Executive

by Piers Anthony

  The identity of Jose Garcia was never revealed. He announced his retirement, feeling that after negotiating the conclusion of the Tyrancy he had no further need for public life, and he disappeared. Amber returned to New Wash, alone, where she worked as a translator of recorded transmissions, using the helmet to communicate her renditions. She never commented publicly on her private relationship with the Tyrant.

  The various officers and staff members of the Tyrancy were allowed to retire with due respect. There was no pogrom, no forced elimination, just a demotion to subservience to the new order. A number of them continued in their existing offices, for they were all excellent administrators. It seems fair to say that the quality and dedication of the personnel of the Tyrancy were the best ever seen on Jupiter, and their influence hardly faded with the demise of the Tyrancy itself.

  Hope Hubris may have suffered some problem of sanity after some of those close to him were lost; that remains in question. But the reforms he wrought in only one decade were enough to establish his place in history beyond question.

  Megan headed a brief caretaker government, setting up a framework for restored elections and public representation. She had no interest in power for herself and stepped down the moment the elections produced a new president and Congress. She was called a great woman. She was.

  It turned out that a number of planets were interested in providing sanctuary for the exiled former Tyrant of Jupiter. He accepted the most challenging offer. Thus it was that Hope and Spirit Hubris traveled to Saturn to commence what turned out to be perhaps the most remarkable stage of their careers.

  Coral, unable to go to that planet, accepted a position as a physical therapist with the Shelia Foundation. Ebony joined her there.

  And I, the daughter of the Tyrant, now twenty-five, took my eleven-year-old adopted brother, Robertico, and retired to a paid position within the restored Department of Education. It was, after all, what I understood best.

  Of course, I must answer the obvious question: How did I feel about Amber? I can only say that the process of education can be trying at times but that I learned to understand and appreciate my father for what he was, and he was a man who needed women. Age was irrelevant, and Amber was hardly to blame for being captivated by him. All women who knew him were. I have asked myself whether I am able to forgive her, and I have answered that forgiveness is unnecessary, for there was no fault. How could I forgive without admitting injury or jealousy—jealousy for what? And so we remain, in our fashion, sisters.

  —Hopie Megan Hubris

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  When I computerized in JeJune 1984 my first project was the restoration of my short novel But What of Earth?, which has been so brutalized by the publisher that I had renounced it and gotten it reverted. I had saved the tortured manuscript, and now I retyped the original version into the computer, and made 25,000 words of notes about the outrage, which I subtitled “A novel rendered into a bad example.” This led off my computer experience because I felt it would be best to get the feel of the computer before I tried to get creative with it. Thus this copy-and-comment project was convenient.

  My computer system was the DEC Rainbow, set up with the CP/M operating system, and I used its recommended word processor, Select 86. The latter was a competent but difficult and archaic program, and one month on it sufficed: I ditched it for the text processor PTP, which was a vast improvement. The first novel I composed on it was the 9th Xanth, Golem in the Gears, which moved at a then-record velocity and was done within two months. In that period I finally got Helen Gahagan Douglas’s autobiography A Full Life and read it, of course too late for my characterization of Megan in Politician. Then on SapTimber 15, I started notes for Executive, and started writing it as the second novel composed on the computer. This was interrupted by a trip to Gainesville, Florida; I believe that was when we made our initial contribution to the University of Florida there so it could excavate Tatham Mound, destined to be another significant project. Fan mail was increasing, and I had to take off days at a time to answer it, but I managed to complete the novel and print out the 110,000 word manuscript two days after Christmas. Then it was on to the fourth Incarnations fantasy, Wielding a Red Sword. I live for my writing, and I take no time off between projects.

  So how did I like that text processor, PTP? Very well. I gather that a text processor is a simpler program than a word processor, omitting many bells and whistles, but this one did the job. It had onscreen underlining, which many programs at that time did not, and its functions were straightforward and intuitive. But as time passed I did become frustrated with it. For one thing, my computer had 250K memory, which was good for that time, but PTP addressed only half of it. This meant that my files could not run over about 7,000 words. I had to break chapters in half, carefully aligning the halves when printing the manuscript. The proprietors said it would address more memory in two months, but as that stretched out into a year without more than excuses, I got annoyed. So when later a program appeared that would address all my memory, I went to it. Eventually I also outgrow the CP/M operating system, and then DOS, and at this stage am looking to outgrow Windows in favor of Linux. But for Executive, PTP was state of the art, and I retain a lingering fondness for it. It made writing and editing on the computer fun.

  However, there was a complication that caught me by surprise. I set daily records when writing Golem, and moved well on Executive, but when I edited them, both novels turned out short. I had to add a couple of chapters to Golem, and Executive is the shortest novel in this series, when I had actually been concerned about them being over-length. What happened? Did it relate to my computerization? Yes it did. To clarify why, I must describe my writing system.

