“For instance, Mr. Inspector, how are things back in the states to the east, beyond the deserts and the mountains?”

Gordon did not even blink as he sat down. So the “Liberation Army” had an intelligence service. It was no surprise that Bezoar knew who they were… or at least who north Oregon thought Gordon was.

“Things are much the same as in the west, Mr. Bezoar. People try to live, and rebuild where they can.”

In his mind Gordon was trying to recreate the dreamscape — the fantasy of St. Paul City, of Odessa and Green Bay — images of living cities leading a bold, resurgent nation — not the windswept ghost towns he remembered, picked clean by ragged bands of wary survivors.

He spoke for the cities as he had dreamed them. His voice was stern. “In some places citizens have been luckier than in others. They’ve regained much, and hope for more for their children. In other areas, the recovery has been… hindered. Some of those who nearly ruined our nation, a generation ago, still wreak havoc, still harry our couriers and disrupt communications.

“And as I speak of it” Gordon continued coldly. “I cannot put off any longer asking you just what you’ve done with the mail your men have stolen from the United States.”

Bezoar put on wire-rimmed glasses and lifted a thick folder from the table next to him. “You are speaking of these letters, I presume?” He opened the packet. Dozens of grayed and yellowed sheets rustled dryly. “You see? I do not bother to deny it. I believe we should be open and frank with each other, if anything is to come of this meeting.

“Yes, a team of our advance scouts did find a pack horse in the ruins of Eugene — yours, I imagine — whose saddlebags contained this very strange cargo. Ironically, I believe that at the very moment our scouts were seizing these samples, you were killing two of their comrades elsewhere in the deserted town.”

Bezoar raised one hand before Gordon could speak. “Have no fear of retribution. Our Holnist philosophy does not believe in it. You defeated two survivalists in a straight fight. That makes you a peer in our eyes. Why do you think you were treated as men after you were captured, and not gelded as serfs or as sheep?”

Bezoar smiled amiably, but Gordon seethed inside. In Eugene last spring he had seen what Holnists did to the bodies of the harmless gleaners they had mowed down. He remembered young Mark Aage’s mother, who saved his life and her son’s with one heroic gesture. Bezoar clearly meant what he said, yet to Gordon the logic was sickly, bitterly ironic.

The bald survivalist spread his hands. “We admit to taking your mail, Mr. Inspector. Can we mitigate our guilt by claiming ignorance? After all, until these letters reached me here, none of us had ever heard of the Restored United States!

“Imagine our amazement when we saw such things… letters carried many miles from town to town, warrants for new postmasters, and these,” he raised a sheaf of official-looking flyers. “These declarations from the provisional government in St. Paul City.”

The words were conciliatory and sounded earnest. But there was something in the man’s tone of voice.… He could not quite pin it down, but whatever it was disturbed Gordon.

“You know of it now,” he pointed out. “And yet you continue. Two of our postal couriers have disappeared without a trace since your invasion of the north. Ybur ‘American Liberation Army’ has been at war with the United States for many months now, Colonel Bezoar. And that cannot be mitigated by ignorance.”

The lies came easily, now. In essence, after all, the words were true.

Ever since those few weeks, right after the big war had been “won” — when the U.S. still had a government, and food and materiel still moved protected on the highways — the real problem had not been the broken enemies without so much as the chaos within.

Grain rotted in bulging silos while farmers were felled by simple, innoculable plagues. Vaccine was available in the cities, where starvation reaped multitudes. More people died due to the breakdown and lawlessness — the shattered web of commerce and mutual assistance — than from all the bombs and germs, or even from the three-year dusk.

It had been men like this who delivered the coup de grace, who ended any chance those millions had.

“Perhaps, perhaps.” Bezoar tossed back a shot of the pungent liquor. He smiled. “Then again, many have claimed to be the true inheritors of American sovereignty. So your ‘Restored United States’ controls large areas and populations, and so its leaders include a few old farts who once bought elected office with cash and a television smile. Does that mean that it is the true America?”

For an instant the calm, reasonable visage seemed to crack, and Gordon saw the fanatic within, unchanged except perhaps by deepening over the years. Gordon had heard that tone… long ago in the radio voice of Nathan Holn — before the survivalist “saint” was hanged — and spoken by his followers ever since.

It was the same solipsistic philosophy of ego that had stoked the rage of Nazism, of Stalinism. Hegel, Horbiger, Holn — the roots were identical. Derived truth, smug and certain, never to be tested in the light of reality.

In North America, Holnism had been a nut fringe during a time of otherwise unparalleled brilliance, a throwback to the egoistic eighties. But another version of the same evil — “Slavic Mysticism” — actually seized power in the other hemisphere. That madness finally plunged the world into the Doomwar.

Gordon smiled with grim severity. “Who can say what is legitimate, after all these years? But one thing is certain, Bezoar, the ‘true spirit of America’ seems to have become a passion for hunting down Holnists. Your cult of the strong is loathed — not only in the Restored U.S. but almost everywhere I’ve traveled. Feuding villages will join forces on rumor of sighting one of your bands. Any man caught wearing surplus camouflage is hanged on sight.”

He knew he had scored, then. The earringed officer’s nostrils flared. “That’s Colonel Bezoar, if you please. And I’ll wager there are some areas where that’s not true, Mr. Inspector. Florida, perhaps? And Alaska?”

Gordon shrugged. Both states had gone silent the day after the first bombs fell. There had been other places too, such as southern Oregon, where the militia had not dared enter, even in strength.

Bezoar stood up and walked to a bookshelf. He pulled down a thick volume. “Have you ever actually read Nathan Holn?” he asked, his voice amiable once again. Gordon shook his head.

“But, sir!” Bezoar protested. “How can you know your enemy without learning how he thinks? Please, take this copy of Lost Empire… Holn’s own biography of that great man, Aaron Burr. It just might change your mind.

“You know I do believe, Mr. Krantz, that you are the sort of man who could become a Holnist. Often the strong need only have their eyes opened to see that they have been cozened by the propaganda of the weak, that they could have the world, if only they stretched out their hands and took it.”

Gordon suppressed his initial response, and picked up the proffered book instead. It probably wouldn’t be wise to provoke the man too far. After all, he could probably have both northerners killed with a word.

“All right. It might help pass the time while you arrange our transportation back to the Willamette,” he said, quite calmly.

“Yeah,” Johnny Stevens contributed, speaking for the first time. “And while you’re at it, how about paying the extra postage it’ll take to finish delivering that stolen mail we’re going to take back with us?”

Bezoar returned Johnny’s cold smile, but before he could reply, they heard footsteps on the wooden porch of the former ranger station. The door opened and in stepped three bearded men dressed in the traditional green and black fatigues.