“Agreed,” Tyler said, nodding.

  “What’s your take?”

  “What everyone in the U.S. government, what everyone in the media, what the Glatun and the Horvath all want to know,” Tyler said, “is what is my take. Which is a far cry from cutting trees for a living. And the answer is…I’m taking the tenor of the clans.”

  “Okay,” Kolasinski said, chuckling. “One more question and I’ll try to answer yours. Clans?”

  “New England is not, by any stretch of the imagination, monolithic,” Tyler said with a sigh. “Nor are the maple areas of Canada where I’ve also been. Old farming families that stretch back to the Revolutionary period and pre-Revolution. Hippies that moved up for the cheap land and libertarian approach. Southerners like me who have moved here so they can be around relative conservatives. Communes. Militias. Modern lefty gay bed-and-breakfast owners. People who want to declare independence and throw out all the lefties.

  “My land grab and the Horvath threat have pretty much moved out anyone who doesn’t love this area. The one influx of Glatun credits we got is more influx than this region has ever seen. But nobody wants to be at ground zero of the Horvath threat. Nobody, American or Canadian, wants to be in the middle of a war with our own militaries. What’s left are people who just refuse to leave. And there aren’t really major regional variations. Oh, somewhat when you cross from New Hampshire to Vermont or Massachusetts but not even that too greatly. What there are are…clans. Like-thinking groups. I almost think New England needs to be parliamentary rather than territorial, but I digress. I’m taking the tenor of the clans.”

  “Which group am I?” Kolasinski asked.

  “You said one question,” Tyler said, smiling. “And your answer to ‘what’s your take’ more or less puts you in one. Generally, older, not really old but older, families that stay here because this is home.”

  “It ought to be easy,” the former sergeant said. “It’s maple syrup. Who wants to die over maple syrup?” He looked at Tyler, who shrugged in what might be agreement.

  “But…” Kolasinski continued, shrugging. “The government is offering to buy it. Pretty fair price. Then they’ll turn it over to the Horvath.”

  “Cheaper than trying to take it,” Tyler said.

  “Agreed. But. It’s still taking. This isn’t… This isn’t what I put my life on the line for. This isn’t what I fought for. What I lost partners for and damn near my life.”

  “‘Give me liberty or give me death?’”

  “More or less,” Kolasinski admitted, sighing. “I’ve got two kids and a wife. I have to think about them.”

  “Contingency plans?” Tyler asked.

  “I was in contingency response,” Kolasinski said, chuckling. “Uh. Yeah.”

  * * *

  “This simply isn’t working, Mr. President,” the Army Chief of Staff said. “We’ve got twenty percent of units reporting a variety of maladies. We’ve issued administrative punishments for malingering, but this is more like mutiny. And as fast as they do manage to tap trees, if they don’t ruin the taps, the locals are sneaking in at night and taking the taps out. And leaving little notes about the quality of our men’s work. Last, even if everything was working perfectly, our men are unfamiliar with the process, unfamiliar with the terrain, and it turns out to be harder to find the trees than we’d thought. There are large stands but many of the best trees are scattered in pine woods. It simply is not working.”

  “Frankly,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said, “it’s becoming a huge farce. I’m not sure the Army, per se, is turning into a laughing stock simply because of all the press reports where everyone’s going ‘wink, wink, nudge, nudge.’ But the operation is becoming a laughing-stock.”

  “There are millions of lives at stake, General,” the President said. “And these people are playing games!”

  “I am fully aware of that, Mr. President,” the general replied. “That does not mean that this is an achievable goal.”

  “It might be…” the National Security Advisor said. “Oh, not gathering the maple syrup. You only have to watch the SNL skit to see that. We just need to be clear about the goal.”

  “The goal is protecting our cities,” the President said. “Whatever that takes.”

  “And that may be a goal we are achieving, Mr. President,” the NSA said.

