Chapter 6
Peace Camp
Most US presidents rise early in the day and go to bed fairly late. This one is a busy man, a billionaire superman who has conquered sleep deprivation. On this particularly alert and bright morning he was listening to bits and pieces of recorded war game communications off the pacific coast. A lot goes on when a fleet practices war and is playing war games off the coast. Some vets report they have taken part in heavy navy ship cannons firing depleted uranium at shore targets located on US soil. a lot goes on and Presidents don't keep track of it all.
Although full reports provide more connected details of what may have been insurrection, the president had a fairly good grasp on what had happened in Guadalupe. Several helicopter loads of troops and their helicopters had defected to pacific states instead of attacking the tree huggers as ordered. Smaller gunships had also defected after they had been ordered to fire on the deserters.
It was clear to the president that governor Starbeam had bribed the troops. Starbeam offered peace instead of eternal war, public insurance for health care, medicare for all was how he said it. The governor's bribe also included life-time free education for all ages and academic levels; this welcome was extended to families. "Bring your friends," Starbeam had said, "everyone without a job will be put to work building socially and environmentally healing neighborhoods, reclaiming farmland and replanting forests.
Though the president of the US is a smiling fellow on the campaign trail, he also has an unpleasant and angry side to his personality. His facial expression turned ugly this particular morning while listening to radio reports that his troops had deserted under direct commander in chief orders; they had been told to take decisive action against a bunch of tree huggers and farm workers. He was irked that they would be so greedy and easily bribed. A bunch of his troops had given up their dream of making us great again in exchange for paltry personal gain. They sold out for free health insurance, free education, for families, friends, everyone, for peace and freedom.
The president realized important people would begin arriving soon to talk over troop morale and the irksome loss of so many valuable helicopters. He enjoyed a quick shower, ordered scrambled eggs, toast and bacon from the white house kitchen, dressed, ate his breakfast and strode to the meeting room to begin his daily routine of high powered meetings with dynamic people who know what to do.
Leading pentagon generals had already begun arriving as the president entered the meeting room. The president, his cabinet and military advisors were efficient decision makers. They quickly began discussing what had happened in Guadalupe and what could be done about it.
"Has anyone talked with our, er, captured troops?" The president asked.
It was the general to the president’s immediate right who responded. He fidgeted a bit as he spoke.
“Our captured troops sent a message through diplomatic channels from governor Starbeam's office. The troops say they are being well cared for and not to worry."
"Has anyone contacted governor Starbeam?" the president asked somewhat meekly and glancing away from anyone's eyes.
"Yes, sir, mr president." An aide at the door said this into the silence when no general offered to speak.
"What did governor Starbeam say?" the president asked, rolling his eyes in upper class impatience.
"Governor Starbeam said nothing," the aide responded.
"A robot answered and informed us that you hung up on governor Starbeam.
"The US government must now use standard diplomatic channels to establish full diplomatic contact," the robot said.
The generals as well as the president's cabinet knew better than to send in a bigger commando unit or two. This new form of nonviolent psychological warfare that employed greed to lure their loyal forces astray was too dangerous to ignore. It was insidiously slippery to explore. They knew a frontal assault with awe on their side would eventually be the answer, yet nuanced coyly with each other at the outset of their morning meeting.
They discussed the possibility that lawyers might find a way to pry loose the 425 million dollars worth of helicopters and armaments the rapacious troops took with them. Then the white house situation room bogged down while contemplating dire straights.
"Has the national news monopoly been told not to discuss this on their news blurb blogs?" the president asked.
"Yes. That is one definite affirmatory, they know which side their toast is buttered on." a general partway around the table responded with a smart look and shining eyes. "Emergency procedure and protocol for this event level have been provoked by governor Robin Starbeam's ability to manipulate greed and wantonly turn it loose on our troops. We have not yet devised a defensive position against greed for our loyal troops."
"So what are you going to do?" the president asked.
"We are already on full information-age alert," one of the cabinet staff volunteered. "The news production center will send all articles to the pentagonian civilian morale management department for editing, approval and distribution to news outlets."
