by John Barnes
“I have therefore come to a painful decision, one I had been forming for some time. The United States of America is not united anymore, many of its states have ceased to exist and are being replaced by other states and nations, and all that is left is an American continent in which we must carve out our own destiny. I am therefore proclaiming that the Commandancy of Manbrookstat is now and will remain a sovereign nation, with its northern boundary at the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes, its southern boundary at the James, Greenbrier, New, Kanawha, and Ohio Rivers, details to be worked out with the Christian States of America which is now forming.
“Our western border will be fixed in negotiations with the Domain, which we have the honor to be the first nation to recognize and to accept in trade negotiations.
“The Commandancy of Manbrookstat intends to join the Atlantic League as a founding member; at this moment it appears that other founders will be the Galway Republic, the Grand Duchy of Halifax, the Kingdom of the Azores, Trinidad/Tobago, Dominica, Argentina, Puerto Rico, and a number of states now being organized around port cities in the former Brazil, Iceland, Norway, Morocco, Portugal, and Ireland.
“Finally, I realize that many of you had hoped there would someday be a United States again. I myself, as a cadet, took an oath to uphold and defend it. But however bereaved we may be, however deep our grief, however much we wish it were not so, the fact is that there is no United States anymore, and the dreams of reviving it are idle fantasies, and can only be dangerous delusional dreams in years to come.
“Now, I have every faith that the common people understand this. The common people, after all, are born practical, and besides, they are well aware that the old arrangements were not really in their favor; many of them can look forward to prospering much more in our newer, fairer world than they ever did under the old United States regime. And since the common people understand it, and gain by it, it is only a victory for democracy that we listen to them and pursue the independent and free Commandancy of Manbrookstat according to their wishes.”
Rollings tried to keep his face impassive as the mob surrounding their pen cheered and whooped. Apparently some of the people nearer the barriers were less good at hiding their feelings, for the crowd was jeering and throwing things at some of them, and the militia slowly, reluctantly, halfheartedly was trying to make them stop.
When the uproar had quieted, the Commandant went on. “Now, my friends and fellow citizens, you also see before you the business, educational, and political leadership of our Commandancy. These are of course people who did very well, back before.
“And then they continued to do well as the world moved, at first, toward re-establishing the old regime, and putting the United States of America back together.
“But as we have noted, there is no possibility now of a Restored Republic. Any hope for a Restored Republic, now, would be an aggressive plot to preserve wealth and privilege, or to gain more of it unfairly.
“So we can very fairly look at these citizens and ask, ‘Can we trust them? Will they work toward the new, democratic Commandancy, and for the common good?’ And, to be blunt, I am sure some of them won’t, but fellow citizens and good friends, let me point out to you that I have worked with many of these people, and know them, and like them, and that I am equally sure that most of them will make a full commitment to the success of the new Commandancy, and it would be the very height of injustice to treat them with suspicion or to vent anger from any bygone unfairness on these hardworking, upstanding people who have made our city a much better place to live.
“Therefore, we’re going to do the following, and I really do think it is all we will ever need to do. We’re going to ask each family, or as many of its members as were in the city this evening, to come forward, onto the rostrum here, and swear an oath of allegiance to Manbrookstat, to the Commandancy, to the citizens of the Commandancy, and of course to me personally as well since I am serving you as your Commandant. Then once they have given their oaths, our militia or our Special Assistants will escort them peaceably back to their homes, and they will peaceably go about their normal business tomorrow, under the fair and democratic laws of the Commandancy, just as they did under the laws of the old United States. We have a number of them to get through tonight, so I’ll ask you to hold your applause till the end.”
The first family pulled out of the crowded pen and pushed into the light, not roughly but firmly, were the Theards; Rollings knew them slightly, as the owners and operators of a large fish market. Henri Theard seemed very relieved to see his wife, three daughters, and elderly mother, and they all repeated their new oath of allegiance with calm acceptance.
After a smattering of clapping, the Commandant reminded everyone to hold applause till the end. The Theards were escorted from the stage and out into the night.
That set the pattern until the Commandant called up the Steigers. Joseph Steiger had several adult grandchildren and ran the city’s compost industry, which was rapidly turning large parts of Staten Island into truck gardens. In the business community, he was an outspoken public critic of the Commandant, and fifty-star flags flew from every building in his operation. It was clear that the family was being pushed more than helped onto the platform, and that it wasn’t easy to find places for all of them to stand.
“And now the Steiger family will take the oath. Please repeat after—”
Old Joe Steiger bellowed, “Like hell we will. This bullshit is treason, blatant treason, and—”
Doubtless, the Commandant had planned it.
The Special Assistant behind Joseph Steiger whipped out a heavy, short piece of pipe and brought it down on Steiger’s head in one savage motion. Steiger fell to his knees, moaning, and the Special Assistant struck again, knocking him to his face, kicked him in the ribs, and brought the pipe down on his head so hard that the thud was audible where Rollings stood.
The crowd was silent for a moment, and then someone laughed, and then many of them did. Maybe that first guy that laughed was a plant, Rollings thought. But everyone that laughed after him, they weren’t all plants. The mob’s with the Commandant.
