Serpent's Walk

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Friday, September 18, 2043

The next morning they were up by 0700 hours, finished with breakfast by nine, and outside awaiting the transport Morgan had arranged by 0915. Lessing paced back and forth at the top of the sweeping, windy staircase leading down to the open plaza in front of the old hotel, while Jameela huddled in her grey, Kashmiri shawl by the concrete balustrade. It was chilly for California, something the locals stoically blamed on the brief but terrible Vietnamese-Chinese War of 2010.

Morgan was late. He came bustling out at 0955, glanced up at the lowering sky, then across the square at the facade of off-white office buildings and sickly palm-trees. “Ready?”

“As we’ll ever be.” Lessing slipped an arm about Jameela’s waist In India she would have pulled away, but they weren’t in Lucknow now. She moved closer to touch her thigh to his.

Morgan eyed her. “Are you coming, then?” He clearly wanted her along.

“Alan can’t argue me out of it.”

Lessing still had misgivings. Their escort, a score of trainees from Ponape, wore black Cadre uniforms. They would attract attention and flaunt the Parly’s presence in the faces of its foes. He said as much to Morgan.

The other shrugged. “Mulder’s idea: a show of unity and discipline. The Khalifa’s ‘brothers’ will be the same, only in pretty, green camo dress… black berets with silver crescents on ‘em… more chains and junk than a Banger concert queen. Wait and see.”

Their transport arrived promptly at 1000 hours: an armored limousine, two rumbling, khaki-painted personnel carriers, and a little jeep-like AVW-23 scout car. The route led south along U.S. 1 10, then turned west into Inglewood. Except for military vehicles they encountered little traffic: recent events had put an awful crimp in California’s business, as well as in its weather.

Off Manchester lay the ruins of the Forum, still unrebuilt after the great quake of 2008. Their caravan drew up in an empty lot near Hollywood Park, as close to their meeting site as they could get. The Park still offered horse racing, but it looked as though this district had seen neither a paint brush nor a garbage truck for half a century. Why did population patterns always seem to change for the worse?

They disembarked and followed a Cadre guide along the dilapidated streets, across lawns where grass no longer grew, and past buildings that showed no signs of life, yet, Lessing sensed, were filled with eyes.

“Y’oughta see Watts.” Ensley, their driver, jerked a thumb toward the northeast. “Even Black cops don’t go in there no more. What the locals call ‘home rule.’”

“Here they come,” Morgan announced tersely.

A dozen Black men wearing green camouflage uniforms had emerged from a side-street and were advancing toward them across the cracked and buckled asphalt. Six carried Israeli stitch-guns, two had heavier automatics, and the rest were armed with rifles and handguns. Lessing’s attention was on the nearby rooftops. One rocket launcher up there could turn them all into dog food. Mor-gan — or more probably one of Lessing’s brighter pupils — had anticipated this contingency, however: a black-clad Cadre man waved at them from the top of a heap of concrete slabs. Next to him lounged one of the Khalifa’s troopers. The truce was apparently on.

“It’s green light, sir.” Ensley pointed. “That square building there’s a police station… to keep the gangs out of the Forum ruins. The Blacks ‘n’ the Chicanos come here to fight their whangoes… um, battles. Nobody mannin’ the station now. Governor’s got all the cops ‘n’ National Guard out patrollin’ the aqueducts against Starak-droppers. We’re pretty safe. We’ve had a rec-team lookin’ this site over since Tuesday.”

“Who gave that order?” Lessing asked.

“Mr. Morgan.” Ensley grinned self-consciously. “Wrench… um, Mr. Wren… said you was too busy to be bothered.”

This bypassed what Lessing understood was to be the chain of military command: missions that involved tactical planning were supposed to go through him. It seemed that jockeying for power — as old as the caves — was already in full swing within the fledgling Party of Humankind. He’d have to see to Morgan later.

The Khalifa’s escort halted. Lessing gestured one of his men forward, a veteran of the Central American bush wars named Chester something. A green-clad Black Muslim moved out, spoke in tones too low for them to hear, then indicated the police station. Lessing examined the ruined walls and buildings in visible weapons range. It might be uncool to look, but meres who worried about too much machismo sometimes came home in boxes. Lessing felt the hairs rising on the nape of his neck. Might as well get this over. He grunted a command, and his people tramped forward in a fair semblance of order. He wished he hadn’t let Morgan con him into bringing Jameela along!

They negotiated the torn remains of a chain-link fence, picked their way over shards of broken glass, and entered the building through a steel door that looked as though it had been blown open with a grenade. The neighborhood kids played rough!

