Business Secrets from the Stars

by David Dvorkin

  “Oh. Oh, wait. I misheard. I think he actually said the successor to the successor’s successor. I missed one successor. It must have been that solar flare again. It interfered with my reception.”

  Fancy laughed bitterly. The sharp, high-pitched sound was absorbed by the damp walls and the sodden, moldy straw on the floor. Only the sound of dripping water remained.

  And Malcolm’s moaning.

  “Marlene,” he moaned.

  Stunned by what he had just heard himself say, he stopped making any sound at all. Marlene? If Marlene were here, she would laugh along with Fancy, but happily, not bitterly.

  After a while, Malcolm began moaning again, but wordlessly.

  Fancy nodded in satisfaction and climbed up the slimy stone steps. She was a bit unsettled that Malcolm’s new version of Lukas of Aldebaran’s prediction, even though it was obviously something he had come up with on the spur of the moment in an attempt to save his skin, matched so closely the plan she was actually pursuing. Could he be telling the truth? Could he truly be channeling that wondrous stardwelling being, just as he claimed? It was a question she would have to devote some thought to.

  But if he was telling the truth after all, then she had no excuse to hold him prisoner, let alone watch him being tortured with hot pokers later on. However, she enjoyed having him imprisoned in that basement. She would enjoy watching him be tortured even more. It was all good practice.

  So she was presented with a moral dilemma, and she hated those.

  She told herself that she didn’t have to think about it now. For now, she had to spend some time in some smoke-filled rooms to make sure that the prediction really did come true, whether Lukas of Aldebaran had in fact uttered it or not.

  So Fancy marched into a very important smoke-filled room, interrupting a very important smoke-filled meeting.

  She looked around in disgust. Giant bodyguards stepped forward threateningly. Fancy gestured, and Zip Muchley loomed up, and the bodyguards retreated, bowing low in fear and admiration. Another gesture from Fancy, and Zip moved around the room opening windows. The bodyguards were all the more impressed, because these windows were solid parts of the wall and were not designed to be opened.

  After the air had cleared a bit, Fancy said, “I’m your candidate, boys.”

  “But you’re a girl!” one of the fat cats said.

  Zip didn’t need a gesture from Fancy. He picked the man up and threw him through the now-open window. Fortunately for the fat cat, they were on the ground floor and the man was well padded. He picked himself up painfully, turned toward the building’s front door, then thought better of it and limped away.

  One of the other fat cats held up both hands placatingly. “Now, just listen to me, Fancy, and hold your gorill — your man there at bay. Even if you get a majority of the votes in this room, that doesn’t mean you can get a majority of the delegate votes at the national convention. Because, well, after all, he was right: you’re a girl.”

  Zip growled and pawed the ground. Fancy ground her teeth, but she gestured to him to hold off. “Bribery,” she said. “Vote rigging.”

  The fat cat nodded. “Sure. Of course. We always do that. You know that. But will it be enough? This is a very conservative crowd we’re dealing with. Much more so than in the past, thanks to the lasting effect of the work done within the party by your wonderful husband, long may the gods bless his name and strew rose petals before him.”

  The other fat cats and their bodyguards bowed their heads in silent reverence for a moment.

  “But that very conservatism,” the fat cat continued, “means that this isn’t yet the year for a female candidate. Some day, no doubt. Not this year.”

  Fancy hesitated for a long time, but in the end she realized that the man was probably right. She glared around the room. “I’ll be back!”

  She turned and left. Zip glared around the room, too, and then he followed his mistress.

  They went back to the damp basement and tormented Malcolm for a few more hours.

  It wasn’t time for the hot pokers yet. Fancy had decided to wait for Inauguration Day for its symbolism, even though it would be someone else’s Inauguration Day.

  * * * * *

  While Fancy was tormenting Malcolm, Daddy Longlegs was conferring with party fat cats himself and having a much more successful time of it than Fancy was.

