War World X: Takeover

by John F. Carr

  Abdullah rushed to Patrick, who told him to pack up, suggested he tell people he and Patrick were off for another scouting expedition. Their meeting was not for another nine hours. His packing took only a few minutes, as he had few belongings. He didn’t dare draw a weapon from the armory, that would have required authorizations he didn’t have. He spent the night staring at the roof of his tent, unable to sleep. He was up an hour before the meeting and spent his time sitting on a rock, staring at the two towns and fortress, so close to each other, yet so full of hatred.

  He was excited to be leaving with Faryal, but now his thoughts began to turn to the future: Would they be safe traveling? How would he support her? Would they be accepted at their destination?

  The time finally came and he went to the corrals. Patrick was not there yet. Instead, there was a stranger, a short, thin man with a thick black beard and a large dark turban on his head. The man was dressed in a coat and trousers and armed for travel, with two pistols and a rifle. He had a heavy pack on his back and a large wicker basket in his arms. Abdullah turned to walk in the other direction, but was halted by a loud whisper.

  “Abdullah,” the man said with a strange voice. “It’s me.”

  “Me who?” he replied, confused.

  “Faryal, you silly man. Now get over here.”

  Abdullah gaped. Yes, she was the right size, but hardly the right shape. She must have bound her breasts. And now that he looked more closely, the beard did not look very real. He gaped in surprise as she continued to speak in low tones.

  “Here, take this chit to the stable master. It is for six mounts and saddles. For you, Patrick and me. My name is Jamal, if anyone asks. Take the chit now and get our horses. I am not sure how convincing this disguise would be at close range.”

  Just then, Patrick came up. “And who might you be?” he said to Faryal with a grin. He was obviously more quick on the uptake than Abdullah.

  “Jamal,” she replied and then turned to Abdullah, “Now, go and get our horses.”

  Off Abdullah went.

  “Where is Faryal?” Tawfiq asked his wife as he strode into the capsule. “It is past time for breakfast.”

  “She is safe,” A’isha answered.

  “What do you mean, safe? Where is she?”

  “I sent her off with Abdullah and Patrick.”

  “WHAT?” Tawfiq roared. “With the African and an infidel? Without a chaperone? Without troops to defend her? Sent her off where? How far?” He glared at her, his hands clenched into fists at his side.

  “Calm down, my love, sit and have a cup of tea so we can talk.”

  Tawfiq’s breath huffed out and he sat, although the tea she gave him remained ignored in the mug at his side.

  “She loves him, you know,” she said softly.

  “Loves who? The boy?” Tawfiq asked. “What does love matter when we are moving toward war and moving more quickly than I would like?”

  “She loves Abdullah. And it is precisely because of that coming war that I sent her away,” A’isha answered.

  “But my men, my generals, all of them compete for her hand as a reward. You know of Barbarossa’s interest.” protested Tawfiq.

  “Our daughter,” she answered sharply, “is not a reward. As parents, her happiness is our responsibility. If rewards are a factor, you should think about a reward for the man who brought us birthing chambers. More and more of the capsules are being converted, and more and more pregnancies are successful. We are even earning money from townspeople from Eureka who want to use them, in fact, people from across the steppes.”

  The mighty Tawfiq, heir to the title of Mahdi and ruler of the Faithful, began to bend to a higher power. “But Abdullah is just a boy. And although he is smart, and even brave, he is no warrior and no leader.”

  “And that is why he is a good match,” she said. “He is young and so is she. She will be far happier with someone her age, than with one of those old bears in your inner circle. This is our struggle, not hers.”

  “And where will they go?” Tawfiq said as he slumped into the chair.

  “They will be going to live with Patrick’s family, in the Shangri-La Valley. From what he tells us, they are good people there with folk of many nations and many faiths, living together in peace. You see the friendship between Abdullah and Patrick. That will give them a strong ally in their new home. They can build a house, and live in peace.

  “And,” she continued, “they can keep our son safe.”

