electricity cutbacks for all exiles. Eric and Cecilia had just enough current allotted now to run their refrigerator and freezer, and one light fixture on each floor; and their freezer was jam-packed, preserving perishable foods on behalf of neighbors who didn't even have _that_ much electricity now.

 

[Copperfox]

The pressure to allot more and more electrical power to buy off the Aztlanos was so great, that even members of the ruling class in the Diversity States were having to make minor adjustments to their use of electricity. So it was that, in Georgetown where the Salisburys and Rands had formerly lived, labor-union official Carolyn Biao was not using her desktop holo-projector while giving a briefing. Instead, she was using a paper map to refer to, a map showing her area of concern in the Mid-Atlantic Federal District, an area that included what had been the state of Delaware and part of Maryland.

All of the union facilitators at Carolyn's command were now assembled before her. She missed Dobie Marsalis, who had died protecting her against mob violence. It occurred to her that, if she believed in life after death, she would be wondering how Dobie would feel about the orders she had received from the District Party Presidium. The orders called for preparations to _cause_ more mob violence.

"All right, citizens, listen up. The Party advises me that there is a danger to food production on our collective farms."

One female facilitator, who had strength enhancement, but not of so radical a sort as to create the health hazard which had almost killed Pulverizer Clarendon, spoke up eagerly, like a schoolgirl courting the teacher's favor: "Is it sabotage by racist bourgeois God-fascists?"

"I honestly don't know who or what is behind the threat," replied Carolyn, though she privately knew it was highly unlikely that Biblicals were the cause of the unexplained peril the Party had mentioned in its memorandum. "This is a need-to-know situation, and even I am not considered to have a need to know. All that concerns us at this moment is being ready in case food production _does_ take a severe hit.

"In such an eventuality, the most important objective will be to preserve the leadership structure. A body can survive a lot better with a finger or toe cut off, than it can survive without its brain and spinal column. Accordingly, we will require proactive measures to prevent the national collective from being stampeded into unwarranted antagonism toward the Party and the unions. It is deemed most efficient to use a tactic which will simultaneously protect authority, and reduce the number of consumers in famine conditions.

"If the prospective agricultural emergency materializes, the call to action will be identified as General Order 591. Repeat that to me."

"General Order 591," the facilitators chorused, with two of them adding the words "agricultural emergency."

"Very good. If and when General Order 591 is issued, each of you will be responsible for promulgating provocative disinformation to an assigned community in our area. Party officials will already know it isn't true; your job will be fooling the masses." Carolyn began pointing to individuals. "You will tell proletarians in Seaford that there are un-mutual Nazi capitalists hoarding food in Bridgeville. You will tell proletarians in Dagsboro that there are un-mutual Nazi capitalists hoarding food in Selbyville. You will tell proletarians in Felton that there are un-mutual Nazi capitalists hoarding food in Woodside. You will tell proletarians in Centreville that there are un-mutual Nazi capitalists hoarding food in Ridgely. You will tell proletarians in Hurlock that there are un-mutual Nazi capitalists hoarding food in Vienna...."

 

[Copperfox]

Ni-geria was under attack.

Forces of the Babylonian Caliphate had been keeping submersible combat vehicles hidden on the bottom of Lake Chad, intending to stage an attack similar to the attack which had been made against Uganda. But thanks to information extracted from the enemy troops previously captured in Ni-ger, the Nigerian Army had known about this threat in advance, and had destroyed the hidden vehicles where they rested. The Islamists, however, were not in a mood to give up. The destruction of their underwater force had scarcely been completed before Babylonian airborne troops came flying low over the Mandara Mountains, coming as close as they could get to the Nigerian capital of Abuja before setting down. By the morning of August 18, they were within twenty kilometers of their objective.

The United Nations, as had frequently happened in its history, did nothing useful.

But the invaders made a mistake. One of their surface-to-surface missiles made a direct hit upon the National Mosque of Nigeria. The Muslim survivors of the explosion suddenly discovered a new appreciation for the fact that Nigeria's increased Christian presence had not caused any persecution of Muslims in the capital or anywhere, in contrast to FELLOW MUSLIMS now bombarding them at prayers. Hundreds of National Mosque members hastened to volunteer their help in the defense of Abuja.

By the time Nigerian reinforcements from Onitsha entered the battle, the invaders were starting to lose ground; but there still was work for Brendan Hyland to do. Now serving as the gunner on a self-propelled railgun mount, he was firing his medium-weight rail gun at both surface and aerial targets, according as his combat computer received its target priorities from regimental command and control. This was his largest pitched battle since Afghanistan. It was made a little simpler by the complete absence of friendly aircraft overhead. Owing to the impressive number of anti-aircraft lasers the Babylonians possessed, Nigerian planes were keeping out of the melee, except that some were firing stand-off weapons from places west of Abuja. So any aircraft Brendan and his targetting system could see, was a bogey.

Brendan had shot three enemy drones out of the air, and knocked out two armored ground vehicles, when one of the invaders' own rail guns scored a glancing hit on his "sparty." Even a glancing impact from a railgun projectile was enough to annihilate the left-side treads, a "mobility kill." Shouting to his driver to run for cover, Brendan returned fire at the enemy tank that had made the mobility kill; then he saw that his driver couldn't get away, being wounded by metal fragments which had splattered from the enemy projectile's impact. Putting another shot into the opposing tank to neutralize its menace, Brendan sprang to the side of his driver and rendered first aid.

Just when he was confident that the driver would live, Brendan himself nearly died, as a burst of "ordinary" armor-piercing bullets riddled his battle armor. Providentially for him, a medic was close enough to help him in turn.

At some point Brendan passed out, and at some point he regained consciousness. He saw that he was in an aid station; but his first thought was neither for his own medical condition, nor for that of his driver. As the medic had put him under, he had experienced a delirious vision of the night he and Etienne LaClede, with Stan Lewandowski and others, had glided into Zurich -- having bailed out of a descending spaceplane.

When a doctor bent over him, it seemed perfectly logical to Brendan to croak out: "Spacecraft, inbound spacecraft, got to tell them!"

"Relax, Lieutenant Hyland," said the doctor. "We're not under orbital-weapon attack. Just a plain ground engagement, and our side is winning."

"Ground assault's a diversion!" cried Brendan. "Or anyway, not the whole thing. They'll come from space. You've got to learn to get used to a three-dimensional battlefield!"

Brendan went on demanding to be heard, until a Nigerian senior officer, who was checking on some of his men in the aid station, took notice of his exclamations and approached him. "You're with the New Vatican force, aren't you? What's this about a spaceborne attack?"

The numbing effect of nanotechnic pain blockers caused Brendan's brain to forget the classified nature of his experience in Switzerland, though fortunately he did not spell out what that mission had been. "Colonel? I was on a raid before. We bailed out of a _civilian_ spaceplane on descent, with folding gliders and stealth suits. Carried out our mission, and the locals never guessed that we were there. I'm telling you, Caliphate will send a spaceborne jump team... probably land in Abuja by night... got to intercept them!"

Soon a field nurse renewed Brendan's sedation; but on a hunch, the officer to whom he had spoken decided to mention the hypothetical space threat to his own superior. That superior in turn told _his_ superior, and sky-search sensors were placed on a higher alert status.

Not until days later would a recuperating Brendan learn that, on the evening after his injury, a commercial passenger spaceplane, belonging to a carrier firm in the Egyptian Caliphate, had taken off out of Madrid with a supposed destination in Madagascar -- but had sent a distress call enroute, claiming that engine trouble was forcing it to attempt an emergency landing in Nigeria. And there had been armed Egyptian Caliphate special-forces men on board the spaceplane.

Whether by coincidence, or because someone on the Islamist side had found out something about the Zurich operation, these raiders had bailed out over Abuja in precisely the same fashion as Brendan's party had done on that winter night. But they had not after all enjoyed such a successful secrecy as Brendan and his friends had enjoyed. Every one of these Egyptian infiltrators had been killed or captured. Those taken alive were quick to activate their suicide devices, so none could be interrogated; but those who had brought them from Spain could be and were arrested and questioned under brain-scan. Thus the new threat to Nigeria's capital was thwarted, and more information for the benefit of the good guys was extracted from the spaceplane crew.

Besides his own family and the driver he had helped, Brendan was visited in the hospital by Pastor Abraham Zondei, Abraham's daughter Molly, and Captain Raphael Udofia who had been with Brendan during the mission into Niger. Molly and Raphael were now engaged; and the happy chatter about an expected wedding spared Brendan from being asked about what had made him think of a spaceborne threat to Abuja. His speaking out in the aid station had saved the city, which was probably the reason why nobody was getting on Brendan's case about compromising classified information; but the Marine Corps veteran was still embarrassed about the slip-up.

Further cheering up for "Captain Lacrosse" was to be provided the next day, when Matti Siermaala placed a videophone call to him and revealed his own marriage with Zamoria.

 

[Copperfox]

Russians (along with former-Soviet minorities) who lived in Alchatka, on either side of the Bering Strait, knew enough about Russian Communists and the repackaged versions of the same, that they would have sprung to arms if they had realized how close an invasion was. But for many Alchatkans who had been United States citizens while the United States had still existed, the evils of the Soviet regime were only a fairytale, to be dismissed with a condescending laugh.

