Serpent's Walk

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Thursday, September 17, 2043

“There it is!” exclaimed Wrench through a mouthful of hot dog.

He pointed with a napkin-stuffed fist and strove to swallow.

Lessing looked. The Party’s big, black D-170, a descendant of the C-130 military cargo planes of the previous century, was visible taxiing along the rain-misted runway. He grunted something in reply but had no idea what he said.

Jameela was aboard that plane.

Holms and Mallon shuffled their feet behind him, and Lessing turned to leave. It would take them a good five minutes to get down from the observation deck to the customs and baggage areas. Los Angeles International Airport had grown beyond all reasonable limits; like waves against a shore, it continued to nibble away at the ticky-tacky, stucco suburbs around it.

They clattered past people standing on the down escalators, tramped along the sleek, modernistic corridors, and pushed through crowds that were starting to look less like shell-shocked refugees in the midst of an army of occupation and more like ordinary folks again, people going about their business in a rational world. The worst had happened; yet even the worst was survivable. The human race hadn’t gone back to caves and spears. Civilization had more poop than the doom-sayers gave it credit for.

Los Angeles was outwardly untouched. The Cuban who was supposed to drop the water-soluble cannister of white, crystalline Starak into the aqueducts had realized suicide was for suckers and turned himself in instead. The lives of millions had hung upon that one moment of decision, and this time Death had lost the throw. Temporarily, anyhow.

Military personnel, mostly Blacks, thronged the baggage terminal. Some were returning home from overseas; others were headed out to Central America or other destinations. President Outram’s carefully unannounced policy was to separate the military along racial lines: move Blacks to certain world areas, Latins to others, and either bring Whites home or else concentrate them in still different locations. This was no easy task, even with the Pentagon, the Congress, and the media gone. The logistics were horrendous, and a hundred years of social momentum in the opposite direction had to be halted and reversed.

It was also growing more difficult to avoid confrontations with the liberals and the minorities. These were now fully aware of the monster in their midst, and every voice on the center and left of the political spectrum was in full cry, yelping for Outram’s walrus-mus- tachioed head. Huge riots had broken out in the refugee camps near Starak-ravaged Detroit; smaller ones bloomed like sudden shell-bursts here and there across the land, and more trouble — possibly civil war — loomed just over the horizon. A dozen of Lessing’s pupils had been killed in Terre Haute, Indiana, another three in Denver, Colorado, and a busload of Party organizers on a back road in Utah. The opposition was gathering in California: some in San Francisco, but most virulent in Los Angeles. They were the liberals, the Jews, the Blacks, the Latins, the gays, the Bangers, various Christian sects, and a lot of average people who put their trust in the media. Under normal circumstances the liberal-dominated media could have easily broken Outram’s “racist, fascist grab for power,” but Starak had done to the American Establishment what a size-13 boot does to an anthill. The ants still hadn’t got their act back together, and Outram had been faster to recover. He declared martial law, enlisted allies to help with emergency legislation to make everything legal, and put the Starak-contaminated cities off limits. This kept the great corporations and the media from regaining their headquarters and their control. With millions dead, the world’s business lay in chaos; Outram forestalled a return to “normalcy” by freezing the whole works “until legal ownership could be established.” Time was what he needed, time before the opposition could marshal its forces. Sequestering nearly everything of value gave him this time. It also turned up such irregularities as secret foreign ownership, interlocking directorates, hidden cartels, dummy companies, and “unwashable” cash. Starak had also done humanity a favor by stepping on the spider-kings of organized crime; their paper webs lay open to the light of day, and it was imperative to sweep them out before the “rightful heirs” could reclaim them. It was an exciting time for the federal inspectors in their bulky N.B.C. suits, wandering at will through the deserted boardrooms and corporate palaces of the poisoned cities.

Outram also fixed it so his allies had less trouble getting their property back. The Party’s holdings were dutifully inspected, approved, and returned. Furthermore, with many former proprietors occupying unmarked mass graves, it was no surprise that many wonderful opportunities became available to discriminating investors. The Party’s portfolio burgeoned, sprouted, and put forth leaves and buds.

As Wrench said to Lessing, “Who says history is fair? The top dog gets the early worm. Let the rest eat cake.” No one had ever accused Wrench of unmixed metaphors.

