The Lotus Eaters

able to use it in a given area before the enemy show up . . . before it's turned on.'

The engineer turned from the jammer and led Grishkin to a different, larger, table.

'This is the most subtle project we have,' he said. On the table stood a small remote piloted vehicle, a Zion- designed Molosar II, built under license in Balboa. 'This doesn't screw with the location of the receiving set much, it hovers overhead, collects signals from those satellites that are most nearly overhead, delays them, and shoot them down in a 60 degree cone. This convinces a GLS receiver in the cone that it is much, much lower than it really is.'

Grishkin understood immediately. 'It makes aircraft navigation and artillery fire direction computers think they're much lower! Ha! The planes will fly too high, the artillery will shoot too far.'

'Well . . . at least until they catch on,' said the engineer had answered with a smirk.

* * *

Of course for that, Carrera thought, we'll have to have a pretty good idea where the artillery is and where the aircraft will fly through. Hmmm . . . note to Training Branch, of Cazador Tercio: Troops trained in maintaining deep hide reconnaissance positions.

And, thinking about deep hide and reconnaissance  . . .

Carrera pressed a button on the intercom on his desk. 'Lourdes, honey?'

'Si, Patricio?'

'I was just thinking about your fringe benefits and I've decided you have a legitimate grievance. Why don't you bring your bargaining committee to my office and we'll see if we can't . . . ummm . . . hammer out something fair.'

Unseen by her husband, Lourdes shivered. She was always so desperately horny after she had a baby. It was even worse than when she was pregnant. The strength of her hormone driven desire was nearly a physical pain.

'Patricio,' she answered in a husky voice, 'that is just so tacky. I'll be right up.'

Chapter Twenty-two

Neither reason nor emotion can be taken in excess.

Reason, in itself and standing alone, is a totally inadequate basis for maintaining a society. This is, indeed, the great flaw of the intellectual—far more so than his obsession with sex, his arrogance, and his selfishness—and why he is as much a danger to society as an asset and an ornament. Reason cannot tell the typical voter that he should not grant himself X largesse from the fisc when the penalty will not be paid until Y generation, a century down the road. That necessary restraint comes from an emotional commitment to future generations, and to the culture, values, and traditions of the society of which the voter is a part.

Indeed, once the practice of robbing the fisc is well established, reason must lead the voter to 'get mine, before it's all gone.'

Alternatively, a completely unreasoning and totally emotional commitment to society and its culture can lead to stagnation, to being surpassed by cultures somewhat more rationally based, and to destruction of that home culture in the general competition.

As with many things, toxicity is in the dose.

—Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,

Historia y Filosofia Moral,

Legionary Press, Balboa,

Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468

Anno Condita 472 Pashtia, Terra Nova

It was under three hundred miles from the capital to the land of the tribe of Alena. That was, however, as the crow flew and no crow flew over the Indicus Koh mountains, not unless it carried its own air with it. This high, even the tranzitrees, those green-on-the-outside, red-on-the inside, botanical stores of poison to intelligent life, grew stunted and withered.

And it was cold, so cold. Atop his shaggy mountain pony, so different and so much less comfortable than his accustomed thoroughbreds, Hamilcar Carrera tried like the man he was not yet quite to control his shivering. His breath, and that of the pony, came out in a frozen pine tree in front of his face.

'Iskandr,' said Alena, riding beside the boy on his left just as her husband, David Cano, rode to the right. 'Iskandr, this is as bad as it gets. Soon we will begin the descent downward.'

'I'mmm . . . alllll . . . rrright,' the boy ground out. 'It's just so . . . fu . . . so cold.'

Cano smiled. He knew where the boy had picked up his command of vernacular. Every legionary with whom he'd come in contact had been an instructor. And he'd lived among the legions all his life.

Cano rode to the boy's right because it was his military duty to shield the little body from any bullet that might come. For his wife, Alena, that duty was religious. As far as Alena was concerned, Hamilcar—Iskandr, to her—was the reincarnation of Alexander, Avatar of God, and the man, once grown to manhood, who would lead her tribe to glory again. There was not a man, woman, boy, or girl of Alena's tribe who would have hesitated a nanosecond to lay down his or her life for their Iskandr. And most had not yet even laid eyes on the boy.

No matter, faith saw with the heart, not the eyes, listened with the heart, not with the ears.

Three hundred miles was the distance. On the straight and level, on good, full sized, horses, it might have