‘I see.’ Svoboda was calmer now. ‘Pressure. Yes. We may be able to get our schools restored, if nothing else.’
‘Pressure will provoke counter-pressure, though. This will force us to push harder yet. The possible, even probable end result is war.’
‘What? No!’
‘Or a coup d’etat. Most likely civil war, however. Since a few military and police officers already subscribe to constitutionalism, and we can hope to recruit more, we’ve a chance to win. If we proceed with care. This can’t be hurried. But … we might start quietly caching weapons.’
Again Svoboda was jarred. He had seen dead men in the streets when he was a child. Next time there might even be the ultimate violence of the nuclear bomb or the artificial plague. And how much rebuilding would be possible afterward, on this impoverished globe?
‘We’ve got to find another way,’ he whispered. ‘We can’t let matters go that far.’
‘We may have to,’ said Wolfe. ‘We will certainly have to threaten to. Or else go under.’
He glanced at the profile beside him, sharp against the stars. Even as he watched, it stiffened with a resolution which, nourished, could become fanaticism. Wolfe almost declared what was really in his mind, but stopped himself.
6
Commissioner Svoboda looked at the clock. ‘Get out,’ he said. The whole lot of you.’
The guards obeyed in surprise. Only Iyeyasu remained; that went without saying. For a moment the big office was quiet.
‘Your son comes now, yes?’ asked the Okinawan.
‘In five minutes,’ said Svoboda. ‘He’ll be prompt, if I know him. To be sure, men change, and we haven’t spoken for a good many years.’
He felt a nervous tic in the corner of his mouth. It wouldn’t stop, damn it, damn to the seventh circle of Dante’s imagination, calm down, will you? The dwarfish man scrambled from his chair and limped across to the full-wall transparency. The towers and ways shimmered below him, heated, but winter lay in pale sky and remote-looking frosty sun. A late winter this year. Svoboda wondered if it would ever end.
Not that the season mattered, when your life ran out in offices. But he would like to see the cherry orchard that crowned this building bloom once more. He had never allowed the roof to be greenhoused. Let’s keep a remnant of unscientific nature in the world.
‘I wonder if that’s why technological civilization is dying,’ he mused. ‘The reason may not be loss of resources, or the uncontrolled obsession to reproduce, or the decline of literacy, or the rise of mysticism, or any such thing. Those may be mere effects, and the real cause be a collective unconscious revolt against this steel and machinery. If we evolved among forests, do we dare cut down every tree on Earth?’
Iyeyasu didn’t answer. He was used to his master’s moods. He looked at him with compassionate small eyes.
‘If this be so,’ said Svoboda, ‘then perhaps my maneuverings have served no ultimate purpose. But come, we Practical Men have no time to stop and think,’
The sardonicism uplifted him. He went back and sat down behind his desk and waited, a cigaret between his fingers.
The door opened for Jan on the stroke of 0900. Svoboda’s first shocked thought was Bernice. Oh, God, he had forgotten how the boy had Bernice’s eyes, and she fifteen years in the earth. He sat for a moment in an aloneness that stung.
‘Well?’said Jan coldly.
Svoboda braced his thin shoulders. ‘Sit down,’ he invited.
Jan perched on a chair’s edge and stared across the desk. He had grown thinner, his father noticed, and tense, but the youthful awkwardness was gone. An uncompromising harsh face jutted above that plain blue tunic.
‘Smoke?’ asked the Commissioner.
‘No,’ said Jan.
‘I hope everything is all right at home? Your wife? Your children?’ Most men are privileged to see their own grandchildren. Ah, stop sniveling, you tinpot Machiavelli.
‘We are in physical health,’ said Jan. His voice was like iron. ‘You are a busy man, Commissioner. I don’t wish to take up your time unduly.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ Svoboda put another cigaret between his lips, remembered he was still holding the first, and ground it out with needless violence. Self-control returned, to parch his tones. ‘I imagine when the question first arose of a conference between myself and a representative of your new Constitutionalist Association, it seemed most natural for me to see your president, Mr. Wolfe. You may wonder why I specified you instead, who are only the engineering member of your policy committee.’
