Statesman (27 page)

She ran through the briefing material with me, drilling me on the key names and situations, so that I could use them with confidence when the time came. Her command of the subject was impressively thorough; she seemed to have committed it all to memory. Despite our recent tempestuous lovemaking, she kept flashing flesh at me as was her wont, and I kept appreciating it. Apart from the violent aspect, I had thoroughly enjoyed Rue's body when we had been married, and had desired it in retrospect thereafter.

Now it was mine again, however re-created, and it was as though I were finishing what had been interrupted thirty-five years before. So she was older now; so was I. There can be much joy of a woman of any age. So, inevitably, we lapsed into lovemaking, though I was required to do it her way, which I think pained me as much as it did her. Perhaps I am saying that it did not pain either of us much. The second time we did it I was not actually able to climax, but there was great joy in the trying, and she seemed satisfied. The woman was eager for me, despite her insistence on roughness, and that was a most conducive thing.

When it was time for my dialysis, we had a call from the Premier. In him I had confided, for it might be necessary for him to cover for me in the crisis. “Señor Tyrant, we have excellent facilities here, and I insist that you allow us to do this favor for you and give your lovely secretary a rest,” he said, his gaze passing me to fix on Rue behind me. She flexed her cleavage at him, smiling. “No one shall know, I assure you.”

I tried to demur, but he was serious, and to avoid bad feeling I agreed to try his proffered unit. Young and esthetic Hispanic nurses escorted me to the chamber, leaving Rue and Doppie to keep Smilo company and handle any incoming calls. I had to confess that these people knew their business; I was well taken care of. Indeed, I reflected, it was fitting to give Forta a break; she had been doing very well for me, but should not always be yoked like this.

Thus the days passed, and, indeed, weeks. Once I was caught up on the background detail, I prepared for my major move. This was to be quite simple in outline, but perhaps not simple in execution. I was to use the Gany broadcast system to make an address to Jupiter, saturating all major channels, declaring that because of malfeasance on the part of the present government, I was returning to resume control, restoring the Tyrancy. We knew that the majority of the people of the planet, fed up with the iniquities and mismanagement of the recent government, would support this; the problem, as with the Jupiter Navy, was the top personnel, who would never yield their power gracefully. Those were the ones who had to be neatly and cleanly neutralized. That was what Spirit was doing now, and was why she was unable to contact me. She was operating in complete secrecy on the planet. At this point I was merely waiting for her signal.

Meanwhile, Doppie answered calls, showing that my sister was with me, and Rue continued to entertain me, making of me a woman-beater but rewarding me in the fashion only she could manage. Despite the tension of the approaching crisis, it was one of the more pleasant periods of my life.

The crisis came upon us at a time not of our choosing. President Tocsin had of course discovered that I was on Ganymede—indeed, we had taken no great precautions to conceal that—and elected not to sit and wait for my action. He ordered the Jupiter Navy to quarantine Ganymede, and demanded that my sister and I be extradited to Jupiter for justice. Of course the justice he had in mind was execution for our violation of the exile. Naturally the Premier of Ganymede refused.

Accordingly, the ships of the Jupiter Navy moved into place about Ganymede—and warships of Saturn appeared in Jupiter space. Abruptly there was a planetary crisis, for both these maneuvers were technically acts of war. It was time for me to act, even if my sister had not completed her preparations.

When I received the news of the deployments I was—well, let me describe it as it happened.

“Hope,” Doppie called, in her guise as Spirit.

I lifted my head from Rue's architecture. “Can it wait?”

“No,” she said firmly.

Fortunately, I was clothed. I got up and went to the holo unit. There was Tocsin's head, talking. “...for the duration of the crisis,” he was saying.

“Is that—?” I asked.

“Has to be,” Rue said behind me.

Tocsin's visage was replaced by that of the Premier of Ganymede. “Tyrant, Jupiter is striking,” he said without preamble. Then he paused, looking past me, as he tended to do when Rue was present.

I glanced about. She hadn't bothered to don her halter or blouse. “Go change,” I told her, then faced the Premier. “What's the situation?”

He recovered his attention. “Blockade,” he said. “Ships orienting on our planet. The poison demands your head.”

“The poison” was the Saturnist name for Tocsin. “Then it is time for countercheck,” I said, experiencing the excitement of the burgeoning crisis.

“Done,” he said. It was not immediately apparent on our holo, but at that point the Saturn ships began to manifest.

“I'll give my address now,” I said. I regretted having to jump the laser on Spirit, but we had known this could happen.

“Connected, Tyrant,” he said grimly.

“I've got the phone,” Rue said, and took Doppie's place. This was of course no business for Doppie, who was able only to emulate Spirit in appearance, not action.

“Good enough,” I said, glancing across at her as I took my seat by the holo broadcast unit. And saw that she was still bare-topped. That was the sort of stunt only Roulette would pull! Well, she could set the pickup for head only, and no one would know. Of course it would seem strange when Rue answered incoming calls instead of my secretary Forta, but that could not be helped; it was the penalty for being caught unexpectedly.

