A World Between (48 page)

“That’s not exactly a flasho public answer to what they’re saying, Hari,” Royce grunted.

“Do we really need one? Is the political situation all that critical?”

“Yes and no,” Royce said. “I’m not worried about the numbers. We’ll have maybe a two-thirds majority in the next Parliament on expelling Femocracy and the
Heisenberg
boys. But I don’t like the stink this is going to leave. We need a long period of healing, and if a third of the people end up feeling that a Pacifican Institute is a sham and a fraud, our politics will be poisoned by it for decades. Refighting the Pacifican Pink and Blue War will remain an obsession with a sizable minority, and if our Institute doesn’t start showing real results faster than you say it can, the whole bloody thing could start up all over again.” “I wish I could help you, Royce,” Winterfelt said. “But we’ve done all we can. And it certainly could’ve turned out much worse, couldn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

Winterfelt grinned crookedly. “And I suppose this is a pretty good argument for an increased budget for the Ministry of Science,” he said dryly.

“Ordinarily, I’d tell you to go fuck yourself for making a pitch like that at a time like this,” Royce said. “But you happen to be right, and I’m sure we can push through a resolution earmarking all the proceeds from selling what we do have on the Web for the research budget of the Pacifican Institute.” He smirked sardonically. “Which, of course, will only increase the political pressure on
you
to produce results fast. Needless to say, we will not make this an issue in the current campaign.”

“Needless to say,” Winterfelt grunted uneasily. He laughed mirthlessly. “Now if we could bribe a ranking
Heisenberg
scientist into defecting, that would be money well spent,” he said.
“That
would make it a whole new game. Know any takers?”

“Maybe I should take it up with Falkenstein,” Royce said sourly. “Maybe I could offer him
your
job.”

“Very funny.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Royce said dryly.“Even if one of those bastards was corrupt enough to sell out for money, he could make a lot more of it selling what he knew directly on the Web. No, Hari, it looks like
you're
the man in the scientific hot-seat for as long as your ass can stand it.”

“Words cannot express how thrilled and relieved I am to hear you say that,” Winterfelt sighed wearily.

A long shot on Bara Dorothy standing beside the gray hull of the Femocrat starship. To her left, arranged in rows like graduating students posing for a final class picture, are about thirty Femocrats, including Mary Maria but not Cynda Elizabeth.

Bara Dorothy (woodenly, awkwardly): “My name is Bara Dorothy, sisters, and I’m speaking to you as spokeswoman for all the unsung heroines who have labored so tirelessly and selflessly for a Femocrat Pacifica.”

The camera moves in for a closeup on Bara Dorothy. Bara Dorothy: “It now seems certain that Pacifica will shortly elect a Parliament that will expel us from your planet. Will all our efforts have been for nothing? In the long run, I hope not. For that same Parliament will also banish Transcendental Science forever.”

She permits herself a small smile. “Judging from the bellows of outrage emanating from the
Heisenberg
, Roger Falkenstein hardly considers this outcome a smashing victory either. And within his defeated ranting is a small but telling truth.”

The camera pulls back for a wider shot, including the rows of Femocrats, who stare into the camera with fixed expressions of dogged determination.

Bara Dorothy: “I too believe an independent Pacifican Institute will be a fraud and a sham, if not exactly for the same reasons. Need I point out that all the teaching personnel of the new Pacifican Institute will be male? No doubt there will be some female
students
for cosmetic purposes. But since the male Pacifican staff will control the technology stolen from the
Heisenberg
, the end result will be a male faschochauvinist elitist clique using its secret advanced technology like a priestly caste to dominate Pacifican society.”

A closeup on Bara Dorothy.

Bara Dorothy: “When this faschochauvinist elite reveals its true face, I believe that the sisters of Pacifica will remember what Femocracy tried to do for this planet, and they will see the outcome of the forthcoming election as
a
tragic mistake, the right road not taken. On that day, you will realize that the struggle, far from being over, is only just beginning.”

Cut to a series of shots dissolving rapidly into each other: a Femocratic League of Pacifica demonstration; ranks of marching women; a street scene on Earth where confident women bustle about their business; shots of four planets seen from space with marching women superimposed over them; and finally a spaceship much like the B-3I moving toward Pacifica.