Jan’s mouth tightened. ‘I hope you did not plan an emotional appeal.’
‘Oh, no. The fact is, Wolfe and I have already had several discussions.’ Svoboda chuckled. ‘Ah-ha. That startled you, eh? Now if I were determined to wreck your organization, I would let you stew over the fact. But the truth is merely that Wolfe talked to me on the ‘phone, unofficially, and sounded me out on various points. Of course, that entailed me sounding him out too, but we reached a tacit agreement.’
Svoboda leaned on his elbows, puffed smoke, and went on: ‘Your organization was formed several months ago. Constitutionalists have been joining it by thousands, everywhere in the world. What they want from it varies. Some want a spokesman for their grievances; some, doubtless, a revolutionary underground; the majority probably have no more than vague expectations of mutual help. Since you have not yet adopted any clear-cut program, you have disappointed no one. But now your committee must soon come up with a definite plan of action, or see the outfit revert to primordial jelly.’
‘We’ve got a plan,’ his son retorted. ‘Since you know so much, I can tell you what our first step will be. We’re going to make a formal petition for repeal of your so-called educational decree. We’re not without influence on several of your fellow Commissioners. If the petition is denied, we’ll call for stronger measures.’
‘The economic squeeze.’ Svoboda’s large bald head nodded. ‘Boycotts and slowdowns. If that fails, strikes, disguised as mass resignation. The next resort, no doubt, civil disobedience. Thereafter — Oh, well. The pattern is classic’
‘Classic because it works,’ said Jan. The blood crept up his cheeks, making him heartbreakingly boylike again.
‘Sometimes.’
‘You could save everyone a lot of trouble by cancelling the decree at once. In that case, we might be willing to compromise on a few other points.’
‘Oh, but I’m not going to.’ Svoboda folded his hands as if in prayer, rolled his eyes heavenward, and chanted piously around his cigaret, ‘The public interest demands the public school.’
Jan jumped erect. ‘You know that’s only a hypocritical way of destroying us!’
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Svoboda, ‘I plan to have the curriculum modified next fall. The time now devoted to critical analysis of literary works could better be spent in rote memorization. And then, with hallucinogens becoming so important socially, a practical course in their proper use—’
‘You shriveled-up son of a sewer!’ screamed Jan. He lunged across the desk.
Iyeyasu was there without seeming to cross the floor between. The edge of a hand cracked down on Jan’s wrist. The other hand, stiff-fingered, poked him in the solar plexus. Jan gasped out his wind and collapsed backward.
‘Careful, there,’ warned Svoboda. His knuckles turned white where he gripped the desk.
‘No harm done, sir,’ Iyeyasu assured him. He eased Jan into the chair and began kneading his shoulders and the base of his skull. ‘He gets air back in a minute.’ With an ill-concealed rage: ‘Is not a way to speak to your father.’
‘For all I know,’ said Svoboda, ‘he may have been correct’
The glaze left Jan’s eyes, but no one talked for a while. Svoboda lit another cigaret and stared into space. He wanted to look at the boy, there might never be another chance, but it would be poor tactics. Jan slumped under Iyeyasu’s mountainous form. At last he spoke, sullenly:
‘I
don’t apologize. What else could you expect?’
‘Nothing, perhaps.’ Svoboda made a bridge of his fingers and regarded his son across them. ‘There will certainly be resistance to such measures. And yet I’m only underlining a conflict which would otherwise proceed more slowly but to the same inevitable end. You did not let me explain why you, rather than Wolfe, are your people’s representative today. The fact is that you are young and hot headed, a much better spokesman for the upcoming Constitutionalist generation, than an older, more cautious, less indoctrinated man. The extremists in your party might repudiate any compromise agreement made by Wolfe, simply because he is Wolfe, notoriously all things to all men. But if you endorse a plan, they will listen.’
