Statesman (12 page)

“It's a light beam,” I agreed. Spirit caught my eye, and I said no more.

“So it was transmitted while we were not,” Forta said, amazed. “But how—”

“The Rising Sun personnel understood our wish,” Spirit told her. “Our wish was to be free of pursuit.”

“How clever!” Forta said.

Spirit and I were veterans of the Jupiter Navy and of combat in space. We had never liked destruction and killing, but we had been hardened to it in war. It was war we were in now, as anonymous forces sought to assassinate us to prevent us from making our play to unify the planets around the galactic project. The personnel of that ship had been ordered to kill us, quietly if possible; we had had to take them out. We had done so.

The face of the Rising Sun technician came on our screen. “Are you satisfied, Tyrant?” he inquired.

“Quite,” I agreed. “Shall we agree that this matter is finished?”

“Agreed, sir,” the tech said.

“We appear to have suffered some damage,” I continued. “Possibly from a laser attack. Please request assistance for us.”

“A laser,” the tech agreed. “We shall see to it, sir.” He clicked out.

“Damn good personnel,” Spirit murmured.

“They are highly trained, of course,” Forta said.

We did not comment, but that was not what Spirit had meant. The Rising Sun tech had shown very special judgment and discipline, and our interchange had been more significant than either party cared to advertise.

You see, Rising Sun was forbidden by treaty to produce weapons of war. The light-projection project was considered to be technology of peace, but it had certain difficult philosophical aspects. If a ship was transmitted to another tube, this was a peaceful operation. But suppose a ship was transmitted—and there was no receiving tube? Or the beam of light was deflected on the way? Then there would be no reconversion, and that ship would probably never manifest in solid state again. When that happened, was the tube a weapon instead of a tool?

The Rising Sun personnel had understood me. They had let our ship pass through untransmitted. They had activated the system for the following ship, so that it became light and beamed forward at light speed.

Thus it had been removed from this scene, and could no longer threaten us.

But it had entered the tube immediately after us. Our vessel had blocked its forward path. When it became light, it had struck us. Probably most of it had passed around us, but that center section that overlapped us had melted our tail. It takes a lot of light to equal the mass of any part of a ship. That part of it would never arrive at the receiving tube—if, indeed, that tube even remained in place, let alone tuned for reception. Since this had been an unplanned transmission, the Saturn tube had no reason to be activated, and no light-speed message to it could reach it before the ship did.

That ship was dead. Spirit and I knew it, and the personnel of the transmission tube knew it. Forta didn't know it, and perhaps it would be some time before the rest of the System caught on. The tube had just been used as a weapon. Did that put Rising Sun in violation of its treaty? I thought not, as its personnel were only obeying my directive, and in any event, they were only employees of the Union of Saturnine Republics, which was not bound to peace. But it could make an ugly case. So we had tacitly agreed that nothing untoward had happened. That the enemy ship had lasered us just before it transmitted, and subsequently suffered an unforeseen accident. It was a temporary conspiracy of silence.

But they certainly were good men. They were civilians, but they had acted with military judgment and dispatch and discretion. I could now appreciate why Rising Sun had been such a formidable adversary, back in the days when it was warlike.

This had been more of a demonstration than we had planned on—but a most effective one.

We transferred to a legitimate Helvetian vessel and were brought to the planet of Uranus in proper style.

Uranus was smaller than Saturn, its diameter less than half and its mass somewhat over a seventh. Of course every other body in the immediate Solar System (that is, excluding Nemesis, which is really a companion star, rather than a satellite) is minuscule compared to Jupiter, whose mass is greater than all the rest of the System combined. Still, Uranus was a giant compared to Earth, being over fourteen times its mass. Its surface gravity was actually less than that of Earth, but its escape velocity twice Earth's.

People assume that the two should vary together, but this is not so; Uranus' far greater mass brings up the escape velocity, while its lower density brings down the gee. Saturn is similar in this respect, also having a lower surface gee than Earth.

The most remarkable thing about Uranus is its orientation in space. It is tilted by close to a right angle, so that its poles are in the sun's ecliptic. It is as though the planet has fallen over, and all its rings and satellites fallen with it. This means that in the course of its eighty-four-year revolution about the sun the North and South Poles take turns pointing toward the sun, making for days and nights about forty-two years long. It also rotates backwards—they call it retrograde—so that the sun would seem to rise in the west, to a person on the equator, if it rose at all. That depends on the season, of course. The truth is that for those who live in the interior of a bubble in the atmosphere, with artificial light, it really does not make a lot of difference.

As we came in we saw the relatively calm atmosphere, clear to an amazing depth. One would have thought that there would be terrible turbulence, considering the oddities of the planet's situation in space, but this was not the case. It reminded me of a deep ocean, for the large amount of methane provided a greenish hue. It seemed very pretty to me, as planets go. The atmosphere rotates in about twenty-four hours, making it very similar to Earth in this respect, though the planet itself is faster. Since the city-bubbles are in the atmosphere, that is what counts, for human beings.

