Bio of a Space Tyrant Vol. 5. Statesman

“I cannot,” the driver protested.

  “Why not?”

  “There is no road, only a footpath up the mountain.”

  Indeed it was so. The driver dropped us off at the edge of the park and took his pay and buzzed away.

  The park was impressive. At the low fringe it was planted with native trees, but the interior was a massive mountain slope, covered with snow. Apparently this was a bubble large enough to support as many as a million people, but only a hundred thousand actually occupied it. The remainder of its capacity was devoted to this monumental internal park, that cut across many levels and dominated the interior.

  No one came to help us; indeed, the entire city seemed hostile, except for the few common folk we had encountered at the statue. When I looked back, I saw a crowd gathering, but now the local police were herding them away. The common man might be with me, but the authorities were not, and the authorities had the power. We were not in physical danger; the extermination of the nomenklatura of North Saturn had spread a message throughout the System that the Tyrant was not to be molested. But these people did not want us here; that was clear enough.

  The route was plain: a winding footpath to the summit, where the Panchen’s palatial retreat perched. This was the Potala, taken from the Dalai. He was surely aware of our arrival and approach, but gave no signal; he preferred to pretend that he knew nothing of the visit of the messenger. He played a dangerous game; if this were in deference to the antipathy of Tocsin, it would in due course become apparent where the power ultimately lay.

  But now was now, and we had a deadline, and only the Panchen could reverse the veto Laya had cast. If he did it now, the agreement would take effect, and the Prince and Princess would be freed and promoted, and more than a billion people would reap the joy thereof today, and tomorrow the Dream would be realized as mankind commenced its colonization of the stars. If the Panchen did not reverse the veto, it would cost the lives of King and Wan, and sow dissension that could torpedo South Saturn’s participation in the Triton Project, and throw the very Dream into doubt. Oh, Tocsin’s mischief was manifest!

  However, I knew I retained enough of my ability to read and influence a man to enable me to persuade the Panchen of the error of his way. Once we reached his house, I would of course speak directly to the point. He had to recognize that the interest of his people would not be served by the foiling of the Dream. For one thing, the colonization of the galaxy represented Laya’s best opportunity to escape the dominance of the Middle Kingdom. That was a thing that Laya most wanted to do, for it had always regarded itself as an independent nation. I knew I could make this clear to him, once I talked to him personally; it was only his isolation that had set him up for the deceit spread by Tocsin. Tocsin could be very convincing, when a person lacked access to the facts.

  So we wended our way along the path toward the mountain. “This must be the Eightfold Path,” I said, but the humor seemed weak.

  Soon another hurdle manifested: It was cold here, and we were not dressed for it. We would never make it to the top of the mountain afoot without winter clothing. Surely the local authorities had known this, so had not interfered with our progress.

  Spirit tackled the problem in her typical fashion. “We’ll get gear “ she said, and led the way off the path toward a park supply building.

  I told Smilo to wait outside the building, and he settled down for a catnap by the door. Inside the building we offered to buy the clothing we required, but the surly proprietor claimed there was none in our sizes. Snowsuits in a full range of sizes hung on racks along the wall, plainly intended for rental to the tourists, but he stuck by his statement. It was evident that we would get no help here.

  Again, Spirit reacted typically; Forta really understood my sister! Her laser appeared in her hand, bearing on the proprietor’s nose. “Hope, put the money on the counter,” she said. “Then select suits for us.”

  I did as directed. The proprietor made as if to reach for a holophone, but a laser beam scorched the table just beside his hand, and he snatched it back. Spirit never bluffed, and never missed her target. The warning sufficed.

  I made the selections, and got dressed; then I held the laser while Spirit dressed. Fully outfitted, we left the building, after lasering through the holophone’s connecting line. By the time the proprietor was able to alert the hostile authorities, we would be at the Panchen’s retreat. Isolation is a sword that cuts both ways.

  Outside, I roused Smilo. But I was beginning to regret bringing him along, not because of any bad manners on his part, but because he was a warm-weather creature, and old, and this was cold. I decided that he should be safe enough in the park for a couple of hours. “Smilo, stay,” I said, gesturing to the warmer region behind us. “We’ll come back this way.”

  The tiger didn’t understand all that, of course, but he was familiar with “Stay.” He walked back down toward a pleasant copse and found himself a place to make a nest. He would snooze until we returned. In past years he would have insisted on coming along, protecting me every step, but now he was satisfied to accept the easy course I urged on him. Age can do that to some of us.

  We resumed our trek. The path ascended, and the cold quickly intensified; we really needed our protective clothing. But the scenery was beautiful. As we gained height the mountain also opened out below, showing a deep snowy gorge; the entire interior of the park, high and low, was evidently maintained at subfreezing level.

