The First Love Of Alipang Havens

Two and a half days after Bert Randall was benignly surprised by Major Yang, Ambassador-At-Large Ford was much less pleasantly surprised by Nalani Hahona.

Nalani had returned to their hotel suite ahead of Samantha, ostensibly to make preparations for their evening out at Beijing's night spots, while Samantha was talking with Carlota about the still-unsettled issue of the U.N. commission leadership. When Samantha came to the suite, however, it was to find that Nalani was gone, and all of Nalani's belongings were also gone, except for a recording device which bore a voice message:

"Pardon my not giving more notice, darling, but we both know that everyone has to look out for herself; if we're not good to ourselves, who else will be good to us? I've been offered a new position, with increased responsibility. The Rainbow House has already given me the go-ahead for the change; they've even passed the news to Ambassador Salazar. Don't worry, I've covered your appointment-making for the rest of your time in China; and when you fly to Tokyo, my replacement will be there to meet you. So you won't suffer business-wise. As for anything personal, everyone's interchangeable in a truly collective society.

"Oh, almost forgot to tell you: my new boss is none other than my predecessor on your staff. Try not to make any scenes; if Carlota and I can reconcile our feud, a diplomat like you should have no difficulty accepting the change. Goodbye, it's been fun. Daffodil will probably be pleased; he never liked me. Don't forget to reprogram your data module so my signal implants no longer communicate with it." And that was all.

Samantha stared for a long time at the audio device. "Carlota wanted YOU to work for her? And you were willing to work for HER?" She shook her head, refusing to give too much ground to any emotional reaction. "Carlota....Of course, all this time, she must have been MORE angry at ME for dismissing her, than at you for filling the vacancy. So she--that--!"

There was indeed an emotional reaction to the stupefying surprise; but when it was over, and after half a bottle of Joy Nectar, Samantha was actually able to laugh about it. Then she called her son, waking him up in fact; she had a sudden urge to find out if Daffodil really disliked Nalani. If he did, Samantha had never suspected it. After all, in Samantha's mind, her son could not possibly resent anyone whose company Samantha enjoyed.

As it turned out, the teenager did seem pleased that Nalani had jumped ship. Samantha was uncertain whether perceiving those signs was the reason why she then refused her son's request to be allowed to fly out and see some of China with her before she started for home.
 
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We've now come far enough along in "The Possible Future of Alipang Havens" that, before I begin the next chapter, one of my famous PLOT SUMMARIES is warranted!


Beginning in the year 2013, the United States of America enjoys a brief revival of its moral and spiritual values. But this doesn't last; and by no later than the year 2021 (about four years before the "onstage" action), an irrevocable collapse has occurred.

America's national debt is so hopeless, that China becomes able to dictate terms to America without firing a shot--having meanwhile conquered Taiwan, Vietnam and other Asian lands. As the world's dominant power, China moves the United Nations onto its own territory, and even plants a permanent colony on the Moon, while the United States (minus some of its former states, such as Hawaii) is reorganized as the Diversity States. A militantly materialistic one-party government rules that all public declaration of faith in the God of the Bible is "hate speech." While no longer allowed to possess any armed forces worth mentioning, the Diversity States is allowed to have stormtrooper-like internal forces to keep its own people in subjection. Serious and openly-practicing Christians, and other dissenters against the new regime, are forced either to flee from America (with many going to Africa, where there still is religious freedom) or to be confined in "The Western Enclave."

The Enclave is a large reservation carved out of portions of Wyoming, Nebraska and the Dakotas. The exiles there are allowed considerable freedom, provided they don't try to leave. Because Wyoming in particular has rich deposits of coal, natural gas and uranium, many exiles are provided with employment in the energy industry, for the benefit of those outside. There is a program of deception involved: people in the Diversity States overall are told that all their electricity is now being provided by "green" sources, but in reality those methods are not yet advanced enough to meet all the energy needs, so much of the nation's power has to come from the power stations inside the Enclave.

Alipang Havens, and his father Eric, are both working as dentists in two different Wyoming towns, Sussex and Casper respectively. (When first seen in this story, they have already been exiles for about two years, while the Enclave itself has been "open for business" for a total of only about three years.) Alipang, in addition, is a volunteer worker for the Grange Association, giving various forms of assistance to exiles who are farmers (including transplanted Amish families). He has to travel on horseback, since private individuals both inside and outside the Enclave are now forbidden to own motor vehicles.

The Grange activity brings Alipang into more contact than he wished for with the government's Overseers. Worst of all, a female Overseer named Dana Pickering has developed a crush on Alipang; he wants no part of this, but has to be careful, for he has the safety of many others to think about. He and Kim have three children by now, and also living with them is Lorraine Kramer from the previous story, with her son Ransom (Wilson Kramer, and Quinn the older son, having been among the Christians who were murdered by the dictatorship's dishonestly-named "Campaign Against Hate"). Alipang's sister Chilena, now a successful actress, is among loved ones of his who still are living outside the Enclave, able to communicate only through frequently-censored postal mail.

Extra news about the outside world is always brought in when a new exile arrives. Thus it was of interest to the Havens family when a Taiwanese-American Christian named Bill Shao came to Wyoming--not so much in punishment, as to be put to work as an important power-plant technician. We'll see more of Mr. Shao later. Someone else we will see more of is a teenage boy on the outside, named Daffodil Ford, whose unmarried and neglectful mother is a government diplomat. Daffodil has long been indoctrinated to suppress everything masculine about himself; but before much longer, help will be coming--the boy will be provided with a sudden abundance of good, normal, healthy, instructive male role models. You'll see.

