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BREAKS: The Adventures of Richard Nixon in the 21st Century
by Philip H. Farber
File 2
59. A DREAM
The bleachers were full, the fans cheering as Nixon guided the
roaring and clattering train into the tunnel. Success! The
locomotive was in, the touchdown only a matter of three hundred and
fifty thousand.
A light ahead in the tunnel, Dick knew, was an obstruction.
The goddamned but I a war also want us starry keep it that but we
must be together. He grasped the handles of the machine gun and
sighted on the light, fired glasses and handed words pressed
lightly mother. The gun shook him and ripped the night, but the
light was untouched, growing larger.
"Criminals," Nixon growled to Martha, who stood by his side,
wearing a red dress. "Corrupt, greedy, power-hungry, crooked
bastards. We must have control!" He fired a great blast from the
gun, orange tracers racing ahead of the thundering locomotive.
Untouched, the light grew closer.
"Marcia," he said, "for last resort Hiss I want to love. One
America has now America to keep it. That starry never lost hemp
together the but we must be prosper way."
"What?" asked his mother. "What about the spin drive?"
He ordered in the bombers. They thundered over, the orange
flash of napalm wasting the jungles, crumbling the ancient shrines,
destroying the ruthless enemy where they lurked in the darkness of
the tunnel.
"We have the power," Nixon said. "We have the strength. We
have the clothing. Bring smoke, I do want to be king."
But the great B-52s had failed, and the locomotive hurtled on,
on collision course with the light.
"This way leads to certain death," Martha said calmly.
The train struck the light, and Nixon awoke.
60. THE STATE OF THE DISCORD ADDRESS
"Greetings, fellow Americans." Nixon flashed a smile.
He found the circular, mirror-walled vid studio a bit
disconcerting. There was no obvious audience to play to, though he
knew that Neal Severant, Clinton Oestrike and Henrietta Groote
watched him from somewhere beyond the mirrors. He just had to
assume, as well, that millions of Americans were watching through
their vid helmets.
"And I believe that I can, once again, call us Americans," he
continued. "I believe that there is hope in the hearts and minds of
most of us, hope that America will once again be strong and proud
and prosperous.
"I know that it has been difficult for all of us. Not even in
the darkest days of my last term as president ? the Vietnam war,
protests, riots, inflation, the Cold War ? was I called upon to
give a State of the Union Address as bleak as this one. I know that
jobs have been scarce and sometimes there hasn't been enough to go
around. I know that America has been systemically looted, our
resources stolen and our values undermined.
"But I know what Americans are capable of. It is fundamental
to us as Americans: the ability to survive, the ability to rally
together in a pinch and carry our nation to victory. It dates back
to the brave pioneers who conquered the continent, and I believe it
is still with us today.
"Therefore I would speak less of the threat of anarchy from
space, and more of the promise of freedom. We should adopt as our
primary objective not the defeat of the spacers, but the victory of
plenty over want, of health over disease, of freedom from economic
tyranny.
"I speak with such a conviction of hope because I know that
there is one resource that can never be taken from us, and that is
the will of the people. The power of America has always been the
power of its people ? and that great force is still here, with us
today. We have only to use it! That is our wealth, and when we
harness it properly there is nothing that we cannot do!
"There will be some sacrifices that each of us will have to
make, some actions and decisions that may seem immediately onerous,
but in the long run will be the very things that will make all our
lives easier and more purposeful. I'm asking that every American
pitch in what they can ? and all we need are the few necessities
that make an effective government possible. We need your
contributions, in the form of taxes, we need men and women who are
willing to fight for their freedom in America's armed services, but
most of all, we need your trust and cooperation.
"We can win, America! For Americans have always been winners.
Yes, there may be some small defeats on the way, some sacrifices to
be made, but ultimately America can once again prevail!
"Fellow Americans, I am glad to be back!"
61. PRIMORDIAL STU, PRIVATE DICK
Sprawled on a couch in the lunar cyberspace lounge, Stu played
back the record of an interactive simulation that he had created.
Working from a nondescript office representation, Stu's bland-
looking simulation had accessed the White House's open files and
found a contact number for Nixon's campaign organization. Some
electronic snooping revealed that the number had been placed on the
executive directory in January of 2003, but had not been accessed
since. Stu's simulation had plunged right in.
The code opened up a cybernetic address which, Stu felt
immediately, was a bit incongruous for a Republican campaign
headquarters. It was a small, empty room ? no desk, no simulated
chairs ? with a single, androgynous figure standing in the center.
It seemed less like an office, Stu thought, and more like the kind
of gray cybervoid that a Magickal Child shaman might work in. And
the figure, youthful with short hair and single forelock dangling
over its brow, seemed more like a spacer than an old-earth
bureaucrat.
Stu's simple simulation stuck to its basic program, though,
reciting the short message that Stu had decided upon. "I'm so glad
that President Nixon is back in the White House," it said. "I saw
his vid the other night. Will he be running for reelection in '08?
I'd like to make a contribution."
Then, before the strange figure could respond, Stu's
simulation left an access code and shot back to its own office.
Sure enough, the "campaign manager" responded quickly,
appearing with a short message that gave another Earth net access
code for credit transfers.
"President Nixon," the figure concluded, "one heck us of a
great president!" Then it disappeared.
Stu's playback ended and he collected his information, then
retraced his steps through six dummy addresses, until he got back
to his own cartoon living room. He had two real clues, now, but it
would remain to be seen if they were of any value. The first was
the access code for credit transfers to the campaign fund. If those
responsible for Nixon's reelection had something to hide, which
seemed quite likely, that code would be just the visible end of a
long series of dummy addresses and security systems. The second
clue was the call-back trace left when the figure accessed Stu's
simulation, and that would be equally obscured.
Stu, however, had a little advantage. He opened a file which
he had labelled "Household Finances", and which was secured with
only the most basic of measures. In the midst of what actually was
his personal, and not particularly interesting, financial records,
there was a subfile which had its own, somewhat more complex
security measures. Within this subfile was a very strange-looking
and exotic bit of software: a worm program, a stealth worm.
The worm was sleek and gray, its surface now crackling with
static like a badly tuned vid receiver. When activated, its
cybernetic "skin" would mimic the data around it, allowing it some
measure of camouflage, and thereby the ability to slip in past
security without need of passwords or codes. It was a pretty good
program, Stu had been assured by the software designer who had
traded it to him for six vials of O.Z. A big price, and now Stu
would find out if it had been worth it.
Carefully, he duplicated the worm, then thoroughly checked the
replica for mutations. Satisfied that the two worms were identical,
he turned them both loose, one to follow up on each of his clues.
The worms faded out against Stu's living room wall, then
disappeared entirely.
While he waited, he considered that even with the worms his
chance of getting a good answer to this mystery was still slim. If
the culprits were indeed spacers, as he suspected quite strongly,
he would probably get an address which was no more specific than
what someone would get following his own computer trace, nothing
more than a terminal in a public cyberspace lounge. But perhaps it
would confirm whether or not these were in fact space dwellers ? or
maybe just someone impersonating spacers.
It was strange, though, that the figure in the "campaign
office" looked like Child-Horus, a symbol of the Magickal Children.
A snap and one of the worms returned, fizzling with gray
static. Stu opened it carefully and found, as he suspected, a long
list of dummy addresses and blind alleys. But at the end of the
list was one interesting address: Cydonia, Mars.
A loud crackle and the other worm appeared. Stu jumped back,
out of the way ? the worm was thrashing about on the simulated
floor, bright red and green spots flickering about in the gray
static, stray bits of data flying off it. It was beginning to come
apart, snapping and hissing, splitting down its middle.
It was mutating.
"Freeze!" Stu commanded, and cyberspace froze. Stu examined
the still image of the fragmenting worm. He could see inside part
of it, where it was coming apart. The data inside was hopelessly
scrambled. Somehow, the worm had collected, instead of useful
information, breaks.
62. IT'S NOT OUR FAULT
The studio lights glinted off the bald head and thick glasses
of Clinton Oestrike, making it difficult for Nixon to look directly
at him. "I must say," Oestrike commented, "I'm quite impressed by
the way you set this up. This is good, Mr. President. This is real
good."
"Thanks, Clint," Nixon said. "Long years of experience.
Skillful use of the media is three-quarters of the job. It can be
frustrating, thankless, but it's how things work. This really isn't
so different from television."
"Ten seconds, sirs! Good luck!" announced a piped-in voice.
They composed themselves, shifting into the postures and
smiles that they would wear as the broadcast began.
"Ladies and gentlemen," a disembodied voice said, "the
President of the United States!"
The lighting shifted and the broadcast began.
Nixon and Oestrike smiled through a brief wash of canned
applause. "Thank you," Nixon smiled. "Thanks. Today, America, I
come before you with some bad news and some good news. The bad news
is that we are at war. This is not a war of guns and bullets,
though, it has not come to that yet. This is a war of values and
this is an economic war.
"The enemy is the group of people whose self-serving greed has
deprived the United States of its unity and its economic strength.
It is not the people who live in space who we must oppose, but
those among them who conspire to take advantage of those of us who
continue to live on the mother planet.
"The good news I have for you today is that we Americans have
the means to take back what is rightfully ours. We have allies! Our
allies are all around us. They are your neighbors, your local
businessmen, your employers, your employees. The good news is that
this is the crisis that can bring us together once again!
"The man seated here, next to me, is probably familiar to many
of you. This good American is Clinton Oestrike, a man whose old-
fashioned values and hard work held together a big piece of our
nation. Through the industries that Mr. Oestrike was able to hold
on to through the period of economic chaos, many of you were able
to stay employed. You were able to keep food on the table for your
family, a roof over their heads. You were able to buy them the
products of American labor, the computers and vid units which tell
me that America still has the capability to be on the forefront of
world technology. I think that we can return to the era of
prosperity which America experienced in the years after World War
Two.
"I believe that, working together, government and industry,
neighbor and neighbor, we can bring America back to its position as
a world ? and even solar system ? power. I am bringing back the
government which guided our nation through times of struggle in the
past ? I believe it is the only way that we can get through this
crisis. Mr. Oestrike has kept American business alive. Now we are
asking you to join in with this good fight! Mr. Oestrike..."
Oestrike smiled and adjusted his glasses, a carefully
rehearsed gesture which made him seem thoughtful and fatherly.
"Thank you, Mr. President," he began. "The situation, as you say,
is bad, perhaps even more dire than most of us are willing to
admit. First of all, it's not our fault, Americans. Remember that.
We are the ones who stayed here and kept working to keep America
together. We are not the ones who have sapped the life's blood from
America, and from the world economy.
"Because of these people, these pirates, these vultures who
circle over America, waiting for it to die ? because of them we are
now forced to take desperate measures. I would like to announce
that all businesses under my control will now be cooperating with
the government to correct this situation. This will not be an easy
transition, but it must be done. Each of us must do our part. That
is why I am now instructing all payroll offices throughout my
corporations to once again withhold federal income tax from each
and every paycheck ? my own included.
"This, I believe, is a small sacrifice. Many of us remember
how we did this in the past, and how it worked. And we must
remember now, that each and every dollar that goes to the
government is a stroke against the enemies of America.
"And, in closing, I would just like to express my gratitude to
President Richard Nixon, a true patriot who has returned to bring
us together once again!"
Another wash of canned applause and then Nixon was smiling
pleasantly into the mirrored walls. "Thank you, Mr. Oestrike," he
said. "There are many important projects that your tax dollars will
go to, but chief among them will be the revival of America's
defensive capabilities...."
63. MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE FARM
A lazy, sweet strand of smoke twisted up from the end of the
joint and wafted off into the recirculation stream. Stu took
another deep hit and passed the spliff to Diana. They sat in
silence for a time, feeling their bodies next to each other. The
ever-present breeze rustled the big fan leaves of the plants; the
sun, filtered through dome and spin-field, felt pleasantly warm.
"I'm going to leave," Stu said finally. "I'm going to be away
from you, away from the band for a while."
"Me too," said Diana. "I'm going away too."
They were still for moment, then Stu snagged the joint from
Diana's fingers. "All right," he said, "where are you going?"
"You first," she said. "You started this little confession-
session."
"Aw, come on..." Stu laughed. "Okay. I'm going to finish my
initiation. I've applied for it. It's about time. Then maybe I'll
go to Mars."
"Mars?"
Stu explained about his worm program. He did not mention his
suspicions that the Magickal Children were somehow involved in
Nixon's reelection.
Diana nodded. "Yes," she said, "yes. I think you'll understand
my reason for leaving, too. Ever since our ritual work at Arc93, I
haven't been able to stop thinking about spin drives. I've talked
to mechanics, I've talked to everyone I know, but nobody really
understands them. I'm going to find Nicholas Palmer. I'm going to
ask him."
"Where is he? Does anyone know?"
"I know," she said. "I found out. He's lived on Freedom Colony
ever since it was organized."
"When are you leaving?" Stu asked.
"Tomorrow. I'm leaving tomorrow."
"I'll miss you."
"I'll miss you. But there's still some time... now..."
She tackled him and they fell laughing onto the dark lunar
soil.
64. HEH HEH
"Good Evening, I'm Mark O'Connor and this is Early Edition, a
special evening version of Late Edition, and a presentation of 23
News. Late Edition, that is, Early Edition, heh heh, is pleased to
have with us the President of the United States, Mr. Richard
Milhous Nixon. Please, a warm Early Edition welcome for the
President..."
The canned applause, Nixon noted, sounded quite authentic. In
fact, it was a bit inspiring. Turn it up, he thought. Turn it up.
"Thank you," he said, accepting O'Connor's hearty handshake. He
smiled for the cameras.
"That's quite a suit you're wearing, Mr. President," O'Connor
said. "Is that polyester?"
"No, Mark," Nixon grinned, "it's wool, authentic, Earthly
wool. I've had this suit for many years."
"Mr. President, you've had an incredible career, spanning over
five decades. You've seen America through good times and bad.
You've won the presidential elections three times, and this last
time was the biggest landslide of all..."
"Well," Nixon chuckled, "I understand that I wasn't running
against anyone."
"Heh heh," O'Connor said. "To what do you attribute your
political longevity?"
"You've got to just keep fighting, Mark. My career has had
it's ups and downs, certainly ? by God, I was nearly dead just a
couple of months ago! ? but I believe in never saying 'quit'. I'm
not finished just because someone else might say that I am. And,
look, I'm back!"
Someone beyond the mirrored walls allowed a brief rush of
electronic applause.
"Yes, yes," said O'Connor. "Heh heh! What would you say, Mr.
President, is your greatest political accomplishment?"
"Certainly, Mark, I've done a few things that I'm proud of.
Our peaceful initiative with China in 1972, for instance ? I'm
quite proud of that. America's friendship with China, which began
at that time, grew stronger and lasted for many years. But, out of
necessity, I have to look forward, Mark, to envision what we can
accomplish, what we must accomplish if America is to be a great
nation again."
O'Connor struck a thoughtful look. "Do you think Americans
want this to be a great nation again? Some people say that this is
an era of apathy on the planet Earth. Does anyone really care?"
"Of course we care," Nixon said. "I strongly believe in the
inherent strength of Americans, the faith that once made this
country great. And it is faith, you know, faith in God. In the past
I never talked much about my religious beliefs, but I think it was
God who allowed my recovery from the edge of death. It was a deep
faith in God and Judeo-Christian values which built this nation and
I think those values are still with us. I know people are out there
who care. The same people who voted for me, the same people who are
now cooperating with our renewed government. The rest of the, uh,
solar system better look out, because America is back!"
"You are an inspiration to us all, Mr. President. Your
recovery from your illness was indeed amazing. What was it like?"
"I'm afraid I can't really recall much. I wasn't conscious ?
I was in a coma for many years. But a team of skilled and patriotic
doctors brought me back, and here I am! It was certainly a bit
disorienting, waking up in the White House. At first I thought that
34 years of my life never happened, that it had all been a dream."
"Wow," said O'Connor. "Wow. What's the agenda, now? What are
some of your political priorities?"
"I think the first step is a major economic and defensive
build-up. Things have fallen so far, have gotten so far out of
hand, that we must deal with this as if it were a war. We need to
dedicate that much effort and money to the situation. There are
some other disturbing factors which have certainly contributed ?
for instance, there is a technological crisis of interference ?
breaks ? in our nation's computer system. Since a major part of our
commerce passes through the cybernetic network, these breaks
represent a major obstacle to economic growth. I have already begun
to form a committee to address the problem."
O'Connor adopted a slight frown and rubbed his chin
dramatically. "That all sounds quite good, heh heh. But a lot of
people are going to ask: what about Watergate? Your last term as
president, in spite of sweeping accomplishments in foreign policy,
was disrupted, marred by scandal, and you became the first
president to resign in disgrace. Do you think that will hurt your
effectiveness in office?"
In spite of the fact that he had been prepared for this, had
devoted probably too much thought to it, Nixon suddenly looked
grim, sharp. "Well, as I've said many times over the last few
decades, I, uh, I had no knowledge of any wrongdoing. There was
certainly wrongdoing done, and as president I felt that it was my
responsibility to accept the blame for it, to become a scapegoat,
as it were, for the good of the country. Watergate was a terrible
blow to the confidence of the American people. I had to take
drastic action, I had to make a sacrifice for America."
"You certainly won't be implicated in any wrongdoing in your
most recent campaign, Mr. President," the anchorman commented.
"Everyone knows that you weren't even conscious!"
"That's right," Nixon said. "And there will be no scandal in
this White House!"
"Heh heh," said O'Connor.
65. THE ARMS RACE
Neal Severant sat quietly, a sour look on his face, as Major
Disaster and General Havoc entered the Oval Office. Nixon rose and
came around his desk to shake hands with the officers. He noticed
that Havoc had a considerable paunch, which had not been quite
accurately portrayed in the computer simulation, and Disaster
appeared a bit more disheveled than his representation would have
led one to believe.
"Good to finally meet you," Nixon said, "er, in the flesh.
Good to meet you."
"A distinct honor, Mr. President," Havoc said.
"Yes, sir," said Disaster.
Severant nodded briefly as he was introduced.
Nixon settled back into his big chair, the springs creaking
faintly. "Can I get you anything? Coffee? A drink?"
"Ah, a drink," said Havoc, "please."
"I believe there's some Chivas on the table," said Nixon.
"Help yourself."
Havoc hauled his bulk over to the table and poured two or
three shots into a drinking glass.
"Got any beer?" asked Disaster.
"Beer," said Nixon. "Uh, I'll, uh, check on that. Anything,
Mr. Severant?"
"No, thank you."
"Nurse," Nixon said, tapping on his computer deck, "Nurse? Can
you please see if we have any beer ? bring one if we do ? and bring
in a pot of coffee, please."
Havoc sucked a big mouthful of liquor and swallowed it with a
sigh. "Ah, that's good. That's really good."
"We've been watching you on the vid," said Major Disaster.
"You've been looking good, sir, real good. Makes me feel real
patriotic. Makes me feel like getting out there and kicking some
spacer butt, sir."
"Uh, thank you, Major. Thank you. Although I wouldn't, uh,
publicly, put it quite like that, that is to be the subject of our
meeting today. If you haven't yet heard, I've appointed Mr.
Severant here to a sort of double cabinet post ? uh, you know,
we're a bit short-handed here. Mr. Severant will be serving in a
combined capacity as Secretary of the Interior and Secretary of
Defense. Since he is as yet the only cabinet member, he'll probably
be performing various other, uh, tasks as well."
"Congratulations, Mr. Severant," said General Havoc, waving
his glass in a vague approximation of a toast. "Congratulations."
He gulped another blast of Chivas.
"Neal, if you could explain some of what we discussed
earlier..."
Severant sat up and leaned toward the officers. "How do we
stand?" he asked.
"Excuse me?" said Havoc.
"How does the military stand? What kind of numbers are we
talking about? Do we have any troops?"
"Well," said Disaster, "we've got a few good men."
"How few?" Severant asked.
"About thirty," said the General.
"That's what I thought," said Severant, disgustedly. "Well,
obviously recruitment is a priority. We need to figure out a base
salary for military personnel. There's enough folks out there in
need of a job. They'll sign up."
"Salaries?" asked the General. "Do we get salaries too?"
"Yeah," said Major Disaster, "do we? Wow."
"Yes," said the president, "yes, you'll get paid, now."
"That's the first step," continued Severant. "Next we'll need
to begin developing some weapons that are competitive with...." He
fell silent as Marcia Bounty entered, carrying a tray with a six-
pack of beer resting in a large bowl of ice and a steaming pot of
coffee.
"Put it on the table, please, Nurse," said Nixon. "Go on,
Neal."
"I'd prefer to wait," Severant said.
"Hi, Nurse," said Major Disaster, eyeing her tight uniform.
"Been working here long?"
She gave him a slight, non-committal smile, placed the tray
next to the decanter of Chivas, turned and walked quietly from the
room. A few seconds of silence as the two officers, and the
president, continued to stare in the direction of the doorway.
Severant stood and went to the door; he glanced out into the
hallway, then pulled the door shut.
"Uh, yes," said Nixon. "Anyway... Neal?"
"We do need to follow some protocol, Mr. President," Severant
said, returning to his seat. "We are discussing matters of national
security. Non-authorized personnel should be excluded from these
proceedings. I mean, what do you really know about that nurse? I
could find no extant personnel file."
Both Nixon and Major Disaster stood and went to the table, the
president pouring himself a mug of coffee, the officer fishing a
frosty bottle from the ice.
Nixon settled himself back behind the desk. "Yes, Neal, you're
right of course. Please continue."
"Weapons, obviously," said Severant. "We need to develop some
weapons, and some means of deploying them, which means spacecraft."
"Yeee-ha!" exclaimed Disaster, swigging his beer. "All right!"
"What kind of spacecraft?" the General asked.
"Spin drive craft," Severant said. "The spacers have God only
knows how many spin drive spacecraft. We have no way of counting.
Hundreds of thousands, at least, if not millions."
"Shit!" said Disaster. "Those goddamn, anarchist..."
"Yes," said Severant firmly, cutting off the Major. "Yes, they
potentially have an enormous fleet, but few of the craft, if any,
are military. They are virtually defenseless. If we concentrate on
building a few craft that are larger, faster, and adequately
armored, we will have an immediate advantage. The weapons are the
tricky part. What kind of stockpiles do we have?"
The General sipped from his glass. "We've got lots of rifles.
A few functional missiles, mostly smaller stuff. Some odd stuff
that probably still works, like anti-tank guns and mines. No
nuclear capability. I'm sure that most of the warheads have
deteriorated by now ? and the systems are in disrepair and probably
useless. Lots of rifles and bullets, though. Enough to shoot the
ass off every spacer."
"The rifles will be useful for, er, domestic control, but not
for space," Severant said. "They probably won't fire too well in a
vacuum. What about S.D.I.? Star Wars? Do we have anything left from
that?"
