Tomorrow’s Heritage (25 page)

He tried to break in, to explain again that his detection of the vehicle was academic. Discovered or not, it was already altering vector before he had made any moves to communicate with it.

Jael wouldn’t listen. “Your . . . that thing is bringing all our worst nightmares to life!”

“Not my nightmares. And not Dad’s. He had confidence in the future, in his ability to meet it and cope with it. What’s happened, Mother? You used to feel that way, too. I’ve seen you digest his patents, learn to operate devices half the world’s techs couldn’t begin to comprehend. You’re not some dithery, uneducated, stupid nonentity. You’re Jael Saunder,” Todd said with fierce familial pride. “You showed us kids how to be tough, taught us that knowledge was the key. ‘Outsmart them all, and live.’ Do it now. Outsmart the idiots who can’t see anything but a menace in contact with another intelligent species. Dammit, we’re Saunders! You told us we’re the cream. It ought to be we, the intelligent ones, who talk to that alien and give it its first impressions of what humanity is like. Do you want it to see some slavering United Theocracies crazy, ranting about how cosmic rays are destroying his liver and his precious soul? Or should it be a bunch of goons smashing windows and clubbing people and setting off firebombs to destroy what they can’t understand? Mother? I want you to be proud of this, of what I’ve done.”

Jael shook her head, the white streak in her hair gleaming in the car’s interior lights. There was defeat in her manner, a deep, pained anguish. “I . . . I can’t. I used to, but I can’t. Not any more. It’s too much, Todd. Too fast. I could absorb it when I was younger. But now . . . just . . . just give me time, time to get things in order. Pat’s . . .”

“Don’t bring Pat into this,” Todd pleaded. “I realize you’re involved in his career, but what about my career, and Mari’s? Yes, Mari has a career now, too. You may not like her taste in housing, but she’s got purpose to her life now, a damned important purpose, for her and Goddard and the future of Earth.”

“And Mars? I know what they’re doing, those fools. We can’t afford it! We’ve got to pull together and get Pat elected to the Chairmanship first. You’re going to wreck it for him—you and Mariette and all this damned space travel!”

Jael and Pat had resisted, violently, when Todd had broken the news about the alien messenger. He had assumed they would see the inevitable in time. Pat had the ability and the intelligence. But his motives were skewed. So were Jael’s. She wanted the alien messenger to disappear. It was complicating Pat’s straightforward rise to political power. And right now, she wanted Todd and Mari to disappear, too. Either that, or to come home to Mama and confess their sins and admit they had been doing wrong and misbehaving. Come home and be her little loving, obedient babies again. But they had never been all that obedient, even as children. Jael was still trying to make that ideal fantasy—the perfect marriage despite all opposition, three perfect children despite the criticism she had taken for opting to have three children during famines and disasters—be true. She was attempting to rewrite history, working with her children’s lives.

Todd noted her unshed tears and the age lines Mari had mentioned. Time. Too many years of making history happen, fighting and clawing and building an empire for her children’s sake. Jael wanted money and power. For herself, yes. But even more for her children. Nothing would defeat them. She had accumulated enough wealth and clout to make her family invulnerable—invulnerable to everything but the passing of the years.

If Mari had gone into the entertainment media, Jael would have accepted that. She would have made Mariette Saunder the reigning, dazzling queen of Earth’s dreams. Pat was running the political show, king of his arena. The “good” child, the peacemaker, the second son, got to play behind the scenes and rule Earth’s all-essential telecommunications, making Jael’s dynasty and her global control of rulers and their populations possible.

Instead, the children were taking unexpected turns in the road, wresting control away from Jael, going in directions she didn’t want them to. Mari first, now Todd.

And if Pat rebels?

Todd had never known a Jael Hartman Saunder who wasn’t a fierce, ruthless fighter, a magnificent little bird of prey defending her brood. And he had never known her to reject new ideas. Those had been Ward’s life, and she had made them hers.

