The Caryatids

"So Djordje: Would you please tell Vera, just for me…" Sonja stopped, at a loss for words. She had no idea what to say to Vera. She hadn't said a word to Vera in nine years.

"Vera is not at her best lately either," said George, and his worried tone rang in her head like a bronze bell. "No one knows where Vera is-she's alive, but she's hiding in the woods somewhere in some death zone. Sonja, give up whatever you think you're doing there. Come stay with me in Vie

"What? Why on Earth would I do that?"

"Because you'll survive, woman! Like I'm surviving! I'm not like you, and Vera, and Radmila! I don't want to save the world! I'm just a fixer, I'm a logistics man! But listen: The world is changing. The world is not collapsing-or, at least, not as fast as it was doing before. The world is turning into something we never imagined. My shipping business is great! Global business is heading for a big, long, global boom!"

"I can't visit you there in Vie

"You did what ? What, again? You married someone? Are you serious?"

"My husbands are always serious."

"Montalban doesn't know anything about this new marriage of yours," said George thoughtfully. "That's going to be big news to John Montalban."

"You tell John Montalban that I am his black angel. Tell John I'm your big, long, global boom. Tell John I'm his giant supervolcano."

"Oh Sonja, poor Sonja. Now I know you're not yourself. Come on: giant supervolcanoes? We don't believe in giant volcanoes, do we? That's talking nonsense."

"Here in Jiuquan, all the people believe in that nonsense. The Chinese are convinced that a volcano will explode in America and wreck the world's climate."

"Why, because the Chinese wrecked the climate the first time?"

"Yes they did. With American help. And because here in Jiuquan, tomorrow's second climate crisis won't even slow them down. Not anymore. Not in the glorious future!"

"Sonja, it is definitely time for you to leave those cult compounds in China and rejoin the real world," said George solemnly. "No volcano will do anything that matters for ten thousand aeons. Exotic Chinese superstitions from inside some weird space bubble, that's what you're talking about. You've had enough of that. That won't work out for you. Trust me."

"Weather scientists were right when they said that the Earth's climate would crash. Why should geologists be wrong when they're predicting the same thing? Science is the truth. Science is science. Science is the future."

"Oh, what astronaut crap you're talking now! How many rich and famous scientists do you know? Did you ever see one lousy scientist get his own way in the real world? They're all hopeless eggheads full of make-believe theories!"

George drew a breath-she could hear him puffing in the busy cores of her new eardrums. "Sonja, please. When you were out there in the field-crusading to save civilization, or whatever-I cared about that, I helped you! You remember how may times I helped you go save your favorite Chinese civilization? But now they're trying to kill you right there in their own spaceport! What kind of 'civilization' is that to save?"

"This is China. Their system works differently."

"Look, I manage global logistics, so I learn something new every day," George boasted. "I can traffic in people like you! I'll export you from China. I'll export you right here to Vie

Finally, Sonja was touched. Inke Zweig. Good old Inke. She had once spent a family Christmas together with Inke, when George, thankfully, wasn't around.

First, Inke took her to Mass, insisting that she kneel and pray. Then Inke took her home, and Inke got very drunk on dainty, reeking, German herbal liqueurs. Then Inke, sobbingly, told Sonja all about her life. Inke vomited up her soul right at her kitchen table.

It was a boozy, sisterly, holiday heart-to-heart, all about Inke's house, and her kitchen, and her kids, and her favorite cabbage and sausage recipes, and the will of God, and her husband, and Inke's grinding, life-blighting fear of her hostile and terrible world.

Inke was intelligent-she was perceptive enough to know that the world was in lethal danger-but Inke was too timid to do anything useful.

So, Inke had married, instead. Inke had forfeited every aspect of human agency to the man in her life. Inke had hidden herself in her thick fog of housework and piety, where she could cook, pray, and have babies.

And this strategy even made sense for the woman, this self-abnegation was Inke's version of a heroic act. Inke Zweig was a sweet and tender and vulnerable creature. Inke loved her kids dearly. Inke's kids were even great kids, because they didn't know one single useful thing about reality. They thought their mom and dad were terrific and all-knowing and proud and prosperous.

Her kids even loved their aunt Sonja, for no particular reason that Sonja understood. They gave their aunt Sonja fancy Christmas presents from prestigious Vie

"Sonja, you are family: Inke always says that. Inke would love to look after you," George promised. "You wouldn't have to see me at all! I'm on the road most days. You could have your own private wing of the mansion! Or-if my global business keeps booming-you can have your own apartment building!"

"Vie

"Sonja, you won't survive. To get killed-like our others were killed? — that was tragic. But to want to be killed, like you so obviously want to be killed? That is sheer foolishness!"

"Djordje, suppose that I go to Europe, and I lose my temper there, and I kill you ?"

"Oh, you would never do that!" George lied. "Any more than I would ever kill you. "

Sonja thought about his proposal for all of fifteen seconds. No, his sad, meager, bourgeois little notions wouldn't do.

"George," she told him sweetly, "I want you to help me leave Jiuquan."

"Great, great! Excellent news! Now you're talking sense! You name the date!"

"I want you to find some Provincial Reconstruction Team-Acquis, Dispensation, whoever-located in central Asia. Well outside the borders of China, out in the desert, where the wild people are. Get them to put in a formal request for my aid and expertise. It's always much easier for me to travel outside China when the state has the formal documents."

"All right, fine, one small moment here," said George, "let me use my correlation engine! With this amazing new business tool, I can change your life from right here in my chair! My new network engine is Californian! In ten years the whole Earth will have a new economy!"

Sonja's keen ears heard George busily tapping at keys. "'Scythia'?" George said, almost at once. "Would 'Scythia' do for you? Scythia is a poststate disaster region in the middle of Asia. You could go anywhere in Asia and claim you were going to 'Scythia. "

"I know about Scythia. I also need special travel gear, George. Some private-militia, hunter-killer, Scorpion-tag-team, covert-penetration gear." Sonja paused. "That's not for me. It's a wedding gift."

This demand made George unhappy. "You know that I stopped facilitating that market. Those years were the bad old years. Those years are behind both of us now."

"I'm sure you didn't forget how to globally traffic in arms."

"Sonja, don't say that sort of thing about me. That hurts my feelings. I am paying to do this for you, and I will not pay to see you get killed in a desert. I want you to not get killed, that is my program. Forget rushing into the wild desert with many big guns. That is not practical."

"I have to leave here. I'm attracting trouble. So I have two choices: space, or the desert. We have no ma