  “I don’t see it,” the CJCS. “At this rate we are not going to get any appreciable amount of maple syrup. Neither are the Canadians. They’re having the same problems.”

  “That is not the goal,” the NSA said, again. “The goal is not getting rocks dropped on our cities. And that goal may be achievable. We don’t have Horvath internals, but they must be getting most of what we are looking at. I doubt, at this point, that they are getting any significant internals from the resistance. What they are getting are the same externals we’re getting. ‘Of course we want peace in our time, but…’”

  “But won’t cut it,” the President said.

  “A certain kind might,” the NSA said. “We, the…civilized? Urbanized?”

  “Liberal?” the Marine Corps commandant filled in.

  “The people who are under threat,” the NSA said sourly, “are doing our best to collect the maple syrup that the Horvath demand. We’re doing everything we can.”

  “More,” the Army Chief of Staff said. “We’re stepping all over every document that gives us legal authority to exist. Necessarily, I agree, but at some point we’re going to face real mutiny. I expected it before now.”

  “We’re trying,” the NSA said. “Trying really hard. That’s clear on all the news broadcasts.”

  “Yep,” the Marine Corps commandant said. “We’re being good collaborators.”

  “General,” the President said. “I appreciate your feelings in this matter, but the insertions are not helpful.”

  “Sir.”

  “Your point?” the President said.

  “The people who are incurring the wrath of the Horvath are the people in that region,” the NSA said. “And the few contacts with the rebels that have been broadcast are almost all contemptuous of ‘city folk.’ They basically are saying they don’t care if cities are nuked. It’s not a threat to them.”

  “‘I’m from the South. We have our ways.’”

  “Mr. President?”

  “Something that Vernon said to an FBI agent,” the President said. “About, I guess you would say, manipulating the Horvath. I’ve been puzzled by the line. ‘I’m from the South. We have our ways.’ What ways?”

  The Marine Corps commandant leaned back and started tapping his mouth, as if to erase a smile.

  “Commandant?” the President said. “You have a comment.”

  “Rather refrain, Mr. President,” the commandant said, still trying not to smile. “But I think I know what he meant. Graduated from the Citadel, Mr. President.”

  “So you’re ‘of the South’ as well?” the President said. “And?”

  “Really rather refrain, Mr. President,” the commandant said then barked a laugh as if at a joke he’d just told. “Seriously. You do not want to know at this time. Possibly ever.”

  “I will, currently, accept your position,” the President said warily. “And where is Mr. Vernon? He is the one person of note who has not been heard of recently.”

  “Moving, mostly,” the director of the FBI said. “Scattered meetings. Turned up by surprise at some town hall meetings in New Hampshire and Vermont. Even back and forth across the border to Canada though we’re not sure where or how. We’re only catching traces of him. Frankly, he’s about as hard to find as a much taller…insurgent. We’re not even sure he’s part of the insurgency. He’s acting more like a neutral.”

  “I’m the President of the United States!” the President snapped. “This is…insane! I’m responsible for this nation! People are going to die! Cities are going to die!”

  “Depends on whether he’s right or not, Mr. President,” the Marine Corps commandant said, still smiling slightly. He tapped his lips again. “Depends on whether he’s right about ways of the South.”

  * * *

  “On Friday night at eight-thirty, Fox News is pleased to announce an exclusive broadcast from none other than Tyler Vernon, the maple syrup king and the man at the center of the current controversy over maple syrup production, direct and live from his home in New Hampshire. With the deadline for tapping fast approaching, we are all looking forward to what Mr. Vernon has to say…”

  * * *

  “Are we sure this is going to work?” Tyler asked, adjusting his jacket. He’d gone for the informal look for the broadcast. The jacket was a necessity because it was cold in the former mine.

  “Not sure,” Bruce Dennison said. “But from what we’ve been able to figure out, the Horvath are technologically advanced but not technologically sophisticated. They can tap any standard system. But this laser relay is going to a secure Glatun hypernode link which is, in turn, hooked up to Fox. It should look like you’re broadcasting from your house.”