The problem is this," yet another general volunteered. "The news monopolies are making piles of money off the first ten and the creators lab stories. We haven't been able to pay them enough to ignore the drama of the first ten on the run. And now they’ve grown to be twenty-four or twenty-five."
"Stories? What kind of new stories?" the president asked.
"We don't know them all yet, sir," the civilian morale manager responded. "A task force is compiling those stories."
"Do you have any of their stories?" the president asked.
A senior general who had not yet spoken volunteered an assessment. "It looks more and more like the first ten all came here as refugees fleeing war zones or destabilized regime changes gone awry. One of them was a rescued slave from a wall market cheap shrimp slaver boat."
"Are you saying they are all illegal aliens because of us? Is that correct?"
"Yes. Sir. So it appears."
"Who all knows about this?" the president asked as his eyes darted nervously around the room. ""Ideas like this could give my businesses a bad name. Every one else's businesses too. People might become angry and their businesses might quit doing business with me. This is not good news."
A general by the name of Swagger Lee proposed a major assault blocking all roads leading to the freeway.
"You are forgetting they have capture four of our larger transport helicopters and a half dozen helicopter gunships." A rather quiet member of the cabinet group admonished. "We are talking about a very advanced military force that started from near zero a very short time ago."
"Give them fair warning and then blast them out of the sky with ship to air missiles if they lift off." General Swagger Lee suggested. "That oughta keep them on the ground."
The next general spoke rapidly; "Morale management cannot guarantee the sailors will neutralize the helicopters using missiles launched from the ships." The morale management general continued; "A fairly long training period is required to establish in people’s minds that a particular group of others is sinister enough to be eradicated in mortal combat."
"Oh, come on," the president whined and wheedled like a spoiled billionaire. "Those ocean states are like a different country. They're all whale lovers and tree huggers. Those kind are worse than communists."
"Yes. Mr president," the general running civilian morale management responded with a well practiced and equally deserving billionaire's whine. "I agree with you personally. The problem is convincing the troops and many millions of people."
"Don't worry about that," the president responded. "They will follow my lead. I am the best loved commander ‘n chief in the history of our country."
One of the older generals spoke next. "In long ago wars of the past; it was not uncommon to check weapons after a battle and find that only twenty percent pulled their triggers and fired their weapons at the enemy. We don’t know how many fired their weapons in a direction that wouldn’t hurt anyone.
"Today we can up the percentage with modern brainwashing that can overwrite and alter parental socialization training," the elder general continued. "Even so. Being realistic. We are already losing the propaganda war against college students, organic farmers and united farm workers backing Starbeam's nonviolent troopers. At this point it would be better to retreat. That's my advice to you all in the younger generation."
"I agree." The only woman general in the room concurred. "Our best option is to ignore the entire situation and wait for it to fade from the news."
"You gotta be kidding," the president responded. "I've spent a long time convincing my power base that I am one tough hombre. Now you want me to give up to a bunch of college students? No way, Jose! I'd be the laughing stock of the alt right!"
Some of the generals and admirals snickered a bit. The rest sat stone silent. The president is smart enough to know his intelligent and meaningful humor was not well received. He sat back with his hands on the table and waited to hear what would be brought up next.
Although the eastern states are three hours earlier to rise than western states; people in the west had not lain idle following the events at Guadalupe. There was a loud knock at the white house meeting room door as the president sat looking at his hands on the table and wondering if he should try explaining things again. The loud knock was quickly followed by a second knocking that seemed slightly stronger and perhaps a little edgy with impatience.
One of the generals ran to the door and opened it. In stepped a healthy young messenger.
"We have news from out there in the west!" She announced.
"Tell us what it is!" clamored the generals and their commander 'n chief.
A trumpet sounded from the hall outside and in walked the trumpeter and the newly appointed chief justice of the ninth federal court circuit in San Francisco. She unrolled a long parchment missive and read from it;
"I am chief justice Judy Soulminder. I have flown all night to personally inform you a convoy is preparing to leave the town of Guadalupe as I speak. The journey starts this very moment." She lifted her hand and spoke into her radio wrist watch, grinned and turned to the trumpeter with a flourishing wave and a bow.