The salient thing about the interior decor was the variety, richness, and utter grossness of the graffiti. The totality of human depravity was depicted in Bril-Glo spray colors on every available surface: walls, ceilings, floors, desk tops, cabinets, and lockers: whatever had not been moved out, ripped off, or smashed. Most of the words eluded Lessing, who had little recent experience with Black slang or Bangerese, but the illustrations were graphic enough. Behind him, Jameela uttered an involuntary giggle. He suppressed a puritanical urge to order her outside.

Seven Blacks, three in green camouflage and four in suits or sport shirts and slacks, stood ranged behind the long table in the center of the room. An eighth man occupied — overflowed was more like it — a rickety office chair facing them. Two identical chairs stood empty on their side. The seated man pointed, and one of the uniformed youths brought up a third chair.

Khalifa Abdullah Sultani was a huge, billowing, opulent, middle-aged man. He had either been a boxer in his youth, or regularly had the crap kicked out of him. A permanently puffed cheek pulled his broad features askew, and his nose had been broken several times with enthusiasm. His skin was a rich chocolate, not blue-black like some Angolans Lessing had seen, but darker than was fashionable in the American Black community.

“Samuel Elwin Morgan? Charles Hanson Wren?” He looked a question at Jameela.

Sam said, “I’m Morgan. This is Alan Lessing. Wren stayed home. The lady is Miss Jameela Husaini.”

The Khalifa smiled, slowly and warmly, an “ivory sunrise,” as Wrench had once described a certain TV host. His green-clad beegees did not echo his warmth, nor did Lessing ‘s own Cadre men.

Morgan took the central chair, flanked by Lessing on one side and Jameela on the other. The Black leader’s eyes travelled curiously over the Indian girl, but he made no further comment.

“You called this meeting,” Morgan broke the silence. “Your nickel.”

“Nickel don’ buy nothin,’” muttered one of the Khalifa’s aides. “Mint don’ even make ’em no more.” Nobody laughed.

Khalifa Abdullah Sultani folded thick fingers across his swelling paunch. He wore a loose, floor-length robe of emerald velvet, a costume that resembled the traditional Egyptian galabaiyeh. His bald, white-fringed skull was bare. Neither he nor his followers sported a single chain, although a few silver rings and earrings were visible — so much for Morgan’s prediction! Lessing remembered that male Muslims were forbidden by Islamic law from wearing gold jewelry, and the Community of Allah Almighty was as orthodox as they came.

“We share certain goals,” the Khalifa announced His voice reminded Lessing of Jonas Outram’s, only in a darker, minor key, like smooth cream.

One of the Cadre men snorted, and Lessing motioned for silence.

Morgan asked politely, “What might those be?”

“Your Party of Humankind seeks a ‘Whites only’ America, does it not? No Blacks, no Orientals…” he blinked at Jameela “…no Jews, no Chicanos, nobody but you Hogboes… ‘White’ folks… all alone, by yourselves, stewing in your own pale juice.”

Morgan caressed his sleek, mouse-brown hair. “Let’s cut out the insults, if we’re going to talk.”

The dark-pupiled eyes opened wide. “Didn’t I get it right? Did I say something that wasn’t true?” His massive shoulders rose in a shrug. “Very well. No name-calling. We really do need to parley. Green light?” When Morgan nodded the Khalifa asked, “How much do you know about our Community of Allah Almighty… about Islam?”

“Enough.” Morgan stared flatly back. Neither he nor the Khalifa were impressing each other.

“I wonder. Are you aware that Islam does not distinguish between ‘church’ and ‘state?’ Allah tells us to establish a theocracy, a community both religious and secular: a Dar-ul-Islam, where Muslims can dwell together according to the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad, Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him!”

Morgan’s gaze flicked briefly over toward Jameela. “So?”

“We of the Community of Allah Almighty believe that this will come to pass, that such a divine nation is Allah’s command. Present-day ‘modem’ Muslim states are un-Islamic travesties of his message. For this reason he sent Pacov and Starak down as mighty swords to slay those who do not believe in him and in the last day. The holy Qur’an provides signs and portents of this.” Lessing fancied he could hear the capital letters in the Khalifa’s measured tones. He was reminded of Outram again.

One of the Khalifa’s followers said, “A-men!” Somebody else murmured, “Tell it!”

A Cadre trooper coughed, and another whispered to the man beside him. Lessing turned his head and saw that Morgan’s expression was one of pained patience. Jameela was watching the Khalifa raptly.

“The only salvation for Muslims, Mister Morgan, is to go apart, create a Dar-ul-lslam, and dwell therein as true believers according to Allah’s laws until he commands the final judgment.”