  Tyler glanced over his shoulder at the green wall, then at the TV tech.

  “And the green screen is…?”

  “Good,” Ryan Gill said. He was wearing an incongruous Scottish WWI military outfit including tartan trews because, as he said, if he was going down he was going down in the uniform of his regiment. “Looks just like your front room. Except for the occasional bloody puff of fog when you exhale. Hopefully, they won’t notice that.”

  “And we’re on in five, four, three, two…”

  “Hello, Fox and thank you for being willing to make this broadcast. I feel rather odd doing this. Just a few short months ago my days were filled with the mundane tasks of small jobs. To make ends meet I worked in a grocery store and a mill, and cut wood during my free time. Now, as most people know, I’m at the center of this controversy over, of all things, maple syrup, and one of the richest men in the world. It has been an odd transition.

  “The Horvath have demanded that everyone in this region collect maple syrup and turn it over to them, presumably for later sale to the Glatun since it is unusable by the Horvath. Just as they have demanded all this world’s production of useful heavy metals. Their stated reason for this tribute is so that they can maintain the defense of this world. Tribute, however, is tribute, and let us not mince words. For we have come to an important time of decision. Within the next week, the people of this region must make preparation for the collection of maple sap to be boiled into syrup. The weather is turning and the sap is starting to run. According to both the U.S. weather service and projections by the Glatun, this should be a spring of good harvest. If there is any harvest at all.

  “Were I so inclined, one pair of hands simply cannot collect all the sap that must be collected. It requires many hands, many people, going out into the cold of a New England and Canadian spring, working hard for a bounty that will, in turn, continue to keep the Horvath in our skies.

  “Over the last month and a half I have been travelling throughout this region, talking to people of every persuasion, getting the pulse of the residents of this region, people who do the tapping and boiling, people who depend upon the trade. I haven’t been speaking with governors or Congressmen, just common folk like myself.

  “There is great fear and consternation. Like myself, the people of this region never expected to be embroiled in an international, interstellar, controversy. They, we, are simple folk of the rural lands of these great nations. We get up every day and do our jobs, letting the great matters of this land and this world be handled by others. We, until this time of controversy, did not care for such matters. The seasons of the year affected us more than the decisions made in Washington and Ontario.

  “Now, as a people, we have been called upon to make great and momentous decisions. Decisions reflecting both liberty and security. Liberty is an odd word. And for a long time it has been, in truth, degraded. Many who used the term liberty in truth meant libertine. And even those who fought in our courts and legislature over questions of liberty, in truth meant things that are minor at best and puerile at worst. As we have now found out, liberty is not about where you can put your sexual organs but about the essential question of whether we, as a people, can make our own decisions. And security is not about whether the government should be able to tap our phone but about whether we are going to be allowed to take the next breath. Will our cities be ashes? Will we live? Will our children live?

  “Yet…to battle over maple syrup? The inherent humor of the situation sometimes clouds the truly vast nature of the struggle. For it is not, in the end, what we give up, maple syrup or gold or platinum. It is of a piece. It is about whether we, as a people, as nations that were both conceived in liberty, will continue to cherish that concept.

  “Benjamin Franklin once said: ‘Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.’ And in this current condition there is, in fact, neither. I understand, as few but the most specialized experts understand, the strategic situation. The Horvath control our orbitals. We can fight but there is simply no way to win. Fighting would appear to be a pointless exercise.”

  The producer made a rolling motion and pointed to the ceiling of the mine. Time to speed it up.

  Tyler breathed out, hard, and let loose a puff of smoky breath. Oops.

