“We humans are funny creatures, aren't we? Maybe some of them don't feel they deserve to be forgiven,” Harjalo suggested gently.
Rikki spun her glass and caught it “It is not their right”
Harjalo probed. “Are you bitter because it was your mother who died?”
“Yes, I am bitter.” Rikki set her glass down with a thump and toyed with it “It is my mother's blood on the shirt they wave, and she would have thought it an obscenity. But in a foul way,
it makes me the best candidate. The Nationals can chant 'No Softness on Traitors' in a corner, but they don't dare challenge me openly. Not on that issue.”
Harjalo stared at her. “Are you running for office this time around?”
“Yes. For president. And I need you to be my campaign manager.”
“Little tin gods. And after your people put Albert through hell.” Harjalo thought for a minute. “Is Anton behind this?”
“Of course.” She giggled. “I just remembered that phalaropes are polyandrous birds--each female henpecks several dowdy little males into sitting on her nests and brooding her eggs.”
Harjalo rubbed his bald spot reflexively. “Anton was probably planning this back when I had hair, but Anton is used to juggling planets, and I'm not so sure anymore. Sometimes I think that the planets deserve what they get, and that I ought to worry more about the people Anton uses.”
Rikki stared through him. “I will not lie to you. It frightens me. I watched them eat away at Oom Albert. But this is my planet and my people, and they deserve better than they will get if I do not try to get myself elected”
“Speaking of nests and polyandrous birds, what about your personal life or lack of one?” Harjalo said grumpily. “When was the last time you went out on a date, young lady?”
“Oh, last year sometime, I suppose.”
“That means the year before, most likely. It’s a shame you're too old to spank.” He shook his head. “You frighten them off, don't you?”
Rikki had the grace to blush, ever so slightly. “I suppose. Except for the ninnies, and the filth.”
“Gods. If your mother ever came back, she'd bruise my shins for letting you grow up the way you did. What did Hans used to call you?”
“Rikki-tikki-tavi.”
“So, Rikki-tikki-tavi, what is it you talk about when the young gentlemen come calling?”
“Animals and politics.”
“Gods. You do scare them off. The good ones, anyway.” Harjalo examined her face. “Who was he? The last one, I mean.”
“An English professor.” Her voice lost some of its assurance. “He sent flowers and poems.”
“His wife didn't understand him, and he was in the process of getting a divorce, I suppose,” Haljalo snapped.
Rikki used her knife to trace designs on the tablecloth. “I wasn't sure—I asked Aksu to look into it for me.”
Matti nodded with approval. “Aksu is a damned good intel man. Shimazu trained him. And he found out that your young stud of a professor used the same line and the same poems on the last student he seduced.”
Her eyes sparkled. “The last three.” Her voice faltered. “I mentioned this to Simon.”
“Who politely told the man that if your father's company ever found out, he'd need more health insurance,” Harjalo said with a trace of satisfaction. He stopped abruptly. “I'm not going to change your mind, am I?”
“No. Not in the least.”
Harjalo nodded sourly. “Let’s move on to the next hard question then. Adriaan Smith must have agreed to this. Did you men tion to him that you wanted me as your campaign manager?”
“No. Adriaan would probably be horrified.”
“I shouldn't doubt. Do you remember Dominee Leibeck in Boksburg, or was that before your time?”
“Oh, yes. I remember.”
Matti grinned, reminiscing. “The good dominee was partial to three-hour sermons of a distinctly political nature. He told me that I was going straight to hell, and I asked him if the devil needed a second in command. It looked good in the papers. You need my reputation like you need a lead weight strapped to your neck.”
Sanmartin slammed her knife down on the tablecloth moodily. “The Devil doesn't need you as a second in command, I do. Ssu will handle the polling and political ends of things, and Tant Betje will raise funds, she has oceans of favors she can call in and no one is better at twisting arms. I already have campaign workers lined up-”
“The university?”
