The First Love Of Alipang Havens

Two surgeries were performed: one indoors, to sew up Ulrich Reinhart, and the other outdoors, with more participants, to skin and butcher the grizzly. John Wisebadger, the most experienced bear hunter present by far, gave the Amish men some advice on processing the carcass--_after_ he was no longer needed to help Irina Stepanova. Ulrich had some fractures besides all the lacerations, but none of his internal organs were critically damaged; the doctor decided to stay over two days instead of one, but she was confident that her patient would recover.

Even if the nearest hospital had been closer, and if his travel could have been made smooth for him all the way, going there would not have done Ulrich very much more good than the doctor and paramedics had been able to do for him here with their portable kits plus the early plasma and Hezekiah's blood. In the transition imposed on this part of America, all the existing hospitals in the enclosed portions of Wyoming, Nebraska and the Dakotas had been stripped of all equipment which was in any way computerized. The Campaign Against Hate was that grimly determined to prevent _any_ possibility of the exiled Christians ever being able to hack into the internet, or into any communications network that was computer-controlled. (Hence, no dataphones in the Enclave, except those belonging to certain authority figures, whose DNA contact was required for those phones to work.)

Most utterly certainly, no despised "God-fascist" was to be allowed to use, or be benefitted by, the cutting-edge N.B.I.C. technologies: Nano-Bio-Info-Cognitive technologies which, as affordability permitted, granted a kaleidoscope of advantages to the privileged few who could be treated by such means. Pehaps the most envied benefit was telomere preservation: reinforcement of the mechanism of body-cell replication, slowing down the deterioration that happened over the years, so that a person might _really_ remain young longer, not only _appear_ younger by disguising the aging process.

Hospitals and physicians in the Enclave still had access to the latest pharmaceuticals and up-to-date manually-operated equipment, plus hardcopy medical journals, and were also free to use holistic treatments; but it was taking time for the government to provide pre-1980 counterparts of numerous items which had been proscribed.

In one way, Dr. Stepanova was better off in the Enclave: there were no medical-malpractice lawyers inventing two imaginary faults for every real one they exposed. Everyone present, Amish and otherwise, believed implicitly that the Russian lady had done everything for Mr. Reinhart that could possibly be done under the existing conditions. They were right, she had; and Ulrich Reinhart was going to live.

The meat taken from the grizzly, with what was salvaged from the slain heifer, would keep several smokehouses busy this evening. The firewood used in this process was barter merchandise; it had been obtained in wagonloads from settlers along the extreme western edge of the Enclave, where there were more trees as the land rose to meet the Rocky Mountains. Although there was electric heating for houses in the Enclave, energy rationing made it good sense to stock firewood also, if possible.

Duchess, a valiant beast, received an honorable burial. "Never knew a better dog," said one of the neighbors, to general agreement.

By sunset, the Reinhart household had been transformed from an impromptu surgical hospital to an impromptu banquet hall; seven large families, including that of the local Amish pastor, joined in a potluck, both to relieve Greta from cooking, and to give thanks for Ulrich's survival. All who had contributed to keeping the wounded farmer alive were of course extremely welcome guests.

Alipang was wistfully reminded of the big barbecues his parents used to host, at the dear old house on Liddell Street in Smoky Lake.

For that night, he and his Indian friends worked out a rotation: one sleeping in the Reinharts' barn, one keeping vigil over Ulrich, and one perched on the toolshed's roof with his bow ready, watching in case the smells of butchery might attract wolves.
 
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Some fairly useless entrails from the grizzly had been carted out well away from the cluster of farms, into the rolling hills of the Mayoworth-Barnum region, since fuel to burn them was scarce. Coyotes visited those scraps during Henry's rooftop watch, but nothing dangerous came near the Reinhart farm.

In the first light of day--when, as everyone knew, Amish people would be up and about--a landline phone call was patched through to the Reinhart house from Kim Havens. When Alipang was summoned in from the loft by Greta and took the call, the first thing he heard was the voice of his firstborn child:

"Papa, did you kill that bear with your fists?"

