Free Moon Flower by James P. Hogan Page B

decided that Jeff was someone he could risk a joke with. “Well, you’re the historian, Jeff. Line ’em all up against a wall and shoot ’em, and start all over again. Isn’t that how people who’ve had enough have always fixed it in the end? It lasts for a while, anyway.”
    Jeff snorted in an offhand kind of way. “That might have worked when both sides had muskets and barricades, and you were in with some kind of a chance. But nowadays the firepower’s too unequal. How can ordinary guys stand up against tactical nukes and databases that know everything you do? A couple of days ago a whole family in Carson City got blown away for not stopping at a checkpoint. A checkpoint!...” He stopped and gave Shearer a sidelong look. “Hell, what am I saying? I don’t know you. I could end up in a camp for just talking like this.”
    “True,” Shearer agreed. “So go on, you tell me. Why are you talking like this?”
    Jeff shook his head with a long sigh. “I don’t know. Sometimes you just have to let it out. I suppose... you seemed like an okay kind of person.” He checked himself with a mock frown. “You are, aren’t you?”
    “Yes, you don’t have to worry,” Shearer said. He eyed Jeff curiously for a second or two. “You’re not from here, are you?”
    “You mean Occidena?”
    Shearer shrugged.
    “No, you’re right. Minneapolis,” Jeff said.
    New America, where they said they were trying to get back to the constitution. That could explain a lot. However, Shearer had learned that talking politics with strangers was generally not a good idea, and so he didn’t pursue the subject. Instead, he just smiled distantly and looked away. The cafeteria had filled for the midday break. He recognized some faces from their class, and one or two others that he had met while going through the administrative chores on the first day.
    “Looking for someone?” Jeff inquired after a short silence.
    “Oh, not really.... There are some of our people over there. Thomas, and Forrest is with him. What happened to Jerri today?”
    “Jerri?”
    “Isn’t that her name? Tall, slim. Dark hair, sort of reddish, and a kind of pointy face and pouty mouth — not exactly what you’d call glamorous; but sexy.”
    “Oh, you noticed her too, eh?” Jeff grinned knowingly. “That’s right. She wasn’t in this morning. I think she’s from across the other side of the Bay — up in the mountains somewhere. I’m not sure what she does.”
    “You don’t know? What happened to the memory aids?”
    Jeff made a conciliatory gesture with his fork. “You’ve got me.”
    Shearer looked back toward the window forming the far wall. A dredger flanked by a couple of barges had moved into view, heading up the Bay. “I thought I caught hints of an irreverent streak yesterday, when that guy was talking about our sacred mission to export the benefits of our way of life across the galaxy,” he said. “If you asked me, Jeff, I’d say she’s another one of us.”
     

CHAPTER SEVEN
    The tone announcing a call sounded from the concealed speakers in the study of Myles Callen’s residence west of Los Gatos, in the hills midway between San Jose and the coast. He touched a stud on the wristband of his watch to activate the house system and shifted his attention from the list of items to be attended to before his departure for Cyrene. “Accept to current screen,” he instructed. On the desk display that he was using, a window opened to frame the peak-capped face and blue-shirted shoulders of a guard at one of the gates into the community. “Yes?” No doubt it was to advise that Krieg had arrived. The time was about right.
    “Good evening Mr. Callen. I have a Mr. Jerome Krieg at the gate, asking for you. His ID checks okay.” While the guard was speaking, the view in the frame changed to a shot of Krieg’s craggy, close-cropped head scowling from the driver’s window of an automobile.
    “Yes, that’s all right. He’s expected,”