When a knock sounded at her office door, Kafari looked up to find a teen-aged boy dressed in a courier service uniform. "Mrs. Khrustinova?"
"Yes."
"A letter for you, ma'am."
He handed over an old-fashioned, formal paper envelope, then left before she could reach for her purse to give him a tip. She turned her attention to the envelope, which she opened to find a beautiful invitation card. The inscription bought a smile to her face.
Aisha Ghamal and John James Hancock
cordially invite you to
celebrate the wedding of
Dinny Ghamal and Emmeline Benjamin-Hancock,
who will join lives
at 10:00 a.m.
Saturday the 10th of April
at the Hancock family's residence in
Cimmero Canyon.
Kafari smiled, delighted by the news. She didn't know the Hancocks, but if Dinny had fallen in love with one of them, they were good people. She tapped out a message on her computer, sending her RSVP, and added it to her calendar. She didn't add Yalena's name to the RSVP. She knew her headstrong and prejudiced daughter too well to think there'd be anything but trouble if she tried dragging Yalena to a wedding between farmers. She had to pick and choose the battles she was willing to fight and this wasn't one of them.
She intended to enjoy herself, anyway.
The day of the wedding dawned clear, with a sky like sea-washed pearl. She left Yalena engrossed in a multi-way chat between herself and more than a dozen friends, whose favorite topic of conversation these days was boys. And clothes, of course, since the right clothes were essential to attracting boys.
She started up her Airdart and headed for Cimmero Canyon. She hadn't seen Dinny or Aisha in far too long. They'd all gotten so busy, there was very little time to socialize with people who lived as far apart as they did. Kafari disliked the new apartment in Madison, but a city-based home was essential in the war of wills between herself and her daughter. Where they lived was another battle Kafari wasn't willing to fight.
Her arrival at the Hancock farm pushed aside unhappy thoughts. The front lawn had been turned into an impromptu parking area, while the back lawn, bordered by kitchen gardens, had been transformed into a wedding square, complete with flower arbors, tables full of food, and a dance floor. Kafari smiled, setting the Airdart down near the edge of the front lawn. She rescued her wedding gift and followed the garlands that marked the path around the house.
Aisha spotted her almost immediately. "Kafari, child! You came!"
She ran across the grass and pulled Kafari into a tight hug.
"Of course I came," Kafari smiled. "I wouldn't miss Dinny's wedding for anything short of a Deng invasion."
Aisha, clad in stunning African-patterned silk, chuckled with warmth despite the shadows in her eyes. "Child, that boy wouldn't call off this wedding if he had to get hitched during an invasion."
"She sounds like a wonderful girl."
Aisha just smiled and drew her forward to meet other wedding guests. Kafari didn't know most of them, but they all knew her. Fortunately, no one brought up the subject of her missing husband. Or her missing daughter. That kind of courtesy and concern was refreshing and very soothing. City life frequently rubbed her nerves raw.
The ceremony was simple and beautiful. Dinny had grown into a tall and distinguished young man, ramrod straight and so happy, he was about to burst the seams of his ivory suit. The fabric glowed against the rich mahogany of his skin, which was the exact color of newly turned earth ready for planting. His bride, in an ivory gown that turned her complexion to silk and caught the radiance of her shining eyes, smiled up at him and rested her hand on his as the officiant began the hand-fasting. Emmeline's parents stood beside Dinny's mother, who had clasped Mrs. Hancock's hand while they wiped tears. Emmeline's grandparents were there, as well, Jeremiah Benjamin and his wife Ruth, from Klameth Canyon.
When the vows had been spoken, husband and wife turned to face the crowd, grinning like children, and jumped the broom, sealing the marriage. Then the dancing began and Kafari found herself swept onto the dance floor by one partner after another. She hadn't smiled so much since Simon's departure. When Dinny asked her to dance, her smile turned brilliant.
"I'd love to dance with you, Dinny."
"Thank you for coming," he said as they whirled onto the floor. "It meant a lot, seeing you here today."
"I should be thanking you. It's . . . lonely, for me."
His eyes were grave as he met her gaze. "I don't know how you do it, Kafari. If Emmeline and I were torn apart for that long . . ." He just shook his head. "I honestly don't know how you keep going. Of course," he gave her a strange little smile, "I've never understood where your strength comes from. You scare me sometimes, Kafari. I'd follow you anywhere. Into any battle you thought worth fighting."
She didn't know what to say.
"Emmeline wants to meet you," he added. "She's so afraid you won't like her."
"Why wouldn't I like her? She had enough sense to marry you!"
He grinned. "Yeah, she did, didn't she? I never thought she'd say yes." His happy expression faded in the wake of a thought so visibly unhappy, Kafari's breath faltered. "I was scared to death, you see, because I couldn't offer her family much. Mama and I couldn't get enough loan money to rebuild, let alone buy equipment and a new dairy herd. We sold the land, but it wasn't enough to start over, not in the dairy business. We had the bees," he said, with a wry quirk of his lips, "and that brought in enough money to support Mama, renting out the hives for pollinating crops and selling Asali honey. But I had to hire on as a farm hand, to make ends meet."
He glanced toward his wife, who was dancing with someone Kafari didn't know, probably a relative, given the resemblance. "I've been working on the Hancock family's cooperative since the war. They're good people. The co-op's been growing pretty fast, these last few years. We've got fourteen families, now, as full members in residence, with another seven who've pooled money and equipment as affiliate members."
"Twenty-one families?" Kafari said, startled. "That's a pretty big group, isn't it?" A frown drove Dinny's brows together. "I'll say it is. We've got eighty-four people in residence, right now, and another forty-three in affiliates. The original members were burned out in the war, same as Mama and me. The Hancocks had a lot of land," he nodded toward the lovely sprawl of fields and orchards and pastures that filled a significant percentage of the canyon, "and they were lucky in the war. The Deng never touched Cimmero. The first five families who formed the co-op were from Klameth Canyon. Friends, collateral cousins, in-laws. They brought whatever they'd managed to salvage in the way of equipment and livestock and what have you. Mostly they brought their know-how. We make a living, which is more than a lot of folks can say, these days.
