During intermission, there were a variety of minor acts, while the spectators filed in and out of the Forum seats. Vendors with food carts gave sandwiches to those who remained. To enforce a policy of one meal per guest, the Vendors insisted on collecting stubs that were given out of the gate. Gale and Vixen traded their stubs for a sausage in a bun and a bottle of soda water. A few rows up, a woman with five whiney kids arguing loudly while she searched a cavernous bag for stubs. "Don't know why they bother," someone said beside him. Gale looked at a little, dusky man seated beside him. "It's not like people are lining up for their shit. Half the people who use their stubs only do it to have something to throw."
"Where I come from," Gale said guardedly, "we say, lousy food is better than none."
"I know," said the other man. "You're from Twelve. The eyes are a giveaway. And judging from the accent, your little lady is a Fiver, which makes you Tributes."
Vixen looked coolly at the man. "I thought Trips minded their own business," she said.
The man just chuckled. "I mean no offence," he said. ""You can call me Napoleon, by the way. All my friends do." The Ancient name was vaguely familiar to Gale, and from what he knew, he doubted whether the man's friends held him in high esteem. When Vixen got up to use the lavatory, he went with her.
The trip to the lavatory proved to be an adventure in itself. The men's lavatories had free urinals, in what Gale guessed was a concession to the versatility of male anatomy, but there was enough demand that many relented and paid for a stall. For the ladies, it was coin-operated stalls all the way. After a month working in the sewers, Gale and Vixen were well-stocked with loose change, mainly odd-shaped brass and steel pieces that the Capitol used for denominations of one-tenth of an ace or less. The only coin that would work in the locks was a trike, a triangular coin worth 1/30th of an ace. They had used up theirs in the morning, and nobody was eager to part with theirs except an enterprising collector who offered one trike for a twelve-sided unx worth three times its value. Gale finally got the right change by using an octan, valued at two aces, to buy a large beer. The hefty handful of change he received had just one measly trike. Vixen took a look at the beer as she accepted the coin. "This is a perfect positive feedback loop," she said.
They came back in time to see a warbird race. The birds were four to five feet tall at the hip, with stout legs, massive finch-like beaks and feathers that were a singularly ugly gray-green. After the Invasion, thousands of the creatures had been taken for captive breeding, and there were herds (flocks?) of feral birds in the northern tundra. Gale had seen one of the birds before, on the far side of a seaway that had ended a two-day trek to the north of the fence. As the race demonstrated, the warbirds were in fact quite mild in temper, apart from a tendency to vaguely disgruntled resistance to being made to work. They were not very fast, either. The riders did their best to work the birds into a suitable passion, but the birds were moving no faster than the riders could have run themselves. One bird, finding itself with a decent lead, actually circled back to the rear.
"A ridiculous spectacle, even for the Games," Napoleon said. "The Invaders used birds mainly to carry their supplies. The only birds they rode in battle- where their biocycles were unsuited to the terrain- were larger, possibly a distinct species. None were taken alive, or, for that matter, reasonably intact. Not that it would make a difference if the birds were physically suited for racing. The birds' instincts, and whatever intellect they possess, dictate that they stay close to each other as a matter of self-interest. Each individual's chances of survival are in every way improved by staying with the group. Even in terms of speed, they can on average run faster in a tight formation, because their bodies collectively reduce air resistance. Thus, the whole venture of goading the birds to race each other flies in the face of the creatures' nature."
"So what you're basically saying," Vixen said, "is that they're either too smart or too dumb."
One bird finally lurched over the finish line, and the drama of Halcyon and Ceyx resumed. Even out in Twelve, it was a familiar story. The greatest surprise for him was how bluntly the Capitolites presented it. Somewhere between the sighting of a thousand warships off the Forest coast and ten thousand heavy tanks rolling through the southern desert, it finally dawned on the leaders of Panem that three waves of Invaders had not retreated at the brink of victory because mastery of the Virtues of the Warrior beat superior tactics, three-to-two numerical superiority, and the inexhaustible power supply of the Fundamental Force. They had withdrawn because they had achieved their objectives, or else simply did not care enough to press on any further. By the time they saw the Great Armada headed for the eastern coast, they accepted that they could not win.
