“I’m happy for you, Roland,” he murmured.
Luke went on, “And the Hyadean girl is with her, Yassem. She’s the one who got out with that other guy there, yes?”
“Yeaaah!” Cade exulted. He held out a palm. Hudro gripped it. They squeezed and shook deliriously, both unable to find words. Eventually, Cade looked back at the phone and managed, “But they don’t know about us yet, right? You’re still having to clam up because of Julia.”
“Oh, they know,” Luke replied. “The Julia problem kind of solved itself. It’s complicated. She’s history. Mind if I wait on that till you get back?”
Cade had suddenly decided that Julia’s story could wait anyway. “They know?” he repeated. “So is Marie there at the house? Can I talk to her?”
“Sure.” Luke’s head turned away as he called offscreen. “Hey, Henry. You wanna go tell Marie she won’t believe who’s on the line here? And you’d better check around and see if you can find Yassem while you’re at it.”
* * *
The next day, Cade contacted Krossig at the Hyadean scientific center for fieldwork that he had gone to in northeast Australia. Naturally, Krossig had also seen the documentary that Cade, Marie, and the others had made in South America. “So where are you calling from now?” he asked.
“You won’t believe it.”
“Mr. Cade, if you told me it was from the far side of the Moon, I would believe it.”
“I’m a lot closer to you now, as a matter of fact—in New Zealand.”
“Ah, that means you must be with that man, what was his name . . . ?” Krossig probably asked his veebee, “Neville Baxter.”
“Fast, Krossig,” Cade complimented. “But there’s more. Look, I have another Hyadean with me. You probably won’t know him. His name’s Hudro. To cut a long story short, he needs a new start in another part of the planet. I thought that Hyadean group that you’re with there might be able to take him in—at least for a while.”
They talked for a little longer, Cade giving the gist of how they had ended up in New Zealand.
“I’ll make inquiries,” Krossig promised.
Two days went by, during which the news brought reports of growing turmoil in America. Hyadean ground forces, apparently from several ships of reinforcements that had recently arrived in orbit, were occupying the Panama Canal Zone, which was generally interpreted as presaging operations in the Pacific. Already, there was talk of Asians “defending” Hawaii, which everyone understood meant securing trans-Pacific supply routes. The Hyadean move also prepared for the possible arrival of Globalist forces from South America in Mexico. The Mexican response was an outbreak of insurrection by a movement that had obviously been organizing for some time, no doubt linked to MOPAN, opposing the government’s Globalist supportive policy.
The Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin joined the Federation, anchoring its northern frontier solidly along the Great Lakes. Washington was making accusations of Canadian railroads moving Federation supplies inland from Vancouver and through the Rockies. Significantly, perhaps, Canada had refused overflight permission to the Union. In the southern sector, the Unionist drive into Texas was continuing, with ground forces now coming into contact, maneuvering for positions, and with actual outbreaks of skirmishing in places. Cade watched shots of tanks with familiar white star markings firing on positions a few miles west of Fort Worth. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would have said it was impossible.
Then Krossig called back. Yes, indeed, his superiors at the Hyadean field center would be extremely interested in meeting Cade and Hudro. Arrangements would be made to receive them as soon as they wished.
And so, just five days after their arrival in New Zealand, Cade and Hudro bade Neville Baxter farewell before boarding a New Zealand Air Force jet transport bound directly for Cairns, on the Queensland coast.
* * *
While Cade and Hudro were looking out over the sunlit blue of the Tasman Sea, it was a close, muggy evening in New York. There had been air-raid alerts, fire drills in offices and schools, and a lot of merchandise moved to safes and basements, but nothing had come of it.