Chief justice Soulminder continued after a second trumpeting sounded over her phone for the caravan to start.
"We ask you to stop alienating nonviolent western oceanic peoples with eternal war, pollution and austerity. We respectfully request that you help focus the distributed intelligence of humanity on real problems generated by consequenses of the still incurable mental illness now well known as insatiable want."
The trumpet played taps for a day's end as supreme nineth circuit court chief justice Soulminder turned and left the room. She walked solemnly and in a slow surreal cadence with the accompanying trumpeter's mournful dirge of the dead.
Judge Soulminder stopped one step outside the extra tall, expensively carved and extra wide doubly opened entrance doors. She turned around to look once again at the military empire's assembled central planning heart. She raised both arms and spoke forcefully back into the room.
"United cooperating farmworkers unions are organizing a production boycott east of the Albuquerque and Denver/Idaho line. Your unthinking and war-like invasion of Pacific states has deprived you of food and income from the entire region. Do not push further. Governor Starbeam knows we are US citizens and cannot repeal ideas of interstate commerce. Therefor, he is devoting full state energy to develop additional trade with expanded pacific markets that will simply buy up everything the west doesn't eat.
"Your loss of pacific fruits and vegetables is probably already permanent.
“We are also transforming our economy to zero beef and pork subsidies via a new state sales tax on those environmentally harmful food imports. Peas and beans substitute perfectly for meat and fertilize the soil. You have caused us to change abruptly. Of course many of still eat meat and that makes change more gradual for farmers.Even so; Our rapid economic change from capitalist corporatism to a more balanced diet is just beginning.
"Washington DC has imposed embargoes and sanctions around the world for a long time. Now the shoe is on the other foot. We are not sanctioning you, we are simply selling to other first in order to support secure independent markets.
“Nonviolent troopers and farmworkers have relatives and friends in every country, district and state in the americas. The world's third largest social economy does not interfere in interstate commerce. Rather; it promotes trade and tries to fill empty pacific route cargo ships with food. Our global trading partners are happy that you have been so very rude to us.
"The first ten have become seventeen plus an uncountable everyone else. You may follow the convoy's progress via our public satellite broadcasts. We have no secrets. Democracy has no secrets We are moving toward a future you are apparently unable to see. We bid you, Adios."
Judge Soulminder smiled, waved, turned around and left her first and last visit to the white house. The trumpeter smiled as she walked along beside the judge. This white house visit had been fun for both of them. "Thank you for inviting me along," the trumpeter said to judge Soulminder as she put her arm over the judge's shoulder. "I haven't had this much fun in quite awhile."
Weariness from the long red eye overnight flight to reach the president's morning meeting caught up with judge Soulminder and her trumpeter neighbor, Alexandria, a socially conscious Korean political science professor. Daughters of them both studied at the university at Davis. They were already sound asleep on their return flight west as the convoy of buses and trucks left narrow roads among fertile vegetable fields and merged onto the freeway.
The convoy had grown quite a bit larger through the night. A third busload of nonviolent state troopers and two more busloads of united farmworker's unions had arrived. Most of the helicopters had been loaded on additional trucks that became a surprisingly large and showy part of the convoy.
Firing pins, bombs and rockets had been removed from the helicopters as they were being loaded onto the trucks. A few of the captured nonviolent helicopters patrolled the air above the convoy. High powered cameras had replaced cannons. They convoy was using open communication and ideas of justice an democracy as their only real tool to oppose weapons of mass destruction.
Cosmic powered biology expressed as human hung in the balance. Yes, human survival as a species was already in grave doubt from global climate collapse plus declining fertility and a cancer epidemic from years of chemical pollution. But now human survival was gradually becoming a moment to moment question. Would nonviolence expressed by the third largest and only consciously social economy on Earth be nuked back to the stone age over a beaver colony and a few illegal aliens? Or; Would murderous desperados of the empire sue for peace and wheedle back a bit of western fruits, vegetables, rice, eggs, cheeses, olive oil, beef, lamb, pork and wine?