The Commandant said, “Now we will continue with the oath. Mrs. Sharon Steiger, if you will lead—”
Joe Steiger’s wife (or was she already his widow?) screamed a few words of denunciation before the same Special Assistant, with the same pipe, knocked her down. The way she twitched on the little stage looked more like a spasm than a struggle. The mob was still laughing, but with a nervous, hysteric edge.
The Commandant sighed with just a hint of impatience. “Since the oldest members of the family won’t lead, let’s try a younger one. Tory Steiger, please step forward.”
The girl was tiny, maybe ten years old and small for her age, and trembling. The Special Assistant stood behind her, not even concealing the length of pipe, and the Commandant said, very gently, “Sweetie, you just need to say the words.”
Tory’s mother said, “Do what the Commandant says, honey, it will be all right.”
“Yes, exactly,” the Commandant said. “And the rest of your family will speak along with you.”
They did, mumbling, and it was conspicuous that when the Steiger family left the stage (except for the oldest generation, who were carried down the steps and dumped into a cart), there were numerous armed men around them, and they went into the dark in a different direction.
At last the Commandant called for the Rollings family. Deanna had already bumped, WE SAY IT to him and he’d bumped back HELL YES. As they were led up the steps, Rollings’s wife, Matilda, and their other daughter Uhura, joined them.
It was easier than he thought it would be; he said it loudly, clearly, and firmly, just as, when drug addicts had robbed his dental practice, he had always spoken politely and clearly so that they would have no cause to harm him. It was over in no time and he didn’t even feel like he had to shower or brush his teeth
afterward. I suppose if you truly understand that an oath given under duress is meaningless, then it just doesn’t matter much. Thanks for Ethics 202, Professor Blaine.
Their two militia guards (it looked like the Commandant was using militia for the more cooperative, less suspect people) had walked them back over the Brooklyn Bridge, and they were a few blocks from the house, when a voice said, “Is that the Rollings family?”
“Yeah.”
The man who stepped out of the shadow and into the lantern light wore a long coat and a black scarf around his face, and held up a Special Assistant’s badge. “The Commandant wants this asshole’s sloop searched tonight, and we want him and his family there while we do it, so they can help—and so we can remind them they want to help. Sounds like there’s a lot of stuff on there that has never been recorded for tax purposes, a lot of small valuable pocket stuff.”
The militia men, probably thinking there would be a chance to fill their pockets, were immediately, happily willing to comply. So was Rollings, but he made sure it didn’t show. Deanna bumped against him.
G?
He bumped back
HE
and contrived to rub against Matilda, who bumped
DUH IM HIS MTHR
Rollings was nervous and scared that his son’s deception might be exposed, but soon he reflected that had Geordie been a completely different person, he might have been good at Special Assisting. Within two blocks, by dint of overbearing nitpicking, Geordie had the militiamen discouraged and trudging along aimlessly as they made their way to the Brooklyn wharfs. As he pretended to rough up his family, he cut his father’s bonds and slipped a knife into his hands; after another block he quietly said, “Now,” and they heard a startled, soft cry of pain behind them. Rollings sprang forward and slid the knife into their front guard’s throat, two quick stabs that silenced him and left him dying on the sidewalk. Two years ago I’d’ve puked; but between pirates, muggers, wreckers, and that guy I think was probably an assassin, it’s kind of a technical business, like taking out a badly fractured wisdom tooth.
When Rollings looked back, the one that Geordie had knifed was lying still. “All right,” Geordie said. “Let me douse that lantern out, Pops, and you all stick close to me. Should be enough moonlight to make it to Ferengi without needing to show a light.”
As they climbed the gangplank, Rollings muttered, “I would’ve thought they’d have had a guard on this ship.”
“They did, Pops. Where’d’ya think I got the outfit and the badge?”
Ferengi had been deliberately kept fully stocked for a long voyage, and the Commandant’s men hadn’t disturbed anything. The land breeze and the tide were in their favor, and Geordie knew the harbor well; when the moon rose, just before midnight, they were well clear.
“Man, one thing I won’t miss, it’s that broken Statue of Liberty,” Matilda said. “Broke my heart every time I came over to Manhattan. Did you hear that Commandant’s got convicts out there in chains every day, cutting up the fallen-off arm-and-torch, so he can sell it for scrap? Besides being crass, and a fascist dictator, he has no sense of irony.” She drew a deep breath. “Love the smell of the air, and I don’t mean just the salt water. What time is it?”
Rollings said, “Moonrise was going to be just before midnight, and there’s not even a glow on the horizon yet. So it’s not late. I don’t think we should chance a light till we’re further out to sea and we’re running before a good stiff breeze.”
“Well, we’re all safe for the moment. Sorry we lost the business, Jamayu, but that’s the world nowadays.”
Rollings laughed. “Heck, ’Tildie, if I start worrying about the past I’ll soon be sorry that I’ll probably never do another root canal. We got the fam, we got Ferengi, we got skills and our health.”
“Yeah, that’s a cargo of blessings, isn’t it? Well, then, has anybody thought about where we’re going, yet?”
