A Meeting at Corvallis by S. M. Stirling Page B

pedigree and a Bohunk moniker.”
    They both chuckled at the old family joke; back in the 1890s one Arvo Myllyharju had arrived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, fresh off an Aland Island square-rigger and looking for a job in the Iron Range. The Czech pay-clerk at the mine had taken one look at the string of Finnish consonants and said: From now on, your name is Havel!
    His great-grandson remembered. Though will it make any sense to our kids? he wondered. Finland might as well be Barsoom, to them, and Michigan about the same.
    There was a solid chunk … chunk …sound as the heavy beams that secured the gates were pulled back, and a squeal of steel on steel as the great metal portals swung out, salvaged wheels from railcars running along track set into the concrete of the roadway. Winches grated as the portcullis was raised, and the dark tunnel behind suddenly showed gray light at the other end as the identical inner portals went through the same procedure, to reveal a cheering crowd lining the way. The gates were normally kept open anyway in daylight, during peacetime; this was for show. Signe and Havel reined in beside the gate, saluting as the infantry company went by, followed by the lancers. Feet and hooves boomed drumlike on the boards of the drawbridge and echoed through the passage.
    Havel looked up as he followed; there were flickers of lantern light through the gratings in the murder-holes above, and a scent of hot oil bubbling in great pivot-mounted tubs.
    â€œAlways thought we could save some effort with those,” he said. “Sort of wasteful, all that cooking oil, and burning all that fuel, when all it does is sit there and simmer.”
    â€œThey’ve got to be kept hot,” Signe said.
    â€œYeah, but we could do French-fries in ’em. Maybe onion rings too…”
    Dun Juniper, Willamette Valley, Oregon
December 15th, 2007/Change Year 9
    There was a chorus of giggles from the sixteen-year-olds preparing their choir at the other end of the great Hall. One of them sang in a high, clear tenor:
    â€œIt’s the end of the world as we know it!
    â€œIt’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine!”
    The rest of them took it up for a moment. Sir Nigel Loring put down his book and looked up with mild interest from his armchair beside the big fireplace on the north wall, sipping at the last of his honey-sweetened chamomile tea. It wasn’t quite as vile when you got used to it, and the dried-blueberry muffins that stood on the side table were quite good. Flames played over the glowing coals, red and gold flickering in an endless dance.
    I quite liked that little tune the first time around, for some reason, he thought, relaxing in the grateful warmth and the scent of burning fir as firelight and lamplight played on the colored, carven walls. But that changed with the Change. And these… infants! They were six-year-olds then. All they know is that it scandalizes their elders.
    Juniper Mackenzie—since the Change the Lady Juniper, Chief of the Clan Mackenzie, which nowadays meant ruler secular and sacred through most of the southeastern Willamette—hopped up onto the dais to put her head above the youngsters. Loring smiled at the sight. There was a crackling energy to the slight figure; she was a short, slim woman just turned forty, with a little gray starting in her vivid fox red hair, pale-skinned and freckled with bright, leaf green eyes; the fine lines around them were mostly from laughter. Besides the tartan kilt and saffron-dyed shirt of homespun linsey-woolsey she wore a belted plaid pinned at the shoulder with a gilt knotwork brooch, a flat Scots bonnet with three raven feathers in the silver clasp, and a little sgian dubh knife tucked into one kneesock. She gave a mock-scowl as she stared at the youngsters with her hands on her hips, and they shuffled their feet and looked abashed.
    Behind her loomed the Chief’s chair, a thronelike