A World Between (47 page)

Cut to another view of space, just a fiery sun floating in the star-flecked blackness. Pacifica swims into the frame behind it, a huge crescent filling most of the field of vision, and revealing that the sun is not distant and huge but tiny and orbiting no more than a few hundred kilometers from the surface of the planet.

Winterfelt’s voiceover: “An artificial sun, a complex fusion plasma confined within an inertia-screen—and built by
Pacifican
scientists!”

Cut to a full shot on a naked old man, his chest sunken, his limbs withered, his skin a parchment of decay, his face almost a skull.

Winterfelt’s voiceover: “Finally, a male Pacifican
before
rejuvenation by
Pacifican
medicine—and
after!”

The shot dissolves into a similar shot on the same naked man. But now his hair is black, his body is sleek and wellmuscled, his penis is erect, and his face glows with youthful vigor. In fact, he is Dov Ardisman, the famous porn opera star of forty years ago, whose tapes are still well-known classics of the genre.

Winterfelt’s voiceover (as Ardisman grins his famous grin and salutes the camera): “Dov Ardisman rides again! I understand we can look forward to seeing his first comeback pom opera in three months.”

Cut to a closeup on Carlotta Madigan, seated behind her desk, grinning sardonically, and waving an admonishing finger at the camera.

Carlotta Madigan: “O ye of little faith! While Femocrat supporters have been ranting about the evils of faschochauvinist Transcendental Science and Bucko Power fanatics have been demanding that we sell out our way of life for the wonders you have just seen, while the idiocy of the Pink and Blue War has tom this planet apart, a few
real Pacificans
have managed to keep their big mouths shut and do something about it! And so we can bid a not-so-fond farewell to Transcendental Science and Femocracy alike.”

She pauses, and her face becomes more serious, almost stern.

Carlotta Madigan: ‘To the supporters of the Institute, I say
here
is
Pacifican
Transcendental Science without the Transcendental Scientists, without off-worlder machinations. Look what you’ve done to your women and your own love-lives—and for nothing! To our local homegrown Femocrats, I say
here
is the answer to your man-hating paranoia! The Transcendental Sciences have been liberated from male faschochauvinist monopolists, not by your strident posturings and
female
chauvinist demands, but by
Pacifican buckos
, working not for Transcendental Science but for
Pacifica
—for Pacifican men and women alike.”

She pauses again and assumes a calmer, more statesmanlike expression.

Carlotta Madigan: “Following this electronic vote of confidence and the coming Parliamentary election, my first act will be to introduce a resolution calling for the establishment of a
Pacifican
Institute of Transcendental Science, staffed by Pacifican scientists of both sexes, with a student body equally divided between men and women.
Pacifican
Transcendental Science will be sold to all worlds with the galactic credits to pay for it. We have not only liberated Transcendental Science for ourselves, but for the species, for men and women everywhere.”

A large hologram of Pacifica appears behind her now, floating triumphantly in the void.

Carlotta Madigan: “Finally, to those Pacificans, men and women alike, who have never succumbed to the gibberings of Femocracy or Bucko Power, who have supported me throughout this long crisis, who have kept this planet foremost in their loyalties, I say thank you with all my heart And in the days to come, when your errant brothers and sisters return to the communion we have all shared, I ask you to welcome them back as Pacificans with open arms and generous souls.”

Carlotta pauses and grins crookedly.

Carlotta Madigan: “As for me... well, what can I say? Tomorrow you will get the chance to say it all with your votes. So all I can say for myself now, with my world-, famous modesty and humility, is... thank me, and good night”

19

W
OODENLY,
B
ARA
D
OROTHY SCANNED THE ROOMFUL OF
sour, defeated faces. “Turn that damn thing off!” she snarled. A sister got up, turned off the net console, and sat down again.

Dozens of folding chairs crammed Bara’s office; another score of sisters were standing around the room; virtually the entire Gotham staff had gathered here, and no one dared speak a word. Even Cynda Elizabeth confined her gloating to a thin satisfied smirk.
Seventy-four percent!
Carlotta Madigan had pulled 74 percent of the overall vote, and the preliminary breakdown showed that she had gotten 76 percent of the female vote. Total catastrophe!