  I don’t suffer from what is called Writer’s Block. That’s because I love writing, so need no excuse to stop doing it. I believe that, to a degree, a writer who suffers prolonged Block is actually a writer who doesn’t really want to write. He may want to have a finished novel, and receive a lot of money for it, and be hailed as a genius, and all that delusion, but he doesn’t want to put in the plain hard work of writing it. Writing is a solitary occupation requiring long hours without distraction and very little outside feedback. A person who doesn’t get his pleasure from the act of writing itself may not be cut out to be a writer. So my sympathy for those with the time to write who don’t write is limited. On occasion a would-be writer reacts with fury to this position of mine, which I think means a nerve has been touched. But there can be temporary stoppages; every drain gets clogged on occasion. An emotional disturbance can do it, such as a death in the family or threatened foreclosure on one’s house. But sometimes it is simply that the text itself is root-bound. The narrative may have wound itself into a hole and there seems to be no way out. It happens often enough to me. Then I use what I call my bracket system, wherein I interrupt my stalled text with bracketed commentary that attempts to solve the problem. [This Author’s Note is drifting way off the subject; what should I do? I’d better cut it short and get back on track; I don’t need to deliver the complete anti-block course of instruction here.] The bracket dialogue with myself may be one short sentence—or two thousand words. Whatever it takes to find my solution so I can resume the narrative. Well, a given day’s writing may consist of 3,000 words of text and 1,000 to 2,000 words of bracket notes. When I do my second draft I cut out all the bracketed comments and am left with the straight novel. Thus a first draft that seemed to be 100,000 words long may shrink to 70,000. That hadn’t been a problem when I wrote in pencil, but apparently my bracket notes became more voluminous on the computer, probably because it’s easier to type a note than to write it in pencil, and so I didn’t realize how verbose those notes were becoming. So I had to allow for that, knowing that a computer text might shrink up to 30% in contrast to penciled text that shrank about 10%. Later I got a word processor that enabled me to call up multiple files, and I put my bracket comments on a separate notes file. That solved that problem; my te
xt wordage was always accurate thereafter. Today I list my day’s work as 3000/2000, with the first figure being text and the second being notes. Actually a typical set of figures is more like 3000/500; once a novel gets moving, the notes diminish. But there are almost always some. It’s a good system; I just had to adapt it to the computer.

  Another problem I had in Executive was the repetition of a scene. I believe it was the one wherein Roulette sets Hopie straight about Hope’s nature; I evidently thought I hadn’t written it, so I put it in, and then it turned out that I had done it. With files limited to 7,000 words I could not do a single global check to verify it, as I do now. But when I proofread the galleys, I found it, and had to do some serious spot deletion. But this shows why I needed multiple files and larger file size. Today I routinely summon nine working files, for text, notes, ongoing table of contents, ongoing character list, personal thoughts (as opposed to novel thoughts), framework timelines, and so on. I’m not gadget-happy; I use those files constantly, increasing my efficiency and satisfaction as a writer. Today I don’t have many problems of mistaken novel length or repeated material, and I can keep better track of the sometimes devious life threads of individual characters. I liked pencil; I love the computer, except when it does something dangerously idiotic, like shutting down without warning.

  Fifteen years have dated some of the political concepts explored in the novel. It was written before the USA became a net debtor nation with record deficits, the result of irresponsible financial management. Traceable money had not yet appeared in real life either. But issues like taxation, gun control, and welfare we shall perhaps always have with us. I tried to explore them realistically. In fact I treat politics and economics as sciences here, in this science fiction series, and may thereby have bored some of my readers who wanted more action and less thought. Couldn’t be helped; this series explores all its facets carefully, and though it has plenty of human interaction and assassination threats, the underlying realities of the sciences must be there.

  Historically minded readers may have picked up on the echoes of some notable political events of this half century, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Then the novel goes on into things that never happened, such as the conquest of Mexico. The following novel will go way beyond that, as well as revealing the identity of Hopie’s mother. There are hints in this novel, for those who like to solve mysteries on their own.

  The technology of virtual reality is now advancing nicely, but in the 1980’s it remained mostly a science fiction concept. I think something like the feelie helmets will come to exist, in due course, and then they may indeed be used in the manner described, for romantic liaisons between people who may not be otherwise free to indulge. Is a feelie affair real? That may be for each person to decide.

