The Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin joined the Federation, anchoring its northern frontier solidly along the Great Lakes. Washington was making accusations of Canadian railroads moving Federation supplies inland from Vancouver and through the Rockies. Significantly, perhaps, Canada had refused overflight permission to the Union. In the southern sector, the Unionist drive into Texas was continuing, with ground forces now coming into contact, maneuvering for positions, and with actual outbreaks of skirmishing in places. Cade watched shots of tanks with familiar white star markings firing on positions a few miles west of Fort Worth. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would have said it was impossible.
Then Krossig called back. Yes, indeed, his superiors at the Hyadean field center would be extremely interested in meeting Cade and Hudro. Arrangements would be made to receive them as soon as they wished.
And so, just five days after their arrival in New Zealand, Cade and Hudro bade Neville Baxter farewell before boarding a New Zealand Air Force jet transport bound directly for Cairns, on the Queensland coast.
* * *
While Cade and Hudro were looking out over the sunlit blue of the Tasman Sea, it was a close, muggy evening in New York. There had been air-raid alerts, fire drills in offices and schools, and a lot of merchandise moved to safes and basements, but nothing had come of it.
Drisson met Laura for dinner in an out-of-the way but highly rated Greek restaurant frequented by gourmet aficionados on the East Side above 70th Street between Second Avenue and the river. He had decided that some investment in up-market taste could be justified in this instance. They got around to business after the appetizers and salad, and a second choice of wines to suit the entrées.
"People in my line of work don't trade social niceties," he said. "That way, we save time and avoid misunderstandings. You and I are both in situations where we know things about Toddrel that he wouldn't have wanted his mother to know. You keep him happy at playtime and know how he really does business. I know what happens to people who get in his way. It isn't pretty." He paused for a reaction. Laura continued watching him silently over her glass as she sipped. Drisson went on, "His South American operation has backfired, which put him right next to the big fan when the secession hit. When people like Casper are in trouble, life for everyone around them tends to get insecure."
Laura looked mildly reproaching. "You're not trying to tell me I could be in some kind of danger, surely?"
"I think you should be certain you know the person you're dealing with." Drisson studied her for a second or two, as if weighing whether to elaborate. "He had a wife once. I assume you know that."
"She drowned in a boating accident seven years ago."
"Right. They were heading for a divorce that was going to be bloody. She knew a lot about him that he wouldn't have wanted to see in the papers, and she meant to use all of it." Drisson shook his head. "It wasn't an accident."
"How do you know this?"
"I told you, my job is to know things."
Laura's expression registered the more serious dimension that this was taking on. "What are you asking me to do?" she asked warily.
"I'm suggesting that you change your insurance. Or at least, take out extra cover."
"Which your company, of course, happens to deal in."
"Very professional and experienced. Long established in the business."
"Why? What's in it for you? It sounds as if you can take care of yourself."
"Information. Access. If it ever comes time to claim on the policy, it can work a lot smoother with help on the inside." Drisson indicated her with an extended hand. "Like I said before, separate, we're both vulnerable. Working together, we could look out for each other pretty good."
Laura's gaze flickered over him, reading the face and the eyes, comparing their message with that of the words. If things really could get that ugly, it was beginning to sound as if she might need this person around. But then she would end up in an even stronger position of knowing enough to compromise him if events took such a direction, and she felt so inclined. And he had already shown how much he believed in taking precautions. She was going to have to play this carefully, she decided. Very carefully.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
THE GROUP WAITING TO GREET Cade and Hudro at Cairns, which boasted a modestly sized airport in spite of its billing as "international," consisted of Krossig; his Hyadean boss, Freem; and an Australian biologist by the name of Susan Gray, who worked with them. With them, local officialdom was represented in the form of a grinning Aborigine in the full regalia of khaki shorts and a white shirt worn shirttails out, and an equally affable Asian in a casual jacket and slacks. They were called Tolly and Hueng. Both were nominally based at the local authority's offices in Townsville, two hundred miles south, which served as an outpost of the state government in Brisbane. They maintained a loose contact with the Hyadean presence in Cairns and had flown up to "coordinate" with Cade and Hudro, and make their stay comfortable.