It was mostly the latter sort of Alchatkans, together with Diversity States citizens enjoying Fairness Party membership, who were on board a luxury cruise ship, attending a party in the recreational sense. The recent violence in Canada, and the latest attack on the Diversity States by the Aztec-Maoists, were as little regarded here as was the Russian-Venezuelan threat they did not yet know about. The guest of honor at the "Gaian Gala" was movie director Isadora Cruller, and she was giving a relatively short pre-banquet speech....

"My dear sisters and brothers in global oneness, it warms my heart to be reminded of how much respect the performing arts receive. And I'll be so bold as to say that we deserve it. It is movies, broadcasting, live theater, and other media which have led personkind as far along the evolutionary path as we have come. But more work is ahead of us. The Fairness Revolution must press forward, as long as there are patriarchalist reactionaries resisting the karma of the collective!"

(Since she was outside the Enclave now, and not assigned to any project that would be videocording inside the Enclave, Isadora didn't have to pretend for her peers that she felt any respect for Christians or Jews.)

"I trust you will be pleased to know that my team will be starting production less than a month from now on a new movie. Titled The Different Make The Difference, this will be a bold, edgy, risk-taking story, one that blazes new paths in cinema. In this movie, we will take our chances, launch for high orbit, and _dare_ to defy the racist Christian corporate system! Our script, written by Neutron Invincible in a new career move for her, backs down from nobody; it calls a sonic drill a sonic drill, and sheds a relentless light on corrupt capitalistic businessmen!"

While the selected gathering was applauding this pretense of innovation, and streamcast crews were transmitting it to the whole hemisphere, a man who was unknown to any of the partygoers was doing something which actually mattered.

Agent Yirimyahu Kohen, in the guise of a common crew member on the ocean liner, was consulting his shielded dataphone for g.p.s. readings... and using it at intervals to send signals to objects which were limpeted on the ship's hull, beneath the waterline. The objects were state-of-the-art swim-drones: robots disguised as assorted species of fish, and even sea lions. Some of these had the task of scouting for hostile submarines or semi-submersibles; others, possessing data links to the first sort, were weapons that would home in on anything waterborne that was identified as unfriendly. If attacking a target, they would not explode, since the noise would warn other hostiles who might be near. Instead, the offensive swim drones would use binary corrosive chemicals to eat holes in the targets' hulls.

The chemicals were formulated to have an extremely short effective life, changing afterwards into much less harmful substances; but this would be scant consolation to enemy naval crews who were drowned or forced to abandon ship.

Not that Yirimyahu felt much sympathy for any such aggressors. He had to all intents lost his own homeland as a sovereign state, so he was glad to strike back against the same sort of tyranny that had long harassed the Israeli people. He hoped that measures against aerospace attacks on Alchatka were proceeding as well as his own job seemed to be.

At intervals of one and a half nautical miles, he signalled the swim-drones (by alternating types) to detach themselves from the cruise ship and begin patrolling. If they needed to remain on station for longer than a day, they could surface and use fold-out solar panels to recharge themselves; the big ones were also programmed to siphon electrical current from sea-bottom power cables whose locations had been downloaded to their artificial intelligence.

Only when he had deployed the last of the swim-drones did the Mossad veteran allow himself to eavesdrop on the show-business celebration, laughing contemptuously to himself over the puffed-up conceit of today's actors and directors.

 

[Copperfox]

Chapter 129: The Dubious Fosterling

Dan and Chilena were outside the Enclave doing promotional appearances for the debut of Geothermal Plants of the Heart; but Young Cecilia, Tommy and Irene had remained with their grandparents. Alipang thus got to enjoy a short spell of relaxation in the company of his nieces and nephew, in addition to his parents and his youngest two siblings. The most strenuous thing he did was to spar with Terrance a couple of times, for fun and exercise. He was to ride a train up to Sussex on Wednesday; there, besides seeing anyone who needed dental attention, he would be assessing the town's readiness for an emergency evacuation.

Eric and Cecilia the Elder, for their part, already had parcels of necessities packed up for such an eventuality. Two of these parcels were in the form of well-filled backpacks; Eric and Cecilia figured that they could wear these backpacks while riding their tandem bicycle, if this means of transportation should prove to be their best option in an escape. (After all, there still were paved roads in Wyoming, even if there were hardly any motor vehicles.)

On Wednesday morning, Alipang woke up at first light in a room he was sharing with his nephew. Throwing off his covers with his left hand, he felt an odd sensation, as if the top sheet had wrapped itself around his wrist. Not immediately realizing what the sensation meant, he went ahead and stood up -- only to find his left foot slipping on the polished wooden floor, as if he had stepped on a small rug that was not attached to anything. Catching himself with his right hand, he shook his head -- and felt as if some kind of scarf were flapping around his neck.

Then he remembered. This was the nineteenth of August.

"Uncle Al, are you okay?" Tommy asked, sitting up in the other bed.

"Yes, I'm okay. Today is my skin-shedding day." Alipang held up his left hand where both he and Tommy could look at it. The modified skin was raggedly coming off of there, like a glove chewed by a dog. And it was, of course, the same loosening of outer skin which had caused his left foot to slide out from under him.

"That was quick," Tommy observed. "When we went to sleep, the special skin hadn't changed at all."

"It must have begun working loose _while_ I slept." Alipang's T-shirt and shorts did not get in the way of his peeling off all the molting skin: from the two left limbs, from both of his inner thighs, and from around his neck. "For the next couple of days, only my right hand and right foot will be flameproof. Here, catch!" -- and he tossed a handful of his own hide to the boy.

"Oh, gross!" Tommy laughed. "Shall I make this into shoes for you?"

"Thanks, but I just bought a new pair the other day. What you _could_ do would be to write an immortal poem about your mutant uncle's first molting."

"How about a haiku? ...You are what you eat. / Uncle Alipang ate snakes; / Now he sheds like one."

"That'll do. Speaking of eating, let's get to the kitchen; if we're the first ones there, we can make breakfast the way WE want it. I still have one hand that can't get burned on the woodstove..."

= = = = = = = = = = =

After loving farewells, Alipang boarded his train at mid-morning and headed north. At the train stop nearest to Teapot Creek, Rudolfo Montefiori came on board.

Alipang beckoned to his friend. "Rudolfo! What's up?"

"I'm heading up to Crazy Woman Creek," Rudolfo replied, coming to sit with Alipang. "I'll be meeting with the Spaffords and their closest neighbors, to negotiate a possible move of my sheep up to their area. If the Aztlanos do invade from Colorado, and I wait _until_ they attack, I'll probably lose the whole flock."

For the rest of the ride, Alipang and Rudolfo discussed the Aztlano situation in some detail, although there had been no new acts of overt aggression since the destruction of Cassie Magruder's airship. Just before pulling into Sussex, the two men prayed together; than Alipang said goodbye and stepped onto the platform.

He was met by Peter Tomisaburo, who greeted him while acting a little strangely. Even while shaking hands and inquiring about how Alipang was doing with his modified skin, the furnace repairman seemed to be alternately looking at Alipang, and looking into the air above his head. This caused Alipang to recall the incident in which Peter's son Victor had seemed to see lights that no one else could see. He wanted to ask Peter about it, but still restrained himself.

A moment later, Peter gave Alipang something else to think about. "You've got a visitor waiting to see you, but I don't think it's about her teeth."

"HER teeth? A woman, then? Is she anyone I know?"

"I don't think you've ever spoken to her in person, but you certainly know who she IS. She's that State Department woman, Daffodil's mother."

Alipang stared. "Samantha Ford? What can she possibly want with ME? From all we hear about her, at least I don't have to worry about her trying to seduce me! But did she say what she wants?"

"Not to me; but she might have said something to the office workers in the federal building where she's waiting for your arrival. I do know that she had taken the trouble to track your movements." Peter's emphasis on those last words sounded a lot like a hint that he somehow knew that Alipang now had an implanted microchip. "I can tell you this: she has a boy with her, younger than her son. I'd guess two years younger than your boy Wilson, but for sure at least nearing completion of puberty."

Slinging his bow and quiver in place, and hefting his luggage, Alipang soon was striding toward the local federal building, to find out what was up.

 

[Copperfox]

Alipang soon had cause to infer that the government workers had allowed Samantha to watch some people-tracking terminal; for despite his approaching the office building on a side which had no windows, the R-rated diplomat came out the door to meet him with time to spare.

She was dressed surprisingly modestly; but it was ugly-modest, not graceful-modest. Her Fifties-retro outfit included the eternally grotesque mid-calf skirt, the neither-this-nor-that style, which neither completely covered her legs nor allowed their true muscle contours to be seen. At least this was further confirmation that she was not attempting to attract him; but equally disturbing as an attempted seduction was the hunch Alipang formed, that she was making an external pretense of suddenly respecting Christian moral sensitivities, and really _expecting_ him to be fooled.

He had to give her credit: she was almost convincing with her smile. He noticed her little acting job at the same time as he noticed who had come out the door behind her -- the boy Peter had mentioned. This boy, light brown of complexion, almost looked as if he could be a fellow Filipino.

