"Bekr feels sure the MacDonalds don't realize Annika is channeling. If they suspected, they'd have informed us covertly-given us some sort of hint. I've had Burhan undertake to pass an innocuous comment through Annika, to alert the MacDonalds without attracting alien suspicion. It didn't work. Bekr believes Annika is operating as a one-way relay-them to us. Yukiko Gavaldon is clearly not a sensitive, let alone a trained attendant, so that is not really surprising."
He paused. "In fact, as you suggested, we may lose even that one-way contact. Annika no longer has to be helped to use the sanitary facility, and she holds her own drinking cup."
"Without disconnecting?"
"So far."
Hmm. Chang wondered if her present state qualified as coma. He frowned. He definitely did not want that connection lost, but there seemed nothing to be done about it.
He changed the subject. "Has Special Projects had anything to report?"
"No, Mr. President, they have not. Dosado has promised a preliminary report no later than Threeday. The know-how exists; it has for a very long time. The difficulty is, we know next to nothing about invader physiology. Which does not preclude following through, of course. It simply leaves the result very much in doubt."
Chapter 17
The Home Front
The marchers ranged from elderly to children in arms, and wore no uniforms. They filled the boulevard from curb to curb, and the night with their drums and bagpipes. And they chanted Peace Front slogans, in every accent on Terra, some even in the tongues of ethnic forebears. Their weapons were banners, placards, and the Commonwealth flag. And though they threw up no barricades, they paralyzed traffic quite effectively, for they numbered an estimated hundred thousand. The din could be heard for more than a mile.
The demonstration was not remotely spontaneous. It had been carefully planned, and its contingents were rather well coordinated. The great majority who marched believed sincerely that the Commonwealth and its safety lay exclusively in the hands of God. That if the invaders were received by humankind in peace and love, their alien hearts would hear God whispering. And hearing, they'd move on to regions of space unoccupied by humans. So the various peace sects and persuasions had smoked the calumet, the pipe of peace-literally smoked it-agreeing that the important thing was to end Commonwealth defense activities. That only then would God act to save humankind.
Remarkably, the scores of thousands of marchers drew rather few spectators, and these were watched closely from police floaters. The government wanted no incidents that might cause an eruption of violence. Nor did the Peace Front, for the media were there in numbers, along the sidewalks, within the marching ranks, and in floaters keeping the legally required distance, recording with electronic eyes. Any violence would be witnessed worldwide, and video and holo cubes would be podded throughout the Core Worlds. If the marchers became violent, even in self-defense, the Peace Front would be seen as hypocritical, and so large a demonstration would itself be considered provocation.
If spectators sparked an incident, the government would be blamed for failure to police the demonstration properly. But if government force was seen as less than highly restrained, the demonstrators next time might be twice as many.
At length the marchers flowed onto the vast pavement of Wellesley Square, which was large enough to hold them all. Flowed onto and across it, their skirling, booming, chanting current carrying them to the force field that, activated for the event, encircled the huge capital complex-a city embedded in a city. There the current stopped, the marchers flooding to both sides to fill the square.
Near one side, this sea of humanity contained an island-"Martyr's Hill"-a large grassy mound with steps, topped by a platform, which tonight was topped in turn by a microphone connected to Wellesley Square's sound system. Martyr's Hill was 742 years old, an enduring memorial to the demonstrators whose battle and massacre on this very square had led to a military coup, and the overthrow of the old Terran war government. Ending the long Troubles-94 years of economic warfare, embargoes, sabotage, terrorism, guerrilla actions, and now and then formal space fights between Terra, on the one hand, and her insystem colonies on the other. The mound had held various impassioned speakers over subsequent centuries, but there had not been so many listeners for a very long time.
Paddy Davies was a small man, so with his companion he'd climbed a few steps up on the side of the mound, to see over the crowd. The demonstration monitors allowed it, for the two were the principal members of the coordinating committee. Paddy gestured toward the executive tower, a mile away within the Complex. "What would you bet the bean pole is watching?" He shouted it, to be heard over the din.
"Of course he is," Jaromir Horvath shouted back. "In person, from a balcony. And Chang with him." Even shouted, his words were tinged with scorn. Horvath had founded, and at age sixty-four still led, the quasi-religious Party of the Holy Universe. An organization nominally inclusive, but politically narrow and dogmatic.
So far as anyone knew, joy was foreign to Horvath.
Paddy Davies was an idealist, and a mostly cheerful young man-the executive director of the People of the Glorious Creator. At age thirty-two, he could pass for twenty-five. "The People" was an ecumenical, nontheological religious umbrella beneath which various churches and sects-and any individuals who felt inclined-could merge to pursue common objectives. These days the overwhelming objective was peace. Paddy found joy in political conflict, and had many opponents but not so many enemies.
He didn't trust Jaromir Horvath, nor did Horvath trust him, but they had smoked the calumet, and united two of the more effective activist groups on Terra into a Peace Front. Which they directed, though reckless splinter groups might force their hands.
Together they watched Fritjof Ignatiev climb to the platform atop the mound. Ignatiev was the third leg of the Horvath-Davies-Ignatiev tripod. Horvath was all intellect and bile, a theorist and planner as bitter as Karl Marx, and with far less justification. He might convince, but he seldom inspired. While Paddy was charming and bright, but lacked charisma.
Ignatiev, on the other hand-tall, blond, and messianically sure of himself-had a compelling charisma that worked well on crowds. He radiated power, spirituality, and certainty, and his eloquence never ceased to impress. His intelligence, however, was less than ordinary. He listened closely to more powerful minds-notably those of Jaromir Horvath and Paddy Davies-and imprinted their arguments. His grasp of those arguments was often weak, but he delivered them as gospel, and Wellesley Square this night held a sea of true believers, eager to hear.
Simply standing by the microphone and raising his long arms, Ignatiev caused the clamor to fade, the drums to stop. The bagpipes groaned to a halt. He had a magnificent voice. He didn't test the sound system, didn't think about what he was going to say. He simply lowered his arms, opened his mouth, and began.
When he finished, thirty minutes later, the crowd cheered their heads off. Nothing he'd said had differed in substance from what they'd heard before. Afterward one of the major news anchors termed it "the same tired old bunkum." But Ignatiev had given it a sense of higher truth. And if it did not specify new efforts, it bathed the demonstrators in a pool of righteousness, strengthened their sense of unity in the cause, and inspired new fervor. While undoubtedly, some among those who watched and listened on television were converted. At least temporarily.
It was, Paddy thought, up to himself and others now to capitalize on it. Create and implement projects that would make a difference. Projects already prepared, that together would change the flow, turn public opinion around, and end this dedication to war. He left uplifted, less by Ignatiev's thirty-minute oration than by its effect on the crowd.