THOUSAND PONDS REPOSE RESORT
CHUNGCHAN, PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
1630 HOURS CT 19 JULY 2174
"You are most gracious to come to us, Marshal Wu," Rohan said politely. The private veranda was shaded and screened. Rohan allowed that his hosts knew their own security requirements. He offered the Marshal the tray of refreshments. The Marshal politely accepted a steamed roll.
"You have traveled all the way, and I needed to be here in any event. The Chairman is most concerned that our illustrious visitors receive an accurate and detailed description of our triumphs from an unimpeachable first-hand source. Last night the revolutionary forces of the people struck resounding blows against the foreign invaders, the American Devils of the Morbius Clique. Near the Mongolian border, our patriotic volunteers overran a half dozen frontier outposts." Marshal Wu gestured. A holo display appeared over her shoulder. Low-set concrete bunkers exploded in flame. A shaking image was the head camera of a charging volunteer, throwing a satchel charge through the breach, then following, his personal weapon blazing away at full automatic. Rohan was puzzled. The American defensive positions seemed remarkably backwards in their technology.
"We also attacked their frontal encampments, inflicting many casualties," Wu continued. The holofilm showed night and multiple explosions. "Other attacks also inflicted damage on guard posts, the forces returning with minimal casualties." A holomap gave three locations and estimated American casualties.
Rohan recalled that there had been six attacks, but said nothing.
"As you see, we have struck the first of our promised blows against the American Imperialists, and they suffered severe losses. Our other attacks, alas, did less damage to the Americans, but as Chairman Fu taught us, it is through failure that we may learn our weaknesses and strive to do better in the future." Marshal Wu smiled sweetly." I have transmitted more detailed information to Paris, to await you on your return. I would of course be delighted to join you for dinner, but I have additional professional responsibilities that I must yet perform today." The junior officers who botched their attacks were going to receive a polite, but short and professional, reprimand, following which their widows would each be billed for the one round of ammunition.
"I am delighted to hear of your successes," Rohan said. "Your brave volunteers have brought us a big step closer to the final solution to the American Challenge."
"And now I must be on my way. I hope you enjoy the rest of your vacation," Marshal Wu answered and took her leave.
Rohan and Villiers were alone on the patio.
"Genevieve," Rohan said. "It is very sad that our good friends the Chinese had less than absolutely perfect luck against the Americans. But they had striking successes, and our report should emphasize those advances while leaving them to learn from what has worked not quite perfectly. But there was something I couldn't quite put my finger on while I was speaking to Marshal Wu. Instead of a logical military issue I keep thinking the light in the room is the wrong color. It is such an odd association. What am I telling myself?"
"While you were looking at her? What color were her eyes?" Villiers asked.
"Blue, weren't they? And that's the light....my subconscious is trying to tell me something," Rohan explained.
"Not blue. One blue, one green. Not only does the Marshal have light-colored eyes, most uncommon for this part of the world, but she has the unusual circumstance that her eyes are not the same color," Villiers explained.
"Of course! Well, so much for the unconscious sorting out important facts. That one hardly signifies. Do we know another person with particoloured eyes?" Rohan asked rhetorically.
"Bernard," Villiers said, "there is something else odd here."
"What?" he asked.
"The successful attacks. They were against the real American Army. The Chinese also attacked the women's auxiliary, the college girls, and the girl scouts. And did rather less well. One might suppose that the Americans had the women exposed, bait, with a surprise waiting behind them," Villiers said.
"An ingenious explanation. In this case the people who attacked them were not incompetent, just the victims of a deep trap. Doubtless our Ground Forces will use satellite reconnaissance to expose for us the details of the American women. However, speaking of exposing women, I can think of a woman I am far more interested in exposing." Rohan smiled.
