Statesman (7 page)

We were too far from the exit to reach it before the horrendous cat could catch us. Someone was bound to become its prey. It was clear that a single stab with those fangs could kill a man.

“This chamber is empty,” the guard whispered, grasping the handle of a door behind us. “We can shut it in the hall—”

He opened the door, and we scrambled through: Spirit, the guide, Tasha, and me. But before the guide could secure the door, the tiger smashed into it. The guide was knocked aside, stunned. Tasha screamed.

Spirit's laser pistol was in her hand, bearing on the tiger. “Don't fire,” I protested. “We have the pacifier!”

Spirit held her fire. This was a combat situation, and she and I were versed in combat. We never acted carelessly when lives were at stake.

I opened the tube and quickly smeared its foam on me. Now I was protected. I had no weapon, but hoped I needed none.

I approached the tiger, trying to put myself between him and the other three people. “Take it easy, Smilodon,” I said, extending my odor-covered hand.

The tiger sniffed. Then he sneezed. Then he growled.

“He's reacting wrongly,” the guide exclaimed. “He's one of the exceptions! It's maddening him!”

Evidently so! But it was too late for me to unsmear myself. I backed away—and the tiger strode forward. He opened his mouth, and his jaws gaped to almost a full right-angle aperture. Those tusks now pointed right at me!

I knew I could not escape this beast; the cat seemed to weigh close to a thousand pounds, and was hugely muscled, with stout yet sharp claws. The supreme predator! How on Earth had it ever come to be extinct? Perhaps it had consumed all its prey and had none left!

I knew I was in extreme peril, but I didn't want to kill that animal. I had never seen such a superb example of survival fitness, and that appealed to me on a special level. But if the tiger sprang, Spirit's laser would catch it before it landed; she would not let me be killed, and her aim had always been perfect. I had to find some other way to pacify this creature.

The odd thing was, I thought I understood him. I felt almost an empathy with the tiger, who had broken from his cage or confinement before being killed in the name of a failed experiment. I was the Tyrant, another type of failed experiment. Lord of the jungle, lord of a planet, deposed—what was the essential distinction? Smilodon was alive beyond his time, and so was I.

I focused my talent, trying to comprehend the reality of this superb creature, not merely the illusion. Did the tiger really want prey—or did he want freedom?

He wanted, I decided, neither. He wanted acceptance. That would encompass freedom. This was not his world, and he understood that; he could not survive alone, here. The only place he could hunt naturally was in a bubble chamber, when some frightened animal was loosed to him. A stupid tiger might settle for that, but not a smart one.

A smart tiger—that was what made this one adverse. He rebelled against the confinement of plastic walls, but also against that of tailored odors. He knew that the smell was not the essence. Since his brain was wired into smell far more than was a man's, that was a considerable revelation, but he had accomplished it.

“Tiger, tiger,” I breathed. “I know you. I respect you. Come to me as friend, not as prey.” My words were not what counted; rather it was the sound of my voice, and the motion of my body. I had no remaining fear of this creature, and not because of Spirit's laser; I understood Tyrants of any stripe. My talent was working, causing me to react in subtle ways that few other people comprehended, returning encouraging signals to the tiger.

The Smilodon was perplexed, discovering in me something unanticipated. I continued to respond to his reactions, reinforcing those I deemed desirable, dissipating those I did not approve. It was the same way I interacted with human beings, that enabled me to judge them and trust them. It was more difficult with this animal, because I was not attuned to animals, especially not prehistoric tigers, but the principle was the same. I could come to know a person well enough in just a few minutes to account for a certainty that others might require years to master. That was why I always interviewed the key personnel of a new enterprise, and why my enterprises always worked well. So now I was relating to this magnificent animal in the same way, and if I were successful I would have a rather special friend.

The tiger stood and watched me, his ire turning to curiosity and then to interest. Slowly I approached him, doing what I supposed could be called a kind of dance, though there was no set footwork or body motion to it. It was all response and counter-response, body signal built on signal, hint and suggestion and agreement. The tiger could have bashed me to the ground with one swipe of his massive paw, or chomped me before Spirit's laser could be effective, but the developing understanding that I offered prevented him from doing so. It was as though he had spent his lifetime among those who spoke an incomprehensible foreign language, and abruptly had discovered someone who spoke his own, however haltingly. Naturally he listened!