Accommodation had been arranged in a hotel called the Babinda farther in toward the city—although Susan was from Melbourne originally, and said that nobody in Queensland knew what a real city was. They drove there in a bright orange minibus through grassy, hilly farmland and spread-out suburbs of broad streets and modern frame buildings tucked among palm trees and stands of tropical greenery. On the way, Freem talked among other things about the inefficiency of internal combustion engines. The hydrogen atom, he explained, could be catalytically induced to assume lower energy states than the "ground" state held by Terran science to be the lowermost possible, and in the process released energies hundreds of times greater than conventional combustion. It was inherently clean, using water as a fuel and producing degenerate hydrogen as exhaust, which was totally inert and diffused up out of the atmosphere. Cade had heard this from Vrel, but he didn't want to spoil Freem's line by saying so.
"But here's an angle that these guys never thought of," Tolly said.
"I suspect we did, but it got suppressed," Krossig interjected.
Tolly continued, "Cars powered that way could run all the time without choking up the planet. So how about this: Instead of owning a big chunk of capital investment that spends most of its time depreciating in driveways and parking lots, you use a turbine driving an electric generator-motor system to make it a mobile power plant as well as a vehicle. When it isn't going anywhere, you plug it into the grid and get credited for what you deliver. Millions of people take care of their own power requirements. We reckon an average car could net the owner around ten thousand dollars per year."
Cade was intrigued. "You think something like that could happen?"
"We're working on it."
"So who would own it?"
"I don't know. Scientists from all over are working here with Hyadeans."
"Mike Blair's due to be joining us anytime," Krossig said.
Hueng, who it turned out was on some kind of loan from the Chinese government, chimed in. "The Western Federation has the right idea. This side of the world is the way of the future. The interests that the Globalists are trying to hang on to are finished. When a system has to resort to force and deception to preserve itself, you know it's only a matter of time before it collapses. I am Chinese, Mr. Cade. I know. The military empires of earlier times have passed away. The fascist and socialist political empires of the last century are gone. Now we're seeing the end of the Western- and Hyadean-style financial empires. Everybody will manage their own affairs." He grinned broadly. "So we still call it the People's Republic. It fits the reality rather well."
"Maybe Hyadeans are discovering their own version too," Krossig said. "Away from the restrictions of the system we've known."
"The same kinds of restrictions that Americans and Europeans have come to regard as normal," Susan Gray put in. She was in her thirties, Cade guessed, with neck-length blond hair, sun-bronzed and frighteningly fit looking, dressed in a tan shirt and light green jeans. "We do things kind of ca
sually and informally around here. The region has a strong independent tradition of minding its own business and not trusting the central government. Somehow it seems to provide the right atmosphere for everyone to get along. That was a big reason why the Hyadeans stayed."
"I feel I have begun to awaken," Krossig said. "Many Hyadeans that I've met here say the same thing."
Cade stared out as they drove into the outskirts of the city. All it took was to experience what free thinking could be like. Then there was no going back. If this was what the Hyadeans who came here were finding, could exposure to Earth eventually cause their whole population to wake up?
* * *
The hotel was in the tradition of the architectural cloning which for decades had been creating airport environs and urban peripheries that were in danger of becoming indistinguishable the world over. But it was cool, clean, and comfortable. Cade and Hudro were given separate suites and then left to freshen up, change, and spend the remainder of the afternoon relaxing with beers by the pool among palm-tree-enclosed gardens at the rear.