“There’s nothing north, Europe’s too far away and a bigger mess than here, that leaves south,” Rollings said. “We could probably live okay in the Christian States, but we’ve got the range to go farther. If we can trust Whorf’s last letter, St. Croix sounds like a decent place to do a little trading, shipping, and salvaging. What do you all think?”
“I think whether we’re going to Savannah, St. Croix, or Rio, we sail exactly the same for the next week,” Geordie said, “and come dawn, I’m going to want someone to relieve me at the helm, which means somebody ought to get some sleep, right now, and we have a week to talk all this out.”
“Nothing to argue with there,” Rollings said.
“I’ll stay up for this watch with you,” Uhura said. “We can figure out rotation later. Pops, Mom, you’ve had a day and I think you ought to go sleep.”
In the skipper’s cabin, as they settled into their familiar, beloved bunk, Rollings asked his wife, “How come we’ve got such great kids?”
“Proper culling,” she said. “You just never heard the splashes when I’d toss the dumb, mean, ugly ones over the side.”
It was an old joke, shared as comfortably as the bunk itself, and with half a thought more about how lucky he was, he fell asleep.
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. RUINS OF PALE BLUFF. ABOUT 9:30 PM CENTRAL TIME. MONDAY, MAY 11, 2026.
“Now, heave, heave, heave!” Nathanson shouted, and the old phone pole moved forward and under the trip bar. “Trip her!”
The other crew hauled on their lines, dragging the trip bar down and pushing the tall pole’s tip down into the hole.
“And heave!”
The pole seated in its hole, slid a little in and down, and rose as the main line hauled it upward. With a thump, it slid into place, and while the guy lines still held it, the crew dumped rocks and dirt around the base; in a minute or so, it was secure enough to stand for years.
Nathanson turned and waved to the men standing by the big bonfire, who hurled in shovels and buckets full of ripped-up books from the town library and school. The fire roared up in a great burst of blazing pages, wiping the stars from the sky and sending orange light dancing up the pole to where General Phat’s body was attached by many wrappings of old electric wire.
The drums boomed out a quick, infectious rhythm, and the crowd cheered and sang. Others ran forward to help throw all the paper into the bonfire, making it blaze higher and prettier still, and a huge circle of dancers wove around the immense fire until it burned down, and at the urging of the leaders, they sat down to listen to Lord Robert.
He stood on the high platform with the fire lighting him from the side, and began, “As you all know, True Daybreak and traditional Daybreak have joined forces, and we have made the country from the Wabash and the Ohio to the Lakes all ours. The enemy army is now only trying to find their way out, trying to run away while they still can. They are shattered. I proclaim that this is now the Domain of Lord Robert!”
When another long burst of drumming and dancing had subsided, and he was growing impatient, Robert continued, “Now, there was a condition attached to this. Traditional Daybreak has said to us, via Glad Ocean here”—he actually embraced the old bony bitch, and smelled her unwashed body as he did, to make his point, and she beamed up at him—“that it would send tens of thousands of fighters, and it has. It pledged to make this victory possible, and it has. And now . . . traditional Daybreak says, their price for their help has been, now throw it all away. Let us not have what we have fought for.”
The crowd moaned, some with the onset of Daybreak seizures, some old-school Daybreakers booing him, and many of his own True Daybreak people excited and getting ready.
His arm slipped from an embrace of the woman to a forearm wrapped around her throat, and he began to squeeze. “Glad Ocean here, Glad Ocean is the teacher of the Daybreak that does not work, the spoiled and ruined Daybreak that will rob you all—” Robert was squeezing her neck and she was beginning
to struggle desperately. “And I say, that is a bargain we don’t need to keep. We needed this victory, and so did Daybreak, and now we are done with each other!”
The crowd was milling; fights were breaking out, some people were trying to flee, others suffering seizures.
“The old Daybreak of your old tribes demanded that if you came here to fight by our sides, I would then lead you on a huge fucking raid from here all the way across the plains, to break and shatter plaztatic civilization wherever we find it—and then die!
“You all know that Daybreak tells you to kill as many people as you can and then die yourself! They want us to clean out the plaztatic assholes, scrape them off the world, and then lie down and die on top of them and free the planet. Never have kids, never raise a family, live out your life as a slave or a soldier, die for Daybreak! Die for Mother Earth because . . . because it’s a lie!”
He nodded at Bernstein and Nathanson. Bernstein went to grab Glad Ocean’s master, super-duper extra powerful spirit stick from the slave carrying it; when the slave resisted, Nathanson felled him with a hatchet chop to the face. Bernstein wrenched the spirit stick away and hurled it high into the air like a javelin, so that it came down in the very center of the bonfire. “Daybreak is broken!” he shouted. “Long live True Daybreak!”
Robert was screaming his message over the uproar, not worrying because his own side knew it and was shouting something similar as they fought back and forth with their tribal allies. “True Daybreak says—live in the beautiful world you have made! True Daybreak says—fish in those streams when they run clean again! True Daybreak says—sit by a warm fire and enjoy your freedom! No slaves! Keep your babies and raise them! Clean Earth and real freedom!”