"Probably some stuff," said the General. "I don't know. I
doubt anyone's touched any of that stuff in ten years."
"I understand there was something called a rail gun," said
Severant, "designed to fire projectiles in space, at great
velocity. If we can find the plans for it, we can build them."
"I'll put some men on it immediately," said the General.
"Hot damn!" said Major Disaster. "Hot damn!"
"I think we've got the makings of a really good program here,"
said Nixon. "We've got some revenue coming in, and we can do it.
Just remember, gentlemen, that this program is good for America.
Even if we never come to actual conflict with the spacers, even if
a single bullet is never fired, this is going to mean large
contracts for America's industries. Clinton Oestrike is already
preparing some proposals. It's going to mean jobs, both military
and civilian. If we get this rolling fast enough, it's going to
mean a new era of prosperity and strength for America!"
"I'll drink to that," said General Havoc. "I'll drink to
that!"
"Yeah," said the Major, "fuck those spacer assholes!"
66. FOREIGN POLICY
"Neal," Nixon asked, "do you know who Henry Kissinger was?"
Neal Severant's cyberspace representation was as stiff and
formal as Severant was in person. "Yes, sir," Severant said. "Of
course, sir."
"Kissinger was the best, Neal, he was the best. He could get
into a situation and work in every direction. The best advance
negotiator that a president could have."
"Yes, sir. What, exactly, sir, did you wish to discuss?"
"Oh, yes. Sorry, Neal. Let me get the point. We need to open
relations with some other nations. We need to begin to develop some
allies. Economic allies. Military allies. We are redefining
America's place in the world, Neal. We are, uh..."
"Sir?"
"Yes, Neal?"
"There are no other nations."
"Yes there are. Well, one, anyway..."
"I don't think New Zealand can help us either economically or
militarily."
"No, but it is something. It is a start. And I think that
given our own example, Neal, other governments will be able to
reclaim their power. Perhaps we can help them, if they will be
allies."
"I don't know, sir. After all, the politicians everywhere...
they're all gone."
"Perhaps not, Neal. After all, I survived. And what about you?
I wouldn't be surprised if there were other young people who were,
uh, developing their, uh, capabilities as you have. A new
generation of new politicians. Perhaps if we can locate these
people, encourage them..."
Severant's representation made some thoughtful noises. "Yes,
sir, I, mother together," he said. "On fighting throwing tits they
hard-on stones are drive victory Mao Marcia renewal bring discord
us cunt Dean spin breaks keep."
"Shit," said Nixon. "Shit."
67. RIPE AND FRUITY
"Ahem," Henrietta Groote squawked into the microphone. She
looked out over the crowd which had gathered on a grassy stretch of
the National Mall. Up in the front were the core supporters, the
folks who had been with Oestrike and Groote for years ? upper
echelon employees, various ambitious and aspiring workers, and a
certain number of sycophants and social chameleons. Near them,
filling up a larger area, were several hundred old-earth types, new
recruits, as it were, who had gained interest through Nixon's vid
broadcasts and the media frenzy which he had inspired. Off to one
side was Nixon himself, flanked by two soldiers in civilian attire
and mirror shades. Clinton Oestrike rested in a folding lawn chair.
Farther off was a scattering of mixed types, arcology dwellers,
some possible spacers, and those who fit no easy category. Several
groups carrying enhanced vid equipment, shaggy with cables,
wandered about.
"Ahem," Groote continued. "As you well know, those who left
the planet Earth did so because they ceased to care. They ceased to
care about our children, and about what kind of society we would
leave for them. They cared more for their own hedonistic self-
interest, what they called freedom. This is not our freedom, what
these people want is freedom from responsibility. The wanton
proclivities of these people are well known: sexual excess, and in
all deviant varieties, drugs, yes, drugs, and ? ahem ? strange
occult practices. Again, this is a poor example for the children of
America.
"Unfortunately, this example is passed to our children through
the popular music and vid with which these people inundate the
computer network. What many parents may not understand is that this
music is just the outward form of their pagan, and, dare I say it,
satanic, beliefs and practices."
The crowd seemed duly impressed.
Nixon glanced over at the pocket-sized vid unit that one of
the soldiers held in his lap. In the small flatscreen, he could see
Groote's thin image, her arms gesticulating.
He looked up at the crowd, at the overweight and middle-aged
old-earth types immediately before him. Something glimpsed between
the bloated bodies caught his eye, a slender form which stood out
in the crowd. It was a young woman, apparently an arcology dweller,
or maybe even a spacer. She had short dark hair and wore a tight-
fitting sheath which displayed her sleek figure to advantage. Nice,
Nixon thought, very nice.
He watched as the woman strolled over to a tree and sat down
under it, on the freshly-mowed lawn.
"America must be free again!" Henrietta Groote exclaimed.
The crowd cheered.
Nixon glanced up and saw Groote's wildly waving arms. It had
taken a full week of coaching and three tiny blue pills which Neal
Severant had provided to make her comfortable enough to speak
before a crowd.
He looked back over at the young woman. She was sitting
against the base of the tree, listening intently to the speech.
Nixon admired the way her body seemed to be poured into her
clothing. As he watched, the woman was joined by two others,
another woman who was nearly as attractive, and a thin young man
dressed only in a pair of thin, hemp-cloth shorts. They sat and
offered the first woman a drink from a soft-sided canteen.
Groote was shouting now: "Join together! Join together! We
must join together and stand strongly against our enemies!"
The pills must have done something, Nixon thought. I didn't
think the old bag had that much enthusiasm left in her!
One of the soldiers let out a fetid and moderately noisy fart.
Nixon turned to look at him, along with the other nearest half
dozen people. The soldier looked nervously down at his shoes.
"Yo," the other soldier commented, waving a hand under his
nose. "You been eating rotten meat, or what?"
Two more young men joined the group under the tree. Nixon
watched as one of them produced a fat joint, set it smoldering and
passed it around.
Nixon nudged one of the soldiers ? the one who farted ? and
nodded his head in the direction of the dopesmoking spacers. The
soldier recovered his professional demeanor and strolled as
nonchalantly as he was able through the crowd and around behind the
tree.
"Go for it!" The scrawny old woman on the stage shouted. "Go
for it! Go for it! Yeah! Yeah!"
That wasn't in the script, Nixon thought. But anyway, the
crowd seemed to be buying it.
"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" The old-earthers were chanting. "Yeah!"
The soldier seemed to be unnoticed by the spacers, and he
lounged casually near them on the lawn, his head cocked just enough
to let the president know that he was still listening.
Henrietta Groote raised her arms and silenced the crowd.
Excellent, Nixon thought. She's getting this. She's really
getting good!
"In this chaotic world of ours," Groote proclaimed, "there is
only one thing that we can turn to, just one thing that will
consistently, time after time, save us from adversity, and that one
thing is..."
At that point Groote created a wonderfully pregnant pause,
which gave birth to something other than what she intended. A low,
prolonged toot issued out from behind a tree. It was a deep and
sudden sound, ripe and fruity.
Henrietta Groote lost her place, her mouth dropped open and
she stared, aghast, in the direction of the offending flatulence.
Everyone else also turned in that direction, and the soldier, who
had been trying to be as discreet as possible, found himself the
center of attention. About a dozen of the nearest old-earthers
could be seen covering their faces reflexively and hurrying away.
The group of spacers, who had been closest to him, began to laugh.
"I love the sounds of nature this time of year," one of them
said, and they cracked up even harder.
"Finally," chortled another, "an honest response to Henrietta
Groote!"
"It wasn't me," the soldier protested. "Stop looking at me. I
didn't do it!"
"Well!" Groote said into her microphone. "Well!"
"STOP STARING AT ME!" the soldier cried, leaping to his feet.
"I DIDN'T DO IT!" He looked around wildly. "IT WAS HIM!" He pointed
at one of the laughing young men.
Everyone turned to look at the man. He had brown skin and a
crop of short, unruly dreadlocks crowning his head. He wore a
brown, hemp-cloth shirt, hand-painted with a psychedelic paisley
design, and baggy brown trousers.
When the man saw the crowd staring at him, he raised one hand
and wagged it before him. "No," he chuckled. "No. Not me."
"It was him!" the soldier said, still pointing. "It was the
lousy spacer!"
The word "spacer" was passed around through the crowd for a
few seconds, followed closely by the word "fart".
"Well!" said Groote.
"It was the disgusting spacer!" the soldier continued. "It
wasn't me."
"Well!" said Groote. "Spacer! You think you can disrupt this
gathering? Do you think you can do that? Have you no respect?"
The young man stopped laughing. "Uh...," he said, looking up
at the glaring old-earthers.
Nixon nudged the soldier who had remained by his side. "Call
reinforcements," the president said. "Just in case."
"Let's get him," someone in the crowd said.
The soldier near Nixon carefully set his pocket vid unit down
on the ground and leisurely unclipped a small cellular broadcaster
from his belt. He thoughtfully punched some buttons and then
muttered into the mouthpiece.
"There appears to be some disruption in the crowd," said a
thin voice from the pocket vid.
"We will prevail against you!" said Henrietta Groote.
"Prevail!" someone shouted.
"I'll take care of this," said the farting soldier, who had
regained his composure somewhat. He advanced toward the accused
spacer.
"We have an unconfirmed report," said the voice from the vid,
"that a disruptive group of spacers ignited a stink-bomb or
chemical weapon of some sort..."
The spacer backed slowly away from the soldier, his open palms
displayed in a gesture of peace. The soldier continued forward.
"We've got ten men within walking distance," said the non-
flatulent soldier. "They'll be here in a matter of minutes."
"Thank you," said Nixon.
The amplified howl of Henrietta Groote echoed across the mall.
"HAVE YOU NO RESPECT, YOU DISGUSTING, OBSCENE, PERVERTED, FOUL...
SPACER!"
The farting soldier made a grab for the spacer's arm, but the
spacer twisted suddenly and was out of reach. The soldier charged,
but suddenly the spacer was in a martial arts crouch, and the
soldier was deflected, falling back into a group of old-earth
women. He disentangled himself from a whining matron and was back
on his feet, a gun in his hand.
"We've identified the man with the gun as one of President
Nixon's personal bodyguards, a member of the newly reformed secret
service. He seems to have brought the disruptive spacers to bay..."
"Get those troops in here now!" Nixon said.
"GOSH DARN HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE, AWFUL, NO GOOD... SHITS!!"
Groote howled.
The soldier leveled his gun, muttering curses as he advanced
on the spacer. The gun roared, but the spacer had dropped to the
ground, rolled and come up beneath the soldier's gun arm, knocking
the gun from the soldier's grip and throwing the soldier to the
ground. The bullet struck the arm of an elderly man, who screamed
in agony. The spacer scrambled across the grass and retrieved the
gun.
"Whoa! Something's going on!" Nixon heard the vid unit say.
Four soldiers in brand-new khaki uniforms came jogging through
the crowd. They stopped, guns drawn, when they saw the spacer with
the pistol.
"I've been shot!" The elderly man shouted, clutching his arm.
"Oh! Help! I've been shot!"
The new arrivals looked at the old man, then at the spacer
with the gun, then at their comrade with mirror shades who remained
sprawled on the lawn. They took aim.
The secret-service-soldier who had remained near Nixon grabbed
the president and began to hustle him away from the melee.
As they made for an official bubble car parked nearby, Nixon
heard the shots.
