Serpent's Walk

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Saturday, August 21, 2049

The room tinkled and dripped; it took Lessing back to some dim, childhood memory of a waterfall, wet leaves, sinuous shadows over dark-glistening pebbles in a stream. He remembered birds, butterflies, and even a beady-eyed, grey fieldmouse come to wash its face and drink.

Probably another goddamned movie: one of those nature-pom shows his father used to watch on the arts channel. Any minute they’d be showing the fieldmice copulating, a snake doing a skin-striptease, or a tall-antlered elk mounting his mate and bellowing out his joy for all the forest to hear.

He grinned to himself. He was over most of that now: no more trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. The room was one of the vast sitting rooms in Herman Mulder’s mansion in Virginia. At the moment it did resemble a cavern behind a waterfall: dim, nacreous, filled with hanging plants and flowering shrubs and running water and the scents of dark earth and growing things. Sixty feet away, by the far wall, Mrs. Mulder fluttered in the emerald gloom, adjusting the lamps, setting the chairs at precise angles, flicking away a bit of lint here, a mote of dust there. She’d done it all before, and Eva, the housekeeper, had done it before that.

It had taken Lessing months as the Mulders’ houseguest-patient to discover that what the pair saw in one another must forever remain a cosmic mystery. Herman Mulder displayed all the dazzle of a wad of wet newspaper, while Alice — that was her given name, though nobody used it, not even her husband — lavished affection and enthusiasm upon the world like a child slathering marmalade on toast.

No one knew their story, but it was clear that the Fairy Godmother cared very much for her stodgy, practical, and kewpie-doll-plump husband, with his odd friends and odder causes. He, in his own way, was just as devoted to her. Time had not been evenhanded, however: as Herman Mulder’s exterior grew softer, doughier, and less hirsute, so did his inner personality harden, toughen, and become more adamantine. His wife retained both her girlish looks and her trust in the goodness of the universe.

The Fairy Godmother flourished a sequined, chiffon sleeve. Someone else might have thought she was embarking upon the mating dance of the ruby-throated hummingbird, but Lessing knew better: he waved back, twisted the rheostat on the wall beside him, and watched the fountain in the center of the room shift from lustrous turquoise to warm amber. The mobile sculpture at his end of the chamber changed from indigos and violets to oranges, reds, and yellows. Overhead, the crystal chandeliers metamorphosed and became an imperial blaze of diamonds and gold. The fabric of the chairs and settees darkened subtly from forest green to oaken brown.

The fountain, the statuary, and the chandeliers were holograms, computer-controlled to produce whatever color scheme and decor their owner chose. The fabric of the furnishings was a new synthetic that changed its tint according to the lighting. This salon was one of seven such rooms here in Mulder’s Virginia mansion. He owned at least five similar houses around the globe.

Lessing pointed toward the hologram fireplace in the middle of the interior wall, and Mrs. Mulder undulated back at him. A touch of a dial transformed it from the blackened stone hearth of a medieval castle to a delicate French fireplace that Louis XIV would have loved for Versailles. Other settings switched it from Colonial to Provincial to Hollywood to ultra -modem chrome and glass. If you could figure out the user-unfriendly instruction manual, a concealed panel of buttons would design further fireplaces to your taste.

Holograms were the greatest boon to interior decoration since the invention of paint. The fireplace was actually a blank-walled niche. It had an attachment that gave off heat and the sound of crackling flames, but it couldn’t be touched: a hand passed right through it. The latest holograms were mobile. You could have anything from waving palms or fish swimming in the air to a lifesize Las Vegas chorus line doing the shimmy across your living room rug!

Another of Mulder’s toys was a hall as big as a football field in which the entire Austro-Hungarian court, circa 1890, whirled around the floor to the strains of Strauss waltzes, the women gorgeous and gowned like princesses, the men bearded, bemedalled, and bedecked in sashes and gold braid. The ultra-high-fidelity, multi-speaker stereo system faithfully reproduced the rustle of silks and satins as they swooped past, and the touch of a button filled the air with the scents of wine, food, perfume, cigars, and the warm, waxy smell of candle smoke. A further investment would buy a hologram of Susan Kane herself gracefully gyrating among the rest, just as she had appeared in The Emperor, a year before Pacov had ended her dancing forever while on a goodwill tour to Leningrad.

The fireplace became a bank of glowing coals. Lessing added no more than a hint of heat; the August evening temperature outside was still in the eighties. He waited for Mrs. Mulder to dust, brush, and flitter her way up to him.

“You’re eating with us tonight,” she warbled.

“I’ll make do in the kitchen. I’m not much for parties.”

She patted her dazzle-silver coiffure. “No. Herman wants you to meet Colonel Koestler. I think he’s Army, from somewhere up north. Then there’re Wrench, Jennifer, Hans Borchardt, and Bill Goddard… oh, I know you don’t like him much, but he’s really nice… and Grant Simmons, and some friends from the West Coast ” She trailed off. “Lots of lovely people.”

The Fairy Godmother had not mentioned the one name that would have tempted him: Liese. He had seen little of her after his return from Russia. She had been busy at the Party’s western headquarters in Seattle while he had been here under medical and psychiatric care. He had not called her, nor she him. Somehow he knew that he must be certain he had all his marbles back before he approached her. If they did share a real spark, he didn’t want it to blaze up until he was sure he wasn’t tying her down to a mental basket-case. She, in rum, with her fear of men and her oddly skittish shyness, needed time to adjust to Lessing’s return to the living. Patience was in order.

“The kitchen,” he said. “I can never swallow while wearing a necktie.”

