Orson Card - THE CRYSTAL CITY

"I see," said Alvin. "It ain't all that easy after all."

"If I kill you all," said Mike, "won't be nobody to tell about this place."

"Except you," said Alvin.

"Well, I didn't say it was a perfect plan."

"What we need," said Verily, "is a charter from the state. Granting us the boundaries that we want for our county, and then we got to make sure we control all the land so it only gets sold to people we choose. People who are with us and won't cause trouble."

"People who are willing to help build this place as a city of makers," said Alvin.

"I know how to write such a charter," said Verily. "But I don't know that I'll be able to find my way around the state government."

"Well don't look at me," said Abe. "I'm no politician."

"But you're from around here," said Verily. "You don't talk like a highfalutin Englishman. And you have a way of making people like you."

"So do you," said Abe.

"You know everybody hates him," said Coz.

"Well, yes," said Abe, "but only because they know Englishmen are smarter than other folks and they resent it."

"Will you help me get that charter for Furrowspring County?" said Verily.

"I notice you took it upon yourself to name the place," said Abe.

"Do you have a better one?" said Verily.

"I was partial to Lincoln County," said Abe.

"How about Lincoln-Fink County?" suggested Mike.

"Now that's pure vanity," said Abe. "Naming the county after yourself."

"What were you doing?"

"Naming it for the county in England, of course," said Abe.

"Furrowspring it is, then," said Alvin. "The voting is unanimous." He turned to Abe. "But in the meantime, settlers can come freely into River County lands, right? And farm and build wherever they want?"

"That's the law," said Abe. "Don't need permission. As long as you don't step on somebody else's farm, and I don't see any around here."

"You know," said Alvin, "I was wondering why there wasn't at least one or two farmsteads, belonging to the kind of folks who think six houses make a city too big to enjoy living in."

"Maybe because this is land meant for something better than a stumpy little farm," said Verily.

"And who's doing the meaning?" asked Alvin.

"Maybe the stone itself was ambitious," said Verily. "Or maybe it was the water, begging to be let out from under the rock."

"Or the sun that wanted this patch to have no trees to make shade," said Alvin. "Or the wind, needing a little meadow to blow across. Gentlemen, I don't think any of the elements have a plan."

"The plow did," said Verily.

Alvin had to concede the point.

They put the plow handles on the back of one of Verily's steeds and instead of anyone riding they led the three horses back to Springfield together. They moved with the greensong, all of them, and got there in only an hour of steady running, and the horses weren't lathered or winded, and the men weren't hungry or tired, and as for thirsty, they had all drunk from that clear spring, and they were loath to taste any other water, because they knew it would taste like tin or mud or nothing at all, instead of sweet, the way they knew now water ought to be.

Popocatepetl

It was such a lovely ride from the coast to Mexico City. Everything went just as Steve Austin had predicted-which was not at all how Calvin expected it to go. Their ship put into the free port of True Cross, where whites could come and trade without fear of being taken for sacrifice. They took three days finding interpreters and buying supplies and pack mules, and then they went to the inland gate of the city.

"You are not safe to go outside," said the door warden.

"We're going," said Steve Austin. "Out of the way."

"I will not let you go. White people die out there, give bad name to port of True Cross."

Austin raised a pistol to shoot the man in the head.

"No, no," said Calvin impatiently. "What did you bring me for, anyway, if you're just going to go shooting people. What if we need to get back here and thanks to you they shoot us on sight?"

"When we come back we'll be the rulers of Mexico."

"Fine," said Calvin. "But let me do this."

Austin put his pistol away. Calvin studied the gates for a few moments, trying to decide whether it was worth the effort to make this a truly spectacular event or merely a practical one. He decided that something showy, like making the gates burst into flame and burn down to ash, would be wasted here. It was the reds outside this city that they'd need to impress.

So he dissolved the linchpins in the hinges and then, with a gentle nudge, made sure the gates fell outward instead of inward.

The door warden-with no more door to ward-shrugged and turned away. And out they rode, a hundred heavily armed white men, to take on the Mexica.

Almost at once they were confronted by Mexica soldiers. These were not the club-wielding warriors that Cortez had faced three centuries before. They were mounted and carried new-model muskets that had probably been bought from the United States, where Philadelphia-the city of brotherly love-had quite a munitions business going. Immediately they surrounded Austin's army, which bristled with weapons at the ready.

"Patience," said Calvin to Austin. It wasn't hard to make fire, but it was tricky to make a ring of it, and he singed quite a few of the Mexica horses when the flames didn't go quite where he'd planned. But that only made the demonstration more effective. The Mexica backed off, the horses shying and neighing, but then dismounted and prepared to fire through the flames.

Calvin was ready. He knew how Alvin handled this sort of thing, bending the end of the gunbarrels so the enemy wouldn't bother firing. But Calvin wanted them to fire. So he pinched off each gunbarrel inside, not tightly, but enough to keep the ball from coming out. It was quite a scramble to find all the muskets and close them off before the tiring started, but it helped that the Mexica commander kept shouting for them to surrender, while the panicky horses kept the Mexica in an uproar long enough for Calvin to finish the job.

"Don't shoot," said Calvin.

"But they're about to lay a volley into us," said Austin.

"They only think they are," said Calvin.

The Mexica captain gave the command, and the soldiers pulled the triggers of their muskets.

Whereupon every single one of them exploded, killing or blinding almost all of them, and blowing the heads right off more than a few.

The Mexica captain was left standing there with his ceremonial obsidian-edged sword and only a few of his men still alive enough to writhe on the ground moaning or screaming in agony.

"Shoot him!" cried Austin.

"No!" cried Calvin. "Let him go! You want somebody to tell the story of this, don't you?"

Austin didn't like being contradicted, but it was plain that Calvin was right. What good was it to put on a show like this, if there wasn't somebody left to go tell the rest of the Mexica about these white men who came with irresistible power. So if it bothered Austin that Calvin had countermanded his order, well wasn't that too bad. If he didn't want that to happen, he shouldn't give stupid orders. And besides, it wasn't a bad thing for Austin to remember who actually had the power here. Austin might plan to be the emperor of Mexico, but if he achieved it, it would be because he had Calvin Maker with him.

Calvin had thought he'd have to do several more demonstrations, but it all went better than he'd hoped. The first city they came to, the alcalde came out to them and insisted that the people of this place were not Mexica and begged the mighty priest they had with them not to harm them.

Austin gave a speech about how they had come to restore good government to these lands and free them from the rule of the bloodthirsty, murderous, savage Mexica. Whereupon the people cheered and the alcalde insisted on sending five hundred men along with them to Mexico City. Since these were not real soldiers, but only ordinary men, many of them old, and armed only with ceremonial clubs and swords, Austin agreed to let them come. But he insisted that they provide their own food and promise to obey his orders.