"Morbius approves?" Sandra asked.
"He approved generically. But he never knows which of his interns are asked, nor why, nor in detail what 'I have an additional secret society, needing persons of unusual talents' means. But he has approved," Copperwright answered.
"There's a disadvantage," Gustaphson said. "One you may care about. You'll have to choose. Us or the MinuteGirl Upper Order. It's the DisUnity principal. Overlapping memberships are too dangerous. Notwithstanding our example."
"We break that rule. We make ourselves nervous," the Hexagon Lord explained. "Very nervous."
"Agreed," Sandra said. "By The Sword, I am silent."
"We are The Three Who Are Ten," Gustaphson announced, "the Inner Circle of the Holy Order of Gow. Yes, Gowism, the one true satire on all religion, that spends its time throwing wild parties." Sandra knew the group in question. When wilder -- though consistently safe -- parties were thrown, the Holy Order would throw them. When stranger museum collections needed housing, the Holy Order would house and catalog and reverence them.
"It's excellent cover," said the Hexagon Lord. "We stage a totally serious convention, for barbed wire and lawn ornament collectors. Thousands attend. Hear educational talks on odd wire weaves and pretty decorations. Trade, buy, and sell collectibles. Debate the merits of pink and teal lawn flamingos. Be completely unobjectionable, should there be spies or another Incursion.' He shook his head in self-satisfaction. "And if one of the private showings of Worcester pre-1900 triwrap by invitation only is also something else, who will ever look to notice? Especially after a two-hour opening lecture on statistical analysis of barb length fluctuations at the atomic scale?"
"I'd never have guessed," she said. The Order's parties for college students were heavy on elevants and aphrodisiacs. The Order was as non-serious a group as you could get.
"After the Incursion, vast numbers of Americans heeded Morbius's call to form secret societies, ready to resist when the Europeans returned." The Hexagon Lord shrugged. "After every great historical crisis, America has had an outburst of volunteerism, and after the Incursion secret societies were the outburst. Almost every public organization gained several secret wings."
"For the challenge at hand, namely evidence on your suggestion that Tabby came from out there, the public side of the Order becomes helpful," Gustaphson said. "Public affiliates like the Fortean League, Ufologists United, and the Anomalous Airship Association all have a few truly serious members who have separated wheat and chaff."
"The private side is also helpful. If all else fails, if you accept our offer, you are working for us, The Three Who Are Ten, and if all else fails when you absolutely, positively need assistance you privately, discretely tell the senior Adherent on site who you are working for. That will get you a great deal of attention," Copperwright explained. "You will be also supplied with an unforgeable identification."
"Of course, we take using that identification at least as seriously as announcing that you are The Voice Of Darkness," Gustaphson added, "Except that it will be strictly your decision when to invoke us. We may not always agree, but so long as you are serving the Republic rather than yourself there will not be negative repercussions."
"Perhaps if I disagree I will want to discuss future tactics," the Hexagon Lord added.
"You should consider this carefully," Gustaphson said. "There's no hurry. You're Morbius's intern for another few years. Until then, you'll have little time to work for us." He managed a tight smile.
"You should say, Peter" the Hexagon Lord announced, "since I checked, that he would wish that you would work on the alien question in your copious spare time if he expressed thoughts about your spare time. He expects any intern he puts on the problem to fail--though he doesn't know why."
"Fail?" Sandra asked politely. Morbius would sometimes say problems were easy or difficult, short or long. But he had always had confidence in her.
"He was being realistic," the Hexagon Lord continued. "I'm saying nothing I would not say to him if he asked, and if he asks you should answer. After all, you are about as select a person as you get in our United States. But Morbius' Interns are selected as staff officers, people who anticipate what Morbius should have asked and find that answer as well as the answer he asked for."
"Staff officers are not selected for initiative," Gustaphson added.
"For brains, for memory, for thoroughness, even for looks," Copperwright said, "But selecting staff officers for initiative is not how it's done. Not now, anyhow."
