A World Named Cleopatra

by Poul Anderson

  “I fail to see the relevance. I have my work to complete.”

  “The completion of your work depends on your political sophistication.” He glared at Binh balefully. “You are in the eye of the hurricane. In some ways you have always been—it is in the nature of your art, a part of being an artist. It is a problem I will never face. But to foolishly throw everything away, out of the most childish kind of naiveté…”

  “It’s not your place, Benito, to instruct me in politics. There are enough buffoons like Hussein on Cleopatra.”

  “I’m afraid it’s necessary to give you a civics lesson, maestro, since you persist in this suicidal thinking. I know it is difficult to understand the importance of political struggles unless they impinge on our lives directly, but it is folly to ignore them when they do.”

  “I’ve lost family in political riots, Benito. I have been a participant.”

  M’Wabe laughed dryly. “There are few of our class who haven’t been. I was with my wife when she died in a riot, and was injured myself. It was five years ago.” He made a fist and held it in front of his chest, turning it over slowly, as if some message could be read there. “Forgive my seeming indifference, maestro, but your career has not been impeded. Neither was mine. The political events of the last twenty-five years have given you an environment in which you have influence and power, whether you choose to face that fact or not.

  “Now your career is in jeopardy. When the Council held the purse strings for the production, you were free. You could have justified anything in the name of planetary unity, since that was the theme of your commission. But Hussein is now the deciding voice on the Council. The various dissenting groups in the southern hemisphere and the wild men in Pindaria all may be more radical than he, but they will temporize as long as they perceive him as having final power. The forces which advocate turning Cleopatra into a replica of Earth, preserving only small portions of the surface in their natural state, support him, even though he does not totally agree with their positions. He may be this planet’s last hope, the only means through which we can preserve a planetary government.”

  M’Wabe paused, as if he expected a reply. Binh said nothing.

  “Then do you see,” M’Wabe said after a moment, “that you will have to bend? I want your career to survive. When Sobrino is on the set, you will have to bow to at least one or two of her demands.”

  “In other words, I should cede to her some of my artistic control.”

  “This attitude of yours is precisely the trouble. You’re playing by the old rules. You can have artistic autonomy only as long as you make them believe they have final say over you. You are subtle enough to have your own way, and theirs as well.”

  “I’m sure you have the requisite subtlety, Benito.” Binh got out of bed, draped a robe around his shoulders, and slowly walked to the window. The storm had ended. Wind was blowing rivulets of water down the pane.

  “Is Sobrino making objections to the entire production,” he asked, “or just to portions? I’m sure someone has been running them for her. Perhaps it was you, Benito.”

  “Surely, maestro,” M’Wabe began in a conciliatory tone, “you can see she is an ideological primitive?”

  “What changes does she want?”

  “They ask to insert a minor segment, nothing more. They have to save face, don’t you see?”

  “I don’t give a damn about their political image!” Binh picked up a script of the production off the bed-stand. He held it up for M’Wabe to see. “Do you see this, Benito? Do you understand what it means to me. You of all people should understand that this production is all of a piece. Their tampering would destroy it totally.”

  “I have never seen such a lack of self-interest,”

  M’Wabe said, laughing as if in disbelief. “What exactly do you think your position is? Twenty-five years ago we both fought to restrict bio-engineering to fabers. We were misled by our youthful idealism. It was a self-serving political position, maestro. We joined forces with the most ignorant and reactionary groups on Cleopatra to promote our own ends. How sincere were we, maestro? Were we really so concerned about the human race? Or was it our careers that drove us into the streets? It is painful to reconsider the idealism of youth, but perhaps we should begin.”

  “What kind of segment do they want?”

  M’Wabe sat in the armchair.. “Just one segment featuring human dancers.”

  “That would be Philip and Sobrino?”

  “Precisely.”

