Chapter 28

The radios carried by the Marine detachment had died even before the SUV's, but a mirror from a shaving kit sufficed as a makeshift heliograph, and a simple set of signals had been arranged. The NCO in charge of the Embassy guards reported to Cabell and Knight when the flashes were seen. “Sergeant Foster signaled that there is a group approaching. I've told him to report in person to give us the details, but you might want to start getting ready for a visit.”

Knight nodded. “A friendly one, Gunny?”

The man shrugged. “If they aren't, that's my department, sir. The rifles still work, after all. But the signal was for an open approach, so I'm hoping it's a delegation.”

Cabell thought about it as the sergeant returned to his duties. “They must know that electronics isn't working here, so letting us come through with cars is either a test on their part, or ignorance of how they work.”

Knight nodded. “Could be both. Might be a test to see which of our gadgets still works here, as well as a test of what we will do without them. Are you up for riding camels or horses?”

Cabell chuckled. “Let's hope it's horses.”

“Amen to that.”

Foster reported in about five minutes later. Unlike most of his colleagues at the N'Djamena embassy, he had Changed - into a fennec fox, appropriately enough for this posting. Gunnery Sergeant Marlowe brought him over to report to the Ambassador directly. “Looks like a full squadron of horse cavalry, sir. Flag standard, pennons, armor and lances, the whole bit. A good dozen horses being led, either remounts or possibly they want to take some of us along with them after they get here. All humans, as far as I could see, no Changelings.”

“Hmmm.” Knight pondered the situation. “Sergeant... you know how the Muslims feel about Changelings. Our policy is to enforce our rights to appoint diplomatic personnel as we see fit, but... I'll leave this to your own choice. It will probably be very uncomfortable for you, and possibly dangerous, if we bring you along, and I will need to send a few of you back with the motor pool, since the vehicles won't go any further. There won't be any negative marks on your record if you decide you'd rather go back to N'Djamena.”

Foster took only a moment to decide, grinning at his superior. “Oh, I'll put up with any crap I have to, sir. If this goes fubar, you just might need a Desert Fox to get you out. And while I'm no Rommel, I can pretty much vanish into the desert now and pop out where they least expect me.”

Knight smiled at him and offered a handshake. “Good man. You'll be our standard bearer, then, if this is a friendly delegation. Gunny, take the sergeant here and break out one of the flags for him to carry.”

* * * *

Haroun made a point of watching the encounter between the Americans and his delegation, with Mahmoud again by his side. The officer in charge of meeting them was not at all happy when the Americans insisted on bringing the fennec Changeling as their flag-bearer, but in the end backed down rather than turn away the entire Embassy over the issue. “Interesting, Mahmoud. What are your thoughts on this?”

Mahmoud, for his part, was furious. “They insult us deliberately. They bring an animal as one of their party, and give him a place of honor! And not only an animal, but a dog! The Prophet, may peace be upon him, tells us that such are unclean.”

“Not a dog, Mahmoud. A fox. And remember that the Prophet said that they may be unclean, but that they may still be used for the work that Allah has intended them for. It is well for Sayid that he decided to allow this. The leader of the Americans was quite right; the Embassy is subject to the laws of their own land, and they may appoint whomsoever they wish.” He chuckled. “I understand that they once sent an Ambassdor of Nubian skin to a land whose leaders had declared his kind to be of low status.” He nodded to himself. “It is not an insult, as such. It is a statement of their own prerogatives.” He thought for another minute, then nodded again. “Mahmoud? Make sure that this is known – the American fox is under my protection. Let no one offer him insult based on his form.”

The major-domo bowed, rather stiffly. “I hear and obey, my Prince.”

Haroun waved a hand towards the door. “See that you do. You would do well to control your anger, Mahmoud. It is not wrong to feel it, but to let it control you, or blind you to the cleverest path - that is a mistake.”

The reply was more thoughtful, if not quite calm. “I... I see, my Prince. I shall try.”

Haroun turned back to his mirror as Mahmoud left the room. <This Mohammed they all revere had some most peculiar prejudices. I hope it will not take the entire Cycle to train them out of my new subjects.>

* * * *

The President actually stood to shake her hand when she arrived at the Oval Office. “Good to have you back, Dr. Lowe. How was your Pacific tour?”

She smiled. “Mostly enjoyable, aside from that little affair over Manila. I'm anxious to see what they've turned up about our Moro friends while I was visiting New Zealand. Pele sends her compliments, by the way. She actually showed up at the airport while they were refueling to make sure I was all right. She'd heard about the incident somehow.”

“Did she have anything to say about this fox-person?”

Lowe twitched an eyebrow. “That fox-person is -Amaterasu-. The patron deity of the Shinto religion, sir. The Japanese revere her, or they would if they knew she was there to be revered. I think she got tired of that a while back and only talks to her family and a select few outsiders now. Pele... heh. Pele considers her on a par with Coyote and Loki, I believe. Pranksters, and not serious enough for her tastes. But she doesn't have any major problems with any of them, interestingly enough. Gives some credence to Loki's version of events in regards to Thor and the Aesir.”

Boehner looked a bit sour at that. “Which means we still have the problem of Thor having better PR than he deserves, don't we? Well, maybe he'll wander off and bother the Russians first, if we're lucky.”

The wolf frowned in turn. “Wouldn't count on that, sir.”

“No, I won't. It would be nice, though.” He sighed, and changed the subject. “I gave the go-ahead to Ambassador Knight to make contact with Haroun's Empire of the Sahara on your recommendation. Apparently they've been well received, but communications in and out of the new Embassy are going to be slow. Radio systems don't seem to want to work there.”