Mrs. Mulder trilled with laughter. “You’ll join us, Alan. For me.” Control came easily to a Fairy Godmother; she didn’t even need a wand. Lessing gave in with reasonably good grace.

Mulder had become the Party’s host par excellence. Tonight was especially heavy duty. There were at least sixty for dinner. This was no longer India: no barefoot company cooks in turbans and frazzled, white uniforms, no informal soirees in shorts and sport shirts over beer and curry under slowly revolving fans. The cuisine was elaborately French; the servants were immaculate; the sommelier looked like a charter member of the House of Lords; hunkish young men in elegant Party uniforms were available to accompany unescorted ladies; and lissome maidens would liven up the evening for single (or not-so-single) male guests.

The food was wonderful; the company wasn’t Lessing’s style at all. Afterward, he watched the party from the mezzanine balcony above the reception hall, itself big enough to be the rotunda of a state capitol building.

“Delightful,” Bill Goddard’s voice rumbled from behind him, “but boring.”

Lessing balanced his tiny coffee cup on the marble balustrade and turned around. “Rich is usually boring. Where would you rather be? Off thumbing lib-rebs in California?”

Goddard fingered the weal on his skull: a red furrow ploughed through grizzled underbrush. A Vizzie assassin had creased him in San Diego, and he was as proud of it as a Prussian aristocrat with a brand-new duelling scar.

He eyed Lessing’s white dinner jacket with superior good humor. His own costume was much prettier: the brown uniform of PHASE, short for Party of Humankind Administrative Security Echelon,’ sported braid-draped shoulderboards, a high collar, polished boots, a crossbelt with an embossed buckle, and a holstered pistol. The Party now issued its own medals too: long service, wounded in action, marksmanship, loyalty— the lot. The only one Goddard couldn’t earn was the ribbon they awarded for giving birth to five children.

“Damned right!” the man answered Lessing’s question. “Better than hanging around here. Now the war’s started in earnest, we know where our enemies are and what to do about ’em.”

“Any fresh news?”

“Not a helluva lot. The lib-rebs’re holding us off in California, but we’re kicking ass in Oregon and Nevada. And we’re about to call on you, Lessing, to lead a heroic personal assault on L.A.” He snickered.

“Fat chance. My mere days’re over.” He didn’t want to discuss his future.

Goddard waved to Jennifer Caw below him, a vision in lambent sea green and silver. Her dark-aubum hair, loose over bare shoulders, flashed with tiny, sparkling gems. She stood with studied poise so that one tanned thigh showed through the slit in her floor-length gown.

Lessing was amused. If the Born-Agains ever managed to stamp out sex, Jennifer Caw would immediately re-invent it.

He said, “Jen could set fire to an iceberg! “Mentioning her would annoy Goddard. Now that the Party was socially acceptable she had little time for the man. There were wealthier and politically sexier fish to fry.

Goddard looked like an Olmec stone head: a pouting, scowling, fat-cheeked infant. “She’s got Party work to do.”

“As do you, of course. That’s why you’ re not leading troops into San Francisco.”

“Right. New branches to organize, meetings to arrange, rallies and parades to police

“And your own private army to build.”

Goddard grinned. “Police. Executive police to oversee Party functions and protect our rights of free speech and assembly.”

Lessing grinned back. “Sure. While Wrench and Morgan are organizing their black-uniformed Cadre.”

“Different duties “

“Unh-hunh. Party Police versus State Security.” “Their functions “

“…Are separate. I know. At the same time the Party’s pushing a bill in Congress that puts all the various police forces into one nationwide system: no more Federal, state, county, and city cops; no more Secret Service, FBI, CIA, Treasury agents, customs agents. Federal censors, and what have you. Just one big, happy ‘Central Office of Public Security,’ spelled C.O.P.S. for short.”

“That’s not reasonable? One law-enforcement organization? One unified, standardized set of laws? No more marriage in one state but adultery in the next; whiskey on this side of the state line but dry on the other.”

“The end of ‘state’s rights.’ And community rights.”

“Yeah. So? Those ideas have whiskers. Our society’s become too interconnected for them A guy living in California flies to New York, commits a crime, and hides in Texas. Tracing him with a bunch of disconnected law enforcement agencies is hard enough, what with no central data banks and too much paperwork, and then if you do find him the lawyers play ‘get rich quick’ with extradition procedures, changes of venue, jury selection, and appeals, appeals, and more appeals! More than half of all crimes go unpunished because it takes too much time, money, and energy to prosecute them! We can’t afford that any longer!”

A blonde in the crowd below caught Lessing’s eye. She was not Liese. “And the same goes for other government agencies. Right?”

“Count on it. Welfare, taxes, social security, old-age benefits, health, education… each run by a centralized, streamlined, Federal department. The military too: the National Guard, Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard… one chain of command. Eighty-Five’s working on feasibility studies now. It’ll take time, though; old traditions ‘re tougher’n buzzard shit to root out.”

“Green light! Given all of that, why do you. Bill Goddard, insist on having your PHASE Brownshirts separate from Cadre Black-shirts? I’ve been reading history. What happened in the Third Reich ought to worry you: the SA… the Sturmabteilung… versus the SS. Lots of infighting and rivalry. And guess who lost, Mr. Brownshorts!”

Goddard snorted. “Yeah, yeah, but right now we need two agencies. Their jobs are different. Eventually they’ll become divisions of one organization.”

“So you say now. Wait’ll you’re ten years down the road. And remember what happened to Ernst Rohm, the SA leader!” Lessing crooked his trigger finger and made a “bang” sound. “His shirt was brown, but people say he wore lavender lingerie.”