“Mother, why is it always Pat who gets the breaks from you? Why don’t you tell him to ease off on Mari and me? I’ve been settling their squabbles and taking second place to Pat all my life. Okay. He’s the star. I don’t want to be a media event. But I’m damned sick and tired of being taken for granted—the ‘good son’ who never gives any trouble and always caves in on his own wants to help you boost Pat, sometimes at his expense.”

Jael caught Todd’s hand and held it tightly. “I love you, Todd. I don’t take you for granted. It may seem that I do, but I don’t. And I love Mari. Believe that. I don’t always approve of what she’s doing with her life, but I love her. I love you all. We’re family. There will always be a Saunder family . . .”

“Will there? Not at the rate we’re going, Mother. I almost pity that baby Carissa’s carrying. If this is a sample of family solidarity, we’re going to end up scattered and forever estranged—if goons set off by Pat’s speeches don’t kill me and Mari before that happens.”

She looked at him, her gaze piercing. Love. And a terrible, dark warning that had no name. “If you hurt Pat’s chances, or that baby’s . . . don’t do it, Todd. I’m going to keep this family going. No matter what my failings. No matter how old I’m getting.”

Ward Saunder hadn’t possessed Pat’s strange, compelling stare. He had had the unusually pale eyes, but not the power that came from within. That was Jael’s. She still had it.

“We’re here,” Jael said suddenly in a non sequitur, letting go of his hand. “Do you want me to come into the terminal with you?”

Todd started. He hadn’t realized they were slowing down, gliding to a stop. “No, no, that’s okay. I’ll go find Dian and be right back.”

“We’re going to the complex in New York-Philly.” Jael’s tone didn’t allow an argument. Todd paused at the car door, looking at his mother. She softened the order slightly with an explanation. “I want you to talk to Pat. And he wants to see you. He was upset about this attack. So was Carissa. It’d help her if she could see you weren’t hurt. Please, Todd?”

He nodded curtly and stepped out, hurrying toward the Arrivals lounge. Three of Jael’s bodyguards followed Todd, over his protests. Todd shrugged and let it go. Dian had been sitting patiently, apparently reading an old book, eliciting curious stares from the other passengers in the immense lounge. She looked up before Todd called to her, smiled, stowed her book in her band luggage, and hurried toward him.

The guards busied themselves looking elsewhere, granting them a moment of privacy on the busy concourse. Todd didn’t want to let go, but they had to breathe. Dian finally leaned back and peered up at him. “Okay?”

“I’m fully functional. Bad case of leftover mad, but that’s burning off. Now I just feel lucky.”

“Lucky? Quick. Outdodger from what Falco said in his follow-up.” It was plain she had seen his impromptu interview outside CNAU Enforcement. “Iris said you were okay, and you looked good. But I believe in an eyeball check . . .”

“Not here in public,” Todd teased. Dian wouldn’t release him. He had never seen her so concerned, not even when they had been in the fire at Project Search. “Beth and the others?”

“Pretty good, considering. Beth’s asking when she can get back to decryption.” Dian’s smile was shaky. “I told her we were ready when she was. She’ll like what you said, if they let her watch the broadcast. Some of the others will have to get used to spacing . . .”

“Yeah, well, we can work out the details of the transfer later. Iris tell you about lifting ship?” Dian felt the hidden meaning under that, even though Todd had said nothing to anyone about his real plans. Her expression wasn’t quite her United Ghetto States mask, but close. She was open to him, but not to the bodyguards or any other onlookers. She would go along, possibly tell him he had been crazy not to try something to fight back earlier.

“I’m go, now that Beth’s out of danger.”

Dian’s arm slid around his waist. Side by side, they walked outside to the waiting cars. Along the way, Dian eyed the bodyguards. “I should have been with you,” she said softly. “You shouldn’t have had to take it alone.”