68. 23 NEWS, HEH HEH, UPDATE
"The top story tonight," Mark O'Connor smiled, "is the
disruption of a Pro-American rally in Washington, D.C., this
afternoon. According to an official report from the White House,
the rally, led by industrialist Henrietta Groote, was interrupted
when a group of spacers detonated a chemical weapon in the crowd.
Heh heh. We have some footage."
The playback started with a view of Henrietta Groote, waving
her arms about in the sun. She stopped speaking, a look of horror
on her face. The camera panned across the crowd to show old-
earthers fleeing from the area near the tree.
"This is a secret service agent who was attending the rally as
a bodyguard of President Nixon," O'Connor commented. "He arrived
with astonishing swiftness and immediately took command of the
situation. It makes one marvel a bit at how fast and how thoroughly
Mr. Nixon is restoring things. Unfortunately, as you see, he is
outnumbered."
The soldier could be seen firing his gun and being tossed to
the ground by the spacer.
"But the cavalry came to the rescue and the disturbance was
quelled. The elderly man to the left of the image, heh heh, was
apparently injured by the chemical bomb."
The recording stopped as the soldiers drew their guns.
"Apparently several members of the audience were injured in
the terrorist attack, and one spacer was killed. This is the third
reported incident of violence involving spacer dissidents in the
last six days.
"Violence also flared elsewhere on the globe when government
forces in the republic of Russia stormed the headquarters of the
AGRI Collective, a huge complex near Moscow which had apparently
been engaged in various illegal and anti-government actions. The
fighting reportedly ended in a stalemate and troops of the newly
reorganized government are now entrenched around the complex.
Throughout the rest of the Russian state, government troops are
reportedly re-establishing order. President Nixon reports that U.S.
Cabinet member Neal Severant has traveled to the area, and has
offered U.S. aid to the government freedom fighters.
"In other news of importance, rock and roll superstar Paul
McCartney said that his current tour of major world cities will
continue in spite of his well-publicized health problems. Although
critics have panned the tour, saying that McCartney's performance
was 'tired', and that the gray-haired rocker was losing his voice,
audiences are still flocking to arenas..."
69. STAR TRAIN
Nixon enjoyed his second flight in a spin drive craft much
more than his first. The car itself was magnificent, a big, old
Lincoln, black, sleek and polished, with the words "Air Force One"
painted across the sides.
They soared up from the White House lawn, Marcia Bounty waving
goodbye from the front steps. The ride was smooth and silent, and
the big, plush interior of the Lincoln gave a greater sense of
security than any helicopter. Outside, the sky was blue and
cloudless. Washington, glittering in the sun, dwindled away behind
them.
The car arced gracefully up to suborbital space, the sky
turning deep purple around them, then smoothly cruised back down
into the atmosphere. Nixon watched as the browns and greens of
southwestern North American expanded across the window.
They settled down comfortably in a desert compound, impromptu
military buildings scattered around inside a chain-link fence. One
end of the installation looked like a used car lot, a variety of
old vehicles, sports cars, sedans, station wagons, trucks and vans
were parked in orderly rows. Beyond that, three rows of old police
cars sat in various stages of disassembly. Beyond that, a phalanx
of tanks. And beyond that was an enormous, sand-colored tent.
Major Disaster eagerly scrambled up to Air Force One and
opened the door for the president. "Welcome, sir."
Nixon was led through the compound and presented with a
variety of marvels. He nodded appreciatively at flying
demonstrations, Fords and Chevrolets loop-the-looping through the
desert sky. He watched a drill of soldiers being taught to invade
an enclosed space environment. He looked at spacesuits, energy
weapons, and the humming, rotating magnets of the spin drives.
Finally, the major brought Nixon to the entrance flap of the
big tent. "This is our biggest surprise, sir," Disaster said.
The officer led the president into the dim coolness. It took
Nixon's eyes a few moments to adjust to the relative darkness; he
could make out a big, long shape looming in the center of the tent.
Disaster hit a switch and floodlights came on.
It was a locomotive.
It was a locomotive with some differences. It had a big engine
that once housed a mighty diesel, and it had one passenger car. The
railroad wheels had been replaced with fat rubber airplane tires
and a kind of shock-absorbing system. The windows seemed different,
thicker, more elaborately sealed. Protruding from the nose of the
engine was about ten feet of thick tube, the muzzle of some huge
weapon.
Nixon's heart pounded. He was speechless. He loved it.
70. OBJECTIVE
Major Disaster led the president into the cockpit of the
spacecraft.
"That big thing sticking out the front," the major said, "is
the rail gun that Mr. Severant was discussing. We only tested the
thing twice, 'cause, well, it really fucks things up, if you get my
drift. First time we fired it into the side of a mountain ? well,
there wasn't much left of that mountain afterwards ? blast like a
little atom bomb. Really loud. It shook the ground for about fifty
miles around. Nothing's gonna cross this baby and live to tell
about it!"
"Uh, Major," Nixon asked, "what about the engines? Do they
work? Has this been flown yet?"
"Yes, sir. We're stilling tuning them, but we've taken this
baby out a couple of times. Only at night, of course. Everything's
pretty much ready. We're ready for our first objective."
"As we discussed," Nixon said, "the first objective should be
an easy hit, a quick and successful military move to show that
we're back and we mean business. Have you had any thoughts on
that?"
"Yes, sir. One of the smart boys we hired to hook up the spin
drives told us about a piece of American property which is up in
space, and apparently occupied illegally by spacers. The Freedom
Space Platform, sir."
"Uh, huh," said Nixon. "I remember when they were planning
that. I thought it was a good idea. Was it ever finished? I don't
recall."
"I don't know that it was ever finished, sir. But it's still
up there. We can track it on radar. And there are definitely
spacers living there. Squatters, sir. Invaders. And a lot of them,
based on their broadcasts."
"Are they armed? What are their defenses?"
"What defenses? They don't have shit. Sir."
"All right, Major. I want a full report on the Freedom
Platform. This sounds like a good one, if we can get in there
quick, with minimum loss of American life."
"Hot damn!" said the major. "Hot shit! I knew you'd like it!
I knew it!"
"Major," Nixon said, "if you don't mind ? could I just sit
here by myself for a few minutes?"
71. A DAYDREAM
The mighty spin drive throbbed underneath him as he guided the
train through an endless night of stars. Planets rushed past,
comets, asteroids, alien spacecraft, exotic landscapes in many
colors. Martha was by his side, proud, smiling, glamorous.
He was
CaseyJonesJohnWayneLukeSkywalkerGeorgePattonFlashGordanDwight-
EisenhowerJamesTKirk... savior of the universe, mighty phallic-
firing weapon at the fore. And at the same time he was emissary of
America, statesman to the solar system, bold diplomat to strange
and foreign lands.
Up ahead, a horde of enemy vehicles: Nissans, Yugos, Toyotas,
Hondas, Volkswagens, Fiats, Mercedes, Mitsubishis. He pushed on the
handle and the mighty engine roared, the locomotive hurtled
forward. Spacers, hippies, SDS, SLA, Black Panthers, Viet Cong in
brown, hemp-colored spacesuits leaned from their windows, firing
guns and lasers. Bullets and rays slammed against the heavy steel
of the train.
He grabbed the handles of the gunsight and lined up the
crosshairs on the biggest spacer craft, a Volkswagen van with
dozens of spacers hanging from the windows. He fired and the giant
rail gun shuddered through the structure of the locomotive.
Outside, a brilliant, symmetrical explosion, the van demolished
instantly. He turned and aimed at the next one, an Accord jammed
with spacer terrorists, and let fly again. A solid hit, a beautiful
flash of light. The bombs bursting in air, the rockets' red glare,
swirling eddy I Judeo-Christian such a solution.
And the spacers turned tail, they were retreating, he was
victorious. He would negotiate a fair treaty with them, one that
all the world would respect. It would go down in history. It would
unite the people of Earth and space. He was JohnGeorgeDwight-
JonesSkywalkerCaseyTJamesGordanFlashKirkLukePattonWayneEisenhower
... mighty phallic firing bring...
72. FREEDOM
Freedom Colony was an orbiting trailer park.
Several hundred mobile homes, recreational vehicles, and
house-trailers of various kinds floated out in every direction from
a central core of six white, stubby cylinders, the whole network
strung together with fat connecting tubes, skeletal girders and
wide, shiny fans of solar collectors.
Essence piloted the big white Oldsmobile into a makeshift-
looking docking bay. The door to the bay closed behind them and
soon they could hear the faint hissing of atmosphere being pumped
into the chamber.
"Thanks, Essence," Diana said. "I appreciate it."
"You sure you don't want me to stay a little while?" Essence
asked.
"No, I'll be all right. Give me a call when you're heading
back up out of the well."
A green light came on in the docking bay. They kissed
affectionately and Diana unsealed the heavy door of the Olds and
climbed out. She gave her friend a last wave, then pushed off into
the mouth of a connecting tube.
She closed the airlock behind her and floated still for a
moment, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dim lighting of the
tube. Behind her she could hear the whine of compressors sucking
the air back out of the docking bay.
From down the tube Diana could see someone floating toward
her. In the pale fluorescent light it was a strange figure,
elongated and unusually white. The man got closer and Diana
realized that he was a permanent.
His limbs were thin and spidery, almost skeletal, the muscles
atrophied from years of no exercise in a microgravity environment,
and his skin was fishbelly pale. He wore only a flapping loincloth
which did little to hide the only part of his body that did not
appear withered.
"Diana Stuart?" the man said slowly.
"Yeah," Diana said. "How do you do?"
"Fine," the man said, snaking a hand toward Diana. She shook
the hand gingerly. "I'm Trent. I'm, uh, a fan of yours. And the
band. I volunteered to come welcome you. Welcome to Freedom."
A grin spread gradually across Trent's face.
"Thanks Trent. I'm flattered."
"There's a party in the hub. C'mon."
73. THE HUB
Diana drifted along the tube behind Trent for what seemed like
a long time. They reached an airlock set against a curved white
wall. A faded American flag was painted on the door, as well as an
equally worn NASA logo. The outer door opened with some difficulty
and they climbed inside. The inner door was even more difficult,
particularly for the frail permanent, and Diana had to lend a hand.
As Trent pushed the lock closed behind them, Diana took in the
view. The cylinder was the size of, perhaps, a small studio
apartment, but it was all floor, carpet running all the way around
the inside. People were spread out in groups across the whole
surface, tethered to clips hidden in the carpet. A few floated
free, or on longer tethers, in the central part of the room. Diana
quickly realized that most of them were permanents.
"I didn't realize that Freedom was a permanent colony," she
said to Trent.
"Oh, anyone can live here."
Trent pushed off in the direction of the nearest group and
Diana followed. Most of the people in the group were naked, which
was common enough in space habitats, and Diana felt a strange
erotic thrill to see these O.Z.-enlarged, healthy-looking penises,
breasts and vulvas juxtaposed against the spidery, atrophied
permanent bodies.
When in Rome, she thought, unzipping the front of her own
shirt. She enjoyed the feeling as her breasts adjusted to
weightlessness.
The party was languid and sexual; permanents were not inclined
to move much or rapidly, preferring to simply float in the their
womb-like space homes, but hands dallied lightly at gently
throbbing erections, puckered nipples and glistening vaginas. Music
undulated through the air, rich and hypnotic, slower and spacier
than the kind of thing that Diana was accustomed to playing. Small
bubbling water pipes passed gradually from mouth to mouth, a faint
haze of pungent exhaled smoke sliding into the recirculation
streams.
Trent tethered himself, his arms and legs going slack, and
floated with the group. Diana grabbed a handhold recessed into the
carpet and steadied herself against the wall.
