A Desert Called Peace by Tom Kratman Page A

calling " mnnbt  . . .  mnnbt  . . .  mnnbt ," he walked to the liquor cabinet and grabbed a bottle. He didn't bother taking a glass.
    Ciudad Balboa, 13/7/459 AC
    Linda's family had volunteered en masse to drive him to the airport outside Ciudad Balboa so that he could catch the first plane— airships made the run, as well, but were just too slow—to First Landing and, perhaps, push the authorities to find the bodies. Though he'd appreciated the offers, he'd declined. The sympathy of both parents, all twenty-two aunts and uncles—not including those by marriage—and one hundred and four legitimate first cousins had quickly gone from warming to oppressive. They'd meant well, he knew, but seeing every face around him in perpetual tears had come to make things worse, if that were possible.
     
    It had been good to drive, to have to concentrate on something besides his murdered family. Even the mind-diverting task of ducking the larger potholes was welcome. Through the little towns along the highway that led from the San Jose frontier in the east to the Yaviza Gap to the northwest, he drove slowly and carefully. At the larger towns he would stop sometimes, gas here, lunch there. Once he stopped to take in a view of the Mar Furioso that he and Linda had once enjoyed together. That had been painful. Finally he came to the great bridge that led over the bay to the city. He almost smiled at a particular memory of the bridge. Almost, not quite.
    The city had changed since he had first seen it. It was still clean, remarkably so for a large metropolis in Colombia Central. But the buildings had grown to the sky over the last fifteen years. He looked up at them briefly, then turned his eyes back to the road as unwelcome thoughts invaded his mind.
    Though much had changed, much was the same. Driving through Ciudad Balboa's streets he was cut off, tailgated, honked at and cursed with friendly abandon. Pretty girls walked the sidewalks and the parks. Young men looked, watched, pursued. Food and flowers wafted on the breeze, competing with the sea.
    Emerging along the coastal road, Avenida del Norte, Hennessey almost managed to enjoy the fresh sea breeze off the high tide- covered beach and mud flats. To his left he passed the Restaurante Bella Mar , where Linda had taught him to appreciate sea food for the first time in his life. To his right he smelled the flowers of Parque Prado. He came at length to the Hotel Julio Caesare, arguably the best hotel of any real size in Ciudad Balboa, almost certainly the most ornate.
    After a bellhop had unloaded the bags, a red uniformed valet took his car and parked it in the patrolled garage. Hennessey took a receipt in return and, followed the bellhop through marble and gilt and gracefully hanging palm fronds to the front desk to register.
    He planned to spend a few days at the hotel, using it as a base while he waited for flights to the Federated States to recommence. Nothing was allowed to fly anywhere near the FSC at the moment and none could say when air traffic would resume. It was possible that airship service would begin before fixed wing did, though most thought this unlikely under the circumstances.
    As it turned out, it would be several days.
    He spent his evenings, and evening came early this close to the equator, drinking in the bar cum disco on the ground floor of the hotel. A wretched dancer—Hennessey described himself as the worst dancer in the entire history of human motion—he still enjoyed looking at pretty girls on the dance floor. He enjoyed it, that is, so long as none of them reminded him too much of his wife. This wasn't a problem, generally, since most of the women in the disco were light skinned. Though of a quite prosperous family, Linda had been very mixed-race and rather dark. Since the Julio Caesare was expensive enough to be only for either the well to do (or less moneyed cosmopolitan progressives, or Kosmos, who slurped lavishly at the public and donative