A World Between

by Norman Spinrad

  “Very well,” Falkenstein said. “Conditionally accepted.”

  “Secondly, you may only give the students such brain-eptifiers as pass Ministry of Science approval.”

  “No problem,” Falkenstein said. “Despite the paranoid propaganda, those drugs really do do nothing but improve brain function, and if your scientists are at all competent, they’ll find that out”

  “Third, all students are to have free access to net consoles. That’s their constitutional right, and totally nonnegotiable.”

  “Very well.”

  “Finely,” Royce said, “I don’t like the way you’re teaching things here. Seems to me you’re establishing a mind-set before you get down to teaching anything concrete, and that does come perilously close to brainwashing…”

  “No!” Falkenstein said sharply. “That goes too far! You will not be permitted to dictate our methodology. We will not consider putting dangerous knowledge in the hands of people who have not been properly prepared to handle it. You know the reasons. We have to have some semblance of security, and you’re leaving us little else.”

  Royce pondered that for a moment. Carstairs had resisted mind-molding simply because he happened to have some training in media psychodynamics. Surely a crash-course in the same should do the same thing for the psychically stable, politically neutral Pacifican scientists screened by the Ministry of Science. And it really didn’t matter if some of them were affected. We’re so close to an agreement…we’ve got to take this one small risk.

  “Okay,” he said, “I’d concede that point for the sake of an agreement Do we have a deal now, Roger?”

  Falkenstein got up and began pacing in small circles. “Perhaps,” he said. “If you agree to two conditions of mine…”

  “I’m listening.”

  Falkenstein stopped pacing, put his hands on the table, leaned forward, and stared at Royce. “We must have some assurance that nothing we teach the Pacifican students will be passed along to the Femocrats,” he said. “As I understand your laws, there’s nothing to prevent any Pacifican Institute graduate from selling information to them.”

  “I can handle that,” Royce said. “As Minister of Media, I act as agent for all Web transactions, and I can construe the Femocrat mission on the planet as an extraplanetary customer. As we both know, the Femocrats have zilch in the way of galactic credits. I will guarantee that no cut-rate technology sales to the Femocrats or anyone else will be approved. You have my word on it”

  Falkenstein sank back into his chair. “Is that the official word of the Pacifican government?” he asked.

  “It’s the word of honor of Royce Lindblad, Minister of Media of Pacifica,” Royce said stiffly. “That will have to do.”

  Falkenstein pondered a moment. He sighed. “Very well, then,” he said quietly, “we have an agreement. But just one more thing…” He paused. He glanced at his wife, who had been listening to all this with a face of stone. He looked back at Royce. “No female students,” he said. “That must stand. We can’t risk that”

  Maria Falkenstein blanched. She seemed to be about to say something, but her husband caught her short with a cold withering stare.

  This is sure going to make it harder to sell the total package, and Carlotta is not going to like it, Royce thought. But he couldn’t honestly say that he didn’t understand Falkenstein’s position. The thought of such advanced technology in the hands of the Femocrats made his stomach quiver, and with what was going on, he couldn’t honestly say that any woman on the planet could be totally reliable politically. That thought itself deeply disturbed him, but there it was, and he couldn’t deny it.

  “I don’t like it, Roger, and it’s going to make things a lot harder for me politically,” he said. “But I suppose I have to accept it, don’t I?”

  Falkenstein sighed. His face, his whole body, seemed to melt into relaxation. “Then we have an agreement,” he said. He filled the three empty wineglasses on the table and held his own aloft ceremoniously. “Shall we drink to it?”

  Royce picked up his own glass. He leaned back in his chair. I’ve done it! he thought. I’ve won. I’ve sailed us into safe harbor. He clinked glasses with Falkenstein. “To better days!” he said.

  “If you gentlemen will excuse me…” Maria Falkenstein said acidly. She shot a vicious glance at her husband and stalked out of the dining room.

  Seething with rage and ill-understood confusion, Maria Falkenstein paced the narrow confines of their bedroom as Roger entered, his face contorted with anger, and slammed the door shut behind him.

  “That was an amazing performance you put on in there,” he snapped. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “You asked me to stay!” Maria shot back belligerently.

  “To lend your support, not to interfere in my negotiations with Lindblad!”