  Tawfiq sat up straight, his hands gripping the arms of the chairs like claws. “Nabil?” he whispered.

  “Yes, I have sent our boy with him,” she said, trying to be practical despite the tears that ran down her cheeks. “Think about this. If we succeed, you and I will know where to find them and can rejoin them. And if Allah does not will us to succeed—and he may not—our family will live on. That is the true mission of the Faithful, to survive from one generation to the next.”

  Tawfiq was silent for a long time before he replied quietly. “I would have liked to have said goodbye to her and my son.”

  “But would you have let them go if you knew?” A’isha asked.

  “Perhaps not,” he conceded. “And what you say makes sense. Worrying about the children would have distracted me.” He paused for a moment.

  “Perhaps you should follow them,” he continued sadly.

  She went over to him and knelt beside his chair, caressing his cheek. “That would be impossible, my love,” she said quietly. “I could not live without you, nor you without me.”

  There was an urgent knock at the door. They rose to their feet and he kissed her.

  “My duties…” he said.

  “I know,” she replied. “Go.”

  And he went.

  Abdullah, Faryal and Patrick rode out of the camp at dawn, in single file, each leading their extra mount. The guards recognized Abdullah and waved him through without hesitation. Faryal’s disguise was sufficient to get them through a cursory viewing, although Abdullah couldn’t believe that it was sufficient to fool a careful observer. She balanced her large basket on her saddle bow, refusing to accept help from the others and refusing to let them tie it to the horse behind her.

  They began their long climb into the western hills. They were now high above the towns behind them, not wanting to turn south until they were well away from civilization. There were thunderclouds forming over the plain and it looked like a rare day of rain was coming. They were high enough that the base of the clouds was below them, and the path grew steeper as the day grew longer. Finally, Faryal asked for a halt. “I can’t stand this beard any longer. The glue is making my face itch.”

  They dismounted while she disappeared into the brush, still carrying her basket. Abdullah and Patrick disappeared to the other side of the trail to relieve themselves and share a small drink of water. When Faryal emerged a few minutes later, she was beardless but also had a baby in her arms. The empty basket was hooked over an elbow.

  “What…” sputtered Abdullah.

  “Surely,” she said, “you recognize my brother, Nabil.”

  “Yes,” said Abdullah, “but what’s he doing here?”

  He saw Patrick smiling, his hand over his mouth in an attempt to conceal his mirth. When Abdullah glared at him, he said, “Don’t look at me, it’s news ta me just like it is ta you.”

  “Nabil is here for the same reason I am,” said Faryal. “My mother wanted him safe, wanted both of us to leave. So we gave him a draught to make him sleep and here he is.”

  “Your mother?” asked Abdullah.

  “Yes, silly, how do you think we got these mounts and had such an easy time leaving? Do you think yourself so clever as to accomplish an escape like this so simply?”

  Now Patrick was chuckling openly. Abdullah realized that she was right, realized that he had not given their escape as much thought as he should have. And then he realized something else.

  “Your face,” he said. “It’s uncovered.�
�

  Now she smiled at him. “Yes, it is. And I plan to keep it that way. From what Patrick says, it is the custom in our new home. Certainly, he has seen enough women’s faces that he will not be unnerved by it.”

  She took off her turban, and began untying her hair, brushing it back with her fingers. The thick, dark hair that had been in his thoughts ever since he had seen it. She smiled at him. “And certainly, a woman can reveal her face to her betrothed.”

  Now Patrick was laughing openly. Abdullah closed his mouth, although he didn’t remember how it had opened. “Betrothed?” he sputtered.

  “Yes, of course. Do you really think I would let you dishonor me by stealing me away without becoming my husband?”

  Abdullah’s head was swimming. This was what he had dreamed of from the very first time he saw her at the launch facility back on Earth. Her eyes had captured him and he now realized he had not been a free man from that day on. He smiled and began to laugh.