We came down to Helvetia. Its bubbles floated slightly higher than the majority, and their wind current differed accordingly from those of the majority, so they were relatively isolated geographically. It seemed that the Helvetians liked to live in the mountains, as it were. This perhaps complicated their operations slightly, but did give them a certain independence, and that seemed to suit them.

The city-bubble that was to be our base of operations was Eva, long known as an interplanetary meeting place. I had half expected to spy the citizens going about in colorful shorts and hats, but in truth they were almost indistinguishable from residents of Saturn or Jupiter, except for their language. Helvetia had three or four official languages: French, German, Italian, and Romansch. I believe the majority spoke German, but Eva was in the French section. None of these did Spirit and me much good, our languages being Spanish and English. Fortunately many of the residents of Eva also spoke one or both of our tongues, and in any event we had Forta. She spoke German and French, and was able to translate the others with her equipment. She was the right person to have along.

I don't care to dwell on the rituals of introductions and arrangements; suffice to say that the process I dismiss here actually required months, because of the bureaucratic mechanisms and protocols entailed.

Uranus was a nest of rival systems, each seemingly trying to upstage the others or to gain special advantage for itself. Most of its component nations had formed the Uranian Common Market, which meant that tariffs and other impediments to trade were lowered between members, and this seemed to have a beneficial effect on their separate fortunes, but many problems remained. I felt as if I had stepped into a nest of scorpions. All were impressed with our demonstration of the feasibility of light-speed travel; each wanted all the benefits for itself, and none wanted to pay for them. I could not address the planetary leaders in a single group, obtain their commitment to the project, and be on my way; I had to hold a private audience with each leading executive, who was noncommittal until he knew of the positions of the others. What had been intended as a one-week stay stretched out into months, with no end in sight.

I was never a phenomenally patient man, and age had not softened me. In those early days of frustration I was building up an unhealthy head of pressure. Spirit encouraged me to become a tourist, visiting the attractions, but though I am capable of appreciating such things, my ire at the waste of my time made me an inadequate tourist. I'm afraid the Eyeful Tower was wasted on me, however remarkable it may be as a structure in orbit.

One day Spirit went out on some routine matter, and I settled down with a helmet and holo chip, seeking diversion. Unfortunately, all that was readily available was the normal entertainment fare: feelie sex. This reminded me of what I was missing in that department. I preferred the real thing to a creation of the helmet, and what could I do about that? Phone for a professional girl? That had never been my way.

Disgusted, I removed the helmet.

A young, buxom Hispanic woman walked in. My first reaction was alarm: This suite was supposed to be secure against intrusion. My second was amazement: This was a phenomenally attractive creature, by my definition. My third was shock: I knew this girl! She was Juana, my first Navy love. And my fourth was disappointment: I realized that this was Forta Foundling, doing a mime.

She was good at it, though. Obviously Spirit had coached her on it, for this was Juana as I remembered her forty years ago, before advancing age plumped her out. Not perfect, of course, for Spirit could neither have noted nor conveyed all of the special things I knew about Juana. But close enough to be quite intriguing.

I was interested in the technical aspect. Forta was tall and slender and somewhat angular, yet this creature seemed shorter and full-fleshed and rounded. I realized that some of it was Forta's genius with the signals; a thin body that sent plump signals did appear rounded. I had not before realized the extent to which this could be true. Obviously Forta had rehearsed plump signals, and applied them to this characterization. But it was more than that; a considerable amount of that flesh was genuine. How could that be?

I concluded that I had not really been looking at Forta. She had worn an angular style of clothing, perhaps projecting that quality when it wasn't really hers. Now she was projecting the opposite, in effect doubling the distance. However she did it, she was expert at the illusion.

Now I studied her face. It was a mask, of course, cleverly done but not truly alive. She had trained her hair down and around it to conceal the border, and it was flexible and thin, so that it moved with her own expression. The eyes and mouth were especially lifelike; I realized that they had to be her own, buttressed by makeup. I looked, but I could not see the line of mergence between the mask and her true features; there seemed to be none. She must have used foundation creme or something to flesh out her features where the scars would show, and contact lenses to modify her eyes. Oh, she knew her business, without doubt!

And what exactly was her business? To distract me. She had come to be my mistress, and I had ignored her. I had come to respect her abilities as a worker; she had become as good a secretary as I had ever had, with one exception. That exception—

No! I refused to let the memory of Shelia, my crippled but perfect secretary of more than twenty years, destroy my mood. Shelia had died protecting me; the devastation of that loss had brought me to the verge of madness. Perhaps a bit beyond the verge. I had recovered, perhaps at the point my wife Megan ousted me from the Tyrancy, and I preferred to remain recovered. I remembered with distaste some of the things that had seemed justified by that madness. Better to play Forta's game now, and think of Juana.

