Executive (6 page)

I smiled. “I won't lay a hand on you, woman!”

“He isn't worried about your hands, sir. It's mine that concern him.”

I laughed. Emerald certainly had facile hands; how well I remembered! She and I were both fifty, but it was mutual fun to imagine that we were twenty-two again. “Then bring him along!”

“One hour,” she said. Her ship was not far from New Wash, as she was guarding me personally, in her fashion, but she needed time to fetch her husband, Admiral Mondy (retired). Of course, I needed to talk with him, too, for he was the expert on intelligence. He would be an excellent consultant for this crisis, which was, of course, why Emerald had suggested his presence. It was possible she already had an inkling of the Saturn threat.

The press of contacts resumed. Shelia shielded me from all but the most important calls, but even those were constant. Already we were instituting a subsidiary network of secretaries, to screen out the barrage of junk calls. It seemed that every member of Congress, including the opposition contingent that had walked out as a bloc, was outraged by my decision to abolish that institution, and every one of them felt it incumbent upon himself to advise me of his distress personally. But wherever possible we were appointing the same people, whether of my own party or the opposition party, as representatives of their districts: true representatives with no other function than to advise me of the needs and concerns of their constituencies. Those who accepted such appointment—which entailed a concomitant acceptance of my authority as Tyrant—were granted access to me or simply provided with what they requested by someone in my developing chain of command. I may make it seem, in this narration, as if nothing much was happening apart from my dialogues with particular individuals, but that was not the case. Spirit had a number of aides who understood her purposes, and they were doing much of the job of organization while Spirit and I focused on the high spots. I repeat: I was in many respects a figurehead, while my sister actually ran the show. Our campaign organization was converting rapidly to our administrative organization. This was not intended to be an application of the notorious spoils system, but the most convenient way to post responsible people in responsible positions rapidly. So we did have a mechanism for handling specific problems but needed to broaden it enormously, and the former members of Congress represented prime candidates for the new offices. They would not be given power until we were satisfied that they would use it properly, but they were given token recognition—and when one called, I had to answer, even if I did no more than congratulate him on his patriotism in facilitating the new order. You see, in politics, appearance is generally more important than reality, and the reassignment of existing representatives facilitated the appearance of a smooth transition.

Thus the hour passed, hectically, until Emerald and Mondy arrived. Then Spirit and I took them into another room, leaving Shelia to fend for herself, which she was competent to do. She would let me know what decisions she had made in my name when I returned. There are those who think that a cripple is necessarily a nonentity; this is never the case, and Shelia was as intelligent, competent, and experienced a person as I had on my staff. Ninety-five percent of the time she knew my answers before I did, and she could make a pretty good guess on the other five percent. I suspect, in retrospect, that my act of love with her was neither as spontaneous nor as strange as it seemed at the time; it was my recognition of her importance to me. It was not the type of recognition I could give while my marriage to Megan was sound, but the moment my marriage ended (in fact, if not in name), the overt expression of that relationship was possible and perhaps necessary. It was not that I loved her, though she loved me; I have had only two true loves in my life, Helse and Megan. All of my women love me, but all recognize the limitation of my nature. I do for each what I can, when I can, inadequate as this may be.

My romance with Emerald, of course, was long dead. We retained the dream of the past, but today our respect for each other had other forms of expression, as her husband understood. We got right down to business.

“Saturn is sending troops to take over Ganymede,” I said. “What do we do?”

Mondy had been middle-aged when I met him; now he was old. For some men seventy is not old, but for him it was. He looked terrible: bald and fat and pallid. But his mind remained murkily penetrating.

“You underestimate the problem, sir,” he said. “Those are not mere troops; they are technicians.”

“Technicians? I don't see how—”

“Bearing sophisticated new equipment to recede the locks at Tanamo,” he concluded.

Spirit whistled. “That puts a different complexion on it!” she exclaimed.

“We thought it might,” Emerald said, a trifle smugly.

