The Weapon - Passion - part 5
By Diana the Valkyrie
The orphans


He led us upstairs; the first floor was a big room that doubled as a dormitory
and day room. There were a couple of dozen children in there; some were
reading, some were playing with the younger ones, some were just sleeping. The
children saw Wendy, and stopped what they were doing. "Hello, I'm Magic
Wendy." She knelt down on the floor, her cape spread around, and beckoned them
to her. One small girl walked up to her and stood with her thumb in her mouth,
watching her. Wendy sat back on her heels, and said "And what's your name?"
"Davinia" "Hello, Davinia. Would you like to see some magic?" Davinia nodded.
Wendy beckoned her closer. "Why have you got a candy in your ear?" she asked.
Davinia looked puzzled. Wendy showed her an empty hand, then reached forward
to the girl's ear, and produced a candy. "Oh!" she said, "how did that get
there?" Several other children came forward to see this.

I hadn't known that Wendy was a conjurer. It was all very simple stuff, of
course, no sawing the lady in half. But these were children, you don't need to
perform sophisticated illusions. After a few minutes, they were sitting round
her, enthralled as she made things disappear, reappear, change colour, and all
the other things that you'd expect a party entertainer to do. For half an
hour, the children were transported from the daily misery of their lives into
a magical kingdom where anything was possible. Then one of the older children
put up her hand. "Yes?" asked Wendy. "Can you magic up a bottle of baby food?
It's for my sister Rosetta," said the girl, holding out a crying baby, "all
we've got for her is water, and she's hungry." The baby's arms and legs were
like matchsticks; I was shocked that such terrible malnutrition could be
happening in Europe. "Give her here," said Wendy, "I've got something better
than a bottle."

The baby latched on to her nipple eagerly, and was sucking hard. Wendy looked
round the room. "What about the other baby?" she asked. One of the girls
fetched the other baby, and explained "She hasn't got any brothers or
sisters." Wendy put the baby to her other breast, and said "Yes she has.
You're all her brothers and sisters. You must all help each other. Now gather
round, children, I'm going to tell you a story." I turned to Vlyd next to me,
and saw tears running down his cheeks as he watched the children laughing.

I tapped him on the shoulder, and said "Downstairs, back to your office." We
went down, and left Wendy with the kids. "Vlyd, old chap, I think your worries
are over." He shook his head. "I wish. I wish. She's very good with the
children, but that's not really going to help much. It's so wonderful to hear
them laughing, but what about tomorrow?" "Vlyd, I'll be honest with you, I
don't know what we're going to do. But she made you a promise, and you can
take it to the bank." "Mr Duncan, perhaps you haven't understood the problems.
It isn't just food..." I interrupted. "Vlyd, I understand more than you think.
And don't be fooled by the simple conjuring tricks that she's doing for the
children, that's nothing. She can do some really incredible things, she isn't
human, she has fantastic powers, and if she's determined to go in to bat for
you, then you're on the winning side. Just have a little faith in her. By the
way, why the prison bars?" "Prison bars?" "On the windows." "To stop the
children from falling out, of course. Otherwise, they'd lean out of the
windows and fall, you can't watch them all the time."

Half an hour later, Wendy came into the office, her arm cuddling two babies,
who were fast asleep. "Vlyd, we have to go now, but we'll be back tomorrow.
Meanwhile, I need your consent to take these two with me, so I can feed them
every few hours, that's what they need." He nodded, "Sure, that's two I won't
have to worry about." "Paperwork," I said. They both looked at me. "Vlyd,
write something down that gives us authority to look after these two for you.
Otherwise, if we get asked, we have nothing to show that it isn't a
kidnapping." He nodded, and put something on some headed notepaper. He handed
it to Wendy; she took it, and pulled him toward her, putting her free arm
round him and hugging him close to her body for a few seconds. "Vlyd, tell the
children, Magic Wendy will be back tomorrow." He nodded, he didn't look like
he was able to speak. Wendy let go of him, took my hand in hers and led me
outside. She blew a kiss to the children, who were watching from the windows,
and put her arm round my waist. I put my arms round her neck, and she took off
slowly into the sky, so that the children could see Magic Wendy as she flew.
After we'd risen several hundred feet, she brought her cape round to enclose
the two of us and the babies. Then she accelerated, but not to her usual three
gravities. "Slow trip, Duncan" she said, kissing one of the babies.