Lowe nodded. “Not a surprise, really. Haroun's another one whose strengths are in the mana part of the cycle. I'm going to suggest to State that we have some kind of signal that doesn't depend on messengers. The satellites still work, so a prearranged daily pattern of flags or night-time lamps on the Embassy roof? If something goes wrong, we'll know as soon as the next photo pass goes overhead, even if we don't know what. It'll do as a stop-gap until Stardancer's people put together something to replace radios.”

Boehner nodded. “Sounds like a good idea. Go ahead and implement it. And now, today's briefing if you would? I've got a meeting with Reid and Cantor in a half hour...”

* * * *

31 DEC 2013
New York, New York.

“And switching to live feed from Westminster Bridge in 3...2...” The image on the 'active' monitor shifted to the view over the bridge towards Parliament and the tower of Big Ben. Fireworks lit the night sky over London as the clocks crept toward midnight. On the screen, the local British hosts were starting the countdown to the New Year, while the American second string celebrities overseeing the beginnings of the parties on the western shore of the Atlantic took a quick break, five hours before local midnight.

“Feed running at 2.1 seconds delay. Local affiliates at 4.9 seconds delay.” The signals traveled up and down from orbit on each leg of the journey, a significant distance even at the speed of light, and signals processing added even more delay. The computers balanced it all, keeping things coordinated with the time signals from the world-wide network of atomic clocks. The monitor screen showed the crowds in England chanting as they approached New Year's Day in Greenwich Mean Time. “Five! Four! Three! T--”

The image on the monitor screen wobbled, then blinked out completely, leaving a harsh buzz of static. A moment later, the feedback signals from the cable networks accepting the satellite feeds vanished as well. The chief engineer on duty was out of his seat even as the techs tried to regain the lost signals. “What? Not now!”

One of the techs motioned to another bank of monitors. “It's not just us, Chief. Everyone's signal just collapsed. “Even Fox, and they're out of Atlanta.”

The satellite coordinator waved for attention. “Synchro signal went offline at exactly midnight GMT, Chief. Something buggered every last one of the atomic clocks. Let's hope they can get them back again. In the meantime...” He growled as his equipment refused to cooperate. “Blasted digital signals. If they're not perfectly matched, they won't let -anything- through. The old analog stuff at least gave you a -fuzzy- picture if the signals didn't mesh completely.”

Half dozen monitors came back up with local feeds from New York and Philadelphia. “Okay, DC is back online.”

A few seconds later another set lit up, this time from cities across North America. “Denver and Paris are back up.” Twenty seconds after the crash, the monitors were steady again, and a replay of midnight in London was beamed out to the affiliates. The chief engineer sat back down, wiping his brow in relief. “What just...”

* * * *

“...happened, Dr. Carpenter?”

The Presidential Science Advisor looked worried as he answered. “It would appear that something may have Changed at the stroke of midnight, Zulu time, Mr. President. Not much, but apparently the electronics governing the communications net... hiccuped. Just a little, but enough to disrupt the sensitive timing signals used for telecommunications.”

“Is there any permanent effect, Doctor?”

Carpenter shrugged. “Too early to tell. But if there isn't, there will be soon enough. I believe this was just an example of what will happen as the Change continues.”

Lowe nodded. “This is what the Eldest warned us about, sir. Gradual change to pure mana, with the most sensitive gear failing first. The fact that it was a world-wide phenomenon at the stroke of midnight, Universal Time...”

“Means that it was related. This magic business seems to operate on rules that are affected by human conventions, perhaps even human belief, as strange as that may sound.” Carpenter sounded as if he considered this a personal insult.

“So how are the steam engines coming along?”

Carpenter smiled. “We're making good progress, sir. We've reactivated a good dozen of the old museum exhibits at Steamtown, including the Big Boy. We're using them as training platforms now. The rail people tell me they're actually quite impressed by the amount of power they'll put out. The Big Boy alone can handle the load of four diesel-electrics.”

Boehner raised an eyebrow. “That good? Why did we ever give them up?”

Lowe chuckled. “Because they are maintenance hogs, sir. Lots of intricate moving parts, and steam itself is a lot more corrosive than diesel fuel. But we'll manage. At least it'll mean a lot more jobs in the transportation sector.”

Boehner laughed in turn. “Well, good. More jobs might make it easier to stomach the increased cost of hauling things around the country.”

Carpenter sighed. “We can hope so, at least.” He continued his report. “We're not as far along on steam farm equipment and trucks, but we're making progress. There never were a lot of them to start with, steam just wasn't as efficient on the smaller scales. But we've learned a lot in the past century, and if we're stuck with them because electricity is failing we'll do a better job this time around. No way around the fact that they're going to require a lot more lead time to start than turning a key to activate a starter motor, though. Everyone's going to have to slow down a bit.”

Lowe nodded. “I think we should be looking at decentralizing things, too. This business of One Big Warehouse and deliveries in the nick of time is going to collapse very quickly when the computers start going down. We really ought to be pushing to get away from that concept -before- it becomes mandatory.”

The President nodded. “Back to small neighborhood stores, then?”

Lowe nodded. “As the cars die, definitely will be needed. Maybe a word to the big chains to start the process?'

Carpenter snorted. “They'll hate it. Too many of 'em won't want to change their business model until it blows up in their faces.”

Lowe shrugged. “Their problem, not so much ours. As long as -someone- is ready to pick up the slack if – or when - they collapse.” She twitched an eyebrow in the President's direction. “I would hope, sir, that the nonsense of 'too big to fail' has been quietly buried?”

Boehner frowned. “Wouldn't bet on it. I'll just have to veto anything that tries, and hope that they don't spend enough money on votes to override me.” He turned to the next item on the list. “Anything new about Thor?”

“We've figured out where he was hiding in Iceland. He's not there any more. I've asked the Coast Guard and the other coastal defense forces to keep their eyes open for longboats...”