"That's why we decided you were interesting," the Hexagon Lord said. "You have initiative. You gave yourself away. We've been watching you for some time, after all. The clincher was you starting the sims running without asking, and the look on your face when you told Grant you'd done it."
"But Morbius said I did exactly the right thing!" Sandra protested.
"Exactly true," the Hexagon Lord said. "You did. 95% of his interns wouldn't have. And he would not have said they made a mistake, since no mistake he can name was made. He thought it was excellent you showed initiative. But he doesn't ask for it, doesn't know how to teach it, doesn't select for it when he hired you."
"He gets what he asks for," Copperwright said. "He would, no matter what he requested. But his choices are...odd."
"You show initiative," Gustaphson said. "You can learn the habit. Elsewise you are a glorified ribbon clerk. That's not what we need. This problem needs initiative. Ribbon clerk approaches, searching computer banks, chatting up intelligence corporations...that won't solve it, probably."
"I'll consider. I should say -- I thought 'Tabby is an alien' was worth considering. I'm not sold it's right," Sandra said. "I'm also not sold it's wrong. I hadn't thought it might be a boystoy. Or girlstoy. Or both. But I need some idea of what you do. Other than hold parties, collect things, and whatever. If tomorrow I prove Tabby is Made in Japan, then what do I do for your group?" I shall not remind them, she told herself, that if I sign on I get to talk to Arthur more often, and have a legitimate excuse for doing so.
"You are still a field operative," Gustaphson answered. "Potentially this question is important. If there are other intelligent species, the FEU could find yet more allies. They have enough already. In my opinion."
"We should consider a strategy for answering this," said the Hexagon Lord. "It's not we would tell you everything we do. But you would fill a particular important role. In short, we are finally convinced that we need field agents. Not operatives. People who make policy out there. Perhaps we should attack the dessert first, and then we three consult privately about your answer. I imagine -- since we are not here to waste your time -- Morbius will be pleased to see your analysis of the sims I ran for you."
"However, I already anticipate that we can answer your questions adequately. I also understand that you are a Mistress of the Sword, and have no secrets from your sisters and brothers. You will have an appointment with the Dark Lady herself to discuss our initiation. I've already arranged it," explained Gustafson. He paused. "A young person, not Cheryl or I, would doubtless not have noted your reaction when I observed that there are brothers, something you likely have not been told before. I would make a note not to play poker with you, except that the modern generation has never heard of the game."
Chapter 12
"The Militia of the United States consists of all adult citizens, regardless of gender, and all other citizens capable of bearing arms, except those persons belonging to the Armed Forces of the United States or to the State Defense Forces of any State."
...Militia Reorganization Act of 2052
FRONTIER OBSERVATION LINE
TRAINING BATTALION, BELLA ABZUG BRIGADE
SOUTH HARBIN STATE PARK
HARBIN, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
May 15, 2174, 11:48 PM Harbin Local Time (HLT)
"Troop, this is 2-A, Perfection Queen here." She looked out into the darkness. Rather, she reminded herself, pausing to brush back her white-blonde hair, she looke
d out into the holofilm covering on the bunker walls, staring at the illusion of night and heavy rain. The rush of raindrops was equally inauthentic, bunker electronics passing the rush through the bunker's reinforced concrete walls to her ears.
"Cantonment. Signals here. What is your issue?" The answerer was an equally young woman, posted several miles away in the platoon base. Her image floated in the air, moving to match Perfection Queen's head motions, never blocking her most direct line of sight to the wall.
"Troop, we have patterned sounds and seismics near grid AC-22. All filters register as non-random," Perfection Queen reported.
"2-A, this is Cantonment. Standing Orders are that filters do not work." A small icon lit near Signal's image, the glow marking Training Cadre's appearance in the Comm Loop. "Is there an issue?"
"Troop, that is 'single filters fail'. This is 'all filters'," Perfection Queen answered. "WonderChick and Smart Blonde have exfiltrated to investigate." Now, she noted, the unpleasantness is about to start. You told those two to stay here, but, no, they didn't agree with common sense or the weather report. So you stay in a warm, comfortable bunker, and they went out in the wet and windy darkness.