The one ray of hope for the Capitol was that they received two emissaries. One was for the Invaders, and Gale was jarred to see that it was not an Invader but a hero of Panem thought dead, Ajax the Pious, played onstage by Peeta, who read his lines with an unnerving distant, vaguely dazed look. "These are the words of those you call Invaders: The Gods of Panem are not Gods, and they cannot save you," Peeta droned. The audience cried out in horror and grief as well as rage, clearly compelled by the picture of the broken hero, and Gale himself wondered if it was entirely an act. "There is no Power under Heaven greater than our power, and it is the Will of Heaven that we should do as we please with all things under heaven. Surrender, and it might please us to let some among you live. Resist, and you shall all perish."
Ceyx stepped forward, trembling, and asked, "Tell me, if you are truly Ajax, do you say these things because the Invader speaks them, or do you speak for yourself."
"I speak what is true," Ajax said flatly, "and Ajax is no more." Then Ceyx slew him, in full view of the President and the Assembly. The next ambassador stepped forward. He said he came from a vast realm founded by none other than Lady Leeg. He said that they had vast territory, superior technology, and an Invincible Army of countless men, and offered examples of their arms and armor. Gale felt his bullshit-sense tingling, but he was as awed as anyone by the old footage, in which he recognized the prototypes of the Capitol's hoverplanes, heatguns and even hints of Muttations. The ambassador of Leeg promised shipments of weapons at once, aircraft and armored vehicles to follow, and once they had had time to assemble, an Invincible Army. The only condition, and an admitted limitation on his people's part, was that they would need Panem's own ships to transport the materiel and men.
On the basis of the ambassador's promise, the Capitol gave new orders to Ceyx. He had stationed his fleet in the last strait between the Invincible Armada and a seway called the North Passage. As near as Gale could tell, the seaway, or waters connected to it, went several directions. To the south, it went almost directly to a sea called Lahontan. To the north, it went up, around and back down to the Lakes, where many people of the Seas had fled, and the shores of the Great Bay where the Invincible Army was to assemble. President General Titus ordered that the fleet withdraw from the path of the clearly unstoppable Armada to the Agassids, where it might be ready to defend the ports of the Lakes and to ferry the Invincible Army. This left defenseless the home of Ceyx' Lady, itself called Halcyon, last and fairest of the Island Cities, where the bride remained with her father, noble Solon, who would not leave while any of his people remained in peril. President Titus declared that, by the very Law of Life the Islanders held dear, the many must come before the few, but the announcer darkly intoned that his generals no longer trusted in the strength of the Gods, or the goodness of the Powers, or even the Virtue of Valor.
Finnick, Katniss and Lord Aurelius played out the parting of Ceyx, with the last appearing as Solon and Johanna Mason once again supplying Katniss' dialogue. Ceyx said that he must obey his orders, and begged his bride and her father to come east. At last, Solon relented and sailed with Ceyx, but Halcyon still would not go, even in the face of certain destruction. Platforms ferried Katniss and Aurelius ferried to the far left and right, where they waited next to beautiful miniature cities with spires as tall as Katniss. Meanwhile, as illustrated by reconstructions and miniature ships moving about the pools, the Invaders' two Armadas, each capable of overwhelming Panem by sheer brute force, instead split up for a more fiendish mode of attack.
In the east, the Great Armada followed the coasts of the Mountain Wilderness and the Peninsula, leaving detachments of landing craft and gunships behind at the mouths of the largest bays, and finally around, to sail for the Lakes from the south by the Sea of Madrid. In the west, the Invincible Armada, the smaller by far but reckoned a proportionately greater threat for its large capital ships, split into three parts. The smallest part, against which Ceyx' fleet was an equal match, set a course through the Passage for the Great Bay. A larger part, which Ceyx might still hope to defeat, sailed for the Agassides. The greatest part by far, which Ceyx might wildly to defeat if he lost every ship of his own doing it, went south from the Passage, for a channel of the southern coast that went directly to Halcyon.
As the parts of the Armada advanced, they slowed and even stopped, so that all could strike at once. They also made no move to block or destroy Ceyx' fleet, even when their ships reached the Sea of Hudson. The effect, as the announcer said, was "to torture Panem with the wait for doom, and Ceyx with the choice of love or duty. At last, he prayed to the very Unknown for a sign. As he spoke, he looked up from his prayer and beheld... a halcyon bird, flying far from his home." On stage, a bird flew down and sat right on Finnick's head as he knelt on the deck of his ship. "With but one ship, for Ceyx made his captains swear not to follow, Ceyx set sail- WEST, FOR HALCYON!"