“No. Beth needed you. She hasn’t got any family. Besides, I had enough to scare me shitless without worrying about protecting you, too.”

“Huh!” Dian said mischievously. “Scared? You scared for me, lover? Careful! That’s practically a commitment, as your mama would say.”

“Tell her about it. She’s in the car,” Todd countered, enjoying Dian’s abrupt shift to consternation. She wasn’t sure whether or not he was teasing her, until she actually saw Jael. “Don’t go full decibels on me, now. I never could stand decibels and brains both in the same woman.”

The door had snapped open as he spoke. Todd had meant for Jael to hear. He seated himself beside Dian, opposite his mother. Jael took the bait. “He’s a liar. It runs in the family, Dian. His father could make you believe the Sun rises in the west. Never pay any attention to those big mouths.” She leaned forward, pressing Dian’s hand, sharing a revelation. “The trick is to watch the wheels going around in their manly little heads. Gives them away every time.”

“Oh, I will!” Emboldened, Dian added, “Have to watch his hands, too. Those speak for themselves.”

“Indeed!” Jael laughed heartily, a frank, earthy laugh Todd had always loved to hear. “That
also
runs in the family. It’s the first thing I noticed about his father, the lewd rascal! Carissa’s been known to say the same thing you did. These Saunder boys are chips off the old block in every regard. I’m glad you’re onto his tricks. That saves me giving you an awful lot of motherly advice. Forewarned is forearmed . . .”

Todd was grateful to see her in a cheerier mood. He played butt of the joke, pretending offense. And he carefully stayed away from any comment on Pat’s notorious womanizing. This wasn’t the time or place to bring it up, now that things were settling down once more.

Jael remained in good temper. She even asked solicitously after Beth and the others who had been injured in the firebombing. Dian relayed thanks for the flood of gifts and get-well messages Jael had sent to Project Search victims, saying the patients had been very touched by her concern. So had the doctors, Todd learned. Jael had hired world-renowned burn specialists and flown them to the Texas facility at her own expense so that they could consult with the staff doctors on the very best treatment for Beth and the rest.

They rode on through falling darkness. It wasn’t much past five, but evening came soon in January in this latitude. They used the well-maintained special rapid-transit tracks skirting Atlantic Inlet. In kilometers, this was the long way around New Washington from the southern terminal to New York-Philly. But in safety factor, at the speeds they were running, it was the best option.

Todd let Dian carry most of the conversation for him. The two women got along very well. There was none of that patronizing air Jael adopted when she was talking to Carissa, and none of the animosity that always seemed to rise to the surface when she met Mariette. Dian wisely stayed away from discussing the alien messenger or her translation work regarding it. They talked about past history, Jael bringing up her admiration for Dian’s grandmother. Wyoma Lee Foix was worth quite a few minutes of mutual agreement and anecdotes Dian could share from her childhood in the Chaos days in the United Ghetto States.

Todd didn’t mind being excess conversational baggage, relieved of the necessity to think of safe topics. He didn’t want to remember that moment of terrible warning when he had seen deep into Jael’s soul.

Shore lights and the tracks winked and shimmered in the reflections from the great Inlet. Todd looked out into the twinkling darkness. Atlantic Inlet—one more leftover from the wars. How many wars, over how many millennia? How long had man been fighting man? Were they ever going to stop? Some people believed such conflict was inevitable, citing the mythology of brother warring against brother in the beginning of creation. That was an idea Todd didn’t want to accept, both for intellectual reasons and for personal ones. There had to be a maturity coming to them.

We’ve been very resilient, fortunately. We’ve had to be, since we’re our own worst enemy and a very formidable one. How resilient are we now? I hope we can come out of this current fratricidal madness and survive.