Chapter 14
Section XXX. Carrying on With MinuteGirls...She won't take off the knives just because she is hanging on to you...You can tell you've really turned her on if she clutches one of her knives tightly in the prolonged hours of carrying on...If you are ever invited to unstrap a hideout blade, realize you are in really deep trouble. When a MinuteGirl offers to let you move her hideout knife, it's not an invitation to try something kinky where they'd be in the way. A MinuteGirl is perfectly able to undress herself beyond swimming costume, aka 'skin and hideout knives.' Her offer is a deeply romantic statement, namely an indication that she'd like to marry you. Before you make a flippant response, just remember: If you can reach the straps, she can reach both you and the knives, possibly not in this order.
From The MinuteBoy's Secret Guide to MinuteGirls, Revised Official Edition of 2160, by Wouldn't They Like to Know ...
THE MEYER RESIDENCE
ABRAHAM, LINCOLN, ALPHA CENTAURI
July 19, 2174, 7:08 AM LST
Alphonse Meyer, properly bathed, dressed, and draped by his house servots, stared across the bedroom door at his sleeping wife. She was always so still, he noted, scarcely breathing under her goosedown quilt. Embroidered in its silk, polychrome circles surrounded by the void's black with silver stars, was a symbolic map of all Lincoln. It protects her, he thought, and I protect it. He caressed the seal of office on his chest. And now I must go forth and do battle in its protection. He blew a kiss across the air between them, turned, and waddled down the main staircase.
High silvery clouds trapped the dawn. The sun was enough above the horizon that its light had bleached from ruby to pink to white, but by Meyer's standards it was still remarkably early. Not, however, so early that the remainder of the committee would not already be awake and politicking. News of the China Incident had reverberated down the halls of the Capitol. The Constitutional Restorationists and their allies were all in a tizzy, like bees after someone poked their hive with a stick. Bees, however, were both smarter and less venomous than some of Helene Duclos-Braithewaite's allies, however much Thomas Fuller was personally a model of superficial propriety.
Who would have his guard duty today, he wondered? Some opponents of the current national order began to get twitchy whenever the border thermalized. Some of those opponents might do something improper, something that might endanger his guards. At his grandiose gesture, the estate's gates swept open. Awaiting him in open order were four-and-twenty Lambda Scouts, a dozen Sworn Pairs in lace-trimmed lime-and lemon patterned trousers and jackets, every seam pressed to perfection, ruffed colors rigid in the early morning air. Only if you looked carefully did you realize that the bulges were not body weight but substantial armor, that three of the pairs were staring away from him to cover flanks and rear, and that the blurs overhead were a half-dozen minifliers. Airbots might have exceedingly short lifetimes in realistic combat conditions, but in an urban area they did a respectably good job of sniffing out ambushes. Someone had concluded he needed substantially more protection on his way to work than was normally the case, however unlikely it was that Chinese infiltrators had reached Lincoln.
He took the sharp salutes of the lead Pair. Gender-mixed young people's Popular Army units were not universally accepted. Even allowing that the young man and woman who comprised the lead Pair would certainly not be interested in each other, other than as a fellow combatant, some historical purists grumbled that matters appeared improper. The last time such grumblers had appeared before his Committee, he had opined that Senate regulation of the composition of a unit of the Popular Army would be construed as an act es
tablishing a standing army, and that the legal consequences of that act would doubtless be enforced. The grumblers had crawled back under their rock, retreating to someplace in the scenic but hardly fair State of Antietam.
It was not until the walk to the Capitol took him by the second tank that he peered down the road, finding that someone had deployed a tank platoon along his expected route, a tank platoon whose presence was obviously expected by his escort. He let his mind seek back to the serious business of the day. An ordinary committee did its business in the halls and lobbies, rolling such few logs for each other as the voters allowed them, but the Joint Committee on War was subject to higher standards. The voters were at times very insistent.