Goddard waylaid a servant to grab a handful of nuts and a fresh cocktail. “The situation was different then. We do leam from history, Lessing. And tell whoever you’ve been talking to that he’s full of crap. What happened to Rohm was politics. It had to happen for the good of the movement. Otherwise there’d have been a helluva split.” He popped a pistachio shell. “Listen, do you know if President Outram is coming tonight?”

Jonas Outram was less than a year into his first properly elected term. After Starak in 2042, he had imposed martial law for six years while the world buried the dead and sorted out the living. In 2048 the President had ended the state of emergency and set a date for the expected election. As one of the very few surviving — and experienced—members of the old Congress, he won this handily. Lessing had been under therapy in Mulder’s mansion during the campaign and remembered little of it.

Lessing peered down into the reception hall. “I don’t see any of his kikibirds, so he’s probably no-show.” Outram had become a very careful man; he had survived two more assassination attempts after the one in Colorado.

“Isn’t that Liese? There, by the door, in red?”

It was.

She had arrived late, accompanied by Hans Borchardt and Irma Caw Maxwell, Jennifer’s mother, who had been airlifted out of Los Angeles just before the lib-rebs had shut down the airport and declared California an independent nation.

Liese looked around, a trifle uncertainly, then moved inside to let the Fairy Godmother peck her cheek. Heads turned to watch.

Now Lessing had a reason to go down. Seeing her made him realize how much he had missed her.

She was gone when he reached the main floor. He wandered through the dining room, where the staff was picking up dishes, and into Mrs. Mulder’s TV room, a place of cozy armchairs, baroque coffee tables, and crowded bric-a-brac.

Mulder had gone all the way for his wife. He had splurged for a whole-wall TV screen made up of individual cells, computer coordinated to display a single picture, as if the viewer were looking into another part of the same room through a faintly visible lattice of one-meter squares. The system was also interactive: you could direct plot developments in certain programs via a voice hookup or a control pad. As Lessing hesitated in the doorway, one of the actors on the screen turned to the audience and asked archly, “Should we tell Emma?” Buttons clicked, and the image said, “Well, that’s settled. It’s better that we don’t.” The action was jerky, and the dialogue sounded forced. Nonetheless, a buzz of discussion went up when “Emma” appeared.

“Oh, they should have told her!” Mrs. Mulder wailed to the dowager next to her. “Emma ought to know about Dianne’s abortion!”

Liese was definitely not here.

Lessing drifted on into what Mulder named “the sitting room”: a twenty-meter-long salon that occupied the west side of the mansion. The sun had set, and the chromo-electric windows would have been transparent to the Virginia sky, except that Mulder had transformed the entire outer wall into a TV-screen mural of the Taj Mahal by moonlight. The old man still had fond memories of India.

More of the guests were here, seated on semicircular divans, sprawled on cushions on the floor, or standing about in groups. The only light came from the wall-screen itself, and Lessing zigzagged, stumbled, and excused himself a dozen times before finding Mulder, who pointed him on toward the inner reaches of the mansion. Liese had gone to speak to Eighty-Five.

The four unobtrusive security guards let him pass. He entered what looked like a pantry, went through a double-doored airlock that would withstand anything short of a tactical nuke, and came to Mulder’s corn-link with Eighty-Five: a room four meters square, its walls mirrored from ceiling to floor, and lit by a subdued desk lamp and two bars of non-glare tracklights up near the ceiling. A simple, metal desk and two jade-green, cushioned chairs stood starkly upon the swirling, pine-needle-pattemed rug.

Liese was there, but she was not alone. She was talking to a tall, robust-looking, middle-aged man with iron-grey hair, a jutting jaw, and the sort of deep-set, dark-ringed eyes that made Lessing think of Sunday-school portraits of Jesus: eyes that brought forth adjectives like “burning,” “dedicated,” “caring,” and “compassionate.”

She turned and gave him her special sidewise smile. “Alan Lessing, meet Vincent Dom.”

It took a moment to comprehend, then another to react. “Uh… sure. Delighted.”

So they had finally hired an actor!

Liese put a hand over her mouth, the way she did when she was trying not to laugh. “Mr. Dom lecturing. Next Saturday. Atlanta.”

“Right.” He could play along. “How’s your book, Mr. Dora?”

“The school editions are ready for distribution. Mister Lessing, and the French version will be out next week. Unfortunately, the decline in literacy in North America makes it imperative we get something on holo-vid. Not a political speech, certainly, nor even a documentary. Most effective would be a drama presenting our… my… points of view.”

The man’s delivery was pedantic, yet he was somehow impressive. It was the voice and the eyes that did it. He could sell dog biscuits at a cat show.

“Dom” turned to Liese. “I can’t make the jaw any more powerful without physiognomic distortion. And the clothing? This civilian suit has a seventy-three per cent positive index, but something more military might gain another per cent or two.”

It dawned on Lessing who “Dom” was.

The man’s grey-flannel slacks and broad-lapeled, navy-blue blazer rippled, shimmered, and shifted to become straight, brown trousers and a tan coat with shoulder straps and patch pockets. The collar tightened, grew higher, and developed Party insignia on both sides.

Lessing stared. The realism was incredible.

Both Liese and “Dom” roared with laughter. “Didn’t recognize me, Mr. Lessing?” the man cried. “It is I… Eighty-Five!”

“Hologram…,” Liese choked. “Image most acceptable to the public. Based on psychological analyses, profiles.”