  Binh moved away from the window. He remembered bringing Philip to the set of The Untold Want. It had been only months after Anna’s death. Binh had thought the visit would bring him closer to his son, who had already sunk deeply into passivity. Watching the thesps dance, Philip’s eyes had brightened. Something had taken up Binh’s attention, and he had had to leave his son alone. Later, when the day’s taping had finished, Binh could not find Philip anywhere. One of the technicians finally had found him in an unused store room. Under a bare light bulb, Philip was imitating the dances he had seen earlier in the day. Standing in the door, Binh had laughed as his son attempted to pirouette. Philip first had looked at him with an embarrassed expression. Then his eyes had gone blank again.

  “So you are their spokesman, then,” Binh said.

  M’Wabe looked at him pleadingly. “Not theirs, maestro, yours. And mine. Without this art, our lives amount to nothing. Unless we compromise now, in a few years this craft will be an antique, a memento of a vaguely remembered decadence. It will be replaced by sterner, more socially useful forms. We have got to try and make our peace with them now, maestro. They may not offer us this opportunity again.”

  Binh sat down on the edge of the bed. He put his head down, letting his arms hang loosely at his sides. His body felt drained. He wanted to speak words which would save them both.

  “Benito, I cannot. You know that.”

  “Maestro…” M’Wabe’s voice trailed off. He spread his hands out imploringly.

  “Perhaps you should not call me ‘maestro’.”

  M’Wabe rose abruptly and left the room. Binh sat motionless, listening to the critic’s footsteps fading down the hall.

  Charybdis lay unconscious on a platform at the center of the stage. Bending over him, Binh held the syringe just above the thesp’s scalp. An amber drop glistened on the needle’s tip.

  There was little time. If he waited out the night, this scene would never be taped. It would have to be done now, while the equipment was still in place. Now he could act without considering the consequences.

  Binh stared at the six-digit breeding number tattooed in red behind the thesp’s right ear. Beneath tightly closed eyelids, the saurian’s eyes fluttered in dream sleep. The first injections were taking hold. Binh felt the thesp’s pulse, then pierced its scalp with the syringe, depressing the plunger quickly.

  Binh ran his eyes over the scales on the saurian’s green chest. Charybdis was beautiful, absolute perfection. He studied the serene face. It could have been a death mask.

  He felt the sutures on the thesp’s scalp. Charybdis had undergone surgery only days before. The incision had just begun to heal. No matter. He covered it with make-up; the holo-cameras would not pick it up.

  The cortizine injection had immediate effect. Binh looked at his watch; he only had the rest of the night at best. Charybdis’s eyes fluttered open and stared up blankly. The drug would give the saurian the extra strength he would need for the dance. Without it, after the tapings of the afternoon, he would find the steps impossible to execute. The thesp would have to be destroyed after the taping, even with the drug.

  Binh helped Charybdis stand. The saurian’s body was hard with muscle, but it limply yielded to his direction, standing straight at the center of the stage while Binh walked slowly backwards, studying the thesp’s position.

  Bianco’s voice came over the public address system.

  “The control room is empty. I couldn’t convince any technicians to co
me. Maestro, it’s past four in the morning.”

  Binh had expected that. He was now on the losing side in the game. The technicians were looking after themselves. Only Bianco was foolish enough to be loyal.

  Binh picked up an intercom microphone. “Then run the equipment. I’ve already set up the cameras. They can be operated from the control room.”

  “What if we have to do another take? You’ll need me on the floor.”

  “It won’t be necessary,” Binh said quietly. Besides, be thought, Bianco would be safer in the control room if they should be interrupted.

  This will be a free dance, Binh thought. He dropped the microphone to signal the conversation was at an end. The drugs and surgery would contribute to a gentle beginning. The thought encouraged him; it would be comforting to watch solitary grace. Then at the proper moment, when it would seem the thesp could dance forever, Binh would introduce jarring stimuli, and the saurian would follow its programming. Binh wanted a simulation of death; it would go beyond the danse macabre he had taped earlier in the day.

  “Maestro!” Bianco shouted over the loudspeakers. Feedback echoed through the hall.

  Binh looked up at the control room. Bianco stood with his back to the window, confronting four armed men. They wore the black uniform of Kevin Hussein’s private guards.

