“There’s a prophecy for you,” Maggie observes wryly. “The Jeep of the future.”

Their route carries them past the block-long remains of a Wal-Mart. The store itself stands back from the street, its massive bulk dark through the steel frames of shattered doors. Its parking lot, though, has been transformed into an open marketplace, with a hundred or so booths of timber studs and plywood crowded onto the asphalt. Many of them stand empty, and Kirsten takes that as a hopeful sign that the proprietors have reported as requested to the City Auditorium to be counted and identified. Others are still open for business. A pen on one side holds animal with long, shaggy coats, whether sheep or wool goats she cannot be sure. Another offers stacks of canned goods, looted from the Wal-Mart itself or other grocery chains; still a third displays a double rank of bicycles, a heavy chain run through their rear wheels into a staple pounded into the pavement at each end of the line. Under a sign that proclaims the occupant a “Taylor,” a woman sits at an old-fashioned treadle sewing machine, steadily feeding a garment of plaid flannel under the needle while a man, evidently her customer, stands by in his pants and undershirt. He holds a chicken firmly tucked under one arm. No prices are posted anywhere.

Kirsten has seen marketplaces like this in North Africa and in parts of Latin America.

Most were at least in part tourist traps, designed to bring in American dollars and German d-marks, attracting local business only incidentally and in small volume. And here, in a deserted parking lot, is the wealthiest, most vigorous economy in the history of the world, reduced to trading eggs for a stolen blanket or the mending of a torn sleeve.

A cold lump of fear congeals in her stomach. With it comes the realization that until now she has acknowledged only two possibilities: either they would all die, which has seemed by far the more likely outcome; or they would survive, pass through a rough patch of perhaps a year or so, until society could be restored to something like normality. Of course, some things would be different, with the numbers of men drastically reduced for a generation or two. Power balances would shift. But she has never truly doubted that enough technology, and the technicians to run it, could survive to make the world a reasonably comfortable place once again.

Until now.

And the cold grows more frigid still, a burning inside her. She—she, Kirsten King— is the duly constituted governor of these people, responsible for their safety and welfare in a world where safety is nonexistent and welfare is sufficient firewood to cook a bartered chicken or keep a family from freezing to death overnight. She may not have atomic warheads under her hand, but the burden of others’ lives is no less for that.

My God, how did Clinton do it? Or Kennedy? How did any of them do it who had any sense of obligation to their people?

In the last few blocks before the Auditorium, they encounter actual traffic, and the convoy slows to a crawl. There are pickups from the country side; more bicycles; horses; a wagon or two. Salvaged from the recesses of a barn or an historic home, a nineteenth-century buggy with a folded-down leather top passes them at a smart clip, followed by a teenager on a skateboard. Most folk, though, travel on foot, some carrying small children, almost all carrying a long gun or pistol strapped to a hip or under an arm. All must run a gauntlet of heavily armed and armored MP’s stationed at a temporary gate of pipe and hurricane fencing. They wave through the personal weapons, for the most part, though no one passes without baring his throat or submitting to a metal scan.

The line of APC’s passes through one vehicle at a time, troops and drivers checked as thoroughly as the civilians. Kirsten had argued at length with the Light Colonel commanding the MP’s over that, and finally had had to order him to treat her convoy exactly as he would civilian transport. If she was to lead these people—and the thought of it had kept her awake most of the night—she had to lead by example. She had to be the first and most visible to honor the law. Maggie, sitting beside her, had sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, and had laid her life at hazard to do it. It had never occurred to Kirsten when she took the same oath as the most junior member of Hilary Clinton’s Cabinet, that she would ever be asked to do the same.

An ironic smile touches her mouth. Last and least, and the only one left alive that can do what must be done.

At the doors, her escort form a cordon around her, rifles at the ready, eyes scanning the crowd that turns to stare. Maggie, walking just behind, keeps her own weapon at her side, not openly threatening, but prepared nonetheless. Odd, how that might make her uncomfortable if it were anyone but Maggie. She has never before in her life poached anyone’s lover—has hardly thought of having one of her own, much less taking someone else’s—but she trusts Maggie literally with her life, and not just for Dakota’s sake.

The crowd murmurs as they pass through, and she catches fleeting snatches of their comments:

“. . .Look, son, that’s the commander from the Cheyenne. . .”

“. . .our President now. . .”

“. . . cyborg egghead . . .”

“. . . I thought she’d be taller. . .”

From the door comes a snatch of song, and Kirsten puts up a hand to halt her entourage. A man sits beside the entrance on a folding stool, a guitar propped across his knees and a fold of denim where the rest of his left leg should be. His long, graying hair is tied at the nape with a thong of leather; sunglasses hide his eyes. The melody is an old one, a ballad from the feud-ridden Anglo-Scottish border in the days of the first Elizabeth, but the words are new:

All along the bridge she ranSwifter than any deer;A grenade launcher in her hand,And in her heart no fear.All along the bridge she ran,Swifter than any doe;Behind her her two fastest friends,Great-hearted, ran also.

There are several more stanzas, detailing the destruction of the android army on the far bank of the Cheyenne, praising Dakota’s valor, Maggie’s, Tacoma’s, her own. The cold around her heart is back, glacial cold, and with it panic. Only the prospect of disgrace in Maggie’s eyes and Dakota’s keeps her rooted to the concrete floor of the auditorium, a smile on her face that seems to her as rigid as a corpse’s.

God help me, these people think I’m a hero. A real one, like Dakota and Maggie. What will I do? How can I ever measure up to that?