My holo showed the great planet of Jupiter as seen from Ganymede, its clouds clear in their bands and convolutions. That was my signal that the override broadcast was operating. Virtually every functioning holo receiver on Jupiter would receive my broadcast, not the program it was tuned to. It would not take long for the Jupiter technicians to void this, perhaps only ten minutes, but that should be enough.

“Hello, people of Jupiter,” I said in English. “I am Hope Hubris, your former Tyrant. I was exiled five years ago, but now I have returned to resume the government of Jupiter.” I paused, glancing at Rue.

It took a few seconds for the reaction from Jupiter to start, because Ganymede is about three light-seconds out, and of course this broadcast was coming as a complete surprise to the planet. Many holo sets had a feedback mechanism, whereby the recipient could send a positive or a negative reaction to what he received. The positive would manifest as a musical note at my end, while the negative would be a somewhat sour bleep.

Of course I was concerned about the nature of the sound I would hear. I believed the people would support me, but could not be sure; politics is a treacherous business, and the public can be fickle. I had to have the mass of the people with me, or this would not work.

The sounds started. First a few bleeps, dismaying me, then some mixed notes. Then, as if suddenly finding the range, the music came on loudly: hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of notes, drowning out the scattered bleeps.

I smiled. “I see you remember me,” I said, letting the music play as a background to my voice. “You also know that your current government has descended rapidly into corruption and incompetence. The good officials I installed have been replaced by creatures of the ancient sort, who are more interested in the public trough than in the public good.” As I spoke, the music swelled steadily. I was reaching my audience, in the fashion I had, moving them though I could not see them.

“Industrial efficiency has declined,” I continued, following the script we had prepared. “The planetary debt is rising. Freedom of the press has been curtailed. In fact, the leading critic of my day, Thorley, is now in prison .” This time I paused for a full ten seconds to let the reaction manifest. It came like a crashing chord; I had indeed scored.

Rue was watching me instead of her holo, rapt. She was sending out signals of wonder and joy, delighting in the way I was moving the people of Jupiter. The monitor of the number of sets tuned in was rising rapidly; I had started on a preemptive basis, but now they were seeking me.

However, I knew that Tocsin would be barking orders between curses. I had only a few more minutes before I got cut off; I had to make them count.

“I was deposed by my wife, Megan,” I said. “She believed I was abusing the power that I had, and that madness was distorting my judgment. She believed in the democratic process, and I was not honoring that. I have known many women, and some have been beautiful.” I glanced across at Rue. The monitor of the holo indicated that she was now being picked up, nude torso and all. In six seconds the sound would go crazy! “But the one I most truly respect is my wife, and she is the one I still heed.” I peered into the holo as if searching for a particular person, while the sound did indeed go crazy, on its delayed response to Roulette. “Megan! Are you on?”

The seconds passed, and abruptly the sound abated, as if every watcher were holding his breath. Then my wife did indeed appear, hardly even seeming surprised. She was older than I remembered her—but of course I had not been with her for fifteen years, and she was now past seventy. “Megan,” I said to her.

“Do you still oppose—”

But now Tocsin cut in. The delay meant that he had started earlier, but this was where I heard him.

“Mrs. Hubris,” he said. “You cannot allow this dictator to return!”

Now I was silent too, along with Jupiter, awaiting her reaction.

Megan turned her gaze on Tocsin, her ancient enemy. She said no word. Then she turned her back on him.

The holo cut off. Tocsin's technicians had established their intercept, and my broadcast could no longer get through. But it had been enough. Megan would not oppose me—and the people of Jupiter knew it.

I relaxed, for the moment. I felt my age after brief periods of effort like this. I had swayed the common folk of Jupiter to my support, in the way that I had, but it had required energy, and I was abruptly tired.

“It may take a day to restore communication and prepare for the next stage,” I said. “Maybe you had better dialyze me now, so that I can be fresh tomorrow.”

“I'll call the Gany unit,” Rue said.

“No, Gany has problems enough getting the Saturn ships routed through,” I said. “They have to come in via the tube, and then pass through the mine field; it's a tricky job of organization. They have to be in place when Tocsin threatens military action against Ganymede.”

“Still—” she began.

“Damn it, enough of this ruse!” I snapped, my fatigue making me grouchy. “Roulette is great, but now I need Forta.” I crossed to her and put my hand to her face, my nails catching at the edge of the mask to pull it off.

She stood frozen. My nails raked across her cheek, scratching it. First the marks were white, then red.

Irritated by this intransigence, I attacked the other side of her face, determined to get the mask off. She did not resist me. Instead she began to sing, softly, with imperfect pitch but clearly enough. “Come all ye fair and tender maids / Who flourish in your prime, prime.”

My fingers dug in to the side of her head, unable to find the seam. Where was it?