Alipang knew that his son was joking. "No, son, your Papa isn't _that_ strong. We had to shoot it. You'll get to eat a piece of it when I come home. Now, put your mother on, please."

Kim's first words to her husband were, "Al, I know you gotta do what a man's gotta do; but why can't farmers start setting traps and poison baits, instead of you Lone Grangers having to kill carnivores nearly toe-to-toe?"

"Some _have_ begun setting traps, but not the Amish. And I understand their not wanting to make animals suffer for a long time. As for poison, the Overseers won't let poisons like strycchnine be brought into the Enclave. As if any of us would be so crazy as to poison an Overseer and _invite_ reprisals; but they _really_ want to restrict our ability to do anything like violence. Remember that some of the Overseers themselves are pretty young, and actually _believe_ the lies told about us."

"Yeah, they do. Idiots, like Tyrone Paulson back in Smoky Lake. So, did you help with the surgery?"

"Of course, and I tossed in a free dental checkup. You know, the reason why Dr. Stepanova didn't get here faster yesterday, was because an overeager Overseer stopped her on board the train, and poked through her medical kit searching for poisons. If she'd been younger, he probably would have been more intrusive in the search. Hey, are Esperanza and Brendan still asleep?"

"Yes, they are. They had a hard time falling asleep last night, they were so afraid for you. So I'm not getting them up for another hour; then I'll tell them Wilson and I spoke with you, and you're fine. But please do come home as soon as they can spare you. Not that I miss you, of course--but Mrs. Difamadu has a molar that _urgently_ needs extracting."

"Of course, darling; I'll return soon, and I'll make sure to pull that tooth _before_ I so much as kiss you hello. And if you believe that, I want you to invest in my new publishing house, to distribute English-language books in Aztlan."

"If the books are to say that you love me, I'll buy every copy myself."

"That's a sale, Mrs. Havens;" and soon Alipang was back at his Grange work.

Since the grizzly had made its attack towering over Ulrich Reinhart, Ulrich's stomach and intestines were intact. He would be able to eat when he could be kept conscious--though with one arm incapacitated by a broken shoulder, he needed help feeding himself. A neighbor with a cache of pain medication brought it over; what was in Ulrich's body would soon wear off. When what the neighbor gave was used up, it would be time for the herbal painkillers and prayer.

The feeding of the Reinharts' livestock was attended to by Alipang, who had had the last sleeping shift, assisted by seven-year-old Ethan Reinhart. On the whole, everything went as well as could be expected; and in view of Alipang's also being the only dentist in a three-hundred-kilometer radius besides his father, he was also called on to give nine cursory checkups to locals.

But the doctor and Alipang's two Indian friends all agreed that he could be spared to start for home before dark. With hasty goodbyes, and with a packet of smoked bear meat added to his belongings, Alipang rode back as far as the Grange Hall in the last of the daylight. He would rub down his Mountie horse there, then sleep in the bunkroom, and in the morning he would put his saddle and gear on his personal horse for the rest of the homeward ride.
 
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Hailey, are you thinking that I made up A-Z-T-L-A-N as a nod to A-S-L-A-N? Unfortunately, not only is there no such connection, but A-Z-T-L-A-N represents something no follower of A-S-L-A-N wants any part of: racism! "Aztlan" is an Aztec, or anyway Native American, term for America in a broad geographical sense; and Hispanic-supremacist racists use the term as part of claiming that about the southwestern one-third of the North American continent should be run exclusively by Mexicans. (That's right, folks: there actually are people BESIDES fair-haired Northern European descendants who can be prejudiced bigots!)
 
You're about as dumb as you are ugly, Hailey, which is to say, NOT!!!

You merely didn't happen to have that piece of information. You have it now. Back in the original story, I said that the Mexican gangsters Alipang fought were tied to the Aztlan Movement; but I made it an inconspicuous throw-away statement. The Aztlan Movement is real, but you DON'T hear about it from the establishment media, because the establishment media are grimly determined that NO ONE will ever be accused of racism except white people.
 
