Here the lib-rebs were all done: starvation, dysentery, and the worst winter in fifty years had beaten Gottschalk at last. As with the Modocs long ago, bravery was no match for food, weather, and logistics.
Lessing sipped his coffee and asked, “How’s Mulder? Your mother?”
“He’s fine. She’s green light too. About to marry Grant Simmons. Did you know that?”
“The Congress of Americans for Personal Freedom guy?” Lessing had met Simmons. The man was as unmemorable as a ballpark hotdog. It took restraint to keep from asking, “Why marry him!”
“He’s a dedicated person, hardworking ” Jennifer said, a little
defensively. “He’s a great speaker.” So were some parrots.
“Well… congratulations, if that’s what I’m supposed to say.” “Grant’s likely to be our candidate for President in fifty-two, you know.”
“Unh?” He looked up, surprised. “What about Outram? Vice President Lee? Mulder himself?”
“You haven’t heard? Outram’s got cancer of the liver. He’s likely to die within a few months. Byron Lee’s a nonentity.” She hesitated. “And Mulder doesn’t think he’s going to last that long either.”
“Jesus He never said anything.”
“Oh, he’s in good shape now. Just feeling his age. He wants somebody younger, with drive and energy. Somebody who’ll con-solidate what we’ve done.”
Lessing considered. The Party’s present bright lights were not very appealing: they were unknown, too young, not charismatic enough, or just too “fringe” to suit Mr. and Mrs. American Public. The Party had indeed grown in popularity — you could speak for the movement almost anywhere these days without getting rocks thrown at you — but people like Wrench, Morgan, Goddard, and Abner Hand still weren’t the Boys Next Door. Not yet. Liese and Eighty-Five were working on it.
Jennifer continued, “People are turning inward, looking to the Party to restore our traditional values, our prosperity and identity. Pacov and Starak did more than just kill people: they cut our emotional security out from under us. We need somebody solid… committed… rational.”
“Get Goddard. He’s a winner in two out of three of those categories… you decide which ones.” Lessing still couldn’t work up an interest in politics. Liese had tried to involve him, but even she hadn’t had much success. He’d rather putter with a car engine, read, play racquetball, or practice with the latest additions to Mulder’s arsenal.
“Bill has no imagination. I’d rather have Grant Simmons or Byron Lee… or you.” She let her coat fall open to reveal a forest-green sweater, a Navajo necklace of beaten silver set with turquoises, and some spectacular cleavage.
He made a wry face. “Me? Come on, Jen! ” He had already begun to suspect that Jennifer Caw wasn’t here just to take in the winter scenery. He had nothing to offer politically, and she knew it.
She couldn’t have designs on him, could she? Not when she and Liese were such good friends! Liese was the jealous type — and as straitlaced about her monogamy as a Born-Again elder! Nor was he much of a bargain, in spite of a good recovery after Palestine and Russia.
Yet there was no telling with Jennifer. Wrench called her “the mailbox: a public receptacle into which any man can drop his male.”
A quick roll on the camp cot, then? A morning’s jollies, nobody hurt, and Liese never the wiser? Lessing was in no mood to take that risk. Getting close to Liese had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, and she was worth every angry word, every long wrangle, every drop of sweat, every tear, and every long, luxurious morning in bed.
He drifted over to inspect the row of vid-screens that lined the rear wall of his styro-plast hut. “How’s Borchardt doing in Germany?”
She took the hint with good grace. “Oh… Hans is fine. Big rally last month in Munich: nearly a hundred thousand.”
He heard Jennifer stirring her coffee, but he didn’t look around. Instead he bawled, “Hey, Mullet! Arlen!”
The aide stuck his head inside the door flap. He kept his eyes averted from the camp cot, where Jennifer reclined like Cleopatra cruising the Nile. Skin-tight, black jeans and tooled cowboy boots didn’t Gl the Egyptian image, but the effect was dramatic, nonethe-less.
“Sir?” Mullet’s long, pale, freckled face was as gently bovine as one of his daddy’s cows up in the Willamette River Valley. He was canny, though, and unexpectedly perceptive.
“Where the hell are the lib-rebs? Are we going to have to go drag ‘em out after all?”
Mullet ruminated. “Detectors just started to report movement, sir. Comin’ out real slow, though, ‘cause of the women and kids.”
“The lib-rebs have their families in there?” Jennifer sat up. “In that icebox?”
“The women are mostly fighters,” Lessing told her. “There’re only a few noncombatants with them: people who’re real scared of us. We’re supposed to be the ‘racist, fascist beasts,’ remember?”
“There they are now, sir.” Mullet lifted his bony chin toward the vid-screens. “Two, three hunnerd in the column. Pro’lly all of ’em.”
Jennifer came over to see. “No weapons, no uniforms. Like a bunch of old ladies on their way to church!”
“Them old ladies kept us bottled up here for a month,” Mullet observed morosely.
Lessing was already donning his winter-camo greatcoat, mittens, and officer’s cap. “Tell Ken Swanson to put it over the amplifiers that I’m coming out to accept their surrender personally.”
“You, sir?”
“Yeah, me. They put up a good fight. Least I can do.”
“Can I come?” Jennifer used the honeyed tone that usually worked wonders with males. Not this time!
“Unh-unh. No goozy, foozy, as the Bangers say. Mulder’d unzip me himself if anything happened to you.”
“He’s right, miss.” Mullet blocked the doorway. “Carpet mines… a laser at long range… a rocket from ambush. Dang’rous.” He blinked reproachfully at Lessing. “Even for a so-called experienced mere.”
“Look,” Lessing said to Jennifer, “if you want to help, go over to the field hospital or the mess hall. Show the lib-rebs we’re not murdering monsters. They’ll need hot coffee, food, and medical care.”
“Florence Nightingale? Me? Oh, all right. But after the atrocities the lib-rebs committed at the battle of Redding…,”
“Blame that on their ‘special troops’… the L.A. street gangs, their Mexican allies. All the discipline of a pack of rabid dogs.” When she said nothing he added, “If we show people we’re straight, we have a chance to put the country back together again. Screw up, stay disunited, and the Chinese, the Indians, the Turks, the South Americans… somebody… will kick our lights out”
“They burned down our house in L.A. My mother barely got out alive. They’d have murdered her if they’d caught “
“Forget all that! The future is what matters. Why not use sweet-ness and light, if those’ll get us friends. Oh, we’ll win this war militarily, but we really win only if everybody has a chance at the good life. That’s what Liese has ‘Dom’ saying these days.”
“You’re naive, Alan. Political realities are different.”
“I may not have a Ph.D. in academic horse apples like Wrench or Borchardt, but I know what makes people tick. Peace is better than war… or revenge.”
“The Party of Humankind.”
“The Parry is on a roll. Pacov and Starak took out our worst enemies and put Outram into the White House. Otherwise Mulder’d still be peddling Fertil-Gro out in India, and you ‘Descendants’ would be piddly-shitting around in the sinkholes of the Third World. Luck, lady, pure, gubbin’ luck! The Party had better not miss this chance; it’s the only one it’s likely to get!”