Bara Dorothy’s voiceover. “You may be turning your backs on us now, but Femocracy will never turn its back on
you
. Know that your comrades on all liberated planets will never abandon their Pacifican sisters! Summon us once more to your aid, and we shall return! Sisterhood is powerful, Sisterhood remembers, and Sisterhood is forever! Long live Sisterhood and long live our undying solidarity with those Pacifican sisters who will keep the faith through the long night of faschochauvinism that is now descending.”

A vague sense of unease soured what should have been Carlotta Madigan’s impending moment of triumph as she sat in her office reviewing the depth poll figures two days before the Parliamentary election.

The figures were encouraging, to say the least. Bucko Power and Femocratic candidates were contesting less than half the seats, and even these were trying to disassociate themselves from off-worlder connections in an effort to survive the impending landslide. Both off-worlder fronts were finished as coherent political forces. The total vote against them should top 70 percent.

And yet, Carlotta thought, there
is
that hard-core 25 percent, and anyone who still votes Femocratic or Bucko Power has to be intransigent indeed! When they’re crushed in the election, they’ll disappear as an overt political force, bitter and intransigent, to nurse their festering wounds in secret. And if our Institute is as slow to produce results as Winterfelt says it will be, the Bucko Power remnants will brood upon Falkenstein’s parting shot. And the remaining Femocrat fanatics will remember their promise to return, maybe turn it into a filthy little cult. And the Pink and Blue War could return, perhaps this time outside the democratic process...

Carlotta sighed. Maybe you’re asking too much, she thought. You want to win without anyone being left to feel like the vanquished? You expect some magical balm to heal all the wounds of these many months without leaving noticeable scars? Not even Transcendental Science has medicine like that...

Her broodings were interrupted by her secretary’s face on the intercom screen.

“What is it, Bill?”

“You’ve got a visitor.”

“Is it important?”

“I think so... it’s Maria Falkenstein.”

“Maria Falkenstein?”
Carlotta exclaimed. “But I thought they were all recalled to the
Heisenberg?
What’s
she
doing here? What’s she want?”

“I don’t know, but she says it’s important... should... . ?”

“For sure, send her in,” Carlotta said. Great grunting godzillas, what’s
this
all about? she thought. What
now?

Maria Falkenstein wore a tan pants suit that might have been bought in any store in Gotham. There were slight bags under her eyes, and although her face was much more tanned than Carlotta had remembered, there was a gray pallor beneath it. She looks like she’s been under tremendous stress, Carlotta thought.

“May I sit down?”

Carlotta nodded silently at a chair, steepled her hands as Maria Falkenstein sat down, and waited for her to begin whatever-it-was.

“I suppose you’re surprised to see me here,” Maria said, wringing her hands nervously.

Carlotta nodded silently, not knowing how to react, or indeed what she was supposed to be reacting to. There was a haunted look in Maria Falkenstein’s eyes, a great sadness, but behind that there seemed to be a strange tranquility that went beyond mere resignation.

“I’ve left Roger, you know...”

“No, I didn’t,” Carlotta said inanely, arching an eyebrow.

Maria nodded. “I have,” she said. “Weeks ago. I’ve been in Gotham ever since, trying to understand your people, and what we’ve done here.” There was absolutely none of that Transcendental Science arrogance; indeed, she seemed almost humbled, and quite contrite.

“And just what cosmic conclusions did you reach?” Carlotta asked, somewhat sarcastically.

That seemed to get a small rise out of Maria; her eyes sharpened a bit and her voice hardened slightly. “I’m
here,
not
there ”
she said. “When Roger ordered us all back to the
Heisenberg,
I couldn’t bring myself to go. I felt I had to stay behind.”

“Why?” Carlotta said sharply. “To what end? Soon enough, Parliament will vote to expel all Transcendental Scientists from Pacifica, and that will mean
you ”

Maria Falkenstein looked down into her lap. “I...I hope not...” she said softly.

“What?”

Maria looked up at Carlotta, and now there seemed to be pleading in her eyes. “I’m not your enemy,” she said.