  “You asked for my counsel and you got it! You also got an agreement, now didn’t you, Roger? Despite my stupid female interference, perhaps even because of it. If I hadn’t spoken up when I did, you might still be trying to treat him like some naive primitive when all the while he was smarter than you were.”

  “What?” Roger shouted. He sat down on the edge of the bed and gaped up at her. “I don’t believe I’m hearing this!”

  Neither do I! Maria thought in numb amazement. I’ve never spoken to you like this before, I’ve never even thought of doing it. Somehow that thought by itself tapped some inner core of anger that gave her the courage to go on.

  “While you’ve been interfering in the local culture, I’ve had plenty of time on my hands to take a good look at what we’re meddling with,” she said. “Lindblad is no fool and these Pacificans are by no means intellectual inferiors. They may be far behind us in science and technology; but how far behind them are we when it comes to political sophistication, to constructing a society that works for everyone, to justice, to simply living together as human beings?”

  “This is preposterous!” Roger said. “What’s wrong with our society? What’s wrong with the way we live together as human beings? Great suns, Maria, have you become infected by the Femocrat pathology?”

  Maria sank down into a chair near the door, as far away from Roger as possible. No, she thought, if I’ve become infected with anything, it’s Pacifica. The way men and women treated each other on this planet before we interfered. The way their political system continues to function even under this terrible stress. Their willingness to accept negative pragmatic consequences to stay true to this concept of constitutionality, this esthetic of justice. Their ability to compromise. We have so little of that, whatever it is. So little that we can’t even quite conceive of what it is we’re lacking. So little that you don’t even feel the loss, Roger.

  “Femocracy?” she said. “No, when it comes down to what the Pacificans have, they’re at least as pathetic as we are.”

  “Pathetic? We’re pathetic? What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing you would understand, Roger,” Maria said. “I can’t say I really understand it myself. I only know that these are a noble people, nobler than we are in ways I’ve not yet been able to fully understand.” She laughed bitterly. “Instead of inflicting our Institute on them, perhaps we should petition them for teachers. Though I’m not at all sure that what they know can really be taught.”

  Roger stared at her in bewilderment. Suddenly he seemed so distant, so brittle, so…so diminished in her eyes. One of us has become a stranger, Roger, she thought. And I think it’s me.

  Roger shook his head, got up, and turned down the bedclothes. “I’ve had about enough of this,” he said. “Let’s go to bed. Perhaps you’ll be more rational in the morning.”

  Maria stood up. She looked across the room at him. Her eyes burned——whether from sadness or anger or sense of loss, she couldn’t say. Her mind was a roaring vortex of confusion. She felt a rage pulsing up hot and red from her unexamined core, and a strange wistful tenderness equally beyond her previous experience. All that was clear
was her immediate need to be alone.

  “I think I’d better sleep in the living room tonight, Roger,” she said.

  Roger looked at her in numb amazement. “My wife!” he snapped. “An Institute graduate! Raving at me with female emotionalism! Look at you, Maria, you’re acting like some primitive irrational planetbound Pacifican!”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Maria shouted. “What in hell is wrong with that?” She ran from the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

  13

  The sky was a cloudless blue over Lorien lagoon, the sea was tranquil as glass, Rugo was down on the beach communing with a flock of wild bumblers, and Royce beamed at Carlotta Madigan as they sat together on the veranda as if he had just won a sailboat race. Everything was the very picture of natural ease and domestic bliss.

  And Royce, her bucko, her closest political ally, her alter ego, had just told her that he had unilaterally made a deal with Roger Falkenstein behind her back, had sold her out to Transcendental Science.

  How am I supposed to react? Carlotta wondered. Am I supposed to rant and rave and tear my hair? Cry? Royce was no help; he just sat there grinning as if he expected a pat on the head and a hearty “Well done, bucko!”

  “I must admit I don’t quite know what to say, Royce,” she finally answered. “Up yours? Drop dead? Et tu, Brute?”

  “You’re pissed off?” Royce asked with infuriating innocence.

