Year: 2015

I wish I could tell you this post is late because we partied so much on the fourth, but I stayed up late formatting my husband’s book for publication.  And I went to bed before my entire family.

Since we’re in a new neighborhood and didn’t feel like driving across town, the guys spent the entire evening/night trying to figure out “where to see fireworks” — at which I think they failed.  Well, the guys except younger son who went off with friends to (I suspect, no one told me) set off fireworks.  It is weird that the most introverted of the Hoyts has the busiest social life.  Those of you with kids of a retiring disposition should put them in First Robotics, where Marshall found all sorts of engineers (guys and gals) who still form the core of the people he hangs out with.

The guys are still in bed.  I’m in my office wondering what I should write about…  and coming up dry.

So this is one of those annoying posts in which I tell you I have nothing to say.  Honestly, I have to stop going drinking with Vodkapundit.  (Which he’d be grateful for, I’m sure, since I tend to drink HIS liquor.)

As soon as I manage to kick the guys awake (high depth bombs might be needed.  Well, that and I never checked younger son made it home from almost certainly not setting off illegal fireworks last night.  Or that all his fingers made it home) we’ll go to the other house to finish tuckpointing basement, repair the balcony (The slats and railing also got stripped by hail) and finish staining woodwork.  Painters did the two sides of the house that hail stripped, thank heavens.  I don’t relish the idea of going up on a ladder to second floor height.

I want to finish revising what I have on Rogue Magic and put it up again to finish.  And I’m almost done with Witch’s Daughter, the in-between book. But, let’s face it, it probably won’t happen till I’m done painting and cleaning.  Consider I’m the woman who gets stuffed up going through the cleaner’s isle int he supermarket.  Now consider paint and varnish.  Yeah.  That plus the physical work mean I am not good for much by the time I come dragging home usually far too late in the evening.

Death of a Musketeer is up for 99c till tonight (I think.) So is Candyworld by older son, which as those of you who heard him read it at LC know is a dark military fantasy.

And I gave up and put all my work — ALL my work — that’s indie or reprints in the Kindle Lending Library.  Why “gave up” — because to do it I had to remove it from Barnes and Noble and Smashwords.  Yes, I can hear Kris Rush scold in my mind, but seriously guys, I was making maybe $20 from B & N, a month, and less from Smashwords, which seems too unorganized to report properly, anyway.  Yes, yes, Kobo, and I grant you they’ve gotten better at making it easier to put up books, but they’re still difficult and the books I had there were tracking at just about B &N or very slightly ahead.

So I gave up.  It goes against the grain, because I hate to put my eggs all in one basket, which is why despite loving Baen I insist on starting and keeping up an indie career.

However there’s such thing as stupid, and also such thing as being nice to my fans.  As a library subscriber who always looks there first, because money is very tight, I sympathize with those of you in the same position and therefore have made my stuff available to Kindle unlimited library subscribers.  Remember my stuff is DRM free so if you absolutely must read it on a different device, you can always buy it and convert it, no skin off my nose.

And if you’re not a library subscriber, I try to run sales every two months or so, and now can do so for 99c while not losing my shirt, another benefit of the program.

Now, I think it’s annoying that Amazon requires you to quit the other places.  Annoying and ultimately short sighted, but eh… stuff is ready to go up again at other sites the minute I find it necessary/valuable.

Until then, well, you can read whatever you want to of mine for 9.99 a month, a pretty good value.

And now I’ll go shower and wake the guys — do you think I should hire mercenaries for the job — and count Marshall’s fingers (that boy has loved explosions since he was 4.  Perhaps before.  4 was when he started blowing up things, though.) And then I’ll go tuckpoint, paint and do carpentry.

On the good side,t his will work great in the next refinishing mystery…

*Sorry this is so late.  There have been… interruptions.*

The Bombs Bursting in Air

Sarah A. Hoyt

The holo board on the side of the road read “Emergency. All Vehicles and persons, please turn on the next right and wait for inspection.”

I had just flown in to Sea York, dropped from long-distance altitude to local altitude, and was cruising maybe two feet above the glistening ceramite surface of Queens, the main road from the coast into the heart of the seacity.

The billboard’s words made my fingers start for the control panel of my flyer. And then I stopped.

What was the emergency, precisely, and what would the inspection entail?

Since at least the twentieth century this sort of impromptu search of the general public had been used for everything, from terrorist threats, to interdiction of illegal substances to stopping kidnappings.

This one might mean everything or nothing.

I felt the back of my neck prickle, and despite the controlled climate in my flyer, felt a trickle of sweat trail down my back, under the plain, white work shirt I’d donned for the occasion.

The inspection could be for the same reason as my mission. And if it was for the same reason as my mission, it could paradoxically impair what I had to do. The Usaians were not stupid. They were a great many things, yes, but not stupid. Were they stupid, they wouldn’t have all the security apparatus of Earth on high alert for years. Were they stupid, they wouldn’t be illegal. If they were stupid, I’d be out of a job.

Not being stupid and having an inspection attempting to prevent their planned show of force before the vote of the legislature of Sea York tomorrow, they would be extra suspicious of anyone in their midst.

I spotted an alley on the left, before the next turn right, and took it, keeping my eyes peeled for anyone following me. But all the other flyers, in the sparsely traveled road seemed to be staying on the main throughfare and following instructions.

No surprise about it, either. The alley I’d ducked into was so narrow that my flyer, one of the cheaper sports models, designed to appeal to bachelors and young couples, almost scraped on both sides, and it took some finessing and maneuvering, to keep from doing so.

At the end of the alley, randomly, I turned to the right into a slightly larger road, one that was lined with the semi-spherical pink homes built in a hurry at the turn of the century to accommodate immigration to the seacity, and now mostly occupied by the working class and called by the derogatory name of mushrooms.

The street was quiet. Too quiet. I realized that there were no kids playing outside, always a bad sign in this neighborhood, and the prickle at the back of my neck increased.

Something was wrong.

My mission was supposed to be simple. I was supposed to spy on the Usaians. Not infiltrate them exactly. Security services from all over the world have tried to infiltrate them, and, technically speaking, it should be easy.

I mean, they were a secretive religion but one that was created from so many disparate strands, and involved so many different people, and so many sects that it should have been easy for a relative stranger to claim to be a recent convert.

The problem was that the vast majority of Usaians were just believers. They knew nothing of their agenda, their covert actions. And those who were leaders or close to the leaders, from whom the directives of the movement emanated were not stupid.

We’d never fully been able to understand how infiltrators were spotted. Back at headquarters we had data gem upon data gem full of case studies, though, and it was hard to deny they had been spotted and either committed suicide – sometimes in ways that required acrobatic ability – or simply vanished. The vanished ones were more worrisome. At least they worried those considering taking up the mission.

It hadn’t worried my older brother, Paul, but then it could be said that Paul had always been overconfident. He’d disappeared while on mission 5 years ago, never to be heard from again. It was suspected he’d become a victim of the Sons of Liberty, the terroristic branch of the Usaians, but the fact no one knew for sure that the Sons of Liberty existed made the whole thing a nightmare of suspicion and implication.

Thinking of Paul made me clamp my jaw together hard, to stop the itch in my eyes. My father had died in the year since Paul had gone missing, died without knowing what had become of his first born, died without even the consolation of a funeral for his son. And I was not going to cry.

I might be a woman, but that didn’t mean that I could cry in public. Father had been a member of the International Alliance of Peacekeepers and Paul and I had been raised in the traditions of the force, and eventually joined. Keeping the peace, protecting order and sustaining established authority was our mission. It left very little room for private sorrow. Paul had died in the service of order and peace. Dad had lived for that service. And now it was my turn.

What I was going to do was come to Sea York ahead of what the Usaians were calling “a show of presence” designed to intimidate the legislature into not outlawing them.

I was going to find out how they got their orders, which would lead to their central authorities. Once those were found, the legitimate governments of the world should be able to prove that this worship of a long-vanished system of government was not a religion but a dangerous political movement, one that intended to take over the whole world.

Once we discovered who their top men were, and who was giving orders, downward, we would be able to dispel their crazy notion of individual power, or individual action. We should be able to defang the poisonous idea that the authority to govern should rightly reside in the hands of the governed.

And now there was someone on my tail, I realized. Or at least a battered, small, red flyer was following me through the silent neighborhood.

I took three turns at random and it followed, on my tail.

It was either really inefficient at tracking, or it wanted me to know I was being followed. The sweat down my back was now a river. I bit my lower lip while I tried to reason it through.

It could be a Usaian, of course. I had established an identity for this mission, of course: Natasha Borodin someone who had been flitting for years on the outskirts of Usaian circles without fully converting, at least that anyone knew. The id this flyer broadcasted was tied pretty strongly to that identity. It might be that they considered me enough one of them to try to protect me. Or it could be they suspected me enough to want to verify what I was up to.

Or, given my supposed sympathies, it was entirely possible that the constituted authorities were following me, perhaps – the idea made me smile – because they suspected me of being one of the secret leaders of the Usaians.

I kept an eye on the flyer behind me as I turned to a slightly larger suburban neighborhood, this one with houses that looked like they could have been built in the 21^st century, save that the slight sheen of ceramite and dimatough gave away that they weren’t wood and stucco.   And stopped, suddenly.

In the middle of the road was a barricade. It took me only a second to realize that it was an official barricade. The seal of Sea York occupied the center of the barricade, an eagle with the bar sinister. And everyone behind it wore the bright orange uniforms of Sea York peace keepers.

