Chapter 16

Sophie stopped so quickly that Ramon, carrying their son Armando, bumped into her as he followed her into the room. The place was packed, and as she surveyed the faces, Sophie realized that she knew most of them.

Jules Carson, she had expected, since he, as her commanding officer, was the one who had summoned her back to Phoenix from Memphis. Ruth and Jamaal, Arthel Leahy, Seamus O'Donnell and his wife, Jackson and Camille Lee, Matt and Heather Dryer, Cora and Ralph Mondale, Crystal and Jerry Martino, Gunther Schmidt, John and Wanda Hipa, even Ramon's parents, Gunny and Carmen, as well as many others whose faces were familiar, but whose names escaped her - they had not been expected.

A million questions filled her head, as did suspicions about the real purpose of this gathering, but her first action was to go to Arthel Leahy and take her hand.

"I was so sorry to hear about Nick," she told the older woman. Nick Leahy had joined the Phoenicians in the Citadel at the same time as the Wyndhams. He and Arthel had fallen in love during their famous journey around the former United States to disarm the nuclear weapons, whatever they were. Sophie had gotten word of his death a couple of months ago, in Memphis.

Arthel wrapped her in an affectionate embrace and replied, "He died doing what he loved. He was trying to make peace with a scav group on the southern continent. The kids and I miss him, but he was a good husband and a good Phoenician."

"I couldn't get away from my duties at the time, or I would have been at the wake," Sophie told her.

"I know you would, dear," Arthel said, releasing her and wiping at a tear that trailed down her brown cheek. "But that's not why we're here tonight. Come on, we've got business to attend to."

Sophie turned to General Carson, who stood with General Lee and both of their wives.

"General? What's all this about? Your message said it was a civilian matter..."

" ... of utmost importance to Phoenicia," Carson finished for her, "and it is. We," his wave encompassed everyone in the room, "have decided to draft you for a very important mission."

"Mission?" Sophie's brain churned for a moment, then she caught the self-satisfied grin on Jamaal's face. "Oh, no! Not that old 'run for President' thing again! I'm a soldier..."

"And a damned good one," General Lee said, taking her hand, "but you've proven, in the last couple of years, that you're also a damned good administrator, and, more importantly, a helluva leader. Sophie, Phoenicia needs you. Most of us here were with your father at the Citadel, and at the beginnings of Phoenicia. The problem is, we're in the minority now that Phoenicia has grown so rapidly. If Phoenicia is not to slip back into the same traps that had us on the verge of extinction at the time of the Sickness, she needs a leader who understands the vision your father had for us."

"But political dynasties were one of the things that contributed to the problems leading up to the Sickness. I wasn't alive then, but my father told me about the Bush dynasty and the problems that caused. Why would you want to set such a precedent for Phoenicia?"

"It's a chance we have to take, Sophie," Jamaal joined in. "During your brother's presidency, Phoenicia has made great strides, but he's beginning to let himself be swayed by the voices that want things to go back to the way they were. We need someone who can be a symbol for Phoenicia and for your father's vision."

"My father was a great man," Sophie replied, "with a great vision, but unlike Grey Eagle, he could not see into the future. What if his vision is not what Phoenicia needs now?"

"His direction is still the right one," a younger, female voice replied, and Rebecca Lee stepped from the crowd, "and modifications can be made to his original ideas without destroying the core of the vision. Your brother was never as close to your father as you, and even before Don Gavin disappeared, Gav disagreed with him on a number key issues. Phoenicia needs someone to get her back on track, before it's too late."

"But, you," Sophie fumbled with the words in her confusion. "You're the Vice President. Why don't you do it? Gav can't run again, but you can..."

Rebecca shook her head. "I am not leader enough to do what needs to be done, Sophie. Nor am I a person to whom people can look as a symbol of your father's vision. Even the new people know you, not only as Gavin and Amanda's daughter, but as a leader, a diplomat, and a hero. You can get votes that would otherwise go to one of the recidivist candidates. Gav wants me to run, because he thinks that I will carry on his policies, but I happen to agree with my father and his friends."

Sophie turned back to Jules Carson. "So this was why you gave me the administrator's post for the new territory."