"Signals copies. I'm not showing an X-Filter on my list. Please confirm the filter they are using to test," answered the voice from behind the lines.
"Exfiltrated. They have exfiltrated-gone outside-and are investigating," Perfection Queen answered in exasperation.
"They've what?" The interruption was a much older woman's voice. The icon inflated into the image of Naomi Roth, Brigade Training Director. Perfection Queen swallowed. Roth had a sharp temper which she did not hesitate to lose.
"Ma'am, they have exfiltrated the bunker and are investigating the disturbance, in accordance with The Rules of Observation," Perfection Queen answered. She reminded herself of the rules she worked under. Individual initiative was always treated as a positive outcome.
"Trainee, isn't AC-22 a distance toward the border from you? Did you consider reminding your fellow MinuteGirls of this feature?" Roth asked. "There is a rule about this, after all, crossing the border being a negative outcome to be avoided."
"Ma'am, no, ma'am. And yes ma'm, I did." Perfection Queen answered.
"What is there to be no?" Roth asked.
"Ma'am, Post 2-A is 200 yards from the border. That is to the Xiao Dry Creek Loop, linear distance northwest, ma'am. The noises are at least 250 yards from the border, ma'am," Perfection Queen announced. "WonderChick and Smart Blonde are approaching the area now."
"WonderChick? That is Rachel Carter Goldsmith, correct? Carry on." Naomi Roth's image vanished from the room. Perfection Queen was puzzled by last question. Cadre supported nicktitles as a builder of unit cohesion. Given names were taken if someone was about to be called on the carpet. But Roth knew everyone, didn't she? And why ask about WonderChick, who was the training jock, rather than blaming Smart Blonde, who was the one with the ideas? Of course, there had been that little discussion between WonderChick and cadre, cadre saying you should stay out of the rain and WonderChick asking what to do if the ChiComms attacked under cover of umbrellas. Perfection Queen had thought the whole unit would get hit with demerits over that, but to her surprise cadre had said nothing.
She stared at her screens again. The bunker servile was doing its best to report data coherently. Most of the way toward AC-22, WonderChick and Smart Blonde were doing arrhythmic walk-crawls, their figures completely hidden under their ultracamou cloaks. They were virtually invisible except as they walked in front of something and were silhouetted. In this weather, even the remnants of their heat signatures would be totally erased. Each of them trailed a fiber optical line, whose microservots stapled it to the ground as fast as it was deployed. Short of the other side plowing the ground, the fiber gave them a fast, undetectable data link back to the bunker.
The bunker servile continued its patient reanalysis of AC-22. WonderChick and Smart Blonde were working their way up the last bit of rise, the area being momentarily masked from line of site. Every so often they would pause, letting bunker ramp the microphones in their suits all the way up. The rain masked everything, but there did seem to be something out there, right at the limits of resolution of the system. Perfection Queen suspected that a real pro would be picking out a lot more, but she was a trainee, not a witch.
A half-dozen icons flared bright green on her screen displays as a crescent of targets came over the rise.
"DOWN! DOWN!" she screamed, one hand stabbing at the decoy release. A pair of holoprojectors flared to pulse emergency power, setting shimmering bursts of heat and flickers of motion all across the landscape, the controlling serviles carefully not illuminating WonderChick or Smart Blond. Acoustic horns a distance from the bunker screamed to life. Supposedly at pointblank range they were almost as loud as a 20th-century New York City car stereo--enough to make your ears bleed. The monitoring serviles would not let that happen. However, the two Minutegirls out in the rain had two seconds to drop and freeze, during which time their movements and sounds would be lost in the background. Of course, the people who were not supposed to be out there would realize that something had just happened, but would not know what or where to look.
Perfection Queen gripped the arms of her chair, forcing herself not to do anything else. One of the unidentified targets was now practically stepping on WonderChick. WonderChick's suit monitors reported she was not moving, not even breathing. Perfection Queen wished the datafeed was enough for images, but that would require more power out there, and power made you easier to see. The icons stopped, froze, then moved rapidly backwards. Filters pegged the noise as men running, retreating too fast to move arrhythmically. Acoustics and seismics in AC-22 peaked. The signals matched a small group of men, suddenly moving back out of Harbin State Park toward the People's Republic of China. Radar or lidar could have told her far more, but deploying active sensors was strongly discouraged by Cadre.