I had a split second to make a decision. If they were looking for drugs, kidnapped children or weapons, I could go through. Natasha Borodin had no guns. The ones I did have were behind the panel, where no one could ever find them, or at least no one who wasn’t a member of the Inties. Those who worked on international peacekeeping shared that kind of secret across the various nations, protectorates and territories.

Too late I realized I hadn’t had the local broadcast on, and that it could have told me what the search was about. I tweaked the control panel and heard “believed to be dangerous elements” and also “subvert the order” but the words in the middle were garbled, and while my flyer, having stopped, came to rest gently on the pavement, three men had come out from behind the barricade, burners at the ready.

The little battered red flyer had vanished.

Subvert the order and dangerous elements had to refer to a public movement, not to drugs or kidnapping. Which meant –

I punched the take off button and shot straight up, amid the trees that lined the peaceful street. Branches scraped the side of the flyer, and there was an explosive sound. An alarm sounded from my controls. A quick glance told me I’d been shot and that something was seriously wrong with the electrical systems.

Sea York Peacekeepers shouldn’t be that quick on the trigger. They were a corporate territory, still controlled by a board of directors. They had a voting assembly, in which those who owned shares could have their say. Because of that, they were loathe to either offend investors or scare away potentially skilled migrants.

It was part of the reason they were lousy with Usaians.

Which meant they were spooked, and the only thing that could have spooked them was the proposed “demonstration of presence” of the Usaians. No one knew exactly what that was supposed to mean, except that a press release from someone claiming to belong to the Daughters of Liberty had said it would show how large their numbers were in Sea York and show their nature as productive, integral members of a thriving society.

And of course, my evading their barricade. But a search of the flyer would have revealed my supposed Usaian sympathies, and if they were that spooked I’d at the very least have spent a night in jail and been unable to complete my mission.

Or I’d have to reveal myself and trust the discretion of local cops.

I snorted, even as I started looking for a place to land. The control panel was beeping distressingly, and I was going to go down hard and fast either way. Better choose where to go.

The only place I could think of to aim for was a private beach on the edge of the seacity away from all roads. While the peacekeepers were bound to follow me, I would probably be able to find a pathway from that beach that would be hard for a flyer to follow.

So I guided my flyer, losing altitude at an appalling rate, over to the little expanse of black sand, bordering the sea. The sand was black in most seacities, since it was the worn away grains of the dimatough used to build the original island. But before I landed I knew I’d made the wrong choice. The beach was maybe fifty feet long by twenty feet deep, and, what was worse, it was bordered on all sides by high, shining, black dimatough walls.

A frantic finger on the controls failed to get the flyer to lift. All I could do was land as gently as I could.

Not gently enough. I lost power entirely and dropped the last six feet, with a force that jarred pain through my head and made my teeth hurt.

Before the pain subsided, I was unbuckled, and kneeling on the floor, searching for the spot that would open the compartment where I kept my weapons. If I was very lucky, they’d merely fired on me out of panic, and they wouldn’t pursue me.

I didn’t believe in luck. Most people who did were dead. Like Paul.

Finding the slightly raised combination pad by touch – something impossible if I hadn’t known it was there – I tapped my combination and the secret compartment on the side of my seat slid open. I dove in, coughing against the smoke suddenly filling the flyer cabin, and found two burners, by touch, before my brain informed me that the smoke must be due to the electrical trouble in the flyer, and that if I stayed around to look for the long distance weapons I was going to either choke or roast.

So, instead, staying low – smoke rises – I crawled to the control panel and punched the emergency door opening button. The door slid open partway, the smoke poured out of the flyer, clouding my view of the outside, and I thought if I just walked out and there was anyone ambushing me, I would likely get shot.

So, instead, I threw myself out at ground level, and landed in a roll that took me to the side, and partly under the flyer, burner in hand.

Before I’d stopped rolling I knew I’d made the right decision, as a burner ray flew by above me, probably in response to indistinct movement in the smoke.

Which meant not only had I been followed, but my pursuers had anticipated my movements and “followed ahead”. Not exactly difficult, since I’d been maneuvering on a crippled flyer, but also not precisely easy, since I’d got here as soon as I could.

That type of precision and organization seemed to speak of an official organization, the sort that governments could put in play. On the other hand the Usaians had managed to survive despite being outlawed in ninety percent of places around the world.

I scooted further into the shadow of my flyer, and located three spots where, even through the spoke, the light shone unnaturally, probably on the surface of flyers. Three of them, damn it. And me alone and with a winged flyer.

When all else fails, try razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle, followed by sufficiently fast firepower can sometimes work.

So I spoke loudly, trying to keep my voice to “young woman” and “Confused” and using as close as I could to the broad Sea York accent on Glaish, “Who are you? Why have you shot my flyer?”

Right after I spoke, I rolled sideways, and predictably, a burner ray shone through where I’d been. Whoever was after me was serious, and cared very little for whether they’d be pursued for killing me. So – the Usaians?

But a throat was cleared near one of the shining areas, and a voice said, “Claire Briand, do you wish to surrender?”

My real name shocked me for a moment. Who could have my real name? My identity as Natasha Borodin had been laid so deep, I doubted even local authorities could have gotten it, much less the Usaians.

The only people who could know it were—

My own people, the Internationals, or as we called ourselves, the inties. And if my own people were after me–

I started to open my mouth to say I’d done nothing that I needed to surrender or be punished for, and then stopped. If they’d come to arrest me, lawfully and normally, they’d have shouted what I was supposed to have done, and my name, and asked me to surrender, before shooting at me.

If they had come at me with killing force, what I’d done or hadn’t done were of no consequence. Someone wanted me dead.

I crawled forward a little, careful to keep in the shadow and the smoke. Right now, in a place this size, surrounded by hostiles, I had basically chance zero at surviving. Unless, of course, I managed to make the smoke far more intense, which would give me cover to—

I wasn’t sure to what, since right then my only options seemed to be to swim out to sea and drown. From my mental map of the place before landing, those straight dimatough walls extended on either side of the little cove and my chances of being able to swim the couple of miles before the next island before my arms gave out were next to none.

There were rumors that back in the twenty first great great great great grandad had been bio-enhanced by his parents. But I suspected if he’d been enhanced at all, it had been for intelligence and maybe for some physical coordination and ability, since he’d been a policeman, like everyone in the family time out of memory. I very much doubted he’d been enhanced for long distance swimming, and I certainly hadn’t.

But right then, I needed smoke so I could have a chance of not getting shot while I decided whether to die by drowning.

Unfortunately I was a peacekeeper, not a flyer mechanic. I had no idea why my flyer was smoking. According to regulations, all the stuff in there was supposed to be non-flammable, from the circuits to the inner furnishings.

Well, the circuits certainly weren’t, I told myself. I had a brief, mad idea of shooting the power-pack, but that was followed by the certainty if I got past the housing I’d cause an explosion that would wipe out all life on this cove. So, it remained…

I could shoot the other flyers in the same place as mine, but supposing that they weren’t made of the same sadly flammable, and probably illegal materials nothing would happen. And supposing they were, all that would happen would be stranding enemies here with me. Oh, and pissing them off.

Damn it, what I needed was cover, and then a way out of here. In desperation, I realized I’d crawled almost all the way back to my front door. I doubted I was visible where I was, in the shadow of the flyer, but I could see the two nearest flyers, one on the right, and one to the left of me, each of them official vehicles, designed to carry more than one person. There were four men near one, and two near the other. Right.

I shot an arm up into the open door of my flyer, and fired on hot and wide dispersal. As I rolled back behind my flyer, two shots found places where I’d been, and I cursed because I’d exposed myself for nothing, and the flyer’s interior turned out to be regulation non flammable.

Then there was a sound like “fwoosh” and a series of crackles, and thick, acrid smoke poured out of the interior of my flyer.

There were coughs and the sound of people scurrying.

One of the coughs came from near me. Very near. Almost touching. On my right. I pointed my burner at it, at the same time I looked.

There was a man crawling on the ground, near me, and at my turning to him, he lifted both hands, to show he was disarmed. “I’m here to help,” he whispered.

I couldn’t see much of him through the smoke, save that he was dark haired, and that there was something like amusement in his eyes. The kind of man who’d be amused with a burner pointed at him would be … like my brother. A little crazy, a lot daring, and not knowing when he was in trouble.

I hesitated, which was stupid, because in such situations hesitation is death.

He said, rapidly, “I was told to tell you Grind and Luck.”

This stopped me cold. Grind and luck were the two things that dad said were needed for success. By grind he meant study and he’d said it so often it had become a sort of family joke. I blinked at the man, and said, “Paul?” I knew he wasn’t Paul, of course. My brother’s hair, like mine, was light brown, not that black shock of hair visible through the smoke. But I couldn’t think of anyone else who would have known the family’s saying.

He shook his head. “Not here. Will you trust me?”

Two seconds to decide. Anyone who had interrogated Paul before his untimely demise might have got that out of him, even if it was a weird thing to get in interrogation. Then again, shoot someone full of babble juice and you get the strangest stuff.

On the other hand, even if he were someone who had done away with my brother, or someone in contact with those who had, he was just one man. As opposed to the six out there.

I lowered my burner and nodded. He nodded in turn. He’d been speaking in the almost soundless whisper that seemed to have gone unnoticed amid all the coughing and movement on the other side, but of course even whispers were dangerous.