I cannot properly describe all that passed between us, for that was in archaic tiger signals, while this is in contemporary English, with much of the dialogue translated from Russian. The language of animals relates far more to odor and nuance of body expression than to sound, and our written languages are but renditions of sound. But in essence I reassured the tiger that, though I was a puny man, I had some notion what it was like to be a powerful tiger, and understood his condition. Further, I could intercede with my kind for a measured freedom for him, and respectful treatment. These are poor approximations of concepts that are not complex, merely different from human notions.

The essence was that the tiger came to accept me as his representative among my kind, and I accepted him as my representative among his kind. There were not many of his kind at the moment, but that was not important; the understanding was valid. And so, by certain definitions, we were tame.

I gave him a hug, and he licked the side of my head with his rasp of a tongue. We turned to face the others. “My friend will be coming with me,” I said.

The three just stared. My words evidently weren't registering.

“You,” I said to the guide. “Go get in touch with your supervisor. Tell him that the Tyrant is assuming responsibility for the rogue Smilodon. He may not be the ideal guard for others, but he will do for me.”

Somewhat numbly, the guide departed.

“Now, if the two of you will approach, singly, slowly, I will introduce you,” I said. “It is better that he realize that you are friends of mine, because he is not really tame.”

Spirit, knowing that I was serious, approached. “Hello, Smilo,” she said. I realized that she had named him. The tiger sniffed her, twitched his whiskers, and turned away.

“He recognizes you now,” I said.

Spirit retreated, and Tasha came forward. She looked as if she were about to faint. “Be at ease, Tasha,”

I said. “Smilo only attacks strangers.”

She nerved herself and stood for the tiger's sniff. He growled, deep inside, and she jumped. “Yes, I know,” I murmured to him, my hand on his shoulder reassuringly. “But she is bound.”

Tasha turned a frightened, perplexed gaze on me. “Why—?”

“You are a mole, programmed to kill me when I try to make love to you,” I told her. “Smilo smells that trap.”

In her fear of the tiger, she did not question my statement. “Why did you not have me killed?”

“Tigers have their uses,” I said. “So do moles.”

Indeed it was so.

Actually, there were complications. Smilo had to be housebroken. That meant setting up a suitable toilet facility for him, which consisted of a monstrous box of kitty litter that had to be changed after each use. It meant setting up heavy curtains for him to stretch his claws on. And a place for him to sleep, close by me.

He spent a lot of time sleeping, or at least resting; his huge muscles were capable of phenomenal feats of strength, but not of endurance. He couldn't settle down on my bed; he had the mass of a small horse. But he was happy to snooze under it, after we set up a high enough mattress for me. We had to wash him fairly frequently, lest the feline smell become too strong; but soon enough we became acclimatized to it.

He learned to like sponge baths. He wouldn't touch cat food; he had to hunt for his supper. That meant returning him to the experimental complex, which was equipped with an appropriate hunting range.

Certain zoos also had facilities, and some industrial complexes. Since the most likely marauders of state facilities were human, Smilo and his cousins were trained to hunt human beings. Because Saturn did not pussyfoot around with enemies of the state, any such marauders caught were left to the predators to consume; it was believed that this had a salutary effect on potential criminals. I daresay it did.

Smilo knew me, and was able to accept those others I spoke for, especially when he had fed recently and wasn't hungry anyway. He would not attack a friend. But we were uncertain of his capacity for friendship in larger numbers, and preferred to keep the exposure low. So my circle of personal acquaintances was restricted, and that really was not such an inconvenience. As the Tyrant of Jupiter, I had been isolated for security reasons, and these remained valid; I was comfortable with a small circle.

Spirit and Tasha were it, for now, and the assigned guards; we let Smilo get to know three of them, so that they could take eight-hour shifts continuously, and I believe they came to consider it a privilege to share the duty with Smilo. If any strangers approached, the tiger would rise and growl, and consent to be pacified if the known guard indicated that the intruder was to be tolerated. Once a supervisor made an inspection, and the guard arranged to forget to give Smilo the toleration signal; the three guards had quite a laugh about that when things were private again.

Yes, on the whole Smilo was a worthwhile addition to our group. He never quite accepted Tasha, but I demurred when she offered to resign. “If you did that, those who sent you would know of the discovery of their ploy,” I said. "They might then send another assassin. I prefer to remain with the known danger.

Also, I suspect that they would not be pleased with you."

She considered that, and paled. She decided to stay. “But what—what if you lose discretion and—?”

“Remember the game of bondage?” I asked. “I gave you to understand that I was not up to the completion. The truth is that I had the completion, but that was erased from your memory when you reverted to your normal state.”

She was appalled. “But if what you say is true, you ran a horrible risk!”

“True. That is why I propose no further affair with you.”

She mulled it over. “How was I?”