OFFICE OF THE BRIGADE TRAINING DIRECTOR
TRAINING BATTALION, BELLA ABZUG BRIGADE
SOUTH HARBIN STATE PARK
HARBIN, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
May 15, 2174, 8:00 AM HLT
Naomi Roth sat behind her massive early-21st century desk, supposedly originally used by the Chairman of the Board of a now-defunct dot-com before the Third Depression, and glared at the three women standing in front of her.
"Rachel Carter Goldsmith nick WonderChick. Amanda Gail Mei Jansen nick Smart Blond. Ruth Cohen nick Perfection Queen." The three women nodded as their names were spoken. "I listened to each of you separately. I looked at your records. Ms. Goldsmith, you may think that your suitcam shows a PLA infiltrator, but I see a layer of mud. That last is not a criticism. When the filter defects decided you were surrounded by ChiComms, you executed exactly the right move, namely when Ms. Cohen fired the distractors you made a drop. It happened to be straight into a slough, not into the rock you anticipated. You also managed to roll and keep your weapon out the water. You then chose not to fire because one of the alleged ChiComms accidentally put Ms. Jansen between him and you." Pause. "Your trip through the dark came up empty. And you will spend the next week emptying your file of accumulated demerits, via the usual paths."
"Ms. Jansen, your 'smart' move was to wander toward the border without advising cantonment first. You could have had a backup force ready. You also, you state correctly, might have had permission for your little trip denied. You also might have found yourself some real ChiComms, if there were any, and gotten yourself killed by being underarmed. As trio leader, that was your call. You will spend the next month in Cantonment, learning what it is like to function at the wrong end of a thin communication line, talking to people who don't want to talk to you."
Roth turned to Perfection Queen. "Ms. Cohen, I find it difficult to fault anything you did, except link up with these two as a trio. Your trio leader decided to go for a walk, and you backed her correctly. When the defect density peaked, you did exactly the right thin
gs with the distractors, even if you did wake several dozen people up. However, you failed to persuade your team leader to do the right thing--she's the leader, not the petit dictator--which is a failure. Not a deep failure. You used the right reasons the right way, and weren't heard. That's a very important lesson. Some people never get that one. You can be completely right, and lose the argument.
"The next time this happens, you three will please advise Cantonment first--unless it is a ChiComm platoon about to overrun 2-A. Border technical security is split between the MinuteDads and several private contractors, and some of us are a bit curious about why their new equipment looks so good, and functions as badly as a MinuteBoy who has had too much to drink. Dismissed!" Naomi Roth turned to her holodisplay while three chastened MinuteGirls filed from her office.
The door closed. Roth brought up the display. The smiling face of Training Major Veronica Rubenstein appeared in it. "Top, how are my gals doing?" Rubenstein asked.
"About as expected," Roth answered. "Sooner or later, unless she stops being bold, Miss Goldstein blows her chance to be old. Though she knows she was in less danger than she said. She forgot to mention all the guns she was carrying. Not to mention she borrowed a Taifun from the bunker. Jansen was lying down, ChiComms if any were not. She could have taken all six of them."
"Top," Rubenstein asked animatedly, "has that platoon been cleared for the Taifun?" The antipersonnel mine in question projected several hundred flechette rounds to its front over a modest fraction of a second.
"Ma'am, military exigency. They've been trained, mostly, not cleared. But she was on the right side of the letter of the rules book." Roth was more than a bit annoyed at Goldstein, but would stand up for her girls for doing something sort of right.
"And what are her other demerits?" Rubenstein asked.
"Repeatedly late back from gathering wildflowers for the Cantonment mess hall. Late, I expect, because of a surplus of hormones, and a MinuteBoy trooper with decent endurance, in training the next sector over."
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