We exited the lock, and a crew of ten SatNavs came with us. Among them was the armament officer, whose competence in the clutch had given us our victory. I had learned in passing that a significant portion of the crew had been rendered temporarily unfit for duty by the intensity of our brief action; this was the first combat they had experienced. That amazed me: that Saturn should provide so inadequately for such an important mission.
Or was I overrating myself? I was no longer the Tyrant; I was an exile. So perhaps this was, after all, a routine mission.
It made sense, but was a comedown. The past decade of power had perhaps spoiled me. However, I knew that I needed to adapt to the new reality. I was now a nonentity.
We used our weak suit jets to cross to the derelict. Our lifeboat had punched a hole amidships, then evidently had been thrown clear. The aim had been perfect. Now the pirate vessel rotated slowly, leaking a faint residual trace of gas, like a planet stripped, by some calamity, of most of its atmosphere.
We used the air lock for entry, rather than the jagged hole in the hull; there was no sense in risking our suits.
The interior was ugly, of course; abrupt depressurization is rough on equipment as well as on personnel, and it was evident that this ship had not been prepared for it. I marveled at that; perhaps the Saturn vessel had never had battle experience, but how could a pirate be naive about the dangers of action in space? Many items had not been properly secured; they would have moved about during free-fall, and of course had become missiles during depressurization.
We found the first body. It was a man of Mongoloid origin, his blood-spattered eyeballs bulging from their sockets, his tongue swelling from the open mouth. Two of our party turned away; it is no fun to retch in a space suit.
“Hold him,” I told Spirit. She caught the man’s feet, anchoring him so that he would not float away while I searched him. I checked his body for identification, and found it. I glanced at it quickly, then passed it to Spirit without comment.
She glanced and nodded. Then she put it in a utility pocket of her suit. We went on.
What we did not tell the others was that the identification showed the pirate crewman to be a citizen of the Middle Kingdom. That was what Jupiter citizens called South Saturn, historically derived from the ancient China of Earth.
There was no pirate treasure; this was a utilitarian ship. Yet it had attacked us in the manner of a pirate, though a strangely inept one. A serious pirate would have prepared for the engagement and would never have given us the chance to fight back, even in the manner we had done. Something was very strange here.
We checked the arsenal and found it well equipped. But it was not set up for such armament. In short, there were very few spoils to be taken. The crewmen were not interested in robbing the gruesome bodies of the dead. So we set up a marker-beacon so that the ship could be spotted for spot salvage, and returned to our own.
Back in our original vessel, passengers again, I got private with Spirit. “Why would the Middle Kingdom seek to assassinate me?” I asked in Spanish, just in case we were being monitored. “I’m out of power now, and when I was Tyrant I treated that nation fairly. I would say relations were good, as these things go.”
“How did they know we were aboard this ship?” she asked in return. “When even the crew didn’t?”
“Would Khukov have told them?”
“Unlikely.”
“Unless he wanted us killed, not traceable to him.” I pondered that. “He is certainly capable of such an act. But I know him. He would not do it to me. He knows he can trust me, and therefore you.”
“I agree. Therefore it probably isn’t the Middle Kingdom.”
I pursed my lips. “A frame! We were intended to identify the personnel!”
“Except that we would have been unable to do so if they had blasted us in space.”
“The USR fleet would have done so, though,” I said. “That was a suicide mission, staffed by incompetents.”
“Like ours,” she said.
That made me pause. “No, not incompetents, I think. They must have had to reach pretty deep to find a crew that did not know I had been deposed and exiled and was being shipped to Saturn. With a phenomenally fast ship. This one must have been used as a courier ship to key territories, very fast and private, always avoiding combat and slipping by, outrunning pursuit. It could have returned from a three-month mission and been sent immediately on this one. Who would expect a noncombatant ship for this mission?”
She nodded agreement. “Everyone seems incompetent at first blood. Once the situation was plain, the captain accepted your authority, and that armament officer is a good one.”
“So we are left with only the mysteries of who is the real assassin, and how the ship spotted us.”
“I don’t like such mysteries,” she said.
“Neither do I. Yet it is like old times.”
She smiled. “Like old times.”
I put my arm around her, and she melted into me. Those old times had been horrible, but not without their redemptions.
CHAPTER 2
DREAM
Our approach to Saturn was not direct. Saturn is not a single political entity; like Jupiter, it has several major and minor nations. We were going to the Union of Saturnine Republics, which occupied virtually all of the Northern Hemisphere. The Southern Hemisphere was dominated by the People’s Republic of the Middle Kingdom, and the rings and moons were all under other control. Thus we avoided these and went to the USR’s major artificial ring station, where Spirit and I had been once before, when I was Governor of the Jupiter state of Sunshine. From there we transferred to a ferry to the great port city of Vostok, and thence to a flight to the capital, Scow. Or rather, in the native rendition, Skva; no need to Saxonize it here.