Inside the Enclave, an elderly Cuban-American gentleman has managed to start a newspaper; the Overseers are encouraging this project, as they believe it will do no harm and will raise people's morale. Alipang and his friends become involved with the newspaper; but then a new incident disrupts his routines. While he and his Apache friend Henry are out on Grange service, an Overseer airplane crashes near them; when they go to help the crew, they are temporarily overcome by unknown fumes leaking out of the plane. Both men recover, but at the current point in the story, they are unable to remember what exactly happened to them while they were near the wreck.

On top of all this, the Enclave residents are going to have some company. The Chinese government has taken an academic interest in how the Diversity States is managing the exiles; though able to see into the Enclave with spy satellites, they wish to observe the Christians' lives up close. Accordingly, a Chinese military officer named Yang Sung-Kuo plans to pay a visit, along with an Australian man named Bert Randall.

That should be enough to tie things together in the reader's mind.
 
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Thanks for the helpful summary.:D

Daffodil has long been indoctrinated to suppress everything masculine about himself; but before much longer, help will be coming--the boy will be provided with a sudden abundance of good, normal, healthy, instructive male role models. You'll see.

Good for Daffodil!
 
Sorry for the old quote.

Copperfox said:


This incident cost the Havens family their scheduled flight to Virginia, and gained them a free trip to a police station. Fortunately, the two thieves were already known to the police as troublemakers, and there were several witnesses to the fact of who had first assaulted whom. In the end Alipang was not charged; but they did take his fingerprints...just in case. His parents could have wished a more auspicious entry into America for their son; but it was hard to answer his forthright question, posed in his native tongue: "What else could I have done--LET him hurt my sister and go brag about it?"
Click to expand...

Is this last quote from Simeon and Levi's words in Genesis 34: "Should he treat our sister like an harlot?"
 
That's all right, Sopespian. Readers who have come all the way through to the current point in the sequel can use a reminder of what the original story was like.

To answer your question: no, I was not consciously thinking of Simeon and Levi. They committed an act of ice-cold revenge in a matter of their sister Dinah's honor. Alipang, in the scene you quote from "First Love," was intervening in real time with a concern for immediate harm to his sister Chilena.
 
Chapter 16: Electrical Destiny

"Increasing air pressure for Boiler 12," Bill Shao told his on-watch team, as they all sat at their panels in the main control room of Enclave Power Station Number 27. The workers all could see as much on their own displays; but Bill made a practice of saying such things verbally, to make sure each step was more strongly impressed on each technician's mind. The Chernobyl disaster had been caused by people not paying enough attention.

"Do you suppose green power technology will be perfected by the time we burn through all the gob in America?" asked Helen Kroll, the worker seated nearest to Bill. She was referring to the fact that Station 27, like many of the coal-burning power plants in the Western Enclave, burned not freshly-mined coal, but the slag from past mining, known as "gob." High-pressure air was used to kick up the residual coal in the gob as particles, so it could all be consumed in circulating fluidized bed boilers. The ash from this process could be mixed into soil, to the improvement of the soil. The invention of the C.F.B. boiler, already in use before the fall of the United States, meant that the production of electricity from coal was itself more of a "green" technology than the proletarians outside the Enclave understood. That included the Hispanic-supremacist proletarians in Aztlan, who were unknowingly the recipients of the entire output of Station 27.

"That would be nice," Bill replied. "Then they wouldn't need us here, and we would all be let out of the Enclave." He and Helen looked at each other, sharing an ironic smile, and both said, "NOT!"

Bill enjoyed a certain degree of kidding around with Helen, who was a married woman; her husband Purvis was a foreman of the truckers bringing gob from the trains to the C.F.B. stations (thus being one of the few exiles allowed to operate motor vehicles). Purvis knew that Bill wasn't hitting on Helen, and Bill knew that Helen wasn't hitting on him. Having people all around you who actually did follow the teachings of Christ made this workplace far more comfortable than the wind farm back in Virginia.

This didn't mean that Bill didn't wish for a woman of his own. Over the years, he had courted several good women, Asian and otherwise; but the prospects simply had not worked out. And suddenly he had found himself over forty, in a Taiwan forcibly annexed at last, with occupying P.L.A. soldiers helping themselves to the surplus Taiwanese women. (He had to give credit to Beijing on one score: they had not allowed their soldiers to steal married women.) Moving to the United States not long before it ceased to be the United States, Bill had come up against the crazed obsession with youth which had everyone wanting mates younger than themselves.

So here he was, an aging bachelor in a place where women were virtuous and faithful IF you could get one--but where, precisely because the marriages were so durable, almost all women of ages even vaguely suitable for him seemed to be taken.

Lately, this line of thought had been causing Bill to think often about a photograph he had seen when he had been a guest in the home of Eric and Cecilia Havens. A photograph of their friend Lorraine Kramer, by all accounts a woman of high moral character and appealing personality.

More specifically, a _widow_ of high moral character and appealing personality.

If Eric had been attempting any matchmaking there, he had been extremely subtle about it. He had, for instance, openly mentioned Lorraine's age the very first time he spoke about her with Bill: she was four years older than the Taiwanese bachelor. Since Eric had not said how recent the photograph was, Bill could not be sure whether Lorraine would now be as good-looking as she was in the picture. In addition, Eric had not been hesitant about relating what a heroic gentleman her husband Wilson had been, almost as if the dentist were _trying_ to make Bill feel inferior to the deceased Navy veteran.

So maybe Eric had been doing nothing more than making conversation that evening.

Nonetheless, Bill was feeling more strongly every day that he would like at least to meet Lorraine Kramer. Perhaps he should bring it up to Helen, and ask what she thought of the idea...