Tasty food may be the ultimate weapon against every day humans but old style generals are made of sterner stuff. They could not stop even if proceeding meant they would be eating dry dog food for the rest of their lives. They are trained to kill as many humans as it takes to make people do as they are told to do. Everybody's life is dictated by the central plan; and this fact holds true for super regimented generals at the heart of the military empire who are doing the planning.
"We can't give in to a bunch of illegal aliens," the president muttered.
"I agree," general Eastlessland said, "There are many rivers out there and our goose is cooked if they all start causing a ruckus over a few beavers and a smattering of illegal aliens."
"Exactly," several generals agreed in unison. This insubordination must be nipped in the bud. We can't afford another sixties style rock and roll fest in the middle of all these wars. We defend and protect democracy. We have no choice other than to act decisively and arrest everyone in that convoy. All deserters must be rounded up and made examples of with maximum punishment."
The only woman general in the room then interrupted. "Gentlemen," she addressed the president as well as his staff and generals. You asked me to leave retirement and become an active general in this white house military council. I am general Payleigh Surfrider and now I am speaking. She stood and pointed to a projected wall map of the US and the pacific.
"You signed a contract guaranteeing that when I joined with you we would begin the work of ending budget busting losses and austerity associated with regime change wars. Now you are preparing a shock and awe military campaign west of Montana, Denver and Albuquerque."
General Surfrider then returned to her seat. "If you decide to continue, I will retire back to Hawaii. My first loyalty is to my family and the people of Hawaii. You will continue to have your Pearl Harbor there but my guess is it will become contested even more adamantly than Cuba's Guantanamo."
General Surfrider sat thinking for a moment. She glared angrily at the generals surrounding her.
"I told you my advice is to let this drop. Do not feed the news cycle. If you decide instead to mobilize the war game off the coast of California and arrest all those people, you are also deciding you don't need me as a voice for peace and and the budgetary advantages of nonviolence; I will bid you farewell and return to retirement in Hawaii."
There was about half a heartbeat of silence as the generals pondered all the details of whatever it was general Surfrider thought she was talking about. The president called for a vote and the result was a unanimous less one decision to launch an overwhelming rapid deployment force from the war game fleet and arrest the entire outrageous manifestation of whale hugging beaver savers wherever they set up their new camp.
General Surfrider then stood and removed the badge from her chest. "I bid you farewell and good luck in your futures," she said as she turned and walked out the door.
The president snapped his fingers and had her arrested for treason and taken to jail before she had walked two full steps from the meeting room. Although he and the generals did not report her arrest and confinement to anyone, General Payleigh Surfrider was quickly and widely noticed as missing.
Neither the president nor any of the generals could possibly know that the spokesperson for the nonviolent state troopers was the youngest sister of Surfrider's arresting guard. That is how the convoy knew almost immediately that Payleigh Surfrider had been disappeared into the dank echoing depths of white house dungeons.
Tamara, Evers, Bakku and Ernesto were huddled in conversation about organizing their next camp while riding their bus northward when they found out about general Surfrider.
Governor Starbeam had requested permission to set up a temporary camp at the central park in Paso Robles and the mayor had agreed. The alert regarding general Surfrider's incarceration was received just as the caravan maneuvered into camp in downtown Paso Robles. Helicopters were still landing as the shocking news of general Surfrider's arrest spread through what had already been dubbed as "the peace camp."
"What can we do about Payleigh Surfrider?" Tamara asked. "I've been a fan of hers since she was first elected to congress and came out for ending regime change wars and declared medicare for all was a money maker for the entire country."
"Exactly!" Ernesto exclaimed. "We were hoping she would run for president."
"She's been jailed because she wants improved medicare for all?" Evers asked rhetorically. "That's ridiculous."
"There's more to it than that," Bakku responded with solemn unblinking eyes. "We are as if characters in a new story that cannot be told until we focus sufficiently to make it happen. With a hint of haste, we need to assemble and concentrate our individual attentions and distributed intelligence.