He motioned for me to follow and stood enough to run half crouched through the smoke. I followed, more by detecting motion than by seeing him. At least once a burner ray barely missed me, passing close enough to singe my hair, which told me that the motion had also been detected by my pursuers.

I almost hit a flyer, at a dead run, but the man was there, stopping me, and sticking his finger in the flyer’s genlock. It was the battered vehicle that had followed me. The red one.

As the door slid open, my friend or captor pulled me up. He smelled of sweat and soap and was strong enough to lift me into the flyer without seeming effort. I took a deep breath, and he was already at the control panel.

“They’ll shoot us as we take off, I’m afraid,” he said. “So I’ll have to take off fast enough they won’t hit us.”

The take off tossed me to the floor, and as soon as we gained altitude and stabilized, I came up again. He hadn’t taken my burners, which was either a sign that he was not hostile, or a sign that he was stupid. I had my burners pointed at him as I said, “Sons of Liberty?”

I expected shock or fear or something, but he looked around over his shoulder. He had olive skin, an aquiline nose, and dark brown eyes under heavy, straight eyebrows. His teeth, when he flashed me a smile, were white and very straight. “Let’s discuss your predicament, instead,” he said, not seeming to notice the burner pointed at his head. “Who do you think betrayed you?”

“What?”

“Who do you think told the authorities of Sea York that you were a dangerous Usaian subversive, in charge of the demonstration of presence tonight, and that you were coming to organize Usaians?”

I blinked stupidly at him. “No one. The people who knew of my mission—” My mouth felt suddenly dry. “The people who knew—” The people who knew included my boss Mark Vanel who had been trying to make our association less than professional, despite the fact that he was married and I was not interested. Had he been upset enough by my refusal to lay a trap for me, and get me murdered by the police of Sea York? Surely no one could be that angry at a refusal?

And then I though perhaps not angry, but scared I’d make it an official matter. But still– “Why would the authorities of Sea York shoot at a suspected Usaian?” I said. “They haven’t been made illegal yet. The assembly doesn’t vote until tomorrow. That’s what the dmonstra—”

“They would if they received a message coded through trusty channels that said that this person about to enter their city was a turncoat peace keeper and was bringing bombs for the Usaians to set off at various locations.”

“Bombs?”

“Yeah,” he said. “This could be made worse if someone cracked usaian code for the occasion tonight and got the code name.”

“Code—”

“For the event tonight. It’s coded “bombs bursting in air.””

“They’re going to bomb Sea York.”

“No,” he said. He’d turned back to the control panel and his hands were flying madly. “No, we’re not. We’re not that stupid. But it’s easy to get hold of just enough information to make it plausible.”

I’d caught the shift. I still had the burner pointed at him. “You’re a Usaian.”

“My name,” he said. “Well, my name of record is Juan Remy. I was named for my grandfather who was chased out of his home in the dead of night, when he was a child. My real name is John Adams Remy. Now if you excuse me a moment, I need to take some evasive maneuvers, or we’ll have busies up our nostrils before we even land.”

“I could shoot you,” I said.

“You could,” he said calmly. “But if I thought you were stupid enough to do so, without realizing it would crash land you, I would have disarmed you.”

I bit back the “you and whose army?” that rose to my lips, and instead said, “You killed my brother.”

“Your– Paul? Paul Briand? No.”

The denial was flat and had the ring of truth. I still kept a burner in each hand. If Juan hadn’t killed him, someone else had. Someone in the Sons of Liberty. And they might very well be at the end of this flight. Or at least that’s what I thought as we dove down and into an underground parking garage.

The ceiling closed behind us, and we were in a small space that looked like a private garage. There were a mop and a broom against one wall, and a pile of tools against the other. But as I stepped out of the vehicle, by the light from the ceiling I noticed the flyer was green.

Juan saw me looking and grinned. “It’s a compound in the paint. We have had it for years. Allows us to escape pursuit.”

“As you bring disorder and perform acts of terrorism?” I said.

He blinked at me. “Not normally.”

“Do you know who killed my brother?”

“What?”

The “What” had not come from Juan and it was in a very well known voice. I turned to see my brother standing by a door, the light shining behind him, and making his blond hair brighter. He was older, I thought, and not just by the five years he’d been missing. What I mean is he stood straighter, and he looked more… grownup.

He was wearing blue pants and a white shirt, and looking at us with the expression of someone who had come out of greater light into a dimmer place.

“Claire!” he said, at the same time Juan said, “I got her, see.”

My brother crossed the garage in three steps to squeeze me in a bear hug. “Claire, damn it, so long, and we were so afraid you’d be dead before we could get you.”

“I don’t understand– I thought Juan– I thought the sons of liberty had kill— I thought you were dead.”

Paul let go of me, “Meet my brother in law, Juan Remy. Come in, come in. We have to get the kids fed and everything ready for the demonstration tonight.”

“Kids?”

I put my burners in their holsters, as I stumbled into a tidy home, presided over by a dark haired woman and seemingly full of children. Seemingly because once the noise and confusion subsided the apparently multitude of kids resolved themselves into two boys, Paul Revere Briand and Charles Carroll Briand aged 4 and 3 and a little girl Elizabeth Hamilton Briand, aged two.

“I converted, you see,” Paul said, shoveling apple sauce into his daughter’s mouth, while his wife, Martha, tended to the boys, seemingly ignoring their movement and screams, and managing to make sure food made it into them and not onto their hair and clothes. Mostly.

“I don’t see,” I said. “By their insistence in taking down all government and promotion of anarchy the Usaians are a force for criminality and disruption in the world. If they took over, in the chaos, their leaders would end up in charge, and everyone else under their heel.”

Paul wiped his daughter’s mouth and picked her up. Elizabeth peered at me suspiciously, and I wondered what I was going to do about this. Nothing, of course. The Usaians weren’t illegal in Sea York. At least not yet. And even if Paul was technically a deserter, I wasn’t about to denounce my own brother. I also was having trouble with the idea that Paul could have converted to an evil philosophy. He was happy-go-lucky and far too self confident, but that didn’t mean he was hungry for power or willing to cause anarchy.

“Ah, no,” he said. “That’s what the Good Men and their functionaries say. To say otherwise would mean admitting that the Usaian system, while in use, created more prosperity more widespread than any other in history. And admitting too that what the Usaians wanted was a smaller government, one that took account individual freedoms.”

Elizabeth was peering at me through her fingers, and looking like she’d smile if I just smiled first.

“You see,” Paul said. “I was betrayed, from inside, as you were. I have no idea who betrayed you or why, but in my case it was someone who wanted my place. Anyway, I ended up in prison in Syracuse, suspected of being a Usaian, which since I’d tried to infiltrate– Well, the Usaians saved me. Mind you they saved me to get information from me, but then Juan and I hit it off, and then I realized that under our system, in the international police, under all the systems in the domains of the Good Men, we have no defense against this sort of maneuver. And in the process I’d found that in the old US, in the system my captors believed in, there was a thing called innocent until proven guilty. There were… protections.”

“It must mean a lot of bad people went free,” I said. “In fact we learned that the country was sunk in chaos.”

He shrugged. “Only at the end, and by that time, they’d given up on their beliefs and system. Yeah, some guilty people probably escaped, but more importantly, innocent people weren’t condemned. There was… some protection for the individual. All of the laws were geared to keep the individual safe from an oppressive state.”

“But anarchy—”

“I didn’t say no state, hon. I said that the state had to be kept in check. They understood the need for a government, but that it should be kept in check.”

He looked across at his wife, who was making some sign. “Now?” he asked.

“Now, she said. “Let me have Ellie. You and the boys set them off.”

“Them?” I said.

Paul grinned at me. “Operation Bombs Bursting In Air.”

I couldn’t believe my brother would speak that cavalierly about killing people, but I didn’t know what he could be speaking of, either. I followed him and two excited little boys out onto the terrace just outside the room where we’d been. It was a round little space, much like others all around, at the top of the house, used – by the look of the abandoned toys – as a play area.

Paul swept the toys aside, and started setting up cylinders. Juan had come out, as well, and was keeping the two boys back.

“Let them light the fuses,” he said, as Paul was finishing up his incomprehensible preparations. “They’ll remember it forever.”

Paul nodded. He brought out a lighter, and took both his sons forward, and had them both hold the lighter, near a fuse on the ground near the line of cylinders.

Martha had come out, with Ellie. Juan was doing something or other behind us.

“Now,” Martha said, looking at a watch. “Now.”

Paul guided the boys’ hands towards the fuse. The fire caught. There was a fzz sound.

And suddenly the cylinders exploded in red, white and blue light, in a conflagration so violent I jumped back. And bumped into Juan who laughed, and steadied me, before he stood, unfurling and holding aloft a banner in broad red stripes and stars.

Around us, terraces were exploding in light, all over the seacity. There were even some up at the top, from the garden of the chairman of the ruling corporation.

And voices were singing, out of sync, something about “can you see.” Juan was singing behind me, and his voice was joined by Paul’s and Martha’s on “the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

I couldn’t believe the number of … fireworks? Or the number of flags flying. It must mean fully two thirds of Sea York were Usaians. The corporation couldn’t vote to outlaw them, not matter what the pressure brought by the Good Men. If they did, they’d lose all of their productive citizens. Or most of them.

In the dark, I found Paul had put a hand on my shoulder, “You see,” he said. “We’re not violent. We just want to live according to our beliefs.”

“But this belief in… in the power and … and sacredness of the individual is dangerous.”