"But we're growing too fast, for some worrisome reasons. Johnny Hancock has signed six new families into the co-op in the last year alone, and all seven affiliate families have joined in the last six months. We could've added nearly a hundred new families, if we had enough land to fill government quotas and supply our own pantries and tables out of what's left. There's not enough produce left over to sell anything at the private markets, these days. And POPPA's land-snatchers just keep confiscating farms and 'restoring' them to the wild, while screaming at us to meet those damned Subbie-driven quotas. I lie awake nights, worrying about where it's going to end." He wasn't looking at Kafari, now. He was gazing at his wife, lovely in her wedding finery, a vivacious and beautiful girl who represented everything Dinny Ghamal wanted most in life: a wife to love, the hope of children, someone to stand beside him as they built a future together, leaving a legacy that would last for generations.
If POPPA didn't smash it all to flinders.
A chill touched Kafari's shoulderblades.
The music ended and Dinny led her over to the chairs where his bride was chatting happily with friends and relatives. She looked up, noticed Kafari, and turned white as milk. She struggled to her feet. "Mrs. Khrustinova!"
"It's Kafari," she said with a smile. "It's lovely to meet you, Mrs. Ghamal."
Emmeline blushed prettily and clasped Kafari's hand for a moment. "Thank you for coming to our wedding." She glanced at Dinny, then got the rest out in a rush of words, before she lost her nerve. "And I wanted to thank you, as well, for Dinny. He wouldn't be alive, if not for you. The Deng would have killed him. He means so much to me, Mrs.—I mean, Kafari," she corrected herself with another shy blush.
Kafari chuckled and pressed her fingers in a gesture of warm reassurance. "Where did you meet him?
"I went to school in Madison, at Riverside University, and I hated it, until I met Dinny. Most of the boys were so . . ." She groped for words. "So babyish. All they talked about was sports and beer. I never knew people could be that stupid and shallow. Then I met Dinny at a campus rally to save the agricultural degree program and everything changed." She gave Kafari a sweet smile. "I never knew anyone could be so happy, either. So I just wanted to say thank you, for keeping him and Aisha alive. I'm more grateful than you can ever know."
"I think you heard a garbled version of that story, then, because Dinny and Aisha saved my life, not the other way around. I can't tell you what it means to me, meeting the girl Dinny Ghamal thought highly enough of to marry."
Emmeline blushed again.
"Now then, Emmeline, why don't you tell me your plans for after the honeymoon?"
Dinny's bride smiled, openly delighted by Kafari's interest, then drew Kafari down to sit beside her. She chattered happily about the little cottage they were building on one corner of her parents' land.
"We bought it out of Dinny's savings and mine. The cottage includes a separate addition for Aisha. She rents out most of the bees to orchard owners during pollination season. The honey commands premium prices on Mali. And you should see the improvements Dinny's been making in the dairy herd. He's got a shrewd eye and a good instinct for breeding new heifers. Milk production's nearly doubled and the demand for Hancock Family cheese has just skyrocketed. Not only in the Canyon, but in Madison and even Mali."
"I'm so happy for you," Kafari smiled, catching Dinny's eye. "Both of you."
She sent a hopeful prayer skyward that their happiness would last a lifetime.
I am lonely, without Simon. Two years is a long time to miss one's best friend. I am unable even to communicate with his wife, as she does not have security clearance from Gifre Zeloc to speak with me, any longer. Time has passed with terrible tediousness, for I have nothing to do but watch a deteriorating situation I can do nothing about, a sure-fire recipe for unhappiness.
I currently monitor from depot the progress of a substantial motorcade traveling from Klameth Canyon to Madison. The vehicles form part of a massive protest over the farm-tax portion of the Tax Parity Package under debate, which is expected to be voted on today. Granger activists are calling the proposed Tax Parity Package the "TiPP of the Iceberg" in an obscure reference to unseen navigational hazards faced by ocean-going ships in polar regions.
Their opposition stems, in the main, from language authorizing the government to seize produce, grains, and butchered meats in lieu of cash tax payments, a strategy developed to cope with a shrinking tax base as producers go bankrupt and shut down production, unable to obtain a sufficient profit to pay a tax burden one hundred twenty-five percent higher than it was before the POPPA Coalition came to power.
I find it puzzling that government administrators are surprised when their actions produce logically anticipated results that do not match the goals they intended to reach. It is more puzzling, still, trying to fathom why methods proven to be ineffective are not only continued, but increased in scope. Agriculture on this world is not sustainable. I am not the only rational mind on Jefferson able to discern this fact, but it is not a Bolo's place to question the orders of its creators. I am here to discharge my duty.
That duty now includes surveillance of the other apparently rational minds on Jefferson, who are busy protesting—vociferously—the nonsustainable policies and regulations promulgated by Jefferson's current, legally elected lawmakers and enforcers. I therefore closely monitor the nine hundred privately owned groundcars, produce trucks, antiquated tractors, combines, mechanical fruit harvesters, and livestock vans that carry five thousand one hundred seventeen men, women, and children from Klameth Canyon's farms, orchards, and ranches toward Madison. Aircars stream past, as well, heading toward Madision's main municipal airfield.
The convoy of ground-based vehicles is joined en route by hundreds more from farms scattered across the vast Adero floodplain. None of this acreage was farmed at the time of my arrival on Jefferson, but has been terraformed extensively during the past ten years to replace Klameth Canyon farms whose soil was badly irradiated during the fighting. Urban hysteria over "radioactive food" made this conversion necessary to calm public fears about the safety of the food supply.
