“Take over!” she said.
“But without the Saturn fleet—”
Tocsin, listening in, smirked. The time-delay seemed not to register; it was as though he were responding to my last words, instead of to my prior strained silence. “I will accept your surrender,” he said. “For the justice of Jupiter.”
“Not Jupiter,” Rue said, “Saturn.”
I don’t claim to be fast on the uptake when caught by surprise; I’m sure I was better in my youth. “‘But I have no—”
“Saturn is without a true leader,” she said. “Their people will trust you before they trust Tocsin. Strike now! It’s yours to take! Like a willing woman!”
That last analogy may have seemed unkind or irrelevant, but it scored with me. Perhaps it was my recent discovery of Rue herself, unveiled after her masquerade. The people of Saturn did generally support the Tyrant, whose policies had revolutionized their agriculture and industry, and whose Triton Project promised them the Dream. Suddenly I understood.
“Saturn fleet!” I rapped. “Chairman Khukov is dead. He supported me; I still support him. I am doing what he wanted to be done. I am assuming direct command of the fleet. You will answer to me exactly as you have been doing.” I did not ask the commanders of that fleet, I simply told them, not giving them the chance to think about it. That was the way it had to be done: swiftly, before contrary orders could arrive from Saturn.
“Jupiter Navy,” I said next. “I am similarly assuming command over you. I hereby depose your present admirals, and elevate those of my choosing. Specifically, Admiral Lundgren is retired as of this instant, and Admiral Emerald Mondy restored to that command.”
“You can’t do that!” Tocsin protested. “You have no base! No authority!”
I ignored him. I continued to name particular admirals for retirement and restoration, drawing on the names we had reviewed. When I had covered them, I said: “You will cooperate with the Saturn Navy to safeguard the planet of Jupiter from attack. My aide, Roulette Phist, will provide the details of the transition and assignment.” For Rue was conversant in a way Forta would not have been with the protocols of the military; she had been a ranking Navy wife for thirty years, and part of the Tyrancy as well.
“Countermand!” Tocsin exclaimed, realizing what I was doing. “There is no legal basis for this action!”
He was correct, technically. But too late. “I am not basing this on legality, but on power,” I said. “The officers of the Jupiter Navy know what is best for the Navy, and the people of Jupiter know what is best for Jupiter. Participation in the Triton Project is best.”
Then I launched into the major aspect of my presentation. “As many of you already know, Chairman Khukov of Saturn had a Dream,” I said. “He shared it with me, and I am sharing it with, you. It is the Dream of peace and prosperity for all men. It is the abolition of oppression, restriction, and hunger. One thing has prevented all men from possessing most of the things they desire, and that thing now threatens to eradicate man entirely. That thing is war. We squander our resources in the effort to make weapons with which to destroy each other. If those resources and that effort had gone to secure the good things for mankind instead of for war, we would all be better off than we are. Except for those who profit from the misery of others.” I glanced at Tocsin. He was no longer on the holo, but my audience would understand.
“Earth was on the verge of self-destruction back in the twentieth century,” I continued. “Only the onset of the gravity-shield, that enabled man to expand from Earth to the Solar System, enabled us to avoid that fate. The gee-shield made it possible to lift objects of any mass from the surface of any planet, and to approach the giant planets without being trapped or crushed by gravity, and to enhance the gee on moons locally to match Earth-norm. All else followed from that single breakthrough. The System was apportioned to the several nations of Earth according to their natures and the nature of the available territories, and the expansion of several centuries commenced. In that time the threat of war abated; the resources of each nation went to the development of its major colony. Only in the past century has our past returned to haunt us, as our cultures reenact the conflicts that threatened to destroy us before. We have filled the Solar System, and the pressures of increasing population and diminishing resources, coupled with the absolute folly of warfare, are threatening again to destroy us. We have to have a new direction for our energy, to avert forever the negative consequences of our nature. We have to look outward, not inward; to reach for new riches beyond our current knowledge, instead of competing and eventually warring for larger shares of a shrinking pie. When that very competition destroys the resources we seek.”