The net result of months of debate was that Lincoln was about to hit the irrevocable branch point between the Teal and Sunflower mobilization plans, beyond which switching between them was so expensive that the switch left Lincoln weaker than if no switch were made. He had made private representations to his fellow Senators in favor of Teal, not made progress, and would now allow nature to take its course. He was the Commander in Chief, but that was a task with narrowly circumscribed powers. His only real success had been against socialism. However much Helene would rant about naval R&D programs, her partisans did not have the votes for Tab 412. And the next time Mobilization Plans were voted, Plan Ultraviolet was going to disappear. If Helene and Thomas wanted to plead for their special interests, they could do it on their own paper as a minority report, something that would need a two-thirds vote to resurrect at a later date, rather than by planting Easter eggs in the approved document.
JOSE GOMES COMMITTEE CHAMBER
THE CAPITOL
ABRAHAM, LINCOLN, ALPHA CENTAURI
July 19, 2174, 8:48 AM LST
A light breakfast with friends had done little to ease Meyer's discomfort. Sauteed apples with cardamom, lemon essence, and raisins, dry toast, a wedge of cheddar, grapefruit puree, and the smallest demitasse of a truly glorious double chocolate might meet his bodily needs, but offered little solace for the day's opening. The outcome was about to be gloomy. The compdisplay's report clocked through its requirements. All was in order. In pulp novels, his loyal staffers would have had prepared a surprise exhibit and unexpected witness, exactly as matters had been done two centuries ago. His opponents would have retreated in bedazzled confusion leaving him in command of the parliamentary battlefield. Under modern conditions, surprise testimony in a real legislature would put you on the List of Enemies of half the committee, so that even if you did win the battle the knives would be sharpened and readied for your back in any future war.
The compdisplay flashed, alerting him to the time. He took up the ceremonial hammer and struck the gong. Once! Twice! Thrice! "Give ears! Give ears! This meeting of the States of Lincoln Joint Senates Committee on War is hereby called to order. Regular Order is not waived. I find all Senators to be physically present, Datalinks to at least three newsnets..." Meyer let his memory guide him through calling the meeting to order, exactly as he had done hundreds of times before, hardly needing to follow the reminders on his compdisplay. Each of his fellows played their part, their short remarks with later amplifications to be duly recorded and transmitted to their constituents. Unlike most other committees, Meyer noted, the short remarks here were likely to be examined carefully.
"Having concluded the opening, the Chair finds that the requested first order of business is the Fleet Mobilization and related tactics. A display showing the majority for this and other possible questions is on screen one. Is there dissent that the chair has correctly interpreted the will of the Committee?" Meyer waited. On a less significant committee, sometimes a completely junior Senator would misinterpret the question as asking for changes in the proposed agenda, and need to be corrected. Repeatedly. By each of his colleagues. Seriatim. The voters did not often elect complete dummies, but it did happen. And the remainder of the Senate, all political parties including the dummy's own, would make this very clear to the dummy's constituents.
"Hearing no objection we advance to a discussion of mobilization plans. Who now wishes to speak?" The compdisplay lit up. Meyer stared at the screen. There was a first time for everything. "Am I correct that I am the only person not asking for time?" Subdued laughter came from the Committee. He tapped his datapanel. "We have unanimity. Time preferences?" The panel went through its cycle. "The concensus is for fifteen minutes per speaker. Check: Longer? Shorter? On? Fifteen minutes it is. The chair will insert recesses after each hour and a half."
He hoped his voice hadn't broken. The entire morning was about to disappear, and half the afternoon, if debates got going. He had expected six minutes each, enough for a concise restatement of views. All the positions were known. Why was the agony being prolonged? Before the crisis, he would have had enough time to keep his hand on the Committee's pulse, enough that he would not be surprised. He'd had to delegate party business to his party's second on the committee, and Hector Sher-Jin Molitor would be the first to admit that he was more of a military theorist than a Party Whip. However, Hector's handling of Committee concerns was always sound, if never inspired, and perhaps that was all you could ask. Hector might well have known what time would be requested, decided that the choice was sound, and concluded that the Chair had more important things to consider.
"In accord with General Order, we begin with the most junior member...No, I must advise the Honorable Senator from Antietam that there is not unanimous consent for Revised Orders." Whatever you have set up, Meyer thought, you are going to find it a bit more complicated than you hoped. He watched Molitor carefully. If Hector looked upset, he could change his mind. He saw the slightest but very deliberate nod.