“Apart from the oceans of favors I can call in. I have a message that many students believe in. Adriaan will handle the Union party organization, but I need someone to help hold things together.”
Harjalo frowned “Far be it from me to teach you political taking tricks, but Rikki, darling, the electorate might not wann to a foreign ex-soldier helping run your campaign. Can't you find some well-connected Union party hack to do the job? Have you thought about the political fallout when I start running my mouth in public?”
“The Union party hacks haven't been winning very many elections.” Rikki tossed her head impatiently. “I can't change my name, Uncle Matti, and I can't change who I am, so I might as well flaunt it. Any votes I lose because of you are votes I will lose anyway. As for political fallout from my stodgy, old Uncle Matti, dear me, I intend to shock more people than you ever could. My party colleagues haven't done very well being polite these last few years.”
Harjalo scratched his chin. “I have been pretty stodgy, haven't I?” He shrugged. “How can I refuse tactfully?”
She laid her hand on his. “You can't. Deal?”
He nodded. “Deal.”
“Now, hush! They are dimming the lights. The play is about to start.”
During curtain calls, Harjalo noticed an older couple talking to each other at a comer table. Comparing his age to Rikki's, they were loudly discussing the nature of the relationship.
“Excuse me, this one's mine,” Harjalo murmured. He stopped beside their table and smiled “I couldn't help overhearing. I'm Matti Harjalo--you may have heard of me, I was a soldier when I had hair. This is my niece, Hendricka Sanmartin. You may have heard of her, too. She runs the family business, so I take orders from her.” Harjalo paused. “And I couldn't be more proud.”
The man began stammering an apology. Harjalo patted him on the shoulder reassuringly and reached into his pocket for one of the calling cards he carried out of habit. “Just act surprised when you read about her in the papers. Now, we truly have to run, but feel free to give me a call and chat sometime.”
As they slipped through the press of the crowd, he whispered, “How did I do?”
Her eyes twinkled. “Middle class. Middle-grade executive of some kind. Slightly liberal. That is two votes anyway.”
“How do you know all that?” Matti asked.
“That,” his niece replied, tucking her arm firmly into his, “is why I am the candidate. Come take me home. It has been quite a day.”
Saturday (1168)
HARJALO STEPPED ON TOP OF A BOX TO ADDRESS THE PEOPLE gathered in his backyard. It was an old ammunition box, which was a tradition of sorts, although only a few persons present realized this. “Good morning.”
Although Harjalo spoke softly, something derived from a lifetime of command experience made people listen when he did speak. The mob quieted. “Although I've already met most of you, I'm Matti Haljalo, the campaign manager. By law, the campaign commences Monday, which gives us four weeks to get Rikki elected. She just spent four days locked in a cellar with a very shrewd and very nasty old man named Ssu trying to figure out what she stands for.”
He held up a bulky wad of paper. “This is it. And since we don't have the chances of snow in Hades otherwise, we are going to spend the next four weeks campaigning on specific issues
and programs, rather than the usual personalities, which should make a refreshing change for the electorate.”
A
young woman raised her hand, and Harjalo recognized her. “Mr. Harjalo, what if there are parts of it we do not agree with?”
“If there are parts of it you can't live with, we thank you for coming, and you leave.” He looked over the crowd, among whom were nearly thirty reservists and former NCOs that Harjalo intended to use as assistant instructors. “We're purchasing a small amount of media time, but we don't and won't have a tremendous amount of money. The only way we're going to win is by organizing you to go out and talk to people.”
He paused, and continued, “This farm is my home. Sleeping arrangements are a bit spartan. Think of the next two days as a cross between a religious retreat and military boot camp.”
“Preparing us for combat?” a young man with a beard quipped.
“You get two hours of self-defense tonight and four more tomorrow,” Harjalo said calmly. “I wish we had time to give you more. Any of you who want can come back next week for individual instruction. If you haven't already figured it out, the Silvershirts are going to try to rough you up, so we'll be sending you out in groups. We have two very long days plus four very long weeks ahead of us, so if any of you aren't really interested in doing this, please drop out now.”