I remembered the illicit excitement of virtually raping a bound woman. “You were wonderful—but that is not the way I prefer to know you.”

“Can't I be deprogrammed? I wish—”

“I wish too,” I said. “But I think only those who programmed you can deprogram you, and I doubt they would.”

She sighed. “You know I want you.”

“And I want you. But it is forbidden. I must take another woman.”

“Was it this way in your time on Jupiter, when you went from woman to woman?”

I hadn't seen it in precisely that way, but this was not the occasion to quibble. “They learned to live with it,” I said.

Halfway satisfied, she returned to her work.

Meanwhile, the effort to renovate USR industry proceeded. We made wholesale replacements in the supervisory personnel of the key departments, eliminating the nomenklatura and promoting the most competent underlings, so that normal operation hardly missed a step. Then we introduced the free-enterprise incentives, in the name of progressive socialism, and reworked the basic organization. The most efficient and reliable workers got bonuses, and the best managers got promotions, and product pride was stressed throughout. The quantity and quality of output improved, slowly at first, then with greater authority. Like a giant and heavy-laden locomotive, the industrial machine gained velocity. In the name of the Dream, it accelerated.

There were strenuous protests, of course. To these Khukov spread his hands and shrugged and said, in effect, “What can I do? I promised to let the Tyrant have his way if he delivered, and he is delivering.”

“But it is not good communism!” they insisted.

“Well, the Tyrant is not a good Communist,” he pointed out. True words!

Again, I don't want to oversimplify. We spent many months on this effort, and Spirit developed a formidable apparatus of implementation, and there were almost daily minor crises. Some aspects of industry suffered erosion, and some were disasters, but overall there was a net gain, and this gain was increasing with the passage of time. The Saturn esprit de corps was firming. More raw iron was being processed, more large bubbles were being harvested, more and better machines were coming off the assembly lines. Perhaps more important, the common man was coming to support the new order, as his pay nudged upward and his taxes nudged down and more goods appeared on the shelves at lower prices. Progress was only token at first, but the common comrade was quick to appreciate its nature.

The Tyrant was gaining support in proportion to the economic improvement, as is usual in such cases throughout the System. Common folk care little for ideology in their secret hearts; they care for their own comfort and security.

Of course the nomenklatura was now desperate. My progress and Khukov's seeming powerlessness were wiping out this class. It was obvious that I had to be eliminated soon, or the nomenklatura would be out of power. Yet still, any too-obvious attempt on my life would backfire (that term dates from the ancient days of internal-combustion engines; it means a counterproductive effort) against the perpetrator.

Thus the number of “accidental” incidents multiplied, and it became evident that Saturn was no safe place for me to be, for now.

Khukov had come to a similar conclusion. “I think it is time for you to become an interplanetary emissary,” he said. “I will arrange it. Meanwhile, take a vacation.”

“A vacation?”

“Drop out of sight. Go to Beria.”

This was his way of advising us that things were becoming quite difficult in the mainstream of the Communist paradise. It had become a full-time job for him to protect me and hang on to his own power while the repercussions of the changes we wrought occurred. Here, the opposition tended to express itself with lasers rather than with votes, and a number of cities were under martial law. He had said he would back me, and he was doing so, but at the cost of the erosion of his power. In time, as the full fruits of the reforms were harvested, his position would strengthen, but right now it required much courage and conviction to hold the line. I had no stronger confirmation of Khukov's belief in the Dream, and in his belief in my own commitment to it, than this; I was reaping much of the credit among the common folk for the reforms, but it was his dedication that made them possible.

We went to Beria. If life was hard elsewhere in the USR, it was arduous here. We settled in Dvik, at the northern extreme, and the dread cold seemed to reach right through the bubble wall and into our bones.

Of course we had paperwork to keep us busy, but I was soon climbing the walls, figuratively. I found myself looking at Tasha and wondering what was wrong with bondage. But I knew there were only so many chances I could take before something went wrong.

Then Forta arrived. She was the woman that my wife Megan sent; it seemed that during these months Megan had searched her out and arranged for her to travel to Saturn. Such things are not arranged instantly; there are clearances to be obtained and private affairs to be concluded, and of course the voyage between planets takes several months. Thus about six months had passed since my message to Megan, and this was her response.

I knew my wife, and my wife knew me. Our separation, more than a decade before, had been a philosophical necessity without bad feeling. I would have remained with her until death, had that been possible, and she knew it; she also knew that all other women were lesser substitutes, the bread and water of my desire when I could no longer possess the cake and cream. There was no jealousy in Megan, only understanding and tolerance. I trusted her to know exactly what I meant when I asked her for a woman. As far as I was concerned, this arrival was just in time.

