“But what does it matter?” I asked, bringing fifteen-year-old Hopie to a news conference and putting my arm around her. “She is my daughter now, and I will never deny her.” Indeed, the blood tests showed I could have been her natural father, and her resemblance to me in intellect as well as the physical was startling. I was so obviously pleased by this that the effort to smear me by this avenue came to nothing. Perhaps it was that every man has his secrets, and this was the kind that anyone can understand. What really finished it was Thorley’s interview with Megan, in which he asked her point-blank why she had agreed to adopt this child, who could not have been her own.
“I love her; she is mine now,” she said, echoing my own response.
“But surely you have wondered about her origin—”
“I know her origin. That’s why I adopted her.”
“And yet you have no misgivings about your husband?”
“None. I married him for convenience, but I came to love him absolutely.”
“Yet if—”
“I love him for what he is,” she said firmly. “That has never faltered.”
Thorley shook his head eloquently. “Mrs. Hubris, you are a great human being.”
And that closing compliment, so evidently sincere, coming as it did from my leading political critic, effectively closed the issue. The public seemed to feel that if my wife could so graciously accept the situation, no one else had the authority to condemn me. Certainly I had done right by Hopie.
So Tocsin’s most insidious efforts had been insufficient to blunt my progress; perhaps they had even facilitated it. But we knew that he would not allow me to gain any more without drastic reprisal; there was no way he would voluntarily leave office. It was rumored that he had even commissioned a private survey to ascertain public reaction should the upcoming election be canceled; evidently such action had proven unfeasible, or maybe he had concluded that he could win without such a measure. But we did not know precisely how he would strike. I was now just about assassination-proof; there was no way he could arrange for that without betraying himself. He had to be more subtle, and he was the master of subtle evil. We were all concerned.
The first signal of trouble was the Navy. A formidable task force approached the planet Jupiter for extensive maneuvers, with battleships and carriers hanging over individual cities as if targeting them. The public was assured that it was only a routine exercise, but it was a massive and persistent one.
I talked to my old Navy wife Emerald, who was now in easy communication range because she commanded one of the wings. She was an admiral now, her brilliance as a strategist, proven in my day, having enabled her to rise impressively.
“What’s going on up there, Rising Moon?” I asked forthrightly. This was a private channel, but there really could be no secrets between us now; certainly Tocsin would know. I called her by her nickname, taken from her personal song, “The Rising of the Moon.”
“As a candidate for the office of commander-in-chief, I believe I should be advised if the Navy has any problems.”
Her dusky face cracked into a smile. She was a Saxon/Black crossbreed, once routinely discriminated against in the Saxon-officered Navy, but that was a thing of the past. I knew that she remembered the details of our term marriage as well as I did. She had always been a sexual delight, not because of any phenomenal body—she had been well constructed but relatively spare—but because of her determination, energy, and enterprise. She had regarded sex as a challenge; to make love to her was to ride a roller coaster around a planetoid. She was older now—fifty, like me— and had put on weight, but still I saw in her the seed of our savage romance of a quarter century before. I was otherwise married now, and so was she, but I knew that were things otherwise we could still step into bed together and enjoy it immensely. It did not detract one whit from her subsequent marriage, to an admiral now retired, to know that she still loved me.
“Hope, you know there’s been increasing civil unrest recently,” she said. “There is concern that the election itself could be disrupted. So the Navy is on standby alert, ready to keep the planetary peace if that should prove necessary.”
A form answer—with teeth in it. The Navy was under the ultimate command of the civilian president, Tocsin. Was he preparing for a military coup in the event he lost the election? That seemed incredible, but if several civil disturbances were incited, the president could invoke martial law to restore order. How far would such temporary discipline go? Military coups were common in the republics of southern Jupiter but unthinkable in northern Jupiter. So far.
“It is good to have that reassurance,” I said. “We know how important it is to preserve order.” Which was another formal statement. “Give my regards to your husband.” And there was the hidden one: her husband, Admiral Mondy, was the arch-conspirator of our once tightly knit group within the Navy. He prized out all secrets and fathomed all strategies; he liked to know where every body was hidden. I was telling her that something was up and to alert Mondy if he was not already aware. He might be retired, but I knew he kept his hand in. That sort of thing was in his blood.
“Have no fear, sir,” she responded, and faded out. That concluding “sir” was significant, too; it meant she was thinking of the time when I had been the commander of our Navy task force that cleaned up the Belt. That team still existed in spirit, if not in form; my officers had spread throughout the Navy and now wielded considerable power. I still had friends in the Navy, excellent friends—more so than perhaps Tocsin realized.
After that call I pondered the implications. Was Tocsin merely setting up a threat, as in a chess game, to intimidate those who might vote for me? Or was he really getting ready to preserve his power militarily? What use would it be to me to win the election, if it was only to be set aside by a military takeover?
My misgivings were enhanced by a second development. I wrapped up a rousing campaign speech in Delphi, Keystone, and retired to my quarters to discover Spirit there with a visitor: Reba of QYV.