“So it is. For those who want power over other humans. For the rest… well, it’s not a simple, easy and clean cut idea, but by its very nature… It’s much harder to be a tyrant over those who believe each person is sacred.”

“But a central governor, a good one, can create order and—”

“Order,” he said. “And stagnation. And injustice. Is order the most important thing?”

“You used to be a policeman,” I said. “You cared about order.”

“I’m still a policeman,” he said. “Here. I care about justice. Order can mean only that a criminal is keeping everyone else under control. Graves are very orderly. Justice is different. It means everyone has equal value under the law, and that no one will be allowed to create order at other’s expense.” He laughed a little, as though at himself. “Well, that’s the theory at least. We try.”

“You didn’t come to see father before he died,” I said.

Paul sighed. “I tried to contact him. I tried to contact you. I couldn’t come see him. We are illegal in Liberte, and people there know I’ve converted. People in the inties know I’ve converted. My attempts to contact you and dad were intercepted.”

“They– Dad died thinking you were dead. They wouldn’t let you contact us?”

“No,” he said. There was a bitter laugh. “It wasn’t orderly. It would create confusion. I named little Charles after dad.” He paused. “Well, not the middle name.”

Fireworks were still going on from every terrace, and Juan had affixed the flag to the edge of the terrace, and was setting up a second round.

“They said you were going to do a demonstration of power,” I told Paul. “That things would explode.”

“Well,” he said. “To be fair they have.” He looked around at the fireworks, with a smile on his lips, but there were tracks of tears down his face. “Even I didn’t know it would be these many people. One problem with tyranny is that it isolates you. You’re never sure if you’re alone. We passed word, to people we trusted. We didn’t know how far it reached. Well, I don’t think we’ll be outlawed come tomorrow.”

“No,” I said.

“You can go back, you know,” he said. “If you wish.”

I thought of going back. I’d been betrayed and lied to. That didn’t hurt as much as knowing they’d prevented dad from knowing his son was alive and well, or from knowing he had grandchildren. That, that betrayed a lack of concern for … for people, and for what was right and just that meant, to my mind that everyone of these people could at any minute become Mark Vanel. Because all that counted to them was power, and people in positions of power, not the vast masses they had power over. If you weren’t important to them, you didn’t matter. To anyone.

I cleared my throat. “This… individual thing… I mean…”

“What?” Juan asked. “Everyone being entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?”

“That,” I said. “Sounds good. And implausible.”

“It is,” he said. “Both. But we have… I mean… if you want to study how good and implausible it is…”

“There are classes, and ways to learn,” Paul cut in. “And you shouldn’t trust Juan. He has three wives and fifteen children in different seacities.”

“Liar. It’s only two wives and five children,” Juan said, in a tone that meant it was no wives or children. He grinned, just as he had when I’d pointed my burner at him. I had a feeling he could be dangerous and not because of multiple wives.

Paul bent and lit the fuse and set off a fresh round of red, white and blue stars. The little boys shrieked and clapped.

Through the haze of smoke and exploding fireworks, the terraces nearby showed fluttering flags, the striking and strange stars and stripes: the symbol of an alien philosophy that might or might not be as crazy as it had been painted.

But my brother wasn’t crazy. And I doubted his family was.

I squinted at the waving flags. Tomorrow, I’d learn more.

—————————————-

And here’s the link to the inimitable Alma Boykin’s story:  https://almatcboykin.wordpress.com/2015/07/04/excerpt-pattersons-war-the-new-founders-war/

Having been told that I’m not allowed (umph) to go tuckpoint walls today — something about my being exhausted, HE says — I’m writing a short story that will be up mid afternoon (my afternoon) here. I was going to call it The Flight To Sea York, but it wants to be called The Bombs Bursting In Air. After which I shall watch the holy musical and the flawed but inspiring The Patriot.
So, this is just to tell you to check back later.
Until then, go and enjoy yourselves with your families and remember that America is not land nor people: America is an idea of government by the people for the people. It is an idea of equality under the law. It is an idea that the individual has certain inherent rights that nothing and no one has the ability/power to remove.
You can destroy lands. You can send a people into exile. Ideas are harder to kill. And America will live on as long as it lives in our hearts.
And as always, thank you for letting me join you, revolutionaries and madmen that you are, all of you sons and daughters of liberty.

On Villainy

By Tom Knighton

A hero is only as good as his villain. Personally, I’ve always felt that the best villains are ones that can be related to on some level. They villains seem to have some driving force that we can understand. What makes them evil is that they take this relatable force and use it to cross every boundary that decent people hold dear.

However, villains are another area where what works in fiction doesn’t always reflected in reality.

Right now, the most popular villain is the turdnugget who decided to walk into a church in Charleston, SC and kill people for nothing more than the color of their skin. This is something that the vast majority of us are unable to comprehend. I mean, skin tone is as arbitrary a dividing line as hair color or eye color, so why kill people for just that factor?

We can’t grasp it, yet it happened. I refuse to actually write the turdnugget’s name anywhere, because I don’t want to give him any more press. He already got his fame, which I suspect was a factor in his attack, but I refuse to add to it. It’s a small effort to keep people from mimicking his efforts.

All too often, people think of “villains” as those who oppose them on whatever issue they hold dear. Monsanto is the villain to people like “Food Babe”. The NRA is the villain to the gun control crowd. The Sad Puppies are the villains to the Puppy Kickers. The flip side is also generally true as well.

The thing is, most of us have never truly experienced real “villainy”. We’ve never witnessed the pits of dead Albanians following the break-up of Yugoslavia. We never witnessed the Rwandan tribal slaughter. Many of us have never met a Jewish concentration camp survivor. To us, that level of villainy just doesn’t exist except as an abstract.

However, even the lesser forms of villainy are mere abstractions. Most of us never see the evil that seeks to prey on us. We may have our stuff stolen, but it’s by people we never see. Years ago, someone broke into my home. They stole relatively little, but their villainy was still there.

Since they never caught the person responsible, I don’t even have a face to put with the event, so it’s nothing more than a concept that a person did it. A certainty, to be sure, but still something that’s difficult to wrap my head around.

Relatively few people will be the victim of a crime which puts them face to face with the criminal. Some of us have, to be sure, but those who have are in the minority.

As writers, we try our best to stare into the face of such evil, all to try and create it in a believable way. Racist turdnuggets are good universal villains, after all. You tend not to alienate people with your bad guys when you pick someone everybody can hate. That’s why Nazis are so good at it.

However, I can’t speak for everyone, but I can’t comprehend their thoughts. I get the fear, but I can’t grasp why they’re afraid of those groups. I know too many Jews who I would go to war for. I know too many of every ethnic group I feel the same way about. I can’t get why anyone would hate an entire group.

I’ve always prided myself on my ability to get inside someone’s head and understand their motives. I’ve done it plenty of times and found out just how right I was. In an abstract kind of way, I know what these people think, but I can’t grasp why they think that.

Honestly, I don’t think I ever want to understand it either.

And yet, there are those who are ready to ascribe such motives to us. They’re ready to link this turdnugget to us, despite the fact that most of us not only decry his actions, but we actually supported several authors who don’t fit the “white, Mormon male” narrative (to say nothing of the fact that authors were nominated that we may disagree with politically).

Look, I’m going to make this clear. Bigotry is stupid. Racism is beyond stupid. All we have ever wanted is people and works to be judged based on quality, both the quality of the person and the quality of the work. Anyone who opposes a work because the author is black, or a woman, or gay, or a socialist is a moron. Anyone who dislikes a work because the author is white, or male, or straight, or a conservative/libertarian is just as much of a moron.

There are real villains in this world. How about some of the people screaming the most about villains try something different and start looking at real villains for a change.

It never fails, at the end of a trollish attack, (btw even when there’s no evidence of anger anywhere) we get the question “Why are you so angry?”

Part of this is that our opponents seek to home in on a “feeling” they can use to discredit our thoughts, and when they can find no feelings in the writing, they presume “anger.”

Remember, there’s absolutely no reason to disagree with the holy writ of Marx and Engels, unless you’re angry. Or stupid. But when one admits to membership in Mensa (long since lapsed, mind, since well… the local chapter is not about beer and bad puns as was the one I joined for) it’s hard to use stupid. So we get “angry.” Mind you, some precious snow flakes also accused me of not knowing enough US history to “understand.” Yeah. It’s true that US history only became a topic of interest about five years ago (before that I was studying other areas/times) but that just means I haven’t delved into the details available only in doctoral dissertations. I would still stake my knowledge of history against theirs any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I actually am not angry. Sometimes I am mightily irritated, but the only time I was even vaguely angry was when someone took my publisher’s words and twisted them to rally his drooling followers who couldn’t carry reading comprehension in a microscopic bucket. Oh, and before that when the Middle School carried on a full court covering up for the harassment of younger son by making him clinically depressed. Note both are specific and the precipitating incidents involve people I care a great deal about and in my publisher’s case respect immensely. (Oh, I respect the boy too, but he’s my son. The main emotion is protective.)

In fact, most of the people I know on this side of the fence aren’t angry. Anger is a very specific emotion that clouds the mind and in my case causes a berserker attack (you really don’t want to test that in person. No. Seriously. At least not without my husband nearby, because he can hold me back. He’s the only person who can. Every other time, if I start crying and my voice gets really high, and particularly if I’m trembling, you want to clear the area. This is not a brag. It’s a fricking nuisance. Holding those back hurts. D*mn the great great (etc.) grand who arranged to trip when the Vikings raided.)