So at end of shift, he did ask her. Helen, though not acquainted with Mrs. Kramer, told him, "If you've prayed about this, and God has not given any clear indication _against_ it, then go for it!"
 
It was on the second Sunday after Alipang and Henry had been at the plane-crash site, that Sussex Gospel Church--a no-frills establishment much like its counterpart in Casper--explicitly celebrated Alipang's recovery.

The informally-acknowledged leading citizen of the town had been physically normal from the moment he was released from the Overseers' infirmary; but he had seemed for awhile to have lost his mental edge, to have less concentration on what he was doing. (It had taken all the help Kim could provide him on his first few days back at work, to prevent him from making any harmful errors with his dental patients.) The previous Thursday evening, however, had shown that the old Alipang was back: with his compound bow, he had shot and slain at almost a hundred meters a coyote that was dragging away a neighbor's beagle puppy. The puppy, though lamed, had survived its narrow escape from being eaten; and the whole town of Sussex had felt better.

At the worship service, an elderly widow named Sylvia Lathrop--like the Waddells in Casper, a Wyoming native who was "exiled right at home," provided the music, in recorded form. For over three decades she had kept an analog tape recorder, one that still was in usable condition because it had NOT been manufactured by the slave labor of political prisoners in China. Now, she had new rechargeable batteries for it, obtained by means of the Federal Consumer Merchandise Service mail-order catalogue which had begun to be distributed this year. This enabled her to play again--and play as a new thing for her friends in church--her old collection of taped music by old-time Christian singers like Dallas Holm, Sheila Walsh and Randy Matthews. This was such an uplift for the congregation that Peter Ionesco, their lay pastor, kept his own sermon to less than five minutes, to leave more time for the music of the Jesus Revolution from virtually a lifetime ago.

Though all the songs were from before Alipang's time, he recognized one as a favorite of his parents: "Chain Of Grace" by Dallas Holm. Lorraine, sitting with Alipang and Kim, also remembered this song, and softly sang along with it.

Raoul Rochefort was there with his wife Annette, and with their five children: fifteen-year-old Angelique the eldest, followed by her brothers Gustave and Philippe, then sisters Veronique and Ondine--the last still a toddler, ironically given a name suggesting a mermaid because of the unlikelihood of her ever seeing the ocean. Raoul had been too busy at his handyman job to check on Alipang personally in all the time since the July Fourth plane crash, though Annette and Angelique had been able to bring him news; it did him good now to see his friend looking fully alert and coherent.

When the service had been concluded with a Kathy Troccoli song, Raoul made a beeline for Alipang and hugged him exuberantly. "Thank God you're well, mon frere! I was having nightmares that all five children, and Annette, needed fillings at once, and you were hors de combat!"

"Oh, there's combat left in me," Alipang assured him. "I hear that Henry's back to normal by now, too. I wish I knew what that chemical, or those chemicals were; if they would give me some in cylinders, maybe I could use it as anaesthesia for drillings and extractions."

"What, so you could get rid of your acupuncturist?" Kim interjected in mock indignation.

While Alipang was turning from being hugged by Raoul to kissing Kim, Raoul said, "I spoke just yesterday with the woman who wishes you WOULD get rid of your acupuncturist, that is with Mademoiselle Pickering. At least she said nothing about you; instead, she told me that the cultivating machine will be with us on Tuesday morning."

Over her husband's shoulder, Kim told Raoul, "If she sticks to agriculture, we'll all be happier."
 
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Tuesday morning came, and most of the population of Sussex went by horse, bicycle or foot to the road along which the long-awaited cultivator was expected to come from the north. At least one Overseer would be escorting the heavy rig, but in this context the people didn't mind an Overseer being around.

"Papa, why are they sending a machine to us NOW, when all the crops are already growing?" Esperanza Havens asked, from her perch on Alipang's shoulders.

"That's a good question, sweetheart. But for me, it's no surprise. Government organizations like the Department of Eco-Whatever Agriculture don't do anything based on the actual need; they do things based on what's convenient for themselves."

"Sending a plow after all the plowing's done is convenient?"

"Well, they aren't sending it now because they exactly like being out of schedule with the growing season; but what they do like is making everyone depend on them, and making everyone wait for them. If the month of March had happened to be a suitable time for them to finish their talking and planning and fiddling around, then they would have happened to allow us machinery soon enough to do some good. As far as I understand, they do have good enough solar-power technology so that their eco-friendly cultivator will be capable of plowing hundreds of hectares of land between chargings."

Esperanza tapped her fingertips on the crown of her father's head. "But where ARE they gonna cultivate now? Are they gonna tear up what's already growing?"

Ransom Kramer was in earshot, and interjected, "I wouldn't put it past them."

"What we're hearing," Alipang told his daughter, "is that they'll break up fallow ground. Sweetheart, do you remember what 'fallow' means?"

"It means land that you COULD plant stuff in, but you didn't."

"Very good. It's good for soil to have a rest that way; one of the problems with farming in the old United States was that they didn't give the soil enough rest. But then when it does come time to plant seed in the fallow soil again, it's all hard, and has to be broken up. Now, look over that way, west, past the Gavilan family's cornfield. Can you tell that the next field past it is fallow?"

"Yes, Papa, I see it. Just plain grass there."

"Since the Enclave was begun, plenty of land like that has had maybe MORE of a rest than it needed--because with only horse plows to cultivate it, all of our farmers put together couldn't even farm half of the land that used to be for growing food. That's why people make a point of gathering up even volunteer growth of anything edible. So, what the government people are supposed to be doing is plowing the fallow fields, so that the crops already growing won't be disturbed, but more acreage--" (he slipped there into pre-metric vocabulary) "--will become usable for the NEXT growing season."