The luggage carousels were swamped. Over to the left, Lessing spotted a clump of brown and black: the D-170’s passengers, mostly Party members and trainees of the Cadre. That was Mulder’s name for the Party’s new military arm — a better choice than Goddard’s “Special Service,” the initials of which would have been disastrous for publicity purposes. Lessing would have preferred still less visibility. He rarely wore the black uniform Jennifer Caw had designed; it said too much and — as yet — lacked authority.

There.

Lessing, taller than his comrades, saw Jameela first: slender, graceful, long-legged, and at ease, even in this deafening bustle. Her dark-grey slacks and white, short-sleeved blouse were meant to be inconspicuous, but many turned to look at her, and some of the younger Cadre males stared with open interest.

“Happy now that Mulder didn’t let you resign?” Wrench purred in Lessing’s ear. “Kept his promise, didn’t he? Satisfied?”

He was.

Mulder was a great matchmaker, he actually looked like the paintings of Cupid. All he needed was a bow and arrow. Lessing hadn’t had to go to India after all. Not much was going into or coming out of that tormented country, but Mulder’s Indian friends had managed to find Jameela. They carried Lessing’s letters in to her, and her answers back to him. They also gave her Mulder’s job offer: “liaison supervisor,” a way for the Party to keep its fingers on the increasingly erratic pulse of Asia. Her duties would be similar to those she had performed for Indoco in India.

Her real task would be to keep Alan Lessing, Mulder’s chosen Commander-in-Chief, deliriously happy. And herself as well.

That suited Lessing perfectly.

Anneliese Meisinger receded into the background. After the New Orleans conference she had joined Mulder in Virginia, while Lessing and Wrench were assigned to the more critical Los Angeles post.

Lessing let her go. He had known — and loved — Jameela. Liese remained very much of an unknown.

Lessing did not learn until later of Mulder’s other offer, the one to Jameela’s father: leave India and join one of the movement’s overseas corporations. Lucknow was on the way to becoming a bloodbath. Ramanujan’s B.S.S. had begun its promised all-India purge of non-Hindus, and purges tended to turn into pogroms. Jameela’s father had other children besides Jameela. He accepted, therefore, and opted for the personnel department of a German cruise-ship line in the Canary Islands. The family had relatives there. Diplomatic passports and airplane tickets magically appeared, and Ramanujan’s mobs found only an empty house and neighbors who had no idea where the Husainis had gone. Jameela stayed with her people in Tenerife only long enough to see them comfortable; then she flew on to join Lessing.

At some point during this process he proposed, and she accepted.

The airport crush literally threw them into each other’s arms. She squeezed his hand but did not kiss him: still the prudish Muslim-Victorian! He had no memory of what he said, how they got outside, who took her baggage, or what the pollution-fogged freeways looked like on the way back to the hotel the Party had acquired as its headquarters in this hostile city. Cadre security men waved their car through the barricades, and they dived into the oil-smelling, echoing darkness of the garage.

Faces surrounded them, hands clapped Lessing on the shoulder, other hands reached out to help with suitcases, and words flowed over and past them, as unintelligible as the wind. Then he and Jameela were together in a large room with pink walls and pale-ivory furniture. Doors opened and shut, somebody proffered a bottle wrapped with a gaudy, red ribbon, somebody else loaded Jameela’s slim arms with crushed-looking, dark-red roses, and other somebodies smiled and mouthed more words and shook their hands. Lessing was popular with these people, even though he had made it clear that he “only worked there.” For his sake — and probably on Mulder’s orders — they would accept Jameela.

Faces appeared, and others went away. After an eternity they were alone.

He didn’t speak then. Nor did she.

Later it was night, then dawn again.

At 0700 hours one of Lessing’s trainees, a hawk-nosed Kansan named Bill Ensley, tapped on their door with breakfast. Only then did they realize they had missed dinner. They sat crosslegged on the rumpled, magenta bedspread to wolf down toast, poached eggs, and fruit. Being Muslim, Jameela did not touch the bacon, and out of respect for her Lessing didn’t eat his either. Cold, greasy, cardboard-stiff bacon had been one of his parents’ breakfast rituals; giving it up was no sacrifice!