"Gosh,” Bakku sighed, “it looks like we are being called to devise a plan to spring Payleigh Surfrider. She is a political prisoner. Payleigh Surfrider will ride that wave to being president if we find a way to set her free."
Bakku smiled beatifically in conclusion. Everyone felt good when he did that.
Right on, Bakku." Ernesto exclaimed. "First item for consideration by distributed intelligence is a plan to spring Surfrider. After we find out where she is." He finished with a wide grin and raised his index finger to point upward, as in, “another number one... two number one jobs”
"Should it be us to go and bring her home?" Felice d' Haiti asked as she joined the smaller group conversation.
That's when events speeded up for everyone.
"They put our next president in jail!" Bonnie cried out so all would hear when she learned of the sorry event.
"Please go and bring back the speaker for the nonviolent troops and someone from the farmworkers. Gaston said to Loren.
"Yes, sir." Loren smiled with an extended sir that sounded almost like laughter. He turned and hurried toward the nonviolent troopers. Along the way passing a group of Vietnamese monks working with nonviolent troopers to set up a field kitchen. Loren noticed a few homeless looking people were also helping set up the kitchen.
"How does it feel?" Loren sang Bob Dylan to himself.
"To be on your own.
"With no direction home.
"Scrounging for your next meal."
He detoured closer to the homeless workers and sang out loud;
"How does it feel?"
The homeless helpers turned from their work to Loren, raised their arms and smiled, "hallelujah, Brother. This job feels good."
Loren spent a moment of being lost as he changed direction again and continued his search for the non-violent troopers. The peace camp was big but he was confident; he had been at large nonviolent camps in his younger years and this was simply a larger version. Loren was beginning to feel very much at home by the time he found the speaker for the troops.
"Are you speaking for helicopters, too?" Loren asked her,
"Yes," she answered with a pleasant tone of voice and said no more.
"I am Loren," he said.
"I am Julia," the nonviolent trooper spokesperson responded.
"Julia, Gaston requests that you and your team plus farmworkers join us under the park dome to continue where we left off when we were interrupted in Guadalupe," Loren reported.
"Okay. We will be there in a few minutes. The farmworkers have already selected three coordinators and I am spokesperson for all buses. The capture of our next president is a major blow." Julia concluded with an enthusiastic smile followed by a frown.
Julia then began walking about waving her arm for silence. She was listening to her communication link. She stopped walking but her arm remained in the air. Trained silence spread outward from her signal.
"Pentagonians have flown in from the sea and established a camp near the intersection of highways 41 and 46 at Cholame, between the Cholame and Kettleman hills. They control the intersection to Fresno and Bakersfield. They are camping in the windy hot desert where almost nothing grows and blinding dust storms flow with thick air. They are listed in our directory as desert foxes." She laughed out loud.
"Wow. Okay. I'll go tell the others." Loren said as he turned and sprinted back to tell Gaston, Bonnie and the rest of his friends.
A semi circle of small tents had been set up near his car. He slowed to a jog around the nearest tent and ran straight into Bonnie just as she walked out of the tent. They locked arms in a bear hug to keep from falling over.
Bonnie kissed him on the cheek. "What's the rush blue eyes she asked as she let go of Loren and looked at him as an amused muse.
Loren started to blush thinking how good her body felt next to his but yanked his attention back to the latest news.
"Pentagonians have set up a camp to our east where the highways fork and go to Fresno and Bakersfield," he said.
"They did come back!" Bonnie exclaimed. "What will they think of next? I'll tell the rest of the seventeen plus whoever and help set up a place to meet under the dome. We'll definitely make room for the nonviolent troopers and farmworkers."
"Wow, Bonnie, you just made us into a group of nineteen plus." Loren said as he smiled, turned and started walking toward Gaston, who was talking with a farmworker on the other side of the car.
Bonnie tapped Loren on the shoulder as he began walking. She kissed him when he turned around, and they have been inseparable ever since.
Loren wandered a bit when he left Bonnie and then walked around the car toward Gaston.
"What's going on, Loren?" Gaston asked. "You look a little spaced."
"I think Bonnie likes me," Loren responded a bit absently.
