The Iron Maiden (31 page)

Mars had gotten rich by raising the price of its iron as high as the market would bear, with seeming indifference to the hardships worked on poor planets sorely in need of energy. But it was not the only culprit. The Jupiter iron companies also profited considerably by their handling of Martian iron, because they simply raised their prices to accommodate the higher Mars prices and added a generous margin for profit. More billionaires had been made from iron in the past century than from any other trade.

But the Tyrancy nationalized one of the iron processors, the Planetary Iron Company, or Planico. With that lever, it was forcing Big Iron to moderate its predatory practices, and making a formidable enemy.

Soon Big Iron struck back.

The iron companies approached the Tyrant forthrightly: they believed he misunderstood their position, and they wanted to clarify it. Hope did not trust this, but it behooved him to listen, so he agreed to a meeting. This was not a physical meeting, of course; he had learned his lesson from assassination attempts. It was set up with holo: an image of each iron exec was to be projected to the White Bubble, while the actual execs remained in New Wash, close enough so that transmission of the images was virtually instantaneous. This was really just about as good for such meetings as physical presence was, and far safer for Hope.

Thus he was physically present in the Oval Office, along with Shelia and Coral, who confined themselves to the background. Spirit was watching from another chamber, as usual, ready to act if anything went awry. There were seats around the table for six iron execs, and another for Gerald Phist, who also projected in for the occasion. He was the one in charge of industry, including the iron industry, and Hope wanted Gerald to backstop him. He knew the iron magnates would be hurling statistics at him, and he wanted competent refutation at hand.

This setup had the incidental benefit of putting Gerald and Spirit together via a closed circuit. They had been in love when married, and retained considerable feeling for each other. She had long since told him of her relationship with Thorley, knowing that neither he nor Roulette would betray that secret. They had of course caught on that Spirit was the mother, rather than Hope the father, so it was only half a secret for them. So Gerald and Spirit found quiet pleasure in each other's virtual company, while conducting the business of the Tyrancy.

The Iron magnates appeared on schedule. Abruptly the seats were filled, and it looked exactly like a physical meeting. The leaders of Energiron, Spacirco, Rediron, Jupico, Standard Iron, and Abyss Metals. Of course, they sat at similar tables in their own offices, so that when their hands touched the surface, they did not hover above it or penetrate it; they were precisely zeroed in.

“What, gentlemen, is your concern?” Hope inquired evenly.

“We feel that you have underestimated the importance of the profit system,” the exec from Standard Iron said. "By forcing us to cut down our margins, you reduce our competitive viability on the System scale.

We can no longer expend the same resources for iron exploration that Mars can, and that is not only bad for us, it is bad for Jupiter."

“What's good for Standard Iron is good for Jupiter,” Phist murmured sardonically. He was old now and getting crusty, but his mind remained sharp.

The exec grimaced. “Laugh if you will, but there is some truth in that.”

“You forget that we nationalized Planico,” Hope cut in. “We finally got to the bottom of the iron industry finances. You have been defrauding the public for centuries.”

The executive reddened. “That is purely a matter of interpretation! If you insist on defining a reasonable return on investment as--”

“What you call reason, I'd call piracy,” Phist said.

It continued in this vein, with Gerald Phist alertly countering each Big Iron claim. Then there came a garbage unit, trundling along unattended. It was a household robot that had somehow been activated at the wrong time.

The disposer rolled slowly around the table, outside the ring of chairs, working its way toward Hope.

Spirit saw Shelia wheeling to intercept it, simultaneously murmuring into her mike. She was summoning the kitchen staff to come and recover their errant equipment, but meanwhile she would deactivate it herself.

Then several things happened in rapid order. The disposer suddenly clanked and lurched at Hope, its incinerative laser coming into play. “It's remote-controlled!” an exec cried. “Assassination!” another exclaimed.

Coral leapt toward it, her arm moving. “No!” Shelia screamed, jamming her chair right at Hope. But Coral's grenade was already in the air, bound accurately for the disposer. But the disposer, it turned out, was a holo projection. The grenade, which was quite real, was coming at Hope. Still seated in his chair, he could not get away from it in time.

