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what he saw as a preview of the inevitable, dropped his insistence for a repeat performance in Iberia; at
least, that was the reason he offered publicly. Ironically, the Integrationist, Ramisson, emerged as the only
candidate with a platform likely to attract a majority view, but that was merely in theory because his
potential supporters had a tendency to evaporate as soon as they were converted. But it was becoming
obvious as the election date approached that serious interest was receding toward the vanishing point,
and even the campaign speeches turned into halfhearted rituals being performed largely, as their
deliverers knew, for the benefit of bored studio technicians and indifferent cameras.
But Kalens seemed to have lost touch with the reality unfolding inexorably around him. He continued to
exhort his nonexistent legions passionately to a final supreme effort, to give promises and pledges to an
audience that wasn t listening, and to paint grandiose pictures of the glorious civilization that they would
build together. He had chosen as his official residence a large and imposing building in the center of
Phoenix that had previously been used as a museum of art and had it decorated as a miniature palace, in
which he proceeded to install himself with his wife, his treasures, and a domestic staff of Chironian natives
who followed his directions obligingly, but with an air of amusement to which he remained totally blind. It
was as if the border around Phoenix had become a shield to shut off the world outside and preserve
within itself the last vestiges of the dream he was unable to abandon; where the actuality departed from
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the vision, he manufactured the differences in his mind.
He still retained some staunch adherents, mainly among those who had nowhere else to turn and had
drawn together for protection: Among them were a sizable segment of the commercial and financial
fraternity who were unable to come to terms with an acceptance that their way of life was finished; the
Mayflower II s bishop, presiding over a flock of faithful who recoiled from abandoning themselves to the
evil ways of Chiron; many from every sector of society whose natures would keep them hanging on to
the end regardless. Above all there remained Borftein, who had nowhere else to attach a loyalty that his
life had made compulsive. Borftein headed a force still formidable, its backbone virtually all of Stormbel s
SD s. Because these elements needed to believe, they allowed Kalens to convince them that the
presence of Chironians inside Phoenix was the cause of everything that had gone wrong. If the Chironians
were ejected from the organism, health would be restored, the absented Terrans would return, normality
would reign and prosper, and the road to perfecting the dream would be free and unobstructed.
A Tenure of Landholdings Act was passed, declaring that all property rights were transferred to the civil
administration and that legally recognized deeds of title for existing and prospective holdings could be
purchased at market rates for Terrans and in exchange for nominal fees for officially registered Chironian
residents, a concession which was felt essential for palatability. Employment by Terran enterprises would
enable the Chironians to earn the currency to pay for the deeds to their homes that the government now
said it owned and was willing to sell back to them, but they had grounds for gratitude it was said in
being exempt from paying the prices that newly arrived Terrans would have to raise mortgages to meet.
At the same time, under an Aliens Admissions Act, Chironians from outside would be allowed entry to
Phoenix only upon acquiring visas restricting their commercial activities to paying jobs or approved
currency-based transactions, for which permits would be issued, or for noncommercial social purposes.
Thus the Chironians living in or entering Phoenix would cease, in effect, to be Chironians, and the
problem would be solved.
Violators of visa privileges would face permanent exclusion. Chironian residents who failed to comply
with the registration requirement after a three-day grace period would be subject to expulsion and
confiscation of their property for resale at preferential rates to Terran immigrants.
Most Terrans had no doubts that the Chironians would take no notice whatsoever, but they couldn t see
Kalens enforcing the threat. It had to be a bluff a final, desperate gamble by a clique who thought they
could sleep forever, trying to hold together the last few fragments of a dream that was dissolving in the
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