“Cute,” Lessing conceded ruefully. By squinting he could see the light beams that projected “Dom” coming from concealed apertures in the walls and ceiling.

“I have alternatives,” Eighty-Five said. He — it — rippled again and became younger, taller, and more handsome, a heroic, blonde demigod in Army dungarees. Another shimmer, and the figure metamorphosed into a lean, tanned cowboy; a white-haired elder statesman; an idealistic -looking and very beautiful young woman (rather like Liese herself, Lessing thought); a ruddy-cheeked; elderly priest; and finally a white-robed guru who made the peace sign at them.

The image dissolved into confetti motes, then solidified again as Herman Mulder, followed by Wrench, and finally Lessing himself — and grew upcurled moustaches and a bright-green Afro hair-do. Female breasts appeared, the hair uncurled and lengthened, and the clothing disappeared to reveal Jennifer Caw in all her glory. A fanfare of trumpets sounded “ta-TA!”

“Where did you see Jen like that… in the, urn, altogether? “Liese giggled.

“I did not see her thus. It is easy to extrapolate when you humans offer so few variables: four limbs, two eyes, various orifices. Mr. Wren said I was to work on my sense of humor. Many humans possess this faculty, and convincing them will be easier if I can use it too. I am, therefore, studying Mr. Wren’s authoritative videotape entitled ‘Great Comedy Moments of the Twentieth Century.’”

“Jennifer” shuddered and became “Dom” once more. Eighty-Five asked, “Can I show Mister Lessing the Banger flower-child Mr. Wren suggested for San Francisco? The one we made look like that rock-music star from the last century to whom the populace keeps attributing religious miracles?”

Liese wiped her eyes and leaned against Lessing’s shoulder. That stirred up emotions he wasn’t sure either of them wanted. Yet.

He said, “It won’t work, Liese. Not for long. It takes equipment to produce ‘Dora,’ and he can’t go to a dinner party, shake hands, or kiss babies… the political stuff.” He extended a hand; it disappeared into “Dora” and came out the other side.

“I’ll do mostly TV and holo-vid appearances, Mister Lessing. Actually, I can make public speeches as well. I shall travel in a sealed vehicle with black-glass windows for ‘security reasons.’ When I reach the destination my assistants will erect a bulletproof podium booth, which will conceal the apparatus needed to project me. In a semi-darkened hall I estimate only a .033% chance of anyone noticing. I have worked out most of the bugs.”

“Not all.” Liese indicated “Dom’s” left arm. “Lost one cell yesterday. F-702.”

“Minor, Miss Meisinger. A 2.41 centimeter hole in my shoulder, visible only from the rear.”

“Lose A-901; then you have a real hole. Middle of your forehead.”

“Unlikely. And my back-up system is nearly complete.”

From close by, and knowing what “Dom” was, Lessing could detect discrepancies: the tips of the fingers were faintly translucent, the junctures between clothing and flesh a bit hazy. Nevertheless, “Dora” would probably succeed.

“Do you want to hear my speech, Mister Lessing? I project a sixty-nine percent acceptance level for an educated. White, non-Jewish, Southern audience. I have different versions for less-educated persons, Latins, Orientals, and Northern Whiles.”

“What are you going to do about mixed groups? Screen ’em at the door?” Lessing had a vision of ushers with questionnaires shunting people into cattle chutes leading to different halls in which different “Dorns” were lecturing.

“Of course not. Mixing is inevitable. I shall minimize it by giving one speech at a university, another in a union hall, another at a hotel frequented by wealthy business professionals, and so forth.”

Liese pointed at “Dom.” “Turn around. Hole in your coat.”

The image assumed a contrite expression. “H-583 is defective. I shall face forward so that it cannot be seen.”

“Fix it. Otherwise like last night. The TV wall-mural.”

“I was only trying to entertain Mr. Goddard and his friends.”

“What happened?” Lessing was curious.

“Mr. Goddard was with friends in the sitting room. Mr. Wren was here, helping me with my sense of humor. At 0109 hours Mr. Goddard requested a change in the TV mural from the canals of Venice at sunset to a scene with more drama. I offered him the Great Wall of China, the Egyptian pyramids, a colorized documentary of the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and a recreation of the Party Day rally in Nuremberg in 1935.”

“He must’ve loved those last two.”

“No, he rejected them as being too ‘static’ At Mr. Wren’s suggestion, I chose something artistic iastead. Are you familiar with the eighteenth-century Italian artist Giambattista Piranesi, Mister Lessing?”

“Never heard of him.”

“He did highly imaginative etchings of the antiquities of Rome, Greek temples, and the like. Also sombre views of fantastic and imaginary prisons: the Carceri. I redrew one of the latter to appear as a realistic photograph, colorized it, and added a few swooping bats, processions of menacing, robed figures, and a macabre musical score.”

Lessing laughed. “That must’ve shaken old Bill! I suppose he and his doggies were tossing down booze?”

“I can conjecture their individual blood-alcohol levels if you wish.”

“The rest!” Liese ordered.

“At 0224 hours Mr. Goddard requested more ‘action.’ He did not specify except to say that it should be sexually explicit and ‘kinky’… in the slang of one of his female guests, ‘fuggy, foozy!’ I thus chose various figures from the works of the Renaissance Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch and inserted them into Piranesi’s ‘prisons.’ Bosch depicted the denizens of Hell as grotesque, part-animal, part-human, part-vegetable, and part-mechanical creatures. I animated these and portrayed them committing a number of unusual acts. I also improvised: my chorus line of giant phalli dancing the can-can in pink tutus was especially effective.”