‘What agreement can we make?’ Jan snarled. ‘Unless you return us our children—’
‘No maudlin figures of speech, please. Let me explain the difficulty. You and the government represent opposing ways of life. They simply cannot be reconciled. Once, perhaps, there was a possibility of coexistence. There may be again in the future, when the issues no longer seem vital. But not now. Just suppose that we did give in, repealed the educational decree and reinstated your system of private schools. It would be a victory for you and a defeat for us. You would gain not only your immediate objective, but confidence, support, strength. We would lose correspondingly. How long before you made your next demand? You have other grudges besides this. Having gotten back your schools, you may next want back the right to criticize political basics. If you gain that, you will want the right to agitate publicly. Having gotten that, you will want representation on the Commission. Then— But I need not elaborate. It seems best to settle the matter now, once and forever, before you get too strong. And that’s why you won’t get as much support from my colleagues as you expect.’
Jan bristled. ‘If you think this is the final word —’
‘Oh, no. We’ve already discussed the means by which you’ll apply pressure. I am also well aware of your potential for accumulating weapons, subverting military units, and eventually resorting to force. A number of Guardians want to arrest the bunch of you at once. But alas, you are too important. Imagine the chaos if a fourth of the technical personnel in Minerals or Pelagiculture vanished, without leaving trained successors. Or if Wolfe was suddenly removed from his devious routes of supply, where would half the mistresses on Highlevel get new gowns to outshine the other half? Then, also, it’s a truism that martyrs are a stimulant to any cause. There would be plenty of young men who had never cared one way or another about your philosophy, suddenly fired by the vision of a thing bigger than themselves Yes, by acting too strongly we might provoke the very war we were trying to forestall.’
Svoboda leaned back. He had the boy on the ropes now, he saw: bewildered gaze, half-parted lips, a hand raised as if uncertain whether to defend or appeal or offer thanks.
‘There is a possible compromise,’ he said.
‘What?’ Jan’s question was barely audible.
‘Rustum. E Eridani II.’
‘The new planet?’ Jan’s head snapped up. ‘But—
‘If the most dissatisfied Constitutionalists left Earth voluntarily, after making proper arrangements for replacement personnel and so on, the pressure would be off us. Then, in time, we could back down on the school issue and please your stay-at-home friends, without actually being defeated on it. Or, even if we didn’t, you would be quit of us; and we’d be quit of the most stubborn element of our opposition. The successful planting of the colony would be kudos for the whole Commission, a shot in the buttocks for space travel, and therefore well worth our support and encouragement. As for the considerable expense involved – you people own valuable property which couldn’t be taken with you, so by selling out you can finance the project.
‘It’s an old pattern in history. Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania were promoted by a government hostile to the ideals involved and anxious to get rid of the idealists. Why not a repeat performance?’
‘But twenty light-years,’ whispered Jan. ‘Never to see Earth again.’
‘You’ll have to give up a lot,’ agreed Svoboda. ‘But in return, you’ll escape the risk of destruction by force or absorption by my evil schemes.’ He shrugged. ‘Of course, if your nice radiant-heated sea house is more important than your philosophy, by all means stay home.’
Jan shook his head, as if he had taken a fresh blow. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ he mumbled.
‘Consult Wolfe,’ said Svoboda. ‘He knows about this. He broached the idea to me.’
‘What?’ The eyes that were Bernice’s grew candid with surprise.
‘I told you Wolfe is not a fire-eater,’ Svoboda laughed. ‘I gather he’s discussed the possibility of overthrowing the government, and done some preliminary organizing for that purpose. But I suspect it was never his real intention. That was mere window dressing, for the benefit of people whose enthusiasm needed whipping up. He’s been working toward a strong bargaining position … so he can make us send you to Rustum.’
This was the right note, he saw. If Wolfe the mentor had been operating behind the scenes, Jan would have less fear of a bomb in any final agreement reached.