By midnight, they were calling him “Gideon.”
Interlude
SUID-AFRIKA'S POPULATION, ALTHOUGH RAPIDLY GROWING, WAS still far smaller than the population of a medium-sized city on Earth. which made personal campaigning effective. In the cowboy country, the Purity Watch, the Suiwerheidwagte, was usually called the Sewer Watch, and the cowboy rancher magnates, who had even less love for Andries Steen than Steen realized. coughed up enough money to make Rikki Sanmartin's bid credible.
On a world like Suid-Afrika with only one professional sport, betting on elections runs a close second to betting on football results; and a canny and statistically significant fraction of the electorate had learned to lie to the professional pollsters to keep them from affecting the odds.
While Nationalist party pollsters continued to predict a Steen juggernaut, after the campaign's first week, Johannesburg bookies dropped the odds against Rikki to two-to-one, and Steen fired his pollsters and began to take the campaign seriously.
Meanwhile, Hans Coldewe's preparations for the expedition to Neighbor, never completely curtailed, began to assume a serious aspect
Sunday (1170)
“BORY!” PLATOON SERGEANT KAARW KIVELA YELLED ACROSS the ready room. “What platoon are you going to?”
Ostensibly, the motive for the reorganization of Coldewe's battalion was to add a recruit class. In point of fact, it was an open secret that the recon platoon, No. 9 rifle platoon, and No. 10 rifle platoon were being filled with the men who would be going to Neighbor.
Dmitri Uborevich, squat and barrel chested, was part Kalmyk and looked the part. He rubbed his chin. “Well, you know, I haven't decided. I mean, I've got a girlfriend now to think of.”
Kivela snorted. “Since when? Last Tuesday?”
“Hey! I do so have a girlfriend!”
“Yeah, sure, you and the pope of Rome. If she's still seeing you next Tuesday, I'll take her out and buy her eyeglasses.”
“That was unkind,” Uborevich sniffed. “She likes me, I will have you know. And she doesn't use big words all the time, like the last one.”
Kivela made a whistling noise through his teeth. “Whew! That young. You'd better go with us. I mean, they got laws against that sort of thing here.”
“You! No, she's not that young. And she really does like me. Put it another way--she's grateful for everything I do.”
Kivela whistled again, having attracted an appreciative audience. “Whew! That ugly! And with you looking tbe way you do? We've got to get you off world to protect this planet’s gene pool.”
A short chorus of laughter drowned Uborevich's muttered protests.
Sunday (1170)
ADRIAAN SMITH WAS WHIPPING UP THE CROWD IN JOHANNES BURG'S Vryheidsplain from the back of a bakkie truck. Spotting Matti Harjalo near the back, Hans Coldewe elbowed his way over to join him.
“Hans!” Harjalo grasped his hand and shook it firmly. He shouted into Coldewe's ear, “You're just in time. Adriaan is about to wind up, and then Rikki is on.”
“When she announced, I was probably the second most-surprised person on the planet. How did Anton talk Adriaan into this, anyway? Isn't she a little young?”
“Maybe.” Harjalo was noncommittal. “But as Adriaan pointed out, the younger William Pitt, who was England's most successful prime minister, was twenty-four when he took the job.”
Coldewe shook his hair out of his eyes. To his intense disgust, his hair that needed cutting was beginning to tum a violent salt and-pepper. He spotted someone else in the crowd he recognized. “Excuse me, Matti.”
He pushed his way over and returned just as Smith was finishing.
“Who was that?” Harjalo asked.
“I recognized him from the files. He does odd jobs for Steen. I told him if he caused any trouble, God would bum his house down and I'd make sure he was in it,” Coldewe replied with a self-satisfied expression.