  He didn’t suggest himself as a candidate for President, of course. They would have laughed at him if he had, given that he had been in the White House and had been defeated. He was a loser in their eyes and in the eyes of the rest of the world.

  In fact, Daddy yearned to be back in power. He wanted to squash the parvenu who had defeated him. Since the parvenu had served his full two terms and wouldn’t be running again, Daddy would have settled for squashing Tom Moore as the next best thing. Daddy knew that would never happen. The nation had voted him out once and would be unlikely to vote him back in. The bitter truth was that no one had ever liked Daddy.

  Most of all, he didn’t suggest himself as the candidate precisely because the men in those smoke-filled rooms would laugh at him. He’d be back in South Africa, on that hunting trip after the war, or back in his own daddy’s company and the company of his daddy’s friends. He’d be back among powerful men with powerful voices who were laughing at him, diminishing him, reducing him to impotent boyhood. He wouldn’t be able to stand that.

  So he suggested Jibber instead.

  At first, they laughed at that idea, too.

  “Oh, come on!” one of the fat cats said. “This is ridiculous. The kid looks like a chimp, and he doesn’t even speak English. You may be able to get away with that kind of crap in Texas. Everyone knows the whole state is filled with kooks and wackos who vote straight Republican no matter what. But now you’re talking about the United States of America. We’re going to be facing a guy with brains. We don’t have anyone like that in our party, so we’re going to have to go for cute. Is that kid of yours cute? Is he even American?”

  “Of course he’s American!” Daddy said. He was scandalized. Well, all right, strictly speaking that kid of his was South African, not American, more strictly speaking South West African, and most strictly speaking he wasn’t even Daddy’s kid. But there was a paper trail on record now that proved beyond doubt that Jibber and his two brothers had been born in Texas, had gone to school there from pre-school through college, had learned to drive there, and had even performed valiant military service in the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War.

  He kept arguing and wheedling, but the fat cats were reluctant. Finally, Daddy flew back home to Texas, picked up Jibber, and then flew back East again with him.

  Daddy and Jibber went back to the smoke-filled room he had left hours before. Nothing had changed. The same men were there, or perhaps they had been replaced with other men who looked just like them. That was immaterial. Great powerbrokers are as interchangeable as lowly peasants. It’s not who they are, their individual identities, that counts. What counts is the role they play in the great Cosmic Ferris Wheel of Corruption, the amusing Sideshow of Pretending That All Votes Count Equally, the Three-Ring Circus of Plutocratic Privilege, and the sinister zoo in which the hungry Lions and Tigers of Aristocratic Greed roam freely and the gates are locked so that the rest of us can’t get out. And what exactly is that role? Well, spawn, you’ll never know, so it’s best that you not worry your little head about it.

  Jibber leaped up on the fat cats’ immense, fabulously expensive conference table and capered from one end to the other. His special miniature cowboy boots clippity-clopped on the wood like the sound of a horse moseying along in the great wide-open spaces of the mythical Old West. His special little silver spurs scratched the highly polished surface, leaving marks like the brands leathery old cowpokes make on leathery cows in Western movies. His special small cowboy hat, pulled low over his brow, made him look almost human. He turned somersaults for the nice men and then pulled his little silver s
ix-guns from their little leather holsters and fired into the air — Blam! Blam! Blam! — as though he were shooting down a dozen lily-livered, hoss-stealin’ varmints.

  Don’t worry, everyone! They’re only cap guns!

  Then he struck a pose, legs naturally bowed, hands on hips, eyes slitted into a squint as though he were looking for mysterious meanings or possibly more varmints in some distant mountain range, and he gibbered briefly.

  “My God,” the fat cats all said simultaneously, “he sure is a cute little monkey!”

  * * * * *

  Oh, of course there was the formality of a series of primary elections and state party caucuses to get through. Jibber breezed through all of that. He made a few speeches — which is to say, long sequences of meaningless gibbering — and repeated various parts of the cowboy routine that had won over the party fat cats.