“I begin to see.”

“Yes, Mr. Morgan, oh yes! We of the Community of Allah Almighty desire a Dar-ul-lslam for ourselves, just as you want a Black-free homeland. And, to be blunt, we don’t love you any more than you love us.”

“We bear you no ill will…,” Morgan began.

“Really? You’re as tired of Black-White problems as we are: ghettoes and inner-city decay and drugs and crime and gangs and prostitution and illiteracy and welfare without hope and jobs without futures. Some of those evils are due to you, to your White oppression; some also arise from us… from the frustration of being in, but not a part of, your White world. Here we’re at the bottom of the heap, buried beneath the worst elements of both of us. We did not ask to be brought to America, and after four centuries of slavery and prejudice we are convinced that assimilation and equality will never happen. Almost any White-appearing European can vanish into your ‘melting pot, ‘ but in spite of eighty years of civil rights struggle it’s not working for us… nor for certain other ‘visible’ ethnic groups. Our faces… our skins… are the barrier. We cannot assimilate. We cannot intermarry with you and disappear. We cannot develop. We cannot grow. We are trapped in our historical role just as you are: the oppressed eternally struggling against the oppressor.”

“Let’s skip the sermon. What is it you want?”

“What do I want? What do we want? We want you… your Party of Humankind… to persuade Outram’s government to create a separate nation for our people: a Black Dar-ul-lslam, free of Whites.”

“We don’t have that power… nor does Outram.” “Oh, I think you do. And he certainly does. Or will.” ‘“Homelands’ have been tried: Liberia in Africa, for example, or Israel.”

“Yes, Liberia, a country where ex-slaves attempted to maintain a semblance of White culture and institutions! We all know what happened to Israel: an oppressive military empire that would have broken the Prophet Moses’ heart! No, I am talking about a Black experience, a place where our culture… adapted to the Shari’ah law of Islam… can achieve the will of Allah.”

“Islam isn’t Black… it’s a Near Eastern religion.” Jameela spoke for the First time. “The Prophet Muhammad was not a Black but an Arab.”

“I see you’ve brought an expert.” The Khalifa leaned forward to inspect Jameela. “I am surprised. What are you doing on their side of the table?”

“She’s no Black!” Lessing began, then clamped his mouth shut.

The Khalifa slowly turned to face him. “Aha, do I detect a ‘race traitor’ here? Isn’t that what you folks call it? Aren’t you scared of a lynch party some night, young man?”

“Drop it!” Morgan snarled. “We don’t have to take this…!”

The Khalifa blinked at him amicably. “You’re right. Your hang-ups are your business.” He cleared his throat. “Where was I? Oh, yes. Islam is for all Creation, for all peoples and times and places. Allah sent a prophet to each nation. The Prophet Muhammad, Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him, was a human being, a prophet like Moses and David and Jesus before him. He was the last prophet, and he brought Allah’s complete and Final word, unchangeable and eternal: the holy Qur’an! Islam suits the Black man best… as it would suit you Whites, too, if you gave it a chance.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. We’ve got enough religions as it is. Let’s get back to your ‘Black homeland’: I can tell you right now that it will never be in the United States!” Morgan made a slashing gesture in the air. “No way! Not ‘Bama ‘n’ Georgia ‘n’ 01’ Mississip’, as some over-generous freebie-givcrs have proposed before!”

The Khalifa threw out a pink -palmed hand “Hold on! Did you hear me ask for that? You want to develop what you call your ‘ethnos’ in a lily-white, one-race environment. We want the same for ourselves, only for religious as well as for racial reasons. The farther away from you the better! We don’t want you anywhere near us: always ‘the Man,’ ‘Whitey,’ ‘Hogbo,’ ‘Honky,’ ‘Boss,’… ‘01’ Massah’… the one who runs things, whatever the liberals and their Jewish lawyers say! You can keep this continent!”

“I thought we agreed on no insults.”

“Forgive me. I do get carried away. Four centuries of oppression tend to unsettle a person.”

Morgan brushed paint flakes from the graffiti-smeared table off his sleeves. “Where do you want your… uh… homeland, then? Central America? A couple of mostly-Black army divisions are already stationed in Honduras and Nicaragua. I think there’re others in Cuba and Bolivia.”

“Israel?” A Cadre trooper snickered. “The Central Park Zoo?” Two or three others laughed.

“Shut up.” Lessing didn’t look around.

The Khalifa smiled again. The mirrored wrap-around sunglasses of one of his aides reflected the light from the side window to give his bald head an angelic halo. “No. Neither Central America nor Israel. Africa. We want a chunk of Africa, the ancestral homeland of our ethnos group.”