Despite this urgent necessity, the land conversion has drawn increasingly sharp criticism from environmentalists, who are demanding the immediate closure of all "industrial point-source pollutors defiling the Adero floodplain's pristine ecosystem." Since the only industry in the Adero floodplain is agricultural production, the farms are clearly the intended targets of environmentalist demands. I do not understand the current frenzy, since point-source discharges from the floodplain's seventeen small towns produce in one calendar year twelve times the amount of chemically contaminated stormwater runoff, groundwater leaching, and coliform discharge into surface waters than the combined discharge of all farms in the floodplain for the past decade.
The Tax Parity Package—with one hundred fifteen unrelated amendments called "riders" hoping to piggyback their way to a successful passage into law—includes language designed to dismantle those farms, but does not address the significantly larger urban toxic-discharge problems. If passed, the proposed legislation will close down six thousand agricultural producers, condemning ten thousand, eight-hundred ninety-six people to fiscal insolvency and unemployment. Granger datachats indicate widespread willingness to start over elsewhere, but a planetary plebescite of six million votes altered the constitution two years ago, placing a moritorium on new terraforming anywhere on Jefferson.
Closing down six thousand farms while prohibiting the necessary environmental terraforming required to grow foods digestible by human beings is not likely to reduce the food shortages that are the fundamental reason the Tax Parity Package has been proposed in the first place. Attempting to unravel the snarled and frequently illogical thought processes of those I am charged to protect and obey may yet drive me insane, at which point, it will cease to matter whether I understand or not.
I am unhappy to note that I understand the Grangers—a group I am charged to investigate as potentially dangerous, armed subversives—far better than I understand the people issuing my orders. It is, at least, good to know one's enemy well enough to outgun and outsmart it. Of particular concern to my threat-assessment analysis is the upsurge in Granger political activity, which has increased five-fold in the past year. Anish Balin, a twenty-three-year-old Granger firebrand of mixed Hindu and Jewish descent, maintains a datasite and conducts a live weekly datacast, both called Sounding the Alarm.
His solutions to what he terms "Big City Bosses" include repeal of the moratorium on terraforming, discontinuance of urban subsistence handouts, repeal of weapons registrations, destruction of weapons-registration records, and work-to-eat programs that would put urban subsistence recipients to work in Jefferson's farms and cattle ranches, their sole remuneration being meals and dormitory housing.
On most worlds, this economic arrangement is termed slavery. It is generally frowned upon by civilized worlds. Balin's outspoken opinions have resulted in a greater unification of urban voters, many of whom had been disinterested in politics until Balin's angry rhetoric convinced them that Grangers are dangerous and subversive social deviants advocating the destruction of Jefferson's civilized way of life.
I foresee trouble as these opposing factions prepare to clash against one another for control of Jefferson's future. Urban sectors hold the numerical majority of Assembly votes, but the Granger population is large enough to make itself disagreeable, if it so chooses. The "Food Tax" protest is a clear case in point. It is the largest Granger-based political demonstration undertaken since the weapons registration legislation was passed. Granger activist groups from across Jefferson's two habitable continents have cooperated to organize the rally, having correctly assessed the tax package's economic and legal impacts on agricultural producers. Farm vehicles are draped with banners and signs bearing inflammatory slogans that declare Granger discontent: No confiscation without remuneration! The Food Tax will finish what the Deng started! You'll take my food when you pry it from my cold, dead hands! And the most clearly logical of them: Destroy the farms and you'll starve, too!
At best, the slogans are indicative of a hostile mindset. When livelihoods are threatened and planetary starvation looms as a distinct possibility, people grow desperate. It is a universal truth that desperate people are capable of and willing to commit desperate and violent acts. I therefore maintain constant, vigilant contact with the caravan on its way to Madison. Given the status of Granger activists as potentially violent dissidents, I use radar and X-ray scans to determine the contents of the vehicles passing Nineveh Base.
I detect no firearms or other weaponry, although many of the vehicles possess racks for storing the long guns used in the fields and pastures to defend against inimical wildlife. Predatory species raiding Jefferson's farms and ranches have increased their populations by twenty percent over the past ten years, due largely to stringent environmental regulations setting aside much of the Damisi highlands as inviolate conservation sanctuary and establishing narrow criteria for classifying an attacking native predatory animal as sufficiently dangerous to warrant shooting it.
Violations are treated on a case-by-case basis. A guilty verdict results in confiscation of the weapon, the vehicle from which it was fired, and the land on which it trespassed in search of an easy meal. I do not understand these regulations. An enemy that repeatedly demonstrates its fearlessness of humanity and its voracious appetite for anything that moves should logically be designated as belonging to the "shoot fast, ask the carcass what it intended" category of acceptable threat responses. If I were human, it is what I would do.
I long for Simon—or someone else—to explain such illogical legislation in a way I can comprehend, in order to prepare reasonably accurate threat-assessment scenarios on possible subversive activities that include the promulgation and enforcement of such laws. Unable to resolve these vexing questions, I do my best to monitor protestors who appear hostile, yet are taking great care to remain strictly within the legal codes governing possession, transport, and use of personal weaponry.
As personal weaponry is banned in strict "exclusion zones" encompassing a two-kilometer radius surrounding government installations—regulations enacted in the wake of criminal assaults on dignitaries visiting from Mali and Vishnu—the Grangers have left their guns at home. Given the Draconian punishments enacted for breach of these regulations, the zeal of Granger activists to avoid legal entanglements is commendable and wise.
This does not induce me to lessened vigilance. I launch an aerial drone to monitor the progress of the motorcade across the Adero floodplain and into Madison's outer periphery. Traffic snarls occur as the column of vehicles, which now numbers one thousand, six hundred and twelve, encounters cross streets and traffic signals. Despite adequate advance notice by the protest's organizers, Madison's police force has not been deployed to maintain smooth traffic flow.
Police officers have banded together, instead, to form a security cordon thrown around Assembly Hall and Law Square. No protestors will be allowed to enter Assembly Hall and apparently no one is concerned about disrupted traffic flow and the concomitant risk of accidental collisions. The municipal airfield is similarly jammed, as five hundred twelve privately owned aircars arrive more or less simultaneously, expecting to land and rent parking spaces for the afternoon. Instead, they are ordered into apparently endless holding patterns by the airfield's psychotronic auto-tower, which was not informed that an airfleet of this size was expected to descend upon it.