"Hello, Doctor Havens," said the former Ambassador-At-Large. "I'm Daffodil's, I mean David's mother." She extended a smooth-skinned hand to him; he clasped it politely, though mentally joking to himself that he was glad his right hand still had its protective layer.

"Good afternoon to you, Miss Ford." Having lately come away from the politically-correct nonsense concerning Salwa Jalalu, he was not going to bother calling her "Citizen." But she showed no annoyance as she urged the boy forward.

"This is Chief Justice Tim Govinda, on sabbatical from the Supreme Court."

As Alipang shook hands with Tim in turn, the boy announced, "ALL of my identities are on sabbatical, which I know is a great loss to the Court. Even my sea-slug shape."

Alipang blinked. Suddenly, the deviant Samantha had become normal in his eyes -- compared to this boy, as Alipang abruptly remembered all he had heard about Chief Justice Govinda's delusions. It was thus to Samantha that Alipang now looked for some ray of sanity. "So, Miss Ford, what function is His Honor carrying out here among us Enclave residents?"

Samantha was at least perceptive enough to detect something of what the Christian warrior was feeling, and she used her eyes to send him a yes-we're-the-sane-ones-here signal. Precisely because he knew she _wouldn't_ be trying to seduce him, he could allow himself to feel a tiny bit reassured by this friendly hint. But not _very_ reassured; not when he remembered that this woman had been a party to creating the illusion that his fellow Christian Josiah Redfern had acted in her sordid movies with her.

Samantha answered him, "His Honor is here simply to refresh himself, to clear his mind and become ready for future services to the Party."

Tim now uttered a horse-whinny, followed by intelligible words: "Speaking of refreshment, I've _only_ eaten a _human_ lunch so far. Excuse me;" and he dropped to all fours, to begin trying to pull up grass with his teeth.

Alipang, a father in both fact and spirit, instantly hunkered down beside the boy, lifting him partway up and pulling the grass away. "Son, you can't digest that."

Tim's response was an ear-splitting scream, followed by an attempt to bite Alipang's neck. Alipang intercepted the attack with his shielded right hand, and jammed the hand in far enough that the crazed boy could not easily pull back for another try. "Son, you may be a Party member, but in _this_ case I don't think you have Party authorization to hurt me."

"No, he doesn't," Samantha affirmed in a small, embarrassed voice.

Alipang glancing at the woman gave the boy an opening for a surprise move -- in fact, a move so rapid and fierce as to surprise the martial artist. Stretching forth a hand, Tim yanked Alipang's belt knife (a regular knife, not the new balisong given to Alipang by Brendan Hyland) out of its sheath, and tried to stab him with it. Alipang's armored right hand was not in a good position to defend; but fortunately, he was fast enough with his left hand to force the knife out of Tim's grasp without being hurt. Less than two seconds later, the boy's face was back down in the grass, held there by an annoyed adult who had about ten times his strength.

Looking up at the chagrined Samantha, Alipang told her, "Now I'm _really_ interested to know why you wanted me to meet His Honor."

 

[Lucy's maid]

I just now started reading your story, and it is really good! You are a really good writer. And i can mot wait to read more!

 

[Copperfox]

Six wimpy federal civil servants, the men wimpier than the women, rushed out of the building. All were unarmed. No weapons of any kind, not even non-lethal types, were kept in their offices -- because they, and their superiors, knew perfectly well that there was no danger whatsoever of the internal exiles offering them violence. Having no weapons, and knowing what manner of man Alipang Havens was, all six of them were terrified of provoking him despite his well-attested record of law-abiding conduct. Yet with every day's events at work being entered into government data clouds, they were also afraid of not at least _appearing_ to do something roughly similar to coming to the aid of the former ambassador.

Samantha waved them back, letting them and also Alipang off the hook, as she intoned in her best United Nations voice: "Rest easy, citizens, I have this in hand. Doctor Havens, I will answer for the Chief Justice not acting out from any more slight misunderstandings. Please help him to his feet."

Alipang cupped his right hand under the boy's left armpit. His next movement combined retrieving his sheath knife with lifting Tim upright. Picking up on Samantha's pacifying manner, he said, "All's well, Your Honor. I wasn't laying hands on you; I was laying hands on that other species-identity which momentarily forgot itself."

Samantha nodded, making even the nod part of her posing for whatever cameras might be watching her at this instant. "Well spoken, Doctor Havens. No wonder my biopr-- my son enjoyed being in your company."

Alipang nodded back. "Thank you, Miss Ford. Now, I'm all ears to hear what occasioned my being graced with your--"

Though fearing now to misbehave in any physical way, Tim did interrupt vocally: first with loud meows, then with the words, "She's a bigot! She's a hater! She's against my self-actualization!"

"And what does that mean, Your Honor?"

"It means that she _refuses_ to admit that I was _born_ this way!"

"Born what way?"

"Born as the fluid incarnation of inter-zoological harmony and oneness! My melding and merging of life-forms is essential to the vibrations of Mother Universe, and she doesn't _believe_ it!"

Alipang stepped closer to Tim, looking him in the eye. "Are you saying that unless a person agrees with _your_ understanding of the universe, that person _must_ be guilty of hate?"

The boy grunted, hissed, and then resumed using words: "Yes! It's obvious, isn't it? The love of the collective requires acceptance of _every_ personal micro-reality; denying this is denying the cosmic flow of Gaia's breath. So she IS guilty of hate and prejudice and, and, and -- omnibiophobia!"

Alipang turned his gaze to Samantha. "He just made that one up, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did. What I was--" But this was as far as Samantha could get before Tim snapped at her, "Stop trying to change the subject! You're just against me because I'm _different_ from you!" Here he uttered an unsteady wolf-howl, then burst into tears.

As if choreographed, Alipang and Samantha both moved closer to each other at this point. "Could we please go to your house to discuss this?" Samantha pleaded. Seeing his eyes dart past her to look at the office workers, she added, "There won't be any scandal, Doctor. There _wouldn't_ be any scandal, even if I _slept_ at your house. _Everyone_ knows my relational focus. Not even your own domest-- excuse me, not even your _wife_ would think that you and I did anything contrary to your taboos. And I need to be able to speak frankly with you. Please."

Her word "Please," and her expression when she said it, was the most believable and unforced part of her performance so far. So Alipang decided to play along. Detaching his hatchet in its covering from his belt, he handed it to a startled Samantha. "Here, please carry this for me. That's so he can't try to take it while I'm holding him on that side." As soon as the wide-eyed actress gingerly accepted the deadliest weapon she had ever held in her hands, Alipang scooped up Tim with his right arm, held the boy horizontally against his right hip, and led the way to his house.

As they went, the deposed Chief Justice made a few more sputtering protests against bigotry and hate, but did not offer any more trouble than that. Alipang, still carrying Tim, detoured by the stable to say hello to the horses, and remarked to the boy, "Now, _those_ can digest grass."

When they were inside the house, Samantha produced three small electronic devices from some pocket or other. Each one was able to stick to a wall, and Samantha attached them at three different places on the interior walls of the house. The last place was in the kitchen; and as Alipang followed her in there, she turned to face him.

"All right, Doctor Havens. I am authorized to use those jammers. There will not now be any recording made of our conversation. I'm not so stupid as not to realize that you perceive an irony in Tim accusing me of hate, when I have accused many others of hate. Although I cannot feel differently about my own ways than I do, I think I understand how you feel at seeing me charged with prejudice. I can't alter your viewpoint any more than you can alter mine; but surely we can agree that _Tim's_ viewpoint is not the most socially constructive of all possible viewpoints?"

"I'll grant you that. Here, Tim, sit down -- and I mean in the human way." Placing the boy in one of the kitchen chairs, Alipang courteously pulled out a second chair on the other side for Samantha to sit in. As she sat down, it struck him that this was like the day when Kim had explained the gospel of Christ to Dana Pickering (now Dana Terrell) over this very table. Pouring cups of sun tea for his guests and himself, he took a seat facing Samantha, with Tim in grabbing range of his armored right hand.

"All right, Miss Ford, exactly what can *I* do about this?"

 

[Copperfox]

"What level of rehab care is in effect when the patient is virtually self-sufficient, and only very occasionally needs a little help or an explanation of something, or to have equipment put in place for her?" asked Evan Rand.

"That is called supervisory assistance," replied the thin, weary-looking fifty-five-year-old man who sat facing him.

The Saint Labre Inprocessing Center, as it was now officially called, had ceased receiving a steady flow of construction workers for the geothermal sites. But it was nowhere near shutting down. It was now receiving persons with professional skills that could be useful all over the Western Enclave. And Mr. Tadeusz Nowicki, another of those rare American Catholics who had neither sold out to the Fairness Party nor died while confined in the all-up concentration camps, had a background in rehabilitation therapy, just like Evan.

"I was taught to call it setup assistance," Evan told Tadeusz; "but the textbooks can vary, of course. What level of care is the patient under if she needs help somewhat more often, but still understands the procedures, can take some initiative in exercises, and contributes most of the physical exertion herself?"

Listening in on this exchange were Sister Arabella the administrator, and Sarah Highbranch the nurse. They were aware that Mr. Nowicki had been subjected to sadistic torture at the hands of the now-defunct Indoctrination Department, worse than anything Evan or Summer had undergone in Leavenworth and Joliet, and that now his memory of his former profession had to be coaxed back to the surface of his mind, along with his confidence.