  “What a cute little monkey!” everyone said. “Why, you know, maybe he really should be the Republican candidate for President of these stupendous United States! How can the Democrats compete against this?”

  But Mr. Umbral still had some doubts. He felt the ticket needed balance. Not the geographical balance political parties usually strive for in their presidential tickets, but species balance. Just in case anyone was so rude and unwise as to raise questions about the humanity of the candidate at the top of the ticket, Umbral felt that an undoubted human being should be chosen as running mate. Moreover, some voters might think that Jibber seemed, well, less than entirely mature.

  Oh, the little cowboy hat and boots and six guns were a wonderful touch, no doubt, and perfectly suited to push the appropriate buttons of the great American electorate. But still it might be wise to balance that with a vice-presidential candidate who exuded a simulation of wisdom, experience, age, and, to use a then-popular word that had absolutely no meaning in the real world but that all newspaper journalists felt they had to write at least twice a day, gravitas.

  Mr. Umbral knew just the man for the job. He had the family retainers bring back a loyal family servant who had been deactivated long ago, Howard Phillips Moon, and bring him up to date. Properly prepared and coached by Umbral, the bald, vacant-eyed old Moon looked perfect for the part.

  “Doesn’t speak well,” Daddy said doubtfully. “Doesn’t move much. What we used to call a stiff.”

  “That’s the gravitas,” Mr. Umbral said. “Don’t worry. I’ll throw a few dog biscuits to a few of our favorite reporters, and Moon will be seen as perfect.”

  And so in the fullness of time and the strangeness of politics, Jibber Longlegs became the official Presidential candidate of the Republican Party and Howard Phillips Moon became the official Vice Presidential candidate.

  Jibber’s acceptance speech consisted of a few seconds of gibbering followed by squinting into the distance from under the rim of his cowboy hat, firing his little cap guns, clomping around on the podium in his little cowboy boots, and finally turning a very nice somersault.

  Moon wasn’t able to be present at the convention site. Instead, he was shown on the giant television screens nodding gravely to the delirious crowd.

  Now the ticket was in place, and all Jibber had to do to enter victoriously the White House his father had been forced to leave so ignominiously was get past Tom Moore.

  Moore was a man of high intelligence, deep thoughts, impeccable personal behavior, and admirable history. Clearly, the best way to defeat him was to deny all of this and call him names.

  At his very first campaign appearance after winning his own party’s nomination, when Moore introduced himself — “Hello, I’m Tom Moore, and I’m running for President” — shouts arose from agitators planted in the crowd: “Liar!” “No, you’re not!” “Wimp!” “Coward!” “Balding man!”

  Moore appeared puzzled but pressed on. “Eight years ago,” he droned, for the sad truth was that he did have a tendency to drone a bit in those days, although to his credit he never gibbered, “when we came into office, the country was in terrible shape. But look at us now.”

  “Liar!” “Adulterer!” “Whoremaster!” “Murderer” “Thief!” “Child abuser!” “Communist!” “Shapechanger!” “Balding man!”

  Behind the shouting protesters, other hired troublemakers held up signs, waving them to catch the attention of the television cameras. The signs bore pictures of Jibber in his adorable little cowboy outfit. Underneath the photo were the words CUTE LITTLE MONKEY.

  That evening, local and national news reported on Moore’s campaign appearance, and their reports were remarkably similar. A pretty newsreader, probably either male or female, reported with a sneer that the shifty, cowardly, shady, draft-dodging, balding Vice President had incoherently babbled a bunch of lies and nonsense and that Governor Jibber Longlegs sure was a cute little monkey.

  When Jibber made his first campaign appearance, he stood on the podium, struck his little cowboy pose, and gibbered for a while. The crowds went mad. The press reported with awe that he was not just a cute little monkey but a remarkably intelligent and perceptive and wise one as well.

  This pattern was repeated throughout the campaign.

  During the televised debates between the two candidates, Moore spoke cogently and in depth on various issues, Jibber gibbered and posed, and the press reported happily that the governor had blown the Vice President out of the water.

