“Hello, people of Jupiter,” I said in English. “I am Hope Hubris, your former Tyrant. I was exiled five years ago, but now I have returned to resume the government of Jupiter.” I paused, glancing at Rue.
It took a few seconds for the reaction from Jupiter to start, because Ganymede is about three light-seconds out, and of course this broadcast was coming as a complete surprise to the planet. Many holo sets, had a feedback mechanism, whereby the recipient could send a positive or a negative reaction to what he received. The positive would manifest as a musical note at my end, while the negative would be a somewhat sour bleep.
Of course I was concerned about the nature of the sound I would hear. I believed the people would support me, but could not be sure; politics is a treacherous business, and the public can be fickle. I had to have the mass of the people with me, or this would not work.
The sounds started. First a few bleeps, dismaying me, then some mixed notes. Then, as if suddenly finding the range, the music came on loudly: hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of notes, drowning out the scattered bleeps.
I smiled. “I see you remember me,” I said, letting the music play as a background to my voice. “You also know that your current government has descended rapidly into corruption and incompetence. The good officials I installed have been replaced by creatures of the ancient sort, who are more interested in the public trough than in the public good.” As I spoke, the music swelled steadily. I was reaching my audience, in the fashion I had, moving them though I could not see them.
“Industrial efficiency has declined,” I continued, following the script we had prepared. “The planetary debt is rising. Freedom of the press has been curtailed. In fact, the leading critic, of my day, Thorley, is now in prison.” This time I paused for a full ten seconds to let the reaction manifest. It came like a crashing chord; I had indeed scored.
Rue was watching me instead of her holo, rapt. She was sending out signals of wonder and joy, delighting in the way I was moving the people of Jupiter. The monitor of the number of sets tuned in was rising rapidly; I had started on a preemptive basis, but now they were seeking me.
However, I knew that Tocsin would be barking orders between curses. I had only a few more minutes before I got cut off; I had to make them count.
“I was deposed by my wife, Megan,” I said. “She believed I was abusing the power that I had, and that madness was distorting my judgment. She believed in the democratic process, and I was not honoring that. I have known many women, and some have been beautiful.” I glanced across at Rue. The monitor of the holo indicated that she was now being picked up, nude torso and all. In six seconds the sound would go crazy! “But the one I most truly respect is my wife, and she is the one I still heed.” I peered into the holo as if searching for a particular person, while the sound did indeed go crazy, on its delayed response to Roulette. “Megan! Are you on?”
The seconds passed, and abruptly the sound abated, as if every watcher were holding his breath. Then my wife did indeed appear, hardly even seeming surprised. She was older than I remembered her, but of course I had not been with her for fifteen years, and she was now past seventy. “Megan,” I said to her. “Do you still oppose—”
But now Tocsin cut in. The delay meant that he had started earlier, but this was where I heard him. “Mrs. Hubris,” he said. “You cannot allow this dictator to return!”
Now I was silent too, along with Jupiter, awaiting her reaction.
Megan turned her gaze on Tocsin, her ancient enemy. She said no word. Then she turned her back on him.
The holo cut off. Tocsin’s technicians had established their intercept, and my broadcast could no longer get through. But it had been enough. Megan would not oppose me—and the people of Jupiter knew it.
I relaxed, for the moment. I felt my age after brief periods of effort like this. I had swayed the common folk of Jupiter to my support, in the way that I had, but it had required energy, and I was abruptly tired.
“It may take a day to restore communication and prepare for the next stage,” I said. “Maybe you had better dialyze me now, so that I can be fresh tomorrow.”
“I’ll call the Gany unit,” Rue said.
“No, Gany has problems enough getting the Saturn ships routed through,” I said. “They have to come in via the tube, and then pass through the mine field; it’s a tricky job of organization. They have to be in place when Tocsin threatens military action against Ganymede.”
“Still—” she began.