Heads nodded on thin necks in recognition when Trent
introduced her to the group.
"Peace in the womb of Nuit," said someone.
"Peace," she said.
A water pipe floated toward her and she filled her lungs with
cool smoke.
"What brings you here?" someone else said softly.
"I'm looking for Nicholas Palmer."
"Oh. He's around here somewhere..."
74. PALMER
Diana moved slowly through the party. Thin, gentle hands
reached out to her as she floated by, stroking the well-developed
muscles of her thighs, or the soft skin of a breast. Friendly,
languid smiles. Offered water pipes, an inhaler of something which
made her nipples and her cunt tingle. The room seemed to glow with
pastel radiance.
"Palmer? Oh. He's around here somewhere..."
She noticed that her clothing was gone. She copulated slowly
with a man whose large, engorged cock sent pleasant spasms of
electricity up her spine.
"Nicholas Palmer? Around here somewhere..."
Drifting, floating, tethered to the wall, her finger in her
own vagina, listening to the music.
"I don't know... around here..."
After some time she saw a man floating very still, eyes
closed. A little bit of sparkling light seemed to play in the air
around him. His face was familiar. She had seen it before, before
he had become a permanent, perhaps... It had to be... Nicholas
Palmer.
The face was thinner, but recognizable. His arms and legs were
impossibly long and bony; he had been a long time without gravity
or exercise, longer than most of those in the room. She drifted
over beside him and touched his chest with the palm of her hand.
His eyes opened for a brief moment. "Bring us," he whispered,
and his eyes closed again.
Diana floated up against him, tethered herself to the same
anchor that he drifted up from, and curled herself comfortably
around his thin body. She stroked him. His penis roused to a half
erection and Diana caressed it lightly, but his eyes remained
closed and he did not move. Diana's consciousness wandered off into
the borderlands of dream.
75. I WAS SO CLOSE...
Diana awoke somewhat groggily, a haze of party-aftermath
clouding her mind. She realized that she floated up against a thin,
incredibly bony body, and she reflexively pushed away, grabbing a
handhold on the wall. As she looked at the permanent, she began to
recall the events of the party. She looked at him and breathed a
sigh of relief. Here were some answers, perhaps.
She looked around the room and saw that the cylinder was
empty, the remains of the party mostly cleaned up. Palmer appeared
pretty much the same; he showed no sign of consciousness. She
floated closer and touched his shoulder.
"Nicholas..."
He did not respond.
"Nicholas..."
No response.
Diana realized that she was quite hungry. She untethered and
floated toward the middle of the cylinder where a door to a large
connecting tube interrupted the carpeted wall. She slipped through
into another hub cylinder and found a room where v.r. workstations
ran all the way around the wall. Out of about thirty or so
stations, only two were occupied.
From another door on the other side of the cylinder, a woman
drifted in who appeared to be not quite as physically atrophied as
most of the people Diana had seen at the party. She smiled at Diana
and pushed off from the wall to meet her.
"Hi," Diana said. "I just got here and I'm wondering if
there's someplace I can get some food."
"Why are you still here?" the woman asked.
"Like I said, I just got here."
"Don't you know?"
"What?"
"We heard it on the news a few hours ago. The United States of
America, President Nixon, has declared war on Freedom."
"On freedom? Oh... on the colony?"
"Yes, the colony. They claim it as U.S. property. A lot of
folks have already left. You should too. You don't belong here."
"But... Nicholas Palmer... I came here to find him. He's still
unconscious from the party."
"And he'll probably stay that way. He's been like that for
years. He rouses every once in a while and has a little bit to eat.
Doesn't seem to need very much. He just floats, the most permanent
of all permanents. I'm leaving right now. Come with me."
"Let me get Palmer."
"Okay. Be quick."
Diana went back to where Palmer floated, exactly as he had
been.
She shook him. "Nicholas!"
She shook him again. His eyelids fluttered, one leg drifted up
a little bit away from the other. "Nicholas!"
His lips parted a bit. "B... R..."
The woman stuck her head into the cylinder. "There's craft
approaching from low orbit," she said. "Come on! Just unhitch him
and..."
Diana grabbed Palmer's tether and unclipped it from the wall.
She pulled on it.
Palmer's body swiveled around, his leg bounced off the wall,
and his eyes blearily opened. "Huh? Wha?"
"Come on, Nicholas," Diana said urgently. "Earther ships are
coming. We've got to go." She pulled the tether.
Palmer flipped around and grabbed a handhold. "No," he said.
"Just let me... I was so close..."
A thud, something striking against the outside of the
cylinder, echoed through the space.
"I'm outa here!" called the woman from the hatch. She
disappeared, the tube entrance banging closed.
"Come on, Palmer!" Diana commanded. She braced herself against
the wall and pulled. Palmer's weak hand lost its grip and the two
of them swung off into the center of the cylinder, orbiting each
other, and bounced off the wall on the other side. Another dull
boom shook the cylinder.
Diana held onto the tether until she swung around and came
against the wall again. She grabbed a handhold and tried to steady
Palmer, whose arms and legs were windmilling in slow, weightless
motion.
The airlock at one end of the cylinder was cycling.
"Come on, Palmer!"
"Let me go. You go..."
"No!"
The airlock opened and spacesuited soldiers floated in,
weapons at the ready.
76. MEMORIES OF INITIATION
The Macintosh on the dashboard emitted a mellow tone, waking
Stu from a light sleep. He had been having a pleasant dream about
flying, soaring over a country road in his boyhood Britain, then
rising up through blue skies and racing through the stars. He took
a deep breath, then made his way to the driver's seat and looked at
the computer's screen. He had arrived.
What would it be? he wondered. What could this initiation
possibly be? His heart beat with anticipation.
The view from the windshield showed nothing but stars. The bus
was holding its position high above the plane of the ecliptic, far
from the clutter and debris of the solar system proper. It was
remote and isolated, quite empty.
Stu checked his coordinates. He was where he was supposed to
be, and right on time. His initiators, apparently, were late.
This is part of it, Stu thought. I'm supposed to wait. They
always do this. All right, I'll wait.
There are a number of ways to pass the time, he reflected.
Some type of meditation is traditional. What will it be?
He took a joint from a cubbyhole and fired it up. He toked
with deep, easy breaths, lungs filling fully. He felt muscles in
his legs, his arms, his back, his face relax. He floated loosely in
his tether, the ambient, slow flicker of the spin drive playing
across his closed eyelids. He could hear the hum of onboard
systems, and the silence of deep space.
Ah, this will do nicely, he thought.
A thought came into his head, a memory of being five years old
and going to school for the first time. His mother waved goodbye.
She waved and waved forever, until finally he was gone. Stu's heart
leaped with the memory, pounded in his chest with the anticipation
and fear that he had felt.
He opened his eyes. A strange thing to think of now, he
considered. I haven't remembered that in half a lifetime...
Another deep toke and he allowed his eyes to close again.
Another image was there, waiting. Her name was Vicky, a beautiful,
dark-haired girl who went to his school. She was so perfect, he had
admired her for over a year. She gave him little smiles, sometimes,
beautiful, sweet little smiles, and he knew he had to ask her out.
His heart pounded with the anticipation and he was Manchester. He
waited in the a dancing god free yourself there is his teacher had
the concentrated Palmer like this, my friend. He waited in the
clothing. Information there was no together...
Another time, another life. A dark room, rich tapestries hung
all around, barely visible meanders. Soon they would call for him
and his heart pounded. What would it be? He had heard a drug... But
they had strong magick, the priests of this forbidden, universal
cult. From the dawn of time, they had told him, when he first
visited the meeting room in the alleyway. He had heard an ordeal,
either you lived and became a true man, or you died...
He had touched Vicky's breast, gingerly, tenderly. It was warm
and surprisingly soft. She had sucked in her breath a little, and
he felt the nipple grow taut. He had never felt like this, but it
seemed like an ancient memory... He wore women's for you Nuit like
this a woman. Then until the alchemist information said. Unless
there was no to learn other way and fire he became initiated...
His penis had become erect, still a strange sensation, and the
knife bit sharply into the foreskin, causing him to bite down hard
on the wad of sacred herbs whose pungent aroma filled his head. He
firmly stifled a scream behind his clenched teeth. All would know
he was a man now and soon he would be told the ways of the warrior-
shaman, he would learn to carry the magick spear, to pick and
prepare the sacred plants, to stalk silently and persistently. Pain
like death...
"For what reason have you come to us?"
The big chamber was dark and he was fettered to the wall,
chains around his ankles. His heart beat with anticipation. They
came at him from all sides, with hissing torches and guns. They
moved with ritual grace, methodically, slowly, giving him enough
time to think, but the torches were soon warm on his skin, and the
threat, "Free yourself or die!" He pulled the chains from his legs
and pushed off, a bullet whizzing just below him...
"Do you renounce all that you were?"
His nostrils stinging from the acrid stuff the brujo had blown
in there, the drumbeat drove him down through the earth, through
the realms of roots and blind crawling things. He fell through the
tunnel, falling, flying, motionless as the underworld roared by. A
world of light was around him, the place of spirits, and the jaguar
waited in a grove of sacred cacti. He embraced the jaguar, and it
tore him to shreds, devoured him, and he was reborn through the
cat's belly, as it's brother, the silent ways of the hunter in his
head, the unknown ways of the spirit place...
"This cannot be revealed, except to the initiate..."
Together he would not pyramid penis putrescence hope Nixon the
fan. Exceed force in the center realize be revealed would return
bring initiation us said... Time stretched before him and behind,
and all of it at once, a powerful energy, harmonious, from his
heart, linking these lives, quantum leaps of evolution...
"Thee, that didst create the darkness and the Light." The
growing force within made his arms and legs tingle with star
sparkling pins and pure will. The surety grew with each breath,
with each vibration of barbarous word, with each extension of
intent into the void. "Hear Thou Me, for I am the Angel of PTAH-
APOPHRASZ-RA: this is Thy True Name, handed down to the Prophets of
THELEMA." The power was in his heart, the golden glory of
tiphareth, flaring outward, exploding into silent sureness. "I am
He, the Begetter and Manifester unto the Light!" And his heart and
his soul would evermore fill with lyrics...
He heard a drug devour you to offer up he heard an ordeal. The
last morsel of you, the pyramid anarchy. His teacher had infinite
nothingness. There might of evolution death red sand tiphareth die
or become. The musicians played a stately psychedelic march as he
Diana floated together up to the altar to be married for the first
time, the third time, the eighth time, having sight in the feet
shall Marcia he heard a drug death... The ritual of weightless
consummation, their friends silent and watching...
For what reason bring the face beyond space and give it away.
Thelema lyrics Stu this time are you willing the love. Tiphareth is
dewdrop be to offer up human. The sarcophagus was cold, darkness
closing in as the lid fell into place, his heart beat with fear and
anticipation. He would suffocate in here, he would sweat and
wonder. The sweat felt clammy, uncomfortable against the cool
stone. The fear of death took him, for he would see death, if not
die... A breath, he took a deep breath, relax, he thought, breathe,
and he could feel muscles in his face, his arms, his back, his legs
relax. And the light began to shine, the light that held him to
everything else that he experienced across ten thousand years of
many lifetimes and whatever was in between. The sand on the floor
he heard an ordeal shreds the pyramids... the lord initiating
getting near Horus you will no pour everything forth the end are
you willing... A consciousness of consciousness greater than
comprehension within limits...
And he opened his eyes. He remembered to breathe. The joint,
still in his hand, had gone out. The computer was beeping softly.