  The path became little more than a niche in the steepening slope, and ice crackled under our boots. Though gee lessened as we climbed, because we were drawing away from the high-gee rim, this was not enough to compensate for my weakness, and I was soon tired. The mountain had seemed impressive but not huge at the outset; now it seemed that we had just as far to go as we had at the bottom, after an hour’s climb.

  Spirit took my arm, helping me walk. “I should have anticipated this,” she muttered. “Minimal research—”

  My sister surely would have done that. But I could hardly blame Forta. “We came on spot notice,” I reminded her. “No time for research. Had I paused to reflect, I would have brought along a powered snowsled.”

  Her strength buoyed me, and we managed the steep path and closed on the summit. It was apparent that soon we would beard the Panchen in his den. I was sure that by this time he knew that he would have to face me, even if he hated me; there would be no further way to avoid it. He would not be able to deny the Tyrant his interview.

  The path opened onto a sloping plain leading up to the retreat. We were almost there.

  There was a roar. Startled, we looked-and saw a huge white creature charging down the slope toward us. It most resembled an ape, but it was about three meters tall, with massive furry arms and legs, and a horrendous snout.

  “Bigfoot!” Spirit exclaimed.

  “Impossible,” I said. “That creature never existed, even back on Earth.”

  But the thing bore down upon us. I tried to scramble out of its path, but my foot slipped and I fell. Spirit caught my arm and hauled, but too late; the monster bent to sweep at us with its giant paws, and sent us tumbling down the slope of the mountain.

  Spirit managed to catch at an outcropping of ice, and braked her slide, and hung on to me and brought me to a halt also. But the white monster was not finished; it pounced on me and swiped at my suit, its sharp claws slicing the cloth apart and gashing my flesh beneath. In a moment it stripped me of the better part of my protection, evidently preparing to consume me.

  Spirit drew her laser and fired at the monster’s furry ear. The burn evidently stung but did not really damage; the monster whirled around, caught her suit with the claws, and shredded it, too. It brought its toothed snout to bear. She lasered it in the mouth, but still it did not stop, though steam boiled out. It took another bite of her clothing, evidently mistaking it for flesh.

  I scrambled across and caught at its leg. I hauled. The monster turned on me again. It seemed that it oriented on whatev
er attracted its attention at the moment.

  Spirit leaped at it, her hands scraping at its back. I knew that this was futile; the thing would only throw her off. But abruptly there was a snap, and the monster reacted as if stabbed through the heart. It convulsed, then straightened, falling to the snow.

  But we were near the brink of the falloff of the mountain. The monster slid over, carrying Spirit along with it. I grabbed for her, but was only hauled over myself

  The slope sharpened. I could not find leverage to halt my slide, and Spirit was no better off. Neither, it seemed, was the monster, if it still lived; the three of us were sliding down into the deep crevasse.

  For a moment I thought that this was the end of my life. Then I caught a better glimpse of what lay ahead, and I was sure of it. Helpless, I fell into my doom.

  But as it turned out, the end was not quite yet. The slope eased at the base, and we tumbled to a bruising halt at the bottom of the chasm.

  I became aware of the cold. I had lost much of my outfit, and the temperature here was well below freezing. Spirit was no better off—and in addition, I saw with horror, the fall had broken one of her legs.

  But her concern was only for me. “Hope, your loop!” she cried.

  I looked, and saw that my loop had been ripped out of my arm. My blood was flowing out, staining the snow. I clapped my other hand on it, but knew that such a crude measure could not properly stanch the flow. I had to have prompt medical attention—and there was no certainty I would get that here.

  Spirit pulled herself over to me, her leg dragging. “I’ll help, Hope!” she said.

  But she could not help. Already the cold was numbing my limbs, and the loss of blood was weakening my consciousness. “Just hold me, my sister,” I told her.

  She put her arms around me, and I rested my head against her bare breast while our lives seeped into the snow. Now it didn’t seem cold.

  “That monster,” she said, her voice sounding deeper because my ear was against her chest. “It was a robot. I realized when the laser didn’t hurt it. I found the switch in its back and turned it off, but—”

  “You did well,” I said.

  “We’ll be rescued.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “Of course it matters!”

  “I did not have very much left to do anyway,” I explained. “Not very much longer to live. Perhaps I intended it to be this way.”

  “Intended?” she asked, perplexed.

  “It must have seemed pretty stupid, marching into enemy territory unprotected. I could so readily have come prepared.”

  “I should have thought of what we needed.”

  “No. It was my decision. I knew that it would take too long to reverse the veto, going through channels. I had to force their hand.” As I spoke I believed it: that at a nether layer, my competence was manifesting, that I had not acted in idiotic, old-man, has-been fashion, that it was really genius. Yet who can say, now, that it was not?

  “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 held 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 all that had happened, and all that would happen; all time was one in me. I was the Tyrant, and now at last I had become one with the peop
le 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 low 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 on 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 apparent. 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.”