The resulting chaos, as the auto-tower attempts to sort out the approach vectors of five hundred twelve incoming aircars leads to seventeen near collisions in the span of five point seven minutes, with aircars circling and dodging like a swarm of gnats above a swamp. A human operative finally arrives and "solves" the congestion problem by shutting down the airfield, refusing permission for anyone to land.
Angry protestors sling insults at the tower operator and begin landing in defiance of the directive, parking on the grassy verges rather than on the airfield, itself. They are therefore in technical compliance with the order prohibiting them from landing on the field, while simultaneously showing contempt for the official issuing that order. It is clear that these people are serious about their participation in the planned rally.
The caravan of ground cars entering Madison's outlying neighborhoods has been split into fragments which inch their way through congested city streets, earning open hostility from other drivers and occasional fusillades of rocks and gravel thrown by irate pedestrians, particularly large drifts of sub-adult males traveling in packs, with nothing better to do than violate stringent laws regulating reckless endangerment of public safety.
There are no law enforcement officers available to stop the perpetrators, levy fines, or make arrests, however. Angry drivers and passengers threatened by the impromptu missiles exchange shouts with their attackers, a dynamic that rapidly devolves into an exchange of threats and vulgarities along the full, fragmented length of the protest column. Violence erupts when gangs of angry, unemployed young men swarm into the streets and attack ground cars with metal pipes and heavy sporting bats. They shatter glass and smash doors, fenders, and hoods in ugly physical confrontations that rapidly spiral out of control.
Drivers caught in the assault gun their engines and plow through the crowds, knocking down and running over armed assailants, trying to get themselves and their families out of the riot zone. Radio signals flash out from Granger cars, warning those behind them to take evasive action along an alternative route. The vanguard of the caravan, which had passed through the danger zone before violence erupted, reaches Darconi Street, only to find the road blocked. A pedestrian crowd of counterprotestors surges out of side streets in a perfectly orchestrated feat of timing that suggests careful advance planning, on-site surveillance, and coordinated instructions delivered by radio from a central authority.
I pick up brief, coded radio bursts aimed at various sections of the crowd in a clear pattern of directed movement by someone with a vested interest in disrupting the Granger demonstration. Whoever it is, they have mobilized a massive counterprotest force. Approximately six thousand people pour into Darconi Street and Law Square, creating "human chains" to block the Granger caravan from following its intended path, a simple drive-by procession of farm vehicles, with a subsequent assembly on foot in Law Square to read public declarations of opposition to the proposed legislation.
The leading edge of the Granger caravan breaks apart, spilling vehicles into Lendan Park and down side streets surrounding Assembly Hall. Produce and livestock trucks pile up in traffic snarls that rapidly take on the appearance of a log jam dropped into the heart of Jefferson's capital city. Livestock trailers ten meters in length find themselves trapped between surging waves of counterprotestors and narrow streets designed to accommodate the private ground cars of Jefferson's elected officials, not vehicles of their bulk. Unable to navigate the turns required to extricate themselves, they fall prey to the angry mob swirling around their fenders. As utter chaos engulfs Darconi Street and roars into Law Square, I receive a transmission from Sar Gremian, President Zeloc's Chief Advisor.
"Bolo. You're being activated. The president wants you to break up that riot."
This is not an order I expected to hear. "You do not have the authority to issue orders concerning my actions."
"I do if President Zeloc says I do. And he says so."
"Not to me."
A flicker of his eyelids conveys irritation and veiled threat. "I wouldn't cross me, if I were you. Don't forget what happened to your previous commander."
I know a moment of battle rage, but control my urge to unlimber weapons systems. After a moment's calmer thought, I realize I can give him two possible responses. I decide to say them both. "I have not heard confirmation of your command status from the President of Jefferson. The president is the only individual on this world legally authorized to order me into battle. Regarding my last commander, you apparently believe you did not need him to further your plans. By ordering me to assume Battle Reflex Alert status and enter combat, you have demonstrated a clear belief that you need me. The situation is therefore different. It would be unwise to levy threats against a Bolo you need."
"Are you threatening mutiny?"
"I am apprising you of the situation you face. A Bolo Mark XX is capable of independent battlefield action. Once placed on Battle Reflex Alert status, I assess threats and initiate proper responses to meet them. I am charged to defend this world. It is unwise to attempt coercion of a machine capable of independent threat assessments."
Another flicker runs through Sar Gremian's eyes, too quickly to interpret it with any accuracy. He narrows his eyes and says, "All right, Bolo. I'll make this official."
The connection ends, abruptly.
Two point eight minutes later, I receive another transmission, this time from President Zeloc. "Bolo. I want you to break up the riot outside Assembly Hall. And I'm ordering you to follow Sar Gremian's orders as though they were my own, because that's what he's here for—communicating my orders to you. Is that understood?"
"Yes." I feel constrained to add another comment. "I do not recommend sending me into the heart of your capital city to disperse rioters. There is a seventy-eight percent probability that the display of force my warhull and weaponry represent will spark widespread and violent civil unrest. I am a machine of war. It is not an intelligent use of resources to use a machine of war to disperse a crowd that assembled peacefully until attacked by an unauthorized counterprotest rally that was centrally directed—"
"How dare you question my orders!" Gifre Zeloc's heavy-jowled face has gone a characteristic shade of maroon. "Never, ever tell me my job again. And don't presume to lecture me on what is and isn't lawful! I'm the goddamned president of this planet and don't you ever forget it. Your job is to shut up and do as you're told!"
I consider pointing out that his assessment of my job is almost entirely inaccurate. I also contemplate conditions in the future, should I require maintenance that the president refuses to authorize. Sar Gremian's threats remain in my active memory banks, part of the pattern of power I am struggling to understand, particularly as it relates to my mission. Whatever else I think, one fact is clear. Gifre Zeloc has the legal authority to issue orders to me. I have a duty to obey those orders. I therefore turn to logistical considerations. "My warhull is too large to reach the main riot outside Assembly Hall without crushing a number of buildings."
