"But we never made it to the Panchen!"
"He knew we were coming. That was his error."
"Hope, I don't understand!"
"Yes, you do, Spirit. You have always understood. We have won."
"We have won," she echoed faintly, humoring me.
I nuzzled her breast, the only part of her that remained warm. I was bleeding, she freezing; soon we would both sink into shock, and thence into oblivion. "You were always my true love, Spirit," I said. "Now I understand what Rue said: I thought I loved two, but only truly loved one."
"Only one," she agreed.
"Only you, my sister. I remember when you were twelve, when you lay with me, to ease my pain. You would do anything for me, and I so undeserving."
"No..."
"And when you had the baby—"
"What?" She sounded genuinely confused.
"And gave it to me, because I was sterile from space—"
"My baby?" she asked, amazed.
I laughed, weakly. "How could you forget, Spirit? But I made her mine."
"Yes, of course," she agreed.
"We must sing our songs," I said.
"Songs?"
I sang the song that had been given me by the members of my migrant labor group, the song that had identified me ever since. I sang not well but with feeling:
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
I'm worried now, but I won't be worried long.
Then Spirit, remembering, sang her song, that had been bestowed on her by the members of our Navy unit:
I know where I'm going, and I know who's going with me.
I know who I love, but the dear knows who I'll marry.
Those Navy folk had had a rare perception! They had known that my sister could never marry the one she truly loved. So they had nicknamed her "The Dear," and she had ever since allowed others to assume that it was "The Deer" in token of her grace and speed in achieving her objectives. Spirit, the mainstay of my life, throughout her life. The Tyrant never knew a better woman than the Iron Maiden.
I pressed into her breast. "Oh, my sister, I am dying "
"No, Hope!"
"And so are you." For the frost was forming on us, or so it seemed, as our skin chilled toward death. We were rasping rather than speaking clearly, but we understood the words.
She capitulated. "So am I. But we can still be rescued."
"Perhaps. But to what point? Existence is suffering."
"And the origin of suffering is desire," she agreed weakly, repeating the Buddhist truth.
"But we can end that suffering by following the Eightfold Path," I continued. "Right belief, right resolve—"
"Right speech, right conduct," she agreed.
"Right living, right effort—"
"Right-mindedness," she said.
"And right ecstasy," I concluded. "Oh, Spirit, it is not too late for that!"
"Oh, please, Hope, it must not end here!" she exclaimed.
"But we are about to escape to nirvana, to the blissful annihilation, to nonexistence and the end of suffering."
"No, we must be rescued!" she insisted. "The common people are with you, Tyrant! They will not let the evil authorities do this! We will survive!"
I saw a figure from the corner of my eye. I twisted my head to look. My vision was blurring as the cold closed on my eyeballs, but I hardly needed much for this. "I think not. Helse has come for me."
"Helse," she repeated.
Helse was in her patchwork wedding dress, exactly as she had been when she died. She was sixteen and beautiful. She held out her arms to me.
"Now at last I join you!" I cried, trying to rise. But I was too weak and cold, and could not.
Then Helse merged with Spirit, and it was Helse's breast I lay against. "Now at last," she agreed.
I kissed her, what I could reach of her, and sighed. I had waited for this moment for over fifty years: to join my love in heaven. Or nirvana. Wherever it was that she awaited me.
Now time seemed to slow, or perhaps my thought accelerated. My understanding expanded to embrace the entire city, planet, System, and galaxy. I knew everything I cared to know, everything there was to know; in fact I was the essence of information. I was able not only to perceive my body and that of the woman with me, but to grasp the complete significance of our being. I grasped the meaning of all my life and all life itself. This brought to me a mighty peace of mind; the brilliance of my unity with the cosmos suffused me. I perceived the universe in its totality, and the local events simultaneously. It was as though I were tuning in on everything that was happening everywhere, and that had happened, and that would happen; all time was one in me. I was the Tyrant, and now at last I had become one with the people I served. Death had no meaning for me; I had transcended it. Thus it became easy for me to summarize the events surrounding my death.
Meanwhile, my daughter Hopie had projected to Saturn at the first sign of the trouble with Laya. She had understood the threat instinctively. She brought picked men and picked equipment. She met Spirit, and the two joined forces with a contingent of the Middle Kingdom.
The common folk of Laya were rising, too, knowing that there was no welcome for the Tyrant in the hostile capital city. The common folk within the city had spread the news of my presence, and of my devotion at the shrine of Buddha, but the police held them back. They lacked the power to help.
It was hours before a party came to us, and it was no rescue operation. Our bodies were still locked together, my face against her breast. They dumped us unceremoniously in a sled and brought it to a holo unit. "The Tyrant and his evil sister are dead!" they exclaimed for the camera, and broadcast the picture to the System. "They fell down the mountain, and we could not reach them in time."
"Daddy!" my daughter cried in anguish.
But my sister was of sterner stuff. "Here is the first lie," she said on the planetary holo. "I am not dead. It is the Tyrant's secretary who died with him, garbed as me."
