And nothing the President said helped to explain. Nothing the two women said was of any importance, of course: They were enemy. Enemies lied. They had to be arrested, just as the fierce old dying general had ordered— and that itself was a problem, because how did you arrest two members of the Cabinet of the real and true President of the United States?—especially when the President himself was petulantly demanding their release?
Something was terribly wrong!
It was not only wrong; it was just about incomprehensible. The rescue of the United States should not be complicated by this sort of madness! It made no sense— worse than that, the President only added to the confusion by trying to clear it up. Well, yes, he admitted, the Chink woman Delilah Tsoong was in fact Han Chinese—well, sort of Han Chinese. Well, she'd been born in the United States, all right, so she was legally American, too—if one could fit the words "legal" and "American" into the same sentence, when there had not been any American government to make anything legal or otherwise for a hundred years. And to make his incomprehensible explanations less comprehensible still, there was the woman Tsoong herself. She was uncompromising, even defiant. "All right," she sneered, "arrest me if you like! But you are fools! There is no America! It destroyed itself a century ago!" That was confusing, yes, but it simplified things a little, too, for anyone who could say such seditious things definitely needed to be restrained. They bound her arms behind her back, kept her quiet by threatening a gag if she didn't shut up, put her in the custody of the Governor and three smart erks with electric shock prods to see that she tried no tricks. (Whatever tricks she possibly could try, almost alone on a planet of beings who found her horrible.) She let them. She sulked.
The President was another matter. How could you arrest your own President? Even when he said such shocking things? "I'm not a real President," he said and "The election was a farce, really," he said and "We haven't been altogether honest with you, you know," he said, and then they simply wouldn't let him say any more. Even General Marxman, the fading breaths rattling in his throat, could only nod agreement when Big Polly pointed out that farce or not, that Presidential election was the only Presidential election they had and Castor Pettyman therefore the only President. So Castor was not arrested. He was put into the copilot's seat of his own hoverplane for the trip back to Space City, staring out in displeasure at the landscape of World fleeing by beneath. The armed erks behind him were, in his case, an honor guard.
And then there was Feng Miranda, altogether the most confusing of all. "Of course I am genetically Chinese," she cried furiously, "but what does that have to do with anything? My ancestors were American. For two hundred years they were American. They were patriots, and so am I! Loyal to America! You idiots, I'm the only American you've got! I'm far more of a true-blue American than that turncoat lackey Castor, who will lick the feet of the Han for a chance to ride in a spaceship every day of his life!"
What a puzzlement! Big Polly glanced around at the Real-Americans and the Yankees and the erks, looking for comprehension, for advice. There wasn't any. So they all bundled back into their hoverplanes for the trip back to Space City. The Congress might be able to decide what to do. It was beyond the capacities of even Big Polly.
As to Miranda, they compromised on her loyalty. They gave her only one armed guard, and that was Jupiter. The erk Jutch piloted their ship, and Jupiter left him to it as soon as they were at floating level.
There was a pallet at the back of the hoverplane. Miranda had thrown herself down on it, raging silently in anger and frustration. Jupe made his way back and stood over her for a moment, thinking. Then he touched her arm. "I believe you," he said, and added kindly, "If it would ease you any, we could copulate now."
She replied to him most unpleasantly, using a term for "copulate" that he had never heard before. It seemed almost obscene to him—imagine making copulation an obscenity!
Jupiter was a kindly person, for a male. Under normal circumstances he would have tried to jolly her out of it, perhaps even going to the trouble of stroking or patting her in spite of her nasty, hyperactive ways. This time, though, there seemed to be something going on up front. The erk pilot was chittering excitedly and twitching his vibrissae at Jupiter. Something was up, though Jupiter could not tell what. "I order you to stay right here," he warned the Chinese woman, who gave him a deadly look in return. Discomfitted, keeping one eye on her to make sure she was obeying (though what else, after all, could she do?), Jupe moved forward to the pilots' seats.
And even before he got there, as soon as the erk's reedy voice could reach him, he got the word: "Jupiter, Jupiter! You'll never believe it!" cried the erk.
"Believe what?" Jupe demanded, sliding into the seat next to him.
"They've launched another ship!" the erk babbled excitedly. "Look at the index screen! It's a big one, Jupe!"
Astonished, Jupiter leaned forward to activate his own screen. The right index was easy to find; the development was on a dozen theme channels at once, for it was big news in many ways. A new launch from Hainan Island! And, just as the erk had said, a big one!
The index screens in the hoverplane were not the same as those in the nest. It took Jupiter a moment to figure out how to do what he wanted to do. The erk tried to help him, but Jupe impatiently waved him off as he stabbed at the keyboard until he found the right setting. The blown-up still of the Han ship shivered and dissected itself into its parts. They weren't real; no erk or Yankee eye had seen inside the skin of the Han ship. What they were was the best erk specialist translation of the tracking data, optical scans, analogues with the Presidential yacht, and deductions from what was known of Han Chinese weaponry.
The ship was heavily armed. There was no doubt of that.
Its launching was, in fact, very nearly an act of war, and Jupiter's glands flowed in joyful torrents.
Miranda did not obey orders. She was hanging over Jupiter's shoulder all the way back to Space City. But Jupe did not reprimand, hardly even noticed, her flagrant disobedience, because she was by all appearances as thrilled as he. "They're going to attack!" she cried. "Oh, boy, Jupe, we're really going to fight them!"
"We're going to beat them," he corrected with the gruff kindness of a father whose child has responded in exactly the right way. "You'll see! The erks have been getting ready for this for a long time."
"Me, too!" she cried. "Oh, Jupe! You don't know how long my comrades and I have waited! You don't know what it's cost us—my own brother's life, a hundred years of slavery, all that hopeless time—and now—oh, Jupe," she repeated, flinging her arms around his neck. Well, thought Jupiter with some satisfaction, at last the sister was coming to her senses! Wrong again. To his surprise, when he reached back (somewhat awkwardly, twisting his arm to reach) to pat her bottom in response, she tightened up again. "God, is that all you think about?" she snapped, and drew away.
Jupiter gave up in exasperation. "Do you want to see what else is happening?" he asked coldly.
"Certainly I do. Just keep your hands to yourself."
He shrugged morosely and indexed the planning channels. It wasn't necessary. What needed to be seen was already in plain sight. They were coming into the Space City landing places, and just ahead of them, hovering over the city gates, there was a rainbow light-sign. It said: