War World X Takeover

“Where is Faryal?” Tawfiq asked his wife as he strode into the capsule. “It is past time for breakfast.”

“She is safe,” A’isha answered.

“What do you mean, safe? Where is she?”

“I sent her off with Abdullah and Patrick.”

“WHAT?” Tawfiq roared. “With the African and an infidel? Without a chaperone? Without troops to defend her? Sent her off where? How far?” He glared at her, his hands clenched into fists at his side.

“Calm down, my love, sit and have a cup of tea so we can talk.”

Tawfiq’s breath huffed out and he sat, although the tea she gave him remained ignored in the mug at his side.

“She loves him, you know,” she said softly.

“Loves who? The boy?” Tawfiq asked. “What does love matter when we are moving toward war and moving more quickly than I would like?”

“She loves Abdullah. And it is precisely because of that coming war that I sent her away,” A’isha answered.

“But my men, my generals, all of them compete for her hand as a reward. You know of Barbarossa’s interest.” protested Tawfiq.

“Our daughter,” she answered sharply, “is not a reward. As parents, her happiness is our responsibility. If rewards are a factor, you should think about a reward for the man who brought us birthing chambers. More and more of the capsules are being converted, and more and more pregnancies are successful. We are even earning money from townspeople from Eureka who want to use them, in fact, people from across the steppes.”

The mighty Tawfiq, heir to the title of Mahdi and ruler of the Faithful, began to bend to a higher power. “But Abdullah is just a boy. And although he is smart, and even brave, he is no warrior and no leader.”

“And that is why he is a good match,” she said. “He is young and so is she. She will be far happier with someone her age, than with one of those old bears in your inner circle. This is our struggle, not hers.”

“And where will they go?” Tawfiq said as he slumped into the chair.

“They will be going to live with Patrick’s family, in the Shangri-La Valley. From what he tells us, they are good people there with folk of many nations and many faiths, living together in peace. You see the friendship between Abdullah and Patrick. That will give them a strong ally in their new home. They can build a house, and live in peace.

“And,” she continued, “they can keep our son safe.”

Tawfiq sat up straight, his hands gripping the arms of the chairs like claws. “Nabil?” he whispered.

“Yes, I have sent our boy with him,” she said, trying to be practical despite the tears that ran down her cheeks. “Think about this. If we succeed, you and I will know where to find them and can rejoin them. And if Allah does not will us to succeed—and he may not—our family will live on. That is the true mission of the Faithful, to survive from one generation to the next.”

Tawfiq was silent for a long time before he replied quietly. “I would have liked to have said goodbye to her and my son.”

“But would you have let them go if you knew?” A’isha asked.

“Perhaps not,” he conceded. “And what you say makes sense. Worrying about the children would have distracted me.” He paused for a moment.

“Perhaps you should follow them,” he continued sadly.

She went over to him and knelt beside his chair, caressing his cheek. “That would be impossible, my love,” she said quietly. “I could not live without you, nor you without me.”

There was an urgent knock at the door. They rose to their feet and he kissed her.

“My duties…” he said.

“I know,” she replied. “Go.”

And he went.





Abdullah, Faryal and Patrick rode out of the camp at dawn, in single file, each leading their extra mount. The guards recognized Abdullah and waved him through without hesitation. Faryal’s disguise was sufficient to get them through a cursory viewing, although Abdullah couldn’t believe that it was sufficient to fool a careful observer. She balanced her large basket on her saddle bow, refusing to accept help from the others and refusing to let them tie it to the horse behind her.


They began their long climb into the western hills. They were now high above the towns behind them, not wanting to turn south until they were well away from civilization. There were thunderclouds forming over the plain and it looked like a rare day of rain was coming. They were high enough that the base of the clouds was below them, and the path grew steeper as the day grew longer. Finally, Faryal asked for a halt. “I can’t stand this beard any longer. The glue is making my face itch.”

They dismounted while she disappeared into the brush, still carrying her basket. Abdullah and Patrick disappeared to the other side of the trail to relieve themselves and share a small drink of water. When Faryal emerged a few minutes later, she was beardless but also had a baby in her arms. The empty basket was hooked over an elbow.

“What…” sputtered Abdullah.

“Surely,” she said, “you recognize my brother, Nabil.”

“Yes,” said Abdullah, “but what’s he doing here?”

He saw Patrick smiling, his hand over his mouth in an attempt to conceal his mirth. When Abdullah glared at him, he said, “Don’t look at me, it’s news ta me just like it is ta you.”

“Nabil is here for the same reason I am,” said Faryal. “My mother wanted him safe, wanted both of us to leave. So we gave him a draught to make him sleep and here he is.”

“Your mother?” asked Abdullah.

“Yes, silly, how do you think we got these mounts and had such an easy time leaving? Do you think yourself so clever as to accomplish an escape like this so simply?”

Now Patrick was chuckling openly. Abdullah realized that she was right, realized that he had not given their escape as much thought as he should have. And then he realized something else.

“Your face,” he said. “It’s uncovered.”

Now she smiled at him. “Yes, it is. And I plan to keep it that way. From what Patrick says, it is the custom in our new home. Certainly, he has seen enough women’s faces that he will not be unnerved by it.”

She took off her turban, and began untying her hair, brushing it back with her fingers. The thick, dark hair that had been in his thoughts ever since he had seen it. She smiled at him. “And certainly, a woman can reveal her face to her betrothed.”

Now Patrick was laughing openly. Abdullah closed his mouth, although he didn’t remember how it had opened. “Betrothed?” he sputtered.

“Yes, of course. Do you really think I would let you dishonor me by stealing me away without becoming my husband?”

Abdullah’s head was swimming. This was what he had dreamed of from the very first time he saw her at the launch facility back on Earth. Her eyes had captured him and he now realized he had not been a free man from that day on. He smiled and began to laugh.

“Well,” she said, a little sharply. “Do I have an answer? What are your intentions?”

Abdullah smiled back at her. “It will be,” he replied, “as Allah wills.”

“Good,” she said. “You are learning already.”

Patrick whooped and gave them both a hug.

Faryal fastened Nabil into a harness that snuggled him close to her breast, and Abdullah helped her onto her horse. She leaned down, grabbed the back of his head and brought her lips to his. He was blissful and could see that behind her sarcasm, so was she. Abdullah thought back to the words that A’isha and Tawfiq had shared the day he first met Faryal. Indeed, a good wife was more precious than rubies. He mounted his own horse.

“Now we must ride,” said Faryal, “We have many miles to go until we reach safety, and the longer we can ride while Nabil sleeps, the better.”

Behind them, the clouds began to flash with lightning. There were rumbles of thunder echoing through the hills. They turned their back on the storm clouds, riding toward their new future.




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, extra-nationals, 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 one in eleven is 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 states, there are innumerable enclaves in which the principal languages spoken are other than English, notably Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic.


Mr. Bendicks: Mr. Secretary, one of us has obviously misunderstood the other. Let me repeat my question. 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: If the Senator will be patient, I’m coming to that.


Mr. Bendicks: Please do.


Sec. Pendleton: Not only the United States of America, but almost every other developed, industrialized nation on Earth, has such enclaves of unrepentant extra-nationals making their social and economic demands but unwilling to naturalize. This administration has gone to considerable effort and expense to absorb these non-American populations that make up more than eight percent of our total population.

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 words from old roots, “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?