“Damn it, enough of this ruse!” I snapped, my fatigue making me grouchy, “Roulette is great, but now I need Forta.” I crossed to her and put my hand to her face, my nails catching at the edge of the mask to pull it off.
She stood frozen. My nails raked across her cheek, scratching it. First the marks were white, then red.
Irritated by this intransigence, I attacked the other side of her face, determined to get the mask off. She did not resist me. Instead she began to sing, softly, with imperfect pitch but clearly enough. “Come all ye fair and tender maids / Who flourish in your prime, prime.”
My fingers dug in to the side of her head, unable to find the seam. Where was it?
“Beware, beware, make your garden fair; / Let no man steal your thyme, thyme; / Let no man steal your thyme.”
The herb thyme was pronounced “time,” and the double meaning was clear. It was Rue’s song, the one we had given her in the Navy when I married her.
Impatiently I gave up on the mask and descended to her heaving bosom, seeking the seam there.
“For when your thyme is past and gone, / He’ll care no more for you, you.” Women were of course apprehensive about the onset of age, the loss of the flower of youth, and with it the loss of the interest of the men.
I found the seam, caught it with my nails, and ripped forward. The seam came loose, a strand of pseudoflesh, leaving the main portion still attached to her body. Her breast rolled back and forth under my attention, flaking off powder, still seeming totally real. So I attacked the other—and that seam, too, ripped away in a strand.
“And every day that your garden is waste,” she continued blithely, “Will spread all o’er with rue, rue, / Will spread all o’er with rue.”
“Damn it!” I hissed through my teeth. I took hold of her right breast with both my hands and pulled, trying to dislodge the pseudoflesh. But the thing would not yield; it drew her body along with it, causing her to fall into me.
“A woman is a branching tree, / A man a singing wynd, wynd; And from her branches, carelessly / He will take what he can find, find; / He’ll take what he can find.”
I became conscious of our situation. I was standing there, her breast in my hands, holding it against me, as if it were some large fruit from her tree, while she sang her song despite the discomfort she was in. This aging but still beautiful and desirable woman who loved to be brutalized. The welts on her cheek were now burning brightly.
What kind of mask did that?
I stared at her, the realization coming at last. “There is no mask,” I said, aghast. “No pseudoflesh.”
“Abuse me some more, Worry,” she invited me, her eyes shining.
“You put on those strips to fool me,” I continued. “And the makeup powder. To make me think—”
She brought her head to mine and kissed me. No wonder the emulation had been so apt! It had been Roulette all the time, playing herself!
I jerked my face, away. “Why should you do such a thing?” I demanded angrily. “Making a fool of me like that?” I took hold of her shoulders and shook her. She let her head rock back and forth, as if being violently thrown about.
“Ravish me, Tyrant!” she whispered. “I’ve always loved you since you mastered me!”
And so she had arranged to switch places with Forta. Forta had emulated Roulette and departed with my sister, while the real Rue had remained to seduce me. Because, even after thirty-five years, she still loved me and desired me. Spirit and
Forta had understood, so had facilitated the ruse.
Would I have acceded if I had known? I wasn’t sure. I had desired Rue throughout our separation, but once she had married another man, I had known she was no longer for me. That man was dead now, but still I saw her as his. But the emulation of her had been all right; I could take any woman in emulation, knowing she was really Forta. That had been a most intriguing game.
Now I knew Roulette for what she was: a woman in her fifties who had used cosmetics not to change her identity but to make herself seem more youthful, both to please me and to resemble a younger woman emulating an older one. And I had indeed been pleased; Rue had given me an excellent time. Until I demanded what she could not provide: the dialysis. She was not trained for that, so had evidently elicited the Premier’s aid to finesse it. That had been her undoing.
“Ravish me!” she repeated, and now her eyes were overflowing. She had submitted to my scratching and pulling without reaction, but now she was crying—and I was the only man she ever cried for. She had given her tears to me, during our marriage, and that had been as significant a submission for her as when I had raped her, for she valued her heart more than her body. Now she stood exposed, her desire for me manifest. Was I to reject her?