“Black Pacov!” Lessing exploded, and Morgan echoed him: “Suicide!”

“Nice of you to be concerned. Let me tell you something about Pacov, if you don’t know it already. The two original Pacov piggyback viruses have active lives of less than two months… important for a weapon of war. The mutant strains are less stable: they last longer and they may flare up several times before quitting for good, but they do die out. Give Pacov four months… the time we’ll need to get ready… and there’ll be no major populations alive in the affected regions of Africa. Pacov doesn’t affect the hippopotamus; did you know that?”

“What? No….”

“Unless we act fast Africa’s going to be ass -deep in hippopotami! Today Africa, tomorrow the world!” The Khalifa’s emerald-draped belly jiggled with mirth “Seriously, Pacov dies once it has no food matrix… nothing to eat. Its inventors planned it that way: a dead landscape, ready for their troops to move in, loot, and set up housekeeping. Better than the neutron bomb, better than any weapon ever devised.”

“We know. I suppose you want Outram to regroup American Black military personnel into separate units and ship them to Africa?”

“Yes. First you’ll have to send in bacteriological warfare teams to make sure Black Pacov is gone. And to move any surviving pockets of Whites and immunes out of our way.”

“We’ll face stiff opposition. The Israelis think they own Africa, and their Jewish lobbies will squeal like stuck pigs, to use a very un-Kosher phrase.”

“The Izzies’ main occupation forces have left. You can’t blame them for being scared of contagion. If we do it right, we can occupy parts of Africa farthest away from Israel… West Africa… before they can return. Several mostly-Black military units are already in the works… oh, Outram thinks he’s clever, but it doesn’t take much to figure him out… and they can be sent to Europe and from there to Dakar, Lagos, and other places as ‘relief teams.’ By the time the Izzies get their dinks up again, we’ll be dug in. They won’t want a whango with us, not with American Black troops armed with the latest weapons the U.S.A. has… and not with southern Russia to pick over for free!”

“South Africa’s already sending aid to some of the areas north of them.”

“We won’t be in their way. They’re down south, in Zimbabwe and Botswana. They can keep their Siegfried Line… for now. Later we may be able to figure out some sort of deal for them, too, just as we’re proposing one now for ourselves.”

Morgan made a steeple of his fingers. “How could it work? Not only because of White South Africa. Most American Blacks won’t join you. Hell, the majority’s not even Muslim. They’re Christians, agnostics, ordon’t-give-a-damns.”

“First things first. We, the Community of Allah Almighty, occupy West Africa. We discourage the Israelis from grabbing Lebensraum… you recognize the word?… for themselves. We establish bases, bring in our settlers, and set up an economy with your help. As we grow, we encourage our brothers and sisters here to join us, either in our Dar-ul-Islam or in states of their own. Christians, Muslims, Rastafarians, Voodoo-Dawn, Free Pagans… none of our people will want to slay in this country once your Party of Humankind gets control. Staraks already taken out the biggest Black concentrations in the eastern cities, and I think you’ll agree that it’s easier now to disentangle our people from yours than ever before… or probably ever again. We think the majority of American Blacks will be eager to live in a land that is completely ours, where we can achieve our spiritual and cultural zenith just as you want to reach yours here.”

“What prevents you from turning on us once you’ve got your Islamic state?”

“You don’t give yourselves credit, Mr. Morgan. Everybody knows that Whitey can always beat up on a gang of watermelon-munchin’ Darkies.”

“God damn it!”

“Sorry. I forgot. No insults. Let’s just say that we’re willing to coexist once we’re free and clear. We don’t want a whango with you, not while you’ve got your nuclear hardware. War and destruction don’t do either of us any good. We can help you in the Third World, too. Europe’s thumbed for the next decade or so, but a lot of Asia’s left, ready to grab off markets and territory and compete. We can work together; after all, we’re culturally closer to you White Americans, like it or not, than to those foreign peoples. You’ll have a ‘While America’ here, and we’ll have a ‘Black America ‘ in Africa. Cooperate, and we’ll survive together, separate but equal… and allied for the future. This way we both achieve the highest potential of our different ethnos groups, to borrow Mr. Vincent Dom’s fancy phraseology.”

“We’ll have to talk it over. It’ll take time.”

“We don’t have lime. We have to block the Izzies from retaking Africa… and gobbling up Europe and Asia and the world!”

Morgan chewed his lip dubiously. “God… interesting idea. Um. But I doubt whether many Blacks will go play pioneer with you. We’d like them to leave, but will they? They’re comfortable where they are. A lot have homes, jobs… good jobs… education, health and social services, pensions. Many are integrated into their communities.”

