by Darrell Bain
"The Geodome," Rawlings said, seeing my confusion. I left at a fast walk, without even a thank you. Soon, I began to trot, then run. I was gasping for breath by the time I made it there..
I recognized Donna from the back among a row of cots. She was hovering over Seyla's still body. Her face was as white as paste and I knew that surely she was dead. Tears sprang to my eyes, blurring my vision. I knelt gently beside Donna and put an arm around her. She turned.
"Lee! Oh, Lee! Thank God! I heard you were dead." She embraced me fiercely, her tears matching my own, then let loose and grinned like a Cheshire cat. It confused me. I couldn't see anything funny about being alive while Seyla lay so still and white. I reached out to touch her face. She blinked, then focused her gaze on me.
"Lee? Is that really you?" Her voce was barely audible. She reached out to touch me, making a visible effort to do so.
"Yes, yes," I sobbed, openly and unashamed. Seyla withdrew her hand and closed her eyes again. I looked at Donna questioningly. She stood up and drew me a short distance away.
"It's okay, I think. She's just in shock. The doctor gave her a shot a few minutes ago."
"What happened?" I asked.
"There was some close-in fighting in her squad. She shot one of her old friends from the neighborhood where she grew up."
God's chips. I had never stopped to think after the militia call-up that Seyla would be opposing the very people with whom she had lived before studying her way out of Old Houston and into NHU. I couldn't even imagine the trauma I would feel if I had shot one of my old high school friends.
We checked her again before we left. She had slipped into a deep sleep from the shot. I shifted my eyes away from draped figures laying on the turf in another section of the Geodome. The bodies didn't look big enough to be human, but I knew they were.
***
Our company didn't see any more action, but we were held ready for two more days until the army finally arrived and began pushing into Old Houston. The day after that, we were discharged. I called Rita as soon as the militia program was purged from my comphone and told her that we were fine and would be there as soon as we could.
We had to wait around one more day until Seyla was discharged from the makeshift hospital. We spent most of the time with her when she wasn't sleeping, trying to reassure her that she had only done what she had to.
"It doesn't matter," she told us. "I'm going to turn in my license. I'll never be able to forget how Mikka looked at me before she died. I didn't even know it was her until after I had already shot her. It was awful." She burst into tears and clung to Donna like a hurt child to her mother. I felt helpless, like I usually do in those kinds of situations. I promised myself that I would spend as much time as I could with her when we got home, and make sure everyone else did, too, not that I would have to encourage them.
We left around noon. Luckily, the power was back on and I was able to get a fresh charge for the car. Smoke was still rising from the boundary line between North and Old Houston where we and other militia companies had fought, and bigger palls of smoke darkened the sky farther south. I took one long look at the twin cities, trying to imagine the damage, then left it behind and concentrated on getting us away from there. I didn't think I would want to go back, ever.
***
There was a wild reunion when we arrived in Ruston, tempered only by Seyla's still evident despondency. Rita and Russell took turns hugging and kissing us as if we had been revived from the dead, which in a sense, I suppose we had. Between embraces which smudged them with our dirt and grime, I looked askance at the old homestead. I hardly recognized the inside of it. The den had been expanded into a reasonable facsimile of a big living room with more loungers and chairs moved in, placed so as not to block the lower portions of the bookshelves filled with Grandpa's old books. A large, extra screen had been hung on one wall, replacing a portion of shelves there.
As soon as I could get my breath back from Russell's embrace and back-pounding, I held up my hands. "Hey, let us go wash some of the crud off, okay?"
Donna and Seyla headed into one room and I made tracks for another, peeling off my clothes as I went. Rita followed me inside and right into the shower. For one of the few times in my life, I didn't do anything about an erection. I just ignored it until it went away, which wasn't until Rita got back into her clothes. I was too anxious to get back outside so we could all be together to think about sex, regardless of what my dumb body was telling me.
I guess it's true what they say about combat veterans not wanting to talk about the action they've seen. I avoided answering leading questions, just as Donna, and certainly Seyla did, until the others got the idea that we would rather talk with some Rum Whatnot inside us. Rita mixed an extra-large pitcher. She brought a brimful mug to the lounger where I sat with my legs outstretched and put it into my hand. I drained half of it, then coughed. Whew! She must really have wanted to celebrate.
It took two drinks before we all began to settle down, then Russell asked, "What's the latest in the cities you know of? Does it jibe with what we've been hearing?"
I laughed out loud, knowing he was referring to Houston. "Are you kidding? We haven't heard a thing except rumors since we were mobilized. The only thing we know for sure is what took place right near the campus."
"Was there any damage there?" he asked anxiously.
"None to the school that I know of."
"Good. That's what the news was saying, but I wanted to be sure. We lost contact for two days while the power was out there. We knew what was happening in the rest of the country, but the only thing coming in from the cities was from individuals and it was hard to judge anything from that."
"So what has been happening?" Donna and I asked simultaneously.