Astonished, the men of the city of Hasa went to Forta. Her mask came away. Their chagrin was manifest. They had thought to abolish the power of the Tyrant at one stroke, but they had eliminated only the figurehead. I think they knew at that moment that they were lost. Had Spirit died, the effort to complete the Dream could have fallen apart, but now it would be pursued.
"And the second lie," Spirit continued resolutely. "It was no accident. The Panchen sent his robot snow monster to throw them down. See, there is the wreckage of the machine in the background." And, indeed, the guilty robot was there.
"And the third lie," Spirit said. "The rescue party did not try to come promptly. The Panchen knew what had happened the moment his robot crashed. They waited four hours, until they were quite sure the Tyrant was dead, before sending out the party. They could have reached any point in that park in minutes, had they wanted to. Instead they prevented the common folk of the city from coming."
Now her face set into hard lines. "Hasa murdered my brother," she said. "What does Laya say to that?" Laya's answer was grim.
Hopie came to claim my body. But her ship was barred by police bubbles of Laya. "First there is business we must do," they informed her.
And while they barred her entry, the people of Laya rose up as one, their car-bubbles massing against the city of Hasa. They covered it with the cannon of a cruiser, forcing entry even as the common folk of the city charged the locks and opened them. Then, armed, the people stormed in, making prisoners of the authorities and all who had supported them. There was little love for the Panchen beyond the city, and now he had given the people the pretext to rebel.
"Now watch what we do," the rebel leader announced on the holo.
Then an automatic lock was set up, and the first prisoner was fired out into the atmosphere of Saturn. He had no suit. He had been alive. Now his body was pulped inward by the tremendous pressure
of the atmosphere, as it fell toward even greater pressure.
It was followed immediately by the second prisoner, and then a stream of them, at one-second intervals.
Appalled, Hopie watched the holo. "But this is barbaric!" she protested. A line of bodies was forming, streaming steadily down from Hasa: the Panchen's supporters.
"Then come and stop it," the leader said grimly. "We will admit you to the city after the same delay that occurred for the rescue of the Tyrant."
And, indeed, it was four hours before she got into the city. "Stop it! Stop it!" she cried.
The leader turned to the man about to be fired out. "Your life is spared by the intercession of the daughter of the Tyrant," he said. "To whom is your loyalty now?"
But he got no answer, for the man had fainted.
So the carnage was stopped—but almost fifteen thousand had been executed in this fashion. The people of Laya had made known their sentiment and saved face for their province. Face does not come cheap, in the Middle Kingdom.
Hopie hurried to locate Smilo, whom she had never known personally but wanted to rescue. But he was dead. He had passed away naturally at about the time I did unnaturally, as though he retained his rapport to the end. Hopie stroked the beautiful fur and wept, and it was for more than the tiger she cried.
And, in this manner, the veto of Laya was reversed, and the lives of the Prince and Princess were saved. An order was sent for the Dalai to return from Earth, his long exile over. The Middle Kingdom had installed the Panchen, but now the Premier made no objection to the restoration of the Dalai.
I had a fancy funeral, of course, but this is not a subject of interest to me. I will only say that everyone of note came: Megan, Thorley, Hopie, General D of Gaul, all the ranking leaders of the System, all welcomed to the Middle Kingdom for the honor paid the Tyrant of Space. What was important was that my death had accomplished expeditiously what my life might not have: the salvage of the Dream. I was spared the humiliation of a bedridden decline. My only regret is that Forta had to die with me; she deserved better, but it was the way she wanted it. She was a good woman, my final one in life.
And mankind was headed for the stars.
Editorial Epilog
Within weeks of my father's death, the woman named Reba delivered to me the diaries he had kept throughout his life. This was a surprise to me; I had not known that he was writing them, or that I was to be the beneficiary of this information. But I had to read only a few pages of the first manuscript to realize that these should be published, because it was manifest that a major aspect of the Tyrant's existence was unknown to the public that his life benefited so greatly. It is true that there is now an impressive monument to the Tyrant of Space, the conservator of the Dream and architect of man's diaspora to the galaxy; he turned man's vision outward to space instead of inward to self-destruction. But the intensely personal and human side of him was known only to his close associates, a number of whom predeceased him. He was known as a ruthless killer and insatiable womanizer, but these diaries show that he was neither, once his nature is understood. I myself have on occasion condemned him for his "women" without understanding that it was indeed a reciprocal relation, and that sex was only one component of relationships that were anything but casual. If I, his daughter, misunderstood him, how much worse must it be for those who knew him only by reputation? So now I knew I owed it to him to present this side of him.
I edited these five manuscripts, covering the five major periods of Hope Hubris' life, in chronological order, not getting into the next until the prior was complete. I did this because I did not want to introduce any distortions, conscious or unconscious, into the manuscripts. This policy led me into surprises and perhaps traps, but I maintained it to the end.
Thus it was that I came to the conclusion of my father's life story, and received a shock. It didn't stop at his death; it carried a short distance beyond it, as has been seen. I hesitate to call this impossible, but it does lead to some interesting speculation. How can we account for this? Could the Tyrant have written it himself, before traveling to Laya, somehow anticipating the details of his demise? This seems extremely doubtful, if only because the finale was so bizarre he could not have anticipated it in such detail. All the facts presented in it are accurate, as far as I have been able to ascertain. The manner I was met at the Laya border and delayed until they had completed what they deemed to be a suitable retribution for the murder of the Tyrant, even the words I spoke at the end—I simply do not believe that he could have anticipated this. If he had, certainly he would have acted to save Forta, even if, as he claims, he sought his own death to force the issue of the veto.