(Real places mentioned here again)

Chapter Three: The Dentist Will See You Now


As a valuable skilled professional, Alipang could have settled his family in Casper, the largest city in that part of Wyoming which was included in the Enclave; but he preferred to live where the Overseers and the satellite monitors were paying less constant attention. So his exile-home was in the town of Sussex, north of Casper, east of what used to be Interstate 25 when motor vehicles had still been freely in use by persons other than government officials.

Sussex sat on that stretch of the Powder River which ran west to east before turning northward to flow into Montana. Up until the reorganizing of America, it had not been a town at all; rather, it had been a very loosely-defined ranching area, like Mayoworth and Barnum west of it. But the Fairness Party's eagerness to change things just to be changing them had changed Sussex _into_ an actual town... at the expense of the pre-existing town of Kaycee. Those prior citizens of Kaycee who did not leave Wyoming as the exiles came in, had been transplanted to slapdash new housing in the new community. But Alipang's family, as it happened, now occupied an old two-storey rural house which had already existed in Sussex.

As part of the expansion of railways at the establishment of the Western Enclave, Sussex now had the benefit of a direct rail connection to Casper--a branch line running up from that historic main trunk line which passed through Wyoming from southeast to northwest, from Cheyenne to Greybull. Only, Cheyenne was in the south-edge strip of Wyoming NOT included in the Enclave, so the train route was cut off in that direction. Instead, the tracks turned east by northeast from Glenrock to enter South Dakota Sector, and east from Douglas to enter Nebraska Sector. The northern part was likewise cut off at Greybull, as there was also a north-edge strip of Wyoming outside the Enclave; but this part of the rail network, as well as a parallel track located farther west, fed into an east-west line which also communicated with Sussex.

It was Friday morning when Alipang rode his Palomino stallion Sammy from the Grange Hall to Sussex, a two-hour trot when not pushing the horse too hard. He continued east, along the north side of the river, until he came to the Highway 192 Bridge; crossing it, he proceeded toward his house on the south side of the river. The first greeting they received was a distant whinny from Lacey, Kim's pinto mare. The horses were named in honor of another Christian couple the Havens family knew, who had been among the first victims murdered in Virginia by the Campaign Against Hate.

The stable in which these and other horses were housed had been built by combining two old semi-truck trailers, with the undercarriages and one side each removed. (The additional horses belonged to other people, and were boarded on the Havens property, since this had open land beyond it, and Kim had experience in animal boarding.) A third trailer served as a toolshed and feed-storage shed, and another two made Alipang's dental clinic. Almost all new non-residential civilian buildings added to Enclave property since the isolation began were made from these big trailers, the trucks now being prohibited to civilians. As for human residences, many of the new houses in Sussex had been constructed using materials taken from houses in Kaycee which had been demolished as "environmentally unsound." Exiles like Alipang were not entirely sure what recompense (if any) had been made to former owners who had been moved OUT of the Enclave region.

From the several houses in Sussex that Alipang rode past before coming to his own, friends came swarming out to greet him; for there was no one living full-time in Sussex, or on any farm in his Grange coverage area, who _wasn't_ his friend. One Japanese-American gentleman, Peter Tomisaburo, who was a longtime exile but had only been in Sussex with his family for a few months, remarked, "Thank God you're back! Is there any word on your new supply of dental epoxy for fillings?"

"Not yet," Alipang replied; "but I'll get a phone call off to Dad about it before they shut off the phones for the weekend." As a measure of so-called energy conservation, most electrical power for the exiles, including power for their telephone systems, was shut off on Saturdays and Sundays. Alipang's house and clinic were fortunate enough to have solar panels, giving them some power on the weekends, and no one resented this privilege being enjoyed by a genuine community benefactor; but many functions of daily life were disrupted every weekend in the Enclave. This included their churches and synagogues not having the use of electricity on those days--which was no accident.