  “But collecting this maple syrup requires the willing cooperation of thousands of people. Men and women, Canadian and American, who have been born in the concept, instilled in the idea, of liberty. These people of the fields, woods and mountains, pour from these regions to fill our military. Not, as many city folk think, because they’re poor or desperate but because this is their essential nature. No person is happy to give their life, but the people of this region believe that there is something larger than their selves. Not just God, although many are believers in God, but a vision, a philosophy, a shared belief in freedom and justice and the battle against tyranny. From their very mother’s milk they are filled with this belief, that to die in the cause of freedom brings not heaven but a better place here on Earth for succeeding generations.

  “I have taken the tenor of these people and they are determined against yielding. As stubborn as the granite of their mountains, they, almost in unanimity, refuse to yield. They may, perhaps will, be destroyed. But they, and, yes, their children, will die free.

  “They, however, are not under threat. The Horvath threaten to destroy our cities, not these woods, mountains and fields. Let me touch upon that.

  “The Horvath are a very monolithic and communal culture. The very concept of liberty is foreign to them. So I’m going to have to explain something to the Horvath. You may be looking upon our cities as sort of communal groups for which the people of this region are gatherers. This is not, in fact, the case. The people of this region are their own communal grouping, connected to but not of the cities. They are, in fact, almost invariably at odds with the groups of the cities. The cities, you dumb squids, are our enemies. You’re threatening our enemies, you morons! We hate the people of the cities. I hate the people of the cities! Liberal, whining, socialist pussies! They’ve never given us anything but trouble! Please, please, please nuke Washington! What has Washington ever done for us? They just take and take and take! The bastards! Kill them all!

  “As for me, I’ll tell you what I think!” Tyler said, shouting. He jumped to his feet and flipped a bird at the ceiling, looking straight up. “GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH, YOU BASTARDS! LIVE FREE OR…”

  “Lost the signal from the cabin,” Ryan said. “Switching to…secondary remote.”

  On homes across the nation the view was now of Tyler in front of the 1997 World Series.

  “Hah!” Tyler said, still flipping a bird at the ceiling. “Missed me, you egg-sucking ignoramuses! Never heard of a laser relay or a green-screen, have you? Go ahead and try to take our maple syrup! Dumb-asses!”

  “And secondary remote is gone,” Ryan said.

  “I think that’s good enough,” Tyler said.

  “The Horvath are taking over all the broadcast airwaves,” Bruce said.

  “Let’s hear it,” Tyler said.

  “PEOPLE OF THE MAPLE REGION. YOU WILL DELIVER THE SYRUP OR YOU WILL BE DESTROYED. WE WILL DESTROY EVERY HOME, EVERY TOWN, EVERY PERSON. YOU WILL ALL DIE.”

  * * *

  “You will deliver the maple syrup,” the speakerphone said in metallic tones. “You will execute Tyler Vernon. You will destroy the resistance in the region. Or you will be eliminated.”

  “We’re trying,” the President said. “You’ve seen that we are trying! Those people may nominally be under our authority but they are not under our control. We have an arrest warrant out for Tyler Vernon, but our agents, those that survive going up to the hills, have been unable to find him. Our military is half in mutiny and half pinned down by fire. Some of it from our own forces! Is there anything that you can do?”

  “Remove your loyal troops,” the Horvath said a few moments later. “We will eliminate the resistance of the rural infesters and then you will send people of the urban colonies to collect the syrup.”

  “You’re going to…kill them?” the President said.

  “We will eliminate all resistors,” the Horvath replied.

  “I…” the President said, gulping. “I can’t…” He paused at a raised hand from the Marine Corps commandant.

  The commandant looked at the ceiling for a moment in thought then nodded, hard. The President made a face but the commandant just raised his hand in an “OK” symbol.

  “Very well…” the President said dubiously. “Feel free to eliminate the resistors in the region.”

  “We did not need your permission.” The call cut off with a click.

  “I just condemned the people of New England to aerial bombardment,” the President said.

  “Most of them have moved their families out of the region,” the commandant said. “Women and kids, mostly. Not even most of the women. The rest have dug in hard. You’d be surprised how many old mines, caves and such there are in that area. Which is probably where Vernon is hiding.”