Tanamo was the big naval base on Ganymede, whose transfer I had arranged during my ambassadorship. It had moved from the control of Jupiter to the control of Ganymede. In exchange Ganymede had agreed to cease all covert fomentation of revolution and shipment of arms to dissident elements of Latin Jupiter. This had eliminated a prime source of irritation and saved Jupiter much mischief. Former President Tocsin, of course, had done his best to undermine this accord, preferring open hostility, as hostility facilitated his endorsement of the monstrous military-industrial complex of Jupiter. There were great profits to be made in the fever of threatening war. It was my intent to dismantle that complex, and Admiral Phist was just the man to do it. But this move by Saturn—that could torpedo everything.

I shook my head. “Why?” I asked. “I was ready to get along with Saturn!”

“Did you suppose Tocsin was the only tool of the special interests?” Mondy inquired. “The ruling council of Saturn is engaged in a continual and savage struggle for power, both internal and external. They perceive an opportunity to achieve a significant advantage during your period of indecision, which will not only put Jupiter on the defensive but will thoroughly refute dissent in their own population. That dissent has been growing in strength in recent years, spearheaded by people like Khukov.”

“Khukov!” I exclaimed. “I have no quarrel with him.” For Admiral Khukov had been the other party to the compromise of Ganymede; together we had helped both Ganymede and ourselves. I had taught him Spanish, privately, and he had taught me Russian; these secret abilities were most useful on occasion.

“It is the Politburo that has the quarrel with him,” Mondy said. “He has criticized their inefficiency, such as their repeated failure to become self-sufficient in food grains, but his power base is such that they cannot liquidate him. But a coup like this would enable them to eliminate threats both external and internal.”

It was coming clear. “The Ganymedan ambassador said they planned to depose the premier.”

“That would be the premier's first concern, naturally,” Mondy agreed. “But that is only the initial step. It is necessary because the premier insists on honoring the covenant he made with you. He will not pervert Tanamo or resume clandestine arms shipments. Once they have changed the government of Ganymede, there is no practical limit to their mischief.”

“We'll have planet-buster missile bases there again!” Emerald put in.

“Obviously this must be stopped before it starts,” I said. “Emerald, you can call an alert—”

“No, sir,” Mondy said. “That would not be expedient.”

“But we can't let it happen!” I protested.

“There are ways and ways,” he said. “Jupiter has mismanaged interplanetary relations for so long that it has come to be expected. You have a chance to change that.”

“But if we don't intercept that ship before it reaches Ganymede, there will be hell to pay!”

“And if we do, Saturn will know who told,” he countered. “The premier of Ganymede will be finished—by assassination, if not by political means.”

“But you knew!” I said. “So I didn't have to find out through the premier.”

“I found out, once given the hint,” Mondy said. "My source was coerced, and connected to the premier.

I must not betray it."

I sighed. “No, you must not, and I must not. But we can't sit idly by while that ship lands. How do we proceed?”

“We assess our resources and our desires. Then we formulate a program to best utilize the former to achieve the latter. We stand to gain considerably if we manage this correctly.”

“ Gain? ” I demanded. “If we even come out even, I'll be surprised!”

“Ganymede could shift orbits, from Saturn to Jupiter,” he said. “That would be the minor gain.”

"It would be a phenomenal gain! It would signal the failure of Communism to establish any lasting foothold in the Jupiter sphere. And I can see how, if we save the premier's hide, that shift could occur.

But if that's minor, what would be the major gain?"

“We could in effect shift Saturn itself to Jupiter orbit,” he said seriously.

I whistled. “You had better spell out the details!”

“If an issue is made and Saturn loses, the present government there will fall. The man who manages to resolve the crisis will probably step into power there.”

“And that man would be—” I said, seeing it.

“Admiral Khukov.”

“Admiral Khukov,” I echoed.

“Who remembers his benefactors, by whatever device.”