He didn’t want to raise the blinds. He found himself hoping that when he did, he would see Indoco’s jungle of metal towers and conduits, the sere, grey-green landscape, and the dust-white sky of India outside. If only Pacov and all that came afterward had never happened! His father’s remedy for many of the hurts of childhood came back to him: “Rub it, say ‘magic-magic!’ over it, and it’ll go away.” Absently he massaged the bridge of his nose.

He grimaced and tugged his fingers away. This was like the cancer patient who wakes from a dream in which he finds his tumor miraculously gone: a wish-fantasy! Lessing always tried to be realistic. Look the enemy in the eye; then shoot, if you had to.

The Venetian blinds clattered open as he yanked savagely at their cord. Jameela squinted over at him in the flooding, yellow sunlight. Last night’s rain had gone; today the sky was blue — as blue as the city’s pollution-blanket ever let it get.

“Nothing,” he apologized vaguely. “Just fumbling.”

Jameela had a talent for healing. She let the lacy, white robe he had bought her slide open to display a smooth, wheat-golden thigh. Her bodice seemed to part of itself, revealing the curve of a breast and hinting at greater delights within. She bent her head, and her raven mane tumbled down over her shoulders.

He laid the breakfast tray carefully aside.

It was noon when they arose. Jameela showered and changed while Lessing squatted naked upon the sweat-dampened bedding. He poked the room TV’s remote button and watched a sleek, blonde woman present the news roundup. His mood of drowsy, animal warmth quickly drained away to be replaced by frigid reality.

Black Pacov stalked Africa, slaying those of Negroid blood. Much of the Israeli army in Egypt and North Africa was of European descent, but the Izzies were taking no chances: they were falling back into the Sinai. Pacov’s friends — typhus, typhoid, cholera, and bubonic plague — killed Jews and Gentiles indiscriminately. Other Israeli contingents were advancing into the Pacov-decimated regions of southern Russia, however, and Jerusalem’s mere units were probing north and east into the Urals and beyond, working in cooperation with the Americans and whatever various battered European nations could provide.

Western Europe still wallowed in a muddled half-war: Soviet troops, unsupported and running low on supplies, rampaged through Germany, Austria, and the countries of Eastern Europe. There were refugees by the millions, impossible logistics, starvation, dysentery, and sanitation so bad that even the rats held their noses! Unusually severe rains turned the jerry-built Italian, French, and Belgian camps into quagmires, and Spanish troops were using machine guns and tanks to halt the influx of unwanted visitors north of Barcelona. It was a busy season in Hell.

A new epidemic, the anchorwoman continued, possibly Pacov or one of its mutant offspring, was decimating Japan, Korea, and unknown stretches of the Chinese mainland. Nor was South America immune: Starak had been accidently let loose there by an American rapid-strike force probing for secret supply bases: some trigger-happy pilot had bombed a barge, and its lethal cargo had taken a flying splash into the Amazon! Much of Brazil was now a boneyard.

By the time Jameela emerged, massaging her banner of shimmering tresses with a fluffy bath towel, Lessing’s mood had become a landscape of unrelieved darkness.

She chose white slacks, a tunic of rippling, emerald silk, and tiny, pointed, black slippers. A touch of makeup, a whiff of sandalwood, and she was ready. She clicked off the newscast, stooped to kiss him, and said, “You need lunch.”

Lessing had improved by the time they reached the hotel dining room, a cavernous place panelled in dark veneer and lit by dim, orange, electric candelabra. A few of the new Party and Cadre uniforms were visible in the gloom, amongst old-fashioned business suits and new-fangled unisex coveralls. Others wore the bright-hued kilts and tunics that had just come into fashion when Pacov and Starak put the garment industry hors de combat.

Wrench and Morgan communed together in solitary splendor at the “officers’ table” beneath stained-glass windows at the far end of the room. Goddard was in Salt Lake City, Jennifer and Borchardt were organizing somewhere on the east coast, and Mulder was settling into the world’s newest and strongest fortress, a complex of steel, concrete, and fancy electronics in Virginia. Lessing deliberately avoided thinking of Liese.

“Hey, the newly weds! ” Wrench crowed. “Or, at least, the newly-laids!”

“You, too, can be a victim,” Lessing warned genially.

Sam Morgan got up to be introduced. Heads were swivelling at other tables, but he ignored them. Morgan fancied himself a sophisticate. He wouldn’t have batted the proverbial eyelash if Jameela had been a six-armed Hindu goddess.

