I'm a woman of the 22nd Century, living in space. Millions, perhaps billions of us live off Earth now, system-wide. Home for me is a huge habitat between Mars and the inner asteroid belt.

An ambitious man from a moon of Jupiter or Saturn threatens to invade our station. He wants to be a new Napoleon. He may make it: he's smart, magnetic, bold, honest, dislikes corruption, has a sense of humor, and appreciates people, even his enemies. But why's he attacking the most democratic part of the Solar System? We'd have cheered if he'd invaded one of the backward dictatorships on Earth--he'd reform it. We wouldn't mind allying with him if he'd leave basic rights alone. But he doesn't really seem to understand how important freedom of speech and data and travel are to us.

Some of us set out to teach him.

One woman I know, a middle-aged perfectly normal person, sneaks out of our occupied democracy to one of those Earth dictatorships. And through sheer force of character, she muscles into the junta and declares herself an Empress--not out of personal ambition, just to provoke our Napoleon! She hopes to lure him away from the democracies, focus him on conquering and then reforming a society that needs it. Her ploy may work. He likes challenges, royalty, drama.

I decide to do my bit: join the democratic resistance. Keep sabotaging things, sending him challenges and insults--accusing him of destroying human rights he doesn't even understand. By all reports, this gets under his skin.

And under mine. I find I'm having fun provoking this guy. Kind of a thrill that New Napoleon finds me important!

Is politics my way of flirting?

His guard raids us. Swift little delta-winged robot craft, firing their distinctive green lasers, damage our part of the station. We're pinned in a corridor between two habitat spheres. Viewports all round. Several panes are missing! Shot out? Open to vacuum, yet we have air. Force fields are holding the pressure in, but I feel terribly vulnerable. Wait, helpless... then decide I can't stand for this. It's one thing to upset the political games that are part of any society. He got me angry by going beyond that to the second level, where everyday life's affected. But this! This is ECOLOGY! You don't damage life support for ANY reason!

I see now that part of my wanting his attention is so that when he captures me, as he will eventually, I'll be liked and respected enough so I can be more of an advisor than a prisoner. I think I should play just one more outrageous trick on him and then show up at his gate and brazenly demand a job as advisor!

But he catches me before I can. Not that it matters much; I'm a student of history, and I can see what's coming. Whatever happens to me, I have to warn him and all the other reformers of the real invasion to come. For now that this semi-humane Napoleon has proven the vulnerability of the rich inner System to high-tech invaders, the harsh, mutant, isolated people of Triton and other outer moons and stations will move in, just as successive waves of barbarians destroyed Rome.

If New Napoleon wants to keep his title, he'd better listen... We haven't got long to reform and unite the Inner System...

And I wake.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Setting and plot echo historian Cecelia Holland's sf novel "Floating Worlds".
• Napoleon = Heard a radio quiz show ask: "Who was the Little Corporal?" The contestant can't guess! Poor Nappy. Conquer Europe, get forgotten...
• Napoleon = active, assertive: I was both today--haggled down computer-prices. Unusual for me.
• Head sunwards, down into gravity well = I drove south into Silicon Valley to buy computer parts.
• Space habitats are democratic, but Earth has autocracies = My mind, art & spirit are free, but my body, health, emotions, social habits are messed up!
• The dream hints some side of me is blocking the computer upgrade I need to do my art--holding creativity hostage to get my attention about more basic problems?
• Teasing, flirting = I teased my friend Dawn for repeatedly calling her animation demo worthless, then teased her boyfriend Tim for his new haircut.
• Space, cold, air = drove in a storm; the car door leaked a little cold air.
• Space habitats = computer stores I shopped in. Futuristic but airless!
• Delta-wing fighters = cars? It rained; with my raincoat on I have delta wings myself!
• Moons of Uranus, Neptune = icy cold and dark, like the weather lately. If there's life it huddles inside where it's warmer.
• Invasion of the barbarians = A historian on NPR said "Antiforeign hysteria is cyclic in California history."
• High tech = computer? If I buy one that's too good, will I retreat into Neptunian isolation, doing only art? Is this the danger?

25 YEARS LATER

Here's my hindsight about those twofold invaders--the present upheaval needing to be resolved so we could face a bigger future invasion.

Through the early 90s I had pelvic pain and inflammation. Doctors swore it wasn't an infection or food allergies, claimed it was anxiety, and pushed mood pills. After months without improvement, I threw out the doctors' assurances along with the pills. Fasted, then added one food a day. Turned out I got sick whenever I ate wheat or oats, and got well when I avoided gluten. By late 1996 I was well.

I NEEDED to be healthy in late '96. We got evicted. The second invasion, of opportunists from the outer darkness, had begun--the goldrush to buy up San Francisco housing. In just a year or two it went from a hippie haven to the priciest housing market in the world. Landlords rejected artists like me in favor of techies.

So my friends & I looked for a house we could buy--not that banks trusted us much either. But we did it. Put the money down--and the seller balked! Kept the deposit, kept the house. Took months of legal action to get the house we'd signed for, and it was a mess. Months of home repairs. From invalid to carpenter in a year! It was spring of '98 before my life was stable again.

Can dreams really look ahead this way? Sure. Mine often do. Sleep researchers emphasize how dreams process today's memories, lessons and concerns; Freud and disciples assumed dreams look to the past. Only Jung (and shamans of course, but who believes them?) thought dreams might step back to look long-term--to the future.

I think this dream looked ahead. I read "Napoleon" as health, as my body. Who I needed to get tight with, right with--before the corporate storm.

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