Hardly! What I would have done had I known at the outset I did not know, but that had become academic. I had had much joy of this woman in emulation; now I could have the same joy of her in reality. It was, I thought, similar to my affair with Amber, the teenaged girl whom I had known intimately first in the helmet-feelies, then in the flesh. Rue was a masochist, but it was sexual expression it led to, not rejection.
“You deceived me!” I said, slapping her face, not hard. “Do you know the penalty for that?”
“My maidenhood!” she exclaimed, kissing me again.
She dropped her skirt, and I dropped my trousers, and suddenly we were doing it where we stood. This position can be difficult and uncomfortable, and even impossible if the woman resists, but it can work if she cooperates and knows what she is doing. Rue knew. She leaned back against a wall so as not to have to be concerned with balance, and supported me as I thrust into her, and this time she was as ready as I. We kissed deeply, and just before I climaxed I nipped her on the tongue, and I felt her react below. She went crazy against me, and her body convulsed about my member, bringing me off within her. I cannot claim it was the best climax I have had, for the awkwardness of the position did detract, but it was highly satisfactory, and not only on the physical plane.
“Oh, lover, thank you!” she said, kissing me a final time. “I did so much want to have you, as me.” Then she broke, for the vertical position does not allow a woman much time to clean up. She retreated to the bathroom while I got back into my trousers.
Then I became aware of Doppie. The calls had continued to come in during our intermission, for it was only the planetary broadcast that had been jammed, not the phone service. She had taken over the phone, fielding those calls as Spirit. I had made love to Rue in Doppie’s presence.
That had been unkind, for Doppie was smitten by me too. She was as old as she seemed to be, and hardly foolish, but I did not need to read her to know that she would have traded places with Rue if she could. It is a mistake to assume that older women have no desires; they are merely more careful about showing them. In fact, the desire in age can be greater than that in youth, in women and perhaps in men too.
I had never intended to take advantage of Doppie. Now I realized that I had done her wrong. “Doppie, I owe you,” I said to the back of her head.
She did not turn, but I knew she heard and understood. Her hurt turned to joy. Then she contacted the local dialysis unit, and I went for my treatment.
• • •
The appearance of the Saturn ships had nullified Tocsin’s siege of Ganymede; the Jupiter Navy was now outgunned in this region of space. Ploy and counter ploy; it was not the first time this had occurred here. But now the Saturn ships were spreading out to menace Jupiter itself. That was the muscle behind my takeover of the planet; my words were merely the declaration of intent, while Saturn was the mechanism. I had of course cleared this with Khukov. He had hesitated to make an attempt on Jupiter, lest it provoke mutually destructive war, but Spirit and I had believed that the Tyrant could do it without that dread result, and that we had to do it. The Triton Project needed the resources of Jupiter, and Tocsin had made it plain that the present government would never join.
How had the Saturn ships been able to spread without molestation? That was where Spirit’s advance work came in. Naturally Tocsin had ordered action, heedless of the consequence, but somehow the task forces ordered into action had gone astray. Orders had been confused, and foul-ups had occurred. Not one Jupiter ship had fired on a Saturn ship. That was part of what had kept Tocsin occupied during the interim; he had realized that the Jupiter Navy had been partially subverted.
Of course it could not be as simple as using projection to bring Saturn vessels of war within Jupiter’s defensive perimeter. The true balance of terror lay not with the ships but with the subs. Largely invisible, the subs of each planet surrounded the other, ready to fire their missiles and lasers and blast the enemy cities out of atmosphere or space. The System had lived for centuries under that threat, and no one liked it, but there had been no way to escape it.
Until now. That was another reason that the Triton Project was so important. It was why this terrible risk was necessary.
