“I am constantly amazed at what excellent examples we are getting of how our delusions and fallacies affect culture, politics, and history,” Heather began.
She could see the wheels turning in several of the faces around her. They sensed something was wrong with the recently-enacted law they were discussing, but couldn’t quite put their fingers on it. Most of them didn’t have enough background in philosophy yet. The philosopher was smiling, but didn’t know the future.
“Yes, as some of you have guessed, the law will fail miserably. The seeds of its destruction could be seen, even now, if someone was brave enough to look in the right places.”
“But not by seven-year-olds,” the general dared to slip in, just for comic relief.
Heather laughed. “The problem lies in the process that was used to model the law’s effects when it was written. A very common habit called the Hasty Generalization was at play all during the drafting process, and that team didn’t have the good sense to get a philosopher. Doctor Bo-leden, you have the floor.”
Still smiling about her comment, he stood and came up to the blackboard.
“Hasty Generalizations come in two flavors, both essentially statistical problems. The committee that drafted the law did, as I remember, get the opinions of a few people. Unfortunately, that sample was very small
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 102
compared to the number of people the law would effect. When the sample size is extremely small, the validity of the survey drops very low, approaching zero.”
He paused in his chalk scribbling to make sure they were following.
“The other problem occurred because the legislative process is political.
The party in power only asked the opinions of its own people. Therefore, the sample was not representative of the people the law would affect. You combine both of those, and the committee actually had no idea what would happen.”
Heather stood back up. “We could debate whether the committee even wanted to know the real outcome. The law will obviously succeed in transferring a fair amount of wealth from one class of people to another. But knowledge of the committee’s intentions will never become public, so I have no knowledge of them. Anyone who wants to explore that can of worms will have to do it another time.”
The entire circle of listeners grinned at her as they began raising their hands with questions.
With part of the facility completely remodeled, and the rest of the carpet expected to go in that day, excitement was high at lunch as nearly everyone worked on lists of things they needed to get or do before Friday.
The university professors were each tempted to bring five or ten of their fellows, since the facility would not be operating in any classified mode during the open house.
But since the place was only so big, and Major Ma-soran could only scrape up four blind transports for the occasion, she set a limit of three guests each.
She knew she had to save room for a few generals and colonels.
All Monday afternoon, Heather floated between the three craftsmen busy installing carpets, and the electrician putting in the security lamp that would glow green when, and only when, an officer or guard used a special key.
The two safe-house sleeping rooms were quickly carpeted, followed by the clinic.
The men had to scratch their heads a little in the new dance studio as they
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 103
prepared to install padding all over, but carpet only along the outside edges.
They looked at Heather askance. She pointed to the general’s signature on the plans, and smiled.
The excited seven-year-old almost got in the way as they carpeted her new room, but managed to humble herself when they gave her dirty looks. She sighed, knowing she’d have all evening to inspect it.
Finally, as dinnertime approached, the center of the large room, where the P-Seventeen team met, was covered with the same beautiful blue-green carpeting. With their last burst of energy, the craftsmen put all the furniture back, knowing the following two days would be long enough without any extra work.
Once the building was silent, with only Lisa drying the dinner dishes, Heather crept about the facility. In each newly-carpeted room, she stretched out on the soft floor and rolled over a few times, just to get the feel of it.
Sitting up on her knees, she imagined all the new furniture in place, furniture already waiting at the air base.
Eventually, she entered the old recreation room, now her room, and examined every inch. When she found a loose carpet thread, she ran to Sarah’s desk for scissors.
Finally, she lay on her back in the middle of the big room and gazed up at the log trusses. They let her thoughts soar, unlike the old suspended ceiling, and she knew her thoughts would need to soar in the coming years, in that very room, to avoid a disaster from which her world would never recover.
“Hi, kid,” Lisa said, towering over her suddenly. “Want a scoop of orange sherbet with me?”
“Yeah!”
Lisa and Heather got Maria’s first few pancakes on Tuesday morning, then departed before anyone else arrived. An hour later, they stepped into the nursery as soon as it opened.
