"Well, we were, yes. It wasn't quite this good, but it was good. Till the Abolition. Till I started doing eighteen-hour days. I could have chucked it your father wanted me to- but I thought, no, this is it, the greatest turning point I'll ever see in my lifetime. If I want to live in the world, I have to do this first. So I did it, and I lost him. Both of you."
"It must have hurt you terribly. I was young and didn't know-I only knew that it hurt me."
"I'm sorry, Laura. I know it's late, but I apologize to you."
"Thank you for saying that, Mother. I'm sorry too." She laughed. "It's funny that it should come to this. After all these years. Just a few words."
Her mother took her glasses off, dabbed at her eyes. "Your grandmother understood.... We never have much luck, Laura.
But you know, I think we're working it out! It's not the old way, but it's something. What are nuclear families, anyway?
Preindustrial.
"Maybe we can work it better this time around," Laura said. "I blew it so much worse than you did that maybe it won't hurt her so much."
"I should have seen more of you when you were growing up," her mother said. "But there was work and-oh, dear, I hate to say this-the world's full of men." She hesitated. "I know you don't want to think about that right now, but believe me, it does come back."
"That's nice to know, I guess." She watched the Christ- mas tree, flickering between two Japanese wall hangings.
"Right now the only men I see are journalists. Not much fun there. Ever since Vienna took the leash off, they're running hog wild."
"Nakamura was a journalist," her mother said thought- fully. "You know, I was never very happy with him, but it was certainly intense."
They had supper together, in her mother's elegant little dining nook. There was wine, and Christmas ham, and a little spread of newly invented scop from Britain that tasted like pate.' They could have eaten pounds of it.
"It's good, but it doesn't taste much like pate," her mother complained. "It's a bit more like, oh, salmon mousse."
"It's too expensive," Laura said. "Probably costs about ten cents to make."
"Well," her mother said tolerantly, "they have to recoup the research fees. "
"It'll be cheaper when Loretta grows up."
"By then they'll be making scop that tastes like every- thing, or anything, or nothing ever seen."
The thought was a little horrifying. I'm getting older,
Laura thought. Change itself is beginning to scare me.
She put the thought away. They played with Loretta until it was her bedtime. Then they talked for another couple of hours, sipping wine and eating cheese and being civilized.
Laura wasn't happy, but the edges were off, and she was something close to content. No one knew where she was, and that was a blessing. She slept well.
In the morning they exchanged presents.
The Central Committee had gathered in Rizome's' Stone
Mountain Retreat. There was the new CEO, Cynthia Wu.
And the committee itself, enough for a quorum: Garcia-Meza,
McIntyre, Kaufmann, and de Valera. Gauss and Salazar were away at a summit, while the elderly Saito was off somewhere taking the waters. And, of course, Suvendra was there, happy to see Laura, unhappily chewing nicotine gum.
Rusticating. They were doing a lot of that lately. Atlanta was a major city. There was always the whispered suggestion that it might become Ground Zero.
It was a typical Central Committee feed. Lentil soup, salad, and whole-grain bread. Voluntary simplicity-they all ate it and attempted to look more high-minded than thou.
The telecom office was a Frank Lloyd Wright revival, gridded concrete block pierced with glass, stacked and under- cut in severe geometrical elegance. The building seemed to fit
Mrs. Wu, a' schoolteacherish Anglo in her sixties who had come up through the marine-engineering section. She called the meeting back to order.
"Thanks to contacts," she told them, "we're getting this tape three days early, and before the network cuts it. I think this documentary serves as a capstone to the political work we pursued under my predecessor. I propose we use this opportu- nity, tonight, to reassess our policy. In retrospect, our former plans seem naive, and went seriously awry." She noticed de
Valera's hand. "Comment?"
"What exactly are you defining as success?"
"As I recall, our original strategy was to encourage the data havens to amalgamate. Thus maneuvering them into a bureaucratic, gesellschaft structure that would be more easily controlled-assimilated, if you will. Peacefully. Is there any- one here who thinks that policy worked?"
Kaufmann spoke. "It worked against the EFT Commerz- bank-though I admit it wasn't our doing. Still-they're legally entangled now. Harmless."
"Only because they fear being killed, Suvendra said.
"The anger of the Net is become an awesome force!"
"Let's face it," de Valera said. "If we'd known the true nature of the F.A.C.T. we'd have never dared become in- volved! On the other hand, the havens did lose, didn't they?
And we did win. Even our naivete worked to our advantage-at least no one can accuse Rizome of having ever supported
FACT, no matter how badly the havens pestered us."
"In other words our success was mostly luck," Mrs. Wu said crisply. "I agree-we've been fortunate. With the excep- tion of those Rizome associates who paid the price for our adventuring." She didn't have to glance at Laura to make her point.
"True enough," de Valera said. "But our motives were good and we fought the good fight. "
Mrs. Wu smiled. "I'm as proud of that as anyone. But I can hope we'll do better in the present political situation.
Now that the truth is out-and we can make what we laugh- ingly call informed decisions." She sat down, touching her watchphone. "Let's roll the tape."
The lights dimmed and the display screen at the head of the table flashed into life. "This is Dianne Arbright of 3N News, reporting from Tangiers. The , exclusive interview you are about to see was made under conditions of great personal danger to our 3N news team. In the wilderness of Algeria's
Air Mountains, isolated, without backup, we were little short of hostages in the hands of the now notorious Inadin Cultural
Revolution.... "
"What a glory hog," Garcia-Meza rumbled.
"Yeah," McIntyre said from the comfortable gemeineschaft darkness. "I wish I knew her hairdresser."
Footage followed, with Arbright's narrative. White jeeps jouncing cautiously through rugged mountain scenery. The news. team in dashing safari outfits, hats, scarves, hiking boots.
A sudden crowd of Tuaregs on dune buggies, emerging from nowhere. The jeep surrounded. Leveled guns. Real alarm on the faces of the news team, jerky cinema verite.
Cameras blocked by calloused hands.
Back to Arbright, somewhere in Tangiers. "We were searched for tracking devices, then blindfolded.' They ignored our protests, bound us hand and foot, and loaded all four of us into their vehicles, like sheep. We were hauled for hours through some of the roughest and most desolate territory in
Africa. The next footage you will see was taken in the depths of an ICR 'liberated zone.' In this heavily guarded, supersecret mountain fortress,- we were finally brought face to face with the so-called strategic genius of the ICR-ex-Special
Forces Colonel Jonathan Gresham."
More footage. They caught their breath. A cave, crude walls blasted out of living rock, dangling lightbulbs high overhead. Arbright sitting cross-legged on the carpet, her back to the camera.
Before her sat Gresham, turbanned, veiled, and cloaked, his massive head and shoulders framed in a spreading wicker peacock chair. Behind him at left and right stood two Tuareg lieutenants, with slung automatic rifles, black bandoliers, ceremonial Tuareg swords with jeweled hilts and tasseled scabbards, combat knives, grenades, pistols.