"The patient then is under minimal assistance," he answered.

"Good. What is the level where there are some things the patient simply cannot do for herself at all, but many things that she can do with guidance, and she still is doing a significant amount of the work herself?"

"That is moderate assistance," Tadeusz replied, now smiling faintly. Gaunt though he looked, he had been in worse shape when he first checked into Saint Labre. He had been the last newcomer to enjoy the nutritional assistance of the Mormon woman Victoria Tabor, before Victoria had found a suitable Mormon man among recent arrivals, married him, and brought him back to South Dakota Sector to commence housekeeping.

"Batting a thousand so far," said Evan.

"Batting? What do you mean?" Uncertainty newly fogged the older man's eyes.

"I'm sorry, that was just a baseball reference. Not important. What is the level of care when the patient is mostly unable to take the initiative in tasks, doesn't have much strength, and is often unable to understand complex instructions, but at least is making an effort?"

"That patient is under maximal assistance."

Beholding a returned clarity in Mister Nowicki's gaze, Evan let himself be more elaborate with the last question in the series: "And what about a patient who is extremely incapacitated in physical mobility, sensory function or comprehension of what is said to her? A patient who typically needs to be wheeled around or carried, who is a mere passive recipient of your treatment.... and who, barring the availability of nanotechnic remedies, would probably have the completion of her life celebrated by the Health Rationing Agency before you had enough time to restore her to greater capability in the old-fashioned manner?"

Tadeusz Nowicki frowned, but not at Evan. "That is known, appropriately, as total assistance. And I was told that they _don't_ 'celebrate completions of life' that way here in the Enclave."

"They don't," interjected Sister Arabella -- gesturing to the wheelchair she was sitting in.

"And the more we can bolster our infrastructure here," added Sarah, "the less likely the government is to _begin_ having such celebrations for exiles."

Evan was going through another set of rehab-care questions when Rusty the handyman entered the room. "Beg your pardon, Evan, but a phone call's been patched through for you from Wyoming Sector. You can take it in my workshop."

"Who's it from?"

"The kung-fu dentist. He said he has an interesting job for your family, or as many of your family as can get the okay to ride down to Sussex."

Evan excused himself. Sister Arabella, as one who had been a _patient_ in rehab, took over with Mister Nowicki's refresher course.

 

[Copperfox]

In Rusty's workshop, Evan eagerly picked up the landline phone. "Al, is that you?"

"Yes, it is I, minus my recently-shed skin. But never mind that, just listen. I have an unusual pair of guests in my house -- one of whom has gotten her dataphone linked into our analog phone system. She has the okay to let me talk on her phone, because the call is within the Enclave."

"All right, and your guests are who?"

"I'm a social climber: I'm entertaining the former Diversity States Ambassador-At-Large, and the former Supreme Court Chief Justice."

Before he could restrain his reaction of surprise, Evan had blurted out: "The porn star and the insane kid?" As he belatedly fell silent, horrified at his own indiscretion, Alipang replied in a voice that sounded unworried:

"None other. Now, just listen while I tell you more. Both of them are sitting right next to me as I speak, because.... they are going to be _living_ with me for awhile."

Evan's composure failed again. "WHAT????? Does Kim know about this?"

"As a matter of fact, she does. Now will you _please_ keep quiet and just listen to me? Miss Ford obtained an extraordinary dispensation, less than half an hour ago, to allow me to speak to Kim and the kids _myself_ through the dataphone. They're still at Kim's brother-in-law's house in Winnipeg. Canada's got renewed air-travel restrictions, because of the war in Alchatka. Yes, I said 'war in Alchatka.' No, I didn't know about that either, until today. Same old same-old, with exiles not getting timely news. It seems the Russian Federation is trying to seize back not only its own portion of land that was ceded in forming Alchatka, but Alaska with it. The Venezuelan Alliance is helping Russia, and Aztlan is providing logistical support to them -- which at least raises our hopes that they _won't_ be invading us here.

"Terrorist attacks have begun to occur in member nations of the Mexican Alliance, which is impeding the Mexicans from helping Alchatka. Canada is keeping out of the fight because it's already _been_ hit by terrorism. But there are some Pacific Federation and African Union forces coming over to help the Alchatkans. Some Canadian journalists think India's going to get into it besides.

"Now, let me start on how this affects US. One of the Asian delegations to the United Nations brought up some newly-uncovered historical information about human-rights abuses committed by the Trevette administration." (Alipang was in fact referring to the contents of Miguel De Soto's manuscript which Brendan Hyland had smuggled out of Wyoming; but the little that Alipang knew about Miguel's authorship of the expose' he was not about to reveal.) "More than one speaker in the General Assembly then made remarks linking this recent history with the racial insult Chief Justice Govinda is accused of making against Aslan. Thus, there is still more global sentiment now that favors Aztlan over the Diversity States, regardless of Aztlan's own crimes.

"The Atkinson administration is doing damage control. For one thing, as a foreign-policy appeasement gesture, the latest big movie our government was planning to make, something called 'The Different Make The Difference,' will have plot changes made, adding Aztlano characters who are noble and wonderful. But the plan to look better in domestic policy has more substance.

"Washington is talking about granting us Enclave residents a meaningful degree of SELF-GOVERNMENT. As for the triumvirate in Rapid City, Energy and Agriculture both favor it, pointing to the good progress made by exiles in standing up the medical university; Distribution is against it, but she realizes she's outvoted. Bear with me now, I'm getting to the part that explains why I called you.

"Miss Ford has already completed her scenes for the latest Zimmo Garland movie; he shoots his movies really quickly. So she's available to assist in a job which has a bearing both on the improvement of America's image abroad, and on the prospect of Enclave self-rule. One of the embarrassments our federal government has to deal with is the former Chief Justice, with his delusion of being--"

Alipang's voice was interrupted by what sounded like a boy whose voice had not yet changed, imitating a lion's roar. Evan heard some kind of banging and thumping, followed by a new voice, a female voice, talking to him. The woman first had to adjust her dataphone's noise filters to block out some loud boyish cries of "Hate speech! Hate speech!"

"Citizen Rand? This is Samantha Ford. I'm afraid Citizen Govinda suddenly decided to attempt a kinetic negotiation with Doctor Havens over his identity issues. Doctor Havens is now restraining him. Allow me to continue the explanation for you."

 

[Copperfox]

"I'm listening," Evan told her. "Tell me what part I can play in rescuing the Fairness Party from embarrassment. Have they decided they're embarrassed about imprisoning my wife and me for being Biblicals? And maybe about Summer getting two fingers cut off in Leavenworth?"

"This is about the larger picture," Samantha replied soothingly. "The fact that _something_ is being done about the Chief Justice's behavior gains us points with the global community; and _including_ Enclave residents in his treatment means we simultaneously show _them_ human respect. Your friend Doctor Havens is an optimum choice to be involved, since he's had favorable media exposure before now. And his doing well with Tim Govinda could lead to.... a _substantial_ elevation in his social status. I hasten to add, an elevation which _wouldn't_ require him to satisfy the relational-diversity stipulation that attaches to Party leadership."

"That sounds like it _might_ be a good thing. But why aren't you just having the kid admitted to a mental hospital?"

"Doctor Havens asked me the same question, shortly before we called you. I reminded him of how my son first met Chief Justice Govinda, _precisely_ in a mental hospital in Boston, when my son was being treated for panic attacks. The whole psychiatric profession in the Diversity States, I was forced to admit, is so deeply integrated with the cause of defending diversity, that it is no longer fully equipped to handle someone who might be _excessively_ diverse."

Evan laughed. "So, because the mental-health community is now PART OF the problem, you have to seek help from the very sort of people you've branded as mentally defective. I'm starting to like this, at least tentatively. But I'm still waiting to hear what exactly _our_ place in events is."

"Let me tell you about our conversation with Kimberly Havens; that is part of the explanation. Citizen, that is Mrs. Havens, wanted to come back to Wyoming immediately, since she's had a good long visit with her relatives in Canada, and the Enclave now seems _not_ to be threatened with invasion. Riding by train would bypass Canada's present air-travel restrictions; but in the short while that I took the phone, I told Mrs. Havens that her staying in Wiinipeg longer could _facilitate_ the success of my plan."

Evan whooped, "Whoa! How did it sound to her to hear a glamorous movie actress tell her, 'I need you to stay far away while I'm in your house with your husband, because that will help my plan'?"

Samantha's voice turned much cooler. "That, Citizen Rand, is an example of the _benefits_ of relational diversity. Kimberly Havens knows enough about me to know for a certainty that I _don't_ have even the slightest sexual interest in her partner. She admitted as much herself, and consented to hear me out. What I then told her was that, being up in Canada, and being _known_ to be connected with Alipang Havens just as his fame is being re-energized, she could give interviews to journalists in support of what he is doing. That would help to silence anyone so shallow as to think that Doctor Havens and I are merely amusing ourselves together. I added that I was aware of how her children were enjoying access to educational resources in Winnipeg, and that extending their stay would increase this benefit to them.