I’m sure that Chairman Khukov was a busy man, but he made time for us. Within an hour of our arrival we found ourselves in his private suite, seated in comfort. He had aged visibly, with what hair remaining to him turning off-gray, and he had put on weight—but what does one expect of my generation? His appearance was not the basis of his office. We conversed in English, for Spirit did not speak Russian and Khukov’s knowledge of Spanish was never advertised. His talent was like mine: he read people, and therefore could manage them. This was what had brought each of us to power. We trusted each other because each of us understood the other in a way no other person could. Differences of language or culture or politics became insignificant in the face of this fundamental understanding.
“The pirate attack,” Khukov said, coming right to the point. His mind evidently remained sharp. I had first met him when I was the Jupiter ambassador to Ganymede and he was the military liaison there; we had taught each other our native languages. “I’m sure you know it was no doing of mine.”
“The personnel had Middle Kingdom identification,” I said.
“So my personnel inform me. But though relations between the USR and the Middle Kingdom are not perfect, those folk are not that clumsy. They would not carry such identification.”
“So we assumed,” I agreed. “But who, then? I presume you did not advertise our presence aboard the ship.”
“It was what you would term an inside job. I have lost the services of a trusted secretary.”
“I know how that can be,” I murmured, thinking of Shelia, my woman of the wheelchair who had sacrificed her life for me. Her death had tipped me into a siege of madness leading in due course to my ouster as Tyrant.
“No one was to know of your presence,” Khukov said. “We used our fastest small ship, though the gees were restricted in deference to your age. To all others it was a routine courier voyage. The crew itself—”
“Was unprepared for combat,” I finished. “I preempted control on an emergency basis; no censure should attach to the captain.”
“None does; I recognized your touch the moment the news reached me. He will not suffer. But the episode is an embarrassment to me, and heads have rolled.”
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“You know the origin and motivation of the attack?”
“The nomenklatura.”
Spirit and I looked blank.
Khukov smiled. “Brace yourselves for a small lecture on Saturnine internal politics, for this is relevant to your interest. You know that we are theoretically a classless society, unlike you of the decadent capitalistic planets. But we have classes, and of these the most privileged is the nomenklatura, the bureaucratic stratum of the Party. Those in all the key positions of the Party, the military, and the secret police belong to this hereditary class. I belong. They pass themselves off as mere civil servants, but they are the true rulers. Our society is stultified, because the nomenklatura wants no change; it wants only perpetuation of its own power. This is your enemy—and mine.”
“But you said you belonged to it,” I reminded him.
“To belong physically is not necessarily to agree with its precepts,” he said. “I could not have achieved my present position without the support of the nomenklatura. But once I gained the position, my horizon expanded, and then that of the nomenklatura became too narrow for me. I sought to reform our system, to eradicate corruption, to make of Saturn a truly superior power.” He shook his head. “The task was more difficult than I had suspected.”
“Infinitely,” I agreed ruefully.
“But I believe I could have done it—indeed, could do it yet— if it were not for the entrenched opposition of the nomenklatura. But I cannot do with it what I could with rebellious peasants. I would be removed from power if I tried.”
“I understand,” I said with a smile. As he knew, I had just been removed from power myself.
“I could not even demilitarize space, as I promised you I would,” he said. “I intended to, but when I tried ...”
That sobered me. As Tyrant, I had steadily reduced the Jupiter military initiative, using the monetary savings to bolster other aspects of the society. I had done this with the assurance that Khukov was doing likewise. Of course no early reductions had been apparent in either budget, because existing commitments had had to be met, but no new initiatives had been sought.
“Have no retroactive concern,” Khukov told me. “We did not seek to attack Jupiter. I had no desire for war, and the nomenklatura desires victory, not combat. In that we are in accord. But the waste of resources for weapons which do not work, that profit only those who construct them ...” He shook his head.
“Yet how could this lead to an attempt to assassinate a deposed foreign leader?” Spirit asked.
“Two possibilities,” Khukov said. “One I hope is the true one; the other I hope is not. The first is that it is not to the nomenklatura’s interest to have too much peace in the system. With a pacifist in power at Jupiter, and the Middle Kingdom minding its own business, what need is there for new weapons contracts? So if some animosity could be stirred up by the assassination of a not-too-important personage of the one by the other, the USR would have to keep alert and strong, and military graft would not be questioned.”
“The secrecy of the mission was such that news of the assassination might never be released,” I said.
“Indeed. The second possibility is that the nomenklatura sees the Tyrant of Jupiter as a direct threat to its interests, so acted to eliminate that threat immediately.”
This perplexed me. “How could I be a threat? My power is gone.”
“Your power may be restored.”
I shook my head. “It is my wife who has deposed me. I will not oppose her.”
“Restored here,” he said. “It is in my mind to make you my hatchet man, as your idiom puts it.”
“I have had enough of the exercise of power,” I demurred.