A flashing icon on the screen indicated an incoming message. He
shook the visions from his head and tapped on the keyboard. A
written message appeared in a window framed against the spin drive
indicator:
"Stu ? Sorry, unable to meet you. Please rendezvous Cydonia,
Mars."
77. OPERATION STAR STORM
The soldiers did a quick reconnaissance from the hatchway and
then stormed into the cylinder. In an instant they were floating
free, foundering, disoriented, clumsily bouncing off the carpeted
walls. Several of them, the last ones to come through, clung
tightly to handholds on either side of the airlock, too fearful to
let go. One remembered to pull the inner door shut and seal it.
Another, who had been cartwheeling through the center of the
cylinder, managed to grab onto the wall with one hand, hastily
undogged his helmet with the other hand and spewed a stream of
vomit into the air.
Diana watched incredulously, still holding a handhold and the
free end of Palmer's tether, keeping them both close to the wall.
Palmer looked confused, but this had been his state since Diana had
awakened him.
Two of the soldiers who had clustered around the airlock began
to make their way slowly in the direction of the two spacers,
crawling along the wall, grabbing onto every handhold. Another
soldier rebounded off the wall and drifted into the recirculation
stream where he was immediately engulfed in globules of fresh
vomit. The stench was beginning to fill the room.
The soldier who had barfed was trying to wipe his face on the
rubbery fabric of his spacesuit sleeve, coughing out orders at the
same time. "Fall in, urrrp, ack, men. Come on, everybody...
aaaaaack! Fall in."
The men still wore their helmets; they could not hear him.
The wall-crawling soldiers made it over to where Diana and
Palmer huddled and laboriously tethered themselves to the wall.
They undid their helmets, grimacing at the sour smell. Finally,
when they felt secure enough, they managed to point their rifles at
the spacers.
"Don't these people own any clothes?" one of the soldiers
asked.
"I don't know," said the other. "The stringbean's girlfriend
is real cute. Lookit those jugs."
"Yeah, they just kinda float there."
Diana clipped Palmer to the wall, so that she could have a
free hand. She gave them the finger.
78. A WAD OF BAZOOKA
"In our top story," grinned Mark O'Connor, "United States
troops have stormed the Freedom Space Platform, liberating it, heh
heh, from spacer forces. According to the Pentagon, a well-
coordinated squadron quickly penetrated spacer defenses and
reclaimed the orbiting installation which was originally launched
by the United States in the middle nineteen-nineties.
"General Harold Havoc, commander of U.S. forces for what has
been dubbed Operation Star Storm, explained the action at a press
conference this afternoon."
The vid image of General Havoc appeared behind O'Connor, then
zoomed up to fill the display.
Voice of unseen reporter: General, can you tell us if there
were any casualties?
General Havoc: So far there has only been one American
casualty, and only a few minor injuries. I cannot comment on spacer
casualties at this time. Some prisoners have been taken.
Reporter: What kind of defenses did our troops encounter on
their approach to the space platform?
General Havoc: Er, the spacers have the largest fleet of
spacecraft ever assembled in recorded history. Our action depended
largely on, er, timing and coordination. I cannot comment on
specifics of the offensive since that would affect the security of
ongoing operations.
Reporter: There was some question of whether Earth-trained
troops could function effectively in a space maneuver. Was that a
problem?
General Havoc: Our troops were well prepared and, er, um, they
performed courageously.
Reporter: What attempts were made to negotiate with the
spacers before the attack was initiated?
General Havoc: Um, well, that is not part of my job. I can say
that President Nixon released a statement saying that there was no
grounds for negotiation, that the Freedom Platform was clearly
United States property which was being illegally occupied. The
spacers had adequate warning of Operation Star Storm. They were
asked to evacuate, but chose to ignore the warning.
Reporter: Is it true that you entered the military because you
were insecure about your penis size?
General Havoc: Well... I, er... Who the hell are you, anyway?!
Reporter: I'm from the Howard Stern Show, sir. Is it true that
your organ resembles a thoroughly chewed wad of Bazooka, sir?
General Havoc: Stern, eh? Oh. Well, then. I, er, cannot
comment on that because it might affect the security of ongoing
operations...
79. A DREAM
Nixon sat on the throne, a victorious king, at peace in his
castle while the crusades raged in faraway lands. Queen Martha sat
beside him, her breasts an endless night of stars smiling. He
danced with Tricia, the last happy days.
"Corrupt by the time. What about Watergate?" said the slippery
opening in the stone ceiling, a milky light shining through.
He slid it in, feeling it tight around his cock, and the slit
was Marcia, who had become Queen and they rode weightless upward,
outward, anywhere. Bounty greedy hard-on spin drive throbbed as
planets rushed past the locomotive success. As they accelerated
away from the Earth, his royal robes began to crumble into greenish
pungent excrement. His head hurt, his cock was enormous, pulling
him on into the void. No scandal, not the defeat of the spacers the
threat of anarchy from space will criminals out of hand BRING.
He fired, and the shot raced through the normal curvature of
space, dissolving, rectifying, returning, to strike him from
behind, a hard turd up the ass. He took aim again ? they must be
destroyed ? and defensive build-up into the money roaring the
tunnel hemp factors him as he guided cunt. A kick up the butt, his
father's foot, there was wrongdoing done. Assholes, assholes,
assholes. He lost his erection.
"Come on," said Martha, her dress the color of purple nights,
stars sparkling from pubic pyramid. "To me. To me."
But he could not go... His asshole was cemented TOGETHER an
entire planet up his ass. The promise of roaring of three hundred
and fifty thousand but the victory of plenty over want... there was
now US the man went back hard-on as his light-filled mind of health
over disease into the touchdown.
80. IT LOOKS BIG
"I shouldn't be here," Nixon said. "It's not right."
"Oh, come on, Dick. Every time you come here, I get the same
speech." Marcia smiled, rubbing against him. "But as soon as your
cock gets hard, it's a different story entirely."
She playfully grabbed at his pants. He flinched away, but his
cock had other ideas and began, once again, to swell.
This is ridiculous, he thought. Since I was rejuvenated the
damn thing's been hard more often than not. I must learn to control
this. I must...
"Mmmmm," said Marcia, her hand massaging the growing bulge.
"See what I mean? Your twentieth century brain says no, but your
twenty-first century body says, okay, let's go!"
"Okay," Nixon sighed, temporarily resigning the Quaker voice
in his brain to the O.Z. in his body, "let's go."
"Well, hang on a minute," Marcia said. "I'm expecting a
friend."
"A friend? What? Now?"
"Soon, I think. Come on, let's sit on the couch and smoke a
joint."
Over the last couple months, the smoke had become a pleasant
preliminary to these clandestine meetings in Marcia's apartment.
Always, at first, some part of him still rebelled from using what
he consciously considered to be a dangerous narcotic, and he felt
his heart race with a surge of anxiety as the first few tokes took
effect. But the nurse had an excellent bedside manner and he
quickly felt more at ease, more aware of his body and his
surroundings. The anticipatory throbbing in his cock seemed to
spread throughout his body, becoming more gentle, more a thing of
light and fluid sound than just physical yearning.
He exhaled a great cloud of smoke. "So, uh, your friend...
who..."
"I think you'll like her."
"But I thought we had agreed that no one... no one should
know..."
"She's all right, Dick. You'll like her." She gave his cock a
squeeze. "Mmmm... and I think she'll like you..."
The door emitted a tone and Marcia went to the door. The woman
who entered was black, tall, her head framed with a wild mass of
thick dreads. Marcia took the woman's robe and Nixon saw that
underneath she wore little more than two, thin scraps of cloth. One
scrap floated over her breasts, doing little to conceal enormous
jutting nipples. The other scrap rode the curve of her hips,
offering tantalizing glimpses of rounded buttocks as she walked
into the room.
"Dick, I'd like you to meet Essence..."
Essence gave him a lovely smile. Courtesy demanded that Nixon
stand, to shake her hand or offer a seat, but the hard-on demanded,
for the sake of dignity, that he remain seated. He tried to cross
his legs, to somehow hide the three-man tent in his lap.
Essence slid onto the couch, next to him, very close.
Nixon looked at her closely. "Have we... er... met before? I
mean, have I seen..."
"I think I might remember that," said Essence. "Are you really
the president?"
"Um... I... Yes..."
Marcia just stood for a moment, watching them, smiling
slightly. Nixon felt awkward; he didn't know what to say. A
kaleidoscope swirling of sexual fantasies stormed through his head.
A black woman... he had heard how they were... could he measure up?
Would it be different?
"Dick... Marcia said I should call you Dick."
"Uh huh."
"That's a good name for you."
"Huh?"
"It's phallic. You're president; you're the alpha male. And
you do seem full of... hmmmm... life force."
Her gaze had quite frankly fallen to his crotch.
"It looks big," Essence said.
81. TO ME
Somehow, Marcia had removed the giant water-mattress from the
room. The floor was now bare wood in the center, with thick rugs
along the outside.
Nixon felt a bit self-conscious; the women had made him remove
his clothing ? in fact, they had stripped him by trickery and force
? while remaining dressed themselves. Essence still wore her scanty
costume, and Marcia now wore a loose robe of some shiny purple
material. At first Nixon tried to cover his swollen cock, but the
stimulation of his hands over it ? and the lecherous glances from
the women ? only made it larger.
They made it clear that Dick was to sit by himself in a pile
of cushions on one side of the room. Next to him was placed a tray
containing an open bottle of champagne, glasses, and several fat
spliffs. Marcia gave his penis a long, tongue-squirming, deep-
throat kiss, then crossed the room to sit by a tall conga drum.
Essence took one of the joints from the tray and lit it,
taking a few long, slow tokes before passing it to Dick. As she did
this, Marcia began a rhythm on the drum.
The smoke from her last toke swirling behind her, Essence
began to dance. Nixon couldn't quite place what the rhythm was ?
African, perhaps, he thought ? but it was rapid, incessant. The
drumbeat seemed to reach inside him and squeeze his heart, to make
his pulse race through his body.
The dancer's body rippled with well-toned muscles and her
twists and turns offered, for a moment, a glimpse of a breast, the
darkness of pubic hair, a firm, round ass.
You know, Nixon thought, toking on the spliff, I like this.
This is really good. Most men only dream about this kind of thing.
Might as well relax and enjoy the show.
Marcia's rhythm seemed to increase in complexity and Essence
was now dancing in a way that was different from anything Nixon had
ever seen before. Her movements were still as erotic, as sensuous
as they had been from the start, but there was more. The sexuality
was an expression of something else, a natural force which seemed,
suddenly, to be expressing itself in every aspect, every fitting of
the room.
Nixon took another toke. He poured himself a glass of
champagne and sipped a little. He took a very deep breath.
Essence was dancing the way a field of grain waves in the
wind, the way a snake sheds its skin, the way a snowflake drifts
down from the sky. She seemed to be surrounded by a cloud of
sparkling lights.
Maybe it's just the pot, Nixon thought. I'm seeing things.
He watched Essence dance in a swirl of blue-white motes. He
was breathing very deeply.
This is actually quite pleasant, he thought. Ahh, I feel good.
He held his erect cock with one hand as he watched. He took
another toke.
The drum became the sound of the planet turning in its orbit,
the rhythm of stars making galactic orbits. Essence danced the way
a seedling rises from the earth, the way a comet's tail trails off
in the solar wind, the way that a rock erodes in the course of a
stream, the way water vapor crystallizes into cirrus clouds. It
felt like everything ? the music, the room, the dance, Essence,
Marcia, the champagne, the herb, the rugs on the floor, the grain
of the hardwood floor ? was part of a long, leisurely, stimulating
fuck.