"At this point, Doctor Havens got back on the phone, pointing out to her that he intends _always_ to have other people in their house while Tim and I are around, thus proving that no impropriety is occurring between me and Doctor Havens. Kimberly seemed to be set at ease by this; she then offered a suggestion of her own in the same regard. Reminding her partner of the fact that _your_ partner was once interviewed for streamcast by Dynamo Earthquake, she urged that _your_ family be allowed to come down from Yellowstone and be part of the contingent that witnesses how perfectly celibate my relationship with Doctor Havens is going to be."

"I'll concede that it might work out well," said Evan. "But if I thought you would ever have heard of Rube Goldberg cartoons -- well, suffice it to say that your plan would indeed protect Al's reputation as a faithful husband, but it's_terribly_ roundabout. Why not simply let Alipang deal with the kid WITHOUT YOU BEING THERE?"

Samantha huffed back, "Because this is MY idea. I had already gone to enormous trouble trying to help the Chief Justice, at great inconvenience to myself; Tim's presence, in fact, caused Hydrogen to move out of my apartment. Anyway, I want to have something to show for all my efforts. As long as Kimberly Havens' misgivings have been addressed, and they have, I intend to gain the career exposure and prestige I'm entitled to. So, do you or don't you want to come to Sussex and be part of this?"

"For Alipang's sake," Evan replied, "I'm willing. Summer will also be, I'm sure of that. _Provided_ that the needs of our clients here at Saint Labre are taken care of, there should be no reason for us not to come to Sussex."

"Excellent! Those needs _will_ be covered; the triumvirate will see to it that a substitute for you is assigned up there. Now, His Honor seems to have calmed down, so I'll allow Doctor Havens to finish this conversation." A moment later, Evan heard Alipang's voice once more.

"I take it you're going to come?"

"Looks that way. Have to speak with Summer, of course, but I have no doubt that she'll be for it."

"Can't wait, old buddy. Since my own children are to be delayed in coming home, it'll be nice to have _yours_ around."

 

[Copperfox]

Chapter 130: The Cavalry from Yellowstone

For the first night that Samantha and Tim would be in the house with him, Alipang scrambled to find some temporary housemates. Jillian Forrester was willing to stay over, since helping any member of the Havens family would uphold her standing with Terrance Havens; but her father emphatically did not want Jillian under the same roof with Samantha for one minute. The Rocheforts had similar misgivings about letting their daughters come over; but precisely _because_ of Samantha's "relational orientation," they decided it was all right for their son Philippe to stay over and help keep an eye on Tim. Poc Tsan Cung and his wife Elsa lent a hand also, by bringing over some supper for Alipang's mixed group.

Samantha liked having the Haitian boy there, and used her dataphone's holographic function to videocord Philippe's arrival and introduction to Tim. "This will help with counteracting the idea of the Chief Justice being a racist," she explained.

When the oddly-assorted foursome sat down for supper (Samantha, of course, having done nothing useful), Alipang told the two non-exiles: "There is something we do in my house, which you don't have to do, but which we are _authorized_ to do. Philippe, would you care to say grace?"

Philippe and Alipang bowed their heads. Samantha found in herself the courtesy to sit still and neither say anything nor start eating until grace had been said; but Tim simply dropped his face into his food and began gobbling like a dog. Philippe's prayer was as follows:

"Merciful God, we thank You for this food, for the friends who prepared it for us, and for all the gifts You send to us. We thank you that Kim, Wilson, Esperanza, Brendan, and Peggy are safe where they are, and we ask that You would bring them safely back to Wyoming in the near future. We also ask that You would bless the time in which we are entertaining these guests from outside the fence. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen."

Philippe was also helpful in maintaining a cordial atmosphere during supper, as he came up with numerous non-confrontational questions to ask Samantha about her State Department career. Alipang decided to allow Tim to eat in his animal fashion this once, so as not to make the boy feel restricted in absolutely everything. But when supper was finished, Alipang hustled Tim into the kitchen, and used a damp towel to clean off the boy's face.

After this, followed by the other three, Alipang went to check on the horses in the truck-trailer stable. All was well here, neighbors having led the horses in from pasture for him; so he brought the mare Lacey out of her stall. He did not put a saddle or any tack on her; for his purpose, her willingness to be guided by his familiar hand and voice would be enough.

"Now, Tim, have you ever ridden on a horse?" Alipang knew the probable answer, given the extermination of domestic animals tthe Fairness Party had committed once it was in power.

"No, I haven't."

"Then consider this a new step in oneness with the animal kingdom;" and Alipang lifted the boy easily with his hands, placing him on Lacey's back. The good-natured mare did not react adversely. "All right, girl, come along with me." Gently urged along by her trusted master, Lacey slowly carried the psychotic boy around the property three times. Tim said nothing, but at least didn't seem frightened. In conclusion, back at the stable, Alipang hoisted the novice rider down to the ground.

"There, Tim, you have just been carried by a horse. Now, in the spirit of equal distribution, can you pick her up and carry _her_ around the house?"

While Alipang stayed by Lacey's head to reassure her, Tim actually did attempt to lift the mare with his hands under her belly. When he had failed utterly, Alipang asked Philippe to put Lacey back in her stall. Knowing Philippe also, Lacey had no objection to his leading. Meanwhile, Alipang said to Tim:

"Son, I know that you have animal thoughts in your head when you do your changes. But you see that your animal identities were not able to work _outside_ of yourself to lift a horse. Maybe while you're at my house, we can talk over just _what_ is the nature of your animal changes."

Tim emitted some bird noises, but did not throw any violent fits. Much of this interaction was captured by Samantha as holovideo.

For the rest of the evening, Alipang and Philippe offered entertainment in the form of recitations. Everything recited sailed right over Tim's head, but Samantha made some effort to understand the poems and speeches. For bedtime, Alipang had contemplated letting Samantha use one room and Philippe another, while he would share a room with Tim, in order that Alipang himself would bear the responsibility for coping with any bizarre acting-out by the delusional boy. But at almost the last minute, it occurred to him that Tim could not be considered a reliable witness to the fact that the man of the house _never_ approached the female guest in the night, nor she him.

So a switch was made. Alipang took the chance of letting Tim sleep unsupervised in one room, while Philippe shared a room with Alipang. Philippe, not being insane, could give clear brainwave readings if ever interrogated about the chastity of relations between Alipang and Samantha.

Fortunately, Tim did not vandalize his borrowed bedroom _very_ much.

 

[Copperfox]

The next day, Philippe had to resume working with his father on an appliance-repair job. He had scarcely taken his leave before a providential phone call came, from Pastor Peter Ionesco of Sussex Gospel Church, who told Alipang: "The Forresters clued me in to your non-adulterous non-affair with the adult-movie star. I can help you line up more friends to maintain seamless proof of your integrity."

Grateful for this, Alipang made a related request: that the pastor hold his nose and meet with Samantha himself today, to hear her justifications for the peculiar curative program with Tim Govinda. "Who knows, the Holy Spirit might nudge you to suggest something to her that would be _within_ her comprehension."

When Tim and Samantha finally got out of their respective beds -- by which time, Alipang had attended to the needs of the horses -- Alipang hastily gave them a bite to eat, then told Samantha about the proposal for her to meet the pastor. She surprised Alipang by not arguing against this. Before long, then, the disreputable diplomat was out of his hair for awhile, and he could try something else with the mental patient. Collecting his hunting gear, he said, "It's a fine day. Come outside with me, and show me how fast one of your four-legged identities can run." Anointing the boy's face with sunblock which Samantha had supplied, he then led Tim out the back door.

Alipang was encumbered with his weapons, a backpack, and two canteens (he didn't care to drink from a canteen also used by someone with _such_ filthy habits as Tim). The boy had no encumbrance at all. But when Alipang indicated his desired easterly direction, which would take them into fallow fields outside of town, and started jogging in that direction, Tim's mightiest efforts could not begin to keep up with what for Alipang was a leisurely pace. Dropping back alongside the sometime Chief Justice, he asked, "Are you being a very short-legged animal? _Please_ try to keep up."

Tim not only never did come anywhere near matching his host's running speed; he ended up at a standstill, begging to be carried. So, not meaning this to be a boot camp, Alipang obliged. Rearranging his own cargo, he permitted the boy -- who was only a few centimeters shorter than he was, though much thinner -- to climb on his back. They proceeded in this fashion for the last kilometer or so, till they arrived in the field where Alipang was hoping to kill a grouse or two for his kitchen.

When Tim understood that this was hunting, he "helpfully" began howling like a coyote. The unexpected outburst, coming before Alipang had his bow ready, caused several game birds to take wing and escape. Alipang still did not show anger at the boy; he merely whispered, "We're using the stalking method, hunting quietly."

Moving on to another field -- with Tim on his own feet once more -- they had better luck. Alipang shot one grouse on the ground, and had his next arrow on the string quickly enough to fell a second grouse on takeoff. Once the second bird was killed, Tim could no longer stay silent. Barking like a retriever, he ran to fetch the nearer of the two grouse. Afraid that the boy would actually pick it up with his teeth, Alipang overtook him and ordered: "Wait! You don't want _these_ in your mouth as they are. They may have lice on them. If you want to help, just pull my arrows loose, and wipe off the blood as best you can on some weeds."