I gazed into the holo of the planet of Jupiter, knowing that my eyes were fixing on every person watching. “This is the Dream that Chairman Khukov had, and that I share, and that the entire System must share. It is the Dream of the colonization of the galaxy itself. We have made the technological breakthrough; we can travel to the stars. By means of the light drive we can reach any other point in space at the speed of light—and no matter how far that is, how long it takes, we shall not age in the process. I have used this drive a number of times; it is like stepping directly planet to planet. I am confident that if we use this method to travel to the stars, and to the planets of those stars, it will be no different; it will be in effect instantaneous. Any one of us could board a ship today, and be in Sirius tomorrow, and return the day after, no older. Or anywhere else in the galaxy. The risk is minimal, because now we do not even need a receiver; our ships are to be self-receiving. This is how I came to Ganymede, despite the defenses of Jupiter. Our ships will set out fully equipped for colonization, as they did when they left Earth for Jupiter; they will expend virtually no fuel in transit, only some for the process of rematerializing at the destination. If no suitable bodies for colonization are found, new projection stations will be set up, and the ships will travel as readily elsewhere. It is true there will be challenges, and losses, but perhaps no more than there were in the colonization of the Solar System. The rewards are potentially much greater. War will be a thing of the past, for each nation can have an entire system to colonize, or a complex of systems. There will be no need for competition for resources or living space. Only for peaceful trade between systems. This is the Dream, and this is what I bring to Jupiter. The rest of the Solar System has embraced it; only Jupiter remains excluded—because of the selfish desire for continued power of a few leaders. I am here to remove those leaders and bring the Dream to Jupiter. Are you with me, people of Jupiter?”
Now we turned on the response feedback circuit. It hardly seemed to take six seconds; a roar of music came forth. There was no question: the people were with me. They wanted the Dream.
“It’s a lie!” Tocsin shouted. “He’s just making it up so as to seize power for himself!”
He was the one who was lying. But I was ready to counter this, regard less. “I need no further power for myself,” I said. “My time is limited. I seek this power only as the means to the end of the salvation of the future of humanity. Before I die, I want to establish the Dream for everyone.” Then, forestalling Tocsin’s objection, I undid my belt and dropped my trousers, remaining on holo broadcast. “You see, I am no longer healthy,” I said as I undressed. “I have lost my kidneys, and am sustained only by hemodialysis, because my system rejects all other mechanisms. Here are the scars on my legs where my blood has been tapped; here is the bandage that secures the loop that taps into my blood at present.” I undid the bandage and showed the blood-filled tube. “The doctors will be able to verify the validity of this condition,” I said, lifting my leg so that the tube showed clearly. “I have only a few years to live, because my sites are running out; when I can no longer be dialyzed, I shall die. I have no further use for power, other than to forward the Dream.”
I had won my point; the feedback reaction showed that. The people of Jupiter were with me, and, perceiving that, the office
rs of the Jupiter Navy were stepping down and stepping up according to my listing. My bloodless coup was proceeding. I had been out of power here for five years, but I had been in power for ten years before that, and active elsewhere in the System in the interim, so the people knew me. They knew what kind of government I stood for, and it was clear that it was superior to what they had now. They also knew they could trust me to tell them the truth, and the truth I was telling them was the Dream. The victory was not yet complete, but it was clearly going to be mine. Rue had done what was needed when she told me to seize the initiative despite Khukov’s death.
But Tocsin would not yield gracefully, if at all. He knew the people did not support him, and that the Jupiter Navy was no longer his instrument. But he had a ploy yet to make. “Tyrant, you know that the balance of terror is not in the conventional planetary navies, but in the fleets of subs,” he said. “Jupiter subs surround Saturn, and Saturn subs surround Jupiter. Either fleet can destroy either planet. The Jupiter subs answer only to me— and the Saturn subs do not answer to you. I can destroy Saturn, and you cannot prevent it.”