The dancer was chanting something, but Nixon could not make
out the words. Naked now, the scraps of cloth having dissolved in
the wind of her movement, she danced over to Nixon and took him by
the hands, pulling him gently to his feet. There was a strength in
her, Nixon noticed, that was surprising, as if some current of
energy moved through her muscles. Her face seemed different now,
too, peaceful, ecstatic, her eyes dark and piercing, her hair a
wild, night-black fire about her head.
"Come," she said, her voice now seeming deeper, huskier.
"Dance..."
His body felt stiff, as if parts of it were resisting some
inner urge to move. It was as if the rhythm had gotten inside him
somehow and was working its way to the surface.
"Breathe," said the voice. "Breathe with me..."
And the rush took him, and he was dancing, his body, his cock
rubbing against smooth, dark skin, waves of lust and ecstasy
washing through him...
"To me," she said. "To me..."
82. CHEAP COAT
Nixon awoke on Marcia's couch, wrapped in a thin blanket and
an aura of sweat and sex-smells. His body felt loose, his mind
peaceful and slow. It seemed that he had been dreaming, but he
could remember nothing. He could not remember how he had come to be
on the couch. The last thing he knew, he had been dancing...
"Dick? Are you awake?"
He turned his head to see Marcia smiling down at him. "Mmm,"
he affirmed. "Yeah."
"How do you feel?"
"I feel good. I feel... good."
She leaned over and kissed him. "I'm glad. I had fun last
night. Did you?"
"Yeah..." He sat up slowly. "Where is, um, Essence?"
"She had to go early this morning. It's nearly noon now. Um...
There's something you should probably see..."
"Mmm, what's that?"
She fitted a v.r. headset over his eyes and ears. "This was on
the news this morning. I recorded it for you."
"Thanks," he said.
The vid image surrounded him and he found himself looking at
Mark O'Connor's morning newscast.
"Politics may be everything that we remember it to be,"
O'Connor was saying. "Late yesterday, this reporter was contacted
by an informed source who wishes to remain anonymous, identifying
himself only as 'Cheap Coat', heh heh. Cheap Coat has presented
some quite believable evidence which suggests that the recent
election of President Nixon was funded by a spacer terrorist
organization. I was shown some hard copies of financial records
which indicate a transfer of funds to President Nixon's campaign
account from a Central American bank which is widely known to
launder money for illegal extraterrestrial concerns. These funds
account for almost all of President Nixon's campaign expenses. In
fact, heh heh, absolutely no records could be found showing any
other contributions, from Earthly citizens, corporations, or anyone
else. The President could not be reached for comment.
"Cabinet Member Neal Severant, who returned to the United
States this morning from diplomatic duties in South America,
commented that he felt certain the president was innocent of such
charges, but if the accusations were true, Mr. Nixon's right to
remain in office should be seriously examined.
"In other news..."
Nixon tore the v.r. unit from his head.
Oh my god, he thought. Oh my god. Not again! And this time ?
really ? I didn't do anything... I didn't know... Well, I
suspected, but... Oh my god!
83. PRISONERS
The soldiers had given them some clothes, but Diana refused to
put them on. If nudity made their uptight old-earth brains
uncomfortable, then so much the better. And if their lust drove
them to try to attack her ? well, they were hopelessly
uncoordinated in free fall ? Diana hoped to break their legs, crush
their balls, bounce their heads off the carpeted walls.
The earthers had somehow locked the main hatchways and for the
most part left the spacers alone, trapped in the cylinder. Not that
it mattered; they had no spacesuits, and no craft to get to. They
could go nowhere. The soldiers reappeared at regular intervals, to
bring rations and to lech at Diana.
Palmer had remained conscious, but depressed. He moped about
how he had almost accomplished something, but Diana had trouble
understanding just what he was talking about.
They had a third companion in the cylinder, an American
soldier who was completely unconscious. Red lines, like a chaotic
old-earth roadmap, covered every inch of his skin ? exploded
capillaries which indicated that he had somehow been exposed to
vacuum. The other soldiers had tethered him securely to the wall
and left him there.
"Sure," Diana said, "I agree that meditation can help you
think more creatively. I've definitely had some experience with
that. And with ritual. Damn, I had knowledge and conversation with
the H.G.A. twenty years ago..."
"I'm talking about something different," Palmer said. "It's
not just creativity, not just unconscious revelation. It's...
it's... like there's a source of information... not the Holy
Guardian Angel... like tuning into something else, many minds,
another universe... The H.G.A., the gods, the sephiroth, are all
things defined in relation to humans... this is not."
"The only thing that keeps me from thinking you're completely
nuts with this stuff is the fact that you invented the spin drive."
"Yes! Yes!" Palmer exclaimed. "That's it exactly. That was the
proof for me. I didn't know anything about physics, or scalar
fields, or whatever. But I was able to build the damn thing and it
worked! And there was a lot more stuff, that I never published. And
there's something else, something beyond that. An evolutionary
change... a quantum leap in consciousness... I was close, Diana, I
was really close..."
"And you just stumbled over it the first time? The technique,
I mean."
"Not exactly stumbled... No... I had been researching Nikola
Tesla, the early twentieth century inventor. For a magazine
article. You know, Tesla was walking in a park one day, when he was
a young man, and suddenly it came to him... he saw it in his
head... the idea for the rotating magnetic field which made
alternating current possible. That one moment, that flash of
insight changed the world. It made it possible to bring electricity
everywhere... I was fascinated by that, obsessed..."
"Rotating magnets?" Diana asked. "Like the spin drive?"
"No coincidence," Palmer said. "It came from the same place.
You know, there are still people to this day who believe that Tesla
was an alien visitor to the Earth..."
"Was he?"
"No, of course not. He was Yugoslavian. But the information ?
where did that come from? Another coincidence of sorts: a writer in
the 1980's, Whitley Streiber, claimed that he was contacted by
aliens, and when he was a child they put the idea in his head for
a device which involved counter-rotating magnets. Well, he almost
burned out the electrical system in his parents' house with the
thing."
"Do you believe he was contacted by aliens?"
"Aliens? I don't know if I can call it that... But the
information comes from somewhere... somewhere else entirely... not
from our human brains, not from the, uh, the, uh, astral entities
that we know. It happened the first time for me in a dream. I was
on a camping trip, in upstate New York, near New Paltz, and I had
this weird dream, and afterward I knew how to do this."
"Show me," Diana said. "I think it's the only way I can
understand this. Show me the technique."
"Yes," he said, "it is the only way. But I don't know..."
"Come on. Just tell me what you do. When you want to do this,
how do you start?"
"Well, it's best to just float... let everything relax... and
then..."
Diana watched his features go even slacker than usual. His
eyes drifted shut. And there was no mistaking it now, there was a
kind of sparkling in the air around him, little blue-white motes of
light.
"...I don't know if I can explain," Palmer muttered. "But
maybe..."
It seemed like a cloud of the sparkles condensed in the air
and rushed toward Diana. A feeling like being kicked in the head,
and then... something happened... bliss... she began to know how...
"Yes," said Palmer, "that's right... yes..."
A sudden loud clanging resonated dully through the cylinder as
an airlock was pushed open.
"Damn it!" a soldier's voice exclaimed. "What the hell are you
freaks doing now?!"
84. CHECKERS II
The fatigue of two trying days without sleep suddenly
disappeared as the broadcast began. Suddenly Nixon felt good, in
control.
Yes, he thought, this is just how it was in 1952. I know my
subject. I know what happened. I think this is what Marcia means
when she talks about the life force. Yes, I feel strong. He glanced
down at his notes, scribbled longhand on sheets of yellow paper,
then up at the mirrored wall.
"My fellow Americans, I come before you tonight as a man whose
honesty and integrity has been questioned. This is not the first
time in my life that this has happened, that a political rival, or
the press, for whatever reason, has questioned my honesty before
the public. I have come to believe that this is the price that I
must pay for a political career.
"You have probably all seen it on the vid by now... the
charges, the accusation that my election campaign was funded by
spacers. This may in fact be the case; I have not yet been able to
fully investigate this for myself. The question is not whether such
funding is illegal, or wrong. The accusation is aimed at me, and
the question implied is certainly whether Richard Nixon was
involved in any wrongdoing.
"The answer, quite frankly, as I believe it to be, is No. I
want to be particularly clear about this. I was not involved in any
deception or dishonest act ? the complete truth is that I was fully
unconscious at the time. Let me repeat that ? I was unconscious, in
a coma, at the time of my election.
"As I understand it, I was the only remaining person with the
qualification or the desire to hold political office. I don't know
if I am the best person ever to hold the office of President, but
I was, I believe, by all reason and logic, the only person
available for the job. Since it was not I who made the decision, it
cannot even be said that I opted to run for reasons of personal
gain, or because I hoped to be reinstated into the arena of
American politics.
"I don't have much here in this life. I am a 93 year-old man
whose devoted wife died several years ago. I have lost contact over
the years with my daughter. I have a few good, American suits that
I have owned for many years. A bank account stripped from years of
hospitalization.
"The Nixon family dog, Checkers, died many years ago. I don't
even have a dog.
"About all that I have is my clothing. Good wool from a time
when values were more clearly defined.
"But I am here now, in office. And I think that whoever helped
to put me in office ? and I'm sure that many of you watching this
right now may have contributed in some way to my election, by your
contribution or your vote ? whoever helped to put me here must be
a patriot, because in doing so, you restored the government of the
United States.
"I am here now, and I believe that you all know what I stand
for, what I am working for. Regardless of what happens, I will
continue this fight.
"In just the last week, we witnessed a new level of American
patriotism. We witnessed a daring operation by brave American
soldiers to reclaim a piece of American property which had been
lost, the Freedom Space Platform. This operation is a symbol of
America's renewed strength and capability. We can become the
technological superpower that we once were. We can reclaim our lost
optimism.
"I will not rest until we have rid the planet of every
interloper who seeks to defile what America stands for. I will not
rest until truth is valued above concerns such as greed and
corruption. I will not rest until America is healthy and vital once
again."
I need some rest, Nixon thought.
85. CYDONIA, MARS
Primordial Stu had heard about Cydonia, but had never before
been close enough to that part of Mars to see the area's most
famous feature: The Face. Now, looking down from high orbit, The
Face began to come into view, about the size of a penny in the
windshield, a craggy face staring up the gravity well at the
orbiting bus.
Stu tapped on the keyboard, instructing the computer to
contact the Cydonia settlement, to ask for clearance and landing
information. There was no response. Stu left the computer on a
repeating program, broadcasting its C.Q. message.
He began to circle down into Mars' thin atmosphere, the stars
and the blackness of deep space fading to brown in the windshield.
Below, The Face grew, revealing its true immensity.
It was very definitely an artifact, Stu thought, not a random
work of nature. Someone, an incredibly long time ago, had carved
this huge face into the top of a Martian plateau, a face
enigmatically similar to the Sphinx, on Earth.
Appropriate, he considered. The Sphinx was an ancient symbol
of initiation.
As he swung around the plateau, he saw the pyramids, three of
them, the smallest probably the size of Earth's Great Pyramid, the
largest nearly twice that size. Between the pyramids were two
domes, the gardens inside bright and green in contrast with the
reddish brown desert which stretched to the horizon in all
directions. There was still no response to the computer's hailing
signal.
But this was the place. There simply wasn't anything else in
Cydonia.