“Who remembers,” I agreed. “With him in power, there—”

Mondy nodded. “You could end the cold war.”

“And make the Solar System safe for mankind,” I said. “What a dream!”

“But at a price. The confrontation could destroy the System.”

“Is it worth the risk?” I asked musingly.

“That doesn't matter. The situation is already upon us.”

I sighed. “It is indeed!”

We hashed it out, and Mondy and Emerald departed. We had devised a strategy, but we all knew it was risky. We could indeed precipitate a devastating System war if we miscalculated at any stage or even if luck went against us. I would not have entered into such a program had I been able to avoid it, but as Mondy said, we were already committed. If Ganymede became a Saturnian military base, Jupiter would be in dire peril. And Ganymede would become that, if we did not act.

First we had to develop a legitimate source of information, so that Saturn would not know that the premier had told us. Until we had that we could not afford to make our first move.

Meanwhile, the job of setting up our new departments proceeded irregularly. Senator Stonebridge advised me that he was assembling a package of programs that should halt inflation and balance the budget but that there would be formidable resistance to it.

“Resistance—to accomplishing what I have been installed to accomplish?” I asked. “Why?”

“Because the standard of living of the average citizen will have to be materially lowered,” he said. “This entails a universal income tax of fifty percent, and—”

“Fifty percent!” I exclaimed. “Impossible!”

“I told you there would be resistance,” he said.

“Suppose we make it a flat tax of twenty-five percent? That seems more equitable.”

“Suppose you find me an additional source of revenue that will produce six hundred billion dollars per year?” he returned.

“I'll look for it,” I agreed. But I knew I was in trouble. There were no easy answers economically, but somehow I had to find a way to balance that budget without triggering a revolution on Jupiter.

We watched the Saturn ship as it moved steadily through space toward our sphere. Theoretically it was one of a regular supply convoy, relatively innocent; we had no reason to intercept it, other than the one we could not reveal. It was scheduled to arrive in seven days if we did not find a pretext to stop it.

We tapped its communications with the home base and with Ganymede, hoping to intercept a revealing message. The transmissions were coded, of course, but our technicians decoded them as rapidly as they were sent. Saturn was aware of that; Saturn did the same to ours. Saturn was too canny to put anything truly private into any such transmissions. So we got nothing, as expected—and the ship moved on. Six days till arrival now.

My sister Faith came to see me. I had appointed her to the Department of Poverty: it was her job to eliminate it. She was having a problem getting started. “We need full employment, at fair wages, with fair working conditions,” she said. “My consultants tell me that there simply aren't enough jobs and that legislation will be required to define the wages and conditions. The only possible answer...” She hesitated.

“Out with it,” I said.

“Is for the government to become the Employer of Last Resort, for all those who cannot otherwise find work.”

I called Stonebridge. “What's the price tag for the government to become the Employer of Last Resort for all the unemployed?”

“Three hundred billion dollars minimum,” he replied without hesitation. “That assumes a thirty-three percent cost of administration, which I fear is conservative.”

“But if they were working, paying their way—”

“At what jobs? Believe me, Tyrant, it would be far cheaper to put them all on welfare—and cheaper yet to simply hand them each the money.”

“But that would lead to complete indifference to working for a living!”

“Exactly. Therefore, that is no solution to your problem. Don't try to eliminate unemployment that way.”

He faded off.

I sighed as I returned to Faith. “Let's see whether Gerald Phist is making progress at providing new jobs.” I called him.

“Good news, Tyrant,” Phist said as he came on screen. “I am developing a program that will virtually eliminate waste and fraud, and reduce the cost of industry by enabling us to produce the same products and services with only seventy percent of the personnel!”

“Seventy percent,” I said, not reacting with quite the joy he expected. “That means—”

“About thirty million jobs saved,” he finished. “No more inefficient duplication of effort.”

“And thirty million more unemployed,” I concluded.

“Well, perhaps new industries can be developed to take up the slack—”

“Work on it,” I advised him, signing off.