Bara Dorothy glowered at Mary Maria, who quickly looked away. Bara started to snap something at her, thought better of it, and remained silent. It isn’t Mary’s fault, she thought. TTiis wasn’t a failure of the media blitz; after Madigan revealed how she had outfoxed the Transcendental Scientists,
nothing
could have defeated her. It isn’t really my fault either, Bara realized. How could I have changed the outcome? Nevertheless,
Ym
going to take the blame for the failure of this mission, since Cynda Elizabeth has formally dissented from the policy we followed. Damn the dirty little breeder-lover!

As if to rub it in
—as if
?—it was Cynda Elizabeth who broke the deadly silence. “Perhaps this isn’t all bad,” she said loudly.

A great collective groan.

“No, really. The Pacificans have broken the Transcendental Science monopoly, haven’t they? They’ve promised to sell everything they have freely on the Web. Now we can buy things we never thought we’d ever get—inertia-screens, matter transformers, genetic engineering techniques, rejuvenation. Maybe we didn’t exactly win, but Great Mother,
Transcendental Science
is the big loser! Now we can buy what they’ve been keeping from us, from Pacifica.”

Expressions brightened somewhat. A buzz of conversation rippled around the room.

“With
what?”
Bara Dorothy sneered loudly. “Where are we going to get the galactic credits? You think Pacifica is going to
give
this stuff away?”

“We’ll have to reevaluate our Web policies,” Cynda Elizabeth said. “We’ll have to take part in interstellar commerce, develop new technologies of our own that we can sell, maybe even entertainments, like Pacifica. In the long run, it’ll be good for us, it’ll force us to become more of a part of the galactic mainstream.”

“Great Mother, what rot!” Bara snarled.

“It’s the future whether you like it or not, Bara,” Cynda Elizabeth said. “And we’re going to have to learn how to adapt to it.”

Murmurs of approval swept the room. As if things weren’t grim enough, Cynda Elizabeth was getting to them with this subversive talk in their defeated depression. It had to be stopped! “You know we
do
have an upcoming Parliamentary election now,” Bara said. “We
do
have one more chance to retrieve this situation before we slink back to Earth like whipped dogs!”

“How?” Mary Maria asked glumly.

“That’s
your
department, Mary, now isn’t it?” Bara snapped. “You’ve got about a day to come up with something.” She paused, looked up, and addressed the whole room. “That goes for all of you,” she said. “Enough defeatism! Back to your jobs! I’ve got work to do now, and so do you, so clear this room!”

Slowly, sullenly, the sisters trooped out of her office, finally leaving Bara alone with her own dark thoughts. The fact of the matter was that Femocracy had no real issue left on this planet; Madigan had totally destroyed the movement’s political viability. Only some maddened reaction by Falkenstein—

The comscreen of her net console came to life. It was Susan Willaway, local leader of the Femocratic League of Pacifica.

“What?"
Bara grunted testily.

“I’m resigning as leader of the League,” Susan said. “I’m also resigning my membership.”

“What?"

“I feel like a fool!” Susan said angrily. “I feel like a dupe! I’ve been had. We’ve all been had. Carlotta Madigan has been right all along, and now she’s proven it. I’m sick of all this; it’s like awakening from a long nightmare. I’m going to run for reelection to Parliament as an independent and take my chances with my own people.”

“You miserable cowardly traitor!”

“Traitor?” Susan snapped. ‘To
what?
Great grunting godzillas, the men of this planet have proven that they’re Pacificans first and buckos second! What does that make Pacifican
women
if we can’t admit we were wrong? And I’m not the only one, Bara; we’re being flooded with resignations.”

“Go suck a piercer, you dirty traitorous breeder-lover!” Bara screamed, unplugging from the circuit. “The whole stinking planetful of you atavistic chauvinist swine!”

Then she buried her head in her hands, kicked the leg of her desk, and wondered what it would be like to let herself cry.

A full shot on Roger Falkenstein standing on the bridge of the
Heisenberg
. He is flanked by two men—one tall, lean, and quite bald; the other a younger, heavier man with a full head of wavy blond hair.