The ride was incredibly smooth. He hadn’t taken a trip with Jael in her favorite transportation for quite a while. He had forgotten how seductive the very faint sway of the car could be, the strange, noiseless movement as they raced northward at nearly air-transport speed. Acceleration had been imperceptible, but they had built up enough velocity to reduce the waters of the Inlet and the lights on the other side of the car to smeary ribbons of light and dark. They left Atlantic Inlet, and now the megalopolis was around them on every side. Todd had confidence in Jael’s engineer. She hired none but the best. Yet when he rode in a vehicle he wasn’t handling personally, there was always an uneasiness in his mind. If anything went wrong, they would be dead, fused into a telescoped lump of humanity and metal in a matter of seconds. It wouldn’t really make any difference, in that event, if Todd were operating the cars or an experienced engineer were—and chances were far better that nothing would go wrong with an expert in the lead car . . .

Bodyguards in that car, too, and bodyguards in the car behind them. The way Jael Saunder traveled these days. So did Pat. ComLink footage on the campaign showed more and more armed muscle surrounding the candidate and his mother. Carissa hadn’t been on screen these past several weeks, not after the doctor had made plain what the risks were. Idly, Todd wondered if Jael’s train was also equipped with the high-powered weaponry those bodyguards were trained to use. He wouldn’t have been surprised. Very little was surprising to him any more. The train probably had a military scrambler system, too. Pat had bragged, not idly, that he had military connections, some very impressive ones. They were buttering up the future Chairman of Protectors of Earth, no doubt thinking ahead to their next world peacekeeping forces’ budgetary session.

The courtesy monitor had announced their ETA the moment they had left the terminal and offered a silent, running commentary on traffic conditions and minor news bulletins no one had cared to read. Now, as they began to decelerate very gradually, the ETA figures rippled and changed, adding at first seconds, then minutes.

Jael noticed, letting the conversation lapse. She spoke to the com, demanding an explanation from the driver. He was profusely apologetic, repeating several times that SE Trans Co guidance had to bump their ETA because of a higher-priority traffic jam at their destination. The engineer wasn’t pretending his earnest apologies. Jael Hartman Saunder wasn’t used to waiting. She demanded to know what higher priority could bump her out of line and make her tap her toes, wasting valuable time.

“Mr. Patrick Saunder put through the order, Mrs. Saunder,” the engineer replied tonelessly. “Something about a Supreme Council of P.O.E. meeting they’re having at the complex . . .”

“Patrick didn’t tell me about that,” Jael said, stricken and angry.

“Maybe it came up suddenly, one of those spur-of-the-moment things,” Dian suggested, trying to calm the older woman. Todd shook his head, warning her not to interfere.

“Are they leaving?”

“Yes, ma’am. We should be in the train park in three minutes.”

The deceleration, as smooth as the climb up to speed, continued to step them down. The endless city and suburb lights coalesced out of the smears top speed had caused. At a crawling pace, the three-car mass driver adaptation cut in normal propulsion, edging toward the waiting entry at the end of the street. The area around SE New York-Philly Complex was parklike and beautiful, especially at night, with light reflecting off little ponds and shadowy groups of trees bordering the buildings and plaza. Above the massive horizontal dark slit that was the door to the train and vehicular park area, Saunder Enterprises Mainland HQ towered. Office lights were still on in many of the levels. SE business activities never ceased. However, the train passengers weren’t going up to the offices, but down into the buried sanctuary, the private residence six stories below street level.

Apparently it was a business session for Pat, even within his subterranean apartments. As Jael’s three-car train slowed to a crawl, Todd saw, along the curve of the tracks ahead, other V.I.P. trains and vehicles leaving the parking area. One train passing them on an adjacent track bore a Presidential seal. Galbraith. He must have traveled up from New Washington to confer with the next Chairman of P.O.E. Todd speculated this had probably been a political plotting session, then. Galbraith’s Social Traditionalists forming a coalition with Earth First and World Advancement parties, carving up the world. Galbraith had hoped to run for the Chairmanship himself, until incumbent Li Chu acknowledged Pat as her political heir. At one time, decades ago, when part of the Central North American Union had been the United States of America, President Galbraith most likely would have been the favorite in the election. Now, Galbraith’s office was a joke, a puppet administration operated by Protectors of Earth. Galbraith was old, a never-powerful leader who was virtually politically impotent, trying to ride Pat’s coattails and thus hang onto what clout he had. For Todd, the man had proved his weakness by his actions these past few weeks. Galbraith had first said nothing at all about the electrifying news Todd Saunder brought the world. When he had to respond, he echoed Pat, down to the last frightened demand that CNAU mobilize and “prepare.”