“You’re not?”

“Not any more...aria sighed. “You know, this is pretty difficult for me, and you’re not exactly making it any easier.”

“Under the circumstances, I don’t feel exactly relaxed either,” Carlota said somewhat less harshly. “Especially since I have no idea what this is about. Would you mind explaining why you’re here?”

Maria shrugged. “You could call it a new understanding, if you could feel some kindness toward me. Or just a guilty conscience if you can’t.”

“A guilty conscience?” Carlotta said softly. By now she was convinced this was no Falkenstein. ploy. This woman had really left her husband, she really was here against his orders, and whatever emotion was gripping her, she was sincere, and it was costing her.

“You have to understand who I am and where I come from,” Maria said plaintively. “I’m a woman of the Arkologies, that’s common enough, but I’m also a female Institute graduate, and that’s quite rare.” She frowned crookedly. “A great source of pride to my husband— to have an Institute graduate for a wife. So you see, I was an anomaly to begin with; I had a much easier time of it than most of our women—an Institute graduate
and
the wife of a Managing Director of an Arkology.

Most of our women are... well, just wives—because of the genetic differentiation between the sexes, or so we’re told. And our society functions smoothly and optimally, so one didn’t question this until... until...aria paused and studied Carlotta speculatively. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?” she asked.

“I think I’m
beginning
to,” Carlotta said, feeling sympathy for the woman growing within her.

“And then we came here,” Maria said. “And I saw that things could be different and still work. Femocracy repelled me, but it also forced me to take another look at my own culture, to see that there
was
a subtle male chauvinism at work within it, and not merely a logical application of the scientific principles of psychobiology.”

She looked Carlotta straight in the eye, and what Carlotta saw in her face seemed like affection, an affection directed toward
her
. “And I saw you,” Maria said. “You and Royce. A woman who ruled a whole planet and a man who stood by her side in strength, not weakness. A whole planet like that. An alternative to both male and female faschochauvinism. Scientifically backward, maybe, but on another level so far beyond what we—”

Carlotta laughed good-naturedly. “We’re neither as simple nor as perfect as we may seem,” she said. “As witness the events of the past half-year,” she added more darkly. “Events in which you people played no small parti”

Maria Falkenstein hung her head in rather touching contrition. “I know,” she said softly. “We took* something that worked and tried to change it for our own ends. And so we meddled and schemed and we used all the techniques of our superior science...” She looked up at Carlotta and shook her head. “And we almost succeeded, didn’t we?” she said. “We almost destroyed the harmony of Pacifica forever.”

“You came reasonably close,” Carlotta admitted dryly. “And I’m not so sure at least some of the damage isn’t permanent.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Maria blurted. “Maybe you won’t believe this, but my mind was divided from that first day when I saw how you and Royce could be with each other. I believed in the future Transcendental Science is building, and I think I still do. But I saw that Pacifica had something that
we
lacked, even as we had a vision that you lacked. How far did we have a right to go in the service of our vision? Roger and the others saw no limit, but I...I felt we had no right to destroy what worked so well here and so badly in our own society.”

She shrugged. She grimaced. “How pious and selfserving all this sounds now, after the fact!” she said. “But please understand, I was a dedicated Transcendental Scientist, I believed in what we were doing, I loved my husband, I trusted in his wisdom ... it was no straight and easy path for me from there to here.”

“And just where is
here?”
Carlotta asked.

“I want to help,” Maria said. “I want to make amends. I want to do my part to repair whatever damage we’ve done, damage that I admit I’ve collaborated in.”

“You mean you’re telling me you want to
defect
?” Carlotta exclaimed. “Is that what this is all about?”

Maria nodded silently, avoiding her eyes.

“Could get difficult...” Carlotta said uncertainly. But in her heart, she had already decided.

How difficult it must have been for this woman to have reached this decision! she thought. To put her world, her past, what she had been, and the man she had loved behind her for the sake of....
what?
Principle? Contrition? A new awareness of herself? The small-minded might call this treason, Carlotta thought, but there was an elusive and touching loyalty here that went beyond planet or ideology, treason or defection. Home is where the heart is, however you get there.