“I think not. No man ever has enough of that. But I am not suggesting the abuse of it. I am suggesting that you can do one necessary thing for me that I cannot do for myself. Because you are the Tyrant, known to my people and to the rest of the Solar System as the great benefactor of your planet, they would support you in a way they would not me.”
“I am not going to try to usurp your power!” I protested.
“That is why I can use you for this. I know that you are the one person who could challenge me, who won’t. I cannot trust any member of the nomenklatura similarly. Thus you become the ideal person to implement the Dream.”
“You want me to eradicate the nomenklatura for you?” I asked, dismayed.
“That is merely the first step. We cannot accomplish anything until that power is broken. But what use to break it, if it is only replaced by new corruption, and the festering animosities of the System continue to be aggravated? It is the whole of mankind that needs renovation, not just one little part of it.”
I knew by my reading of him that Khukov was getting into something of supreme importance to him. I had had experience with a dream before, and it had taken me to prominence in the Jupiter Navy, and thence to the Tyrancy itself. “What is your dream?”
“The unification of the species in harmony,” he said.
“An excellent dream,” I agreed wryly. “But difficult to implement.”
He waggled a finger at me. “A dream without substance is worthless. I have a mechanism, if it can be implemented. Do you remember how the society of ancient Earth was ready to explode, to destroy itself by internecine warfare, until the onset of the gee-shield?”
“That gave man the Solar System,” I agreed. “The pent-up energies were released positively by the expansion into the new frontier, rather than turning destructively upon themselves.”
“And now that frontier has been conquered, and the energies are turning destructive again, exactly as before,” he continued. “But with a new frontier—”
“To divert man’s destructive energies,” I said, beginning to visualize the dream.
“And provide man a common challenge,” Spirit added. “But what could that frontier be?”
Khukov made an expansive gesture. “What else? The galaxy.”
“But the gee-shield can hardly do that,” I said. “Gravity is not much of a problem in interstellar space, so shielding it doesn’t make much difference. For that kind of travel, we need sustained thrust that could take us up toward light speed, and even CT drive isn’t enough. Even so, it would take a decade or so just to reach the nearest star—where there might not be anything worthwhile for colonization anyway. It’s not enough just to get there; there have to be resources to exploit. Just the problem of growing new bubbles to house increasing population—that requires planets like Jupiter and Saturn. The answer always comes out the same: There is no solution in interstellar space.”
“Ah, but there is,” he insisted. “If we can find those suitable stars for energy, and suitable planets for material resources, and get to them. Five, six new systems to start, more when required. We know they exist; our problem is locating them. Reaching them.”
“Confirming them,” Spirit said. “To make the enormous investment and risk of decades-long travel to them worthwhile.”
“But a light-speed drive would make this feasible,” he said. “Go, explore, return, report—within our lifetimes, late as our lives are getting. Discovering the galaxy.”
“A light-speed drive is a fantasy,” I said. “A relativistic impossibility. Only radiation does it.”
“Just suppose, Tyrant, that there were a breakthrough of this nature. A mechanism to convert a physical object the equivalent of light, without destroying it. And to restore it to solidity on demand. What then?”
I toyed with the notion, intrigued. “Convert atoms to photons? Surely these would travel light-fashion, instantly outward, a complex wave. Virtually massless—what happens to the mass of the original?”
“It converts to energy, the energy of light-speed travel. And back to mass at the other end.”
“If a spaceship could be changed to light, travel as a beam, then be solidified at the far reflector—but are we conjecturing living creatures too, or merely inanimate shipment?”
&nb
sp; “Living things. Human beings. Complete city-bubbles, perhaps. Largely self-contained units.”
“Even so, four years to Alpha Centauri, and more to others— a city would not be self-supporting that long.”
“But if the city becomes light, time within it becomes infinite, and for the passengers, nonexistent. They could travel four years, and to them it would be not even a moment, no time at all. It would feel like instant matter-transmission. No supplies used, no energy expended, merely a new star beyond.”
“Suspended animation,” I said. “That might make it feasible, indeed.” I sighed. “But since there is no such device ...”
Khukov smiled. “Ah, but there may be. I had a report three years ago, which I disbelieved, but I was intrigued, so I examined it. Now tests are commencing, and we shall shortly know whether this is a drug dream or reality. If reality—”
“Then it would be worthwhile to seek the political breakthrough,” I finished. “To get our entire species organized for the great new frontier. For it would have to be done on a System-wide basis, as it was done on an Earth-wide basis before. The new diaspora of mankind.”
“The new diaspora,” he echoed. “That is the dream.”
“But to unify mankind for an effort like this—that would be as great a political challenge as a scientific one,” I said. “Each planet would want to dominate it, and there would be war to establish proprietary rights to the best prospects for colonization.”
“There was not such war before,” he reminded me.
“When Earth colonized the Solar System,” I agreed. “But then the need was desperate and the leadership inspired. No nation gave up its share of the pie. Thus the political and economic and military situation of Earth was reestablished in the System— with all its problems. We have been flirting with the same disaster as before, on a larger scale.”