There were other trains, carrying generals, potentates and financial moguls, plus vehicles belonging to delegated managers of Pat’s various Saunder Enterprises corporations and numerous other bigwigs. The trains and cars must have clogged the parking area and taxed Trans Co’s guidance system. Now they had all cleared out, and Jael’s train was given permission to proceed.

Jael was fuming, not hiding a bit of it. Todd didn’t say anything out loud. But he thought that his mother had better get used to waiting in line. She had been a dowager queen of a global empire for so long, she assumed that was the way it would always be. But when Pat received the Chairmanship, he would be too big to have Jael tagging around at his elbow everywhere while he conducted Earth’s business—and too necessary to cater to her and her taste for luxury and preferment while men and women of genuine political power cooled their heels. From now on, it would be Jael Saunder who would cool her heels. Perhaps that was a result of Pat’s rise to power that she hadn’t foreseen when she had first set out to buy him the Chairmanship.

They glided into the now-empty parking area, a huge tunnel with access for trains and vehicles and supply equipment at both ends of the building. Forty stories of offices, SE Mainland HQ’s heart, soared above them. The elevators to the private residences were on their left. Bodyguards handed Jael and Dian out of the car, escorted the three of them to the cages. More new military-type equipment flanked the cages, scanning the elevators to be sure nobody was trying to sabotage anything. Another price of political popularity? Todd wondered.

They rode six stories down, entering a bombproof hole in the ground. There were still more guards in the foyer outside the bottom level, and an assortment of men and women in mufti, including the bosomy blonde Todd had first seen a few weeks ago when Pat had made the Trans-Pacific truce announcement. She was posing as an “aide” now, as were all the others in civilian clothes. Some actually
were
aides. Most of them were flunkies, though, or thinly disguised undercover bodyguards who wouldn’t be suspected as such because they didn’t look the part.

Jael led the way back toward the private apartments. Servants appeared out of nowhere, offering to take the coats they had been carrying since they left the train. Dian glanced up at the security cameras in every corner, then looked at Todd. He nodded, very sour. Watching them. Always. As if they were in danger even among their own army of private bodyguards.

The door of the recreation lounge opened, and Roy Paige came out. He brightened when he saw Todd and Dian. Jael was busy telling one of, the wardrobe servants something. Seeing that, Roy edged close to Todd. “I’m glad you’re here. Maybe you can do something.” Todd frowned in confusion as the black man explained. “He’s been drinking. A lot. I never saw him drink so much. He can hold plenty, I know; so do you. I think it’s all this political stuff. They’re closing in on him already, and he hasn’t even got the election sewed up. Making plans about what they’re gonna do—what they expect
him
to do—once it’s in the bag . . .”

“Well, it’s what Pat said he wanted,” Todd said uncertainly.

Roy looked as if he might cry. “He didn’t show it while they were here. Now it’s all coming out. He’s hurtin’, Todd. Poor kid.” Pat was a kid to this man who had loved and worked alongside Ward Saunder. Roy took Todd’s arm with his remaining real hand, squeezing it hard. “He needs you. He needs
somebody
. I don’t know what’s happening here.” Jael was sending the servant on her way, turning around, noticing Roy. Hurriedly, speaking in a teary whisper, Roy Paige finished, “He’s never gonna live to get as old as his father, the way he’s going. He’s gonna break.”