“Sit down,” Wrench urged Lessing. “You’re spoiling my view of this lady.”

Jameela smiled at him. “You’ve seen me before, Charles. All of me. I remember who installed those big keyholes in the Indoco staff showers.”

Wrench chortled. “Right on! A lovely sight! And how’ve you been, my sweet? Your folks okay?”

She raised a graceful, shoulder. “Settling in. My father likes Tenerife, but my younger brother wants to come on over here.”

“No jobs… Starak’s screwed up everything,” Wrench said.

Morgan leaned past the little man. “What about Pakistan for a home for your family? The Red Mullah can use all the Muslim expertise he can get, now that Soviet Central Asia is up for grabs.”

Jameela flashed him an appraising look. “We’re Shi’i. And Indians until last month. And my father’s no Marxist”

“Copley’s up there in Russia somewhere,” Wrench told Lessing. “City called Sverdlovsk, in the Urals. The Israelis gave it to him and his meres… like a fief, you know. ‘Fight for us! Protect our flanks while we gobble up the rest of the country! We will then reward you with rich lands, mighty castles, and all the beauteous damsels you can prod!’” He performed a mock bow that almost ended with his nose in his lasagna. Lessing noted the empty wine bottle amidst the clutter of dishes. Another, half full, stood nearby.

Jameela glanced at the tables around them, then laid cool fingers over Lessing’s. Her words were for Morgan, however. “I wasn’t told that my duties included being a zoo exhibit.”

Morgan reddened. “You ‘re different. Forgive the curiosity. After Starak, there’ve been a lot less… uh, foreigners. And, uh, some of our people are a little surprised to see you here.” He straightened his maroon, silk tie uncomfortably. “You’re important to us. Miss Husaini. As Mr. Mulder must have told you, we need you to keep us up on Asian affairs, tell us what the foreign press is saying, advise us, help us deal with India, Pakistan, what’s left of Iran and the Arab countries, and the rest of the so-called Third World. You’ll have a good staff… facilities… whatever you want…”

Jameela cut him off. “By ‘us’ you mean your Party of Humankind. Not the United States government.”

Morgan inspected a dark spot, not unlike a smear of asphalt, on the sleeve of his expensive sports jacket and said, “Um, yes. We aren’t the government”

“Of course. Not yet, anyway.” She stared past him at the banners hung along the rear wall opposite the windows. The Party flag consisted of a thick, black “X” inside a black circle on a while background, centered on a red field. The connection was obvious.

Wrench soothed her. “Don’t worry about your status here. Mulder’s fixed your visa and green card and stuff.”

“And who’s going to fix them?” She swept the room with an icy stare.

“Hey. It’ll be green light… okay! Our rank and file’ll get used to you. Some of these gubbers have never seen a female sheep before, much less a houri of paradise!”

“A non-White houri. The attitudes of your Party of Humankind are no secret, Charles.”

This unpleasant topic had to come up sooner or later. Wrench opened his mouth, but Lessing got in first. “You’re no more non-While than Jennifer Caw! And she’ll envy you your tan!”

“I won’t be your token Black lady,” Jameela said evenly to Morgan.

“Indians aren’t racially ‘Black,’” Wrench said, “not even southern Indians. And some of the northern Indians are as ‘White’ as their Aryan ancestors. In fact, words like Aryan and swastika come from Sanskrit.”

Morgan interrupted him. “Wrench… please! Miss Husaini, be assured that no one here… no one… will offend you by word or look or deed! You are very welcome. We need you… and others like you, who want to work for a world in which all ethnos groups cooperate in harmony. We do not hold with mingling ethnos groups indiscriminately, but there’s always room for exceptional individuals and situations.”

“What a beautifully mealy-mouthed way of putting it.” Wrench smirked across the table at Lessing.

“Take it easy, Wrench!” Morgan ordered. “Miss Husaini, the Party’s interested in a new and better social order, truth in history, redefinitions of social goals… not just in skin color! We have lots of people who are educated… reasonable…”

“Plus some who’ll swear Irishmen are Black,” Wrench sniggered, “or at least a mite discolored around the asshole. Or who say Catholics aren’t White… or Italians, or Spaniards, or whoever the hell is different and an economic threat! New kid on the block? Not one of our kind? Okay, you gubber, mess with my job… move into my neighborhood… screw my sister… and I’ll hand you your teeth!”