That evening, there was a dinner in town for the occasion, hosted by Tolly and Hueng on behalf of the state and attended by Krossig, Freem, Susan, and others from the scientific center, several more Hyadeans connected with other enterprises, and a mix of a few business figures and other local notables that it seemed fitting to invite or who had otherwise wangled their way in. It was all very colorful and cheerful, especially as the drink continued to flow generously, and at midnight they called Cade's house in California, got Marie and Yassem, and toasted them over the phone. Cade promised he would be back before much longer. Hudro hadn't decided yet what his intentions were.
The late stayers then retired to a private bar. Krossig, by then well stimulated and loquacious, told Cade, Hudro, and Susan about his discovery of Asian philosophies from his dealings among some of the area's varied populace. He was particularly enthralled by the notion of reincarnation, according to which individual personalities were created for the purpose of assisting a soul on its path of development. The circumstances of each incarnation were chosen to provide the experiences and lessons that the soul needed in order to heal itself and grow. This seemed to follow so naturally from the many-worlds view of quantum reality that Krossig and Mike Blair back in California saw as a purposefully contrived learning environment in which the choices that a consciousness made created its path of experiences. Their latest thought was that despite all the things that were heard about Eastern mysticism and Western science converging toward saying the same thing, perhaps both were missing the whole point of it all equally. Krossig explained:
"Physics exposes the backstage machinery. Eastern insight says that what the machinery supports is illusion. But surely the whole purpose of it is to experience the illusion." The company was listening intently. "It's a bit like a physicist finally figuring out that the movie is a product of electrical patterns and photons, and the mystic observing that what they depict isn't real. But all the time, neither of them sees that the purpose of the movie was to . . ." He waved a hand about. "Whatever the movie is made for."
"Tell a story. Teach a lesson," Susan supplied. She was now transformed in a close-fitting black cocktail dress and looking devastating.
"Exactly."
Susan looked at the others. "Interesting. I've always thought of myself as a hard-boiled science type too. But you know, fellas, I like it."
"You see, it needs Hyadean and Terran brains combined," Freem said.
Hudro was enraptured. "So, is all designed for consciousnesses to make choices and learn," he said to Krossig. "What is it does the designing?"
Krossig spread his hands. "I don't know. Not my department."
Hudro turned to Cade. "Here is what I seek. Is as you say, like fresh air. We bring Yassem here. Already I think we stay in this country."
Cade looked inquiringly at Susan and Freem.
"I don't think that would be too much of a problem," Susan said. "There's a good community of Hyadeans here—all learning to be individuals. Sounds like they'd fit right in."
* * *
For the next couple of days, Cade and Hudro were given a tour of the area, particularly to see some of the ways in which Hyadeans and Terrans were working together without organizing directives from above or centralized policies favoring corporate economics. The scientific station was larger and more diverse in its activities than Cade had imagined. He toured the labs and workshops, saw prototype rigs of the catalyzed hydrogen turboelectric system that Tolly had talked about in the bus on the way from the airport, and didn't really understand a lot else. Like the mission in Los Angeles, the station had gravitic communications equipment in touch with Chryse via the orbiting Hyadean relay system, and Cade watched Terran scientists still spellbound at the thought of interacting with counterparts light-years away.
"This makes the web look like Pony Express," one of them told him.
They were from a surprisingly wide range of places and backgrounds, brought in one way or another through influences of the cosmopolitan influx of the individualist-minded from Asia, Europe, and the Americas to what had already been a mixed region. There were also a lot more Hyadeans than Cade would have expected. Freem said that most had paid their own way privately to come to Earth in search of the independent way of living they had heard of that was new to them. Krossig felt there was more going on here than just a collaborative scientific center. It could be a microcosm of how an alternative might evolve to the imposed, top-down form of organized dealings between the two races that had taken root in the West.