Normally I don’t rise above “peeved.” This is on purpose, because if I go over “peeved” I’m in territory where it’s hard to control myself. The circumstances in which I lost control either were very sudden and without warning, or where I couldn’t get idiots to stop pushing after I started shaking and crying. Some idiots think this means “easy prey” and not “I’m fighting like h*ll not to kill you.” And peeved might look very scary because I’m a Latin female, yes, and frankly just a little annoyed can lead to yelling and screaming and peeved can lead to throwing things (usually books, usually at my sons who btw tower over me by a head and besides I’ve got lousy aim.)

Last time I rose above peeved was reading Irene Gallo’s comments, and fortunately being on this side of the keyboard, I couldn’t reach through the monitor. When hands started shaking on keyboard, I went upstairs and perpetrated violence on waxed floors, which more or less fixed it. Or at least got rid of the strength to do anything.

But I think the trolls who as “Why are you so angry?” though it’s mostly an invalidating technique are also aware that we have reason to be angry. H*ll, they’d be angry if they were us, right?

And so… and so, I’ll give the reasons we have to be angry.

• We’ve been lied to since we were born. I’m fifty and all through my education, in Portugal and here, I was told that government could fix everything, that I shouldn’t trust private individuals, that having the “best men” in charge would lead to paradise.
• Evidence of the mendacious nature of the above has been hidden. The cesspool of corruption and evil that was the Soviet Union, not to mention its satellites gave the lie to all such notions that if government were all powerful life would be perfect. However, the news media in most of the world never reported it, and chose instead to continue with the lie.
• The lies were pervasive, all encompassing and utterly divorced from reality, and media, entertainment and government still cling to them.
• They do this because they want power over us. The socialist and communist regimes always end in total and pervasive control over everyone. A sort of neo-feudalism, but, unless history really lies, less effective and more hellish than the real feudalism. Possibly because devoid of noblesse oblige. When communists, socialists or the democratic party say “we care for the little people” and “we’re against the rich” what they really mean is “we want to own you. We want to control your every decision.” That makes everything they do and everything they say a scabrous lie. It doesn’t even matter which of them are in on the lie and which are stupid enough to believe it. The whole fiction is a stomach-churning horror.
• Their mucking around with the world as if their lies could be made into truths by being repeated often enough have caused not just the 100 million deaths of communism, but probably the same number from lost wealth (turns out, yeah, a rising tide raises all boats. Or in other words, no, you economic illiterates, our poor are NOT worse off than medieval poor, and let’s not consider further back), lost scientific advancement, lost medical advancement, lost opportunities. The one thing socialist regimes, from the pinkoish fringe to the deepest red are good at is creating stagnation. And stagnation kills and prevents the saving of lives that could have been saved. It also casts a greyish patina of dreck over everyday life. I’m not sure that ranks up there with death, but it does create a lot of miserable lives. I know that adherence to socialist poison has destroyed a lot of arts. A minor ill? Perhaps. But man doesn’t live by bread alone.
• Anyone who goes against the Marxist line and points out that they’re lying gets persecuted and there are attempts to destroy them, ranging from professional to real destruction. Peter Grant and I should be grateful all they did was tar us with racist, sexist, homophobic and neo-nazi, particularly when those accusations are risible to anyone not deep in koolaid guzzling territory.
• They’ve taught lies to children. I remember vividly when my younger son – then 6 – on a grocery trip broached the difficult question “Mom, how come none of the girls I know are like girls in shows and movies? They don’t want to have adventures, and they don’t want to play rough.” Um… yes. That was the beginning of explaining the “big lie” to him. He’s smart. He tumbled on to the economic and ecological and all other sides of the lie on his own. (He owes me posts, but he’s worse than I. His post on the engineering of climate is 7k long. I promised to help him shorten it. Ah!)
  Not all kids see through the lies. So you end up with a generation that thinks communism is a really good idea and just never had a chance. (And for the record, communism is a good IDEA. As a thought experiment, it’s just about perfect. Who wouldn’t want to end poverty and strife. It’s just that in practical life it would need angels to administer it. We don’t have angels. Fresh out (idiots in my future history try to CREATE them) so what you end up with is corrupt bureaucrats pretending to be angels and acting like the other sort of angels. The charred ones who smell of sulfur.)
• They point out the flaws of the system we live under, not to fix them but to invalidate the whole system. This while hiding the giant flaws of their proposed system.
• They will attack us while protecting horrors like Isis and the Cuban dictatorship whose systems are a million times worse, because their intent is not to improve the world but to bring us down, so they can have power.
• They keep acting like their intentions are pure and this makes them untouchable. This might have been believable before the fall of the USSR, but now? All I see through their smug “purity” is their hands dripping blood.

“Why are you so angry?” Well, I’m not. I’m righteously indignant. The difference between the two might escape you, if you’ve never had righteous principles that are non-negotiable and not subjugated to the party line.

But here, in the place where there is right and wrong and where a system (and its subsystems) that has brought nothing but death, suffering and oppression to the human race definitely should NOT be giving another try, no matter how much you like the shiny power it would give you, there is such a thing as indignation as injustice, oppression and most of all d*mned stupid waste.

I have children. I want them and their children to inherit the stars, not the dull stagnation of the system that allows apparatchiks to lord it over all other human beings.

You should wish I was angry. That boils over and passes. It’s just an emotion after all.

Instead, I’m coldly, rationally indignant at your lies, your boorish disregard for others, your piggish greed for power.

And I tell you that you shall not pass.

*Sorry for doing a bfp, but it’s my double blog day (also doing MGC) and I HAVE to be at the other house in less than an hour, to let the electricians in.*

No, I’m not talking about my issues.  I do in fact, have a “complex” of autoimmune issues that seem to run together – eczema (severe) rheumatic arthritis (not troubling since I’ve been in Colorado and weirdly worst in my teens) and asthma (also not a problem pretty much since my teens, though living in South Carolina brought it back briefly – and is one of the reasons I’m glad we moved.)

So… I have some experience with there being nothing wrong with you except your stupid immune system attacking your own body under the misguided impression that it’s an invader.

This came to mind because the other day Older Son was babbling about auto-immune disorders (younger son is likely to go on about physics.  It’s… interesting at the dinner table.  I just achieve this zen state where I’m listening to the parts I understand, while plotting at the back of my mind.  But you know, considering all the years I babbled plot and character at them, and considering that my beloved is likely to get a notebook in the middle of dinner so he can sketch out some equations that he thinks will solve this problem he’s been having at work – I don’t think we can throw stones.)

As he was describing the basic workings of an autoimmune disease, I thought “that’s what our country has.”

From living with eczema, which is a chronic auto-immune disorder, I can tell you that it much resembles the way we stumbled through from the forties (perhaps earlier.  But in the forties, Heinlein described the communists taking over the Democratic party.  And considering it took him till the eighties to vote Republican for the first time, I don’t think he can be considered a biased source.) through to 2001 like I live – most of the time – with my eczema: it flares up in a specific part of my body, and it itches like heck, which of course means that I don’t give my full attention to anything much, but because I’ve lived like this since I was one, it doesn’t really bother me or I should say – I don’t know what it’s like when it’s not bothering me.

It can rise to the level of “argh” when it settles in a body part that’s hard to keep clean/dry and free of irritating agents.  Since it decided it wanted to live in my hands, last couple of years, I’ve had trouble keeping from having infected wounds – I use my hands for everything and kitchen work is hard when you have open sores.  (I’ve been using surgical gloves, but that makes my hands sweat, which aggravates the condition.)

The problem is twofold – first, any “aggravating factor” can cause a monumental flare up, where the condition becomes near-impossible to live with.  (Since one of the aggravating factors for eczema is stress and since the airlines live to make my life interesting, those of you who have seen me at Liberty, with eczema all over my body know what I’m talking about.  It gets so I can’t sleep and I can’t think, and it impairs my functioning all across the spectrum.)  The second issue is that, sleep deprivation and the very fact that my body is – with gonzo-like enthusiasm – attacking itself, means it’s not paying much attention to external enemies – virus and bacteria – which walk right in and settle down, leading to a never ending stream of infections.

And because there is nothing fundamentally wrong with my body, I’m treated to an never-ending stream of people – starting with acquaintances and ending with some doctors, about whom the least said the better – who tell me things like “you just need to stop scratching.”  (Trust me on this, while scratching aggravates it, and this is why – to the despair of both my mother and my mother in law – I keep my nails cut almost to the quick, the skin will still flare up – sometimes overnight – with no scratching whatsoever.)

For those who’ve been following our politics in puzzled wonder, it might help if you think of our issues as an autoimmune disorder.  Let’s for the moment forget where it came from.  Most autoimmune disorders are a bit of a mystery.  Yes, part of it was the same bad philosophy that affected Europe at the time, and some of it might have been Soviet agit prop leaking over the ocean (as someone who grew up in Europe and in a fractured country, I know most Americans ignore the chances of that.)  Part of it was a predisposition to it.  The US and the ancient Israelites are the only people I know of formed on a set of principles and engagins in detailed criticism of themselves over their principles.  (Most other nations engaged in a criticism of OTHER countries over their own principles and blame OTHER countries for their own failures.  For further study, I recommend Europe.)

Anyway, mostly we’ve been living with it and ignoring it, like I do with eczema.  The areas where it was chronic: college campuses, “intellectual” areas were relatively minor.  Even when it affected Hollywood, as long as it wasn’t flaring up too badly, most people rolled their eyes and ignored it.