“You’re drunk,” Lessing said. He set the wine bottle down beyond Wrench’s reach.

Pale lines of anger framed Morgan’s lips, but he kept his calm. “Some of those attitudes are justifiable, given the facts of history. Others reflect no more than ignorance and humanity’s built-in xenophobia and isolationism. We do believe in our own ethnos; its success is the world’s success. That’s what positive ethnic idealism means. We are not ‘rednecks,’ not ‘nigger-bashers,’ not ‘kike-kick-ers!’ Such terms are insulting… offensive and unthinkable in this twenty-first century! We aren’t haters; we’re lovers… lovers of our heritage and our people.”

“Racism…,” Jameela began.

“If you’re talking about racial consciousness, a positive feeling of racial identity and racial pride, then, yes, ‘racism’…”

“…is against the democracy you Americans are always preaching.”

“Not at all! It’s how you interpret ‘ democracy. ‘ Most of our early American patriots were ‘racists.’ Many owned slaves and foresaw an America ruled by gentlemen landholders: White gentlemen. A number of them made statements about the nature of the American Indians and the Blacks that would get them arrested now. Their ‘democracy’ was not the same as that of today’s liberals! Even after slavery ended in 1865, racial laws stayed on the books for almost another century. Few complained: not the elected senators and representatives, not the judiciary, not the executive branch of government, not the general public. Racial laws were taken for granted, and many sober, thinking, decent people considered them reasonable. Immigration laws, for example, were based on a desire to maintain America’s European racial character. Between 1882 and 1913 there were fifteen Federal acts on the books that kept the Chinese… specifically, by name… out of the United States! The same was true for other Asians, Arabs, and East Indians. Between 1882 and 1942 thirty Congresses could have changed those statutes, but they did not. Frankly, our forefathers would have been horrified at the modern interpretations of our founding documents.”

“You’re saying that race hatred should exist?”

“I am not saying that. In a properly ordered world, where each ethnos has its own turf, it need not exist! But people should love their own ethnos group and take pride in its accomplishments! We can admire other ethnos groups, provided they keep their distance and don’t threaten us or try to dominate us!”

“But what you said about your early patriots…?”

“They were good and serious people who saw society in their own terms. Those terms change. Nothing is immutable, carved in stone for all time to come; no ethic is perfect; no form of government is the greatest and the truest and the absolute, final best; no interpretation of the Constitution… or of any book or scripture… is a hundred per cent ‘right! ‘ Words mean what a specific society, in a specific place and time, wants them to mean. Compare what Christians say about Jesus Christ today with what the Church said about him in the Middle Ages. Or take what your Shi’i jurists said about law, marriage, and women’s rights a hundred years ago and stack that up against what your scholars are saying now.”

“Relativism? Nobody’s right, and nobody’s wrong?”

“Not necessarily! What I’m arguing is that it’s pointless to criticize the ‘great minds’ of the past. It’s also wrong to whitewash them and pretend that they agree with our present biases. We should read, understand, and respect them, but we shouldn’t twist their words to fit our modem tastes in social engineering!”

“If some of your ‘founding fathers’ were racists, it can be blamed on the primitive state of science in the eighteenth century. In any case, they seem to have preferred democracy to other forms of government.”

“Their science may have been primitive, but their conclusions on racial matters were more often correct than those of the modem liberals, whose science has been twisted to support their mania for ‘equality. ‘ As for democracy, that means different things to different people. We want to see it defined as it ought to be defined: the right of the majority to choose our form of government, set our own social standards, and make our own laws… yes, even racial laws, if that’s what the majority wants. We want an end to undemocratic financial and social pressures, and non-majority manipulation of the media. Eventually we intend to separate the ethnos groups and provide a more racially homogeneous and culturally healthy environment for our people. Then if other groups like what we achieve, they can copy it”

“Separate the races? How? Slop immigration? Shoot people?”

“Ask the Israelis about immigration laws, expulsions, and shootings. Ask them about the ‘Chosen People’ and the ‘right of return.’ Would they let you become a citizen there… or me? Ask them about the Palestinians, the Black Hebrews, and the Ethiopian Falasha Jews, whom they deported en-masse twenty years ago! No Gentile can acquire Israeli citizenship.”