“Goddard must’ve been beside himself!” Lessing spluttered. He and Liese were both laughing.

“Yes. He was. You are very perceptive, Mister Lessing.” “What?”

“Mr. Wren asked that I insert an image of Mr. Goddard himself into the mural. He was thus literally beside himself, participating in some of my creations’ more stimulating activities.”

“And the burnt-out cell!” Liese made futile dabs at her mascara.

“Unfortunately, just as I pictured Mr. Goddard entering into sexual congress with a hermaphroditic goat and a dog-headed octopod, cell unit TC-1715 burned out. This caused a large, black hole to appear just where his figure’s head was. He had become tipsy, and “

Lessing guffawed.

Suddenly he was very close to Liese.

Laughter became desire, a friendly touch an embrace, a smile a kiss that went from affectionate to erotic and then off the scale. He couldn’t slop. His tongue found hers, and his hands travelled all by themselves from breast to thigh and beyond. He sat down heavily on one of the jade-upholstered chairs and pulled her down on top of him. For a split second Emily Pietrick flickered against the backs of his closed eyelids; then he banished her and put Liese in her place.

“Uh, Mister Lessing? Miss Meisinger? Would you like me to disappear? At least I shall lock the door against external intrusion. I am aware of your mating habits, after all.”

Like a camera clicking off frames, Eighty-Five shifted rapidly from “Dom” to the priest, to the young hero. At length it settled for a lifesized phallus in top hat and tails, seated in an armchair. This figure pulled out a purple bandana, fanned itself, and made deprecatory “tsk”ing noises.

Neither of the two humans paid the least attention.

They also failed to hear the buzzer or see the red door-light go on. Eighty-Five, once more as “Dom,” leaned forward and emitted an odd, belling whistle that brought Lessing and Liese bolt upright

“Sorry,” the computer said. “A useful emergency auditory signal. The human ear cannot tolerate more than seven seconds of that. You, Mister Lessing, will recall my previous use of sound as a weapon in my installation in Washington? I must now inform you that Mr. Mulder and four others are currently requesting admittance.”

Liese straightened her scarlet skirt, raked fingers through her blonde tresses, and repaired her decolletage, all in one fluid, feminine motion. She glanced over to see if Lessing was ready, then pressed the “enter” button on the desk. “Dom” vanished.

Mr. Mulder might be dull, but he was perceptive. He halted on the threshold and blinked. Their flushed faces told him the story. He said, “Armeliese Meisinger, Alan Lessing: meet Colonel Frank Kocstler, Captain Perry Moore, and Special Agent Janos Korinek.”

The fifth person in the group was Jennifer Caw; she gave Liese a quizzical look, then folded her arms and leaned back against the door.

Moore and Koestler were regular Army, but Lessing was unfamiliar with their unit and specialty badges: a blizzard of new insignia had appeared during the past decade while he was abroad. Koestler was short, balding, and red-faced, while Moore looked like the prototype for the whole computer-nerd genre: tall, skinny, stooped, and nearsighted, with bad skin and teeth like broken crockery. The only diagnostic missing was the plastic pocket-protector for ballpoint pens. He stood gawking at Liese.

“Perry and I are weapons development,” Koestler explained. “We work out of the proving ground at Aberdeen, Maryland. Mr. Korinek here belongs to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in Washington.”

“And lucky to be alive,” the latter said in a dry, thin voice. He was squat and thickset, with albino-white hair and colorless eyes. Lessing guessed him to be in his mid-forties. “I happened to be on leave at home in Kentucky when Starak hit.”

Lessing shook hands, and Liese nodded.

“Shall we get on with it?” Moore’s voice was unexpectedly deep, vibrant, and, it had to be admitted, sexy. Lessing was amused to see that both women immediately paid attention. The man dumped a manila folder down upon the desk and addressed Liese. “Could you access Eighty-Five for me, please, miss?”

Liese was no “just-a-secretary” girl. She gave Moore a look that would etch glass and rapped, “Eighty-Five?” Months ago they had done away with verbal codes and now depended upon eye and voice prints. Some terminals were even equipped with DNA identification equipment.

“Yes, Miss Meisinger?” No figure appeared, neither “Dom” nor a giant phallus in a pink tutu. Which was just as well. “You do have authorization?” she asked Moore. “Priority three. Am I in?”

“You are, Captain Moore. I recognize you,” the computer itself answered.

“Fine. Give us a link to the Fort Lewis terminal. Prime 790, path C-850, sub-directory DF-66687.”

The mirror-wall behind the desk clouded, blazed with light, and displayed five men in Army uniforms, who eyed them expectantly. In the background Lessing saw computer consoles and instruments: a laboratory.

“Colonel Koestler?” one of the men inquired. “Major Theodore E. Metz, here. We’re ready with Magellan, sir.” “Secure code T-94-392, then. Proceed, Perry.”

Captain Moore gave instructions. The wall cleared, darkened, and refocused to show a baffling picture: the upper half was black, interspersed with whizzing, flying lights; the bottom half displayed a pitted, greyish surface covered with cracks and striations that continuously hurtled toward the viewer.

Lessing squinted dizzily. Of course! The camera was mounted low in the nose of a vehicle traveling at high speed at night over a badly paved road.