Speculative conversations like this one continued among the townspeople for many minutes. A few Sussex residents had received phone calls from farmers they knew, to whom the machine had already come; the reports were positive. There was bound to be some re-hardening of ground that was broken up this early; but if winter wheat was chosen to plant in the new fields, the timespan of soil-hardening before planting would be less. It looked like a net improvement, even with the clumsiness of bureaucracy.

Then the Overseer motorcycle came into view, and the cultivator didn't.

It was Dana Pickering bearing down on the waiting crowd, and she looked as if something were going badly.
 
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Alipang was the first person to know for sure that the still-visored rider in the shiny suit was Dana, though she was as likely an Overseer to be around as any of them. Going back to his earliest Escrima training, Alipang had learned to notice every nuance in other people's posture and movement, so that many people identified themselves to his eyes as clearly by their body positioning as by their faces. Dana Pickering had, for one thing, a more forward-leaning posture on a motorcycle than any other female Overseer he had so far encountered.

She certainly had spotted him; she pulled right up to him. Using her helmet amplifier so that others would also hear what she said to him, she exclaimed, "Doctor Havens! I need you to come with me right now! They respect you--they'll listen to you!" She turned her motorcycle partly back toward the direction she had come from, with her visor still looking at Alipang. "Please hurry, get on behind me!"

For many days, Alipang, Kim and Lorraine had been dreading (and praying against) the possible future moment when Overseer Pickering would in some fashion use her position of authority to attempt what her good looks alone had no hope of doing: capturing Alipang's attention in an inappropriate way. But now that she actually was calling on Alipang to be physically close to her, it was anticlimactic--for it was plain to everyone, including to Kim, that this really was business, not a clumsy effort at seduction. As if to assure everyone on that score, Dana added, "The rest may follow us, provided you don't interfere; but please, Doctor Havens, I need you to come now!"

Kim's eyes gave her husband the okay, and an instant later he vaulted onto the back of the saddle, where he took the most NON-sensual hold around the Overseer's waist that any man had ever taken around a woman's waist. For her part, she held her torso more upright, almost leaning back _into_ him; evidently, in the remote eventuality that he did feel an impulse to crowd close against her, she was not planning to rebuff him. Then they were off, scooting back northward.

The electric motor was quiet enough that the passenger could easily ask what this was about. Dana did not even have to turn her head, nor use the helmet amplifier, to be audible in her answer:

"I'm embarrassed to tell you this, Doctor Havens..." (If she was hoping that he would say "Call me Alipang," she was disappointed.) "Neither I, nor anyone I work with, has ever before knowingly seen the vegetable alfalfa anyplace other than a salad bar. That goes for the tractor driver too. So when we came up to what looked like a suitable fallow field to plow, he drove right into it--and ripped up a growing crop of alfalfa!"

"So I guess the farmer had the primitive intolerance and linear thinking to be unhappy about it." Alipang's sarcasm caused the woman's helmet to sag down, as if hanging her head in shame. But urgency rallied her to speak again:

"There are ten or more people unhappy about it; and I want you to prevent it from becoming a riot that would compel us to use force."
 
I guess Alipang can't just say, "Look, lady, I'm married so cut it out!" because then she'll pull a Potiphar's Wife on him. For "hate speech" or something.:rolleyes:
 
Well said, SeaStar. That's the problem with having an elite which is not held accountable for its actions. Dana could brazenly lie, and her mere unsupported word would be believed over the word of any exile. Fortunately, in the current situation, she really is not trying to entice Alipang. She is decent enough at heart that she doesn't want to see a confrontation in which the Overseers might open fire on unarmed exiles with their particle beams; and she means it when she says that Alipang's moral authority could prevent a riot. But she still would like to steal him from Kim.

No, I'm not going to kill off Kim for Dana's benefit.

What I hope my readers will see as tragic is that, if Alipang were single and available, and if Dana could be around him in a healthier setting than this prisoner-and-guard relationship, he could easily draw forth her potential for goodness. As it is, Dana is in the kind of position that J.R.R. Tolkien could have imagined: at once desiring the light, and hating it. She sees the light of God's righteousness in Alipang, and this (not his being tough and smart) is what attracts her to him; but the very power that makes him so desirable in her mind, is also the power that would cause him to reject advances by her.
 
Keeping to the business at hand as they sped along, Alipang asked Dana, "How many Overseers were with the cultivator besides you?"

"Only Tuck Faraday. He's not a hothead, but he'll have called for backup by now. Good thing Kasim Rasulala is down in Nebraska by now."

Sussex residents with horses, Kim Havens among them, were following, though the electric motorcycle was faster than they. Alipang had a few minutes in which to pray silently that there would not be a bloodbath up ahead. He was only too familiar with authority figures who were eager to punish the powerless for bad situations which the authority figures themselves had caused.

Before the scene around the cultivator was quite visible, Alipang caught sight of the Overseer helicopter, presumably summoned by Overseer Faraday. It was mounting a 20mm rotary cannon....but it was not firing, nor showing signs of being about to fire. Still, its very presence prompted Dana to put on an extra burst of speed, forcing her passenger to hold her waist more tightly than he had wanted to. Both of them felt their hopes rise when, just before passing a barn which was the last barrier to their seeing the crowd in the field, they heard NO screams or other alarming noises.

The cultivating machine sat motionless in what appeared to be the same alfalfa field it had mistakenly torn up. There were people around it, but no one was behaving any more angrily than Alipang remembered car drivers in Smoky Lake behaving after a fender-bender. Most of the exiles present were talking either to Overseer Faraday, or to the machine operator; the owner of the damaged alfalfa field was among the latter. The farmer was upset, but seemed to be listening rationally to what was said to him--perhaps a promise of restitution, though Alipang wondered whether any such promise would be kept.