"Partly," Carson nodded. "We needed to see if you could handle it, and give you the experience, if you showed that you had the ability. As a bonus, you have managed, all by yourself, to build a reputation as a fair and able administrator, which only adds to your image. People have called you Doña most of your life, Sophie. You may have thought is was because of your birth, but we've asked around. People call you that because they respect you, partly because you never tried to act like the founder's daughter."

"Excuse me?" Sophie said, shocked. "I have spent my entire life trying to act like the founder's daughter - to live up to the expectations that I felt others would have of Gavin and Amanda's child."

"What he means," Jamaal said, "is that you never acted as though you deserved special privileges. In pretty much every other way, you have lived up to those expectations - even exceeded them. That is how you have earned the respect of the people around you, and the reputation that follows you."

"What about Mark Wyndham? Wouldn't he be a better candidate?"

"He might have been a good candidate at one time, but the story of how he got his broken arm came back from Memphis with him. Nobody in Phoenicia will vote for him now," Ruth Warner answered for the group.

Sophie felt cornered - trapped by the choices she had made and the accident of her birth, and she had no experience on which to base such a momentous decision. She wished that, like her father, she had a person like Grey Eagle to paint the picture of her destiny, to tell her which way she should go.

As if in answer to her thought, Jamaal leaned close and told her in a low voice, "Your path is clear, young Sophie. I do not have Grey Eagle's visions to guide me, but it seems to me that this path was laid out for you from the time your mother died. Your father, remember, did not meet up with Grey Eagle until he had already taken the major steps toward realizing his own vision."

Sophie cast her thoughts back to her childhood - to the time after her mother's death when she and her father had been almost inseparable. She had followed him around constantly as he fought to get Phoenicia's constitution written and ratified. She had bombarded him with questions about the process and about the Constitution, and he had always taken the time to answer her questions as thoroughly and honestly as he could. In the process, she had learned, not only about the things that one needed to know to run a government, she had also become intimately familiar with her father's philosophy and his vision of what the new civilization should be, as well as why he held those views.

That, she had to admit, had set her foot upon this path. Had her father come back from that "vacation," she realized, she might have grown up as just another girl in Phoenix. Father would have been there to uphold the family honor, and she probably would not have felt, as urgently, the need to do so. Through the lens of years, she saw how his disappearance had locked her onto her present course, and that every step she had taken since then, had only brought her closer to this moment.

Sure, others had played a part. She suspected that Generals Lee and Carson had guided her career more than a little bit, especially after L9, but she had been the one who felt the need to live up to her father's image - to honor his name with every word and every deed.

Jamaal was right. There might have been times that she could have turned aside, but given who she was and the life that she had lived, the chances of her doing so had been very slight. Now, as clearly as she imagined Grey Eagle had seen her father's path in his visions, she saw her own. There would be many places in the future where she would have to decide whether or not to stay on the chosen path, but this was not one of them. It was not these people, but her destiny that had brought her to this juncture.

Stalling, not yet ready to accept what she had discovered about herself, she asked the only question she could think of: "What about Memphis and the new territory?"

"You've trained your staff well, Colonel," Carson answered, "and in the year and a half that you've been there, have taken care of the worst of the logistics and integration problems, and have laid out the road map for the rest. Someone else can take over now."

Like a bolt of lightning, inspiration struck her. "Send Mark Wyndham."

"Wyndham?" General Lee's weren't the only eyebrows raised at the suggestion. "Why him?"

"Several reasons," Sophie replied, realizing as she said it that it did make sense for a number of reasons. "First, I don't particularly want to run into him here in Phoenix, and I doubt if he wants anything to do with me. Second, while it was a bad mistake that he made, he's still an able leader, and should be capable of handling the job. Third, it should keep him from sitting around, letting what happened fester and turn into something ugly, and last, but maybe most important, it will get him out from under Elizabeth's wing for a while and perhaps give him a chance to see who he can become on his own. In the process, he should be able to begin rebuilding his reputation."

