militia. The responsibility for internal security lay squarely on the shoulders of Governor Jackson Blackstone, who simply claimed to be doing the best he could with what he had.
‘I totally agree with you, Sarah. If we had our own troops down there, instead of having to rely on the Texas Defense Force, I think you’d see these attacks drop away completely. There’d still be a few raids and even killings in some of the more remote locations, because a lot of genuine bandits come up north through Mexico. But make no mistake, I believe some of the bandits, particularly these road-agent gangs, are indulged by Fort Hood, even if they’re not directed by them. I know things aren’t as bad as they were last year, but these gangs still make life difficult for our people. They create a lot of fear and uncertainty in the Mandate, and that makes them a good thing in Blackstone’s book. It doesn’t take much effort to do nothing, after all, and that’s what he’s been doing on this issue. Sweet fuck-all.’
He waited to see how she would react to such a bald-faced accusation of villainy. The Secretary for ICE nodded quietly, her lips pressed together.
‘That’s my understanding,’ she said. ‘It’s certainly the belief of those settlers we’ve already sent down there, and you’re right, it makes it very difficult to place suitable candidates into the settlement program for the Mandate. But I ask again, what are you going to do about it? A dedicated frontier militia would solve most of the problems overnight.’
A sour expression creased the Chief of Staff’s features. ‘Agreed. But our memorandum of understanding with Fort Hood does not allow us to deploy militia into the Mandate. Blackstone only agreed to waive administrative control of that land when we agreed to leave policing the interior and securing the boundaries to the TDF.’
‘Oh my god, Culver,’ she replied, clearly exasperated. ‘We just spent the better part of two hours complaining about him not keeping to the letter of that agreement. Or the spirit of it. Or anything. If he doesn’t play by the rules, why should we?’
He smiled like a mischievous child. It was amazing how someone like Sarah Humboldt would get upset about his way of describing things, demand that they do the right thing in a legal manner, and then advocate chucking the rulebook out the window when it suited her. A moralising, self-righteous, liberal hypocrite, Jed decided. At least they were far easier to manipulate into action than others.
‘Feel the power of the dark side, Sarah. I am with you one hundred per cent. But the President is a firm believer in best practices, and that does not include reneging on our agreements while we bitch and moan about other people not holding to theirs.’
The wind shrieked louder for a second, smashing a tree branch into the highest pane of his window with such force that he thought it might break. It knocked free a large clump of snow, which fell to the ground outside with a muffled thump. Secretary Humboldt jumped a little in her chair. Opposite her, Jed pushed himself back from the desk so he could open one of the drawers and retrieve a folder. He dropped it on the desk and pushed it a little way towards her. He explained as she opened it.
‘I’ve been keeping tabs on the settler situation down in Texas. Just informally. I’m sure you have much better records. Statements of interview with survivors, crime-scene photographs, that sort of thing. I have a little bit of that, but mostly press reports. They’re pretty thin, as you can see. The frontier really is the great unknown again. We’re not quite back to the pony express, but it can still take a few days for news to get from the outlying homesteads back to one of our settlement centres. And, of course, very few media organisations have the resources to send their people that far out into the badlands. Not for an unremarkable story.’
A deep crease appeared between Sarah Humboldt’s eyebrows. ‘I don’t know that I would call it “unremarkable”, Mr Culver,’ she countered. ‘Our people are being run off their land, and some of them are being killed. And I don’t know whether or not Fort Hood is conniving at this - that would be an extraordinary allegation - but they’re certainly not moving heaven and earth to stop it happening.’
Culver dismissed her sense of outrage. ‘I’m afraid it is the very definition of an unremarkable story, Sarah. Not just compared to a bloodbath like New York, but to life anywhere else on the frontier. We have trouble securing the homesteads a hundred miles out from Kansas City - hell, we’ve even had raiders down in the Willamette Valley. You don’t get very far beyond the edge of Seattle or KC without stumbling into brute creation. This is a huge country and it’s mostly open for the taking. There’s still thousands of pirate raiders on the East Coast, thousands more up in Canada drifting down over the border as it suits them, and hordes of real bandits coming up from the south and the Caribbean. A couple of raids here and there in Texas might mean something to
Frowning as she leafed through the folder he had given her, Humboldt calmed herself a little. ‘You didn’t invite me in here to complain about the world. What’s on your mind, Mr Culver?’
He gave it a moment, as though thinking over what he might say next. But Jed had long ago made up his mind.
‘I need information, Sarah. And please stop calling me “Mr Culver”. You make me feel like I’ve done something wrong.’
She smiled, and he continued.
‘I need your files. Or copies of your files, at least. Everything you have on all of the attacks on our people down in the Mandate.’
The confusion on her face was evident. ‘Well, those files are confidential,’ she began. ‘But if the President’s office requested them, I’m sure there’d be no problem making them available … Although I must admit, I’m confused as to why they’d be of interest now. The attacks have tapered off. Not entirely, but they’re not nearly as bad as in ‘06 or early this year.’
‘I need them now because I have need of them now, Sarah. Simple as that,’ said Culver. ‘And the President’s office won’t be requesting them. Ever.
An old ship’s chronometer took up some of the space on the bookshelf to Jed’s right. Even with the sound of the storm, its solid tick-tock timekeeping seemed loud.
‘I see,’ said Humboldt.
‘No you don’t, Sarah. You never will. But if you want to secure the future of your settlements down in the Texas Mandate, and ensure that those responsible for attacking them in the past meet with some form of justice, this is what it will take.’
‘Might I ask why?’
‘It is best if you do not know,’ replied Jed Culver. ‘Trust me.’
10
NORTH KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
She worried about the horses. The snow had been falling for hours and now lay in a thick, white shroud over the park. Sofia pressed her nose up against the enormous plate-glass window that formed one entire wall of their loft apartment, offering a view of the park across the road, where they kept the horses. One of her neighbours, a creepy-looking man with a long shaggy beard, coaxed his animals out of the herd with something in his hand. He hitched them to a wagon that had been made from tubes and steel mesh welded together over a pair of axles fitted with bicycle tyres. As the combination pulled away, Sofia was surprised that the horses hadn’t flipped the contraption. It had to be impossibly light.
She had never actually counted the horses, but from many hours of standing at the window and gazing out over the parkland, she estimated there might be two or three dozen roaming around down there. The city was happy for its citizens to keep their horses in this way. For many people, they had become as important as cars had once been. And as important as horses had been before that, she thought.
So the city authorities - or maybe it was the government out in Seattle, she wasn’t sure - let people graze their horses and other animals in the public parks, which were otherwise used as market gardens. A good deal of Kansas City’s food supply normally lay out there, in the warmer months. Today, having to peer through the snow, she could make out a few hardy goats and dairy cattle. There was only the most basic stabling for the animals when the weather turned bad, though, and Sofia worried that their horses, Flossie and Marvin, would suffer in the cold. She had named both, of course, much to her father’s dismay.
Maybe later she would run some apples out to them. Papa wouldn’t get too upset about that. Being trapped inside was giving her a severe case of the crazies, in any case, and if he got upset, so what.
Truth be told, she didn’t care a damn about what her father thought at the moment. He was off enjoying