  Something slammed behind him. He turned to see the hall’s double doors swing open. Dia Sobrino strode through, surrounded by another force of armed men. On her signal, they quickly encircled the stage and began to smash the holo-cameras with their rifle butts.

  Binh cried out and lunged at a burly guard. The man swung the other end of the rifle around, hitting Binh on the side of the head. The hall dissolved away as Binh fell back.

  They slapped him back into consciousness. Binh brought his hand up to the side of his head to fend off the blows. His hair was caked with dried blood.

  He was slumped in the back of a windowless van. His head lay against the cold metal surface of a wheel hump. The wheel hit a bump. Something sharp jabbed the back of his head.

  The guards squatted on either side of him, clutching automatic rifles. Binh’s eyes ran over the surface markings of a weapon as he began to slip back into unconsciousness. A guard grabbed his shoulder and shook him awake.

  The van screeched to a stop. The loading gate was swung down, and a guard pushed Binh toward it with the muzzle of his weapon.

  Outside, they escorted him over the glare of white pavement, toward a group of grey, reinforced concrete domes. It is Kevin Hussein’s villa, Binh thought. He had seen pictures of it in some propaganda leaflets. They reached the largest dome. Inside, the guards pushed Binh ahead of them, ordering him to walk into a long, empty tunnel. After walking a few minutes, Binh heard the dim sounds of a crowd reverberating along the curving walls.

  “Run!” A guard behind him ordered. “Run, or I’ll smash your head open!”

  Binh ran, but after a few meters pain shot through his left knee, and his leg collapsed. As he sprawled on the floor, a rifle butt smashed into the small of his back.

  “Get up!” a guard shouted, kicking him in the side. Trying to protect himself, Binh rolled into a ball.

  A shouting crowd rushed down the tunnel and surrounded him. They picked Binh up roughly and carried him into a fluorescent lighted hall. Held up in the midst of a press of people, Binh could see nothing but the intricate lacing supports etched into the hall’s immense dome.

  “Bring him up on stage!” Dia Sobrino’s voice sounded over loudspeakers. They carried him up, dropping him on a hardwood surface. Then they withdrew as quickly as they had surrounded him. Overhead, a bank of lights glared down at him.

  Binh slowly stood up. Standing unsteadily on aching legs, he seemed to be alone, encircled by walls of light. The crowd burst into applause. Dia Sobrino walked across the stage toward him, followed by two guards who pushed Scylla and Charybdis before them.

  Sobrino stood beside Binh, her hands hanging limply at her side. The crowd became silent.

  “Thank you,” she said to them. “I’m glad you could be here. You will all find this little performance quite instructive, I’m sure. You all recognize Marcus Binh.”

  The crowd howled, shouting insults. Something hurtled toward him out of the glare and smashed at his feet.

  “Silence!” Sobrino commanded, holding up her arms. “We have much to do. This man’s name is known throughout Cleopatra. After tonight he will be known for what he really is, a traitor, a man who would hold the benefits of science back from the peoples of Cleopatra.”

  The crowd began shouting insults again. More objects were thrown on stage. Binh, holding his hand against the light, moved back uncertainly as objects fell around him.

  “Binh represents everything we are fighting against,” she continued. “He fought to deny us the fruits of science when the Council was overthrown, and the repressive laws against bio-engineering were imposed upon us. What was his purpose? Whose interests did he serve? Only his own interests, and the interests of his elitist friends. Now we will see the product of Marcus Binh’s philosophy. Here is his contribution to human progress.”

  Sobrino turned to the back of the stage. “Bring them on!” she shouted. “Now you will see how Binh was using the Council’s money, your money.”

  The guards prodded the thesps with their rifles. As the crowd shouted derisively, Scylla and Charybdis stumbled forward. After moving a few meters, they came to a halt and stood slumping, their heads tilted.

  “Is this all?” Sobrino shouted at Binh. “Don’t they have a dance for us?”

  The crowd fell silent. Binh stared at Sobrino and said nothing.

  A guard pressed the muzzle of a rifle against his temple.