Halting her motorcycle, Dana strode up to her fellow officer, while Alipang went to the farmer and those with him, in case there still was some need for a peacemaker.

But after what Alipang had been dreading, the reality was blessedly anticlimactic. The tractor driver was being more apologetic than was usual these days for minions of a totalitarian regime; he was indeed promising compensation for the crop damage. And the exiles were nowhere near starting a riot. The cultivator, however, was not going to be able to continue its work on fields that really were fallow; by coincidence, nothing to do with the alfalfa, its electric motors had broken down. The driver, in an unguarded moment, let slip a remark which could have gotten him in big trouble elsewhere in the Diversity States: "It's the unions. Now that they don't have to answer to anyone, they cover up for the lousiest maintenance work! And there are no replacement parts for these particular electric motors anywhere within two hundred kilometers of here."

Dana whispered to Overseer Faraday, "Just like the union airplane mechanics who let that plane of ours fly with a faulty engine." Faraday gestured to her to be careful what she said.

Kim and the others caught up, to see for themselves that there was no emergency. If Kim now began to believe that Dana Pickering had after all trumped up the scare in order to have Alipang close to her for a little while, she said nothing about it. Instead, she simply went to her husband's side and put an arm around him. And when she had heard enough of the situation, she caught the tractor driver's attention and offered an idea: "Couldn't you borrow a tractor of some kind from the industrial area to take over pulling and powering this cultivator?"

The driver glanced up at the watchful helicopter, and over at the two Overseers on the ground, then nodded. "Might be feasible."

Alipang added something to Kim's advice: "And I know that you have technicians at the power plants who are experts with all kinds of electrical systems. Maybe one of them could come over and repair the motors on the original tractor."

The driver spoke to the Overseers, and then by cellphone to his own superiors; and soon it appeared that efforts were getting underway to do the very things Kim and Alipang had suggested. The situation, which had never been terribly tense, began winding down. This gave Alipang--with Kim now sticking close to him--an opportunity to say to Dana, "You saw how my fellow believers conducted themselves. Wherever the ways of Christ are actually followed, people DON'T form violent mobs over every little thing. Whatever you were told about us in Overseer Academy, this is the reality."

Silently, he gave thanks to God that his fellow believers HAD in fact behaved like Christians today.
 
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It was four days after Bill Shao's conversation with Helen Kroll that the announcement was made at Power Station 27. Three volunteers were wanted for a special job in the farming country to the northeast of here: an electrical systems expert, to be assisted by an electrician and a heavy-vehicle mechanic. As soon as he learned that the job was to be done just outside the town of Sussex, Bill was ready to trample on people's faces to be included in it.

There was in fact little competition for the privilege. The upper-crust professionals, who were here for industrial rather than theological reasons, mostly didn't care to leave their more comfortable living conditions in energy-industry housing to "camp out" among the Christian "hicks." And of the many Christians who were doing most of the work at this power plant, none happened to have relatives living so near to Sussex as to create a special inducement to go there.

So before the day was out, Bill was on his way with two female workers: one an electrician from his own workplace, the other a mechanic who had come recommended by trucking foreman Purvis Kroll. The three were placed on an eastbound train which would pass through Casper, then go north to Sussex. A tractor with a propane-fuelled engine, they were told, was being brought separately from the Powder River coal mines; the lady mechanic, with such local help as she might care to recruit, would be in charge of rigging that tractor to pull and operate the stalled cultivator. The electrician would help the mechanic there as needed, but she would mostly be assisting Bill in working on the solar-powered tractor which had conked out. They had with them a crate of assorted electrical components, which by improvisation might be made to work for the failed electric motors.

At a stopover before coming to Casper, Bill was able to place a telephone call to the home of Eric Havens. Eric and Cecilia were both busy, but their college-age daughter Harmony took the call. When she heard that Mr. Shao would have a chance to meet Alipang, Harmony was pleased, for she had formed a very favorable opinion of the Taiwanese man while he had boarded at her house. But when she heard that Mr. Shao was especially interested in meeting Lorraine, she was even more pleased, yet also sobered.

"Lorraine will always miss her husband," she told Bill; "you realize that, don't you?"

"I would never expect her not to," replied Bill, who had known that this issue would be on the minds of all of the widow's friends. "But I hope you don't hold it against me that I want to meet a woman I've heard so many good things about."

"Of course not, Mr. Shao, and my parents won't be against it either. They know you're a good man; they want Lorraine to be happy; and if Lieutenant Kramer were allowed to phone Lorraine from Heaven, I know he would tell her she has a right to go on living." Harmony felt her throat choking up at the thought of the departed war veteran who had become one of the best-liked men in Smoky Lake.

"Thank you, Miss Havens. I'm going to have to get back on my train, and I don't think I'll have time to come by your house when we pass through Casper; but I promise you, when I meet Lorraine Kramer, I will behave as if Wilson Kramer were standing beside me to evaluate my conduct. Because maybe he will be."
 
When her mother became available, Harmony excitedly reported her conversation with their former house guest. Cecilia hugged her daughter, then incurred the expense of another long-distance phone call--to her son's house in Sussex.

Alipang and Kim being busy with more dental patients, and Ransom being away at farm work, the phone was answered by none other than the woman Cecilia wanted to talk to. "Lorraine, it's Cecilia, and I've got news for you!"

"Something about the Observer?" Lorraine was aware that Eric Havens had become a contributing writer for the exiles' reasonably-independent newspaper.

"Not directly, though the Observer might soon carry an article about the man who's coming your way."

"What, is this about the regime providing technicians to fix the defunct solar-powered tractor outside of town?"