“Saturn subs,” I said into the holo. “I know you are receiving me but will not answer. The man you answer to is dead, assassinated by parties as yet unknown. But I swear to you that I, as the representative of the Dream that Chairman Khukov made, will in due course root out the assassins and destroy them. To do this I must govern Saturn for a time, and this I will do, until a successor can be named who is guiltless in the assassination. Support me, and I will do this. The blood of the guilty will course through the streets of your cities. No other person can make this promise and keep it; you know that the nomenklatura are even now scrambling for new power, and if they did not engineer this crime, they surely support it. The same is true of President Tocsin here. In any event, you have heard him threaten to strike directly at Saturn. Accept my authority, and accept my order now: If any signal travels from the White Bubble toward Saturn, destroy the White Bubble instantly.”
I returned to Tocsin, whose face was turning ashen as he assimilated this news. He knew that at least one of the hidden Saturn subs would accept my directive, because it made sense: destroy the man who ordered the destruction of their home planet. He could send the order, and they could not prevent it, but he would be dead an hour before the order reached the vicinity of Saturn. That was not the way Tocsin liked to operate.
Now I spoke to Saturn, knowing there could be no response within hours, but knowing what that response would be. “People of Saturn, I, Hope Hubris, the Tyrant, am assuming the office vacated by my friend Khukov, who is dead. My purpose is to stabilize the government of North Saturn and bring the assassins to justice. The fleets of Jupiter and Saturn support me, and I am preventing the Jupiter subs from attacking the planet. In the interim I appoint Khukov’s most trusted deputy to maintain the present government on a standby basis, until my return to Saturn.” I named the deputy; he was a competent and loyal man who did not aspire to power for himself.
My power over these planets was being constructed largely on bluff and imagination, but it seemed to be working. In this moment of crisis, they had no better figure to turn to. It was the special magic I had with any audience. They knew they could trust me to do as I promised, and I promised justice and the Dream. It was an easy compromise to make.
But Tocsin was not yet finished. Indeed, he seemed to have recovered his bravado. “I have a little ace in the hole here, Hubris,” he said nastily. “You don’t dare order this dome destroyed.” Technically, it would be the Saturn subs that destroyed it, needing no further order from me, but they would not act unless he did. If he did not send the order to Saturn, only my direct action could put him away. “Bring out the prisoner,” he called, turning his head to the side.
In a moment a woman was brought forward. I sagged with dismay: it was my daughter Hopie! She was now a woman of thirty, pretty enough, with her dark hair flowing about her face. I had adopted her as a baby, and she favored me in a number of physical and mental ways. She had always been the delight of my later life. Tocsin evidently believed that this hostage would protect him.
Unfortunately, he was right. I simply could not knowingly order the destruction of my daughter, though the fate of worlds hung on it. Hopie was the closest thing I knew to posterity, and that carried increasing weight as the end of my own life span approached. Apart from that, I loved her. Tocsin had, with his unscrupulous cunning, fixed on the one thing that would balk me completely.
“Don’t do it, Daddy,” Hopie said. “Don’t let him have his way. I can die if I have to.”
But I couldn’t order it. Tocsin, gloating to the side, knew it. “Now back off, Tyrant,” he said. “I won’t give the order to destroy Saturn; I don’t have to. I just need to put you under arrest.”
How could I deal with this? Tocsin would never yield his hold on Hopie; he would squeeze her for all she was worth. I knew this, yet I could not let her be harmed. It was ridiculous to be caught by this elementary ploy, but I was. I remembered Hopie as a baby in my arms, and as a child sharing visions with me, and as a teenager trying to manage the Department of Education. I remembered her blazing anger when I took as mistress a girl who was younger than she. She was my daughter, in every sense that counted, and I could not sacrifice her.
“You don’t respond, Tyrant?” Tocsin inquired. “Then I will encourage you. I will have your agreement, now, to surrender yourself for arrest, or I will have this woman dispatched before your eyes. Guard!”