Tim did as he was told. Shortly afterward, Alipang grasped one grouse by its ankles and held it before the boy's eyes, head down and wings loosely spread. "Look here, son, but don't touch. See the undersides of his wings? Those are lice crawling around; they like to be on the wings for some reason."

"Does that mean we can't eat them?" Tim asked.

"We exiles can't afford to be too picky. I'm going to chop the wings off both grouse with my axe right here. That should get rid of most of the lice. Back at the house, I'll pluck the birds on the back porch. We'll discard the feathers; don't want verminous feathers in pillows, thank you kindly. Then I'll wash my hands in lye soap, and proceed to cook the birds _very_ thoroughly."

Tim seemed to absorb the sense of what Alipang explained; but he grew queasy and threw up when he saw the wings being hacked off. Alipang allowed himself a small wisecrack at this: "Was that one of your herbivorous identities being grossed out?"

= = = = = = = = = = =

Coming home, Alipang found a note left for him by one of the older married couples in town: they, and two more such couples, had all been recruited by Pastor Ionesco to sleep at the Havens house tonight and safeguard their local dentist's reputation. The note also reported that word had come of the Rands being expected in Sussex tomorrow, and added that Samantha was getting acquainted with more local residents. For this evening, the presence of the half-dozen seniors would also serve to show Samantha the same thing which hopefully she was seeing with _every_ exile she met in town: that Biblicals, "even" elderly ones, could refrain from fits of homicidal rage when in the company of a "relational progressive."

Tomorrow, then, with Evan and Summer here, Alipang would feel confident that he had reliable helpers; and perhaps Michael, Anne-Marie, Grace and Grant would find rapport with Tim.

 

[Copperfox]

On Friday morning, as if to show the youthful Samantha that older people who were never allowed to receive telomere preservation were not necessarily collapsing into dust, Alipang's elderly guests did all the morning chores for him. This included mucking out the stable, and leading Sammy, Lacey, and the currently boarded horses out to the nearby pasture. During these proceedings, Tim shot various questions at Alipang's friends, demonstrating the paucity of his knowledge about real animals.

When the six local visitors went home and things quieted down at the Havens house, Alipang informed his "out of town" guests that he would shortly be doing a tooth extraction. "If you think you can keep His Honor occupied while this goes on, I'll be able to give him another dose of reality orientation afterwards."

"I'll manage," Samantha promised. "I really do appreciate your willingness to become part of this project." These words were accompanied by the most sincere-looking smile he had yet seen from her. Samantha becoming the kind of pest that Dana Terrell had briefly been about a year ago remained implausible, but Alipang would not object to her viewing him as more definitely a fellow human being.

The scheduled patient, a farmer named Larry Bessemer from the boondock-ish northeast corner of Wyoming Sector, had a _severely_ rotten tooth to be rid of. This was not because of hygienic neglect on Mr. Bessemer's part; it was because this particular premolar had been damaged (and one of its neighbors knocked clean out) in a beating administered three years ago, by the now-deceased Overseers Huddleston and Vargas. The damage to the surviving tooth had crept up slowly over time, what with the overall shortage of dentists in the Western Enclave, but now it could no longer be ignored.

Kim was not there to provide an acupunctural pain-block; there was only their herbal analgesic to lessen the pain of the extraction. But Mr. Bessemer endured the pulling as cheerfully as any man in his situation could be asked to, being glad _finally_ to be rid of that tooth.

When Larry Bessemer had paid his bill -- with sacks of grain for Alipang's horses, a most welcome currency for the dentist -- Alipang started back to the house, carrying the extracted tooth. He intended to show it to Tim, and thus initiate a conversation about the way that the teeth of every vertebrate species were designed to fit the needs of that species. The point would be to try to induce the boy to consider whether intricate details like the genetic pattern for teeth could _really_ change as quickly and magically as Tim was inclined to believe they could.

But as he came to the back door of his house, Alipang heard a racket inside, which gave him the foreboding that the delusional child had been confronted with some _less_ tactful and indirect challenge to his fantasies. Dropping his little exhibit in his haste, he lunged inside.

The kitchen and living room, in his absence, had been transformed into a battleground: several dishes broken, something spilled on the kitchen floor, chairs overturned in both rooms, and the landline telephone in the living room smashed. In the center of the living room -- fleetingly reminding Alipang of the old play The Miracle Worker even as he dashed to intervene -- Samantha Ford and Tim Govinda were locked in jungle combat. Both of them were showing bruises even to a split-second glance, but Samantha was clearly winning by this point.

In fact, she was beginning to strangle the raving boy, and her beautiful face was disfigured by a more homicidal expression than Alipang would ever have expected to see on those features.

When Alipang pulled the woman off of her adversary, she screamed and fought him as well, her self-control blown to the four winds. She could not, of course, prevail for an instant against Alipang's strength; but he was _ever_ so glad that no camera was set up to record this one-sided struggle. There could be few things that Alipang would have liked _less_ than having a computer-altered video of his brief clinch with Samantha being made part of the next Zimmo Garland movie.

When he had made sure that the defeated Tim still was breathing, and had forced Samantha to sit down under threat of getting strangled herself, he demanded to know what had set off this battle. When Samantha told him what sort of animal behavior the psychotic boy had attempted, Alipang found that he believed her.

"Perhaps," he told her, "scientific objectivity might now call for you to find lodging elsewhere for awhile; my friend Sylvia could put you up. The Rands should be arriving anytime now; let them help me with Tim." He could not refrain from letting her see him running his eyes over the damage from the fight.

Seeing a scattering of ceramic shards on which her host's eyes rested, Samantha asked meekly, "Was that platter-looking thing valuable to you?"

"Not in hemispheric pesos. That was the one and only dish Kim and I had which we had been able to bring away from Richmond after your Party arrested us for not being pantheist-slash-atheist-slash-redistributionists." He did not snarl this; the information itself did the snarling.

Samantha's voice shrank. "Oh. I, I'm sorry, Doctor Havens. I'll pack up my things. Tomorrow or the next day, we can talk about the next phase of Tim's treatment."

 

[Copperfox]

One of Alipang's neighbors, a Mrs. Juniper, had happened to be outdoors, close enough to hear the racket as it drifted out the windows of the Havens home. She ran to Alipang's door in alarm. She knew enough about her dentist to know that there was no way on Earth he would commit any act of unjustified violence; but not much time had passed since Nash Dockerty's "Ku Klux Quaker" fraud, and she was afraid that somehow a violent incident was being _staged_ as a way to slander Alipang.

She banged on the door, then opened it without awaiting a response -- to see Alipang bending over the boy Tim Govinda, of whose existence and insanity she was also aware. Alipang looked up from examining Tim for possible broken bones, to see his neighbor staring at him.

But this was not happening in one of the old-time television soap operas, where someone was always discovering an innocent person in a situation that only _looked_ incriminating. Mrs. Juniper's first words to Alipang were, "I know that you didn't hurt him. But what happened?"

Tim had recovered enough consciousness that he now supplied the first answer: "Biodiversophobia! She refuses to believe that I was _born_ this way, and she hatefully interfered with my self-actualization! She's un-mutual!"

Alipang offered an alternate explanation, in English: "He appears to have behaved toward Miss Ford in a fashion that qualified as violating her personal boundaries."

Able to hear sounds of Samantha moving around upstairs, Mrs. Juniper said, "So then the movie star beat him up?"

"It was definitely not one-sided; Miss Ford suffered almost as much damage as Tim did, though in the end she was close to completing his life."

Mrs. Juniper trotted into Alipang's kitchen, found a clean dishtowel, and moistened it for the purpose of cleaning the scratches visible on Tim's face and arms. "But he's so scrawny!"

"Well, Miss Ford isn't the first person to find out the hard way that someone smaller than you may be a lot more ferocious than you." Not one to brag, Alipang didn't say out loud that he himself had taught this lesson to many a man larger than himself.

The first-aid kit he kept for his Grange work enabled bandaging Tim where it seemed to be called for. Samantha, with baggage already packed, came back down the stairs as this was going on, and exclaimed, "Hey, what about some first aid for ME?"

Mrs. Juniper only glared at her, while Alipang replied calmly, "The loser of the fight got first attention; besides, you didn't even _ask_ for help till now. But here you go;" and while Mrs. Juniper stayed with Tim, he gestured to Samantha to sit on the sofa while he went to work examining her wounds. This required him to expose a bit more of his patient's skin than her torn sundress already exposed; but he had his neighbor looking on, as witness that what he was doing was _only_ in his capacity as a paramedic.

Something softened in Samantha's face as Alipang carefully rendered aid, including applying a disinfectant to places where the insane boy had bitten her. Alipang was certain that she was NO closer now than before to having an inclination to feel sexual desire for him or any male; and he was in fact correct about this. But Samantha _was_ at least finding that she could feel _gratitude_ toward a male, maybe even respect.

"Miss Ford," said Alipang, "I fully believe your word that he first assaulted you, not the reverse. But I want you to think about something. During all the years when Americans of your political bent were working to create the regime you have now, you never missed an opportunity to make parents look bad, so that the very _idea_ of the family would be eroded and finally discarded, in favor of 'the collective.' If an actual mother, in those days, had been physically attacked by a child large enough to inflict injury, and in defending herself had injured the violent child in turn, you would _never_ have accepted her testimony of self-defense; you would have _wanted_ to believe that she was just one more lying child abuser. And if anyone defended the mother in that case, you would have pretended to believe that he was making excuses for all the _genuine_ child abusers.