“Israel’s a religious state…”

“A religious state discriminates just as much as a racist state. Every state… every living thing… discriminates on some basis or other, even if it’s just not letting your kids play with tuberculosis patients.”

“Or letting cockroaches inhabit your kitchen. Wrench mumbled.

“The difference is that, unlike religion, we see a sound, scientific, and socially useful basis to ethnic genetics. Science has come full circle from the ‘bigoted’ racial theories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, through the ‘all-races-are-identical-under-the- skin’ ideas of the twentieth century liberals, to our own modem understanding of racial realities. More and more of humanity’s physical and psychological makeup has been shown to be due to genetic factors. Our point of view is a logical extension of this understanding.”

Wrench tapped his plate with his butter knife. “Israel’s only one example. How about other countries? Ask the Japanese if a White American could get elected to the Diet? The Japanese still consider foreigners barbarians and reminisce about the glories of the ‘pure Yamato race.’ What about Ramanujan’s racial and religious exclusivity in your own country? How many Muslims will he let stay in India?”

Morgan nodded impatiently. “Racism is everywhere, explicit or implicit. Many societies consider it so normal they don’t even question it. Why should America be different… especially if we can show that an enlightened and scientifically sound ethnos policy has positive value? Others don’t have to agree with us. We’re only saying that we… the folks who built America and a good chunk of this modem world… are going to run our show as we see fit.”

“World opinion…”

“It counts, but it can’t be allowed to govern. What have we profited from world opinion over the last century? Instead of friends we’ve got spongers, enemies, or ‘allies’ who ignore us and do as they please.”

Jameela sniffed. “We could argue cultural and economic imperialism, I suppose.” She paused. “But doesn’t your Party of Humankind have broader international goals? Like the old Nazis? Don’t you want to dominate, to rule, to subjugate?”

“The ‘old Nazis’? That’s a whole different discussion, Miss Husaini! Let’s leave that for another time.” Morgan’s brown eyes glittered with an interest verging upon the lascivious. He obviously enjoyed clever, verbal, spunky women. “Oh, no, we won’t ‘rale’ or ‘subjugate.’ We don’t believe in mixing, and we don’t want to become entangled in other people ‘s affairs. We will compete… and we will defend our interests. If some other ethnos group can’t solve its problems, we may even choose to help. If the other party can repay us, we’ll work out a deal. No more being suckered by every country unable to ran itself properly. One of our first goals is a unified, consistent foreign policy. Once we have that, we expect that within a century there’ll be no other ethnos group on this planet able to challenge us. They’ll either have copied us or become extinct.”

“After the mess you’ve made of the world you still expect the rest of us to copy you…”

Morgan spread his fingers and smiled. “Lady, we’re the only show in town. No other ethnos group has the strength and resilience to pull the world out of the hole it’s in. And it’s in that hole because we haven’t had our act together… because we’ve let ourselves be ruled by the policies of the liberals for the last century rather than those of the Party. Outram’s been good for the United States, but he’s only the first step. He’s local. We… the Party of Humankind… have international scope.”

The girl shook her head. “Your success means subjugation, perhaps extinction, for other… what do you call them?… ethnos groups.”

“Larger and more viable ethnos groups will exist… separately… at least, for a while. Smaller groups probably will go the way of the dodo; their members will gradually meld into the groups around them. It’s been that way throughout history: creative evolution in action. It happened to the American Indians, to the Hawaiians, to the Celts and the Picts and the Mundari tribes of India.”

“That’s cold. Callous.”

“I disagree. It’s realistic. It’s ‘tough love,’ as the social psychologists call it. Anything else is hypocrisy.”

“What about your own minorities, the ones who live here now?”

“No problem with foreign residents, visitors, students, and people who are not of us but who want to live and work in peace with us. We’ll keep their numbers in check, of course. Somewhere around one per cent of the population would be an absolute maximum for all of the minorities together. What we won’t allow are groups that live in our country, enjoy the fruits of our labor, and yet refuse to cooperate… or that try to dominate us or undermine our policies. Minorities will not be ‘second-class citizens,’ but neither will we let them tell us, the majority, what to do. We expect the same when we visit the territory of some other ethnos group. We’re serious about democracy. To us it means majority rule and not just lip-service while somebody else drives the bus.”