Falkenstein (bristling with anger): “Citizens of Pacifica! Once more we have been betrayed and you have been duped by the cynical perfidy of the Madigan administration. Need I point out that the espionage committed by your government is a direct violation of the agreement concluded between the Madigan administration and myself—a bald-faced
theft?"

The camera moves in for a tighter shot on Falkenstein, whose anger now takes on a somewhat sardonic edge.

Falkenstein: “No doubt those of you who saw fit to return Carlotta Madigan to office are now congratulating yourselves and your perfidious government for having successfully nationalized Transcendental Science. But it’s not quite so simple as that, my friends. Jon Guilder, a very recent
graduate
of one of our Institutes...”

Cut to a closeup on the heavyset man.

Guilder: “It’s taken me
six years
of very difficult study to graduate from an Institute as a truly qualified Transcendental Scientist. The notion that men who have studied for only a few months are qualified to run an Institute of Transcendental Science is just too ludicrous to arouse anything but pity. These pathetic Pacificans don’t even know enough to know how
little
they know!”

Cut to a closeup on the tall bald man.

Falkenstein’s voiceover: “Dr. Chari David, former Provost of the Wenigo Institute of Transcendental Science, now Chief Science Analyst of the
Heisenberg
....”

David: “Pacifican scientists have produced technological artifacts from plans stolen from our higher scientific civilization much as a preatomic society might successfully construct a nuclear generator from pilfered specifications. However, such a preatomic civilization would hardly then possess a true understanding of subatomic physics! Any more than Pacifica now possesses a true understanding of the Transcendental Sciences! A
child
could reproduce a great painting by an ancient master using a color-by-the-numbers kit, but that would hardly make him a Michelangelo or a Miranda! Indeed, certain Terran
birds
can reproduce a great oration verbatim without understanding a word of what they are saying, but no one would contend that they have become Churchills or Ciceros in the process!”

Cut to a two-shot on Falkenstein and David.

Falkenstein: “Well, how
would
you evaluate the worth of this stolen knowledge to isolated Pacifican science?” David (diffidently): “Oh perhaps in fifty years they’ll have some dim understanding of what they’ve stolen, and within two centuries they might even reach our present level...

Falkenstein: “While the rest of the galaxy under our leadership—”

David:...ill of course have advanced to the total mastery of matter, energy, time, and mind. A two-century knowledge gap is a two-century knowledge gap I”

Falkenstein: “And the notion of a Pacifican Institute of Transcendental Science operating on its own without our guidance—”

David (sardonically): “....s roughly the equivalent of a Sumerian Institute of Biophysics!”

The camera moves in for a closeup on Falkenstein.

Falkenstein: “My Pacifican friends, you have been utterly duped by Carlotta Madigan. Test the true knowledge of your treacherous spies. Demand that your Ministry of Science publicly explain the unified field theory behind the inertia-screen, the molecular physics of rejuvenation, the true knowledge behind the stolen toys they have constructed for your befuddlement. And when their answer is silence, remember that the forthcoming Parliamentary election is your last chance to retrieve what your government has thrown away. Unless you elect a Parliament that returns control of the stolen knowledge to us, authorizes a permanent Institute under
our
terms, expels Femocracy forever, and ousts Carlotta Madigan, we will leave this solar system to its own pathetic devices forever. This is your last chance, Pacificans. You will not get another.”

Royce Lindblad frowned at the comscreen, drumming his fingers nervously on the arm of his lounger. On the screen, Harrison Winterfelt shrugged fatalistically. “Don’t blame
me,
Royce,” he said. “I told you the truth in the first place.”

“You mean this slok Falkenstein is putting out is
true?”

“About as true as the show
we
put on,” Winterfelt said. “We were exaggerating for political purposes and so is he. No, our boys
can’t
go on the net and explain the science he’s challenged us to explain. But savages doing a monkey-see, monkey-do act we’re not either. Their timetable is grossly exaggerated for propaganda purposes, and with a little luck, we
can
achieve parity with them in less than a century.”