Almost imperceptibly, Cecilia paused before answering. "That's right. And the man in charge of the repair team is William Shao, the same Christian bachelor who lodged with us when he first came in to take his power-station job. We told you about him at the time. He phoned here from a train station barely ten minutes ago."

"Yes, I remember that you and Eric both had a good feeling about him."

"Well, the good feeling is coming in your direction even as we speak. In fact, he may be at Sussex less than three hours from now. And--Lorraine, remember that I haven't tried to set you up with any men up to now--"

"There weren't many TO set me up with. Not that there aren't plenty of good Christian men in the Enclave, being good Christians is _why_ they're in the Enclave; but the ones anywhere near my age almost all have living wives. Are you looking at Mr. Shao as a prospect for me just because he's single?"

"Not _only_ because of that." Cecilia took a deep breath. "Bill Shao told Harmony openly that he _wants_ to meet you. I mean, as in a decent single man wanting to meet a decent single woman."

"A single woman too old to bear children ever again," muttered Lorraine.

"But a bachelor living a morally pure life won't be any _more_ childless by marrying a middle-aged woman than by staying single. Why be alone? I know, you're not alone while you're with Al and Kim, but you know what I mean."

"Yes, I know. You haven't told anyone else yet that I'm being courted by an electrical engineer, have you?"

"No. And we haven't yet written an engagement notice for the newspaper. But Lorraine, I hope you'll give Bill a chance. No new man can ever be Wilson; but remember what Eric used to say about The Lord of the Rings: 'You don't blame Faramir for not being Aragorn.' Harmony says Bill isn't taking anything for granted, but he really hopes that you'll like him."

"Okay, Cecilia, I'll give this electrical engineer a chance to prove he's Faramir. As I recall, Faramir didn't expect Eowyn to fall into his arms immediately."

"No, he didn't. But once she _did_ fall into his arms, everyone in Minas Tirith cheered for them."

 
So it was that Lorraine, who long ago had been a bit of a tramp, now suddenly was at a loss for how she should proceed with a man who seemed almost hers for the taking. This was the first time since Wilson and their son Quinn had been murdered in a federal prison that she had even conceived of the possibility of allowing another man into her life.

Lorraine decided that it would be too forward for her to be waiting to introduce herself on the train platform when Mr. Shao and his co-workers arrived in Sussex. Ransom still was away working on a farm, and not easily reachable; so he could not meet the train in his mother's stead, though he was bound to meet Mr. Shao eventually because his employer's farm was one that expected to receive plowing service. Alipang and Kim's eldest son, who confused people by bearing Wilson Kramer's first name, was likewise out working. But Alipang himself proved to have a space of time available with no new patients; two patients had postponed appointments, because _they_ were farmers with an interest in the outcome of the effort to get the cultivating in motion once more. So Alipang went to meet the technician whom his parents had met weeks ago.

For more than an hour, Lorraine tried to fill the minutes with housework, of which there always was some. She made no attempt to pretty herself up; cosmetics were nearly nonexistent in the Enclave, she was irrevocably past her prime, and even if she had been younger, depending on her looks had never brought the best results. If this gentleman caller was intended by God for her, he would have to be able to accept her as she appeared normally. She said as much to her departed husband--not as an occult thing, merely on the assumption that God would let him know in Heaven what she had said.

When Alipang came home, she became so excited about his possible news that she was embarrassed at herself. But her younger brother, which was roughly what Alipang was to her emotionally, pretended not to notice her agitation.

"You can add my vote to Mom and Dad's endorsement. I get no bad smell from Bill Shao. He has to work until dark, of course; but he'll be with us for supper."

"Supper!" Lorraine abruptly squeaked. "I wasn't thinking about that somehow! We've hardly got anything to offer him!"

Alipang gave her a low-tech tranquilizer in the form of a hug. "Easy, Lori. God is in control. Enough in control, that He seems to have put it in Mr. Shao's head to bring along food for us all. Dehydrated stuff, like survivalists used to stock up with, before surviving became illegal. So relax, take care of any non-cooking work you may have to do, and trust in the Lord. Oh, did I mention that Bill will be sleeping at our house tonight?"

Lorraine's eyes widened. "Say what???"

"It's okay, he can sleep in Ransom's attic, because Ransom will be staying overnight at the farm."

Alipang then joined Kim in helping nine-year-old Esperanza and seven-year-old Brendan with their homeschooling lessons--a job more often handled by Lorraine, but Kim was relieving her of it today, "in view of your getting a life," as Kim had teased her.

When the knock on their front door came, Lorraine found the nerve to open the door herself.

What Lorraine saw was a profoundly normal-looking Asian man. In an old kung-fu movie, Bill Shao would have been the hero's lovable uncle, whom the crooks would murder, and whose death the hero would avenge. Lorraine reflected that a lovable-uncle type could be just right for her now, since she was no longer the beautiful ingenue character. But she couldn't guess whether Mr. Shao would find anything appealing about her.

What Bill saw was a woman around whom age had gathered like a mist; but for any beholder with sense, the mist had no power to conceal the basic form of womanly attractiveness which still survived. This woman looked as if she had endured loss and hardship as bravely as Eric Havens had said she had; she also looked as if she still could give love if she chose. But Bill couldn't guess whether Mrs. Kramer would find anything appealing about him.

Fortunately, neither of them needed to be shy about attending to supper. Bill hauled in a large parcel of dehydrated foods, and the two of them found themselves working together at getting them ready for everyone to eat, while Bill told Lorraine a few simple things about his work.

Alipang and Kim tried to act casual, as if nothing more serious were going on than having a guest for supper.
 