Could someone else have written it? No; the manuscript was locked in a safe whose mechanism recognized only his own touch and mine, and it was undisturbed when I recovered it. No other person had access to it, not even his sister.
I examined the handwriting. Only at this point did I recognize the change in it. The major portion of the manuscript is written in his own hand; the final portion is written in my hand. I wrote the conclusion—and yet I did not. I had no intention of doing such a thing, and no memory of it; it is not the way I work. I could not have done it—yet my hand gives me the lie.
I can offer only one explanation: My hand wrote it, but I did not. The spirit of my father must have visited me and used my body to complete his narrative. I realize that this sounds preposterous, but it was the way he worked. He was visited throughout his life by others he had known, living and dead; perhaps it should not be surprising that subsequently he visited his daughter. He did say, in the course of the manuscript, that he believed he could do something very like this, and I must confess that at times I was aware of his presence, even when we were geographically separated by the planets. I was surprised and pleased to read the confirmation of such contact; as nearly as I can ascertain, our experiences did coincide. At any rate, whatever the explanation, I accept the manuscript as written, and leave its mystery for others to ponder.
I received another shock when I realized what my father had written about his sister Spirit. He said she had a baby. Forta, then emulating Spirit, was naturally astonished; she had known nothing of this. So was I, for he made it clear that that baby was me.
All my life I have assumed that I was the illegitimate offspring of Hope Hubris, adopted because he felt a tie of blood he could not otherwise acknowledge. Certainly a blood affinity was evident; many physical tests have indicated a closeness that can hardly be ascribed to chance. But here he says he was rendered sterile in space, and it is true that sterility in men varies in direct proportion to their time in space, and he had logged much time. Sterility? Surely he would have known, and if he said it, it was true. But that means that he could not have been my father.
Now, abruptly, the obvious was apparent: Hope was not my father, Spirit was my mother. She had logged similar time in space, but women are not similarly affected, and remain fertile. Suddenly many things fell into place: why Hope had seemed so unconcerned about the charges against him. "Show me the mother of this child," he had announced publicly—knowing that as long as the search was for a Saxon mother, it could not be successful. For I am, as he puts it, a Saxon/Hispanic crossbreed; the evidence of my genetic heritage is clear.
Why should Hope Hubris have suffered a lifetime of suspicion about this matter, when he could readily have demonstrated its falsity? And why had his wife Megan so firmly supported him? Now it was clear: both were protecting Spirit. It has always been known that Spirit would do anything for her brother, literally, even to having sex with him or to letting him die in his own fashion; her loyalty knew no bounds. Now it is clear that that loyalty was returned. Hope truly loved his sister, and never was it more apparent than in the manner he protected her from scandal by taking it on himself. Only when he was dying, and losing his judgment near the end, did he let slip that secret, thinking that the conversation would never be known. Only in his private account is it revealed—
an account that could only be made public by the hand of the very person concerned. His daughter—Spirit's daughter—me.
And so I went to Spirit, and now I recount, as aptly as I am able, the conversation that we had.
"You are my mother," I said.
Spirit is a hard woman, generally known by others as the Iron Maiden, but now she opened her arms to me, and I fell into them, and we cried for some time. Then she said: "So he finally told you, Hopie."
"He wrote it in his manuscript," I said. "I never suspected, before."
"Because you are so like him," she said. "You inherited so many of his ways."
I laughed. "I can't read people!"
"Have you ever tried?"
That silenced me on that subject; indeed, I had never thought to try. But I had another subject: "Then who is my biologic father?"
"When Hope debated Thorley, in Ybor, at the outset of their respective careers, a man tried to assassinate my brother. It was so fast, we were unprepared. Hope avoided him, of course, and so did I, but then he turned his weapon on Megan, and she stood frozen, being unused to violence. He fired—and Thorley leaped out of his chair and intercepted the beam. He saved Megan's life. But he sustained a grievous injury himself. 'Take care of this man!' my brother told me, and I knew that nothing we could do for Thorley could repay the favor he had done us, for had Megan died then, so would Hope have died. I took Thorley to his home, for he was no better off financially than we were then, and I took care of him. I used a disguise so that there would be no suspicion; it was a trick I had learned from Helse, Hope's first love and a truly nice girl. I became a Hispanic boy, Sancho, and obtained groceries and performed chores in that guise, sustaining him while his wife was absent.
"But he knew my identity, of course. He asked me to be open with him, when we were in private, and so I was. It was in my own guise that I dressed his wound and helped him get around and bathe. I did it because of what we owed him, but the better I came to know him, the more I respected his qualities. He was a handsome man, and an intelligent one, and an honest one, and though we existed at opposite political and social poles, I found myself attracted to him. And he—his wound, taken in our service, was in the groin, deep and serious, and though the medication healed the flesh, he was fearful for his potency.