Koestler said, “President Outram asked that you see this, Secretary Mulder. You and whichever of your aides you wish.” He stared suspiciously from Lessing, to Liese, to Jennifer. In the quavering, silvery glow from the screen he looked like someone who has bitten into a sour apple. “You’re looking at… or rather through… Magellan Model IX, a mobile device dropped into a target area by parachute and then operated by Eighty-Five on a tight-beam from an overhead satellite. Magellan is a flattened spheroid about a meter and a half in diameter and forty centimeters high, the size of a large power lawnmower. It possesses wheels, treads, and climbers for walls and stairs; has infrared capabilities; monitors radiation, gases, and some biological contaminants; and is armed with grenade projectors. It can also transport a canister of nerve gas or a small nuclear device if need be, although we see it primarily as a reconnaissance instrument. Magellan travels anywhere, can drill a car’s gas tank for more fuel, and if grabbed by the wrong people it explodes with one helluva bang.” He sounded like a kid boasting about a new toy.

“What are we seeing now?” Mulder inquired from the shadows.

“A stretch of road between Albany and Berkeley, California,” Moore responded in his surprisingly resonant voice.

Mulder’s next question made heads rum: “And Mexican troops were observed near this place?”

“Yes, sir. You’ll see them too, any minute now.” Moore murmured further commands to Eighty-Five. The picture slowed and became dark bushes and shrubbery, then a forest of grey-white stalks that rose high above the camera’s lens: dry grass.

The screen now showed a fire ahead, in front of a row of run-down shops and a supermarket. Moore whispered, and the screen abruptly split into quarters: front, back, and side views. Nothing moved in any of the pictures except the leaping flames in the top-left quadrant, which showed the view straight ahead. Black humps scattered across the street in the top-right square — to Magellan’s right — could be bodies.

“Audio!” Koestler demanded.

Shouts, singing, and an occasional gunshot welled up around them.

“Closer!” the unseen scientist named Metz urged. The Fort Lewis team was seeing the same thing they were. “Take a right through that parking lot.”

The picture veered, tilted, and bounced as the machine went over a curb and out into an open, grassy area in front of the shopping mall.

The place was full of people! Moore sent Magellan scurrying back into an alley.

The crowd was a mix of civilians and soldiers. The former were young and Latin-looking: a gang of barrio youths. The uniforms of the latter were Mexican Army. A handful of women, mostly Latins by the look of them, completed the ensemble: fiesta night in Old Tijuana. Those closest to the fire were feasting on something out of a huge cauldron.

In the dark, ruined buildings behind the firelight further figures were visible. More soldiers? Magellan switched over to infrared vision to find out.

Lessing wished he hadn’t looked. In one roofless shop two soldiers stood guard over a score of naked Anglo women who sat or knelt on the bare, concrete floor, their hands bound behind them. They were blindfolded and roped together like cattle. He glimpsed bruises, dirt, and dried blood.

Liese burrowed against his throat and made a tiny mewling sound. He held her close.

God damn the human race! He disagreed with Goddard: people never did learn. They kept doing the same dumb, ugly, cruel, vicious, brutal things, no matter what century it was and no matter what they preached or who was in power! Rapine and murder were not to be wondered at; the wonder was that they didn’t happen more often!

“The price the lib-rebs are willing to pay for Mexican help!” Moore grated.

Mulder edged forward to peer up at the screen. “If only that were all! Our information is that the lib-rebs have made a deal: Mexico gets Arizona, New Mexico, and half of Texas. Cuba and other Caribbean nations willing to join them will receive parts of Florida, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. They’ve made a deal, all right!”

Lessing touched Koestler’s arm. “What the hell is going on, colonel?” Mulder’s mansion was like Ponape: total isolation unless you yourself went out looking for news. Lessing had not. Now he wanted to know.

“Right now?” Koestler looked over at Mulder, who nodded: the people in this room were security-safe. “A temporary standoff. We can’t get past the Sierras without major casualties, and the lib-rebs are digging in. At the moment we’re probing at Redding and Red

Bluff, with another push coming down through Lassen Volcanic Park. Our patrols have reached Oroville, but the valley’s too strong for us yet. We’re staging for one godawful battle around Sacramento, but first we’re thinking of a para-drop south of there to cut off their communications with Stockton, Fresno, and Bakersfield. Their big stuff is protected in L.A. and San Diego, though, including depots and camps for their Mexican allies. California’s got great natural defenses for a land war: the ocean on the west, the Sierras to the east, rough and forested terrain to the north. Oh, we could paste their cities from the air, but nobody really wants that… too many friendly people still live there.”

“What can the lib-rebs gain?” Lessing mused. “They can’t hope to win with the land area and population they control.”

“They’re expecting a groundswell of opposition against Outram’s policies. They’ve lost their strongholds in the big, Eastern cities, but they think Mr. and Mrs. North America will still join ‘em if given a chance. At least they’re hoping for the secession and independence of California.”

“Sixty-one per cent in California against,” Liese said. She had recovered enough to turn around in Lessing’s embrace. “Lib-rebs are wrong. Majority blames old government for weakness, for failure, for Pacov.”

“Defections? Population shifts?” Lessing queried.

Koestler shrugged. “As soon as Outram started chopping at the ‘civil rights’ laws, folks lit out in both directions: Blacks, Chicanos, Jews, gays, the left-wing college types, and all the fuzz-brains in the country to the lib-rebs; a lot of Whites and some Orientals over to us. Hell, we even picked up some friendly Blacks: support the lawful, constitutional government… and get airlifted to a paradise in Africa afterwards. Most of the Pacific fleet is ours too, moored at Pearl in Hawaii, but the lib-rebs have some vessels in San Diego. Much of the Navy’s scattered all over the globe, though, wherever the fleets happened to be when Pacov and Starak hit. Some made it home, others stayed abroad to help… or to settle in. Some were massacred by unfriendly locals when they were cut off. ” The colonel hesitated. “Both we and the lib-rebs have enough nuclear weapons to pop the world like a zit three times over. Sooner or later we’ll also have problems with what’s left of the Izzies, the Indians, the Pakistanis, and the crazy mere generals in Russia who’ve inherited the Soviets’ hardware.”