"You serve a system which is composed of unrelenting lies from top to bottom; but I will still take your side when, as now, I believe you to be telling the truth. You see, truth matters to us primitive God-fascists." Having said this, he fetched a lightweight jacket from a closet, beckoned her to stand up, and gently placed the jacket on her.

"This will make it less obvious that your dress was torn. You'll want to report this incident at the federal building right away, after which you can change clothes there. And I must choose to trust you to tell the truth to the office personnel -- since _they_ probably won't hold you accountable if you lie."

Many thoughts were manifestly swirling in Samantha's head. Suddenly she clasped Alipang's hand. "Thank you. I believe you can do His Honor more good than I can." Then she turned her gaze at the disapproving Mrs. Juniper, who was cradling Tim in her arms as if he were her own son. "Citizen, I suspect that you despise me. But for what it's worth, I'm learning to feel some respect for you people."

 

[Copperfox]

After Samantha and Mrs. Juniper departed in different directions, Alipang settled Tim on the couch, gave him a drink of water, and sat on one of the chairs that he had just set upright again. "How do you feel now, Tim?"

"I feel like a daring vanguard in the cause of diversity, Citizen Havens. Narrow-minded reactionaries like Citizen Ford will have to learn to make way for the karma of the versatile oneness."

Alipang sighed. "If you're an animal now, it's a parrot. You're just reciting back the phrases that someone taught you. Was it in Boston? Was that where they got you talking this way?"

"Citizen Havens, you're forcing the fluid reality into the paradigms of linear sequence. The 'when' and 'where' don't matter. As I comprise all species, I equally comprise all times."

"Tim, if you're that good at absorbing vocabulary, you must have _some_ ability to reason. Think about what just happened here. You claim to be all kinds of animals at once. If that is true, then when you -- touched -- Citizen Ford, and she reacted in anger, why didn't you change into something like a grizzly that could kill her? Why let yourself take scratches and bruises that you could have avoided?"

Tim sat up. "What a loosh you are! Do you think I wanted to _kill_ her? I wouldn't kill anyone; _you're_ the one who's killed people! Yes, I know about that."

"But I didn't kill _you_ when you tried to knife me, did I?"

"I never tried to knife you!"

"Okay, let's _say_ that you never tried to knife me. That leaves the question of your fight with Miss Ford unresolved. Even with not wanting to kill her, you _still_ could have avoided getting hurt yourself. You could have changed into a turtle and hidden inside your shell, or changed into a bird and flown away. If you actually can change form in any way that has an effect on things around you, why didn't you change in a way that would have protected you from being hurt?"

"Who says I am hurt?"

"Son, if I didn't have a soft spot for all children, I'd prove -- never mind. I have a question for you. Whoever taught you collective-speak, whatever time-warp they were in, did they teach you the saying, 'Perception is reality'?"

"Of course they did; it's a foundation stone of jurisprudence."

"No, son, it's a foundation stone of a certain philosophy: a philosophy which, before it grew old and cobwebby, was known as post-modernism. But every day that everyone lives in every land or generation, _life_ proves that it's wrong. Because life never stops tossing things at us which our perceptions _didn't_ create. Think about yourself asking me to carry you, when I took you out grouse-hunting. If you could _really_ turn into a gazelle or a cheetah, then you _wouldn't_ have had any difficulty keeping up with me.

"I think that at some point in your life, something _happening_ in your life was too painful for you to face; so you took refuge in believing you could change shape. Then you could get away from whatever--"

Tim began loudly mooing.

 

[Copperfox]

In the afternoon, Alipang had four more patients to see in his clinic behind the house. Annette Rochefort came over to watch Tim while Alipang was thus occupied. The day's patients ended his dental appointments for the week. Mrs. Rochefort afterwards informed him that every word she had spoken to Tim had been answered only with animal noises.

While in his clinic, Alipang had suddenly remembered to think about the impending molt of his right hand and right foot. The skin on his earlier-molted body parts did not yet seem to have re-toughened itself at all. Alipang actually felt worried about this for a moment, until he remembered that he had made it through all of his life up to this summer _without_ having any part of his epidermis artificially fortified.

Once Mrs. Rochefort had gone home with his thanks, Alipang connected to his living-room telephone jack the extension phone from the master bedroom, to replace the phone broken in Tim's battle with Samantha. Then, remembering an illustrated book that Kim had used in homeschooling their children, he gave the book to Tim to peruse. Reverting to human speech at last, the boy asked, "How do you power this up?"

"It's highly sophisticated; it actually responds to the motor-nerve signals of your body. Just let your brain tell your fingers to move the cover aside, and you'll be able to start reading by separating the thin sheets of organic fibrous material." While Tim was enjoying two-dimensional photographs of animals he had pretended to be, Alipang sat down with his record book of patient visits and updated it.

Less than an hour later, Mrs. Forrester called to say that she would be providing him and the boy with some supper for tonight. The next call after that was from one of the workers in the federal building, letting him know that a train carrying the Rand family was due to pull into Sussex just after sunset.

General chores, and eating the supper kindly supplied by the neighbor lady, filled in the intervening hours. When Alipang judged the time to be right, he saddled up Sammy, then placed himself and Tim on the stallion's back. In compensation for two riders, Alipang allowed Sammy to move at a lazy-donkey pace; this was safer for Tim anyway. Rambling this way and that as the sun sank lower, with Alipang telling the boy anecdotes of horse-riding incidents, they came to the train platform just minutes before the freight train with just a few passenger cars arrived from the north.

Alipang stayed on Sammy's back, holding Tim firmly in place on his saddlebow, till the train came to a full stop. A station custodian who knew Alipang then held Sammy's reins for him, while fifteen or so disembarking passengers emerged onto the platform. Descending from the saddle, Alipang still kept Tim under control, never knowing what mischief he might make.

The station was not crowded, so almost all of the Rands caught sight of Alipang at the same instant. Summer, her right hand busy carrying a suitcase, waved a greeting with her three-digited left hand... and this time, did NOT seem self-conscious about it. Thank God, that's one trauma she seems to have been able to put behind her, Alipang thought.

Michael, Evan and Summer's firstborn, who was in the neighborhood of Wilson's age, was first in his family actually to come up to Alipang. The warrior-dentist, his left hand resting authoritatively on Tim's right shoulder, extended his right hand. As soon as Michael clasped it -- the complete outer skin slid off of Alipang's hand like a glove, remaining in Michael's grip for the instant it took for the boy to register what had just happened. "AACK!" Michael squawked, and dropped the bizarre skin-glove as if it were poisonous.

The seven-year-old twins, Grace and Grant, squealed with surprise. Anne-Marie, the middle child, picked up the shed skin, looked at it, then looked at the friend of her parents. "This is the skin they experimented on, isn't it?"

"Yes; as you see, it gives me the ability to be in more than one place at the same time."

Alipang got a laugh out of them with that one. Then it was on to introductions. Alipang was heartened by the fact that Tim actually _talked_ to the people he was meeting.

 

[Copperfox]

Back at the house, after rubbing down Sammy and checking that all was well with all the stabled horses, Alipang dug up some canned beans, venison jerky, and other available foods to offer to the Rands, also allowing Tim to eat again. When Grace blurted out a question about how Tim's face came to be bruised, Alipang told her simply, "He was in a fight. I'll talk to your parents about it later, but please don't make Tim talk about it now. Let's hear some about the physical therapy work your Daddy's been doing."

Evan obliged his host; and between his anecdotes about Saint Labre, Summer interspersed questions to Alipang about Grange activity. Alipang could tell that she was fishing for hints of whether evacuations or other major upsets were impending. He gave her such cryptic answers as he could in the presence of children, trying to convey that no severe danger was known to be imminent. She and Evan got a chuckle out of Grange hunters having been assigned at Gas Hills to protect Salwa Jalalu against bloodthirsty Islamophobic fanatics who did not even exist.

After this late supper, Evan and Summer undertook to clean up, while Alipang broke out board games and books to occupy the youngsters. It was not long before the twins were nodding off, so Alipang showed Evan and Summer where everyone was to sleep. Alipang himself was going to go to sleep last, in a bedroll on the stairway landing, a strategic position from which to respond to anything that came up with anyone.

Before older children and adults went to sleep, Michael Rand found himself engaging in his most substantial conversation yet with Tim. It began with Tim unconsciously displaying his judicial cluelessness, by trying to relate coherently the labor-union disputes which had been his predominant kind of case on the Supreme Court. But in time, the deranged boy turned to his favorite subject: becoming all the animals in the world. After listening to these ramblings for a quarter of an hour, Michael suddenly asked Tim a question:

"Do you remember how old you were when you _first_ realized that you could be all these creatures?"

Whether because this time it was not an adult challenging his fantasy, or for some other reason, Tim didn't bother with "correcting" Michael on the subject of "linear time" versus "fluid reality." He simply gave a direct reply: "I think I was the same age as your twin siblings are now."