  “Well,” she said, a little sharply. “Do I have an answer? What are your intentions?”

  Abdullah smiled back at her. “It will be,” he replied, “as Allah wills.”

  “Good,” she said. “You are learning already.”

  Patrick whooped and gave them both a hug.

  Faryal fastened Nabil into a harness that snuggled him close to her breast, and Abdullah helped her onto her horse. She leaned down, grabbed the back of his head and brought her lips to his. He was blissful and could see that behind her sarcasm, so was she. Abdullah thought back to the words that A’isha and Tawfiq had shared the day he first met Faryal. Indeed, a good wife was more precious than rubies. He mounted his own horse.

  “Now we must ride,” said Faryal, “We have many miles to go until we reach safety, and the longer we can ride while Nabil sleeps, the better.”

  Behind them, the clouds began to flash with lightning. There were rumbles of thunder echoing through the hills. They turned their back on the storm clouds, riding toward their new future.

  From the closed hearing by the Interior Subcommittee of the United States Senate, 1 September 2073.

  Mr. Bendicks: Why, exactly, does the Administration want to cancel the treaties with the various Indian tribes and transfer the reservations to the public domain?

  Sec. Pendleton: Seventeen years of free movement between national entities, ending in 2065, resulted in thirty-seven million foreigners, uh, extra-nationals, holding permanent residency permits within the United States. Fewer than six million of those persons have applied for citizenship, and according to figures of the INS, fewer than one in eleven is competent in the use of the English language. There are twenty-eight different newsfax publishing one or more times a day in the United States, in eleven different languages. Throughout the states, there are innumerable enclaves in which the principal languages spoken are other than English, notably Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic.

  Mr. Bendicks: Mr. Secretary, one of us has obviously misunderstood the other. Let me repeat my question. Why, exactly, does the Administration want to cancel the treaties with the various Indian tribes and transfer the reservations to the public domain?

  Sec. Pendleton: If the Senator will be patient, I’m coming to that.

  Mr. Bendicks: Please do.

  Sec. Pendleton: Not only the United States of America, but almost every other developed, industrialized nation on Earth, has such enclaves of unrepentant extra-nationals making their social and economic demands but unwilling to naturalize. This administration has gone to considerable effort and expense to absorb these non-American populations that make up more than eight percent of our total population.

  Yet we have other un-Americanized enclaves of much longer standing. I refer to a number of the Indian tribes. In the first seventy years of the twentieth century, major progress was made in Americanizing these people. Some tribes lost their languages entirely. In most of the others, many of the younger people had limited or no ability to speak their tribal language. Then, in the last one hundred years, and particularly in the last seventy years, this healthy trend has been reversed. The children are taught the tribal language from infancy. Most tribes have modernized their languages for twenty-first century use by developing words from old roots, “adapting” American words by adding native prefixes or suffixes.

  If we are to exert legal pressures on these recent immigrants to adopt the American language and culture, we must first eradicate these cultural regressions by the Indian tribes, who, after all, have been recalcitrant for a much longer time.

  Mr. Bendicks: It’s reassuring to know, Mr. Secretary, that we have you in there fighting to Americanize the American Indian. Now, let me ask one more time: Why, exactly, does the Administration want to cancel the treaties with the Indian tribes and transfer the reservations to the, public domain? I’d like you to state it explicitly, if possible, for the record.

  Sec. Pendleton: Senator, the unfortunate cultural recalcitrance of these Indian tribes is rooted in the reservations. The administration has no argument with Indians as a whole. The number who live away from the reservations is five times the number who live on the reservations. Twelve times if we include those who identify themselves as Indian or part Indian and as having more than one-eighth Indian blood, so to speak. The majority of these are from mixed tribal stocks—Cherokee and Kiowa for example, or Jemez and Acoma. They speak only English, and essentially have been assimilated into the mainstream of American culture. To remove the Indian populations from the reservations would result in the completion of Indian assimilation.