On the way back, I gave her a piece of my mind. "How the hell could you make a
promise that we'd fix this, we haven't got the faintest idea what we can do,
Wendy." "What it takes." "Huh?" "We'll do what it takes." "Because you
promised that guy? Wendy, you might at least ask me before you make rash
promises like that." "No, not for Vlyd, this isn't for Vlyd. This is for the
children, Duncan. For the children. The babies."

Sigh. There's no answer to that. She's right, of course.

The trip home took over an hour, but we were still back in time for dinner.
Wendy called ahead and by the time we got home, Milly and George were there,
and Milly was cooking something ethnic and East European "It's a traditional
Rhythyn dish," she said, "or maybe it's Thrynyn, it depends which recipe book
you read." Milly was wearing a black velvet catsuit, her blonde hair
contrasting beautifully against it, and a royal blue pinafore that looked
rather incongruous on her. "Are you sure about those arms," I asked, "they
look kind of, out of proportion?" Milly looked at George. "They're just fine,
Dunc, don't start putting her down." Milly smiled, flexed, and threw a pea at
me. I decided that I wouldn't retaliate, you can never win a food fight, so I
helped myself to some more thryxfth from the bowl. Yum.

While we were eating, Wendy and Milly took the babies upstairs to give them a
bath.

When they came back, George opened one of the packages of nappies that he'd
bought, to try to understand how they work. After a bit of trial and error, he
got both the babies nappied up, and bedded down in the baskets we'd got for
them. "Very good, George," I said, "you'll make a great mother." He made a
face at me.

Once we had the babies under control, Wendy explained to the others what we'd
found. "Vlyd's at the end of his tether, he can't feed the kids." "Why not,"
said Milly, "surely they still have food in that country?" Wendy looked at me.
"That's the bit I couldn't follow, actually. Duncan?" "Well, they've run out
of money. So they can't buy food." "But we saw shops with food in, why can't
they just eat some of that?" "Because they can't buy it." "There you go
again," said Wendy, "why not?"

Sometimes, you're talking to someone, and they suddenly seem to go insane, or
completely stop understanding what you're saying. When that happens, you know
that there's some fundamental assumption that they're making that is
completely different from the one you're making. It isn't always obvious what
that assumption might be, but until you find it and fix the difference, you
can't discuss that subject with that person. And that's what we had here.

Wendy didn't understand about money. Before you start laughing, you should
know that most people don't. That's why people wonder how come some parts of
the world have too much food, while others starve. And even within a country,
you can have some people with more than they need, and some starving children.
"Why can't the rich countries just feed the poor?" they ask, "why can't people
just share?" That sounds like a sensible question, unless you understand about
money (or rather, about economics). And this was the same question; why can't
the rich citizens of Ruthenia feed the poor ones? Or why can't the
international community pitch in and feed them? Well, the answer is actually
quite simple. There's no such thing as a "rich country". What there is, is
countries that include a lot of rich people (relative to the poor ones). And
unless those people are willing to give up part of what they have, it won't
work. Why? Because if the government tries to force them to give up part of
what they have, and they don't want to, then the government will be replaced
by one that does what the people actually want, because these countries tend
to be democracies. So, you have to persuade the actual people to give up part
of what they have. And that's the very very difficult thing. Ask any charity.

For a start, 99% of the people in a rich country, don't regard themselves as
rich. The fact that they have a thousand times as much as a poor person in a
poor country, doesn't make any impact. All they can see, is the other people
in the rich country they live in, and the fact that they have an old car, a
low quality house, and not much money left over to go on holiday in Cyprus,
means a lot more to them than a starving child a thousand miles away.

I went into lecturer mode. "First of all, children, I have to explain about
economics. When there isn't so much of something that everyone can have as
much as they want to take, there has to be some way to share it out, so that
everyone has less than they want. The way we do this, is called "money". You
have a certain amount of money, and you swap it for the things you want. You
can get more money, by selling things, or by selling your labour. You don't
have to spend it all, you can keep it and use it later. And money is just
something that everyone agrees is money. Like, a long time ago, people used
gold or silver. Now they use paper, but the idea's the same." "So why can't
the shops give the food to the kids?" "Because if they did, and they didn't
get money in exchange, then they can't buy more food for the shop, and they go
out of business, and the shopkeeper can't buy things for his family. So, that
would only work once. And you're left with the same problem."