* * *
But there was another side that was disconcerting. "China's policy," Susan said when she and Cade were with Freem in Freem's office, next to the gravcom room. "What we think is their real aim in leading the AANS—and we've talked to Hueng about it, and he agrees. They see the lineup of Hyadean and America-Europe as an attempt to preserve a Western-dominated economic order that should have died after the twentieth century and two world wars. They made the Hyadeans a symbol for the rest of the world to rally against. Beijing seems to think that now the U.S. has broken up, it's as good as over. All it has to do is deliver a knockout blow. They're underestimating what they could be up against. We could never beat Hyadeans by taking them on in a straight fight—if it ever came to that. Hudro understands that. But there's no need to. From the things we're hearing here, they're ripe for their own form of revolution. Why confront when you can undermine? With the right strategy, we can win enough of them over that their system caves in."
Cade was both intrigued and gratified. In effect, this was stating in other words what he himself, Vrel, Luodine, and others had also concluded. At the same time, he was mildly perplexed. "I agree with what you're saying," he told them. "But why are we going through all this? You sound as if you expect me to do something about it."
"I talked to Hueng," Freem replied. "His connections in Beijing go higher than you perhaps imagine. I'm sure he provides an efficient direct conduit back of anything of interest that goes on here." Freem held up a hand before Cade could respond, as if to say that was of no consequence. "But he also shares our concern. Naturally, he has made his superiors fully aware of the presence here of the American featured in the South American documentary, and the Hyadean officer whose story he helped narrate. Hueng put out some feelers, and it seems they would be interested in inviting you there. You have a chance to present our case maybe where it stands the most chance of having some effect."
Cade blinked. "You mean go to Beijing? Me?"
"While there's still a chance," Susan said. "You understand Hyadeans as well as anyone."
Cade didn't have to think too much about it. He was prepared for just about anything by now. "It would need Hudro there too," he told them. "The documentary wasn't only me. He'd carry a lot of weight there too."
"Then let's talk to Hudro," Freem suggested.
* * *?
Hudro returned that evening from visiting
an experimental school the Hyadeans had set up for teaching their way of science, which was proving to be a big hit with the local children. Cade and the other two put Hueng's proposition to him over beer and burgers in the station's canteen. "There are people in Beijing who have the power to make decisions that will affect many people, but I'm not sure they understand what a full-scale conflict might bring," Freem told him. "You are a former Hyadean military officer. Also, your experiences in South America give you insights that they do not share. If you really want to prevent what could happen, there would be your place to try."
Cade and Susan stared at each other somberly. Hudro gave Freem a long, searching look. Finally, he nodded. "Very well. I will go to Beijing with Roland and say what I know and what I think. Then I come back to you here. Yassem comes across from over ocean. Then we live here in Australia as Terrans. Is what we dream."
"That would be understood," Freem said.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
THEY STAYED IN CAIRNS a little over a week. Everything Cade saw reinforced his impression that it modeled on a small scale the way things could have been: Australian whites and blacks, Europeans, Asians, Americans, Hyadeans, working out their own ways of getting along.
Meanwhile, three Eastern Union nuclear supercarrier groups had put to sea in the Atlantic and were heading south, presumably to enter the Pacific via Cape Horn. The confrontation in Texas was heating up, with both sides using air support. Oil installations along the banks of the Houston ship canal were ablaze under artillery fire. A suburb of St. Louis had been hard hit by overshoots from an attack on an air base.
Then the formal invitation that Hueng had set up came through from Beijing. A farewell party that included Krossig, Freem, Susan, Hueng, and Tolly but which had grown significantly from the one that had greeted them accompanied Cade and Hudro to the airport, where they boarded a Chinese government executive jet sent with two officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs to collect them. The flight north lasted six hours and brought them to Beijing's International Airport, ten miles south of the city center. A white limousine flying the new pennant of the Democratic Republic of China from its hood, preceded by a police escort that seemed to delight in using its siren and lights to clear regular traffic grudgingly out of the way, conveyed them to the seventeen-story Beijing Hotel on Wangfujing Avenue, the busiest of Beijing's shopping streets, marking the eastern edge of the old Imperial City.
The Legend That Was Earth Page 29