When I came to the States, the situation puzzled me, sort of like it puzzles people who see me going around cheerfully with, say, the inside of my elbows looking like a third degree burn.  They flinch and go “What happened?” and I look down and go “Oh, that?  Eczema.  Never mind.”

You have to understand, I came over expecting this one of the world’s superpowers to be, if not as repressive (I’m not stupid) as the USSR, at least as defensive.  I expected it to be considered bad form to trash talk the US or talk up the USSR in public.  Because, well… that’s only sane.  Imagine my shock when – in the eighties – not just TV personalities, but people who were considered/considered themselves “high class” talking about the “good ideas” of the USSR and talking down the US and particularly “ignorant rednecks.”

It puzzled me, but I could see also that the country was sort of ignoring it.  I mean, we discounted the biases on TV and the twitches of the upper class like I discount the (normally) minor itch and skin bubbling up of the eczema. In real life, where things functioned normally, the crazy people were largely ignored.

The problem is this – the flare up continued growing.  All through the sixties and the seventies, and the eighties, and yes, of course, the nineties, the flare up of self-hatred grew.  And just like the eczema in my hands, it started affecting areas we can’t live without: K-12 schools, business, news.

And it’s not just a little.  The news have been biased left for a long time (yes, I know the left thinks they’re biased right, but that’s because the left is to the left of Stalin, while the media are basically propping up a state-capitalism system much like China’s.)  If you consider Fascism right, then you’re darn tooting the media is biased right.  Since I consider it a misnomer, well…

But more importantly, unlike the manifestations of totalitarian impulse in other countries – Russia, Cuba, China – the autoimmune problems are NOT affecting just out governance or our industry.  It’s not a matter of destroying our industry so we’ll all be poor.  That would be bad enough.  The problem is far worse, though: the problem is that the statist ideology now in control of our government, our media, our education and what passes for “high culture” doesn’t just hate this or that part of us.  No, they’ve been told/convinced/brainwashed that what’s wrong with the world is US – that the country and its existence ARE the enemy.

It might be the first time in history where in a non-occupied country flying the flag is an act of daring that in certain neighborhoods can get you shunned by all your neighbors.  It might be the first time in history where teaching the good parts of your history in school is considered an act of defiance, and where the higher-class and all the bien-pensants push distorted histories and documentaries that run down the country that hosts them.

Autoimmune.  Systemic.

The shock of 9/11 beat back the illness for a while.  The forces of sanity rallied.  But in any autoimmune illness, the more you rally, the stronger the backlash.  And it’s come.  And it’s worse than ever, to the point kids get sent home from school for patriotic clothing.

So… what to do?

I don’t know.  The analogy accurately describes the problem, and to the extent that it applies to the recovery, I can tell you we’ll never get rid of the auto-immune reaction – not fully.  But you knew that.  The same qualities that allow us to try to improve our governance according to our principles provide an opening to the flare ups.  Like a person with a strong immune system is more likely to get an auto-immune flare-up.

But we can’t live with it infecting all of our body politic.

The only thing I can suggest – and it is not going to make me any friends – is that you beat it back wherever you find it.  We, like me with eczema, have got so used to the minor flare ups that we ignore them.  People at a party saying the US is uniquely back, say, because it was founded in genocide…  Beat it back.  Explain about germs, and about the fact that at any rate the colonization was all over the Americas and our part of the Americas saw the least abuse.  (Mostly what happened to the original inhabitants is that they died of unfamiliar illnesses and THEN were genetically swamped.  They’re mostly still here – a bit in everyone.)

Learn our history.  Learn economics.  Learn the history of ideas.  Learn about other nations.  Not the prettied up “multicultural” histories they teach our kids in school, but the real histories (the fact this feels like hitting the weak tells you how badly off we are.  We are the only ones it’s fair to hit on.)  When people start running ourselves down, do a little comparative teaches.

Apply medicine to the flare ups, big and small and try to beat the condition to manageable level.  To survive all of us need to do it (however subtly.)

The alternative is a body – or a nation – that can’t function, much less defend itself.

So, let me start by saying this was my fault, and what fault falls on someone else is because I apparently assume people know what my life has been like.

What I mean is, I didn’t check my con schedule before leaving home or in fact until I got my badge:surgery, massive auto-immune attack, preparations for renewal of vows and preparations for trip.  Also, trying to get other house ready for market (and someone stole our mailbox — no really — the only night in ages we didn’t have anyone sleeping over and JUST before the trip.  That was nifty too.  We still haven’t checked this morning, and I’m afraid of vandalism.

Anyway, through all this, I forgot to check the schedule.  I was booked …  I was massively overbooked.

To those of you who aren’t panelists, trust me when I say three panels are a full load, three panels in a row are an overload, and five panels are a killing load.

If you count signings and the baen road show, which usually DO count, I was booked for 10 to 12 hours straight.  Which might have been okay (not wonderful, but okay) if I hadn’t been post-op.  I’ve done that load before when college kids book me, who don’t realize I’m human.  But three months post op… no.  It just didn’t happen.  I was somewhere between half asleep and hallucinatory at the end of Saturday, which would have been okay, except I had two (I think) commitments on Sunday.

Anyway, that was the origin of yesterday’s post.

The only thing that upsets me about all this is that LC is the place I meet my friends and get to touch base in the flesh and not much of that happened, not even with Kate even though we slept together on Sunday afternoon (we took naps in my room.  She was on the sofa bed.  But the other way sounds much more risque.) And I wanted to talk to the inimitable Sabrina Chase about some publicity ideas, but I had no time/energy.

I have some pictures (thank you Doctor Mauser, who is a lovely man in person) and I didn’t realize I was that heavy.  No, seriously.  Part of it is the steroids that were used to combat the auto-immune, and where I gained three pounds a day (I swear.)

I’m sure LC didn’t help, since I was having sugar to keep awake.  (Paying for it.  Eczema on my KNEES!)

Anyway, other than massively overbooked Sarah, it was lots of fun, and next year Kate has to have two more books out so she can be on panels.

Okay, then the evil legion of evil had a mini-meeting:

I was going to do a real post, but Saturday I had 12 continuous hours in public — readings, panels, signings, the Baen road show — and it turns out I’m tired.

I really, really, really, really TIRED.[/caption]

 

Really tired.

I don’t think you understand how tired I am:

So I’m going to drag self out of bed, put clothes on, because I hear the TSA hates it when you streak and I don’t want them to do this:

Because they’re already annoying enough.
Then I need to get home (tonight) and make sure Schrodinger’s fish is still alive.

Tomorrow is back to my scheduled painting and staining, and hopefully only three days left on that, after which I should have Darkship revenge in a couple of weeks so ya’ll can:

So catch you on the flip side. Going to shower and pack now.
And I’m really, really tired.

 

In case you guys wonder why I’ve been so scarce, yesterday I had something back to back for 12 hours.  For those of you who are here whom I didn’t recognize/greeted more than once/haven’t seen yet — that was the reason.

This is the first con in which I’ve not had a drop of alcohol — mostly because I’m not sure how it would interact with medicines — not even at dinner, and in which I’ve been acting like a falling-down-drunk.

Part of it is the post op thing.  By the reading yesterday I’d drunk so much diet coke I sloshed.  But I caught myself sleeping in the second panel of the day and that’s just not right.

There’s this “sleep” thing I hadn’t experienced since I was pregnant with Robert, where it hits and starts to take me down and fighting it off is worse than fighting off some sort of plague.  It’ s almost physically painful, because my will power is insufficient.

Anyway, we set a Huns breakfast for 8 am this morning, because it was the only time I was free and most of you were here.  For those of you at Liberty, particularly if you haven’t seen me yet, meet me at City Diner (Closest to the choo choo) at 8 am.

Also someone gave me a sad (stuffed) puppy who has been named Larry-the-sad-puppy.  He’s been helping me through panels, particularly given how tired I was.

Your daily dose of snark will resume tomorrow when I hope to do my duty for Glenn too (since I’m supposed to be 1/8th of Instapundit, and I’ve been falling down (on face.  From tiredness) on the job.

Meanwhile, go forth and do stuff.  And if you’re in LC come and see me.  I should be able to speak after the second cup of coffee.

*I don’t normally run these posts this close, and this is sort of a Christmas story, but I know sort of the feeling out there among you guys from what has been thrown at me/asked this weekend.

I want to emphasize that as a supporter of SSM (And polygamy, and any other contract been free, consenting adults) I never supported judicial activism, much less supreme court activism or turning the constitution into a sort of tea leaf reading show.

I will confess too that the thing that worries me most about this decision is the fact the window I’m typing in has a rainbow flag up top, courtesy of WordPress.  That kind of bizarre triumphalism, of tribal cheering makes me uncomfortable and ALWAYS ends in tears.

UPDATE: to clarify what bothers me about that rainbow flag in the editing window: when corporations do this, it always means they’re afraid of FURTHER lawfare, which means they at least wordpress interprets this law as “no church, caterer or corporation left alone.”

A lot of my gay friends are more uncomfortable than I am — yes, guys, got your emails.  I’ve just been booked back to back on panels and have had no more than a few minutes on the computer here and there — because they’re mostly libertarians and know history.  They know that in every country in which government grew too powerful gays (or any other minority, for that matter) didn’t fare well.

Not knowing the details of the decision all I’ll say about that one is that what I heard makes me uncomfortable because the state having a say in our most intimate associations (for OR against) makes me uncomfortable.  I think it’s high time we took marriage (all marriage) away from government altogether.  (You may say I’m a dreamer… and you’re probably right.)