Carson and Lee exchanged glances before General Lee nodded curtly. "I think it's more than he deserves, but looked at from that perspective, it makes sense. He might have to do some fighting to get people to do what he wants them to. He's lost a lot of respect among Phoenicians."

"It's the best chance he's going to get to earn that respect again," Sophie shrugged. A lot of Phoenicians had to fight for what they wanted, and although Mark had let his temper get the best of him, she knew he was no coward.

She turned slowly in the middle of the circle of faces. Most of them were familiar, but the one she sought was ... right behind her. She intertwined her fingers with Ramon's and turned to look at him as if no one else was in the room.

"They want me to be President, 'Mon. What do you think?"

"When this many people - and people we both respect, at that - want something, it's probably a good idea to give it to them."

"What about us and Armando?"

"We'll have plenty of help with the baby, Soph," he grinned. "This is still Phoenicia, you know."

"I know, but I'll be busy a lot. May not get to see the two of you as much as I'd like..."

"Then we'll just have to come to your office to see you as often as we can," Ramon wrapped his arms around her, and his proximity, as it always did, calmed her. "You need to do this, sweetheart. Phoenicia is calling and you'll never be able to live with yourself if you don't answer the call."

"You sure? I'm scared, 'Mon. More than I've ever been in my life."

"Good," he nodded. "It'll keep you on your toes. Soph, you're a fighter when you need to be, a leader all the time, and you're Gavin Thompson's daughter. You might make mistakes, but you'll correct them, and your love of Phoenicia will keep you from straying too far from the path your father set you on. This is what you were born to do, and I'd be a damned selfish husband if I tried to keep you from doing it."

"Well, we may be getting a little ahead of ourselves. First, let's see if Phoenicia will elect me."

"Don't tell me. Tell them." Ramon smiled, nodding at the crowd around them.

Sophie reluctantly disengaged from his strength, but held onto his right hand as she turned to face the assembled people.

"I'm still not sure I'm the right person for the job, and I don't like setting dangerous precedents, but if you are all determined to have me as your candidate, I guess I'd better accept..."

Whatever else she might have said was lost in the eruption of cheers as everyone in the room charged forward to wish her well and offer congratulations. She got the feeling they were congratulating themselves as much as they were her.

When the tumult had settled and the room had quieted again, Rebecca came to her.

"You're going to need a campaign manager," she said. "If it didn't interfere with my other duties, I'd be happy to take on the job. Since I can't, I can recommend someone."

Sophie thought for a moment. It was true that politics in Phoenicia had rapidly devolved into the rabid sort of character sniping that characterized pre-Sickness campaigns, but there were some major differences, thanks to the Phoenician Constitution. It might be a good idea to have someone who knew the ins and outs of the political system, especially in Phoenix, but then again...

"You wanted me as your candidate so that I can carry out my father's vision," she answered, loudly enough to make it clear that she was speaking to the whole room. "One part of that vision was a political system that would be more likely to elect people who could do the job than people who knew how to manipulate the system. I think that if we want that, then we have to live up to it. I will register as a candidate, and I will conduct my campaign the way my father wanted all campaigns to be run. If that's not enough to get me elected, then I suppose the people of Phoenicia will have made their preference known."

A chorus of protests met this announcement, but Sophie raised her hand for silence. "You can't have it both ways. Either we adhere to Gavin Thompson's principles, or we don't."

She already knew who she was going to call on to help her with this campaign, but they were going to leave the new administrator in Memphis a little short-handed.

"I knew it!" Linda cried, hardly limping at all as she jumped down from the truck and ran to embrace her lifelong friend. "I knew you'd take it!"

"If you don't kill me first!" Sophie laughed, returning her embrace with at least as much vigor as Linda employed. "You're a big girl you know, especially with your belly full of kid!"

"Oh, that?" Linda scoffed, looking down at her swollen stomach, "This one'll be a piece of cake next to Amanda. God she had a big head!"

"All the better to hold all those brains, girl," Sophie replied. "That's going to be one very bright child."

Linda's features softened into a motherly smile and she answered, "You think so? God, I hope you're right!"

"Yes she is, but I forgot how close you were to having this one," Sophie said. "Are you still going to be able to manage my campaign?"