Chapter 17: School Days and Life Lessons


As a provisional faculty member, Daffodil Ford was not at all a prisoner in the Boston Tolerance House. Provided he cleared it with the administration, he could take time off and go places. Now that the formal Equalityball season was over, and he was not required to participate in the summer season of Aquatic Oneness, he had arranged a short vacation for himself--even though it would mean being away from Thundercrash Bellingham, the girl he was attracted to. Thundercrash _was_ a prisoner, for at least another year, because she was not yet a perfect conformist.

Actually, Daffodil was getting away in part _because_ of his attraction to the red-haired girl. Because he felt stymied about expressing it to her, or indeed to anyone. He had seen Thundercrash practicing the synchronized collective swimming which was the essence of Aquatic Oneness. She looked sensational in a swimsuit; and he knew he had nothing to be ashamed of alongside her, as far as physical appearance went. At age fifteen, he had almost reached a two-meter height, and with his well-formed physique he could easily have passed for an eighteen-year-old. In more relaxed locales of the Diversity States, he could have drawn plenty of female attention to himself. But in the atmosphere of a Tolerance House, where his masculinity was officially a defect to be ashamed of, any effort to impress Thundercrash with his agility and strength would be instantly pounced upon as "harassment" or some such offense.

He had therefore determined that he would catch a flight and intercept his mother before she departed altogether from Asia. Ambassador-At-Large Ford had told her son not to come to her IN CHINA; technically, however, she had not said that Daffodil could not meet her in Tokyo as she was making her leisurely way back to America. This looked like the ideal time for Daffodil to remind his mother that she had a son, and to be of some use to her for once, by commiserating with her for the desertion of someone dear to her--though the boy considered it good riddance.

Although implanted tracking chips were not mandatory so far in the Diversity States, Daffodil had one. Since he wasn't hiding from anyone other than Thundercrash, the chip was a convenience with no bad side as far as he was concerned. Using it, he could access his credit account more swiftly than by any other means, to reserve his plane seats for the trip to Japan; his mother was due to be in Tokyo by the time he could reach her.

A propellor-driven airliner of the government airline Atmosfleet carried him as far as Montreal, where he could change to a hypersonic jet. But the ease of tracing persons in modern conditions worked both ways; and the boy was met in the concourse while walking to his connecting flight.

"Daffodil Ford? You look a lot like your mother, when she and I were--when we were roommates at Wellesley."

The woman accosting Daffodil was an African-American, not much less in height than the boy. Smiling, and looking at least a little more sincere about it than Nalani ever had, she put out a hand and continued: "I'm Cassandra Jefferson. Of course you know that your mother needed a new assistant at short notice; because I'm someone she already knows, Nalani asked the Rainbow House to ask me to take over the job. I was more than willing."

Daffodil shook hands, wondering if Cassandra was planning to monopolize his mother's time the way Nalani had done. "Pleased to meet you, Citizen. Am I right in guessing that your being here means you're flying to Tokyo on the same plane as I am?"

"That's right, young man; in fact, I'll be sitting next to you."

So much for surprising Mother. At least, Daffodil reflected, Cassandra had _not_ uttered the words "young man" as if they were an obscenity.
 
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On the same evening as Daffodil and Cassandra took off together out of Montreal, a teacher with Fidel Castro Elementary School in Delaware was looking at children's poetry.

"Me, me, me!
It's me, do you see?
If I'm not me,
Then I can't be free,
So me I will be!"

At least, reflected Wilma Culligan, this one rhymed. Most of them didn't.

"Riding the mag-lev
Takes me to
Lots of places
Where I have fun.
It's way-syntho-now!
Pioneers have
The best parties
Because they
Are in the Party."

Wilma remembered with embarrassment how fond she had once been of breaking up ordinary prose sentences into random fragments and calling this poetry, with no attempt at a poetic _feel_ in the words. As it was now, Tommy Salisbury's offering was water in a desert:

"My mother had a skateboard,
For her it was a great board;
She would go to Lakeshore Park.
Shooting up the ramps there,
First among the champs there,
Never getting tired till dark.

"And Alipang my uncle,
Adopted from a jungle,
Came along to keep her safe.
If someone tried to harm her,
They'd better be in armor;
My Uncle Al would break their face.

"Grandpa is a dentist,
Grandma's good at tennis,
But I don't get to see them now;
For they went a-roaming
Over to Wyoming--
I wonder if they own a cow?"

And Tommy was only eight years old--two years younger than a girl who had handed in a four-line poem about scratching her feet. (Not that it would have been impossible to say something poetically on the subject of itching and scratching; but that girl had only written another dull declarative sentence, designated poetry because the sentence was broken up.)

Wilma would have assumed that a poem this good, from an eight-year-old, had really been ghost-written by a caregiver, if not for three facts. One, Daniel and Chilena Salisbury had voluntarily submitted to a brainwave lie detector test, to prove that neither they nor anyone else had ever written anything to submit under Tommy's name. Two, the monopoly school system of the D.S.A. was not the least bit interested in encouraging exceptional efforts at creativity like those of this son of movie actors. A superior mind was not a collective mind; so no caregiver would wish to create a _false_ appearance of brilliance in a child. And three, in addition to the official computerized submission, Tommy had also given his teacher a handwritten copy on paper of his poem about the maternal side of his family. (Already before now, the boy had written an equally good poem about his father and that side of the family.)

Wilma Culligan was well instructed in the ideal of John Dewey, that schools were meant to make children into good proletarians of a collective society, not to impart superior skills. But--if she dared admit it to herself--seeing the outstanding individual achievements of a child like Tommy Salisbury stirred in her a wish that things could be different.
 
