executive order on water rights next week."
"What a coward." Sarah adjusted Spider's pillows, noted his shallow breathing. A short, paunchy gnome and brilliant mathematician, Spider had led the Jewish resistance during the early years of Muslim rule, hiding in the tunnels under the capital for twenty years. Jews were no longer hunted, but the decades spent without sunlight or fresh air had taken a toll. "Wait until the people find out Brandt's in negotiations to give Aztlan water rights to the Colorado River itself."
"The people ?" Spider's voice cracked. "You're a historian, you should know better."
"Have you heard from Rikki?" asked Spider. "I wanted to ask him--"
Sarah shook her head.
"Do you know where he is?"
"Yes." The word left a bad taste in her mouth. "Honoring a request from General Kidd."
Spider patted her hand. "No wonder you look worried."
Sarah and Rakkim had argued before he left. They were doing a lot of that lately.
Let General Kidd send someone else, she had said.
There is no one else.
There's always someone else.
I'm the one he asked.
No, said Sarah, you're the one who said yes.
There had barely been time to make up before he left early that morning, and the making up was just a prelude to the next argument. Terrible thing to be in love with someone as hardheaded as herself. Better she had married a weakling from a good family, a foppish modern who did as he was told. Still...there was something to be said for making up with Rakkim as dawn streaked the sky.
"It's good to see you smile," said Spider. "You've been too serious lately."
"Can you blame me?"
"Surviving dangerous times requires a sense of humor," said Spider. "That's why I love Rikki. I wish he was here now."
"Me too," said Leo.
Sarah blinked back tears, annoyed at herself for her weakness. "I...I want you both to see something." She pulled a thumb projector out of her pocket, sent the wallscreen flickering, replacing Presidente Argusto with a cityscape breaking up, jumpy.
Leo rummaged in his ear with a fingertip. "Where are we?"
"Washington, D.C.," said Sarah.
Leo involuntarily curled into his chair.
The camera panned across a street filled with rubble and stalled cars, zoomed in on a ragged American flag lying against the curb. An insulated boot entered the frame, nudged the flag. Found this in an office at the Pentagon, drawled the voice-over, the sound muffled. Probably some general's. Very rare. Open for bids.
For an instant the cameraman's image was reflected in a sheet of cracked glass, a wiry man in a decontamination suit, his sunken cheeks visible through the plexi-hood, hair plastered against his scalp. The dirty bomb had done more than incinerate D.C.; it had started a chain reaction in the covert facilities that ringed the capital, the very sites whose wall of directed gamma radiation was intended to protect the city. Forty years later the capital was still a hot zone.
"This footage is from Eldon Harrison, one of the scavengers working the D.C. site," said Sarah. "You'd be surprised what they find, and there's an international clientele of collectors and historians eager to buy. I purchased a White House license plate from this particular man for the university a few years ago. Encased in leaded acrylic, of course--"
"D.C.'s a deathtrap," said Leo. "Don't they know that?"
"They know it better than anyone," Sarah said, "but the locals have to feed their families. They gear up in surplus decon suits and homemade adaptations when they go on salvage runs...and they die young. The lucky ones, anyway. They call themselves zombies, proud of the risks they take."
"They should call themselves dumbasses," said Leo. "Why don't they move?"
"Because their people have lived there for three hundred years and it's home," Sarah said. "And sometimes they find things that can make them rich overnight. Last year, a piece of the Declaration of Independence sold to a private collector in Capetown for seventeen million Mandelas."
"What a coward." Sarah adjusted Spider's pillows, noted his shallow breathing. A short, paunchy gnome and brilliant mathematician, Spider had led the Jewish resistance during the early years of Muslim rule, hiding in the tunnels under the capital for twenty years. Jews were no longer hunted, but the decades spent without sunlight or fresh air had taken a toll. "Wait until the people find out Brandt's in negotiations to give Aztlan water rights to the Colorado River itself."
"The people ?" Spider's voice cracked. "You're a historian, you should know better."
"Have you heard from Rikki?" asked Spider. "I wanted to ask him--"
Sarah shook her head.
"Do you know where he is?"
"Yes." The word left a bad taste in her mouth. "Honoring a request from General Kidd."
Spider patted her hand. "No wonder you look worried."
Sarah and Rakkim had argued before he left. They were doing a lot of that lately.
Let General Kidd send someone else, she had said.
There is no one else.
There's always someone else.
I'm the one he asked.
No, said Sarah, you're the one who said yes.
There had barely been time to make up before he left early that morning, and the making up was just a prelude to the next argument. Terrible thing to be in love with someone as hardheaded as herself. Better she had married a weakling from a good family, a foppish modern who did as he was told. Still...there was something to be said for making up with Rakkim as dawn streaked the sky.
"It's good to see you smile," said Spider. "You've been too serious lately."
"Can you blame me?"
"Surviving dangerous times requires a sense of humor," said Spider. "That's why I love Rikki. I wish he was here now."
"Me too," said Leo.
Sarah blinked back tears, annoyed at herself for her weakness. "I...I want you both to see something." She pulled a thumb projector out of her pocket, sent the wallscreen flickering, replacing Presidente Argusto with a cityscape breaking up, jumpy.
Leo rummaged in his ear with a fingertip. "Where are we?"
"Washington, D.C.," said Sarah.
Leo involuntarily curled into his chair.
The camera panned across a street filled with rubble and stalled cars, zoomed in on a ragged American flag lying against the curb. An insulated boot entered the frame, nudged the flag. Found this in an office at the Pentagon, drawled the voice-over, the sound muffled. Probably some general's. Very rare. Open for bids.
For an instant the cameraman's image was reflected in a sheet of cracked glass, a wiry man in a decontamination suit, his sunken cheeks visible through the plexi-hood, hair plastered against his scalp. The dirty bomb had done more than incinerate D.C.; it had started a chain reaction in the covert facilities that ringed the capital, the very sites whose wall of directed gamma radiation was intended to protect the city. Forty years later the capital was still a hot zone.
"This footage is from Eldon Harrison, one of the scavengers working the D.C. site," said Sarah. "You'd be surprised what they find, and there's an international clientele of collectors and historians eager to buy. I purchased a White House license plate from this particular man for the university a few years ago. Encased in leaded acrylic, of course--"
"D.C.'s a deathtrap," said Leo. "Don't they know that?"
"They know it better than anyone," Sarah said, "but the locals have to feed their families. They gear up in surplus decon suits and homemade adaptations when they go on salvage runs...and they die young. The lucky ones, anyway. They call themselves zombies, proud of the risks they take."
"They should call themselves dumbasses," said Leo. "Why don't they move?"
"Because their people have lived there for three hundred years and it's home," Sarah said. "And sometimes they find things that can make them rich overnight. Last year, a piece of the Declaration of Independence sold to a private collector in Capetown for seventeen million Mandelas."
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