Her name was Fortuna Foundling. If that sounds stupid—well, so does Hope Hubris, when you consider it. What, after all, is in a name? It is the person who counts. Khukov was later to dub her “the muddy diamond” with no disrespect intended; he appreciated her value immediately. A good deal faster than I did, actually.

I was on tenterhooks as the complicated process of Saturn travel and security clearance brought her slowly to me in Dvik. Was she beautiful? Intelligent? Affectionate? An athlete in the boudoir?

Knowledgeable in System events? What kind of woman would my wife send me? I had never before asked her for a favor of this nature.

At length the bus-bubble arrived at the Dvik station. The passengers straggled out. Most were tired workers, glumly back from meager vacations in the more pleasant bubbles to the south. The last to debouch was, by her clothing, from Jupiter. She must be the one.

I don't want to be unkind, but there is not any really polite way to describe my disappointment. This woman was tall and trim and evidently of mixed blood; there seemed to be touches of Mongol and Saxon and Negroid derivation in her. Her dark hair was bound back into a bun, and her face was shadowed by a feminine hat that might have been six or seven centuries out of date. She wore a suit that was almost military in its stern cut, though of no service with which I was conversant. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties. She was definitely no showgirl.

She glanced about, then spied me. She strode toward me, extending her hand. “Worry?” she inquired in English. “Forta Foundling.”

She was the one, all right; no one in Saturn knew my old nickname. Well, no doubt the secret police did, but it was not the sort of appellation they would think to use.

I took the hand. It was as calloused as that of a physical laborer. I looked up and saw her face clearly for the first time. It was a shock.

Forta's face was so badly scarred as to make it hideous. It looked as if she had put her head in the blast of an accelerating spaceship. Patterns of scars matted her forehead and cheeks, and the eyebrows were lost in the ruin. Her ears hardly showed; perhaps they had been cut off. Her mouth seemed to be little more than a slit amidst the tortured tissue.

“Childhood accident,” she said matter-of-factly, evidently used to the very kind of stunned reaction I was evincing.

I found myself tongue-tied in the manner of a teenager. I could not see Megan as practicing either a joke or any kind of obscure vengeance on me; neither type of behavior was her way. But virtually all of my women had been beautiful, herself included; she knew my taste in that regard. How could she have done this? There had to be a rationale.

Spirit stepped in. “I am his sister. We have a place for you. Let's get your baggage.”

“This is all,” Forta said, hefting her single suitcase.

We went to our rented car. I drove while Spirit and Forta talked. Spirit arranged this, knowing that I needed a pretext to keep to myself.

“We have been very busy,” Spirit said. "We have been reorganizing Saturn industry, and that entails a great deal of research. My brother interviews the personnel, and I see to much of the implementation.

Are you trained in this area?"

“I regret I am not,” Forta said. “I do, however, have secretarial skills.”

“We already have a secretary,” Spirit said. “We really had not thought of you in that capacity.”

“Naturally not,” Forta said, evidently smiling. I was not looking at her; I kept my eyes scrupulously on the netted channel ahead. The mystery of this woman was growing, and it was not a mystery I was enjoying.

“Are you trained in diplomacy?” Spirit inquired.

“By no means.”

Even Spirit was somewhat at a loss. But she rallied. “Perhaps if you would fill us in on your background...?”

"Gladly. I was found on Mercury thirty-two years ago, during one of the civil-rights altercations there.

My parents may have been killed by the authorities of South Mercury, or merely driven out and prevented from returning. It is possible that I was left for dead, because of the injury done my face. I was picked up by a relief mission and taken to the Amnesty Interplanetary office in Toria. I understand they tried to investigate my background, but of course things are difficult for those of mixed race in that part of the System, and they had no success. So I was christened Fortuna Foundling, being fortunate merely to have survived as a foundling."

“Apartheid,” Spirit murmured. “I understand that torture is employed in that region. But why a baby should be subjected to—”

“There is no proof of torture,” Forta said. “It could have been a mining accident. The conditions in Mercury's sun-side diamond mines—”

“What was a baby doing in a sunside mine?” Spirit asked, an edge to her voice. She had seen a lot, and was toughened to it, but she was shaken by the obvious suffering Forta had experienced.

“Those of mixed race in that region must earn whatever type of living they can,” Forta said. “The wages of two would barely support a family, and it is possible I had only a mother. She may have had to take me to the mine, lacking any way to care for me separately.”