“Ssu says that it’s going to be a very close election.” Harjalo began clapping rhythmically with the crowd
“Do not tax me, tax my children, is that what I hear you are telling me?” Sanmartin was saying in Afrikaans. “Suid-Afrika is becoming different. We will make it different, make it something our grandchildren will be proud of. Am I old enough and cunning enough to be your president? I tell you that the cunning comes natural, and by electing me, you will give me enough gray hairs to look the part in a year's time.”
“What do you think?” Harjalo said with satisfaction. “That’ll make the evening news.”
“She's very good,” Coldewe admitted.
“She knows these people. Suid-Afrika is beginning to change. She'd be unstoppable with a few more years behind her. Which, unfortunately, we don't have.”
A heckler in the front of the crowd yelled out, “Heer President Andries Steen has ten years' experience. How many years have you?”
Harjalo held up his wrist mount so that Coldewe could see it. “We have a camera and a mike over the platform and an operator in back. We're tapping your database, which means that we
have photos and voiceprints for 90 percent of the adult population, courtesy of the vehicle-registration records and those fictitious 'fire surveys' we used to do. Rikki has a flat monitor on the podium. His name is Bret Grobelaar.” Harjalo shook his head. “Stupid of them to pick Grobelaar.”
When Grobelaar repeated his catcall. Rikki acknowledged his presence. “Ah. Heer Grobelaar, how is the phannacy business?”
She stepped away from the podium and walked to the edge of the platfonn so the crowd could see who she was addressing. “Napoleon Bonaparte once said that if experience were all that mattered, Prince Eugen's mules would be the greatest generals. I appreciate your coming to our rally. I shall have to come to one of yours to return the courtesy.”
Grobelaar bravely bellowed, “The Bible says to respect your elders!”
Harjalo shook his bead. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
Rikki tilted her head. “Many a man who cannot direct you to the comer drugstore will get a respectful hearing after age has further impaired his mind.” When the laughter ebbed, she added,
“When you see your uncle, give him my regards.”
“Bret’s uncle liked little girls and bigotry, in that order, which a lot of people remember,” Harjalo explained. “He suicided after he was indicted, around the time we declared war on Admiral Horii. The 'corner drugstore' remark sounds like one of your lines.”
“It is,” Coldewe said absently.
As Rikki ended her remarks and the crowd began cheering, a young girl came up to hand her a bouquet of roses. Spontaneously, she began peeling them off and tossing them to people.
“She's very good,” Coldewe admitted.
Mond
ay (1170)
“WHAT 00 YOU THINK OF THE ETECILON?” SIMON ASKED HIS WIFE at dinner, in a neutral tone of voice.
“Rikki is a nice girl, of course, but the thought of her running for president is ludicrous. I do not know what possessed Adriaan Smith and the Union party to put her name forward. No, the election is already decided, and a good thing, too, because people who matter will be watching to see how we vote.” His wife hlmed her head, unconcerned
Simon picked at his food. “I meant to ask you, have you seen my tweed coat? I couldn't find it yesterday.”
“Simon, that thing is ratty. It is a disgrace for you to wear it.” Maria carefully scraped her plate clean, although conscious of her weight, she had taken very little. “I threw it out.”
She got up and began stacking the dishwasher.
Simon put his fork down and began staring at the food in front of him, which had lost its savor. “Isn't it strange,” he said after a moment, “how much in life depends on tiny coincidences?”
Maria stopped what she was doing and absently brushed aside a stray lock of hair. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“The major events in everyone's life--your career, who you marry--just seem to happen.” He considered the impulse that had led him to sign up for Raul Sanmartin's ecology course.
“Simon,” his wife said sharply, “that makes no sense at all!”
Simon Beee carefully pushed back his chair and began walking toward the door.
“Simon, where are you going?”
“Out” Beetje picked up his hat from the stand beside the door. His mouth twitched. “Rikki may need campaign workers.”
“Simon! You're joking.”
“No,” he said carefully, “I'm not”
Cain's Land Page 6