After what seems like an eternity, the song comes to an end.

God prosper now our President,Our lives and safeties all.And her companions in the fightLet honor bright befall.

Kirsten claps with the rest of the crowd, her face burning. “Harry,” someone cries, “do you know who you’re singin’ to?”

“I’m singin’ to you, you bastard!” the musician rejoins; “Only you’re too cheap to stand me to a beer, Todd Rico!”

“This should stand you to a beer or two.” The soft voice is Maggie’s, behind her, and Kirsten watches as she removes the bobcat earcuff and drops it into the hat on the floor beside Harry. Kirsten’s heart clinches; she has no jewelry, and money is useless. The only thing she has of value is the gun she is wearing underneath her jacket. Slowly she unstraps it and lays it, too, at the singer’s feet. “Thank you for a fine song, Harry,” she says. “Perhaps you can sing it again when Dakota Rivers can hear it, too.”

The singer’s head comes sharply round. “Wait. I know your voice.”

She makes a small, deprecatory gesture, halted abruptly. What was not evident before is now; the man cannot see. “Probably not,” she says quietly.

“You’re King,” he says, equally quietly. “I’ve heard you on the TV.”

She nods, then, feeling foolish, “You have a good ear. That must have been months ago.”

“Nah, I remember voices. I lost my sight back in ’03, in Baghdad, along with my leg. Implants wouldn’t take.”

She wants to stop and talk to him, to ask whether he has always been a singer and how he survived the uprising, but the Captain at her elbow is urging her forward, into the huge emptiness of the auditorium. “Ma’am. The people are lining up.”

Instead she thanks Harry again, shaking his hand, and moves on. Behind her she hears the sound of small items dropping into his hat; he has earned his beer and more this afternoon. She says, “That was generous of you, Maggie. I know that cuff means a lot to you.”

Maggie just shrugs. “I have another; I never wear the pair. That gun, though, should feed him for a month or more—way more, if he throws in the story of how he got it. You’re becoming a legend.”

“You, too,” Kirsten retorts. “And I don’t think you like it any better than I do. Dakota will be—“ She pauses, searching for a word. “Embarrassed,” she finishes lamely.

“Try ‘really pissed’,” says Maggie.

Inside, the room has been cordoned into aisles with rope and stanchions. Huge signs with letters march across the walls: A-B, C-E, all the way to XYZ at the opposite side. Uniformed soldiers, all officers from the bean-counting division, sit behind long tables with stacks of legal pads and note cards. Slowly the people sifting in find their initials and form into lines, all talking at once, many pointing at Kirsten where she stands with Maggie and Boudreaux, back in his normal incarnation, at the front of the room. There must be, she estimates, a couple thousand actually on the floor, with more outside.

“Are you going to talk to them?” Boudreaux asks.

“No, I hadn’t planned—“

“You really should, you know.” Maggie says. “Call it winning hearts and minds. We’ll get a lot better cooperation if the folks think they’re doing their President a personal favor.”

She shoots Maggie a withering glare, but accepts the bullhorn from Boudreaux. “All right. Clear me a spot on the table. They all thought I’d be taller.”

Slowly the crowd quiets. From her perch on the center table, Kirsten can make out faces watchful, eager, annoyed. One young mother bounces her crying baby; a man with a bored expression slaps his hat impatiently against his thigh. Hearts and minds.

“Good afternoon,” she says, her voice echoing from the high walls, distorted and tinny in her own ears. “As most of you know, I’m Kirsten King, and as far as we know, I’m the only survivor from the President’s Cabinet in Washington.

“I need your help. We’ve fought off a major attack by the androids and their allies, but we haven’t defeated them yet. There’s lots more out there where those came from, and there’s humans cooperating with them. We still don’t know what they want or who is responsible for the uprising. Those are things we’re going to have to deal with.

“The people of Rapid City and the troops of Ellsworth Air Base shed their blood at the Cheyenne to keep us alive and free. Our duty now is to keep our laws and our Constitution alive and free, too, to make sure we don’t fall into anarchy or the rule of force. That means we need to do such things as have elections for Mayor and Council of Rapid City. It means we need lawyers and judges. We need free commerce, with fair prices, and we need peace officers to make sure that it doesn’t become profiteering. If you have special skills, if you’d like to serve in office, please let the census-takers know.”

Kirsten pauses, and the quiet lies thick about her. Not a word, not a shuffling foot breaks the silence. The faces turned to her are serious, some clearly worried, all resolute. Hearts and minds.

“You are the free people of the United States. You live in a country founded on law and the idea that every person is valuable. The need for law has never been greater; each person has never been more valuable. I ask today for your help in restoring our nation. We can never go back to what we had; too much has been lost. Too many have been lost.

But we can begin today to reaffirm our Constitution and our laws. And with them, we can be a nation again that can stand against any enemy.

“I ask for your help in that work. Long live freedom! And long live the free people of the United States!”

She lowers the bullhorn, looking out over the sea of faces, dazed. My God, where did that come from? She barely has time for the thought before the wave of sound breaks over her, shouts of “Free-dom! Free-dom! FREE-DOM!” mixed with “Kir-sten!” and “Ells-worth!” tumbling over her in a roar. Then, from amid the shouting, she hears the clear chords of blind Harry’s twelve-string, strumming out a rhythm. Gradually the crowd quiets, and he begins to sing.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,I saw above me the endless skyway.I saw below me a golden valley.This land was made for you and me.