Jameela sighed. Wrench had shut his eyes, and Lessing was watching the afternoon sunlight transform the stained-glass windows into visions of medieval — or at least art-deco — glory.

“All right,” the girl said at length. Her fingers were icy and hard upon Lessing’s. “You haven’t convinced me. The Third World will never believe your promises of ‘no imperialism.’ We’ve seen too much of it. But I’ll stay, and I’ll do what you’re hiring me for. Maybe I can help prevent your American prejudices from wrecking this planet any more than it’s wrecked now.” She faced Morgan squarely. “The real reason I’m staying is Alan, as all of us here know. You understand? Alan Lessing. Remember that”

“Hey, I’m only hired security,” Lessing grinned to defuse the tension. “I can turn in my gun and badge any time!”

“You want to go live in some muddy mere bivouac in Russia?” Jameela asked silkily.

“Sure. Why not?”

“You’re spoiled, my darling. It’s exciting, being close to the hub of power, rubbing shoulders with President Outram and Herman Mulder. You’ve learned to enjoy the good life, the luxuries, the banners, the pomp, and your play-soldiers in their black uniforms snapping off salutes. Oh, yes!”

“Like I told you, I’m hired security… a jumped-up drill sergeant!”

“The Party pays you, and you serve its purposes.” She softened. “As I must, too, Alan, since I am going to stay. I will not… I cannot… go away from you again.”

“Good,” Wrench muttered muzzily. “Now if we’ve settled the terms of your employment, Miss Husaini, how ‘bout some lunch?”

“Fine. The menu, please.”

Afterward, as they left the restaurant, Lessing overheard Wrench talking to Morgan: “Liese has to work some more on her Dorn book. Shce-it, you saw how its arguments flunked with Jameela! Instant conversion? More like instant cow-flop!”

“She debates like a liberal lawyer!”

“*S ‘matter? Thought you liked sharpy women! She really gave you a run for your money.”

“Do I look worried?” Morgan answered easily. “She’ll come

around. And she’s too good for the likes of Lessing ” The rest

of his remark was lost in the babble of the lobby.

Lessing found himself holding Jameela’s hand. He had already proposed to her. Now he was going to marry her. Tomorrow. Before another day passed. Son of a bitch if he didn’t!

Morgan came back to them. “You busy tomorrow?”

“We planned to take care of some private matters,” Lessing answered. “Why?”

“Got a problem. Grant Simmons, the new president of the Congress of Americans for Personal Freedom is coming in tomorrow morning at 11:40. If Wrench’s hangover doesn’t kill him, he’ll have to show the gubber around.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Wrench and I were supposed to meet a man. Now Wrench won’t be able to go. It’d be nice if you came along. Add weight and,” Morgan grinned facetiously, “military authority.”

“Who ‘re you meeting?”

“You may not have heard of him. A Black Muslim leader named Khalifa Abdullah Sultani… a.k.a. Thomas Bowler, once a government meat inspector in Portland, Oregon. His Community of Allah Almighty is the biggest Black Islamic sect on the West Coast, maybe in the country.”

“An American Black Muslim?” Jameela inquired. “May I go too?”

Lessing shook his head. “You’re staying here. You just arrived, and you’re tired.”

“Not at all! In India we hear of the Black Muslims, but we don’t see many. I’m curious.”

“Why not?” Morgan gave her a winning smile. “You won’t be in the way.”

“Too dangerous!” Lessing stated curtly. “No.”

“On the contrary. More guns than World War II, but really nothing to worry about. The Khalifa’s given us safe-conduct, and my sources say he never breaks his word.”

“I don’t like it!”

“Use your charms on him, lady,” Morgan urged. “Your Mr. Lessing is a survival from the past: a male chauvinist, as outdated as bearskin underwear.”

Wrench added, “I’ll send along my magic decoder ring: a modem to Eighty-Five. If you get into trouble you just holler for Super-Wrench!”

“Go take a nap, Wrench. Mr. Simmons expects the grand tour.” The set of Morgan’s jaw showed that he was more annoyed than amused.

“What time tomorrow, Mr. Morgan?” asked Jameela. “Call me Sam. Outside the hotel main entrance at nine-thirty.” “We’ll be there.” She took Lessing’s protesting arm and turned toward the elevators.