Six cars rested close to one dome, to one side of the main
airlock. Stu settled the bus down gently and parked.
He sat for a moment, breathing deeply. The spin drive
indicator on the Macintosh was running slower than on the earth,
but substantially faster than on the moon. Stu closed his eyes and
the flickering from the monitor initiated a swirl of psychedelic
patterns on the inside of his lids.
About eight hertz, he thought. Interesting wave form.
He let himself relax and flow into the flickering, his brain
waves adjusting themselves to the frequency. It will be easy enough
to stay relaxed throughout whatever the initiation might be, he
thought, if I can get near a spin drive.
Stu stretched, then pulled his spacesuit out from behind the
driver's seat. He stripped, climbed into the suit, sealed up and
then checked all the seals. He waited for a minute as the bottled
air brought the suit up to pressure, then turned off the bus'
onboard systems, grabbed his knapsack and climbed out onto the
surface of Mars.
Sand, in swirling patterns of red and brown, stretched away to
the base of The Face plateau, and to the horizon in the other
direction. It swirled and washed against the pyramids and around
the domes. A thin breeze blew steadily toward the plateau,
whistling faintly around the plastic joints of the spacesuit. The
sun blazed in the dark brown sky.
Stu followed a path worn into the packed sand, from the
parking area to the airlock. The airlock cycled open swiftly and
Stu stepped inside. The lighting in the lock was dim, the walls and
floor padded with some thick, firm material. After a while, a green
light came on and Stu opened the inner door.
He found himself in a small locker room, alone. He checked the
readouts along the arm of his suit, then cracked the seals. He
peeled off the suit and stood naked, taking a deep breath of dome
air, humid with the smells of growing plants.
86. BUSINESS WAY
Stu was pulling on his baggy, hemp-cloth pants when a door
opened and a tall, weasel-faced man entered the locker room.
The man glanced at a hand-held flatscreen. "What is your name,
please?"
"Primordial Stu. Call me Stu."
The man fiddled a contact on his display unit. "Uh huh. What
is your reason for coming here?"
"What is this? Customs? I have an appointment. I'm taking an
initiation."
"Uh huh. I see. I was not informed of this. Arrivals are
routinely entered in our database. There has rarely been an
oversight."
"Rarely?"
"Well, there were a few times... But they were special
circumstances."
"Perhaps this is a special circumstance." Stu pulled on his
shirt. "Anyway, I was signalling on a general hailing frequency
since I made orbit."
"Perhaps there is something wrong with your transmitter. Old
equipment, you know."
"The transmitter is brand new."
"Uh huh. There is an air fee, of course. Kilobuck a week. Pay
in advance. Do you have any money?"
"Fresh or paper?"
"Fresh would be preferable, or endproduct. You got any
plastics or fuel?"
"Lunar bud." Stu produced a package from his knapsack.
"Uh huh." The man twiddled his computer. "Well, then. I wish
I had known you were coming. I might have made some arrangements.
We're very short for space. Come along."
Stu followed him through the door and into the dome. A path
led to the center of the garden where five other paths intersected.
In each of the six sections between the paths, the settlers grew a
different crop. The tallest was a stand of hemp at the north end of
the dome, a bit taller and stringier than the dense and pungent
moonweed that Stu had grown accustomed to. In the rest of the
garden grew beans, hybrid grains, a tangle of air-purifying vines,
and even several small fruit trees. A light spin field modulated
the stark Martian sunlight.
At the end of the path between vines and beans, they went
through a doorway and down a steep flight of steps. Stu followed
down a tunnel, past rows of closed doors, the recirculation stream
blowing at their backs. Eventually they came to a small, brightly
lit office. The man gestured toward a hard, straight-backed chair,
but lowered his own frame with slow, low gravity grace into a
softer, ergonomically designed desk chair. Stu chose to remain
standing.
"Please, Mr. Stu?" The man gestured again toward the chair.
Stu sighed and sat down.
A sign on the crowded desk identified the man as Mel Tzadi,
Associate Director of Human Resources, Utilities and Supplies.
Another sign, on the wall behind the desk, said "Welcome Wagon".
Tzadi plugged his little hand unit into a desktop computer and
pulled up some information on a large flat display. "We do try to
keep things in a business way," Tzadi said. "I hope you can
understand. There are certain things which must be delineated,
guidelines which must be set down, or everything will just go to
chaos. You said you were taking an initiation; you're not one of
these chaos people are you?"
"Well, I do appreciate a little randomness every now and then,
but not exclusively, no."
"But certainly you must agree that the purpose of evolution,
of intelligence is increased order. Information, the earmark of
progress, is, of course, reverse entropy."
"I believe that evolution can encompass both," Stu said.
"Perhaps some randomness, some chaos is necessary to the process.
As well, what appears to be chaos may well just be something that
we don't understand."
"That is always the justification which your type uses for its
random senselessness. I understand well enough! You find it easy to
simply scramble things up, and call that art or science or
language. Then you defend it by saying no one else understands! Who
can fight that defense?"
"Is this what you brought me here for?" Stu asked. "To run
rhetorical circles? Can you just make a room assignment and let me
go take care of my business?"
"All things come in their true time," Tzadi said, tapping a
contact and scrolling some long document across his screen. "Now,
I need to know something about your sexual preferences." He looked
up expectantly.
"Is this necessary?"
"To keep things harmonious and organized here on Cydonia, we
try to make room matches as compatible as possible. Please supply
the information."
"My sexual preferences? Polymorphous perverse. Always to
Nuit."
"Uh huh." Tzadi entered the information. "And your last sexual
partner was...?"
"I really don't see that this is necessary. I'm an agreeable
guy. I'll be happy wherever you stick me. I'm looking for a place
to sleep, not another wife, thank you."
"Ah, then, you are married?"
"Come on. I expect this sort of thing on Earth, not on Mars."
"If you will just cooperate, you'll have a room soon enough."
"Is there someone else I can see? Do you have a supervisor?"
"I am afraid I am presently the only administrator available.
Please supply the information. Presently married?"
"I'll be going now, thank you." Stu stood and turned toward
the door.
"Mr. Stu, you cannot just walk out of here. You must have an
official assignment. We must do this properly. You expect to be
initiated and yet you cannot even follow basic procedure..."
Stu closed the door gently behind him.
87. JUSTINE
Stu wandered off down the hallway. Not far beyond Mel Tzadi's
office, the corridor turned a corner, slanting downward. He tried
a few doors; they were locked and no one answered his knock. He
followed the corridor around a bend and into another downwardly
inclined section. Here some of the doors were open, revealing some
bare, empty cubicles, a broom closet, and finally, some distance
further on, a small bedroom. Stu looked in and saw a woman sitting
on the edge of the bed. She was tall, with olive skin and hair in
a thick braid which hung most of the way down her back.
She looked up at Stu, appraising him, her eyes tracking across
his clothing, the spacesuit slung over his shoulder, his knapsack.
Stu saw that the woman also had a suit, draped over the end of
the bed, and a small satchel which rested on the floor.
Stu smiled. "Is this where the refugees come?"
"Is that what they told you?"
"Nobody told me anything. I just took a look at you. Did they
assign you this room?"
"No."
"Did you happen to see any other empty rooms?"
"No. This is the only one I saw."
"Uh, could you use some company? I barely escaped with my
sanity from some bloody bureaucrat down the hall there... I'll
sleep on the floor if necessary... I do need a place to stay."
"I don't own the room. Do what you like."
Stu crossed the threshold and shut the door. He tossed his
knapsack in a corner and arranged his suit on the back of a chair.
He sat down on the carpeted floor.
"I'm Stu."
"Justine."
"Is there a net access?"
"On the wall. Are you blind?"
"You're so very courteous," Stu remarked.
"It's just that I usually prefer to pick my roommates,"
Justine snapped. She turned away from Stu.
"I'm sorry that I don't meet your standards."
"Anyone who wears a shirt like that..."
Stu looked down at his shirt, soft hemp fiber, decorated like
an old soccer jersey, number 93. "What? It's just a shirt. I don't
really play soccer, if that's what you're thinking."
"93. Humph. You waste vital energy on superficial displays. Do
you even know what that means?"
"Actually, the shirt was a gift."
"Nevertheless, you chose to wear it. I couldn't tolerate that
kind of thing for long."
"I could take it off."
"Do what you like."
Stu left the shirt as it was. "I didn't come here asking for
your approval, you know. I just asked if I could put my stuff here
and sleep on the floor. That's all. Damn, maybe I would have been
better off getting a room assignment from Mel Tzadi..."
"Perhaps." Justine made a show of ignoring Stu. She picked up
an ancient paperback book and began to flip through the pages.
The book was The White House Transcripts.
"Hey..." said Stu.
Justine said nothing. She stopped flipping pages and began to
read intently.
Stu shrugged. There was time. There was always a way to find
some common ground with almost anyone. Nixon? Would that be it?
What is she doing here? Why is she reading that?
He located the net access, actually just a jack set in the
center of a black plastic square. He took his headset from the pack
and plugged in.
And suddenly he was inside Cydonia's own, very small net.
There was the usual kind of small colony information: crop
statistics, lost and found notices, odd letter-to-the-editor type
ranting, official business. Cydonia seemed prosperous enough, an
active little community, if only on the cybernet. Stu browsed
through the open files, looking for anything that might give a clue
about his initiation, or about Nixon.
Here was something, Stu saw, addressed to Justine, just a
brief message, a note pinned to a bulletin board:
Justine ? How did you make out with the Nixon book? I'd like
to know. I'll fill you in on the whole thing. Meet me southwest
pyramid 1000 hrs, tomorrow.
That was it, not even signed.
All right, Stu thought, here we go. He pulled up directories
for the colony and wandered through them, his cyberspace
representation rushing through simulated domes and hallways. The
maze of corridors, work rooms and living quarters which spiraled
down into the Martian sand beneath the domes seemed even more
extensive here than they had in realtime. It hadn't seemed like
much at all, Stu reflected, just one hallway disappearing into the
distance. Now he saw how much further the corridor went, the places
where it connected with another maze beneath the other dome. It
was, in fact, surprisingly large and complex for a small colony.
Was this the secret headquarters for the Magickal Children? Or
was something else going on here?
Stu allowed his point of view to rise "above" the simulation
of the colony's cybernet, the lines and terminals shrinking to a
dwindling web below. Finally he was able to see what he was looking
for; to one side of the interlocking dome networks, a thin strand
of light stretched off toward where the pyramids crouched in the
desert. It was just a single, simple net access. There was no
indication of anything more involved. Did somebody live there? What
was their interest in The White House Transcripts? Was this the
address that his worm had located?
He soared back down into the net and accessed the address of
the terminal in the pyramids. His point of view did not change. A
written message came up before him: Access Denied. Incorrect Code.
Stu retreated to a more distant address and accessed the RAM
in his headset. His worm was waiting there, fizzling with static.
He cloned it quickly and sent the copy out to check the pyramid
terminal.
He relaxed for a few minutes, floating in a featureless
cybervoid, breathing deeply, until the worm returned. It appeared
to be intact, its vid-like skin fading into appearance from the
void. Carefully, Stu opened it.
88. WHAT THE WORM DRAGGED IN
Nixon.
The word came out and floated there by itself for what seemed
a very long time.
Then chaos came crashing out from within the worm.
of these it to guide slslslslslsl floated people maybe millions
thelema agape of the rows these pirates goat fuzzy Marcia US
however the remains the pyramid this will not pain the of Law line
could travel chamber beneath the worm Hi, John aumn ha