  “Please, maestro, give them their signal. Surely they must have some steps. After all, you were just about to tape when we invited you to visit us.”

  Binh stared at Sobrino in despair. Charybdis was ready to perform, but Scylla was weak. He had planned to ship her back to market, where she would probably be terminated. If he let her dance with Charybdis, the combination of grace and awkwardness would certainly inflame the crowd.

  The guard pressed the muzzle against his skull. The crowd erupted in catcalls again. Binh commanded the thesps to dance.

  Charybdis began a glissade, circling Scylla. The female began a halting pirouette, but she could not complete it. She fell to the stage, her breath rasping. Charybdis continued to glissade around her, as if she were some kind of prey.

  The crowd’s shouting grew to a roar. Sobrino motioned them to be quiet.

  “Would you agree that the female is burned out, maestro? Isn’t that the jargon?” she asked. “Well, do what has to be done, Maestro Binh. One cannot be sentimental about a thesp, after all.”

  She motioned to a guard, who put a wooden-handled, stainless steel pick into Binh’s hands.

  The crowd’s shouting became a massive physical presence, coming in like a wave out of the glare just beyond the end of the stage. Binh turned and ran to the rear of the stage. Throwing the pick away, he pressed himself against the wall.

  The screams sounded closer. Three guards surrounded him. People were charging through the glare. They encircled the thesps and pummeled them to the floor.

  “We’ll do it for you, maestro,” Sobrino shouted. “Understand what this makes you!”

  Binh screamed and tried to run toward the thesps. The guards grabbed his arms and held him back. The mob beat the thesps with wooden sticks. Scylla and Charybdis twitched on the stage. Binh saw a pink rivulet of blood coursing from the corner of the male’s mouth.

  Sobrino stood before him, her hands on her hips, blocking his view of the beating. Her eyes flashed as she raised her hand to point at Binh. The guards shoved him forward.

  Binh fell to the floor. A guard held him down while Sobrino prepared a syringe.

  “We have a place for you at Camp Isolation, maestro,” she said, shoving the syringe into his arm. “There you might b
e able to put your talents to some social use.”

  Binh felt himself sinking into darkness. He gazed impassively at the crumpled bodies of Scylla and Charybdis as his heavy lids closed.

  Binh awoke, jarred by an uneven pitching motion. For an instant, he stared at Caesar’s brilliance through a clear dome. An afterimage spread out at the center of his vision when he turned away and blinked. Suddenly, he pitched forward as the floor moved again, and he was pressed against a curved wall.

  Binh tried to stand, but a searing pain in his knee forced him into a prone position. He thought of Scylla and Charybdis, their brutal death. The afterimage floated everywhere he looked, as if it were a bubble rising up slowly beneath the sea.

  He suddenly became nauseated. Binh stared at his pale, trembling hand lying across a riveted metal surface. He could have been anywhere, contained even in an open storage tank. But he could hear faint whirrings. The floor vibrated rhythmically beneath him. He was in a ship of some kind, but not a land car. The motions were fluid. He thought of floating on a choppy sea, and his nausea overwhelmed him. He vomited after a sudden jolt threw him forward again.

  A grinding sound shuddered through the metallic surfaces. Somewhere above him, machinery whined. Then there was silence. Binh lay still, aching with fatigue.

  He closed his eyes, and opened them. Hours had passed. The afterimage had disappeared, and a dim light glimmered. Somehow, he managed to stand. His legs ached with numbness. He rubbed them back to life for a moment before he realized where he was.

  He had been packed aboard an air car. The guards had thrown him into a rear compartment. He tried the door, but it was locked. Binh wondered how many of the guards had come along. I am going to die, he thought. He tried to remember what Sobrino had said before the drug had overwhelmed him, but he could only recall the needle’s sting as it slid into his arm, and Sobrino standing over him, smiling.

  The air car rocked forward and dived. Binh was thrown back, hitting his shoulder against the wall. He dragged himself into the seat, and buckled the seat belt.

  The world exploded, and his vision went red.