"Ya think?" Gaston laughed. "I'd say so. I saw that smacker she planted on your lips."
Loren blushed again. "Are you jealous?" he asked.
Gaston hugged Loren. "Kinda," he said with a grin. “But I saw you guys were interested in each other from the moment you met. You are both my friends. What else is happening?"
"The pentagonians have landed at Cholame. They can block the roads from here to the central valley and the inland highways."
"I wonder why they picked that area?" Gaston mused. "That's some radically bad hot and dusty drylands out there."
"I'd guess they are strangers around here," the latino man near Loren's car interjected. "It is easier to shoot a stranger than a neighbor, friend or family."
"Yep, that's exactly what the czar of Russia did when the russian people united behind a vision of democracy and a more efficient form of government. He sent soldiers from different parts of the country to kill the people." Gaston responded as he reached out his hand to the Latino and said, "My name is Gaston, glad to meet you. Mucho gusto."
"My name is Alejandro. Mucho gusto. Like wise. I am happy we meet, Beaver Man. And it is good we view this situation as our side meeting strangers that are like rattlesnakes. The central government sent rattlesnakes with guns to kill my people and destroy indigenous culture and nations. Now they are coming for all of us, here."
"We are supposed to meet at the pavilion," Loren told both Gaston and Alejandro. "Are you aware that the military empire has captured and arrested general Surfrider? No one knows where she is. Her location code name is, white house dungeons."
"Oh no!" Gaston exclaimed. "Payleigh Surfrider is our last chance to hold the country together. Her rescue piles another job on governor Robin Starbeam. I should probably call him. Please excuse me, you guys," Gaston concluded with a grin as he casually opened his high tech governor phone communication link.
Loren smiled at his old friend; "I never imagined I would hear you say something like that, Gaston. You call the governor and I'll go help Bonnie set up for our first official attempt to concentrate together publicly."
May I accompany you, Loren?” Alejandro asked.
Loren nodded and smiled a “yes.” They were only a few steps on their way when governor Starbeam answered Gaston's call.
"Hello, Gaston," governor Starbeam said. "I've heard exciting things have been going on around you. Are you by any chance calling to request transfer back to your old job?"
"That did not occur to me, Sir. "Gaston responded.
"Quitting was not on my mind, Robin," prompted the governor.
"That's what I meant to say, Robin," Gaston responded with a quiet chuckle.
The governor had been able to pry a brief smile out of Gaston with his routine once again. "I'm Robin," he continued. "I am your partner. Your partner is named, Robin. We plan to do some clandestine work together as brothers. You are my surprise new brother given to me as a gift by mother Earth. Have you really forgotten me this quickly?"
Gaston chuckled again. He visualized Robin's crinkled smiling eyes.
"I have not forgotten you, Robin; we are brothers given to each other by Earth and Life. We are helping ten young creators create. Your nonviolent troopers and farm workers are also committed to helping them. All of us want to help Payleigh Surfrider escape solitary confinement shackled to damp cold walls in the white house political prisoner dungeons."
Governor Starbeam laughed. "Have you learned she is indeed in solitary?" he asked.
"No. Those are the code descriptions we are using," Gaston responded. "They are totally spontaneous code straight from distributed intelligence. I find them to be surprisingly imaginative and very fun."
"So you are meeting under the dome about all this?" Robin asked.
"Yep. That's where I'm going now."
"Please keep your com unit activated," Robin said.
"Really?" Gaston asked. Then the pentagonians will know everything."
"Precisely," Governor Starbeam replied. "We do not want to surprise their nuclear button hair trigger."
"Okay. If you say so. But I object. This is not ethical within the peace camp." Gaston said as he walked into the pavilion and took the seat next to Evers, the notorious blue-eyed illegal woman from Afghanistan.
Evers had watched Gaston approach while in communication with the governor. Evers was still the temporary coordinator. She did not know who Gaston was talking with but she watched him put his communication device in his pocket, waved for his attention and pointed to the seat next to her.
The first thing Evers said as she opened the meeting was not at all surprising to Gaston; "All phones and communication links on the table with batteries removed,” she said.
