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 and reached the lock. “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 at last—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 say only 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 simil
arly 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 never 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 be made public only 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 also would Hope have died. I took Thorley to his home, after the hospital, 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.
“Thus it was that what happened happened. He recovered his potency, and I had his baby. But we could never let it be known, because he was married and I was Hispanic; news of it would have destroyed his career, and that of my brother. But I could not give up the baby. So I brought it to Megan, and she—she was, is a great woman.” Here she could not continue, for she was crying again. But I already knew the rest. I held her, as she had held me in my infancy, and now the secret between us was gone.
I knew too that Megan had not been entirely unselfish in her adoption of Spirit’s baby. She had done it to please Hope, of course; but more than that, for herself. She had perhaps not realized that she wanted a baby, until she had been offered one. Possibly she had not wanted just any baby, but this particular one overrode her reluctance. Because she had been the one Thorley’s act of heroism had saved. Megan had always been one to pay her debts, of whatever nature, and she owed Thorley her life, and had no way to repay it. Spirit had done what Megan could not; Spirit had brought a life to Thorley. That love child could not be acknowledged, but it required loving care. Megan took that baby, and in that manner she repaid Thorley and Spirit for her life, using her life to raise their child. It was also the closest she could come to having Hope’s child, and so she would have wanted it even if there had not been the debt.
I was that child. I could not have had a better mother than Megan, or a better father than Hope Hubris, and I do not deny them now. But how much my new knowledge of my natural parentage adds to my life!
“Must this remain secret?” I asked.
“That is for you to decide.”
“But people could be hurt—”
“Thorley’s wife is dead. My brother is dead. Times have changed. I may marry Thorley. We can no longer be hurt by your origin. Do what is right for you.”
I was stunned. “You—Thorley—still?”
“I am the mirror of my brother. Apart from him, I have loved two men, and dallied with others. The first is dead; the second is not. What would you have me do?”
“I—I meant no judgment of you! I only—” Now I remembered the times Thorley had been with us, as when he joined Hope’s first expedition to Saturn when Hope was Governor of Sunshine. That had been, nominally, for the news—but also for the secret love between Hope’s leading critic and his sister. And, perhaps, to be with me, the child who had not known. So many events to be reinterpreted!
And who was to interpret them? “Aunt Spirit—” I faltered, embarrassed, but she only smiled. The habit of a lifetime is not readily erased by a single revelation. “Spirit, your story must be told!”
She shook her head. “Hopie, I have never written personal things down; only my brother did that. Now I am the Tyrant, carrying on in his stead; I have no time for such a narrative.”
“Then tell me, and I shall write it for you!” I said. “There is so much that you alone know, that will otherwise be lost with you.”
“But the time, even for that—”
“In snatches,” I pleaded. “At odd moments, when you are free. Tell me, or dictate briefly for a tape that I can later transcribe. Any way possible, so that I may have your story, for now I realize that it is not finished with my father—with Hope Hubris. All the details he omitted, because you took care of them—”
She shook her head in negation. “Hopie, it just isn’t feasible! You have no idea how busy I—”
“It cannot end here, my sister, my love!”
Spirit stared at me, though I had not spoken. At least, I don’t think I—it must have been the presence who wrote the final chapter of the Bio of a Space Tyrant. I do not know; I can’t explain it. I know only that for a moment I felt the presence of my father, the Tyrant. I had, it seemed, inherited a number of his traits; I hoped I had not also inherited his madness.
Then Spirit bowed her head. “As you wish, as ever, my brother, my love,” she whispered.
And so it was that I commenced the editing of another volume after I had thought the task complete. The narrative of the Iron Maiden, my natural mother. The current Tyrant, as she guided mankind on toward the stars.
SOLAR GEOGRAPHY
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Normally I finish writing a novel in first draft, then write the Author’s Note, then start in on editing the whole. But with the Space Tyrant series there was no novel writing, merely proofreading of the scanned-in novels. It was a collaborative effort, with my wife doing the scanning, and me doing the proofreading. This was similar to editing, sometimes faster when all was well, sometimes slower when the text was
garbled. Sometimes the scanner chose to interleave the lines of facing pages, so the first line of the left page was followed by the first line of the second page, and so on. Because I reformatted it for the computer screen, those lines were no longer line-length; they ran about one and a quarter lines long, and there was no break between lines; the text was continuous. This meant that I had to figure out exactly where a given line began and ended, then move it to the page where it belonged. At other times the scanner simply took the first few words of a line and put them at the end of the line; again I had to figure out what a displaced segment was, and move it back. Because I had the original book page to compare it to, I could do this, but it was like speed bumps in the text, preventing me from getting up much velocity. This was especially bad in this fifth volume, because one text translator gave out, refusing to run at all, forcing us to use the other, displace-happy program. So the proofreading was its own little adventure. Normally I average 20,000 words of editing a day; I averaged about 19,000 proofreading, so it was comparable, and in six days, excluding time off for the mail, I got it done.
This novel, like the others, draws from a number of 20th century parallels. Remember, this is phrased as space opera, which is horse opera or soap opera translated to a science fiction setting.
Ordinary space opera is generally considered to be cheap stuff without much literary value, fodder for juvenile intellects: that Buck Rogers stuff. But that isn’t necessarily the case. The best space opera has the values of literature, with good characterization, detailed settings, and well thought out original plots. Indeed, the Space Tyrant series goes beyond that to include serious social issues and explorations of projected scientific breakthroughs, like gravity shielding, bubblene, and light-translation space travel. In short, I think it is some of my best work, that can be reread with further appreciation as the subtleties surface. Naturally reviewers and critics brushed it off, but I believe this shows their shallowness rather than reflecting on the merit of the writing. I’m happy to let the readers judge. But let me be specific about what I’m doing here: the politics of the Solar System are directly parallel to those of the globe of Earth in the 1900’s, except that they are being severely modified by the story line. It is as if a refugee from Haiti lost all his family except for his two sisters, joined the US military services, rose to prominence, was removed at the point of success, came to the USA, entered politics, was governor of Florida, then ran for President, then became the absolute ruler via a Constitutional Convention. Corrupted to a degree by power, and evincing signs of madness, he was removed from power by his wife, and became a statesman. Hired by the Soviet Union, he reforms the agriculture of Ukraine, and goes on to promote a breakthrough in space travel. On the way he deals with Europe, Australia, the Moslem realm, India, and Africa, before returning to America to wrest power once again from corruption. He fashions a compromise with China and Taiwan, but then is killed in Tibet. His death, however, facilitates the final unification of the planet behind the space effort, thereby probably saving mankind from its own folly. Now this is a pretty wild story—but I think a worthy one. I believe that we would be better off if we could put aside internecine warfare between races, cultures, and religions, and instead colonize the other planets of the Solar System, or, indeed, the galaxy.