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DeCastro had better sense than to move, save to raise an eyebrow. He recognized the man in the lead with the sack on his shoulder-Makhno, owner of the Black Bitch-and the CoDo "Specialist" Van Damm, but who was the gray-haired one with the cane? And who were those arrayed beside them, the black woman and the stocky blonde? He might have seen those men in Dock-town, but never those women.
"Ah, Capitan Makhno," DeCastro ventured, "to what do I owe the honor of this visit?"
Makhno gri
DeCastro set his empty hands on the table. He asked, "And how shall I know, se?ors, that this message is from my employer?"
"He can tell you himself," said Makhno, stepping forward. He put the sack down on the table, then stepped back.
Suppressing a mad hope, DeCastro opened the sack. Jomo's head gri
"A wise guest knows when it is best to depart," he said, smiling. "I shall retire to my beloved cantina and former status."
He got up from the table, not too quickly, and started toward the door. An impulse of generosity seized him. He turned to the nearest Simba and offered: "Se?ores, if you are seeking employment . . ."
The Simbas made haste to follow him, the latter two remembering to pick up their fellow from the floor and carry him with them.
"That," said Jane, "was almost too easy. Let's bring the girls in."
But the girls needed no summoning; they came in, shotguns ready, eyes wide with hope. "Did it work?" they yelped. "Are we safe now?"
"Safe, and in full ownership of Harp's Place again," Jane smiled. "You'd better repaint the sign soon . . . and perhaps you'd best put that on a stake outside the door, at least for a few shifts." She pointed toward the sack on the table. "It'll be good news."
The office of Harp's Place wasn't in bad state; DeCastro had left a sizable amount of cash behind, and had not messed the files. The stock was down to nearly zero, of course, but Makhno's a
"The girls own the place, fair and square. You run it with them, and protect them, and in return you and Van Damm share half the profits."
"No complaints, Jane," Brodski smiled. "A nice little retirement business for me and Van . . . ."
"I can imagine," said Jane, through pursed lips.
". . . Uhmm, you know, sooner or later CoDo will come . . . ."
"I know. With any luck, they won't bother me and mine."
"True, but remember, with CoDo comes the Fleet, and they'll favor old Sarge Brodski with their business. 'Trust in the thirst of the Fleet, and you'll die rich,' as the old saying goes."
"Perhaps they'll like to sample the local euphleaf, too-" Jane smiled, getting up. "Take care of yourself, Mister Brodski."
"No fear of that," Brodski replied, watching her go. Yes, he could predict a profitable future for Jane and Docktown-and himself.
One way or another the Fleet took care of its own.
From the closed hearing by the Interior Subcommittee of the United States Senate, 1 September 2073. Mr. Bendicks: Why, exactly, does the Administration want to cancel the treaties with the various Indian tribes and transfer the reservations to the public domain? Sec. Pendleton: Seventeen years of free movement between national entities, ending in 2065, resulted in thirty-seven million foreigners, uh, extranationals, holding permanent residency permits within the United States. Fewer than six million of those persons have applied for citizenship, and according to figures of the INS, fewer than eleven million are competent in the use of the English language. There are twenty-eight different newsfax publishing one or more times a day in the United States, in eleven different languages. Throughout the several states, there are i
Yet we have other un-Americanized enclaves of much longer standing. I refer to a number of the Indian tribes. In the first seventy years of the twentieth century, major progress was made in Americanizing these people. Some tribes lost their languages entirely. In most of the others, many of the younger people had limited or no ability to speak their tribal language. Then, in the last one hundred years, and particularly in the last seventy years, this healthy trend has been reversed. The children are taught the tribal language from infancy. Most tribes have modernized their languages for twenty-first century use by developing new words from old roots, or "adapting" American words by adding native prefixes or suffixes.
If we are to exert legal pressures on these recent immigrants to adopt the American language and culture, we must first eradicate these cultural regressions by the Indian tribes, who, after all, have been recalcitrant for a much longer time.
Mr. Bendicks: It's reassuring to know, Mr. Secretary, that we have you in there fighting to Americanize the American Indian. Now, let me ask one more time: Why, exactly, does the Administration want to cancel the treaties with the Indian tribes and transfer the reservations to the public domain? I'd like you to state it explicitly, if possible, for the record. Sec. Pendleton: Senator, the unfortunate cultural recalcitrance of these Indian tribes is rooted in the reservations. The administration has no argument with Indians as a whole. The number who live away from the reservations is five times the number who live on the reservations. Twelve times if we include those who identify themselves as Indian or part Indian and as having more than one-eighth Indian blood, so to speak. The majority of these are from mixed tribal stocks-Cherokee and Kiowa for example, or Jemez and Acoma. They speak only English, and essentially have been assimilated into the mainstream of American culture. To remove the Indian populations from the reservations would result in the completion of Indian assimilation. Mr. Bendicks: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I presume you're aware of the proposals by the Bureau of Reclamation for the large scale pumping of desalinized water to a number of the western reservations, and the establishment of urbanization projects on them. No doubt reservation land would become very valuable then. Who do you suppose would profit from this, if the land was first taken from the tribes and then made available for purchase from the public domain by developers? . . .
THE COMING OF THE DINNEH
JOHN DALMAS
The army landed at Lukachukai on February 6, 2075. Also at fifteen or twenty other places on the Navajo Reservation. It was a Wednesday. Not that February or Wednesday mean anything now; the calendar is more complicated here. But I remember those things because I am an old man. I forget yesterday, but I remember well what happened long ago.