The OTHER one — which I also haven’t had time to read but I heard a lot more about — this charming idea that the Supreme Court now gets to “correct” laws to “make them work” — THAT if correctly reported to me is an abomination and a blunt sign we have a problem (or perhaps “we got a condition.”)

So I thought I’d run this story again, to remind you of two things:

1- Things could get worse, and probably will.  Human beings have a tendency to not want to rock the boat until it’s inevitable.  Read about the lead up to the revolutionary war if you don’t believe me.

2- America cannot be killed and cannot be destroyed.  It’s time to stop that silly talk.  America is not a location or a tribe.  America is an idea, and a notoriously hard to kill one.  America is an idea that has transformed the world.  It will continue to do so, so long as people believe in it.

Teach your children well.*

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

The pounding on the doors, the words, “Open up in the name of the law.”

Juan Johnson who had been lying in the dark, in his little bed at the back of the house, half asleep, retained only a sense of explosions, a smell of something burning, papa up front saying he didn’t know anything of these Usaians and besides, he was a honest carpenter and what could they—

And mama! Mama, who had never left dad alone in any difficulty, Mama who rarely left the house without him and never at night, had gotten Juan and Angelita out of their beds, in the dark, wrapping the baby and putting her in a sling, and dressing Juan, fast, so fast that she’d put a sock of each different color on his feet.

This still bothered him, as they ran down the alley in the night, and then up another alley, all staying away from the police.

Juan could hear other pounding and “Open up—”

And fragments of other sentences, too, “Forbidden,” and “Dangerous elements” and “Seditious ideology.”

Juan knew what “dangerous elements” were. He was only ten, but Mama and Papa had taught him at home and he’d been allowed to read a lot of dad’s old books, the sort of thing they no longer taught in the school. Dangerous elements were things like Uranium and other things that gave off radiation that could kill you. Why the police would be looking for it, he didn’t know.

He did not however have any idea what Seditious ideology meant.

He repeated the words to himself as mama stopped in a dark alley, by a flyer. It wasn’t their flyer, but then Mama rarely drove their flyer, and she certainly never burned its genlock clean off, reaching in before it could do more than emit a bzzzt and burning something else, murmuring to herself as though to remember a list, “Alarm off,” Then went in, leaving Juan alone at the entrance for a moment. She came back and threw something to the floor. Juan didn’t know what it was – pieces of something electronic. “Tracker,” Mama said.

She pulled Juan in with one hand, and closed the door, then sat him in a seat, and – strangely – put the sling with Angelita around him. The baby was only three months old, but Juan was a slim boy and the sling – and the baby – very big and very heavy. He thought of protesting, but Mama looked as though she would start to cry, so he said nothing. He let Mama put the harness over both of them, and saw her consult a paper in Papa’s handwriting as she set the coordinates.

Moments later they were in the air, and Juan might have dozed, but he woke with the flare of explosions, and the shaking as Mama sent the flyer careening side to side.

“Mama!” he said.

“Say it, Juan, say it, my little Juanito.”

“I pledge allegian—”

Mama made a sound. It wasn’t quite laugh and not quite a cry. “Not that one. The other one. The human events one.”

Juan blinked. He’d learned all these from as soon as he could speak. The only time dad was really strict was in making sure he remembered everything, every single word. And the meaning. All the meaning. “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God—”

An explosion came very close, making them shake and showing Mama’s face, very pale and marked with trails as if she’d cried a lot. He hadn’t heard her cry. How could she cry so silently.

“Nature’s God?” Mama prompted.

“Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness—”

Mama sobbed then, but didn’t say anything but “Go on,” so Juan did, as explosions rocked the small flyer, and Mama, finally, just took them really low, and did something, and pulled Juan out after her, but never took the baby sling of him, and she pushed him against a wall and put her hand over his mouth, while the flyer lifted off again and flew a programmed course.

“It was only a second,” Mama said. “Only a second. Maybe they won’t notice.”

But then she was pulling Juan, and running down an alley, and then another.

Juan heard heavy boots after them, and was surprised when Mama pulled out a burner and shot a man down. Juan didn’t have a very clear idea of what happened then, save the man fell, and mama pulled Juan after her again.

Up, up and up, they were climbing narrow stairs in the dark. Mama was talking to herself in Spanish, something she only did when she was really worried. Juan didn’t know Spanish, but he knew a few of the words. He knew “must do something” because mama used to say it at Papa when she was really mad or worried.

“Mama,” Juan said. “My legs hurt. And Angelita is heavy.”

“Yes,” Mama said, which seemed not to be an answer at all. From somewhere to their right came an explosion and then someone screamed, and screamed and screamed, the voice getting weaker as it went. Mama, who normally went to help all the neighbors, didn’t even slow down.

“Juan, you know what we’ve taught you? Papa and I?”

They’d taught him so many things. To read and to write, and to brush his teeth, and– “To mind and be a good boy?”

Again, Mama made that sound that wasn’t quite laughter or a sob, and her hand came down and touched his hair briefly. “That too, my love, but not that. About the Usa. About how it existed and was blessed by God as long as it kept to the precepts of liberty and equality before the law. And how it fell and gave its power to supposedly enlightened rulers and then—”

“It was reduced in size,” Juan said, puffing a little as it was hard to keep up with Mama as she ran down one alley, then another. “And punished.”

“Not reduced in size,” she said. “What remains calls itself United States, but it’s not.”

“But you said, if it returned to faithfulness and the…” He struggled for the words Papa had said so many times, “the inspired vision of the founders it would be forgiven and be great again.”

Sob-laugh and mama said, “It’s not the same place. It can’t return. We’ll have to remember and make it true again. Those of us who keep the faith.”

“Daddy said,” and now he was having true trouble catching his breath. “Daddy said that as long as the belief in the principles of the declaration of independence and the constitution-” deep breath. “As long as those remained in one human heart, the Usa wouldn’t be dead.”

“And so it won’t.” Mama stopped abruptly. Juan could hear the noise of people running after them, voices saying “They went this way. The Flyer was a ruse.”

There were flyers above too, with low-pointing floodlights. As one passed overhead, Mama pressed Juan against the wall. She spoke quickly, in a low voice, “That’s why they made us illegal. That’s why they’re trying to exterminate us. As long as liberty remains in one human heart, the bio-lords won’t have full sway. And they want full sway. They want to dictate our every thought. Listen, Juan, my son. Do you know where the Peace Tower is? From here?”

Juan thought. He wasn’t sure where he was, but he knew the neighborhood, and they hadn’t gone very far. Their flight had been too short. The Peace Tower, built to commemorate peace in the Americas, even if Papa said it wasn’t peace at all, just surrender, was big and lit up and right in the center of the city.

He shook his head a little, because if the peace tower were anywhere nearby, he would see its light. They lit it up in white and green every night.

“If you take that alley to the left, and keep going, mind, Juan, as fast as you can, you will come to the plaza where it is. Don’t go to the plaza. I don’t know if your description is out, but it might be. Instead, the alley that leads to the peace tower plaza, just before you leave it, it has a branch that turns left. Take that. It runs behind a lot of restaurants. Keep on that until you come to the back of a restaurant called Silver Palate – remember that. The name is on big red dumpsters in the back. Turn right there. Follow that alley till it ends, and climb over the wall to the right. It will be difficult, but mind, Juanito, keep Angelita from falling as you climb.

“You’ll be in the backyard of an apartment house. It’s what used to be a large house, long ago, but it’s now apartments. Go in through the back door, run up the stairs to the left, all the way to the top. There’s a door there, marked 4 B. Knock on it. Say Paul sent you. Say treason. They’ll know what to do. The man in the house, his name is James Remy. Do what he tells you. Can you remember?”

He nodded. One of the great advantages of the long stretches of memorizing Papa had made him do was that he could remember things much more easily than any other kid his age in school. But a worry remained, “Why Mama?”

“Never mind that. Just remember, you must do that, or thousands of people will die.” The light had passed overhead. It was dark in the alley, but the sounds of steps and the voices drew closer.

She reached in her pocket and pulled out something. It was a burner. Not a burner like they showed on tv, all glossy and pretty, but a short, battered thing, with a rounded butt, that looked as if it had been assembled together from spare parts. “Papa showed you how to fire these, right? You remember?”

Juan remembered. It was hard to forget as it had been only this week. Papa had taken him to the basement, set a burner on lowest, and had him fire at figures painted on the wall.

Mama said, “If someone tries to stop you, shoot them. Don’t stop to see if you hurt them or killed them. Burn center mass, and run on.”

“Papa said never to point it at a person.”

“No, dear,” she spoke very fast. “Never to point it at a person you don’t mean to kill. But everyone is allowed to kill, if the other person would kill them.”

“How do I know—”

“Trust me, Juan. If they try to stop you, if they catch you, they’ll kill you and Angelita. Or worse.” She pushed something into his pocket. He didn’t know what it was, but she said, “There are two scraps of flag there, Papa’s and mine. Papa’s is the one with the stain on the corner. Keep it when you grow up. Give mine to Angelita, when you’re sure she understands. Now go.”

“What about you?”

“Never mind me.” Mama leaned over and kissed him, a brief touch of lips on his hair, and then she pushed him, hard, down the alley.

He ran to keep from falling, and then he kept running, down the alley, at full speed. He was aware of burners firing and of cries. Was Mama shooting people or had she—

He couldn’t imagine Mama hurt, Mama dead, anymore than he could imagine the end of the world. And that’s what it would be if Mama died.