“We assumed you… Outram’s friends… are going to ‘Mrtintegrate’ them… or maybe ‘disintegrate’ them?” The Khalifa chuckled. “Forgive the joke. It’s true that our peoplehave jobs, food, services… sure… but they’ve never been truly equal, never an integral part of your world. They’re not happy here. Things’ve changed since 01’ Massah laid down the whip back in 1865, but a whole lot of civil rights reforms are cosmetic; you know that, and we know it. ‘Equal rights! ‘“He pursed his lips. “In some ways we’re worse off now than when we were pluckin’ banjoes down on the levee. The White majority holds the reins of power, and that’s how it’s going to stay. Blacks who ‘fit’ are accepted to some extent, but never all the way… in spite of efforts to turn us into ‘lovable neighbors’ and ‘good buddies’… and lately ‘acceptable’ husbands, wives, and lovers… on TV. We aren’t happy being a sort of neutral grey, and we know you folks don’t want that either.” “You know who really holds the ‘reins of power.’” “Sure. We agree on the Hymies… but back to Dar-ul-Islam. Let’s just say that most of those Blacks who are ‘comfortable’ here will see the writing… should I say the swastika?… on the wall, and they’ll hotfoot it off to us in Africa. You’ll offer incentives, of course: capital and goods to get us started there. A Black, Islamic state in our ancestral continent will bring most of our people over to us. First, the North American Blacks, then later perhaps those from Brazil and the Caribbean… if they can fit into our ethnos, so to speak.”

“Some won’t leave. What do we… you… do about them? Nobody wants a race war!”

“You can keep the Uncle Toms!” One of the Khalifa’s aides sneered. Lessing’s men were not the only ones who would be chewed out for breaking discipline!

The Khalifa ignored theoutburst. “Most’ll come over eventually. We’ll help you persuade them. But you’ll never achieve the Japanese ‘one race, one nation, one language’ ideal. There’ll always be holdouts: Blacks, Chicanos, Chinese, Viets, Afghans… Irishmen. You can deport them by force, if you want. That’s exactly what we intend to do with any stubborn Whiles left in our Dar-ul-Islam. We can agree to take in each other’s undesirables.”

Morgan smiled at Jameela beside him. “We hope we won’t have to deport anybody forcibly. We believe that when everyone understands our ideas they’ll see the advantages of associating themselves with their own ethnos groups. We believe “

The Khalifa interrupted, “I won’t lecture you on Islamic brother-hood if you don’t preach Mr. Dom’s ideas at me.”

“What about the ‘coffee-‘n’-creams’?” one of Lessing’s men, a heavy-set veteran soldier named Joe Gumey, put in. “The racial mixes?”

“The Islamic state is welcome to them,” Morgan answered bluntly.

“We’re all of mixed blood,” the Khalifa chided. “Black slaves and German warriors in the Roman empire, Syrian legions posted out to Britain, Celts living in North Africa, Moors in Spain, the Crusades, the American Indians… more fool’tn’ around on the Southern plantations than most Whites like to admit. Will everybody have to fill out a genealogy all the way back to Adam?”

“Absolute racial purity is impossible,” Morgan conceded. “Only isolated populations like the Japanese or the Australian aborigines are anything like ‘pure’ in the scientific sense. Anthropologists trace the human race back to certain closely related varieties of hominids… Australopithecus, Ramapithecus… every year they find another fossil to crow over. These, they claim, interbred, mutated, evolved, or whatever to produce ‘modem man.’ What you can’t say in public is that Homo sapiens in fact consists of several sub-species, each with its own distinctive genetic make-up and unique psychological profile. It’s true that we’re mixed, but our sub-species are still clearly separate. We believe these ought to be kept that way, just as a good breeder doesn’t male a prize Dachshund with the Labrador down the street.”

There was laughter on both sides of the table, followed by a chorus of woofing and yapping. Morgan’s cheeks colored, and the Khalifa hammered for order.

“Mongrels are often stronger and less high-strung than pure-breds,” Jameela said. “Human beings aren’t dogs to be ‘bred’ in any case!”

Morgan frowned at her. “Selective breeding would benefit the human race. A mixed-blood horse can’t beat an Arabian at the racetrack or pull heavy loads like a Belgian or a Percheron. We’re not pushing for forced breeding, of course.”

“Thank you for that!”

“Still, encouragement to stay within sub-species boundaries seems to be a good thing. Genetic weaknesses… the Black susceptibility to sickle-cell anemia, for example… can be contained, curtailed, and hopefully conquered without letting them spread to the whole human race through random breeding.”