Spirit screamed, but could do nothing. She wasn't physically there. But Shelia was.

Shelia's chair crossed before Hope, crashing into the table. Her right hand reached up and plucked the grenade from the air. She hauled it down to her bosom and hunched over it.

The grenade detonated. Pieces of Shelia and her chair flew outward. Blood spattered floor, table, chairs, ceiling, and Hope. He was half stunned by the concussion, and half blinded by blood, but he was alive.

Shelia...

Coral was standing there, totally appalled. It had been a fiendishly clever trap that Coral and the others had fallen for. Big Iron had arranged for the Tyrant to be killed by his own bodyguard. Only Shelia had caught on--and taken the grenade for herself. She had foiled the plot.

The assassination had failed, and that of course meant the destruction of Big Iron. The process would take some time, but that industry was effectively dead from that moment. Spirit's immediate concern was Shelia--and Hope. Hope was delirious, and Ebony was caring for him, the only one free and close who could be absolutely trusted. She was putting him through a shower and changing his blood-spattered clothing. She was directing the medics as they treated him. That left Spirit free to focus on Coral.

Coral was in her chamber, laying out a clean mat. She was setting up for seppuku, the Saturnian ritual suicide of the warrior class.

“Don't do it!” Spirit pleaded. “We need you!”

But she was adamant. “Had I fathomed the plot, I would not have hurled that grenade,” she said. “I failed Hope--and killed my friend.”

Spirit could not dissuade her. Only Hope could do that--if he would. She hurried to fetch him.

He was clean and dressed now, walking dazedly with Ebony as she led him by the hand. There was a look in his eye that Shelia recognized: it was the madness. But it was not yet complete. “Hope, it isn't done yet,” Spirit said. “We must cut our losses.”

“Losses?”

“Coral.” She led him to Coral, then backed off with Ebony. It was now Hope's business.

He caught on immediately, for he knew her well. “This is not warranted,” he said. “We were all deceived.”

“It is not your business to foil plots. It is mine.” She gazed at the short sword she had laid out before her.

She was kneeling, bare-breasted, on a tarpaulin; she intended to have no blood soil the floor of her room.

“It is your business to safeguard my life. You have not failed.”

She turned to him. “Sir, I love you, as she did. Please do me the great honor of acting as my second in this.”

That would mean taking the large sword she had, waiting while she used the short sword to disembowel herself, then severing her neck with one swing. This was the honorable and less agonizing way to go, once the guts had been spilled.

“But your job is unfinished,” he said. “If you do this now, you leave me undefended.”

“There are other bodyguards.”

“You are the one I require.”

“Sir, I ask you to release me.”

“I refuse.”

Again she turned to him. “Sir, do you not see the pain I am in? I failed in my duty and I killed my friend.”

He knelt before her, straddling her sword. “Woman, do you not see the pain I am in?” He gazed into her eyes and let his feeling show. Spirit knew it was the north-northwest wind.

And such was his extraordinary power over Coral that she yielded, even in this extreme of honor. “I apologize for my selfishness. What would you have me do?”

“I would have you join me in vengeance.”

She nodded. “We shall wash their bodies.”

“We shall wash their bodies,” he repeated.

Then he opened his arms to her. She leaned into him, and they hugged each other, sharing their agonies.

And, indeed, the bodies of all the top executives of Big Iron were washed in blood. It was the most brutal vengeance Spirit had seen since the days of the pirates. She was normally the tougher one, but the madness was something else.

Yet it wasn't enough. Spirit, Coral, and Ebony mourned Shelia, and so did many others, but Hope's grief was madness. Only when Spirit read Hope's own account of it, years later, did she appreciate the full extent of it, but the essence was immediately clear. He was mourning Shelia as he once had mourned Helse. In his mind he went to heaven and brought her spirit back, and it occupied the bodies of other women in wheelchairs. He sought them and brought them to the White Bubble and made love to them and released them. They were glad to cooperate; madness it might be, but few woman could deny him ordinarily, and none when he was like this.