  Mr. Bendicks: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I presume you’re aware of the proposals by the Bureau of Reclamation for the large scale pumping of desalinized water to a number of the western reservations, and the establishment of urbanization projects on them. No doubt reservation land would become very valuable then. Who do you suppose would profit from this, if the land was first taken from the tribes and then made available for purchase from the public domain by developers?

  THE COMING OF THE DINNEH

  By John Dalmas

  2074 A.D., Earth

  The army landed at Lukachukai on February 6, 2074. Also at fifteen or twenty other places on the Navajo Reservation. It was a Wednesday. Not that February or Wednesday mean anything now; the calendar is more complicated here. But I remember those things because I am an old man. I forget yesterday, but I remember well what happened long ago.

  My wife and I lived at Mescalero, New Mexico, then, but sometimes we did consulting, mostly on Apache reservations. Strictly speaking, the Navajo are Apaches. Were Apaches. The Spaniards got the name Apache from the Zunis, who used it for all the Athapaskan speaking-tribes that raided them. The Spaniards called the biggest of those tribes “Apache de Navajo,” Apaches of the Fields, because they cultivated corn squash. The Spaniards never did conquer them.

  If you know much about Indians, you might guess from my name, Carl Boulet, that I didn’t start out as Dinneh, as Apache or Navajo. I’m a Chippewa-Sioux mixed blood. My great grandmother told me that the French last name came from one of Louis Riel’s métis refugees from the Manitoba Insurrection in the 1860s.

  But that’s not what you want to hear about. You want to know what it was like to come in exile to this world, and what it was like here in the old days. I will tell you the best I can. I did not talk English for many Earth-years till you came here. Once it was my best language; I had three university degrees, and talked it like you do, better than Chippewa. Better than Mescalero. Now it comes forth differently, even though my words are English. That’s because I have come to think differently, living as we do here.

  The September before the army came to Lukachukai, my wife and I—her name was Marilyn—established a program in applied domestic ecology in several Navajo schools, on a trial basis. It is strange to remember things like that. I was a different person in those days. At the end of January, we went back to see how it was going. On February 6, she was at Window Rock while I’d
driven up to Lukachukai the day before.

  It was noon. I’d eaten lunch, and was in the gym shooting baskets with a couple of teachers. I have not remembered shooting baskets for a very long time. Then the principal hurried in. The army, he said, had just landed at Window Rock, and federal marshals had arrested the tribal government. Troops had landed at Tuba City and Dinnehotso, too; they’d probably landed at every town on the reservation that day.

  Just then it was snowing hard at Lukachukai, which may have been why they hadn’t landed there yet. The men I’d been shooting baskets with didn’t even look at each other. They started for the door. Lemmi Yazd paused long enough to call back to me, “Maybe you better come too.”

  I hesitated for maybe a second, then grabbed my parka where it hung in the teachers’ lounge and followed them outdoors. They scattered; I stayed with Lemmi and we trotted to his pickup; we got in, he lifted it on its air cushion, and we left the parking lot in a hurry.

  “Where are we going?” I asked him.

  “A place we’ve set up in the Chuskas,” he said. “One of the places.”

  Instead of going northeast into the Chuska Mountains on the maintained road, he drove west a little way, then turned north on a small dirt road, not made by engineers but cleared through junipers and pinyons for their trucks. You couldn’t see very far through the snow, which was fine with us. The snowfall thinned and thickened but never stopped. As we got farther north, the land grew higher, and the pinyon and juniper began to be displaced by ponderosa pine. And there the snow wasn’t just today’s new fall. There was snow left from before.

  I worried about Marilyn. It sounded as if, at Window Rock, there’d been no warning. I wondered if I was doing the right thing to go with Lemmi Yazzi. But if she was interned at Window Rock and I was interned fifty miles away at Lukachukai… I turned the radio on in the pickup and got the tribal station out of Window Rock. It was playing America the Beautiful. In English. That made it real to me; the government had taken over.