“You’re an Indian Muslim?” the Khalifa asked the girl. When she nodded, he said, “Thought so. Our Community of Allah Almighty isn’t interested in genetics as much as it is in Islam… you’ll understand that. We want a homogeneous Islamic society, one free of ‘Whitey’ andfreeof the decay that’s ruining our people! Wewant Islam, and we want out. If you Indian Muslims hadn’t always had to fight the Hindus, you’d have made more progress, like Japan or Korea.”

“Progress? Industry, technology, consumer goods… they’re not everything!”

“Don’t jive me with ‘mystic India’ or Mahatma Gandhi in a diaper, miss! I’ve seen some very greedy, seedy gurus in my time. Materialism is better than the simple life pushing a plow. It’s a lot better than being broke and unemployed in a slum, watching your family disintegrate and your kids grow up with crime and dope!”

“There are things you could do…!” Jameela retorted hotly.

Morgan cut her off. “Please, Jameela. Let me say just one more thing about our concept of the ethnos: it’s more than just genetic race. It’s a Gestalt of race, culture, history, and perceived psychological and spiritual identity. We accept those who can become one with us and share our homogeneity. Those who don’t… or can’t, because of visible and insoluble differences… are ‘other.’ That’s reality. That’s the way it is, and to claim anything else is hypocrisy.”

“‘The wogs begin at Calais,’” the Khalifa quoted, a trifle wistfully. “No more lectures, please!”

“You Hogboes’re welcome to the ‘coffees’ and the Uncle Toms!” one of the Black beegees standing behind the table shouted out. He added an obscene gesture.

There was a flurry of gun bolts snicking and muzzles coming up.

Lessing was on his feet. “Any of you assholes ever been in a firefight? In a room this size? Do you know what a stitch-gun does? A Riga-71?” He jabbed a finger toward the weapon of one of the Black bodyguards. “A goddamned grenade launcher?”

The Khalifa joined him, thundering on the table with one powerful fist “Brothers! Hey, you godzoes! He’s right! Chug the jango! It’s green light… we’re jackin’ up front here!” He added more in the incomprehensible Black-English argot. To Morgan, who had stayed seated, the Khalifa rapped, “Get your godzoes under control! Who wins if we thumb ourselves? Which ethnos inherits the earth then? And no jive about ‘the meek’!”

Morgan’s response was braver than Lessing might have expected. Sam stood up, smiled, and said, “We’ll be leaving now. Send somebody over with whatever plan you come up with.” He ignored the Riga-71 aimed at his nose. “Come on, Lessing, Jameela.”

The guns slowly came down again. Lessing motioned Ensley to take Jameela outside, but she shook her head.

Morgan said, “We’ll consult our advisors…”

“You mean Eighty-Five?” The Khalifa inspected the pale halfmoons of his fingernails. “We, too, have access to Eighty-Five.”

Morgan showed no surprise. He replied, “Who doesn’t? Oh, you do understand that our top brass has to rule on anything we say here in Los Angeles?”

The Khalifa nodded. “I know. Herman Mulder and his international committee, the men behind… or to the right of… Jonas Outram. In the meantime let’s agree to keep your lily-White stormtroopers from tangling with my Black-power, Mrica-uber-alles godzoes!”

“Sounds good. Is four months enough for you?”

“Should be. We won’t oppose Outram’s plan to regroup the military, but we want a say, the right to make suggestions about officers and units. Green light?”

“Okay, we should be able to do that.” Morgan turned to Lessing: “Let’s go.” Their Cadre troopers began to file out.

“Ah, I almost forgot! I was going to tell you.“The Khalifa’s smile shone forth again. “We do have a preventive for Pacov… a start at it, anyway. I was about to offer it as proof of our good faith.” He gestured, and an aide handed him a plain, brown medicine bottle.

“A what?” Morgan exclaimed.

“You’ve heard of zombies?” A dozen white tablets the size and shape of collar buttons spilled out onto the Khalifa’s palm. Like a boy shooting marbles, he snapped one of these to Lessing, who caught it in the air. “Keep that as a gift from Allah, Mr. Lessing. Or rather from the voodoo gods, since it began with our brothers down in Haiti, while they were being exploited by Spain and France.”

“And other Blacks!” Morgan couldn’t help adding.

“This is a derivative of puffer-fish poison: tetrodotoxin, the essential ingredient in the mixture of toad-teats, lizard tails, tarantula toes, and human bones that make up the cocktail the houngans… voodoo priests… serve up to people they deem socially incorrect. It slows down a victim’s metabolism to the point where even a modem hospital can declare him dead if the doctors aren’t paying attention. If the zombie isn’t buried… or worse, embalmed… he wakes up a while later. How much later we still aren’t sure: anything from a day to a week. The original potion had just one major side effect: it usually caused extensive brain damage. That’s what produced the ‘corpse from the grave’ late-night horror-show look. You know, the ‘zombie shuffle.’”