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The hypersonic-speed stratospheric flight across Canada and beyond took much less time than Daffodil's propellor-driven flight from Boston to Montreal. There was just enough time for the entertainment system to offer a recent historical movie, which presented as truth the notion that George Washington had had a sister, nine years old when the Revolutionary War began, who did all of George's thinking for him and told him how to do everything, so that nothing would have been accomplished without this girl. But both Daffodil and Cassandra had seen it before; so Cassandra turned so old-fashioned as to have a plain direct conversation with the young man seated beside her.

"When you were roommates," Daffodil asked, "did you have the same major as--as my caregiver?"

Cassandra whispered to him in conspiratorial tones, "It's all right if you call her your mother when you're talking to me. After all, she IS your mother; and I never address MY mother as 'Caregiver.' "

Daffodil smiled involuntarily; this woman was impressing him as more likeable than Ms. Hahona. "Now that I think of it, Mom never told me what HER college major was, though I always assumed it was Political Science."

"Very close. Your mother and I both majored in Women's Studies. Naturally, then, we studied each other: asked every possible question, shared all sorts of experiences, found out all of each other's preferences and ambitions."

"Which makes you the perfect person to take over for Nalani?"

"Goddess willing, it does. But what about you, young citizen? What are your aims? I know already that you did well in the Pioneers; did any of the supervisors give you suggestions?"

"Mostly advice to be a teacher. I do well at...." He trailed off.

Cassandra patted his shoulder. "I know just why you couldn't finish that sentence. Your job at the Tolerance House is to eliminate individuality, and yet you were about to say that you are INDIVIDUALLY good at it. But don't feel uneasy; hasn't your mother taught you about the benefits of self-contradiction?"

"Well...yes..."

"Daffy, I want you to be comfortable with me, since I'm going to be part of your life now. You don't have to run your words through a doctrinal filter before you speak to me."

Taking her at her word, the boy grew more relaxed, and spoke about his career prospects until they had passed above the Russian portion of Alchatka and were descending back into the troposphere for their landing approach to Tokyo. By the time they disembarked together, Daffodil was feeling that he actually liked Cassandra.

Then, in the airport concourse, they both caught sight of an eagerly-waiting Samantha Ford. A moment later, the Ambassador-At-Large was exuberantly lavishing embraces.....on Cassandra, and only on Cassandra, until (not without having returned the affection) Cassandra herself tried to prevent awkwardness by reminding Samantha that Daffodil was also present.

Cassandra was about six hugs and three kisses too late.

But Daffodil didn't make a scene. He was already too well trained in swallowing his resentment of his mother preferring everyone and everything else over him.
 
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Bill Shao had not read any Jane Austen books; but Lorraine Kramer, who had read all of them since her Christian conversion, had found Bill to be compatible in spirit with the good guys in those novels.

In their several days of interaction, while Bill and his co-workers (joined by Raoul Rochefort and several machinery-wise farmers) had been repairing the solar-powered tractor that belonged to the Department of Eco-Sensitive Agriculture, nothing more passionate had happened than might have happened between Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars in their first week of acquaintance. But a subtle threshold had been crossed the first time Lorraine had taken it on herself to ride out to the worksite, bringing sun tea of her own making to all of those working--but only personally pouring it into a porcelain cup for Bill.

The adaptation of the propane-fuelled tractor to run the cultivator had been finished first, so that the breaking up of fallow ground for exile farmers could get moving again. Bill's last two days at Sussex, then, had seen a hard-earned success in fabricating replacement parts for the electrical systems of the solar-powered tractor. A second cultivator was possibly going to be brought over from South Dakota to be attached to the solar tractor, the better to make up for lost time; but Bill's physical presence was no longer necessary once the repair job was done.

And with a Chinese reserve at least as strong as the reticence of a Jane Austen hero in early chapters, Bill could not yet bring himself to TRY to be allowed to stay with the Havens family longer than the minimum time.

So, on the second morning after Daffodil Ford and Cassandra Jefferson had flown into Tokyo, Bill Shao boarded a train again, this one bound back to the neighborhood of Power Station 27.

This time, however, Lorraine WAS at the station, to see him off.

Shaking hands with her, Bill managed to say, "Mrs. Kramer, every good thing I've heard about you is obviously true; and I have yet to hear anyone say anything BUT good words about you."

She kept her hand joined with his for as long as she could without feeling it was too much. "I...that is...I know we can't get from place to place as easily in here...as people can on the outside...but I hope someday it'll be possible for you to visit...to visit us, when you have time off and...you know, to relax."

"We're not quite in Pharaoh's brick pits here. I'm sure there'll be a chance. I mean, God willing. I hope He's willing. You'll write to me, won't you?"

"Of course. Not as fast as online chat, but, well..."

"More depth of thought in an old-fashioned postal letter."

In all, it was an awkward goodbye, but the awkwardness was benign on both sides, and equally felt on both sides. Thus, in contrast to their first meeting, Lorraine and Bill both came away from this farewell believing firmly--and correctly--that the other one was interested also.

When Lorraine returned home, she tried to get right back into the routine of teaching Alipang and Kim's two younger children. She reminded herself of how Dana Pickering had lately been promising that some kind of equivalency tests would begin to be offered, so that education given to youngsters inside the Enclave might actually be accorded some recognition on the outside--though this begged the question of whether children like Esperanza and Brendan would ever have access to higher education.

This was a legitimate issue to be thinking about, when Lorraine was trying not to think too much about how Bill Shao's hand had felt enclosing her own hand. But Brendan did not allow her this mental refuge for long.

"Aunt Lorraine, are you gonna get married to Mister Shower?"

"That's Mister SHAO," Esperanza corrected her little brother.

"I don't know yet, children. But...but I do like him a lot."
 
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