Arriving in front of his house, which was on the east edge of town as the Tisdale house had been back in Smoky Lake, Alipang was hardly dismounted before his children were lovingly swarming over their Papa (the Havens family having never adopted the approach of using the word "papa" to mean a grandfather instead of a father). Hugs and kisses were followed by the thirteen-year-old Wilson Havens declaring, "I'll unsaddle Sammy for you, Papa."

"I'll rub him down!" offered seven-year-old Brendan Havens. "I'll help you carry your stuff inside!" added nine-year-old Esperanza Havens. The children hastened to perform their services, giving their mother her chance to fling her arms around him.

One very long kiss, exchanged while squeezing their bodies closely together, was all Kimberly Havens would allow herself before telling her beloved: "You need to clean up right away and get to work; we've got five patients waiting, all serious cases. At least two will need extractions. Lorraine will have lunch ready when we're able to eat it."

"That reminds me," Alipang told her, "I brought home some smoked grizzly tenderloin to go onto our menu for the next few days."

"I'll take charge of that," said the middle-aged widow Lorraine Kramer, who had also emerged from the house. She and her surviving son Ransom lived with the Havens family; Lorraine performed the bulk of housewifely functions for them all, including handling much of the homeschooling for the kids, while Kim acted as Alipang's all-purpose helper in the dental clinic. Ransom Kramer was away today, working on a farm as part of the cooperative activity network the people in and around Sussex had developed without need of governmental instruction.

Alipang hurried to clean up, as Kim had said; but amid the bustle of going from one of his roles to another, he counted his blessings. They never knew whether the Campaign Against Hate was going to invent a phony pretext for a purge; but for now, one day at a time, they were able to live a life of love, friendship and Christian charity. And yes, they _were_ happier than the goons watching the spy-satellite monitor screens.
 
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In good weather, patients awaiting their turn with Alipang sat in Amish-made chairs on a sort of patio on the Havens property. Accompanied by his wife, Alipang spoke with all five waiting patients, getting an idea of where each had come from. Only one, a four-year-old girl seated on her mother's lap, was from here in Sussex. The one Alipang decided to treat first, based on the severity of his oral condition, was a coal miner from another part of the Powder River Basin.

Julio Gonzales was in the Enclave because he had once committed the "hate crime" of being a Hispanic who resisted the Aztlan annexation of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, New Mexico and Arizona. Now, he was one of the many exiles who were rebuilding Wyoming's coal and uranium industries, making great progress IN SPITE OF government supervision.

"That's a nice touch," observed Mr. Gonzales, when he saw Alipang and Kim opening the entire south-facing side of the renovated trailer which was the actual dental-care space. Kim explained to him, "This used to be one of those trucks that would come to county fairs as a temporary stage for entertainment. It allows us to make use of sunlight on good days--a more direct use of solar power than our solar panels. By reducing our need for artificial lighting, it helps to make sure that the dental drill is getting enough current."

Once in the dental chair, before he had to stop talking, Mr. Gonzales asked Alipang, "Where did you study dentistry?"

"At Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond." Alipang didn't add that strictly speaking, he was only a dental assistant and technician. He had not quite had the time to bring his qualifications up to D.D.S. before the crackdowns against Christians and Orthodox Jews in healthcare professions had begun in earnest. But his knowledge and ability, helped along by his father Eric Havens, were more than enough to let him function on his own--the more so since the most advanced equipment, which he would have mastered near the end of his training, was denied to him anyway. On all records kept by the still-irregular healthcare-oversight system inside the Enclave, Alipang Havens was listed as a true dentist: one of no more than twenty dentists residing in the entire Enclave so far, and that was counting one who worked in the Enclave capital exclusively for government personnel.

Mr. Gonzales had already been given a herbal painkilling potion to drink, a mixture purchased by barter from an Arapahoe family known to John Wisebadger, its ingredients including yarrow and valerian root. Added to this, once the patient was ready, was acupunctural pain-blocking administered by Kim; a Chinese holistic physician had trained Kim in this art and supplied the needles, in return for dental service by Alipang to the holistic physician and his family.