"But why can't everyone just share?" asked Wendy. Good question. "Very good
question, Wendy, that debate's been going for a long time. The reason is this.
If everyone shares everything, then people do just as much as they need to, to
get by. But if you can tell people, the more you work, the more you'll get,
then they'll work more, and then there's more for everyone. The Capitalist
idea is that if you let some people have more than others by their own
efforts, then people will make more effort. The disadvantage of the Socialist
idea is that everyone has less. The disadvantage of the Capitalist idea is
that some people starve. The Socialist idea has the underlying assumption that
there's a fixed cake, and everyone has to share that."

"Never mind about cake," said Wendy, "the children have no bread."

"OK, then can't we give them money?" asked Milly. I looked at George. "You
tell her, George." "I have to pay my mortgage, or I don't have anywhere to
live," he said. "And electricity, and food, and evenings out down the Star of
India and the China Diner, and the car, which I still have to get fixed, and
and and. So where do we get the money to support two dozen kids?" explained
George. "It gets worse," I said. "How?" asked Wendy.

I counted on my fingers. "One," I said, "this isn't a once-off short term
problem, it's a long term problem, they don't just need money once, they need
it every month. Two, there's no way that this is the only orphanage affected,
they get their money from the government, and if one is having problems, then
so are all of them." Wendy interrupted, wide-eyed. "But that's, that's
terrible! How many children are we talking about here?" "I don't know, Wendy,
I really don't. I'd guess tens of thousands, but that's just a complete
wild-ass guess." She looked horrified. "That's, that's awful!" "It gets
worse." "How?" she asked. I sighed. "The real problem isn't money." "I thought
you said ... " "No. You see, there's a civil war on, the Rhythyns and the
Thrynyns, and if an orphanage has money, they'll just get robbed by one side
or the other, and you're back where you started."

Wendy sat and stared at me. "But those are their children!" "They don't see it
that way, Wendy. One side or the other, will think they're from the other
side, and therefore a target. Each side thinks their cause is just and good
and that robbery, in pursuit of their cause is good." "But what are their
causes?" "Like Vlyd said, Wendy. It doesn't. Fucking. Matter."

"Wendy?" said Milly. Wendy turned to look at her. "This is like the Mazdas and
the Ahrimans, isn't it? Two groups, fighting, no-one really knows why, they're
fighting today because they were fighting yesterday, and they drag as many
third parties into the fight as they can." Wow. Out of the mouths! "She's
right," I said, "it's exactly like that. Big-endians and Little-endians" "So
what's the real problem, if it isn't money?" asked Wendy. "The real problem is
this bloody civil war." "So how do we stop that?" asked Milly.

Naive. How do you put an end to war. People have been dreaming about that one
for thousands of years. The Congress of Vienna, the League of Nations, the
United Nations. The problem is, humanity actually seems to like having wars.
They're exciting, you get to go to interesting places with unpronouncable
names and kill people. The only time that a war ends, is when both sides want
it to stop. That's either because one side has so thoroughly beaten the other
that the other side sees no point in continuing, or else when both sides have
pounded each other to a draw. You can't just pull them apart, like a Saturday
night scuffle outside a pub. Hmm. On the other hand ... we did have a couple
of resources that most countries couldn't deploy in a peacekeeping force. If I
could only dream up a way to use them.

"There's four problems," I said. "First of all, we have to go back there
tomorrow with supplies, like food and stuff, because Wendy promised we would.
That's pretty easy, we just go down the supermarket, buy everything that looks
suitable, and Wendy flies it over there. But that's not any sort of long term
solution, that just gets them past the next few weeks." Wendy nodded. "If I
can leave the babies with you, Milly?" Milly nodded and grinned. "Then I can
go down there each day and deliver the groceries."

I looked at her. This has to be the most inefficient scheme I've ever heard.
We're going to fire a suborbital missile to travel a thousand miles in order
to deliver groceries? "How about a weekly delivery, Wendy? We have to deal
with the long term problem, can't spend too much time on the short term." She
looked disappointed. I was sure she just wanted to play with the children.

"The second problem," I continued, "is all the other orphanages that we know
must be there. The big problem there, is we don't have the slightest idea
where they are. The third problem is the ongoing supply of all of these, and
the fourth problem is that unless the civil war stops, it's all wasted anyway
because the combatants will just steal from the orphanages."