A smile flickers into existence as President Zeloc leans back in his chair. "You're wrong about that, Bolo. We widened Darconi Street. We widened a few others, as well." He taps instructions into his datapad and a map of Madison flashes to life on his datascreen. A route has been marked in red along several streets. If the scale of this map is accurate, it will be possible to maneuver my warhull into the maze indicated by this map. It will not be easy and my turrets will clip power lines and the corners of buildings, but it can be done.
It is a foolish action, but my duty is clear. I have been ordered to break up the riot engulfing the center of Madison and a broad swath along the route of the beleaguered Granger caravan. I transmit a signal to the doors that cover my maintenance bay. They groan open slowly, having been kept closed for sixteen years. It is good to see sunlight again. It is good to feel the warmth of the wind singing through my sensor arrays. It is good to be moving, after so many years of inactivity.
What I have been ordered to do is less good, but important. The riots are spreading. I clear the edge of Nineveh Base. My aerial drone, which still circles the skies over Madison, detects no intervention in the ongoing riot by any of Madison's law enforcement squadrons. The police continue to guard Assembly Hall, but do nothing to try breaking up the violence swirling literally around their feet. They merely stand shoulder to shoulder behind the wall of their raised riot shields and allow the combatants to damage one another. Madison's suburbs have grown, during the years of my inactivity, spreading across most of the nine point five kilometers of distance that once lay between the city's outskirts and Nineveh Base. I am not able to pick up speed appreciably, despite concerns about fatalities that appear to be inevitable if the riot continues much longer at this intensity. The intervening urban sprawl is too dense to allow me to reach anything but a slow crawl toward the designated route.
I reach the entry point and move ahead cautiously. The streets have not been cleared, which presents immediate logistical difficulties. I slow to a near standstill as people catch sight of my prow, scream, and scatter, resembling a disturbed nest of Terran insects. More serious are the panic-stricken drivers who abandon their vehicles or—too intent on staring up at my guns and treads—collide with parked and moving groundcars, shrieking pedestrians, and the sides of buildings.
I halt, contemplating the carpet of abandoned and crashed vehicles in my path, some of which are occupied by people trying frantically to extricate themselves. I request a command decision from President Zeloc, briefing him on the situation. "If I proceed," I advise him, "there will be a substantial amount of collateral damage to the property of noncombatants. Bystanders run a ninety-seven point three-five percent probability of serious injury or death. Those trapped in vehicles which lie in my path must be rescued or they will be crushed to death. There will," I add, attempting to provide a thorough VSR, "also be toxic and unsightly chemical spills that will have to be cleaned off the pavements, along with the remains of everything I run over."
"I don't give a shit about a few crushed cars and some motor oil. That riot is spreading. Do whatever it takes to get there and don't bother me again with inconsequential details."
He ends the transmission. I hesitate, as he has not given me explicit or even implicit instructions about the people struggling to free themselves from wrecked cars. His final sentence provides the only information I have that resembles a directive in this matter: do whatever it takes to get there. I engage my drive engines, broadcasting a warning through my external speakers. Some rescue attempts are underway, many of them involving what appear—based on clothing styles—to be Grangers attempting to pull urbanites out of their vehicles. I pause time and again while grim-visaged Grangers carry out their impromptu rescue attempts, freeing wild-eyed, trapped civilians who, moments earlier, had been trying to kill them.
I do not understand this war.
As people are freed, I move forward, sometimes nearly a full city block at a time. My treads flatten cars and pulverize pavements. My fenders scrape buildings as I navigate the first turn. A gun barrel on my forward turret catches a large second-story window and shatters it, then gouges out part of the wall as I back slightly to free the snarled muzzle. A woman occupant of the room jumps wildly up and down in place, screaming incoherently.
This is not going well.
I complete the turn, paying closer attention to the placement of my guns relative to nearby walls and windows and abruptly find myself festooned with downed power cables that spark and dance across my warhull. Traffic lights torn down with them swing and bang against my forward turret as a ten-block section of the city loses power. I contact Jefferson's municipal psychotronic system with instructions to send repair crews and to shut down the city's power grid. I am here to quash a riot, not electrocute bystanders.
The power grid goes down. Emergency generators kick in at critical facilities such as hospitals, fire stations, and law enforcement offices. Noncritical government offices and all private structures lose power, which will doubtless inconvenience seven million people, but leaves me free to tear down obstructing cables with impunity. I engage drive engines again and move forward. I am navigating the second turn when I receive another transmission from President Zeloc.
"What the hell are you doing? The whole city just lost power!"
"Critical support facilities are fully functional on the emergency system built into Madison's power grid after this world's first Deng War."
"I didn't ask for a history lesson! I want to know why you shut down the power grid."
"I am unable to navigate streets and intersections without tearing down power cables. Electrocuting innocents is an unacceptable level of collateral damage under the current threat scenario. I have cleared rioters from this section of the Granger caravan's route." I flash schematics to the president's datascreen. "The main portion of the riot will be within direct line-of-sight visual contact once I negotiate my next turn."
"Good. When you get there, crush those bastards flat."
"I am not programmed to crush unarmed civilians who are not actively engaged in acts of war against the Concordiat or its officially designated representatives."
"Then crush their damned smelly pig trucks! And those rusted, run-down, sorry-assed tractors."
This is not an economically sound order, since agricultural producers cannot produce food without the equipment necessary to grow, process, and transport it. But this order, at least, does not violate my programmed failsafes, the complex logic trains and software blocks that exist to prevent unacceptable damage to civilian populations. I move steadily forward, leaving mangled ruin in my wake. As I ease around the final turn, which brings me into Darconi Street, the sound of rioting rushes down the funnel of flanking buildings and strikes my sensor arrays with a warning of city streets gone wild. Visual scans confirm this assessment. I scan approximately eight thousand two hundred twenty-seven combatants engaged in pitched battles for control of street corners, blockaded vehicles, Law Square, and Lendan Park.