Together with a silent prayer by Alipang for his patient, these things were just enough to enable Mr. Gonzales to stand it when the drilling on his cavities began.
 
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The little girl had the next turn in the dentist chair, followed by two out-of-town women and a male farmer who had been referred here by a different Grange Hall. One of the women was the Mrs. Difamadu whom Kim had mentioned by telephone. The final patient had two cavities to fill...but Alipang was coming to the _very_ end of his dental epoxy, and could only fill the more serious of the two cavities.

At least the farmer was understanding about it; _every_ exile in the Western Enclave was familiar with shortages of one kind or another. "If you don't get help elsewhere sooner," Alipang told the man, "then when I get more epoxy, I'll give you the other filling free of charge."

Another local child, a boy, was brought in just when Alipang and Kim thought they were finished for the day; fortunately, though, he merely needed a followup examination on previous dental work by Alipang.

At last they could close up the treatment trailer. They did so in such a way as to end up _inside_ it for a moment of privacy, in which they kissed longer than they had had time to do upon Alipang's arrival. "I love you, Al," Kim whispered; "and I'd rather be here with you on the regime's chopping block, than be elected president of the Chinese Moon colony without you there. But I wish I knew more of what's happening with our family members who _aren't_ in here with us."

"Don't we all."

When they entered the house for lunch, it was mid-afternoon...but neither Lorraine nor any of the children had yet eaten. "We didn't want to eat without you and Mom," Wilson explained to his father. "While we were waiting, Aunt Lorraine went over our math homework with us."

"You're wonderful kids, and we love you very much," Alipang told them. "Did you at least go ahead and give thanks over the food?"

"We did," Lorraine assured him. "And asked God to bless absent relatives."

Alipang smiled--the only boyish thing that remained about him. "Then let's chow down."
 
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They were less than half done eating when the front door opened, and a voice more familiar than welcome grunted, "Lock check!" Everyone in the house knew exactly who this was.

Clad in a bizarre uniform of highly reflective material, and with tasers mounted on both wrists, into the Havens home stepped Kasim Rasulala, an Overseer whose beat included the town of Sussex. He was an African-American who had spent his first nineteen years of life clinging to the belief that he was living in the Jim Crow era, so that he could enjoy accusing whites, Hispanics and Asians of racism at the drop of an imaginary hat. Then, when the Campaign Against Hate had gotten started, he had jumped at the chance to become one of the first Pinkshirts. He had done so well at beating up unresisting old women who were caught praying in public, that he had moved up to be an Enclave Overseer. Thus, he could now indulge the fantasy that Christians and devout Jews were the new Nazi movement, an enormous menace that was only barely contained by such heroes of tolerance as himself.

While all the others kept their seats and tried to appear calm, the head of the household rose to meet the periodic invader of the household. "Good afternoon, Overseer. As you see, the door was left unlocked as usual." This was another ambiguity in the regulations imposed on the exiles. Doors were not quite strictly required to be always unlocked and unbarred--especially in areas where animal attacks like the one Alipang had helped deal with were common. But any Overseer had considerable discretion, if encountering a locked door, to declare "probable cause" for suspicion that illegal activities were in progress inside.

Rasulala didn't even acknowledge what Alipang had just said. Instead, with Alipang's reflection rippling over the front of his mirrorlike uniform, he offhandedly spewed out a remarkable series of obscene and vicious comments about Alipang's mother, sisters, wife, children, and personal habits. Alipang absorbed it placidly. As a school bully, Rasulala had always known perfectly well that victims of his harassment, when they followed their parents' useless advice to "ignore him," were not really indifferent to his insults and threats; and he knew that Alipang didn't like this treatment either--so he piled it on. Aware of this dentist's background, the Overseer would have soiled himself in terror if he had ever had to face Alipang in a fair fight; but with all the advantages of a dictatorship rigging the game for him, he could be cocky and mocking.

When he had finally finished, Alipang smiled and said, "By the way, Overseer, are you hungry? We've still got some roast mutton left." Rasulala's face twisted itself in revulsion; he was a vegetarian, in conformity with federal law outside the Enclave.