Actually, Juana had been my secretary too. We had been lovers—roommates, in the Navy fashion—until I became an officer. She had elected to remain enlisted, and therefore became off limits to me, to our mutual regret. She had been such a nice girl, lacking the drive that had brought my later wives to their pinnacles of success. It would be nice indeed to return to that world of Juana, when I was young and really not very experienced, and she, the survivor of rape, had been as young and less experienced, so that my sex with her always had to be gentle. I had at times been less than satisfied, wanting to have some more lusty fling, but in retrospect I conclude that my occasions with reluctant Juana—no, not really reluctant, merely subdued; she did what the Navy required, and tried her best to make it nice for me, and that effort of hers did indeed make it nice even if it wasn't spectacular—well, those occasions had been as good in their way as any. It is the total relationship that makes it good, not just the raw sex. The single touch of the beloved's hand is more meaningful than the most spectacular sex with a known professional.

Juana was standing before me, waiting for my thoughts to complete their course. I knew she was not, yet chose to accept her validity; Forta's effort was as worthy in its fashion as Juana's had been in hers. I raised my hand to her, accepting the presentation, and she came slowly to me, as Juana would.

I took her hand and drew her down to sit in my lap. Her bottom felt plush in the way I remembered, and her bosom was full and soft. I put my head against it, and she put her arms around me, and I felt as though I were eighteen again.

Here is the oddity: I did not take Juana to bed. I did not even undress her, or reach inside her clothing.

She would have cooperated, I know, but that was not, as it turned out, my true desire. I just sat there, with her warm soft body against me, and I didn't move. I didn't speak, I didn't stroke, I didn't really do anything except remember. Perhaps I slept, without changing position, for abruptly Spirit was in the room, and I knew she had planned to be absent two hours, time enough for me to complete whatever business with Forta I was going to. But I had not completed it; I remained embraced by her, savoring the eternal moment. I had never experienced anything quite like this—not even with the original Juana. That was part of what made it so amazing. Forta had become a better Juana than the original.

Spirit merely glanced at us, and nodded, and went on to her room. I remained a further time as I was, but slowly the mood ameliorated. I realized that my legs were going to sleep; I was no longer young and robust and durable. I had to change my position and break the spell.

Finally I did so. I moved, and she got up. Neither of us had spoken during this entire session, and we did not speak now. She simply walked away from me, back to her own room, and I sat for another time, dazed by the wonder of it. Then I got up and resumed the day.

One thing I had learned: Forta was no longer to be neglected. She was now, indeed, in her fashion, my woman.

Spirit labored diligently to make the necessary connections. We had always worked this way: She did the behind-the-scenes work, while I handled the public scenes. She would produce bodies for me to interview, and I would pass on them, not because I was the superior individual but because that was my talent. I knew that during this period of inactivity on my part, Spirit was forging the elements of our campaign to bring the major nations of Uranus into the Dream. Forta, as our secretary, was kept busy doing spot research on situations and personnel.

There was an item that I remember largely by re-creation, because at the time I did not realize its significance. It serves as an example of how Spirit worked, and how she utilized whatever resources we had to accomplish our purpose. It happened somewhat like this:

“What do we have on General D?” Spirit asked Forta.

General D was our contraction of the name for the President of Gaul. He was an enormous old pear-shaped man who had come out of retirement to assume the leadership of a divided nation. We considered him to be a difficult man, set in his ways, which were no one else's, but it was true that he had forged a kind of national unity that had been lacking in that nation for some time. We expected him to be our most formidable challenge, because he disliked participating in anything he could not dominate, and he had always been a leading anti-Saturnist. If we could gain his commitment, the other nations would fall into place more readily; if we could not, we might have to write off Uranus.

“The man's impervious,” Forta replied. “Once his mind is set, neither heaven nor hell will change it. Here they say, 'There's the right way, the wrong way, and the General's way.' That's about it.”

I remembered. As the Tyrant of Jupiter, I had of course had dealings with the nations of Uranus. The General, nominally an ally, had as often as not been a thorn in my side. He saw reason only on his own terms. I had mostly worked around him, leaving him to his own devices, so we had gotten along. But if there was one thing the General really respected it was power—and now I was coming to him not as an absolute ruler but as an underling, a supplicant. He would consider it a matter of honor to be difficult.

“I seem to remember that there was one he listened to,” Spirit said.

“His daughter. But she died five years ago, and after that he stopped caring about any opinion but his own. There is no ameliorating personality around him now.”

“His daughter,” Spirit said musingly. She glanced at me. “They to tend to wrap their fathers around their fingers.”

Again I remembered: my daughter Hopie, now in her late twenties, sometimes sweet, sometimes imperious, always my darling girl. There had been a quarter-century media campaign to determine the identity of her mother, for my wife Megan had been beyond bearing age when I married her, and Hopie was adopted. Hopie resembled me in so many important ways, from appearance to blood type to personality, that there was no question of her lineage, but of course I had never spoken of her parentage except to acknowledge that she was the bastard offspring of a married man and a single woman. It is one of the anomalies of our culture that it is the child of an illicit union who is blamed, rather than the perpetrators. But from the moment of the adoption, Hopie was licitly mine, and yes, she did wrap me around her little finger on myriad occasions. I wished she could be with us now, but of course I would not have her share the status of exile, so she remained on Jupiter.