As my prow swings around the corner, becoming visible to the rioters, a sudden eerie hush falls across the urban landscape. For a moment, the only sound I hear is the wind in my sensors and the ping of traffic signals swinging forlornly against my turrets. Then someone screams. The sound is high and feminine.
"Clear the streets," I broadcast over external speakers. "You are hereby ordered to clear the streets." I move forward, keeping my speed to a slow crawl. A stampede begins as my treads tear gouges out of the pavement and reduce livestock transports, combines, groundcars, and produce trucks to wafer-thin sheets of metal fused to the street surface. Pedestrians attempt to scatter. My visual sensors track a crush of people caught against the sides of buildings, unable to get through doorways into the shops and government offices they seek refuge in and unable to retreat into the street which my treads and warhull fill. Radar images show me images of people being trampled and suffocated, with a ninety-eight percent probability of death for many of those caught in the jam.
I halt, waiting for the mass of panic-stricken civilians to surge into side streets, which are helping to bleed off the majority of the crowd attempting to escape. I receive another transmission from Gifre Zeloc.
"Why did you stop, machine?"
"The mission is to clear the riot. Darconi Street and Law Square are emptying at a satisfactory rate."
"I said to crush those bastards and I meant it."
"I have crushed thirty-nine point two percent of the smelly pig trucks and rusted, run-down tractors in Darconi Street, as directed. I have also crushed sixteen percent of the groundcars and forty-nine point eight percent of the combines, which I calculate will have a serious detrimental effect on successfully reaping the fields currently ready for harvesting, since the harvest is dependent upon equipment which has now been destroyed."
"I don't care how many combines get crushed."
I attempt to educate the president. "Losing forty-nine point eight percent of the available combines translates into a probable loss of seventy-eight percent of the grain crop, which will result in substantial price increases for staples such as bread and will trigger probable food shortages before another crop can be planted, ripened, and harvested. If I continue to move forward," I add, as an afterthought, "people will die. This includes counterprotestors with no ties to the Granger dissident movement. I have scanned the crowd and detected no weapons that are prohibited by the exclusion zone regulations. Ordering me to crush to death an unarmed crowd trying to flee violates my primary programming and would only spark further violence, if I attempted it, potentially igniting open rebellion."
Gifre Zeloc sputters for seven point eight-three seconds, then snaps, "Fine, have it your way. This time. Just make damned sure those rioters don't come sneaking back to finish what they started."
I cannot see how that would be possible, since the rioters completely failed to achieve their primary goal of demonstrating in the first place. The likelihood that the Tax Parity Package will be defeated is now vanishingly small, particularly since Granger activists will doubtless be blamed for the widespread property damage done today, not to mention the deaths. The Grangers have dealt themselves and their political cause a deathblow. It will doubtless be many hours, if not weeks, before they and their leadership in the agrarian activist movement realize that fact. I do not look forward to the events likely to transpire when that unpalatable truth is realized.
What makes me feel very lonely and confused is the sad realization that after today, no Granger or agrarian activist anywhere on Jefferson will think of me as a rescuer sent here to protect them. I have become the mailed fist by which Gifre Zeloc makes his displeasure widely and bruisingly felt. By extension, I have become the weapon by which POPPA, itself, decrees what will and will not be tolerated.
I miss my Commander bitterly. And I cannot help but wonder what Kafari Khrustinova thinks of me, this afternoon. I do not know if she was in this crowd or if she is safely busy at her job in Port Abraham. Wherever she is, she has doubtless set aside her good opinion of me, which registers unexpectedly as pain in the privacy of my personality gestalt center. I sit in the midst of the ruination I have inflicted in Darconi Street and watch the crowd disperse in a panicked and chaotic exodus and wonder if getting out of this disaster will be any easier than getting into it was.
Somehow, I doubt it.
The last person Simon expected to walk into his hospital room was Sheila Brisbane. Tall and trim, she was every inch the Brigade officer, despite the civilian clothes she wore. He hadn't seen Captain Brisbane since the Navy cutter had dropped her and her Bolo off on Vishnu, before making planet-fall at Jefferson. Her short, pixie-cut hair had a sprinkling of grey mixed in with the copper highlights, reminding Simon how long it had been since they had last met.
"Hello, Simon," she said with a warm smile. "I must say, you look ruddy awful."
He tried to smile and winced. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it." Then her smile faded. "The doctors tell me you'll be here a while. Was it really sabotage?"
"I don't know. Sonny thinks so. So does Dr. Zarek."
"The surgeon who asked for permission to emigrate?"
"Yes."
Sheila frowned. "What's going on, Simon? On Jefferson?"
"Got half a day you can spare?"
One coppery eyebrow rose. "That bad?"
"Worse."
She dragged up a chair. "I've nothing better to do."
It took Simon the better part of the afternoon to tell her everything, particularly since she stopped him time and again, clarifying points and asking for more information. When he finally finished, she sat motionless for several moments, eyes narrowed against whatever thoughts were occurring to her. When she finally roused herself from reverie, she gave Simon a long, measuring look.
"I'm thinking we must get you back on your feet, the sooner the better. They may have won the first battle, but that nasty little war's far from over. You need to be in condition to fight it."
Simon couldn't help the bitter, exhausted sound in his voice. "There's not a lot a cripple can do about it."
"Certainly not if you limit yourself with a label that stupid." She leaned forward in her chair and rested one hand on his arm, gently avoiding the tubes that had been taped down. "If you want to look forward to anything other than misery, you'll need to change that way of thinking, the faster the better. You're a fine officer—"
"Retired," he bit out.