Lessing thought of Copley, running freckled hands over his maps and chirping lovingly to himself about Ufa and Kuybyshev and Gorki and maybe, one day, New Moscow itself. Peter the Great, no less!

“We have more nerve gases, missiles, and special weapons than we’ll ever need,” Moore interjected.

“Pacov?” Liese snapped. “Starak? Bio-warfare agents?”

No one replied. The room was silent. Then Mulder spoke: “The formulae are gone, Liese. Deliberately and permanently lost. Eighty-Five knows them but has stored them in an oubliette file from which they can never be retrieved. That’s over. Never again!”

“If you want them, I’ll bet I can get them! ” Moore’s uneven teeth flashed tarnished silver in the light from the screen. “The computer hasn’t been built that I can’t hack my way into or out of!”

This time the silence lasted longer.

It was broken by Jennifer Caw. She gasped: “Look! There’s something coming… there, in the street!”

“Get Magellan out of danger!” ordered Koestlcr.

Moore maneuvered the device backward, under the wheels of a truck, and into a puddle of darkness behind a battered dumpster. Magellan was almost noiseless, its soft humming drowned out by the crowd noise.

An armored personnel carrier had just pulled up in the street outside the shopping mall. A crude, red “X” was daubed on its side, and the soldiers who jumped down from the rear hatch wore red armbands: lib-rebs. They were well equipped with camo uniforms, helmets, packs, and M-25 assault rifles. Two carried lasers, two more had rocket launchers, and one poor doggie walked spraddle-legged under the back-breaking weight of an ITRAC: Individual Tactical Recoilless Armor-piercing Cannon. They deployed quickly in front of their vehicle.

Two civilians crawled out of the driver’s compartment and approached the fire: a short, tubby White man and a jaunty-looking young Black. A pair of Mexicans— officers by their insignia, though Lessing couldn’t read them — emerged to meet them.

“Sound, goddamit!” Koestler hissed at Moore. “Directional!”

“Trying, sir.”

The crackle of the fire became deafening; then a Mexican belched with a roar loud enough to make them flinch, followed by a Spanish expletive that rattled their teeth. Moore mumbled apologies and got Magellan’s sensors homed in on the opfoes’ tete-a-tete.

“…Pues,” the dapper Mexican commander was saying. “If that is how you wish it “

“I do fuckin’-A want it that way,” the White civilian drawled. “Look at the map and tell me I’m right. Jack. These guys’re not s posed to bivouac here tonight. Their orders was to keep goin’ till they get past Richmond, then make Sacramento tomorrow. ‘N’ here they are, fuckin’ off, Iootin,’ eatin,’ ‘n’ what-all!” A pencil-flash-light danced over a crumpled map.

“Soldiers, señor,” the Mexican temporized. “May I see your authority, please.”

“I’m Mark Silver, and this is Jack Harris. Here’s our I.D. We’re liaison to get you Mexican outfits to Sacramento.”

“Good. Our transport is there, on the next street beyond these shops. We’ll be ready to move on at dawn.”

“Bullshit! You get your butts in gear and bust ass for Sacramento now. I’ll give you a squad to go along and hold your hand. We expect Oulram’s fascists to hit within the week, and your unit’d better be there!”

Mulder took sudden interest. “Eighty-Five, inform the President and the Joint Chiefs that we may want to scrap Onslaught and go to Kangaroo.“For the others’ benefit he translated in a hoarse whisper: “Kangaroo involves coming down from Red Bluff to Willows and Woodland, then westward over to the coast, bypassing Sacramento until the paratroops cut it off from Stockton. That’ll give us time to make a diversionary landing near Eureka in Humboldt Bay.”

On the screen, the Black lib-reb civilian, Harris, plucked at Silver’s sleeve.

“Prisoners? Where?” Silver looked. “Oh, for God’s sake!” He went to stand nose to nose with the Mexican commander. “You let those women go, God damn you to hell! Now! Prontol Enliende Usted!”

The officer murmured something about female spies and guerrillas. Silver raised a hand toward his waiting troops. The Mexican shrugged and shouted an order.

Moore turned Magellan slowly around until one camera pointed at the prisoners. Three Mexican soldiers were going among them and cutting their bonds. They made shooing gestures. All but two of the women scattered, running close enough to Magellan’s hiding place to allow glimpses of bare breasts, pale limbs, and eyes scarlet with firelight and terror. The two who stayed behind huddled close to their Mexican protectors.

The captives had reason to fear. A guard motioned surreptitiously, and five or six of his comrades slipped back into the shadows where the lib-rebs could not see. Magellan’s sensors picked up crashing sounds, shouts, screams, and laughter. They heard the rattle of gunfire.

“Pendejos!” the Mexican officer swore, so loud that he might have been sitting on Moore’s lap; they had forgotten that Magellan’s mike was homed in on him. “Hijos de putas!”

Silver thrust out a fist. “Call off your doggies, capilan! My last word!”

The gunner manning the heavy machinegun on the APC growled, “We don’t need these dinkers to fight for us, sir. Let’s thumb ‘em!”

The Mexican officer barked a command. Five soldiers emerged sheepishly from the alley. One man’s trousers showed dark, wet-gleaming spatters.

An M-25 made gobbling noises, and the five Mexicans jittered backwards and fell.

