She could be so cool and so frustratingly remote! He said, “You always have to go. Wait’ll I bust out of here!”
“Lots to do. Lib-rebs. Outram too sick to do much. Vice-Presi- dent Lee an idiot. Mulder in seclusion. Goddard feuding with Wrench and Morgan.”
“Hey, we agreed that you’d use verbs and full sentences once in a while!” He strove for a cheerful tone, but Liese was in no mood for speech therapy. After a moment he asked, “So there’s trouble between the Cadre and PHASE? Open squabbling?”
She made a face. “No. Covert. Mulder trying to keep them together.”
“Damn politics! The Party needs all its strength. The old power elite is going to make a comeback: the bureaucrats, the political parties, the religious sects, the C.I.A., the I.R.S., the corporations, all the pressure groups from Big Labor to ‘Save the Prairie Dogs.’”
“Business as usual. Shock of Starak wearing off.”
“My God…! After the death of half the country!”
Liese took him literally. She said, “Not half. Census not in. Forty-five to sixty million Starak-related American casualties. Toxin itself, plus panic, starvation, other diseases. Maybe a billion dead from Pacov in Europe, Russia, Israel, Africa, parts of China… elsewhere. Pacov bacteria supposed to die after one generation but mutated to ‘Black Pacov’ in Africa instead. Most gone now, though.”
Gordy Monk rapped on the door. He was the chief of Lessing’s squad of bodyguards. “Sir, Cadre-Commander Wren is here.”
“Go!” Liese whispered. She reached for her charcoal-grey autumn coat on the foot of the bed and started to get up.
“Stay!” Lessing rapped back at her. It was hard to muster true authority with a mummy-wrapped shoulder and a cheek bandage that made him look like a lopsided squirrel.
Wrench sidled around the door, winked at Liese, then came on in. Today his cream-colored, gabardine uniform was tasteful, and he had kept the medals and insignia down to a non-blinding minimum.
“Sit down,” Lessing grumbled. “Makes me nervous when people stand over me.”
Liese went back to the window, but Wrench complied He grinned at Lessing. “Sorry to disturb you. Pay a call on the weak, the sick, and the elderly! Civic duty, you know!”
“Weak, sick, elderly… bullshit! I’m a goddamned hero, thanks to you. Home-Net is playing me up as the greatest military commander since Napoleon. And you run Home-Net.”
“We believe in scrupulous honesty: all the commercials, soaps, game shows, jiggly bint-babies, and tasteless violence the traffic ‘11 bear. Which are you?”
“News?” Liese demanded impatiently.
Wrench gave her a smile like sunrise. “Knowing that our boy hero here doesn’t get his daily dose of holo-vid, allow me to ‘recapitulate the news,’ asHome-Net’sgreatest commentator, Jason Milne, says.” He cleared his throat portentously. “War breaks out between India and the Islamic Theocracy of Indonesia-Malaysia. China intervenes and threatens a tactical nuclear strike unless Prime Minister Ramanujan’s forces leave Cambodia, like real pronto. In Pakistan, the Red Mullah stays neutral, with one eye on Turkey to his west and the other on the Izzie-Vizzies to his north; this worries his ophthalmologist. South Africa politely offers to ‘surgically remove’ the U.S.-supported Nation of Allah Almighty… the Khalifa’s folks… unless granted mineral rights in the Congo. Spanish forces help Morocco rescue hundreds from the ruins of earthquake-stricken Rabat. General Rollins’ troops have now reached Veracruz, bypassing Mexican units lurking in what’s left of Mexico City after Starak and the big fire. The confrontation between Peru and Brazil escalates. The White House dithers over whether to stomp Central America and do away with the drug trade by the Biblical method… fire and sword… or to take the dragsters’ bucks and shut up. Australia and New Zealand have gone inside, locked their doors, and put up a sign saying, ‘Nobody bloody-well ’ome. Go ‘wye ‘n’ g’dye t’ye, myte!’”
“You make a better Jason Milne than Jason Milne does.”
“All bad!” Liese shook her dark-blonde tresses vehemently. “No good news?”
Lessing said, “The world’s a machine with a broken flywheeclass="underline" it’s coming to pieces.”
“We’re what’s holding it together,” Wrench answered. “Our good old North-European ethnos. Without us the game would be over. We’re actually gaining, doing good stuff internally and helping sister organizations abroad. And allies among some really unlikely ethnos groups, too, like the Khalifa’s Nation of Allah Almighty.”
“Khalifa Abdullah Sultani…,” Liese began.
“I think 1 met him once.” Lessing saw a flicker of ice-blue, and an odd tremor crept into his voice.
She smiled, puzzled. “Working with us. ResettlingBlackpopula-tion in Africa.”
“It’s hard to imagine: the Khalifa on our side!”
“Why not? Good for his people. We help. Don’t interfere.”
Wrench said, “Reorientation for Black lib-reb prisoners includes courses taught by the Khalifa’s people. We’re sending him trained recruits, not a bunch of bang-nog jizmos. He gets what he wants, and we get what we both need: racial separation with room to grow.”
“Same in Central and South America,” Liese added. She picked up her coat again. “Re-education. They want it; we help. Party strongest in Argentina, Brazil.”
Lessing scowled. “I still get the feeling it’s all coming apart. We have to win the lib-reb war fast. Then we have to reunite. Otherwise the wheels and springs fly off.”
Wrench showed his gleaming, while teeth. “You’re a great, ugly clot of doom today, aren’t you, Lessing? Let me give you some good news: San Francisco’s about to fall. Last night Tim Helm’s guys and some regular units… Marines, I think… busted through the lib-reb lines north of Walnut Creek. They took the San Leandro reservoir and pushed the opfoes back to Pleasanton and Livermore. Best guess is that the lib-rebs may try to hold down by Fremont, but we’ve got ‘em on the run, and our artillery’s setting up to shell Oakland and Berkeley from the hills. A good fireworks show may scare the lib-rebs out of San Francisco and save the city. Be a shame to thumb it”
“Why do they fight on?” Liese wondered sadly. “Can’t win.”
“Same reason we’d keep going,” Lessing told her. “Because there’s nowhere else to go. Not for their side.” He struggled up and began brushing his pale hair. It was becoming noticeably thinner.
Wrench said, “Times change. A century ago they said we were finished, out on the garbage dump of history. Now it’s their turn. The wheel’s gone around a full circle. Skirts go up, then down, then up again: about a twenty-year cycle. Eighty-Five says that whenever there’s a major upheaval, like Pacov, there’s also a tendency toward authoritarian politics. The liberals were up, now they’re down, as outdated as wig-powder. We’re the big kids on the block now… and believe me, we’re looking real hard for ways to keep the swing from dropping us back into the shit-pile again.”
Lessing didn’t want to talk politics. “Let me ask “
“First things first.” Wrench got up and twisted the holo-vid dial until he found a yowling Banger concert on Yama-Net. He bent close to Lessing and motioned Liese over as well. “Just so we don’t hear a voice saying, ‘Speak louder into the bedpan, please!’”
Lessing raised a sarcastic eyebrow. “Oh, come on! Security on the brain.”
“Relax. Goddard’s been getting feisty lately. He’s set up files in Eighty-Five that I can’t get into. Neither can Outram’s trained seals.”
“I wasn’t asking about Goddard!”
“He’s got eyes and ears right here in your hospital boudoir, you know, but we can’t find his mikes.” Wrench made a vague, circling gesture toward the ceiling. “Anyway, I know it’s Hollister you want to hear about. The Euro-mercs haven’t seen him since he pulled out of the Izzies’ colony in Ufa months ago. We’re sure he’s in lib-reb territory.”