He also had a memorial erected in her name, and allocated one billion dollars for the treatment of all who were crippled in the legs. The Shelia Foundation was instituted, dedicated to the study of nerve and limb regeneration, that the crippled of the future might walk again. That was perhaps the single enduring good to come of Shelia's brutal death.

Hope's alternate guise as Jose Garcia continued, and Jose was not mad. He also had the solace of Amber, and that must have helped, though by this time Amber was twenty three and the bloom of her devotion had been well tempered by experience. She had loved Shelia too, but knew that the vengeance taken was out of proportion. She still loved Hope--that never ended for any of his women--but understood that he did have human fallibilities. In short, she could probably live without him, if she had to.

Orbits could be distant as well as close.

Meanwhile the Tyrant's evident madness was eroding the heart of the Tyrancy. Jupiter was prospering, but the citizens were increasingly restive. As the behavior of the Tyrant became more bizarre, the Resistance gained strength. It was not that Jupiter chafed under the policies of the Tyrancy; it was that Jupiter feared that too many of the successful policies would be eroded or dismantled. The Tyrant was becoming a loose cannon: a thing without proper anchorage whose random blunderings were a threat to all around him. Yes, he was grief-stricken over the ugly death of his beloved secretary, but where would his pain end? Was there an alternative?

The Resistance had an answer. It sponsored a general strike. It had been years since anything like this had been tried before, and it took some courage, because the Tyrant had acted swiftly and effectively in the past to squelch such efforts. But this one was extremely broadly based; in fact, nearly half of all the employed citizens of North Jupiter participated in it, and a quarter of those in the Latin provinces. Jose Garcia sympathized; he led Jupiter Bubble on strike, granting all workers a holiday for the duration.

This was real mischief for Spirit. She hurt for Shelia's loss in more than one way: no one else had such effective knowledge of the details of governmental management. Things were going wrong in little ways that were all too apt to become big ways. The Resistance strike was a major example: Shelia would have picked up on the signals before it happened, and notified Spirit, and together they would ordinarily have defused it before it broke open. As it was, this was a significant surprise. The Resistance had developed so quietly and peacefully that few people realized the proportions to which it had grown. Probably not all the strikers were members, but this demonstration was enough to paralyze the vital planetary services and too widespread to be amenable to wholesale discipline. It was peaceful but impressive.

Something had to be done, and because this demonstration was obviously well meant, Spirit concluded that it should be met with appropriate restraint. Violent methods, in this case, would alienate a far greater segment of the population than the Tyrancy could afford. What would be both gentle yet effective?

Coral came up with what seemed to be a viable program: Hope would challenge the leader of the Resistance to a contest of some kind, winner take all. Little was known about the leader, except that it was female and savvy, garnering the support of so many women. If he won, the Resistance would be dismantled; if she won, he would retire from the Tyrancy. Spirit herself was against this, but did not object strenuously. She was wary of his madness and thought in her secret heart that might would be better if he did step down.

So the Tyrant made the challenge, and amazingly the leader accepted: Yes, she would meet him in a contest. The terms were acceptable. To the winner would go the management of Jupiter, and to the loser, exile. No blood shed, in either case.

It was necessary to have an intermediary, to arrange the details of the contest. The Resistance leader designated Jose Garcia.

Spirit was elated. “They have played into our hands!” she exclaimed. “They don't know who you are!”

Hope didn't seem so sure, but he agreed it made sense. Jose was well known and trusted, and this would be a direct avenue to discovery of the anonymous Resistance leader. If it turned out to be Reba Ward of QYV he might well have to kill her, for she would surely recognize him. But if she were someone else, they might indeed be able to negotiate a fair contest. So Jose traveled to Ston, named after a centuries-bygone center of resistance and dance called Charleston, to board a Resistance ship.

And it turned out that the Resistance leader was Megan. She had recognized the madness and recognized Hope long before, and now was acting to take him out of power. She was the one person he could not oppose; the moment she revealed herself to him, Hope was lost. There was no contest; Jose simply returned, went to the White Bubble, was officially closeted privately with the Tyrant for an hour, and emerged to announce that the Tyrant was retiring forthwith. Then he entered a private ship and disappeared from public view.