Of course, one reason why the exiles were allowed to raise meat animals inside the Enclave was so that upper-crust citizens of the Diversity States could ignore the rules they imposed on others, and still have meat on THEIR tables when they chose.

Kasim Rasulala exited with a few crude and predictable parting remarks, then cruised away on his quiet electric motorcycle; Overseers, naturally, were not limited to using horses, bicycles, rowboats and public railways. Alipang took his seat again, and resumed eating as if nothing untoward had occurred. Presently, though, his daughter Esperanza asked, "Papa, how long do we have to keep letting men like that come in our house whenever they want?"

"Darling, that's a question that God can answer, but I can't. It's part of our faith to believe that He has reasons for what He allows to happen to us, EVEN IF He doesn't explain things to us for a long time. As long as it goes on, we have to trust in the promise that He Who is in us is greater than he who is in the world."
 
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Lorraine's son Ransom did not return home till after sunset. He was riding on a mountain bicycle with a two-wheeled cart hitched behind it; between this and his large knapsack, he could carry a good deal of cargo.

Wilson Havens, who was not very much younger than Ransom, was the first to spot his pedal-powered headlight approaching, and trotted out to greet him. "How was planting today?"

"Back-breaking, of course," replied the youth whose late father was Wilson's namesake. "Don't worry, you'll become _intimately_ familiar with the work next spring, when they let you join me in the fields."

Wilson, as Ransom knew, was not afraid of work; but Wilson pretended to be alarmed. "Oh, Lord, save me from _agriculture!_ I hope the cultivator proposal will be approved by then!" He was speaking of the petition the Grange Association had presented to Washington, to allow some solar-powered (thus, environmentally friendly) farming machinery to operate in the Enclave on a cooperative basis, raising the exiles a bit further above bare subsistence.

"Yes, that question is helping my spiritual walk: I'm praying _hard_ that they let us have _some_ powered machinery! Amish coaching helps in primitive farming, but I don't feel _very_ Amish."

Alipang and Kim's youngest emerged from the house to join the older boys. "What've you got in your backpack, Ransom?"

"Four freshly-baked loaves of bread and two jars of applesauce that Mrs. Wellington sent with me. And in the cart, I've got about twenty kilograms of coal. The Wellingtons traded a good breeding cow to a family farther west for a load of coal, and they gave me some as part of my pay."

"Then we can use that iron stove next winter!" exclaimed little Brendan, always glad--as the baby of an intellectually-inclined household--for a chance to show that he could think through the implications of events. His father Alipang had rescued a salvageable coal stove from one of the condemned houses within their first week living in Sussex; and even Brendan was not too young to grasp the value of an added heating resource in a Wyoming winter.

Wilson and Brendan took charge of appropriately stowing their foster brother's cargo--Wilson detaching the cart with the coal from the bicycle, while Brendan carried the knapsack of food into the house--freeing Ransom to go kiss his mother and then take a shower. The infrastructure situation in the Enclave was such that water and sewer service were in a far more nearly normal state than power and light were. Ransom's shower would be cold, but there would be enough water to get him clean.

Lorraine waited until her surviving son was clean and relaxed before she told him about Overseer Rasulala's latest arrogant visit. It was always on her mind to worry that it was always on _Ransom's_ mind that his father and elder brother had been murdered by the same system that Kasim Rasulala represented.
 
At about nine p.m., after family devotions, all seven dwellers in the Havens house retired, to sleep the sleep of a clear conscience--unlike most of the Overseers, who routinely resorted to government-issued Joy Nectar to relax.

Before sunrise, Alipang silently hoisted himself out of bed, and stalked out of the ground-level master bedroom into the living room. Glancing at the sofa, he remembered a more innocent time, when he and Chilena had cuddled and whispered together, late at night, on the sofa in the house on Liddell Street. It was not that he wished he had not grown up and married Kim and sired children; but so much that had been sweet was now carried away, down that ever-changing river that no one can step into twice.