‘I’ll have to talk to him.’ The boy rose. He was suddenly trembling. To all of them. We’ll have to think – Goodbye.’
He turned and stumbled toward the door.
‘Goodbye, kid,’ said Svoboda.
He doubted if Jan heard him. The door closed.
Svoboda sat without moving for a long time. The cigaret between his fingers burned so low that it scorched him. He swore, dropped it in the disposer, and struggled to his feet. The broken foot was hurting him again.
Iyeyasu glided around the desk. Svoboda leaned on the tree-trunk arm, shuffling to the clear wall until he could stare out and catch a glitter of open ocean.
‘Your son comes back, yes?’ asked Iyeyasu finally.
‘I don’t expect so,’ answered Svoboda.
‘You wanting them go to the planet?’
‘Yes. And they will. I haven’t been working these many years without getting to know my machinery.’
The sun out there was pale, but its light stung Svoboda’s eyes so he had to rub them with a knuckle. He said aloud, in a precise but annoyingly unsteady tone: ‘Old Inky was an educated man in his way. He used to claim that the main axiom in human geometry is, a straight line is not the shortest distance between two points. In fact, there are no straight lines. I find that’s pretty true.’
‘This was your plan, sir?’ Iyeyasu’s voice held more sympathy than intellectual interest.
‘Uh-huh. Anker’s books, and my own common sense, showed me there was no hope for Earth in the foreseeable future. Maybe when collapse has ended the decadence, a thousand years hence, something will evolve here; but that won’t help my son much. I wanted to get him out while there was still time. To a new world for a fresh start. But he couldn’t go alone. It would have to be as part of a colony. And the colonists would have to be healthy, independent, able people, who’d gone of their own free will; no other type was likely to survive. I was gambling that a habitable planet would be discovered, but I could not gamble that it would be very hospitable…. But why should such people leave? Civilization hasn’t rotted so far that given half a chance, they can’t do rather well for themselves here at home.
‘So there had to be an obstacle on Earth which sheer drive and intelligence could not overcome. What sort would that be? Well, it’s in the nature of intercultural conflicts to be insoluble. When axioms clash, logic is helpless. So I set up a rival society within the Federation. That wasn’t hard. Here in North America, a dying culture had just tried to assert itself by rebellion, and failed; but it wasn’t dead yet. It did need to be given a new spirit and a sense of direction. I had Anker’s philosophy for a background. I had Laird, a marvelous, actor with much brains and no conscience. He proved expensive but faithful, since I made it plain what would happen if he wasn’t. When his work
was finished, I retired him – a new face, a new name, and a lavish pension. He caroused himself to death four years ago. Of course, the possibility that I had had Laird murdered was always left open. The first irritating wound, with many more to follow.’
Svoboda remembered a boy who raged from the house and never came back. He sighed. One can’t foresee every detail. At least Bernice’s grandchildren would grow up as free people, if Rustum didn’t eat them.
‘In the end,’ he said, ‘I’d maneuvered my Constitutionalists into such a position that their own wily Wolfe was bound to maneuver me into helping them emigrate. I think we’re over the hump now. We can sit back, you and I, and watch the wagon roll downhill. With stars at the bottom of the hill.’
‘We go south,’ suggested Iyeyasu clumsily. ‘You can watch his new sun.’
‘I imagine I’ll be dead before he gets there,’ said Svoboda. He gnawed his lip a moment, then straightened and hobbled from the window. ‘Come on. Let’s go visit some fellow Commissioner and be nasty to him.’
Part 2: The Burning Bridge
1
The message was an electronic shout, the most powerful and tightly-beamed shortwave transmission which men could generate, directed with all the precision which mathematics and engineering could offer. Nevertheless that pencil must scrawl broadly over the sky, and for a long time, merely hoping to write on its target. For when distances are measured in light-weeks, the smallest errors grow monstrous.
Orbit Unlimited Page 4