“This… this prevents Pacov?” Morgan peered at the tablet in Lessing’s hand.

“To an extent. I said it was a start. A researcher… a Black lady scientist, you’ll be happy to learn… found that tetrodotoxin inhibits the lethal coagulation of the blood caused by Pacov. It’s not yet clear why. Talk to Dr. Ellen Jefferson Kirk in the medical school at Berkeley. She and her team are the ones working on this.”

To Lessing’s eyes the little white pill appeared as innocuous as aspirin. “This… uh, refined form… still causes brain damage?”

“Less than the ‘classic’ variety but still a danger. You can’t inhibit a person’s metabolism for any length of time without risk. Here we have a prophylactic that’s almost as bad as the disease, like cracking your skull open with a rock to relieve a brain tumor.”

Morgan continued to stare at the pill. “We’re grateful for this. We’ll see that it gels tested… refined.”

“Here, the whole bottle’s for you. We’ve got more.”

“Would this Dr. Kirk mind if I showed this to other people? We can promise to keep her patents intact.”

“She doesn’t care about patents. It’s for humanity. She’s already talked to the Swiss and the Japanese. What matters is stopping Pacov, though this stuff won’t help now. Pacov’s run its course in Europe, and it’s dying out in Africa and Asia. This is only a preventive at best. Dr. Kirk only hopes it’ll discourage the use of Pacov in the future.”

“It’s no good against Starak, of course.” Morgan took the proffered bottle carefully. “We’ll do what we can.”

“So will we.”

No one offered to shake hands. Lessing led the way outside, and the others followed. He dropped his little pill casually into his shirt pocket; you never knew when such a thing might come in handy. Jameela slid into the back scat of the limousine, while Morgan joined the driver in front.

“That was a cute bit of one-up-manship,” Lessing remarked to Morgan, “the humanitarian Black lady scientist bit.”

Morgan twisted around to skewer him with a stare. “She happens to be trained in White-developed scientific methods in a White educational system, and she works with White-created theories, instruments, and materials. She is a product, wholly and solely, of White inventiveness and enterprise! And,” he added, “she also happens to be a decent person. We ‘Hogboes’ don’t have a monopoly on decency.”

“How nice of you to admit it,” Jameela remarked. “The result of a good environment, no doubt, living so close to her White colleagues.”

Morgan refused to rise to the bait. “Environment’s a major factor. There’re also extremes in any population… the bell curve, you know: superior members and inferior ones. It’s when you compare two bell curves that you can reach meaningful conclusions about differences between whole groups. This Dr. Kirk is probably way above the mean on any scale. To exceptional genes, add the advantages of a supportive home environment, a good education, scholarships, professional employment, and the like. Such an individual can hardly lose! But take a look at a ghetto some time if you want to see the other side of the story.”

“No worse than the White slums of nineteenth-century England!”

“As I said: environment helps or hinders what you inherit.”

“Judging by the number of Black lawyers, scientists, scholars, artists, businessmen, administrators, and what-all these days, the environment is doing just fine.”

“True, but who created it in the first place? Who’s maintaining it now?”

“Why don’t you settle for a multi-racial state? Why waste potential? Why separate the races? Every person has something to offer, some talent society can use.”

“Remember that the ‘homeland’ idea is the Khalifa’s, lady! Fifty-sixty years ago some White groups offered to separate and form a mono-racial White state in the Pacific Northwest where they wouldn’t bother the liberals and their friends. Now it’s the Khalifa who wants it the other way around.”

“You haven’t answered me. Why separation at all?”

“Simple: we can’t assimilate them, or they us. We’re different: we can communicate, even be friends. But they can never be us. They’re visible, as the Khalifa said, and they’re also genetically and culturally distinct. A homogeneous community works better than a heterogeneous one, and a state must answer to its people’s collective will. Our ethnos demands a just and democratic system, where our citizens will pull together in the same direction. We can’t achieve that as long as society is a muddle of squabbling, mutually mistrust-ful components.”

“You don’t argue that Blacks and others are genetically inferior, then?”

“They’re different. Not a lot, as an elephant is different from a mouse, but in small, subtle ways that don’t show up until you see them in the aggregate. Anyhow, it’s impossible to define ‘inferior’ except in reference to specific characteristics. Some minorities may find it possible to merge into our ethnos; others cannot, as I said. It’s best for the latter to go apart and live elsewhere, with as little friction as possible. Both they and we will benefit.”