  Judging by the slow creep in the polls toward Moore, none of this was quite enough. So when it leaked out that Bip and Bop had robbed a bank and had then used the money to buy vast amounts of alcoholic beverages at a liquor store and had then nabbed a police car and crashed it into a lamppost and had then passed out in a pool of their own vomit in full view of a television news crew interviewing Wallace “Ten Ton” Tenhut, the middlequarterthudpacker of the Piketon Ponies professional football team, who were in Washington for a scheduled humiliation at the hands of the local professional football team, the Longlegs political cabal got very worried indeed.

  But of course the police looked the other way and the press did its part to help.

  Had Malcolm been free to watch television news instead of whining piteously in a damp basement, he would have seen film of Ten Ton helping to clean the unconscious girls off, his meaty hands lingering just a tad too long on their jail-bait bodies. He would have seen the anchorman smiling approvingly at the whole escapade and opining that, while Jibber was a straight-shooting Christian, pure of heart and mind, the twins — the Terrible Twins, he called them roguishly — reflected the essential real ordinary guyness in Jibber’s genes. Wasn’t this a whole lot better than the boring, intellectual, nerdy child of the current and soon to be ex-President?

  Concluded the newsie, “You can bet those cute little kids will be grounded for a few days for this escapade, chuckle, chuckle!”

  In fact, Mr. Umbral chained Bip and Bop in a damp basement of his own for a week and scourged them with whips and told them he was considering following his own long-ago advice to Rehoboam and scourging them with scorpions.

  But the amused public knew nothing about that basement or those chains. All the public heard was the carefully constructed spin emanating from the press office of the Longlegs campaign. Daddy and Mr. Umbral and the rest of them were sure their spin would do the trick.

  And yet, despite all of this, Moore won the election.

  No, I shouldn’t say that. In my Merskeenian way, influenced by my great distance in time and space, I, Lukas of Aldebaran, feel that Moore really did win because so many more Americans voted for him than voted for Jibber. But it appears that the noble Founding Fathers of your great Republic had some other system in mind. In the days of your nation’s spittle-dribbling infancy, those otherwise sensible fellows imposed upon you something called the Electoral College, a weird and bizarre institution that, more than two hundred years later, enabled the Longlegs family retainers, and evil minions of theirs strategically planted in supreme positions of judicial power years before, to so manipulate matters in the state of whic
h Jebber was governor that despite losing the election Jibber was declared the victor and President Elect.

  I am so unable to understand what happened that I must resort to ellipsis and metaphor, to star-spanning mysticism, to cosmic circumlocution.

  Let me try it this way, then.

  Rlen, the dark and evil queen of the Marlingas, swept over your land, waving her wand of terror and confusion. All the lightness and happiness and goodness leaked away and you were flung into a strange alternate history, a deviation from your true path, a dimension of falseness and pretense and hubris and self-deception. Those freedoms of yours that the world once admired, yes, even they began to fade. In this sinister alternate world, your prosperity and joy could not survive, and so they turned gray and brittle and vanished. The very particles of time — chronons, we Merskeenians call them — of which the prosperous years had been composed fled screaming to the real world from this terrible alternate one, leaving you bereft of all you thought you once had. It was as though the preceding eight years had not even happened. Your light was stolen from you, and the old darkness was followed by the new. The world fell backward eight years through time and reverted to the day after Daddy Longlegs had left the White House!

  And Rlen flew away, cackling, into the cold spaces between the galaxies. As I watched her go, leaving your world a shattered ember, I was filled with the uncontrollable hatred that any proper Merskeenian feels toward her and all the Marlingas, even though I had to admit, watching her sinister cape flutter upward in the terrifying winds of hyperspace, that she certainly did look awfully good in tights.

  On the bright side, you now had cell phones, laptop computers, and broadband to the home, and Malcolm was back in his house without a scratch on him and with only the vaguest hint of a memory that something terrible had happened.