The Computer Connection

The gate was guarded by Apaches, all no-nonsense courtesy and speaking nothing but Apache. I couldn’t palaver with them; I just kept repeating “Sequoya” in a determined voice. They hocked a tchynik for a few minutes and then the boss of the gate issued me a guide in a hovercraft. He drove me through a tangle of roads and paths to a gleaming marmol wickiup and pointed. There was the Chief in a breechclout with his back to a marble wall, enjoying the morning sun.

I sat down alongside him without a word. Every instinct told me to adapt myself to his tempo. He was silent, deadpan, immobile. Me too. It was a little buggy. He didn’t slap; neither did I. He did one thing that told me how deeply he had withdrawn into his people’s past — he turned over lazily and pissed to one side and then turned onto his back again. I didn’t imitate that. There’s a limit. There’s also toilet training.

After a few hours of silence he lazed to his feet. I didn’t move until he reached down a hand to help me up. I followed him into the wickiup. It was as beautifully decorated as his tepee and enormous; room after room in tile and leather, Hopi scatter rugs, spectacular silver and porcelain. Sequoya hadn’t been guffing me; these redskins were rich.

He called something in what I figured was Cherokee and the family appeared from all directions; Papa, most majestic and cordial and even more of the Lincoln type. (I suspect that Honest Abe may have had a touch of the redbrush in him.) Mama, so billowy that you wanted to bury yourself in her when you were in trouble. A sister around seventeen or eighteen, so shy I couldn’t get a look at her. She kept her head lowered. A couple of kid brothers who immediately charged on me to touch and feel my skin with giggles. Evidently they’d never seen a paleface before.

I minded my ma

They gave us lunch. The Cherokees were originally a Carolina crowd so it was sort of coastal; mussel soup, shrimp and okra, baked hominy, berry corn cobbler, and yalipan tea. And not served on plastic; bone china, if you please, and silver flatware. When I offered to help with the dishes, mama laughed and hustled me out of the kitchen while sister blushed into her boozalum. Sequoya chased the kid brothers, who were climbing all over me, and led me out of the wickiup. I thought it was going to be another liedown in the sun, but he began to saunter down the paths and roads, walking as though he owned the reservation. There was a light breeze and the entire spectrum of poppies genuflected.

At last he asked, “Logic, Guig?”

“No.”

“Then how?”

“Oh, we had a dozen rational possibilities — the Group is tracking them down — but I related.”

“Ah. Home.”

I grunted.

“How long since you’ve had a family and a home, Guig?”

“A couple of centuries, more or less.”

“You poor orphan.”

“That’s why the Group tries to stick together. We’re all the family we have.”

“And now it’s going to happen to me.”

I grunted.

“It is, isn’t it? You weren’t shooting me through a Black Hole?”

“You know it is. You know it’s happened already.”

“It’s like a slow death, Guig.”

“It’s a long life.”

“I’m not so sure you did me a favor.”

“I’m positive I had nothing to do with it. It was a lucky accident.”

“Lucky!”

We both grunted.

After a few minutes he asked, “What did you mean, ‘tries to stick together’?”

“In some ways we’re a typical family. There are likes and dislikes, jealousies, hatreds, downright feuds. Lucy Borgia and Len Da Vinci have been at each other’s throats since long before I was transformed. We don’t dare even mention them to each other.”

“But they gathered around to help you.”

“Only my friends. If I’d asked the Rajah to come and lend a hand he wouldn’t even bother to turn me down; he hates me. If Queenie had come it would have been a disaster; Edison and Queenie can’t abide each other. And so it goes. It’s not all sweetness and light in the Group. You’ll find out as you get to know us.”

We broke off the talk and continued the walk. Each time we passed one of those luxury wickiups I saw handicrafts in progress: looms, pottery wheels, silversmiths, ironmongers, leatherworkers, wood-carvers, painters, even a guy flaking arrowheads.

“Souvenirs for the honk tourists,” Sequoya explained. “We convince them that we still use bows and arrows and lances.”

“Hell, man, you don’t need the money.”

“No, no, no. Just goodwill. We never charge the tourists anything for souvenirs. We don’t even charge an admission fee at the gates.”

God knows, Erie seemed to be up to its ass in goodwill. It was all silence and smiles. Dio! The blessed quiet! Apparently the cushion fence blocked broadcasts as well as unwelcome visitors.

“When they squeezed the nations and tribes out of our last reservations,” Sequoya said, “they generously gave us the bed of Lake Erie for our very own. All the fresh water feeding the lake had been impounded by industry. It was just a poisoned bed, a factory sewer, and they moved us all in.”

“Why not the charming, hospitable South Pole?”

“There’s coal down there that they’re hoping to get at some day. The very first job I had was working on techniques for melting the cap for Ice Anthracite Inc.”

“Most farsighted.”

“We dug cha

“Then what turned this into a paradise?”

“A very great Indian made a discovery. Nothing would grow in the poisoned land except poppies, the Ugly Poppies.”

“Who made the discovery?”

“His name was Guess. Isaac Indus Guess.”

“Ah, I’m begi

“My great grandfather.”

“I see. Genius runs in the family. But why do you call them Ugly Poppies, Chief? They’re beautiful.”

“So they are, but they produce a poisoned opium, and ugly drugs are extracted from it; new drugs, unheard-of drugs with fantastic effects — they’re still exploring the possible derivatives — and overnight, in a drug culture, the reservation became rich.”

“That story’s a fairy tale.”

He was surprised. “Why do you say that, Guig?”

“Because a benevolent government would have taken Erie away from you for your own good.”

He laughed. “You’re absolutely right, except for one thing: There’s a secret process involved in getting the poppies to produce the poisoned opium, and they don’t know it. We’re the only ones who do and we’re not telling. That’s how we won the final war with the palefaces. We gave them the choice: Erie or poppy poison, not both. They offered all sorts of treaties, promises, deals, and we turned them down. We’ve learned the hard way not to trust anybody.”

“The story’s still thin, Chief. Bribes? Blackmail? Treason? Spies?”

“Oh, yes, they’ve tried them all. They still are. We handle them.”

“How?”

“Oh, come now, Guig…”

He said that with such merciless amusement that a chill ran down my spine. “Then what you’ve got, in effect, is a Redskin Mafia.”

“More or less. The Mafia International wanted us to join them but we turned them down. We trust no one. They tried to use muscle, but our Comanches are still a tough tribe — too tough, I think. But I was grateful for that little war. It cooled the Comanche feist and they’re easier to live with now. So’s the Mafia International. They won’t start pressuring again. We gave them a bellyful of traditional barbarism they’ll never forget. That’s our college.”