A very different downstairs meeting was about to begin, with a value of its own. This was a guy thing, a father-and-son thing. Imitating his father's stealth, Wilson Matthew Havens crept down from upstairs--in fact, all the way from the attic loft, where he alone slept in what he regarded as his eagle's nest.

Without a word, Alipang and his firstborn tiptoed into the kitchen. There, with no light but candles fixed in two safe places, they began silent preparations for a family breakfast--a breakfast which would entail no cooking, except of eggs; for although they were privileged to have _some_ electricity on the weekends, they did have to be cautious with it. Part of the smoked bear meat, which could be eaten without further cooking, would go into this breakfast. The Havens household, early risers all, actually did regard breakfast as the most important meal of the day.

But the two self-appointed cooks had not gotten far at all into the kitchen work before the parallel program of the morning asserted itself. Taking a wooden spoon out of a drawer, Alipang suddenly darted a simulated knife-thrust at his son's face. Wilson yanked his head back, much like a boxer, and _nearly_ succeeded in catching his father's knife-wrist. Alipang followed with two low slashes, and Wilson parried both with whacks of his left hand against the back of his father's right hand. Nodding with approval, the teacher passed the make-believe knife to his pupil. Wilson tried a variety of attacks on his father, mostly cutting rather than stabbing. Alipang allowed the first three to touch him unhindered, as a way of monitoring the development of his son's delivery of cuts; then he began parrying, making his parries faster as Wilson made his attacks faster.

After half a minute of these attacks, Wilson suddenly applied the spoon to beating egg yolks that he poured into a bowl. Alipang collected smaller bowls and filled them with mixed dried fruits. Three minutes later, he and Wilson sparred barehanded--leaning over the kitchen table, darting their fists right in between dishes and bottles without knocking any of them over. Then Wilson turned on the heat under the scrambled eggs, while his father took a peek to be sure no one else was stirring yet. When Alipang returned into the kitchen, Wilson got in a surprise tap on his head with an old paper-towel core doubling as an Escrima baton. "Excellent!" he whispered to his boy. "Use any advantage!"

They made the most they could out of the covert Escrima lesson. When light began leaking in the windows, presaging the rising of the others, all simulated combat ceased; but there still was time for a question.

"Papa, why don't you also train Ransom?"

"And why didn't you ask this question sooner?" Alipang countered.

"I guess because you already were teaching me before we were moved here, before Aunt Lorraine and Ransom came to live with us. It was just natural for you to be teaching me. But why ARE you leaving him out? It can't be because I'm any braver or smarter than he is, and _certainly_ not stronger."

"You're right, son, it isn't any of those things. It's because you have less explosive emotion bottled up inside you. You are less likely to act rashly in anger than Ransom is....for the very simple reason that, by the grace of Christ, you have not had a parent and a sibling murdered, and known that the murderers were unpunished."

"Then are you worried that if Ransom learned Escrima, he would hurt someone he shouldn't hurt?"

"No, I'm worried that he would get _himself_ killed, and the rest of us shipped off to Self-Esteem Centers. I've always told you that Escrima doesn't make you bulletproof; still less does it make you immune to chemical weapons and particle beams." Alipang took another look at the stairway, then continued: "If this can be expressed with numbers, I'd say that of all possible situations that may occur in our lives as they are now, there won't be more than one in a hundred situations where actually _using_ your martial skills will do some good instead of only making things worse. I want you to be ready if that one situation falls into your lap; but for all the other ninety-nine, I _need_ you to control yourself."

"And you don't think Ransom would control himself."

"At least I can't be _certain_ that he would. I've tried to carry on in his father's place, and he is _almost_ as dear to me now as you and your siblings are; but it still is true that I don't _know_ him as deeply as I know you three. So I don't dare to teach him deadly fighting skills that he would be tempted to try out on one of our oppressors."

Wilson pondered a moment, while pouring sun tea into cups. Then: "So, Papa, is that why you teach us so often about Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel? Because those prophets lived in an era when their people had to submit to an unrighteous rule, and trying to fight it would only make things worse?"

