"So have your secret identity get a job. Wash dishes!" "If I took a job," Hershie said, palms sweating, "I'd have to give up flying patrols -- I'd have to stop fighting crime." "_Fighting crime_?" Thomas's voice was remorseless. "What _crime_? The bugouts are taking care of crime -- they're making plans to shut down the _police_! Supe, you've been obsoleted." "I know," Hershie said, self-pitying. "I know. That's why I got involved with you in the first place -- I need to have a _purpose_. I'm the Super Man!" "So your purpose is speaking to military shows? Telling the world that it still needs its arsenals, even if the bugouts have made war obsolete? Great purpose, Supe. Very noble." He choked on a hopeless sob. "So what can I do, Thomas? I don't want to sell out, but I've got to _eat_." "Squeeze coal into diamonds?" he said. It was teasing, but not nasty teasing. Hershie felt his tension slip: Thomas didn't hate him. "Do you have any idea how big a piece of coal you have to start with to get even a one-carat stone? Trust me -- someone would notice if entire coalfaces started disappearing." "Look, Supe, this is surmountable. You don't have to sell out. You said it yourself, you're the Super Man -- you have responsibilities. You have duties. You can't just sell out. Let's sleep on it, huh?" Hershie was so very, very tired. It was always hardest on him when the Earth's yellow sun was hidden; the moon was a paltry substitute for its rejuvenating rays. "Let's do that," he said. "Thanks, Thomas." # DefenseFest 33 opened its doors on one of those incredibly bright March days when the snow on the ground throws back lumens sufficient to shrink your pupils to microdots. Despite the day's brightness, a bitterly cold wind scoured Front Street and the Metro Convention Centre. From a distance, Hershie watched demonstration muster out front of the Eaton Centre, a few kilometers north, and march down to Front Street, along their permit-proscribed route. The turnout was good, especially given the weather: about 5,000 showed up with wooly scarves and placards that the wind kept threatening to tear loose from their grasp. The veterans marched out front, under a banner, in full uniform. Next came the Quakers, who were of the same vintage as the veterans, but dressed like elderly English professors. Next came three different Communist factions, who circulated back and forth, trying to sell each other magazines. Finally, there came the rabble: Thomas's group of harlequin-dressed anarchists; high-school students with packsacks who industriously commed their browbeaten classmates who'd elected to stay at their desks; "civilians" who'd seen a notice and come out, and tried gamely to keep up with the chanting.