“Are you mommy’s little helper today?” the woman asked with a sweet smile.
“Yep! I love little plantsies!”
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 104
“In that case, you can pick out one of these that need homes.”
Heather gazed at the tray of two-inch pots with tiny dying plants in them, took a slow breath, and selected a small cactus that might survive if given some well-drained soil. “Thank you! Can I leave it here until we go?”
“You sure can, Honey!”
The woman’s eyes grew wide when both early shoppers grabbed the largest flat-bed carts and headed down the first aisle.
“Plantsies?” Lisa inquired with a smile.
“I can act the part when necessary.”
“Does it ever bother you when people talk down to you? I mean . . . you could easily run this entire business.”
Heather chuckled. “Sometimes I get tired of it. There’s also a part of me that likes it a little. Okay, here’s the indoor potted plants. One list for you, one for me . . .”
Over the next hour, the pair assembled seven flat-bed carts near the cash register — plants ranging from two to six feet tall, big ceramic pots, wheeled planter dollies, a bird bath, and bags of potting soil, sand, and gravel.
While the woman verified the purchase order, Lisa backed the truck into the loading zone.
Heather made sure she remembered her sickly little cactus. Somehow, she could relate to it.
After getting Wednesday’s topic, Heather turned her mind to the trickiest part of the remodeling job. The craftsmen had never before laid a dance floor.
They were putting complete trust in a sketch drawn by a little girl.
“Okay . . .” the foreman began after polishing off a quarter of his sandwich.
“Since it’s floating on a carpet pad, we can’t use nails, so we’ll glue the plywood sheets together today, and do the hardwood tomorrow, but you can’t take the weights off until . . . Friday morning.” He looked at his little supervisor.
“That’s close, but I can get the guards to help me. I don’t need to dance on it at the open house, it just has to look nice.”
The foreman and one helper made the plywood base, two layers with all
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 105
the seams offset, strong glue between. The other two craftsmen tossed gloves to Ben and they brought up a hundred concrete blocks. Heather tried to lift one, waddled a few feet, then gave up.
By mid-afternoon, the workers were happy to turn their attention to the normal hardwood flooring, eight feet wide, that would completely surround the big meeting room. It went quickly, and by dinner they had the back half completely finished.
That evening, with Ginny’s help, Heather re-potted a dozen large plants while pondering what the team needed to hear about the proxy wars the country was about to fight.
“I must admit,” General Bo-seklin began as soon as Heather opened the session to questions, “when you first said proxy wars weeks ago, we weren’t quite sure what you meant.”
“My apologies. I’ve tried to adjust my terminology back to this period, but its half a century, sometimes three-quarters, and I don’t always know the right terms.”
“We figured it out, and several others you’ve used, but it’s often a bit humbling, as the terms you use tend to be more . . . um, honest . . . than those used today.”
“I think that’s natural, and you’d find the same thing in any time period.”
“So . . . it’s public knowledge in the future that we’re actually going to be indirectly fighting the Beklan Empire?”
“It is, and it’s also public knowledge that in any proxy war, most of the people who die are not ours or theirs, but the local people instead. That part of the world will never forgive us, or the Beklan Empire. But the whole point of a proxy war is that the people who are hurt and killed don’t vote in our elections. The voters here don’t care enough about our differences with the Beklans to support a war in which millions of our own people die. But they will support a war in which millions of people with different-color skin, and funny names, die in some far-away land, if for no other reason than the television sport of it.”
Colonel Ba-kerga narrowed his eyes. “Are you opposed to this war?”
Heather closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened then, the team
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 106
knew that the person looking back was very far from seven years old.
“I am not afraid to voice my opinion that anyone who truly loves war is insane. But that does not change the fact that if war happens, then something in human nature is making it happen. I am not here to change human nature, nor do I believe anyone would succeed in trying to do so. Given all that, no, I cannot say that I am opposed to this war.”
The hardwood strips covered the dance floor quickly with one man spreading glue, two fitting the pieces, and one placing weights. The rest of the flooring in the large room took hours more, but the craftsmen stayed after dinner to get it all done.