This refreshing directness did not escape Alipang's notice; he began paying closer attention to the dialogue between the two boys.

"Being all those animals must have lots of advantages," Michael said, keeping his facial expression carefully neutral. "Being faster, being stronger, plenty of things. I'll bet it's one advantage that you can stop people from doing things you don't like.... maybe, say, from _touching_ you in ways you don't like."

No quasi-legal or quasi-metaphysical babble now came from Tim's mouth, only the word "Yeah."

"I sure would have liked it if I could have been different animals a couple of years ago," Michael continued. "Some really mean people forced our parents to leave us. Of course, that was before _you_ were on the Supreme Court, or I'm sure you would have helped us. Anne-Marie, Grant, Grace and I were all separated from each other, too. And I.... had to live with adults who did things I didn't like at all. I wasn't allowed to leave there, and I was told that if I complained about what they did, that would be hate speech."

Michael had Tim's attention as thoroughly as Alipang's. Summer was with the twins upstairs, but Evan was also following his elder son's every word.

"Did they touch you like not any fun?" Tim asked solemnly.

"That's right. No fun at all -- at least, not for ME. What a lucky break it would have been for me if I could have turned into an eagle and flown away."

"Yes. It's good to be animals."

"But you know what, Tim? Even _without_ my having the power to be all the animals in the world, I found out that there still _was_ something better in the world than what was happening at that commune. Because someone in Alipang's family, his brother-in-law Daniel, did some really smart things to help my family. As I say, you weren't on the Court then to be able to help us; but Daniel talked judges into letting me out of the commune with the bad touching, and letting my parents and the other kids be together again. So now, although I can't fly or breathe water, I can get help when I need it, from people who love me."

For a moment, Alipang thought Tim was going to resume his animal noises. Instead, the underaged politician said, "That sounds like an instinct with positive evolutionary tendencies."

"Well, something like that," Michael agreed.

And Alipang, who had not yet shared with any of the Rands his own suspicion of Tim's delusions being an escape mechanism in reaction to past abuse, took Michael's independent addressing of the same idea as a confirmation.

An hour later, while bedding down, he noticed like an afterthought that the skin areas due to re-harden had at last begun re-hardening.

 

[Copperfox]

The last plot summary is located here:

http://www.narniafans.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24514&page=194

Here's a review of what's happened since that summary:

The lady scientists Integer Swift and Noreen Verble completed the skin alterations on Alipang -- around the same time that propagandist-author Trip Conklin was murdered by extremists in the Great Lakes Muslim Cantoment. These fanatics, extensively reinforced by outside Islamists, went on to launch a terror campaign in Canada. Kim Havens and her children, visiting with Kim's mother and other family members in Winnipeg, had refuge from the violence, but were hindered from getting back to the Diversity States. Canadian authorities, blindsided and bewildered by the unexpected assault, wasted their time interrogating Kim as if she could have had something to do with the terrorists. At least she was able to get a letter through to Alipang.

Within the Enclave, Henry Spafford's wife Huldah is now expecting. The ex-convict called "Gerbil" got an office job with the Grange Association. Chilena and Dan set out to promote their latest movie (the one in whose making Pulverizer Clarendon had her heart attack). But not everything is good there. In its usual manner of getting everything backwards, the Fairness Party insisted that there was now a terrible danger of "Islamophobic" violence being committed by the unarmed, well-controlled common citizens of the Diversity States. Accordingly, the Texas Ranger aviation branch was ordered to divert ALL of its air-combat assets to patrolling around the Cantonment, guarding against racist mobs which did not exist. Emilio Vasquez was left in the Enclave, but with most of his personnel and both of his armed helicopters gone. In the same connection, Alipang and other Grange members were assigned to a task as unnecessary as that of the Texan aviators: "protecting" Salwa Jalalu, the woman from Detroit, against equally non-existent perils. During this absurd mission, Alipang formed an innocent friendship with a female dentist named Vera Strother.

The Party-hack Governor of Texas, Steven Jiang, took advantage of the situation with Texas Rangers being forced into meaningless duties outside of Texas, to rub the Ranger Commandant's nose in his contempt for everything Texans hold dear. The Rangers do not plan to forget this.

Tim Govinda, the mentally-ill pre-adolescent boy who had been made Chief Justice of the Supreme Court as the Party's way of weakening that court, had lost the stabilizing guidance of his cousin Chida -- she having been extradited to India to stand trial for past crimes; this left Tim open to the influence of Aztlano agent Felipe Contreras. Felipe manipulated Tim into giving a speech condemning the custom of bullfighting, which would give the Emilio Formentera regime an excuse to act outraged against the D.S.A. once more. Cassie Magruder, the Transportation Department airship pilot in Wyoming, was to become a victim of Aztlan's fake indignation: as she flew her dirigible on an observation patrol to help Emilio's reduced contingent, a missile fired by the Aztlano gang Los Malignos killed her and her companions.

The Atkinson administration, true to form, responded to this act of war by trying harder to appease El Presidente Formentera. Besides increasing the amount of free electrical power supplied to Aztlan, President Atkinson had Tim Govinda kicked off of the Supreme Court. The deranged boy ended up in the custody of Samantha Ford -- who was the only one of "the great diplomats" to be still inside the Enclave, since Moonrose Quickpace and Bailey Melville had gotten themselves fired from Equalityball coaching for their own malfeasance. Samantha, who had just worked with fellow actress Hydrogen Forbes in Zimmo Garland's latest sordid movie, found Tim difficult to handle... and was faced with an irony as Tim accused HER of not being "progressive" ENOUGH. Remembering how her own son Daffodil, now David, had benefited by knowing the Havens family, Samantha hired Alipang to help manage the lunatic Tim.

Meanwhile, ethnic insurgents in Greater China succeeded at hacking into the Chinese Aerospace Force's computer networks, causing one of the robot fighter jets to attack a residential neighborhood in Beijing. In fact, the armed drone went straight for the building where Yang Sung-Kuo lived, almost killing him and his family. In the aftermath of this, Colonel Hsiao of the Aerospace Force (the man who married the strange American girl named Quasar) went to India to be given classified information by military and intelligence officers of that country. Also involving himself in this situation was Diversity States Ambassador Benito Salazar, who made the sycophantic offer to let China use the combat aircraft of the Texas Rangers, because these would be unconnected with the defense network which had been compromised. Thus the Fairness Party curried favor with Beijing -- and the Texas Rangers were farther than ever from restoring their mission readiness for air defense.

The Hemispheric Union passed a resolution against allowing Mexico to help the Texans; this was brought about by the scheming of the Venezuelan Alliance -- which was also covertly collaborating with the plans of the Russian Federation to invade and conquer the barely year-old Republic of Alchatka. David Redfern and his co-worker/lover Vonetta Ashford, working for Ambassador Vibol Ritisak, learned that the Venezuelans had made a secret threat to Washington, that if the D.S.A. did anything Venezuela or Aztlan didn't like, a soybean blight would be unleashed against American farmland. The secret army started a mission to end this bio-warfare threat, while also lending aid to the beleaguered Alchatkans.

Carolyn Biao, the East Coast labor-union official under whose authority Evan Rand had worked for a time, became part of the Fairness Party's own response plan for the threat of induced food shortage. To prevent hungry Americans from turning against their government, the unions were to trick different groups of civilians into fighting each other.

The shadow of danger prompted scientist Matti Siermaala to depart the Enclave at last --but not without company. Zamoria Carter, the Rapid City nurse who had been assisting him in his work, had fallen for him, so they got married and left the country together. Returning to Africa, they visited Brendan Hyland, who had been wounded while fighting invaders from the Egyptian and Babylonian Caliphates. At the same time, in Wyoming Sector, Eric Havens proactively took part in forming plans for evacuation in case the Aztlanos might invade from Colorado. But exiles tried to keep life moving ahead all the same. Lenore Glass and her brother Larry, children of elderly dentist Avery Glass, continued to work at establishing the new medical university in the Enclave capital; and Aero-Aquatics, the government-owned corporation in charge of the big recycling center in Nebraska Sector, opened a second plant in Casper, which enabled Harmony and Terrance Havens to come back and live with their parents again.

Inspector Leroy Lincoln from the Great Plains Federal District submitted a request to the government, going as high up the ladder as Vice-President Harrison, for the Texas Rangers to be given some kind of armament to compensate for their sudden disarming in aviation. He was told that at least one compensation was available: particle-beam projectors, the same ones formerly belonging to the now-disbanded Campaign Against Hate, could be mounted onto the otherwise non-combatant aircraft still in Lieutenant Vasquez's possession.

With his pointless "protective" assignment ended, Alipang found himself back at his own house, with Samantha and Tim to look after. Neighbors, including Alipang's Haitian-American friends the Rochefort family, assisted him in various ways. When Samantha and Tim proved utterly unable to stay under the same roof without conflict, Alipang received permission from the triumvirate to have the Rand family transferred to Sussex to help him in Kim's absence. Although the Party had ousted Tim from his post, it still had a stake in being able to say that the former Chief Justice was being treated in SOME way for his psychosis. And fortuitously for Tim's case, the Rand family has more experience than it ever wanted to have with the traumas that can cause a child to withdraw from reality.