"Point of Order!" Fuller was already at his best.
"State your point," Meyer answered.
"Mr. Chairman, I made via screen a legitimate request for unanimous consent to revise the Order of Speaking. I do not believe under Mason and Gorman that the Chair can reject such a proposal without asking if there is unanimous consent," Fuller said, "unless the request is obviously dilatory, which I respectfully submit is not the case."
"True," Meyer answered. "I fully agree that your request was not dilatory, and sincerely apologize if I had somehow left this impression. However, I am entitled under Mason and Gorman to pursue the most expeditious path for determining if there be unanimous consent. Is that not correct?" Fuller nodded vigorously. "Having done so, to whit by noting that I as a member of the Committee did not consent, I saw no reason to waste additional Committee time. But I should perhaps apologize, since I could perfectly well have explained this to the Committee." He could hear several gasps. The Committee Chair, whatever the rules, virtually never voted in unanimous consent requests on Speaking Order.
"I...I thank the Chair for clarifying this abstruse, though in retrospect obvious point, and apologize profusedly for having wasted the Committee's undoubtedly valuable time," Fuller said politely.
"Senator Sugiyama?" Meyer turned to the Edo Governor's youngest grandson, now working his way up through the government bureaucracy. Madame Sugiyama's elder grandchildren had preferred higher careers, but John Brown Crispus Attucks Sugiyama had agreed to continue the family tradition of elective service. John Brown was an up and coming member of the Movimiento, for all that in a few decades he was likely to return to Edo and an upwards move to Shire Alderman.
"Mr. Chairman, I shall endeavor to maintain a suitable brevity and clarity of expression in my remarks, following the wise examples set by my senior colleagues on this honorable committee. To be much to the point, I believe we should be seriously concerned that new border difficulties have arisen in the State of Harbin. I am not concerned by press speculation that Pekingese infiltrators have penetrated our border defenses, let alone that such persons could have reached Lincoln. I am concerned that this eruption of violence will distract the Federal Senate so that our states, and our friends in the States of Markoff, do not receive the full attention that
our position merits.
"Under these conditions, it is critical that the States of Lincoln Planetary Self Defense Fleet and its support forces be brought to a state of higher alert as swiftly as possible, without frittering away the Fleet's limited fisc on hypothetical future weapon developments that will certainly not be available during the current emergency. This is particularly the case if the fisc were to be wasted on the unAmerican practice of purchasing scientific research with government funds, a practice of the remote past that does not signify for modern Americans. We are at the final juncture. I urge that we invest promptly in Plan Teal, which gives us the most substantial mobilization over reasonable time. Thank you, and I reserve the remainder of my time."
Meyer relaxed slightly. One of the positive consequences of the recent elections was that the Movimiento had expanded its hold on the Senate, as a result of which the newest committee members all came from his own Party. These were also the Senators who were most in line with his own judgement. Unfortunately, they were also the most junior. "Senator Van Doorn?"
The short, gold blonde woman setting opposite John Brown Sugiyama leaned forward in her chair. "Mr. Chairman, honored colleagues…"
JOSE GOMES COMMITTEE CHAMBER
THE CAPITOL
ABRAHAM, LINCOLN, ALPHA CENTAURI
July 19, 2174, 1:14 PM LST
"Senator Duclos-Braithwaite?" Meyer asked. There were four remaining speakers, equally senior, including himself. The luck of the draw--Meyer kept a deck of real playing cards in his desk, should anyone insist on the letter of Mason and Gorman being carried out rather than trusting random number generators--had given Helene the opportunity to speak first. So far, the debate seemed to have accomplished nothing. Indeed, he could have written many of the speeches he had heard thusfar, on every side of each issue, and delivered them better than some of the speakers. Senator Martinez, who in most respects was a truly fine person, had burned all of his own time, and most of the time lent him by friends, fortunately all in support of the positions of the Movimiento Moderate Central.
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