Alipang embraced his son and kissed his forehead. "Right on target. Every warrior has to know how to choose his battles. And most, if not all, of OUR fighting has to be done with the weapons of the Holy Spirit. Now, let's get everyone up for breakfast."
 
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Biblically speaking, this new Alipang story is not so much an "End-Time" speculation, as a sort of allegory of what Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had to go through.

I remind my readers that what is now in progress is titled "The Possible Future of Alipang Havens." When I resume, it will be in Chapter Four, where we'll see what has become of Alipang's parents.
 
I also like how you slipped that line in about the "weapons of the Holy Spirit." Hi power through us is the greatest power we can experience.

Reading all these comments about the Amish makes me feel right at home, seeing as I live around maaany Amish people.
 
Continuing "The Possible Future of Alipang Havens":

Chapter Four: Eric's New Mission Field

That Sunday morning, south of Sussex in the city of Casper, a diverse congregation arrived from both directions along the former Highway 258, to attend The Church of the Faithful. Those who didn't live in easy walking distance from the church mostly came on bicycles or by the light-rail train; the exiles' own city council, though lacking a police force, was trying to maintain a policy of keeping horse travel _outside_ the city limits, for sanitary reasons.

If there was one thing all the members agreed on, it was that they were grateful they _could_ call this a church, instead of having to call it a Oneness Temple. Here they still could actually admit to honoring Jesus Christ of Nazareth, not merely a vague spirit of everythingness. For the sake of this freedom, they didn't mind the only interior illumination coming from windows and skylights. And the pastor had a voice which could project without a microphone; such a voice was a vital asset for ministers in the Enclave.

"Welcome, and bless you, my far-gathered family," boomed the very black Abraham Zondei to his incoming congregants. Abraham, a fortyish widower, had been among the very last African Christian evangelists to get _into_ the United States while it had still _been_ the United States, and had been trapped when it had become the Diversity States. This had given him the first occasion ever to be in any way _glad_ that his Veronica had been murdered by shamanist fanatics before he ever left Ghana; being in Heaven, she would not be in agony over an incommunicado separation from her husband. As for his college-age daughter Molly, who had been left behind, Abraham could only pray for her; he had had no news of her since he had become one of the very first five thousand Christians forced into the Enclave, but there were many relatives to look out for her.

The pastor was watching for one of the leading families of The Church of the Faithful; and there, there they were. In the door came a once-attractive couple in their fifties, now lined and worn by many cares: Eric and Cecilia Havens. Right behind them came their two youngest children, Chinese-born Harmony, almost as old as the pastor's daughter back in Ghana, and American-born Terrance, about the same age as his friend Ransom Kramer. Terrance had his mother's facial features and red hair, but his father's alert, penetrating mind.

"Peace to you on the Lord's Day!" exclaimed Abraham to the Havens as he weaved through the crowd to shake hands with all of them. "Will you have a praise to share in the service?"

"We sure will," replied Cecilia. "A letter came from Texas!" The mother and chief teacher of the five Havens children was referring to her middle child and first Chinese child, Melody, who had gotten married mere weeks before her parents and all of her siblings except Chilena had been carted away to Wyoming. Melody's husband, a Texas Ranger sergeant named Emilio Vasquez, was from the only state which had been allowed to be its own Federal District when the transition to the Diversity States had occurred--minus the states as they had been. (The status of Alaska was in limbo, due to ongoing negotiations about the possibility of giving it back to Russia.)

"Melody's expecting," Eric softly told his pastor; "and the Genetic Health Service rates her and Emilio as normal enough to be allowed to have their baby." Current technology enabled confirmation of conception almost from the moment it happened; and current politics meant that the Fairness Party wanted to know just that quickly.

"How kind of them," said Abraham Zondei through clenched teeth. He and Eric shared the same feeling about a central government commanding who could and couldn't have children. This, at least, was another area in which the Enclave exiles were _more_ free than those outside. As witness the number of young mothers carrying babies into the church.
 
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