Russell got up and poured more drinks before answering. "Well, just as an overview, the reserve militias kept the mobs in place until military units arrived. Most of the rioting has been put down and the army is busy turning things back over to locals and sending a lot of troops to Mexico. There was a tremendous number of casualties, mostly to fourth worlders and the Gaters. Congress is calling for an investigation of President Forbes because of the delay in sending troops to our area of the country. There's some talk of impeachment, but the political commentators say there aren't nearly enough votes to make it stick."
I could have told him that. Forbes controlled a plurality in Congress and I doubted either of the other two parties could agree on whether the sun would rise the next morning or not. "What about the markets?" The thought came suddenly. I had spent a lot of my credit on remodeling this place.
Rita answered, knowing Russell never paid attention to his own finances, let alone the rest of the world. "The stock market is way down, almost by half. The web markets fell the first couple days after the riots started, but they're back up now."
That made me feel better. Grandpa may have been old, but so far as the web went, he had been as modern as a kid playing virtual sex games. Most of the credit my annuity derived from was held in the web.
Rita continued, "As soon as you get around to checking the backlog on your comphone, you'll find a message there from Mary. She wants another story on Messilinda soonest."
"What kind of story?"
"The church's reaction to all the casualties they suffered during the riots. And another on the definitive Gater position on second changers."
"Ok. I'll start trying to arrange it tomorrow," I said.
"We will," Rita said. She pinched my thigh. Oh well.
I turned back to Russell. Since he had elected himself bartender, I held out my glass for a refill. While he was pouring, I asked, "What about the rest of the world?"
He shrugged. "Ask Rita. She keeps up more than me."
Rita began. "Same as usual. National policy everywhere still centers around the sex gates. In South America, they've taken to rounding up what second passers they can find. No one seems to know what they're doing with them. In the parts of
Asia that haven't gone Muslim, they're worshipping them. In the Mideast, they don't seem to care one way or another, unless they come back as women; when they do, they get thrown into a harem. The femweb is calling for a boycott of exports from there. The Buddhist leadership has decided the gates just represent another aspect of the wheel of life. Here, I think the second changers are just being watched and monitored. All of them still claim they don't know anything. Anyway, the world is still split about evenly; half the people think aliens brought the gates, the rest attribute them to God."
"Religion!" I said it as an epithet, drawing a rebuke from Seyla, who had been sitting quietly beside Russell before that.
"People need hope, Lee," she said gently. "Everyone can't be as strong-minded as you."
I nodded agreement, even though I have never understood how people are able to rationalize the myriad contradictions the various religions of the world present, even if most of us do carry the religious inclination genes. The mind-set which could ignore logic was incomprehensible to me, and I never considered myself to be particularly strong-minded. On the other hand, it was possible I didn't carry the genes, or all of them anyway. I had never bothered to have myself tested. Besides, their expression seemed to depend so much on environmental influences, it didn't make a difference in many cases, one way or another.
"What else?" I asked.
"Well, there are still several wars going on, but I guess that's nothing unusual."
"Just so long as I don't have to fight," I said emphatically. I wasn't at all sure I could go through anything like that again.
"We're not at war with anyone, if that's what you're worried about, unless you want to count Mexico, and that's a rebellion, not a war. There's been some fighting there, but the army is trying to keep it quiet."
"Haven't they learned yet?"
"That kind of mentality never learns," Rita said. "If there had been only a few sex gates, they would have them surrounded, covered up and making anyone who ever saw one take an oath of secrecy never to tell under pain of execution."
I turned to Russell. "Speaking of the gates, have you learned anything more about them. Anything at all?"
"Not a blasted thing," Russell said disgustedly. "There they sit, turning the world topsy-turvy and we don't know anything more about them than we ever did." He paused, reflecting. "I do have to say one thing, though. Just trying to figure them out is generating a lot of serious thinking and speculation into new areas. If nothing else, there's bound to be lots of spin-off from the study and observation. As a matter of fact, I've come up with a couple ideas I want to explore. Rita is interested in them, too."
"Rita?" I turned and stared at her. "What do you know about physics?"
"Not much, but the implications of one or two of his ideas might have a lot to do with psychology, or sociology, to be more accurate."
"What are they?" I asked, looking from one to another. I was intrigued.
"Too soon to talk," Rita said. "Let it be for now. I will say, if even one of them pans out, it might do something for the fourth world problems."
"Really? That would be wonderful!" Seyla exclaimed, her face brightening for the first time that evening. She grabbed Russell and kissed him enthusiastically.
Russell wouldn't give us even a hint about the direction of his thinking and Rita clammed up, too, as if the old adage about speaking your wish would keep it from coming true. We let it be, but I think that was the first time I realized just how brilliant Russell really was.
It's a good thing someone invented Nohang pills, otherwise I'm afraid we would all have fallen into a drunken stupor in the living room before the evening's celebration really got started. As is, we took just enough to keep a buzz going while enjoying the Rum Whatnot and letting our hair down.