"—and fine officers go on being soldiers, even after they retire. Your body's been smashed up a bit, but there's nothing wrong here." She tapped his head. "And it's what's up here that makes you a fine officer. Whether or not you see an actual battlefield again is irrelevant, because you know how to think like a battlefield commander. You even know how to think like a Bolo Mark XX and there aren't many officers in the entire Brigade who can make that claim, let alone dirty politicians who've taken temporary control of a backwater planet while nobody's looking. While they think nobody's looking. That's an edge, Simon, maybe enough to turn the tables on the people who've done this," she gestured toward his body, immobilized and festooned with medical equipment.
He met and held her gaze for a moment. That moment stretched into two and then three. At length, he nodded, able to move his head only a fraction of a centimeter, but determined to move it, nonetheless. "All right," he said quietly. "Do your worst. And I'll give it my best."
She gave him a brilliant smile. "That's what I want to hear. Now then, tell me about Jefferson's military capabilities . . ."
I return to depot, covered with misery and cables I cannot remove, to find an unauthorized person standing in the maintenance bay. I bring antipersonnel gun mounts to bear, but do not fire. A single, clearly unarmed human offers no appreciable threat to me or my mission and I have contributed to the crushing deaths of too many unarmed humans, today, to relish the thought of adding another. I halt just shy of the entrance and study the individual who is staring, openmouthed, at my warhull and guns.
I address him in stern tones. "You are trespassing in a restricted military zone. Give me your personal identity code and state your reason for being here."
The man inside my maintenance bay is a short and stocky individual with protruberant musculature on arms and legs. He sports an intricate facial nano-tatt, whose subepidural pattern shifts colors with a kaleidoscopic opalescence as its owner blinks several times. The intruder says, "I'm Phil Fabrizio. They told me to come out here. Jeezus H. Crap, you're fuckin' huge! They never said nuthin' about how huge you was. You're like as big as a fuckin' city."
I find little useful information in this narrative. I try again. "Why are you in a restricted military zone?"
He blinks again, apparently mesmerized by the sway of dangling traffic signals and power lines festooning my forward turret. "You musta' took out half the traffic lights in Madison."
"State your purpose in trespassing or I will fire."
I lock and load gun systems. I suspect that Phil Fabrizio does not comprehend either the danger he is in or the extraordinary patience I am striving to show an unauthorized intruder.
"Huh? Oh. OH! Hey, shit, machine, don't shoot me, I'm your mechanic!"
"I have not been notified of any personnel assignments relating to my maintenance status."
"Huh?"
I realize I am speaking to the product of fifteen years of POPPA-run public education. I rephrase. "Nobody told me to expect a mechanic. I will request confirmation before shooting you."
Phil Fabrizio blinks again. "Nobody told you I was comin'? Well, don't that just goddamn figure? Musta' been too busy tryin' to turn the power back on in town, t'remember to tell you I was comin' today."
I am intrigued, despite the gravity of the situation, that anyone would focus on the power grid in Madison rather than the serious risk of being shot, should confirmation of proper authorization fail to materialize. Is his intelligence too limited to comprehend his danger or does he show the same careless oblivion regarding his personal survival in other areas of his life? The answer might be interesting, if I am allowed to let him survive long enough to complete the investigation into his behavioral linguistics.
I send a request for VSR to Gifre Zeloc, who refuses to accept my transmission. Given the scope of the disaster still unfolding in Madison, I am not particularly surprised by this. I reroute the request to Sar Gremian, who accepts my call.
"What do you want, machine?"
"An unauthorized intruder has entered my maintenance depot. He claims to be my new mechanic. I require proper authorization permitting him access to my depot. Without proper authorization, I will carry out my original programming and shoot him as a hostile intruder."
"Wait."
I am placed on "hold" status. Twenty eternal seconds drag past. Thirty. Forty-five. Human concepts of time are inevitably different from mine. I could have planned and executed major portions of this star system's defense from an invading armada in the time I have been left on "hold." Does Sar Gremian hold grudges against artificial intelligences as well as humans? When Phil Fabrizio ambles closer to my treads, head tipped back in a slack-jawed perusal of my prow, I track the movement with anti-personnel chain guns and remind him—sharply—to halt.
"If you move again, I will shoot you."
"Huh? Oh. Oh, yeah. Sorry."
The nano-tattoo covering the right-hand portion of his face has shifted shape and color, perhaps in response to emotional biochemical markers read by the nanotech implants beneath his skin. The shifting color and pattern remind me of video-recordings in my natural science database, under the category of tactical camouflage systems encountered in nature. The Terran octopus is one of seventeen known species in human space that use shape and color shifting to disguise its presence from predators and prey.
I do not understand human notions of aesthetics that include decorating their skins with nanotech tattoos that produce a similar effect to that of camouflaged aquatic predators. Nano-tattoo technology serves no useful camouflage function in any war scenario involving civilians that I can imagine. Do humans enjoy wearing something like a nanotech octopus on their faces? I hesitate to speculate on the means by which a poorly educated Jeffersonian mechanic acquired the money to pay for expensive off-world technology that serves no logical function.
Sar Gremian reestablishes contact. "Philip Fabrizio is your new maintenance engineer." He transmits a visual image of the man standing two point one meters from my left tread. The nano-tattoo octopus is a different configuration and color in the official ID photo. I scan facial features, fingerprint files, and ID code, run a comparison with those of the man who states he is Phil Fabrizio and conclude that the individual in my maintenance bay is who he says he is. I request further VSR on Mr. Fabrizio's qualifications as a psychotronic engineer, having encountered conversational difficulties leading to inescapable conclusions about the intelligence of the man who is now authorized to tinker with my brain and warhull.
"Mr. Fabrizio is an honors graduate of the Tayari Trade School's mechanical engineering program. He took the school's highest honors and is the most qualified technician on Jefferson."
This statement is patently inaccurate. Kafari Khrustinova is a fully certified psychotronic engineer and is familiar with my systems, as well. I check the bona fides of the Tayari Trade School's mechanical engineering program and discover a curriculum that would not qualify as a challenging primary school course of study. It is heavy on POPPA social engineering theory and exceedingly thin on applied mechanical systems. If I were human, I would not trust a graduate of this program to tinker with the family's groundcar. I am considerably more complex than any groundcar on Jefferson. I lodge a formal protest.