“Why can’t such minorities coexist within your society, as Hindus, Jains, Indian Christians, and Sikhs exist in India?”

Morgan slapped the leather back of the car seat with glee. “Gotcha this time, lady! You yourself are living proof that coexist- ence doesn’t work! You and the Hindus come from pretty much the same stock, speak the same languages, eat the same food, and follow similar customs, but you’re an economic threat to them, and you belong to a different ethnos! That’s why you people have been at each other’s throats for so many centuries! Coexistence? Oh, yeah, tell me all about it!”

“There are historical reasons!”

“There always are. Once everybody recognizes that our ethnos rules in our territory, we can coexist with some of our minorities, we can be friends with other ethnos groups and states, and we can cooperate in building a multi-ethnos world. As time goes on, we think our ethnos will prevail, and others will disappear, as I’ve told you before.”

Jamcela’s eyes glittered. “Why not just interbreed now? Save yourselves the trouble of separation, accommodation, assimilation again… and bloody race-wars along the way?”

“Because wedon’t think racial intermixing is genetically benefi-cial, and it also causes unnecessary cultural tensions… at a time when we’re facing other horrendous problems. Even if all of the other ethnos groups in the world do eventually assimilate to ours, we will still want to maintain genetic separation between the major racial groups. We think that’s best for the species!”

Lessing had had all he could take. He cried, “Oh, shut up, both of you! Enough, goddamn it! ” With difficulty he captured Jameela’s wrist and made hushing noises until she subsided. Morgan grinned, raised an eyebrow, then turned back to stare primly forward out of the front window. Ensley said nothing, though they could see his eyes upon them in the driver’s mirror.

Lessing came to another decision: he and Jameela would never be happy here, not with these one-note ideologues. It wouldn’t work.

They did not speak as they sped back north along the littered, crumbling freeway. The clouds of yellow pollution that had obscured the city in the morning had scudded out to sea to be replaced by steel-dark thunderheads. The earth smelled wet, smoky, and acrid, like gasoline and garbage and chemicals. It reminded Lessing of Lucknow, except that the sweeter fragrances of burning charcoal and spices were missing. In the mountains to the east thunder boomed like muted artillery fire. That evoked other, less pleasant memories.

They awoke in the night to more thundering outside; this was man-made, however, and not celestial. Lessing switched on the TV and listened to an all-night newscaster gabble excitedly about rioting in the Chicano barrios, about Black “whangoes” down near Walts, about police and National Guard actions and reactions, about guns and firebombs and hatred.

Always hatred: the human condition.

What saved humanity were the parallel qualities of hope and love. It would be nice to be able to add “and forgiveness,” but it didn’t seem that there was much of that around.

He stayed awake, blinking owl-eyed at the screen, long after Jameela had become a sleeping jumble of sandalwood-fragrant, black, silken tresses amidst the outrageous, pink pillows.

Pacov and Starak had not destroyed Western civilization, not with a bang, nor even with a whimper. They might have unbalanced the central flywheel, however. Now centrifugal force would gradually send the outer, looser pieces hurtling away, and at last the whole thing would whirl into fragments like a fireworks pinwheel on the Fourth of July. What would remain of humanity’s vaunted enterprise then?

Nothing but dying sparks scattered here and there upon the all-enveloping, terrifying, ever-encroaching, velvet dark.

He had to get himself and Jameela out of here, out of this decaying, hate-filled — and hateful — city, out of the United States and Europe, out of Asia, too, for that matter! He should have resigned back in April in New Orleans.

As soon as they were married he and Jameela would leave. But where would they go? To Copley in Russia, as Jameela had sarcastically suggested? She needed a life, not a rugged existence as a camp-follower! Could he change professions? He had no skills — and no way to get any in this post-Pacov world.

Heand Jameela could separate, of course: he to join Copley — the job he knew best — and she to live with her family in Tenerife for the time being. No, that was stupid! No more separations!

The Party of Humankind offered the only refuge Lessing could see, unpleasant though it might be in some ways. They couldn’t live in India or Pakistan, Europe was a horror, and the United States, too, was becoming impossible. Mulder had said that the door would always be open on Ponape. Being a resort manager (and part-time drill sergeant) on a distant, friendly island now struck him as better than any of the alternatives.

He made up his mind.

Tomorrow he would telephone Mulder in Virginia and ask for a transfer.

To himself he murmured the only Ponapean word he had learned: kaselehlia. It meant both “hello” and “welcome”; it did have a soft, warm, and friendly lilt to it.