Instead, he held on to the idea that she would escape, she would join him.

He ran as fast as he could, the route she said.

He met no opposition, until, running so fast he almost couldn’t see, and sweat trickling into his eyes, making them sting, he almost ran into the Plaza of Peace. There a uniformed soldier turned around and said “You, Kid!”

Juan didn’t think this counted as trying to stop him, and he didn’t want to shoot the man, who was young and looked a lot like the brother of his friend Klaus, back at school. So instead he ignored him, and turned left, into the alley with the dumpsters. Mama hadn’t said it would be this long.

He ran down it as fast as he could, but it wasn’t very hard, because his legs felt as though they were made of water, and his breath was coming in short puffs. He felt like he would collapse, but he remembered what mama said. Could he live with knowing he’d caused the death of thousands of people? Or failed to save them? He tried to picture thousands of people, but he couldn’t. That would be like everyone he knew.

“Hey, Kid, stop,” came from behind him. And as he ignored it, another voice told the first, “It’s just a kid, why are we chasing him.”

“It’s not just a kid. His description and that he’s carrying a baby is on the bulletins. He’s going to alert the other rebels. Those damned Usaians.”

Juan didn’t want to turn. Juan didn’t want to shoot these young men. But Mama’s words rang in his mind, and he could not doubt these people wanted to stop him. And they’d said damned Usaians. These men wanted to kill them. People like him and Mama. Mama had said–

He pulled the safety on the burner, as dad had taught him to do it, by touch. And he set it on high. Papa said it was just like the games, point and click.

Juan wanted to close his eyes, but he knew that if he did he’d miss, so he turned and fired, center mass, only he kept the beam on and cut straight across. He had the impression of cutting two bodies in half, but he didn’t stop to look.

Angelita had started crying and squirming. Papa used to joke she slept through everything, but judging by the smell, she must be dirt. He murmured soothing words he knew wouldn’t help, as he ran and hoped no one looked out the windows to see where the crying baby was.

He came to the dumpster and turned, in the almost blind dark, and ran. This alley was shorter, and it ended in a brick wall. There was ivy growing along the wall, and, fortunately, Juan was light. Fortunately, too, he’d always liked climbing.

Even so, Mama was right, and it was difficult. It was very difficult to hold on and not to squish Angelita against the wall. Particularly, since she was crying.

At the top of the wall, he hesitated. There was a man with the dog in the enclosure. He was old, about Papa’s age, and he had a pipe, and a little yellow puppy playing at his feet.

He looked up, as Juan sat there, and Juan didn’t want to kill him, because he didn’t think he was the authorities, but he had to go up and give the message… He had to.

The man blinked at him, in confusion. “Hello, there. What is wrong?”

The last was said in a tone of concern, as he looked from Juan to the baby.

“I must see my uncle,” Juan said. The idea just came to him. Anyway, at the great fall festival, when people gathered in some secret place to eat and trade stories, the kids called every older man uncle and every older woman aunt, so, it must fit. “James Remy.”

The man’s face froze. There was a long silence. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. He looked kindly, with pale hair streaked with white, and grey eyes, and he said, “I see, you must be my nephew, Jimmy.”

“No. Juan,” he said. “Juan Johnson.”

“Of course Juan. Sorry, I got confused with your brother. Here, let me help you down from the wall.”

There was a bad moment, as the man reached up and took Jimmy’s hands, and helped him, till he was holding him and Angelita in his arms, together, and Juan thought he would hold him and not let him go, and then Juan would have to kill him. But the man must have sensed Juan’s discomfort, and put him down. “We can’t talk here,” he said. “We’ll go on up to aunt Mary, shall we.” He whistled for the puppy, “Come on Pie.”

“Pie?” Juan asked, as he noted they were going in through the back door and trotting up the stairs Mama had described.

“Pumpkin pie. My daughter Jane named him. She’s very silly.”

The puppy followed at their heels, as they got to the top of the stairs.

The shock when the door opened was almost too much for Juan. He’d been living a bad dream for the last hour? Eternity? But here was normal life, just like it had been at home before that knock on the door. They had a Winter Holidays tree set up, all decorated and lit with lights, and presents under it, and there was a smell of food, and there were two kids, just older than him, and a baby, and a large blond woman, with a kind face, who looked at the man he’d come in with, and then at Juan, with Angelita, and said, “Now, Jim, what?”

But the man was walking past her, and telling the two children, “I think this is bugout. You know what to do. Go.”

The woman said, “Oh, no. Can’t be. They’ve eased the restrictions on religions. We can even have trees if we don’t call them—”

But the man turned to Juan and said, “Son, what is your message?”

“Paul sent me,” Juan said, feeling like he would cry, and he wasn’t sure why, repeating Mama’s words. “Treason.”

The man said a word. One of those words Papa said when he cut himself with one of his tools. And then took a deep breath. “I’ve been wondering. First the Christians, then us. Anything that might stop the state…” He looked at Juan’s uncomprehending face.

“How do we know?” his wife said. “how do we know it’s not a trap so we reveal ourselves?

The man looked at Juan and said, very softly, “In congress, July four, seventeen seventy six—”

Juan nodded and answered with the remembered words, “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires—”

“Enough, son. He’s one of ours. Mary, I’ll pack, you change that baby and give this young man something to drink, and maybe something to eat. I think he’s been through hard times, just now.”

The big blond woman took him by the hand. She felt like Mama, even though she couldn’t be because Mama was small and dark. Presently, she was giving Angelita a bottle while Juan ate a bowl of warm oatmeal with cream and brown sugar and told her what had happened. Her eyes got misty when he talked about Mama being left behind.

Juan had been thinking, he said, “She’s dead now, isn’t she, ma’am?” It seemed impossible, and yet he was sure of it, in a way. “Papa said if you died defending the Usa, you’d be born again in a land of freedom, is it true? Do people live more than once?”

The woman’s eyes misted, blue beneath a veil of tears. “Some people think so. Some of our people. But my husband and I we’re Chri– We believe in another religion, too, an older one. We just think there is a better land, and your mama and papa are already there. You should call me mom now. It will make things easier. Your name is Juan? Maybe we should call you John.”

“Juan is the name on my birth certificate,” he said, “But Papa said my real name was John Adams. And Angelita is Martha Washington. Johnson.”

“Let’s forget the Adams and the Washington. We need to be even quieter than we’ve been,” the father of this family said, as he did things around them. Juan wasn’t sure what the things were, but he was bringing small bags from inside, and checking burners, as though to make sure they were okay, then setting them atop the bags. “Your name now is John Remy, can you remember that? And Mary is your mom and I’m your dad. And Angelita is Martha. Just Martha. I think we’ll call her Marty, shall we?”

Juan was too tired to protest. The oatmeal had hit his stomach and somehow made him feel warm and really sleepy.

“You go with your brother Jimmy and mom,” the man he was to call dad said. “You know where to go,” he told his wife. “Take the baby. I’ll take Jane and go the other way after I pass on the alarm. We’re just a normal family, going to visit relatives. If you run into trouble, send me signal. I’ll try to retrieve you. That message – someone gave away our enclaves and we don’t have very long. I’ll pass on the codes, and then I’ll join you.”

“Where are we going, sir—uh—dad?” Juan said.

“Olympus Seacity. We’re not forbidden there.”

“Yet,” his wife said.

“Yet, but we’ll survive this,” her husband said, and kissed her. “You can’t erase the idea of the USa until you kill every one of us. And they can’t. We’ll move on. We’ll be secret. We’ll keep going. And someday, someday, we’ll be free to be and to believe again. The idea of freedom and equality we hold might be small and frail compared to the will to power of the tyrants, and the idea that our betters should always lead. But once it had been kindled in human breasts, it is unquenchable. We’ll go to Olympus. We’ll start again. They always need skilled people. And if we should fail and if we should fall, someone will go on, someone will believe. Maybe one of these children.” He kissed his wife again. “Go on. Jane and I will join you and take Pie with us.. And you too, Johnny, go on. Your Mama and Papa and you saved a lot of people tonight. And you might have saved the hope for a future in freedom.”

Juan didn’t understand it all, but as he went out into the night again, this time held in the arms of his adopted mom, he felt somehow that he’d accomplished something big, something that would be remembered. The young man, Jimmy, was carrying Angelita, who was asleep again.

They walked down the street, in the muted street lights. Above the moon shone with a bright, clear, silvery light.

And it seemed to Juanito that up there, somewhere, Mama was watching and smiling. Perhaps he’d saved many people, but he’d only done what she wanted.

That was enough for him.

She’d believed that the words he’d been taught, the beliefs she held, would one day make the world better.

He didn’t know if she was right, but she was Mama. Dead or alive, he’d follow her beliefs.

“Life, liberty,” he whispered to himself.

“And the pursuit of happiness,” his new mom said. She kissed his forehead. “And we will pursue all three, little one. We will. However long it takes to attain them,There are dreams so big you must keep chasing them, no matter how long it takes.”

Juan only half heard her.  He was falling asleep, slipping into a dream where the great summer high holiday was held in the open, in a park with green grass, and there were red blue and white streamers floating in the wind, and fireworks, like what dad had told him about in the old days.

Mama and papa were there, holding hands and looking up at the fireworks.  And in their faces was the most radiant happiness he’d ever seen.

It was a terrible and beautiful sight, which he would never forget.