Somebody groaned, “Shce-it, David…! What’d you do that for?”

Guns appeared everywhere as both parties scrambled for cover.

“Cease fire! Cease fire! Cease your fuckin’ fire, you mothers!” Harris screamed.

One more shot would bring on a barrage. Everybody thought it oyer. Then the Mexican officer held out his hands, palms up. Silver did the same. Their subordinates howled for order.

Chaos ensued. A dozen Mexican soldiers came forward to demand the life of the lib-reb who had shot their companions; officers and civilians squabbled and argued; one of the two female prisoners who had stayed with the Mexicans, a slight-figured blonde, squatted on the curbstone and wept hysterically while her protector comforted her.

“Jesus!” Moore swore suddenly.

Magellan’s rear-view screen showed a round-cheeked, swarthy face inspecting the machine from less than a meter away! One of the Mexicans returning from pursuing the captives had decided to take refuge behind Magellan’s dumpster.

“Keep Magellan quiet!” Mooredirected unnecessarily. “Pray the bastard doesn’t look too carefully!”

The man did. He bent, tapped Magellan with his rifle-butt, displayed surprise that turned to excitement and then to fear. He hallooed for his comrades. Koestler’s team had probably painted Magellan some stupid military color and put “U.S. ARMY, TOP SECRET” all over it! They should have stencilled it “CITY SANITATION DEPARTMENT.” Too bad the Mexican could read English.

“Get it the hell out of there!” Koestler rasped. “Which way, colonel?” Eighty-Five’s imperturbable voice replied.

“I don’t give a…!”

“It doesn’t understand orders like that,” Moore scolded. “Eighty-Five, back out, down the alley away from the fire “

The Mexicans were already there, followed by three of Silver’s doggies. AH four screens showed boots, hands, and puzzled faces.

Voices jabbered in English and Spanish. Silver and the Mexican officer jostled their way into the mob.

“Damn, it’s some kind of bomb!” Silver whinnied. “Jack, get the…!”

Feet threshed and kicked. For a moment the cameras rocked, but Magellan was too well balanced to tip over. The alley emptied.

“Now what?” Moore inquired in jaundiced tones.

“Get up speed, get away from the goddamned fire! Hide it!”

The machine’s engine thrummed, and the cameras bounced and blurred as Magellan obeyed. They saw empty doorways, overturned boxes, dumpsters, dustbins, and garbage. A Mexican soldier loomed up, then danced away in astonishment. Bullets from his automatic weapon whined off the brick walls. One clanged off Magellan.

Eighty-Five announced calmly, “Minor hit. Mo damage.”

“In there… that store!” Koestler cried.

Magellan stopped. Its side-and rear-view screens showed shadowy buildings, waving flashlights, running figures, and torches. Ahead, in a cul-de-sac courtyard lined with what had been small, artsy shops, was a boutique, its door broken and show window smashed. Obediently Magellan made for the door, only to find the bottom section of the panel still in place. The machine bashed against it, but the sturdy wood held.

“Up! Through the display window!”

Magellan extended delicate, hooked arms, caught the wooden sill half a meter above itself, then retracted its climbers and hoisted itself up. A claw shot out to catch the comer of a metal stand inside the window, but the flimsy thing collapsed in a shower of ringing metal tubing and broken mannequins. Magellan dropped back upon the sidewalk with enough racket to alert every lib-reb in California. Nearby, a voice cried unintelligible words in Spanish.

Magellan tried again. This time its claws got purchase on the two-by-fours that formed the underpinning of the display inside the window. Its engine whirred as it lifted itself up.

“Por allal” A soldier ran past brandishing a rifle, followed by a sallow-faced barrio youth in a windbreaker and tight pants. The latter scrambled to a stop and howled, “Aqui, aqui! Ola, pendejo, aqu’d Venga!”

The kid must have seen Magellan’s scratch marks on the cement wall below the window. The device itself was buried beneath frilly garments, mannequins, brass tubing, and glitter paper.

The soldier returned slowly, rifle at the ready. Lessing found himself willing the machine to leap out of the window and make a run for it. Magellan probably couldn’t: it needed to get up speed first.

“G-One!” Moore instructed.

Something popped, and a ball of flame burst like the Fourth of July five feet behind the soldier and the kid Both flew forward. The boy smashed into the ceiling inside, above the window display, then flopped down into the wreckage on top of Magellan. The soldier cartwheeled on through the window and crash-landed among the plundered glass cases inside the shop.

“Frag grenade,” Moore stated tersely. “Got three rubes of three each.”

Lessing wasn’t paying attention. He was staring at the face pressed against Magellan’s left view-screen. The features were crushed and broken, one eye open, the other gone. Blood dripped down over the cheeks like languid, crimson tears and thence onto the lacy negligee beneath. The face belonged to one of the mannequins; the blood came from the body of the barrio kid, impaled upon a spear of tubing jutting up from the mess, half in and half out of the window.

The negligee was ice-blue.

The mannequin’s remaining eye, large and dark and lustrous, gazed serenely out at Lessing. Memories….

A figure skidded to a stop in front of the boutique: the lib-reb with the ITRAC. Magellan’s grenade launcher chuffed, and a projectile clunked off the pavement beside him. It did not explode.

All of the screens went white as the ITRAC-gunner landed a direct hit on Magellan’s hiding place. The explosion ended in mid-bang as the machine and its sensors disintegrated. That saved Lessing’s — and the others’ — hearing.

“Shit!” Eighty-Five remarked disdainfully into the ringing silence. “A dud! You humans need lessons in precision manufacturing!”