The Lotus Eaters

At what the GLS told him was two hundred and sixty kilometers out from Atlantis, the pilot killed the engine and cranked it down into the fuselage of the glider. This took several minutes. He then killed every electrical instrument aboard, including his navigational system and the GLS receiver. At that point he was left with a pressure-driven, sensitive altimeter that didn't use any power, a magnetic compass with a glowing needle, and his NVGs, without which he was unlikely even to be able to see the island. Even those being turned on was considered a risk.

' 'An acceptable risk,' ' Montoya quoted. 'I wonder if they'll kill me with laser like the ones on the Dos Lindas, or if they'll use missiles, if the earthpigs use anything so primitive. Or maybe they'll just scramble some kind of aircraft we have not a clue to and shoot me down. Or—and isn't this a happy thought?—I can be the very first pilot shot down by a charged particle beam in the history of this world. Or maybe —'

* * *

'Or maybe,' Montoya said aloud as he slid over the island at eight thousand feet, 'just maybe they can't see me at all.'

For reasons more instinctive than intellectual, the pilot had had a very rough mental time of it as he'd crossed the island's shore. Surely, that would be the point at which they would absolutely engage. But no, nothing happened. He'd crossed the shore, then turned to the right and followed the coast for nearly an hour before he spotted what had to be, by its lights, the major city or base on the island. He'd glided over that too and still, 'Nothing. By God it works. It works!'

He'd had one bad moment, when he came too near to what was apparently the island's major, or perhaps only, air cum space base. There was heavy traffic that passed within a few kilometer or so, UEPF shuttles heading down to ground or off into space. Montoya couldn't help snickering over the UEPF's ignorance.

'And on that happy note, I'm out of here. Fernandez needs to know that the earthpigs can't see Condors. That's a helluva lot more important that joyriding the clouds is.'

There was a chain of low mountains that ran through the center of the island, north-northeast to center to south. Though nothing so impressive as the Atacama range, Montoya was fairly sure he could find a mountain wave to raise his craft for the return journey.

Chapter Nine

We live in an age of institutionalized fraud. Virtually every age in human history has been an age of institutionalized fraud. Whether it be the fraud of the divine right of kings, the fraud of superior genetics, the fraud of the malleability and perfectibility of man, the fraud that freedom comes without a hefty price, the fraud of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the fraud of the possibility of taxing the rich without them passing the tax on to the middle class and poor . . . the list of frauds is endless. To expand upon the Old Earther, Rousseau, man may be born free and live everywhere in chains, but more importantly he is born innocent and is everywhere made a fool of. His chains are constructed of his foolishness.

To a great extent man wants to be fooled; indeed, he insists upon it. In his entertainment he will demand that the most trivial things bring the most profound and certain changes for the good. He will reject the politicians who even attempt to speak truth to him, and embrace most warmly those who lie best. He will insist upon the existence of the free lunch. He will rarely understand that those who shout, 'Power to the people,' really mean, 'Power to those who shout, 'Power to the people.' ' Those who 'speak truth to power' are much more likely to be uttering lies to those whose only power is to cast a vote.

And still, amidst all this fraud, there are things that are real, things that are true. A mother's love for her child, or a husband's for his child and his wife; these are almost always real. That honor, integrity, and courage are the only things one truly owns is true. The penalty a people ultimately pays for submitting to fraud is real. That political power grows from the barrel of a gun is true. The concrete of a bunker and the steel of a cannon; those are real.

—Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,

Historia y Filosofia Moral,

Legionary Press, Balboa,

Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468

Anno Condita 471 Headquarters, 22nd Tercio (ex-351st Tsarist Guards Airborne) Centro de Entrenamiento Legionario, Fort Cameron, Balboa, Terra Nova

The little convoy consisted of a wheeled armored car in the front, with another taking up the rear, a truck carrying a score of fierce visaged, turbaned riflemen, and a single armored Phaeton sedan carrying Carrera, a gravid Lourdes, and their eldest, Hamilcar. As the sedan came to a halt in front of the brown and green painted, arched metal building that served as the headquarters for the 22nd Tercio, ex-Volgan Colonel, now Legate, Ivan Samsonov stood on the wooden steps fronting the Quonset hut and rendered a hand salute. The legate's wife, Irena Samsonova, stood by one side, his adjutant by the other. Irena was a stout women, kindly faced, and dressed in a simple white, knee length frock, suitable for the climate. Of Legate Samsonov's daughter, Yelena, there was no sign.

The turbaned Pashtians were out of the truck and surrounding the convoy before Mitchell even had turned off the sedan's engine. Carrera emerged, too, and held the door for Hamilcar and Lourdes. She looked radiant despite, or perhaps because of, the prominent bulge in her midsection.

Carrera stuck his head in the sedan's still open door and said, 'Mitch, we'll be a while. Why don't you take a break and try some Volgan food?'

Mitchell was easily bright enough to break that code: Nose around and check on everything from morale to hygiene.

'Roger that, boss,' the Warrant answered.

A company of Volgan paratroops sang a martial song as they marched by the headquarters. Carrera could make out the syllables but couldn't understand the words. To him it sounded like:

'Put' dalyok u nas s toboyu,