And at that a female guard stepped up, carrying a laser pistol.
There were of course other guards in the White Bubble, who could fire at anyone, anytime, but this was being presented for effect. Slowly the woman raised her pistol, until it pointed at Hopie’s head.
And I think I would have wet my pants, had I had any urine in me. I did not, of course; that was why I require dialysis. My shock was not from the direct threat to Hopie; it was because that guard was familiar.
“Go ahead, shoot me,” Hopie said, though she was shaking with reaction; her bravado was evident for what it was. “Then you’ll have no hostage, and you’ll be finished.” Which was true, but not the whole truth; I could not let her be shot at all.
But I would not need to. Suddenly I knew why this elaborate hoax on me had been perpetrated: the substitution of Roulette for Forta. I had thought it was at Rue’s behest, because she wanted to make love to me once more. Certainly that much was true, but Spirit had had other reasons to do it. She had known that my face-off with Tocsin could come to this, so she had, in her meticulous way, prepared for it. She had fashioned what in chess was known as a discovered check.
“Your time’s up, Tyrant,” Tocsin said. “Make your commitment now, or I will give the order.”
“Give your order, hemorrhoid,” I said.
It took those six seconds for his double-take to appear, but it was worth it, Tocsin could not believe that I had said what I had said. But I had.
Meanwhile, I was already speaking again. “And that order will be your last, because that laser is not pointed at my daughter, but at you. I doubt that you can order your other security guards to take out either my daughter or my secretary before you die.”
Tocsin actually gaped when this news reached him. “Your what?”
Now the guard put her free hand to her face and drew off her mask, her laser never wavering from its target, which was Tocsin. The scarred features of Forta Foundling came into view, never more beautiful than at this instant. Only she, with her superlative powers of emulation, could have infiltrated this bastion, but she had done it.
I was of course to receive credit for a strategy bordering on genius, because of this ploy. But I had not known it was in the making. My women tend to do that to me; it is a type of conspiracy that seems inherent in their nature. I don’t suppose I have cause to object.
Tocsin stared at her. Now he knew he had lost. He was not the suicidal type; he always made the best deal he c
ould, in whatever circumstances existed. “Exile,” he said.
So he would back down, in exchange for exile, which meant no trial, no direct punishment. He didn’t deserve it—but if his guards obeyed him, he could still exchange his life for that of Forta and Hopie. Two for one. It wasn’t worth it to me. “Granted,” I said.
“We await your ship,” Tocsin said simply. He knew I would keep my word, however much it galled me. He had lost the planet but preserved his freedom. I would arrange for him to be sent to the planet of his choice, and that would be that. Meanwhile, I would soon be reunited with my secretary and my daughter. That seemed as important to me, at this moment, as the conquest of worlds.
CHAPTER 19
MIDDLE KINGDOM
It was hours, but it seemed like a moment, and Forta and Spirit and Hopie were with me. I hugged each in turn, then reverted to immediacies. “Why didn’t you tell me about Roulette?” I demanded.
“You were asleep,” Spirit said simply.
I looked at Rue. “They thought you would tell me,” I accused her.
“Well, I meant to,” she confessed. “But then I thought it would be more fun the other way.”
Forta raised a scarred brow. “He thought you were me?”
“For a time,” Rue agreed.
“But the figure—”
“She connived,” I said.
Hopie caught on. “Forta emulates your former wives?”
“Something like that,” I admitted, embarrassed.
“Only the crisis came before I could return,” Spirit said. “And evidently as a surprise to you.”
Because of Rue’s bare bosom. “I didn’t want anyone disconnecting early,” Rue said.
“Nobody on the planet disconnected!” Spirit agreed. Then she got on to business. “I’ll have to remain here and organize for the production of self-receiver units; only Jupiter can do the job in time to match the production already in progress elsewhere.” She turned to me. “You’ll have to go get Saturn settled.”