“I’m beginning to see the overall design and color harmony,” Lisa declared after letting the men out, “and I like it. Is it shaping up like you imagined?”
Heather nodded with a far-away look in her eyes. “It has moods, and they’ll affect my work sometimes, but it’s happiest in the morning when the team meets. I’ll often want to get away in the late afternoon when the place is feeling a bit grumpy.”
The major looked askance at the girl, wondering what she sensed that the rest of them couldn’t.
Heather shook her head slightly and focused on Lisa again. “Help me hang some curtains?”
Lisa smiled and nodded.
On Thursday morning, after seeing the barely-hidden smile on Sarah’s face, then opening her mail drawer, Heather glanced up to see if the new security lamp was glowing green. It was, so she read the topic sheet aloud for Ginny and Lisa to hear. “No topic for you for Session 11 on Friday. Doctor Po-selem will be giving a special presentation. ”
“How do you feel about that?” Sarah asked from her desk.
“Great! Chris is always fun, and hasn’t had much he could say about recent topics. I had a hunch he was doing some thinking, maybe some research. And that means I can play with furniture and plants all day today!”
Heather danced several songs on the new hardwood floor around the big
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 107
room, keeping the music very low. Then she whispered farewell to the old gray couch that had been her bed for nearly a month, and placed a masking-tape X on it for removal.
As noon approached, the radio came to life. “Mobile Construction Unit Five to facility, we have three, count them, three trucks full of furniture, so we’ll just be parking in front, E.T.A. two minutes.”
Heather could feel butterflies in her stomach as Sarah chatted on the radio and Ben went downstairs to oversee the parking.
As they ate homemade pizza, Heather showed the craftsmen sketches of where all the furniture should go. They laid a sheet of plywood over the new hardwood floor, then hauled down all the old couches.
That made plenty of room to move the three officers’ gray metal desks into the big room. Brand new varnished wooden ones were set in place, with plush chairs on wheels behind each. All three enjoyed moving their files and desk tools into the beautiful new furniture.
While the officers organized their pencils, the men carried beds, end tables, small desks, and chairs to the sleeping rooms, then a new desk and examining table to the clinic. The safe-house corridor got linen cabinets and stuffed chairs, and the dance studio received shelves for the sound system.
Heather was right there as each item was placed, sketches in hand, usually quite happy with the placement, occasionally requesting an adjustment.
When they came to her room, she danced outside the door while they brought in a large bed, wardrobe, cedar chest, roll-top desk, bookcase, and wing-back chair. “Just make it look nice,” she begged. “It will take me weeks to figure out where everything goes, and the open house is tomorrow!”
Finally, the four men and one girl looked at the carpeted area in the middle of the big room.
“This is the heart of the place,” Heather explained. “The new blackboard mounts on the back wall, right in the middle. Couches go on the sides.
Bookcase over there. Then just stick ten of those comfy rolling chairs in the middle, and we’ll arrange them later.”
“That leaves two extra rolling chairs,” the foreman pointed out.
“General’s office, for his guests.”
NEBADOR Book Nine: A Cry for Help 108
The man nodded. “He’ll like that.”
Getting the old metal desks down the stairs was the worst part, after which the new meeting area was quickly furnished.
Over dinner, the four craftsmen and Heather took one last look at the plans and checklists, then slapped hands for a job well done.
“Want to supervise our next assignment?” the foreman asked. “You’re better than . . .” He stopped and looked around. “. . . most of the grouchy ol’
officers we get!”
Heather smiled, but knew she would be quite busy in the coming weeks, months, and years.
At about twenty-two hundred hours, Maria finally decided her kitchen, and the many trays of food stacked in her refrigerators, were ready. Ben let her out.
Lisa left at twenty-three hundred, promising to be back by six in the morning.
Ginny stayed up with Heather as she went from room to room, making sure everything looked its best. They both fell onto couches at about one in the morning.
Ben finally got some sleep at two, on the soft new couch in the guard room.