When we did finally call it a night, Donna took Seyla into a bedroom and pointedly closed the door. We understood. She needed a feminine shoulder to cry on. Russell would probably have come to bed with Rita and I, but the NHU web came back on line before then. He took some extra Nohang and stayed up discussing developments with his colleagues, as happy as a ten year old boy with a new Playcard.
If it is a fact that combat veterans don't like to talk about their experiences, another observation I remembered from one of Grandpa's old books is probably true as well: there's nothing like being shot at and missed to kick up the old biological urge. Rita and I didn't stop our frenzied lovemaking until near daylight.
Chapter Fifteen
I managed to arrange another interview with Messilinda on Wednesday of the next week, which made Mary happy when I told her. I wasn't that enthused myself, because Messilinda insisted it be in person at a sex gate near the boundary of North and Old Houston. Mary told me she wouldn't say why. I figured she probably intended to preach a sermon about unity, charity, brotherly love and that sort of stuff. It made sense in a way, because the destruction caused by the riots in so many cities finally caused Congress and President Forbes to begin amending the nation's love affair with fiscal conservatism and self-responsibility, which had worked well for the middle and upper class but only enlarged the numbers of the third and fourth world population.
They didn't propose going back to the wildly extravagant handouts which politicians from the latter part of the twentieth century had been so prone to, but he and his party did make what seemed to me, to be some sensible recommendations.
The secession movement in Mexico collapsed and died a natural death that week as the firebrands realized the government was prepared to use as much force as necessary to suppress it. That freed up some money from the military (over their objections).
Basically, Forbes proposed a minimum national medical care system for everyone, using the old veteran's medical facilities as a basis to care for those with no money. In addition, he suggested construction nationwide of minimum shelters for the homeless, hiring them (under professional supervision) to do the construction. The old food stamp scandals had been so ugly, he didn't dare bring them back, but he did propose hand-outs of very basic foodstuffs, purchased by the government for the unemployed and those earning a minimum wage. It wasn't all that much, but it was a hell of a lot better than what the fourth worlders had been getting, so no one expected them to complain that much. The national sales tax was raised a half percentage point to keep the budget within the constrictions of the amendment mandating balanced budgets, which the last state had ratified a year or so before.
Messilinda threw the weight of the Church of the Gate behind Forbes' proposals and the independent party fell in behind her and the President. I think there must have been a lot of conferences behind closed doors which the public never learned of. I also think the country must have really been on the very verge of collapse during the riots for such a radical change in policy to be proposed almost overnight, although one of the other parties had been agitating for changes for years.
After Seyla had listened to a network presentation of the proposed programs, she cheered up considerably. "I never thought any good could possibly have resulted from all that horror," she said. "Oh, I just pray it will all come to pass. If the fourth worlders know they can count on just the basic minimum of services, I believe more of them will begin thinking of education and working rather than fighting and stealing and drugs."
"I think so, too," Rita agreed. "We went too far once and killed most incentives to work, but this sounds about right to me. Just enough services so they don't go hungry or without some kind of shelter. They will know the rest of the country cares, but it's still not enough to make it worthwhile to stay home and loaf."
I surely hoped it would work out like that, especially for Seyla's sake. Hell, if I thought it would help, I would join her in prayer, but my contrary mind kept harking back to the days when illegal immigrants poured over the borders almost unchecked, trying desperately for even a marginally better life. I hoped that didn't happen all over again. But the borders were farther south now, so maybe it would work. I did k
now that the few times Seyla had spoken of her upbringing in the old city, I had been dismayed at the number of obstacles she'd had to overcome to get to where she was now. Had I been born into those circumstances, I don't know whether I could have risen above them or not.
***
Rita and I watched Messilinda as she preached to a large crowd clustered in a semi-circle, looking down upon her from the side of a low hill. The shining green gate was immediately behind her, sitting at the bottom of the slope like the stage of a natural amphitheater. It gave an appropriate setting for her sermon. She stood on a green pedestal, with the 'porters scattered through the throng, some concentrating on her; others going for individual reactions. We stayed on the outskirts while we recorded, not wanting to get caught up in the crush sure to come after she finished speaking.
Messilinda had perfected her technique since I last watched her. Her white robe fit her superb figure with a closeness little short of skin, yet it concealed most of her body, giving an impression of suppressed sexuality that had most of the men in the crowd drooling. She spoke quietly, leaving the amplifiers situated here and there to bring her words to the people. The effect was electric; it was as if she was speaking to you personally, which was what was intended. Her gestures were restrained, yet emphatic as she endorsed President Forbes's program, giving credit to God for inspiring him. She spoke of the heavenly benevolence of the gates, calling them a gift of divine love from the Supreme Being. She seemed to believe utterly in what she was saying.
Messilinda finished her sermon and bowed her head. Just as she began to pray, a red splotch blossomed like an ugly weed just above her left breast. She was thrown off her pedestal by the impact of the high-velocity slug and fell into the misty green portal of the gate. She blinked out of existence immediately.