My first broadcast had preempted the holo sets of Jupiter and Jupiter-space. Tocsin’s forces had in due course zeroed in on it and jammed it out. But within a day we were ready for the next move: we had located the sources of the jamming, and could nullify it, temporarily. I was ready for my second broadcast.
I made it. “This is the Tyrant, again,” I said. “As I explained yesterday, the government of Jupiter has been corrupted, with the same bloodsuckers feeding on public resources as were there before the Tyrancy existed. I do not blame my wife for this; she did what was right. I blame the corrupt leader who sidled back into place the moment he was able. That is Tocsin, who has twice brought to ruin the good that my wife has tried to do. I charge him with treason against the planet of Jupiter, and I require him to step down and turn himself in for justice. How say you, Tocsin?”
Of course the man was listening. This second broadcast had caught him as flat-footed as the first, because he thought he had nullified this sort of thing. He had reckoned without my sister’s thorough preparation, and had not yet realized that it was the technical staff of the Jupiter Navy that was nullifying the jamming signals.
Tocsin, thus challenged, came on. But he seemed neither astonished nor dismayed. It was not an act; I read him, and found that he believed he had the upper hand. Why was that so?
“Tyrant, you think you have won,” he rasped. “But you’ve lost. You think your friend on Saturn supports you, but he doesn’t.”
“He supports me,” I asserted before Tocsin’s words concluded, so as to minimize the delay. “At such time as he does not, he will let me know first. But I am merely borrowing the Saturn fleet for this purpose; I am acting as the representative of the Triton Project, and will govern Jupiter as a supporting planet, not as a conquest of Saturn. On this we have agreed; there will be no Saturnist interference in the affairs of Jupiter.”
But before I was done, he was speaking again. “You fool, he doesn’t support you because he can’t support you!” he shouted. “Do you want to know why? Because he is dead!”
Now I was shaken. “What?”
“Check with your staff,” he said gloatingly. “Chairman Khukov was assassinated this morning. The news is leaking out.”
Rue switched tier phone to the Premier of Ganymede. He looked drawn. “It is true, señor,” he said. “We learned of it an hour ago, but did not wish to undercut your effort.”
But Tocsin had known. How was that? I read the answer in his bearing: he had known because he had arranged it. While I w
as setting up for my second address, he had not been idle; he had implemented an assassination plot he must have had ready for some time. I realized too late: all he would have had to do was make a deal with the nomenklatura of Saturn, and they would have done the job for him. The deal would not have any benefits for the people of Jupiter or Saturn, just for the henchmen. Even threatened as they were with extinction as a class, the nomenklatura would not have dared do such a thing on their own; but with Tocsin ready to take the credit, they had surely been happy to act. They had known that they could not get rid of me while Khukov remained in power.
Khukov had sent me out to organize the Triton Project and establish System support for it, because my safety could not be guaranteed on Saturn. What a fool I had been not to realize that he himself remained as vulnerable! Suddenly, at one foul stroke, Tocsin had nullified everything. For without Khukov my position lacked the support of Saturn; the nomenklatura would resume power there exactly as Tocsin and his minions had done on Jupiter, and they were not my friends. The Triton Project would be scuttled or perverted, and the riches of the galaxy would go not to solve the problems of the System, but to enrich the illicit power holders of the major planets.
Tocsin watched me in silence, a cruel smile playing about his homely face. He was savoring this moment of victory over the man who had deposed him once and threatened to do so again. All Jupiter was watching.
What could I do? It was true that without Khukov I could not direct the Saturn fleet, and without that fleet I could not take over Jupiter. The Jupiter fleet had been neutralized, not converted; now its admirals would reassert themselves, rallying to Tocsin.
“Damn it, sir, you know what to do!” Roulette snapped.
I turned to her. Today she was more decorously garbed, with only some deep cleavage, her trademark, showing in front. “I do?” For I was genuinely at a loss. I wished my sister were here; she would have had some course of emergency action.