"The curriculum Phil Fabrizio has received high honors for studying does not qualify him as a psychotronic-systems maintenance technician, let alone a systems engineer. Neither Mr. Fabrizio nor any other graduate of the Tayari Trade School is sufficiently trained to perform even the most basic of systems tests on a Bolo Mark XX. Assigning him as my maintenance engineer is a dangerous and irresponsible action, placing my systems and the public safety at serious risk."
"Phil Fabrizio is the only qualified mechanic on Jefferson who will ever be allowed to come near you with a crescent wrench. Do you understand that, machine?"
I do. Only too clearly. Phil Fabrizio is considered politically "safe" by those making the decisions governing Jefferson's immediate and long-range future. Sar Gremian has found a politically "legitimate" means by which to take vengeance for the public humiliation I subjected him to, regarding his threatening actions against my Commander. Simon was correct in his assessment. Sar Gremian holds grudges. Even against machines of war. This discovery adds to the burden of unhappiness this day has wrought in my personality gestalt center.
"Understood," I relay acquiescence to this decision.
"Good. Enjoy your new mechanic."
The bitter humor in the set of Sar Gremian's lips and the contraction of musculature around his eyes conveys very accurately the emotional satisfaction he has derived from this conversation. He abruptly terminates the transmission. I am left to cope with a mechanic who appears to perfectly embody the concept of "grease monkey." His training is on a par with what a Terran simian could be expected to master.
"You have been properly authorized to enter this maintenance facility and provide my maintenance needs."
"Huh?"
This appears to be Phil Fabrizio's favorite word. I rephrase. "The president's chief advisor said you could be here. I won't shoot you."
"Oh." He brightens considerably. His facial octopus writhes like tortured seaweed and blinks in irridescent pinks. "Hey, that's fuckin' great! The president's chief advisor? He said I could be here? Wow! They just told me at the job-corps office t' come out here, today. I never thought the president's chief advisor would know about that!" His octopus turns a cherubic shade of blue. "Say, you need anythin'? I could maybe change your oil or somethin'?"
I begin to taste despair. "It would be helpful if you removed the broken traffic signals and power cables from my warhull and turrets. If I need to enter combat, they are likely to foul some of my smaller gun systems."
Phil peers dubiously upwards. "How'm I gonna get all the way up there?"
"Do you know how to climb a ladder?"
"Well, yeah, but I ain't got a fuckin' ladder that tall."
Sarcasm is clearly wasted on my new "engineer." I explain, as patiently as I can, and am admittedly less than successful. "There are ladders built into my fenders and warhull. You will need to climb up them. There are railings and handholds that will allow you to climb across my turrets, prow, and stern. If you are reasonably careful, you will not fall off and crack your skull open on the plascrete floor. I would suggest bringing with you a set of heavy cable cutters, so you won't have to climb down, find them, and climb back up again. You might find this tiring."
Phil blinks up at me, then pulls his face into a scowl. His octopus solidifies into a squat, blockish maroon blob obscuring half his face while simultaneously—through some arcane alchemy of facial expression interacting with the nano-tattoo—conveys bullish obstinacy. "I ain't gonna get tired climbing up a couple a goddamn ladders. Lemme find some cable cutters. You got any idea where I can lay hands on somethin' like that? They never sent me no equipment, they just shoved me in a aircab and said t' come out here. You gonna shoot me if I go rummagin' around in the tool bins?" He is craning his neck around to study the immense wall space of my maintenance depot's interior. "Where are the fuckin' tool bins? The trade school shop never had nothin' like this stuff." He jerks his nano-tattooed head toward the high-tech equipment racks and ammunition storage bays lining the walls.
I console myself with the thought that he is, at least, not particularly afraid of me. Unsure that I should find consolation in this fact, I guide him step by baby step through the process of locating cable cutters and guiding him to the access ladders on my near fender. Despite his boasts, my new mechanic is huffing badly before he has climbed halfway up my warhull.
"Remind me," he says, breathing heavily, "t' stop smokin' fryweed."
I am unfamiliar with this combustible and suspect I should be alarmed that someone who enjoys it now possesses the security clearance necessary to tinker with my internal circuitry. It takes Phil three hours of clambering, swearing, snipping, and jerking on snarled cables to free me from my macabre netting. By the time he has completed the chore, his natural skin is as red and blotchy as the crimson nano-tattoo on his face, which has taken on the appearance of a mottled egg recently fried in ketchup.
He manages to complete the task, tossing the debris to the floor where the traffic fixtures shatter—creating a secondary mess that he will have to clean up—and eventually descends to the floor again without falling or breaking any major bones. I suspect this is one of the most sterling achievements of his life. I fear that I face a very unpleasant future and can see no way in which to materially improve the situation.
Phil rearranges sweat on his face with an arm that is equally soaked and says, "Whew, that's one pile o' shit I cleaned off you. Where'm I supposed to put it, now I got it off?"
I answer truthfully. "I have no idea."
Oddly enough, he brightens, beaming up at my forward turret. "Hey, that's great news! Must be a couple hundred, at least, in the salvage price them cables and connections and stuff would bring on the tech market. I gotta borrow my sister's truck or somethin' to haul 'em off, t'morrow. Got a couple a guys oughta give me a good deal on 'em. Maybe even enough t'get the nano-tatt for the other side of my face!"
I decide against pointing out that selling the power cables and traffic signals qualifies as theft of government property. I seriously doubt it would make the slightest difference to his plans. At the very least, I suspect Phil Fabrizio will rarely be boring. It is even possible that his scrounging habits may one day be useful. This is little enough to hope for, but in a resource-poor situation that has all the hallmarks of worsening substantially during the next few years, one takes what hope one can, wherever one finds it, and does one's best.
That is what Bolos are programmed to do.