  Readers sometimes inquire where I get names for my characters. I have several sources. The main one is name-the-baby books, which I use to name-the-character. I also note and collect words that I think would make good names in special situations, like Faith, Hope, Spirit, and Hubris. Roulette is another, condensing to Rue; if she walked into my mundane life my marriage might be in peril, though I have no taste for sado-masochism. I love the way she teases Hope by spreading her lovely legs wider for his glimpse, knowing he can’t do anything about it. She’s getting back at him for taming her in the prior novel, and she still does love him, and she’s not through with him, as we shall see in the next novel. Coral, rather than Carol: I liked that, so used it. Then there’s Shelia: I was a slow learner, possibly dyslexic, as my elder daughter is. But in my day there was no dyslexia or learning disability, merely stupid or willful students, so I took three years to make it through first grade, while my sister entered first grade with a fifth or sixth grade reading level. Slow does not necessarily mean stupid; I’m slow in everything, but I do usually get there eventually, as my career as a writer demonstrates to everyone but reviewers and critics. [I’m wandering again; get to the point!] So how does this relate to Shelia? Simply because I did not read or hear the name Sheila right; it took me years to get it straight. I may not be the only one; a woman once approached me for an autograph, and her name was Shelia, spelled my way. I try to profit from anything I experience, so I used that early confusion to make a special character. And there is Robertico, borrowed from the son of my Hispanic martial arts collaborator Roberto Fuentes. Anything is grist for my mill.

  Readers may wonder about my characterization of the protagonist, Hope Hubris. As I see it, he has three major assets, aside from his obvious intelligence and luck: the ability to read people, his personal magnetism, and his madness. These may be related; in fact they may be aspects of a single character quality. He can attune to others somewhat in the manner of a lie detector, understanding their natures, except when his own emotions interfere. His magnetism is probably a function of that. Have you, the reader, ever encountered a person who truly understands you? How did you feel about that person? If that person was of the opposite gender, was marriage far behind? Hope made men respect him, align their careers with his, and serve him loyally throughout. This is a quality often found in politicians, the ability to inspire loyalty—and love. Women typically loved Hope, and any of them would serve him in whatever capacity he desired, sex not remotely excluded. It started with Helse in the first novel, and continued with Juana in the second novel, and Emerald, and Roulette. In the third novel there was Megan, and Dorian Gray, and his supremely loyal female staff. When Hope’s marital situation changed in this novel, those staff women moved naturally from his employ to his bed. Even the tough minded QYV woman Reba had her hankering for him. Is it any wonder that his young ward Amber reacted similarly? Hope liked women, and so it was inevitable that there would be sexual liaisons. With two exceptions: his sister Spirit, and his daughter Hopie. But even they felt the planetary pull of his personal and sexual appeal. Spirit may have had sex with him one time, and was always his most loyal supporter and intimate confidante; she was much like a wife to him, but of course could not see it that way. “I know who I love, but the dear knows who I’ll marry.” And Hopie—why was she so viciously angry when he wished to enter into a consensual affair with Amber? Age really had no relevance. Because it was an affair Hopie secretly wished she herself could have, but could not admit even to herself. As she says at the end: she was jealous of what? And Hope’s madness might not be seen as related or an asset, but it was. It provided him with insights and courage to do what his rational mind rejected. He thought it began with the death of his sister Faith, but it was with him for life, showing first when he suffered the vision of his father’s empty hand—and woke screaming. Thus did the starving folk of the refugee bubble come to find food, via cannibalism. When in the second novel Roulette threatened to commit suicide, Hope’s phenomenal madness that made him immune to the stabbing of a knife, overwhelmed both her and Spirit; neither could oppose him in that state. Possibly it was a manifestation of his seeming immunity to drugs; they made him mad, but then his rational mind prevailed and their effect was gone. That resistance to addiction saved his political hide in the third novel. Toward the end of this fourth novel his madness enabled him to cope with overwhelming grief, so that he was able to function rationally when he chose to. There is one interesting aspect of that: At key moments, Helse visited him, a function of that madness. She did so the first time he had sex with Shelia, and such was his power that Shelia herself felt Helse’s presence and welcomed it. Then when Shelia died, giving her life for him as any of his women would, it was not Helse but Shelia who returned to him in the bodies of other women. This was coping madness, and integral to his power. Even sensible tough-minded Coral, in the very act of ritually killing herself, was swayed when he showed her his madness; she loved him, of course, and could not leave him to that. And I think that this is a quality found in some of the most notorious world leaders. They prevail because they lack civilized limits, so their potential for good or evil is huge.

  This novel is essentially downbeat, as
is this series. All things do eventually come to their ends. Thus Hope Hubris, instead of reveling in power, is slowly corrupted by it, and finally maddened as those close to him suffer and sometimes die because of his mis-calculations. He is all too human. I found myself saddened when proofreading the scanned manuscript. The characters come to life for me, and I hate to see them come to death, Shelia especially. But this is also, by my definition, good writing: a complex narrative that makes the reader feel. Feelings come in all flavors, and I value the grief along with the humor. So I still like this novel and this series, and hope readers who come to it later do too. Regardless, I am glad to have written it, and to have the chance to put it back into print.

  And the story of the Tyrant is not nearly done.

  This Author’s Note was written in July, 1999.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1985 by Piers Anthony

  ISBN: 978-1-4976-5744-1

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

  345 Hudson Street