The mockup of the ship begin to pitch more severely, and waves rose in the pool. It was a surprisingly effective illusion, and there was enough flare to the overall production that it scarcely mattered that the ship remained resolutely anchored in the center of the pool. Instead, the platform with Katniss moved toward the ship. The wild cheers of the crowd never abated for a moment. "The Armada reached the coast of the Peninsula and sailed onward for the Port. It was time enough for Ceyx to reach Halcyon."
There was more dialogue, sparse enough to strike a chord. Ceyx begged his Lady to board his ship while they still might Johanna's voice pleaded with the sailor to leave her to die with her people, to live and even find another love. Finnick said at last, "If I cannot live by your side, I will die with you, or die for you! And if the Powers of this world will let me, I would keep my pledge to you and return even in death, to see your face again!"
Then the platform swung around the ship, reaching the far side of the central pool just when something black rose in the pool. The bridge of a submarine, as long as the entire pool, burst up, shearing the ship in two. Smoke and pyrotechnic blasts shot from the bridge, and Ceyx and his sailors rushed at the Invaders who burst from the hatches. Finning speared two invaders, and leaped down the hatch. More sounds of battle came below, and ths sub shook. Then the ship and sub sank out of sight.
"With but one ship, Ceyx disabled the Invaders' flagship and crippled their entire fleet," the announcer said. Around the miniature city, a suddenly disorderly flotilla assailed the island, trying to land troops. Scaled explosions went off as the ships "shelled" the city, while a beam of purple light shot down from the city's tower, setting the landing craft ablaze one by one. "Meanwhile, in the east..."
The miniatures of the Armada approaching the Port on the right side had been popping up one by one, until the pool was almost a solid mass of ships. Right when the landing craft touched down, a sea cyclone suddenly appeared on the water, flipping boats over like the flimsy toys they were. It was the first effect that struck Gale as truly poor, yet it extracted even wilder cheers from the audience. The screens showed footage of the real storm, capsized landing craft and a disabled supersub bobbing like a cork, then a suspect reconstruction of Invaders riding through a salt-caked desert plain when a sudden deluge came rushing in, overrunning riders and flipping their three-wheeled tritanks.
"The Divine Wind and the Desert Deluge shattered the Armada and the Horde, and many said that the Gods had honored Ceyx' sacrifice," the announcer said. "Yet, many feared that the was was still lost, and justly so, for enough remained of the Invaders' Armadas to smash the rest of Ceyx' fleet, sack the ports, overrun the peninsula, and bar the seaways against any counterattack. Instead, they turned away like the cowardly curs they were, leaving their own brothers to face the wrath of the Navy and the Invincible Army alone." Miniature fleets lined up for battle throughout the pool, with the ships of Panem always triumphing with just enough losses for it to look like a creditable battle, while Peacekeepers on bikes chased Invaders on disgruntled warbirds around the racetrack.
Gale listened keenly as the announcer recounted the departure of the Invincible Army: "In grattitude, the Assembly offered the heirs of Leeg vast lands to live in as a new District, with seats in the Assembly, Senate and Great Electorate. But the Invincible Army departed, pleading urgent business in their homeland, and for a hundred years, no more was heard from the lands of Leeg, though they were urgently sought." Gale glanced sidelong at Vixen.
"All Panem rejoiced, despite their grief," the announcer said, "yet even the salvation of her people was no comfort to Lady Halcyon. In her grief, she made ready to take her own life." Katniss climbed to the top of a lighthouse that rose from the center of the pool. Gale leaned forward. The height was great enough that she might really be hurt without something like a line or a forcebeam to catch her. "But in the very moment she would leap, a vision appeared to her, and many men would say that whatever Gods and Powers govern the world decreed that Ceyx should keep his promise."
A transparent likeness of Finnick appeared in the air before Katniss, and his voice spoke: "Stay yourself, beloved. I beg you to live, as you begged me, if not for me then for our children." Katniss dropped to her knees, clutching her belly in wonder.
"The apparition spoke truth, for it was found that in but three nights, the Lord had given his Lady twins. Halcyon begat one daughter and one son, Lady Violet and Ceyx the Seventh, and she lived to see her son elected President Octavian." To show the passage of time, Katniss stepped inside and returned with a child in her arms, then let the child go to return as a man in the vestment of a President, while a time-activated dye turned Katniss's hair gray and then white. "She knew no other man as long as she lived, and she refused the wonders of her people's science to preserve her beauty or prolong her life, yet those who glimpsed her face through the black veil she wore always swore that she was among the fairest women in Panem. She seemed a woman arrested in time, yet her greatest deed still lay ahead- the Great Debate to decide the fate of the Invaders."