“Hubris, this is off the record,” Reba said immediately.
“This car is secure,” I assured her. “But I have a covenant with the media—”
“It could mean my position—and your life,” she said grimly. “The press must not know.”
This put me on the spot. I knew she was serious; only an extraordinary matter would have caused her to risk her career to visit me personally to confide a secret. But I had made a commitment to Thorley.
I risked a compromise. “Let me bring one member of the press here, now, while I hear what you have to say. If he agrees to keep it secret—”
Reba sighed. “Thorley.”
I nodded. “He happens to be aboard now.”
“You always did drive an uncomfortable bargain,” she said.
Spirit left us and we chatted about inconsequentials for a few minutes, until my sister returned with Thorley. Evidently she had explained the situation on the way, for he evinced no confusion. He sat down and waited.
“I am—an anonymous source,” Reba told him.
“Understood.” That was a convention of many centuries’ standing. If he published anything he learned from her, it would not be directly attributed.
“I represent an anonymous organization.” Again Thorley agreed; it was obvious that he recognized her, for he had sources of his own, and he knew of my prior association with her.
“This woman knows me as well as any,” I said. Thorley raised an eyebrow but made no other comment. There had been a chronic run of conjecture in the media about the other women supposedly in my life, but Thorley knew that this was not one of those. He was surprised that any woman should know me as well as my wife or sister did. He would pay very close attention to what Reba said. I had just given her a potent recommendation.
“I am in a position to know that a plan is afoot to kidnap Hope Hubris,” Reba said carefully. “To mem-wash him and destroy his credibility as a candidate for the presidency.”
&
nbsp; News indeed! Trust QYV to be the first to fathom Tocsin’s mischief.
“This is not a plot to keep secret,” Thorley remarked. “I differ with Candidate Hubris on numerous and sundry issues, but I do not endorse foul play.”
“Some secrets must be kept until they can be proven, Reba said. “If this is published now the plot will fold without trace, and an alternate one invoked—one I may not be in a position to fathom in advance.”
“Ah, now I see,” Thorley said. “This fish you have hooked but not necessarily others. From this one the candidate may be protected, if the perpetrator does not realize that the subject knows.”
“Exactly,” she agreed. “The perpetrator is playing for high stakes and will not stop at murder as a last resort.”
“Yet surely the Secret Service protection—”
“Could not stop a city-destroying bolt from space.”
Thorley glanced at her shrewdly. He pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. We all knew that only one person on Jupiter had the authority to order such an action—and the will to do it, if pressed. “Certain mischief has been done, and hidden, the details accessible only to the president. Revelation of that mischief could put a number of rather high officials in prison and utterly destroy certain careers.”
“You seem to grasp the situation,” Reba agreed.
“And it seems that the details of that hidden mischief could no longer be concealed, if a new and opposing person assumed the presidential office at this time.”
Reba nodded. “That office will not be yielded gracefully.”
Thorley smiled. “Perhaps you assume that one conservative must necessarily support another. This is not the case. Some support issues, not men, and their private feelings may reflect some seeming inversions. I might even venture to imply that there could be some liberals I would prefer on a personal basis to some conservatives. Strictly off the record, of course.” He smiled again, and so did Spirit. Thorley was an honest man, with a sense of humor and a rigorous conscience.
“Then you will withhold your pen?” Reba asked.
“In the interest of fairness—and a better eventual story—I am prepared to do more than that. I prefer to see to the excision of iniquity, branch and root, wherever it occurs.”
“Then perhaps you will be interested in one particular detail of the plot,” she said grimly. “Candidate Hubris is to receive a message, purportedly from you, advising him that you have urgent news that you must impart to him secretly, in person, without the presence of any other party. When he slips his SS security net and goes to meet you, he will be captured by the agents of the plotters, taken off-planet, mem-washed, addicted to a potent drug, sexually compromised, reeducated, and returned to his campaign on the eve of the election armed with a speech of such nonsense as to discredit him as a potential president. He will be finished politically.”
Thorley blew out his cheeks as if airing a mouthful of hot pepper. “This abruptly becomes more personal. As it happens, I have no need to summon the candidate to any personal encounter; I have another contact.”
“So you have said,” Reba agreed, glancing at Spirit, who smiled. “I know that Hope Hubris would not fall for such a scheme, though it seems that the other party neglected to research that far. Some surprisingly elementary errors have been made. But it occurred to me that, considering the alternative—”
Now I caught her drift. “That I might choose to!”
“Choose to!” Thorley exclaimed, horrified.
Reba looked at me. “Tell him,” I said.
She returned to Thorley. “Hope Hubris is immune to drug addiction,” she said. “His system apparently forms antibodies against any mind-affecting agent. This takes time but is effective. We believe that he cannot be permanently affected by the program they propose. His memory will return far more rapidly than is normal, and he soon will throw off the addiction to the drug. Which means—”
“That the attempt is apt to backfire,” Thorley finished.