“Beware, beware, make your garden fair; / Let no man steal your thyme, thyme; / Let no man steal your thyme.” The herb thyme was pronounced “time,” and the double meaning was clear. It was Rue's song, the one we had given her in the Navy when I married her.

Impatiently I gave up on the mask and descended to her heaving bosom, seeking the seam there.

“For when your thyme is past and gone, / He'll care no more for you, you.” Women were of course apprehensive about the onset of age, the loss of the flower of youth, and with it the loss of the interest of the men.

I found the seam, caught it with my nails, and ripped forward. The seam came loose, a strand of pseudoflesh, leaving the main portion still attached to her body. Her breast rolled back and forth under my attention, flaking off powder, still seeming totally real. So I attacked the other—and that seam, too, ripped away in a strand.

“And every day that your garden is waste,” she continued blithely, "Will spread all o'er with rue, rue, /

Will spread all o'er with rue."

“Damn it!” I hissed through my teeth. I took hold of her right breast with both my hands and pulled, trying to dislodge the pseudoflesh. But the thing would not yield; it drew her body along after it, causing her to fall into me.

“A woman is a branching tree, / A man a singing wynd, wynd; / And from her branches, carelessly, / He will take what he can find, find; / He'll take what he can find.”

I became conscious of our situation. I was standing there, her breast in my hands, holding it against me, as if it were some large fruit from her tree, while she sang her song despite the discomfort she was in.

This aging but still beautiful and desirable woman who loved to be brutalized. The welts on her cheek were now burning brightly.

What kind of mask did that?

I stared at her, the realization coming at last. “There is no mask,” I said, aghast. “No pseudoflesh.”

“Abuse me some more, Worry,” she invited me, her eyes shining.

“You put on those strips to fool me,” I continued. “And the makeup powder. To make me think—”

She brought her head to mine and kissed me. No wonder the emulation had been so apt! It had been Roulette all the time, playing herself!

I jerked my face away. “Why should you do such a thing? I demanded angrily. ”Making a fool of me like that?" I took hold of her shoulders and shook her. She let her head rock back and forth, as if being violently thrown about.

“Ravish me, Tyrant!” she whispered. “I've always loved you since you mastered me!”

And so she had arranged to switch places with Forta. Forta had emulated Roulette and departed with my sister, while the real Rue had remained to seduce me. Because, even after thirty-five years, she still loved me and desired me. Spirit and Forta had understood, so had facilitated the ruse.

Would I have acceded if I had known? I wasn't sure. I had desired Rue throughout our separation, but once she had married another man, I had known she was no longer for me. That man was dead now, but still I saw her as his. But the emulation of her had been all right; I could take any woman in emulation, knowing she was really Forta. That had been a most intriguing game.

Now I knew Roulette for what she was: a woman in her fifties who had used cosmetics not to change her identity but to make herself seem more youthful, both to please me and to resemble a younger woman emulating an older one. And I had indeed been pleased; Rue had given me an excellent time.

Until I demanded what she could not provide: the dialysis. She was not trained for that, so had evidently elicited the Premier's aid to finesse it. That had been her undoing.

“Ravish me!” she repeated, and now her eyes were overflowing. She had submitted to my scratching and pulling without reaction, but now she was crying—and I was the only man she ever cried for. She had given her tears to me, during our marriage, and that had been as significant a submission for her as when I had raped her, for she valued her heart more than her body. Now she stood exposed, her desire for me manifest. Was I to reject her?

Hardly! What I would have done had I known at the outset I did not know, but that had become academic. I had had much joy of this woman in emulation; now I could have the same joy of her in reality. It was, I thought, similar to my affair with Amber, the teenaged girl whom I had known intimately first in the helmet-feelies, then in the flesh. Rue was a masochist, but it was sexual expression it led to, not rejection.

“You deceived me!” I said, slapping her face, not hard. “Do you know the penalty for that?”

“My maidenhood!” she exclaimed, kissing me again. She dropped her skirt, and I dropped my trousers, and suddenly we were doing it where we stood. This position can be difficult and uncomfortable, and even impossible if the woman resists, but it can work if she cooperates and knows what she is doing. Rue knew. She leaned back against a wall so as not to have to be concerned with balance, and supported me as I thrust into her, and this time she was as ready as I. We kissed deeply, and just before I climaxed I nipped her on the tongue, and I felt her react below. She went crazy against me, and her body convulsed about my member, bringing me off within her. I cannot claim it was the best climax I have had, for the awkwardness of the position did detract, but it was highly satisfactory, and not only on the physical plane.

“Oh, lover, thank you!” she said, kissing me a final time. “I did so much want to have you, as me.” Then she broke, for the vertical position does not allow a woman much time to clean up. She retreated to the bathroom while I got back into my trousers.

Then I became aware of Doppie. The calls had continued to come in during our intermission, for it was only the planetary broadcast that had been jammed, not the phone service. She had taken over the phone, fielding those calls as Spirit. I had made love to Rue in Doppie's presence.