"You heard my orders, Brother Robin," Gaston said as he unplugged.
Evers grinned at Gaston. "I've been around." was all she said. Evers began the meeting when all phones and communication devises were unplugged and inactive.
"Join hands under this dome that helps us speak softly and still be heard," Evers requested of the assemblage.
Evers waited until all hands were holding a hand before she spoke again.
"How many are we now?" She then asked.
The spokesperson for the three nonviolent trooper buses answered, "The first seventeen plus three trooper bus reps, three farmworker reps and me. I am Julia, spokesperson for all buses and helicopters. Altogether, we all add up to twenty-four."
"Plus me, Alejandro." Alejandro interjected.
"I temporarily approved him," Gaston said. "That is a right for any of us. I can tell you Alejandro is interesting. We can always kick him out," he concluded with a grin
"We are twenty-five by that reckoning," Tamara announced the tally and Ernesto nodded his agreement as a second calculator.
"Okay. Here we go," Evers said. "We are twenty-five people in perhaps as strange and unique a situation as twenty-five humans have ever encountered together. Who wants to start?"
"May I nominate Payleigh Surfrider as our most urgent action?" Tamara asked.
"Yes, of course," Evers responded. The rescue of general Payleigh Surfrider has become number one on our list. Will someone else add their ideas?"
"Autonomous democracy is an important topic we were already working on," Ernesto added.
"What about the army?" Felice d' Haiti asked.
"How long may we stay here?" Bakku wondered.
"I can answer the last question." a voice from outside the pavilion replied. "I am Mayor of this wonderful town. I am sorry to say you are what is known as an attractive nuisance. In my book that means you are attracting an even bigger nuisance than yourselves. You cannot stay here and must leave by tomorrow at noon."
Gaston decided this was the kind of generalized topic Robin had in mind for him. He stood up and walked to the mayor with his open hand extended in greeting.
"Hello, Mayor," he said. "I am Gaston Gravier. Our governor has hired me to manage general duties associated with this quite unexpected venture. It has grown larger rather quickly and we apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused you or the town. Governor Starbeam gave us the impression we are welcome here in Paso Robles."
“Yes. But our good governor told me you were ten college students, a well known Earth advocate. a chaperone and a driver. I am seeing our downtown park filled with something much bigger than that,” the mayor said. “This camp is as big as a circus.”
Gaston shook the mayor's hand and invited him to join in the group discussion so they could figure out what to do together. He pointed to an empty chair that was being carried into place. The two them walked to the table together and sat down after the Mayor nodded his agreement. He was positioned directly across the circle from Evers and Gaston.
"We are now twenty-six," Evers announced. "Do you have a mobile phone?" She asked the mayor. "If so, please turn it off, remove the battery and place it on the table in front of you."
The mayor grinned as he followed Evers instructions. He had set up his own com center at city hall and he was disconnected before it even warmed up. He liked this wiley group already.
"Please introduce yourself and those already seated will state their names before speaking." Evers said.
"My name is Nicolai Uzvenko," the mayor began. Please be aware that I understand what is happening. The mayor of Guadalupe told me what went on there. He said there were helicopters landing and armed soldiers in the street. Paso Robles is a much larger town and a repeat of what happened in Guadalupe could turn into a disaster in a town this size."
Nicolai stood up and put his hand over his chest. "What if that distant thunderous booming of helicopters is actually coming here?" He asked with a voice that slipped to his full native accent.
"Your accent!" Gaston exclaimed. "Let me guess."
"Russian!" he and the mayor said together.
"Are you a citizen?" Several voices around the table asked.
"I am the mayor!"
“Answer the question!” Someone yelled over the helicopter noise.
Almost everyone around the table started laughing and pointing at the mayor.
The booming of helicopter blades became too loud for conversation.
Several people shouted.
"Are you with us or what?"
We really are twenty-six plus,” Evers shouted.
The noise was too loud for speech. The mayor simply placed his hand over his heart. His smile turned beatific as he removed his hand from his heart and quickly pointed around the table to his new friends sheltered in the park under the round performance dome of Paso Robles.