“Particularly if the candidate is forewarned and properly prepared,” she agreed.
“And we would finally establish our direct link to the guilty party,” I said. “Which would at last put him out of commission. No fifty-fifty gambling on the election; no waiting for a bolt from space. At one stroke, victory!”
CHAPTER 18
COUNTERSTROKE
I stood at the podium, addressing a small, select group of reporters in this chamber, and the holo-cameras for a vastly greater audience. It was time for me to give my prepared speech.
I had been so absorbed in my final flashback revelation that I really couldn’t remember how I had gotten here. It hardly mattered; I knew that I was back on Jupiter, in a major city—probably New Wash—and that I had a meticulously crafted script to deliver. I also knew, now, that it represented disaster to my campaign, for it promised so much that no one would believe it. I was no minor party candidate; I was the leading challenger, with an even chance of winning the election—if I did not throw it away here. But if I repudiated the script, Dorian Gray would suffer, and, of course, I myself would be summarily whisked away and doomed, for I remained in the power of the enemy. They did not realize that my system had fought off the addiction, the mem-wash, and the reeducation program. I was no robot to do their bidding, but they still had some power over me. Not the city-blasting threat—not here!—but still the power of individual murder.
A man stood at my elbow, theoretically to assist me, but as I hesitated, he touched something in a pocket, and I felt a dread twinge of discomfort in my gut. He had a pain-box there—tuned to me! They had buttressed their program in the professional manner, giving me positive and negative incentives to perform. Tocsin really wanted me out of the race! How could I get out of this?
Then I spied a familiar face in the group before me: Thorley. Suddenly I knew it was all right. If he was here, then QYV knew my location; indeed, QYV would have tracked me all along. Spirit would have the situation in hand.
Except for that pain-box. I literally could not act independently, as long as that was tuned to me.
I had no time to ponder. The broadcast signal came on, and I started my prepared speech. I had no other, and I could not risk what would happen if the enemy caught on to my awareness before we gained control of that sub and nullified the pain-box.
Actually the text began moderately enough; it was the cumulative effect of it that would be devastating. While I spoke, I watched my audience—especially Thorley. He knew that I had been abducted; I was sure that fact had been concealed from the public, but Thorley had been, as it were, in on the conspiracy. He would let me know when it was safe for me to break free. But did he know about the pain-box, which would cripple me the moment I tried?
Then the signal came: Thorley’s thumbs-up. That meant that our people had completed the nullification of my captors, working quietly behind the scenes. The enemy administrators, elsewhere in the city, would not know. Tocsin would not know. I was free to pursue my own course.
Except for that man beside me with the pain-box. They couldn’t approach him without alerting him, and that would be bad for me. He could screw the agony up to the fatal point, if he saw I would otherwise escape. I would have to take him out myself.
Easier decided than accomplished. A pain-box could not simply be grabbed or smashed; the victim could be holding it, and still be helpless. The thing had to be detuned or retuned; only then would I be truly free.
I paused, looking about. Part of the takeover had to be of the broadcast facilities, so that I could not be abruptly cut off. This was, after all, a campaign speech, after a long hiatus; my silence would be almost as damaging as my wrongheaded speech. Now I could speak plainly, and to good effect, assuming that the man beside me was a hireling who did not know my specific script. But what should I say? What could I afford to reveal that would not alert him or alert someone in touch with him and bring immediate cutoff by pain?
Then I got a notion. Thorley’s thumbs
-up meant more than success elsewhere; it meant he had the solution to my immediate problem. Pain-boxes are easy enough to defeat, because of the particular impulses they generate; my people had to know my predicament. They would have a damper or detuner, if it could be brought within range. I had to get it here.
“Now, I have been making promises,” I said. “I realize that some of you are doubtful. You don’t believe I can or will fulfill these promises as president. I would like to reassure you specifically.” I glanced about again. “I see that some of my most effective critics are in attendance. You, sir—” I pointed at Thorley. “Do you doubt?”
Thorley smiled with that relaxed-tiger way he had. “I confess I do, Candidate.”
“Well, I shall refute your doubt!” I declaimed. “Come up here if you have the nerve! Debate me face-to-face, and I shall destroy your silly points!”
The others in the small audience smiled now; this was more like my old form. “You are a glutton for punishment, my liberal Candidate,” Thorley responded, rising huffily. “I came here ostensibly to report the event; however—”
“Report the event!” I exclaimed indignantly. “When did you ever do that, you sly provocateur? You have been sniping at me from the safety of your wretched column for years.”
Thorley puffed visibly with indignity and marched up to the podium, carrying his briefcase. “Since you have seen fit to fling the gauntlet at my veracity, sir, I must advise you that in this valise I carry complete refutation to all your foolishly liberal postures.”
And more than that, I thought. “Well, Sir Conservative, let’s see you refute this: my position on tax reform. Do you oppose elimination of the nefarious loopholes that favor the rich?”