Above and below and around the Great High Chamber of the Federation (AWOSCDC), the stars ran in their prearranged, if as yet unbribed courses. When the gavel ending the day's proceedings was over, and the 30th reading of the Extensification Act had fizzled to an end, the President of the Federation sank down into his chair. Amid the hubbub, the seat next to him was vacated, and the Disney Head sat down beside him.

Cruella de Villeneuve was angry, as well she might be; but he was sick of hearing about the Keeping of the Earth. They had spent the whole day hearing about it, as usual. He turned to her, and as always, was struck by her cold beauty. "Madame, I am sorry that we could not pass the legislation, but the fact is that there are other planets and forces in the Federation (AWOSCDC), and some small attention has to be paid to them."

She frowned. "And for all that we have done for them. Ingrates."

The President, in a gesture familiar to all those connected into the PeopleNet, ran his fingers through his hair. "Madame, you must understand. Yes, there is the Root Charter, and we are all eternally grateful to you. But you have, on occasion, to at least be polite."

She looked heavenward. "Oh, Walt, Walt, what sins are committed in thy name."

. "It cannot be helped. There are the beginnings of questionings as to whether the Disneyfication Programme is really going well. Just last week, Kaalufa from Cygnus said to me in confidence that there were moments when one of his mouths felt that the Federation might break away from its foundational Charter and go on its own, away from Father Disney. That it was all just too great a price to pay for peace and cosmic harmony"

"Kaalufa said that? Which one of his mouths? The left or the right?" She hissed.

"Even you can't touch Kaalufa, Cruella." She got up as if to rush off and kill Kaalufa barehanded. She slowed, turned back and put her cold hand over his.

"President, you and I know that what he says is nonsense. Was it not your own son who stood here in this chamber when the Historic Hearings on the Founding were underway, and pointed out that the ancient Disneyrealm was not a religion or a way of life, but an all pervasive Earthean flowering, as essential as air? How can we make people understand? We belong, not to a company, as universal as it is, though that shows how universal its teachings are, but to the root of that precious life itself. We are Terra, the remnant peoples of the Earth, into our hands was entrusted the Keeping and Spreading of the Earth" (he sighed, it had been a long day) "Without us" she continued, "without our saving of our beloved remnant, there would be none of this," she waved her arm around the rapidly emptying chamber "No Root Charter and no Federation (A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Cosmic Disney Corp)." She chanted the full name at him in a kind of spite.

She sighed, "What does the Root Charter say?

As the rivers sing the Disney
As the trees whisper the Disney
As all the airs and waters say:
Why? Because we like you!!!
So long as the songs are sung,
So long as the earth shall live,
So, everywhere and in all things Disney,
So, everywhere and in all things Disney,
See you real soon, see you real soon, see you real soon.

That is the root and power, the fullness of life, what our ancestors on Earth knew in their bones, and what they handed into our keeping to spread throughout the galaxies. The ridiculous nothings from the mouths of Kaalufa are chaff before the wind of Walt. Why even that nonsense on Polgar showed --" She stopped. She had gone too far. She knew it, and cursed herself, and moved away.

The President looked out at the empty chamber, and up at the new range of about to be Disneyfied constellations, once the last bribes were paid, and his heart became sick. He should never have listened to his son, and his stories about that wild lost woman. He looked up one last time, towards where he thought his son might be, in the scattered constellation that in the empty space where Earth had been had once been called Taurus, and was now, in its new configuration, called Roy.