The Caryatids

"The world is full of skunk labs, Lionel. We can't know every tech project in the world. I'd be guessing-well, I'd bet that these were just the first guys to hit the Return key. They must have scrambled whatever they had on the ground."

The exotic aircraft drew nearer to them. It was floating to Earth rather elegantly, silently, and emission-free. It was like a giant dandelion seed.

"Okay," said John authoritatively, "I think maybe I've heard of these after all. That's some kind of fibrous suborbital pod. It's Acquis. It's European and it's Acquis."

Lionel was unimpressed. "Of course it's Acquis, John. Anybody can tell from the design that it's Acquis. I think it's Italian."

"I think you're right."

"That craft is going to land precisely on our stated coordinates. Like, within a five-meter range. I think we'd better move before it lands and crushes us."

Arm in arm, the brothers took several measured steps away across the desert. The flying device drew nearer. It was stellar and radiant and huge. It was like a flying tinsel chandelier.

"No, it's going to land nearby us," Montalban decided, and the two of them strode back to the robot to await their airborne delivery.

"Los Angeles is the capital of the world," Montalban pronounced. "Say what you will about the Chinese-and I love them dearly, we do business every day-there are a hell of a lot more Chinese in Los Angeles than there will ever be Angelenos in Beijing."

"You sure got that right!"

Montalban drew a triumphant breath. "As we stand here in the gathering dusk of old Asia, it's the brilliant dawn of a new West Coast New Age! It's time to break out the Napa Valley champagne! Tomorrow's regime is Pax Californiana! As a bright and shining city on a hill, we, the last best hope of mankind, are pulling the planet's ashes straight out of the stellar fire!"

"That's the truth!" crowed Lionel.

"Even when we golden Californians were mere American citizens, it was never that great an idea to bet your future against us. I mean, you could bet against us, but-where's the fun in that? If you try to beat us, even if you win, you have to lose!"

Lionel slapped his brother's two extended hands. "We rock! We rule! It's because we've got a shine on our shoes and a melody in our heart! We've got the rhythm!"

The brothers capered like utter fools as Sonja sat in heartbreak, and they laughed uproariously. It was the most glorious day of their lives.

EPILOGUE

WHEN INKE ZWEIG HEARD of the burial plans for her husband's deceased mother, she sensed that such arrangements could not possibly end well. Inke had been to a host of funerals. She had hated every one of them. Every celebration of death permanently drained Inke of some spark of her own life force.

Inke envied the dead at funerals-since the dead didn't have to endure the poorly arranged conclusions to difficult modern lives. The lack of any decent and comforting ceremony was the signature of a world in a near-fatal moral confusion.

What were the so-called Acquis and the sinister Dispensation? How had they vulgarly elbowed their way to the forefront of modern life? Why were people so anxious nowadays to pile on proofs of the stricken mourning on their electronic networks? As if the modern dead had no parents, no cousins, no children, no parishioners, no friends next door, no ties of citizenship. Instead there would be vulgar gold-wrapped bouquets from distant Moscow, remote-control acquaintances burning heaps of Chinese paper cash for the departed on live video links above the coffin...A globalized travesty.

Inke begged George to allow her to stay quietly with the children in Vienna. But, as was his method now-George began piling on all kinds of poorly linked "reasons" to sway her. George had become the addict of some new game he called a "correlation engine," and, since it had caused his business to prosper, he had begun to rely on it in his personal life.

She should see Mljet, George argued, for it was his birthplace and also remarkably beautiful. There was money to be made on the island. John Montgomery Montalban, his firm's biggest business partner, was coordinating the funeral. The great man would certainly take things amiss if Inke did not show up.

All the sisters-Vera, Radmila, Sonja, even Biserka, the crazy one-they had all agreed to come see their mother buried. Inke had always nagged him (as George put it) about meeting all of his sisters. Here, at last, was the golden chance that she should not forgo.

The sisters were asking for her by name. They were also asking to see the three children. It was unthinkable that she not go to the funeral. She had to go.