  Carlotta looked down at Rugo, waddling along the beach with his fellow bumblers. “Did you hear that, Rugo?” she shouted. “The man asked me if I’m pissed off!” She looked back at Royce, who was frowning now, apparently having finally gotten the message. “Yes, Royce,” she said thickly. “I am pissed off. I am hurt. I am amazed. In fact, bucko, you could say I’m fucking infuriated!”

  “What’s wrong with you, Carlotta?” Royce snapped, reacting to her anger with a mixture of wounded innocence and superior annoyance. “It’s the best possible thing that could’ve been done under the circumstances. What would you have done differently?”

  “Closed the bloody Institute!” Carlotta yelled. “In fact, that’s what I’m going to do anyway. You can forget this stupid deal of yours.”

  “You can’t close the Institute,” Royce said angrily. “Only a vote of Parliament can, and you know it.”

  “When you make your report to Parliament on the net, believe me, there’ll be enough votes to close it down,” Carlotta said. “Politically screened students! Brainwashing! Phony female students! Lies! Treachery! By the time we’re through, even the mano Delegates won’t be able to vote against closing the Institute.”

  “I won’t do it,” Royce said evenly.

  “What? What did you say?”

  “I said I won’t do it.”

  Carlotta stared at Royce as if he were some strange new species of animal. What in the world has gotten into him? “Why won’t you do it?” she said tensely, fighting back her rage.

  “First because I gave Falkenstein my word of honor, and second because I’m right and you’re wrong.”

  “Royce! Royce!” Carlotta shouted. “What did they feed you there?”

  “Will you stop shouting and listen to me for a minute!” Royce snapped. He got up and began pacing in small circles. “We’ve got a deal with Falkenstein now whether you like it or not, and that means it’s in his interest to cool it. But if I double-cross him, he’ll fight us like a godzilla with an ironbush thorn up its ass. And the Femocrats will move in for the kill. By the time you bring it to a vote, the issue won’t be the treachery of the Institute, it’ll be Femocracy versus Bucko Power, men versus women, a split right down the middle in every Delegate constituency on the planet! If you were a Delegate in that situation, how do you think you’d vote?”

  “I’d—”

  “I’ll tell you how you’d vote! You’d vote against the resolution, but first you’d make it clear that you were doing it only to force an electronic vote of confidence on the issue. That way, only Carlotta Madigan would have to face the electorate on the issue, and she’d be out on her ass because she’d be running against her own damn Madigan Plan! Net result: the Institute stays open, you’re out of office, and the planet is put through the most polarizing electronic vote of confidence possible. Very clever, lady!”

  Royce sat down. He smiled ruefully at her. “Go ahead,” he said, “tell me I’m wrong.”

  “I can’t,” Carlotta said. “But the deal you’ve made is no better. In return for some control over admissions, I’m supposed to endorse an all-male student body? How do you expect me to sell something like that when it makes my own blood boil?”

  “Simple,” Royce said. “We just don’t mention it. We just announce that Falkenstein has agreed to accept Ministry of Science control over admissions and pat ourselves on the back for having won a victory. We don’t confirm the charge. The hand is quicker than the eye.”

  “That is loathsome, Royce,” Carlotta said. “That is faschochauvinism. Besides, even if I could do it without vomiting, what’s the point? In less than four months, the trial period will be over and we’ll be right back where we started.”

  “At which point, we call for the ouster of both the Transcendental Scientists and the Femocrats.”

  “What?” Carlotta shouted. He’s gone whackers! she thought. That’s what all this is. Falkenstein’s fed him something that’s turned his mind to mulch. “You’re starting to gibber, bucko,” she said. “If that’s the net result, then what are we putting ourselves through all this shit for?”

  “For a Pacifican Institute of Transcendental Science,” Royce said.

  “Huh?”

  “Run by Pacificans, staffed by Pacificans, with a student body of male and female Pacificans, and no off-worlder meddling,” Royce said. “You never gave me a chance to tell you what else I’ve done.”

  “Great grunting godzillas, there’s more?”

  “I’ve got a list of middle-level Pacifican scientists screened for stability and political neutrality. They’ll be put through a crash-course in media psychodynamics to counteract any Institute brainwashing. We’ll slip them into the new student body. In four months, they may not know as much as the Heisenberg people, but they should know enough to put us in the Transcendental Science business for ourselves.”

  “An all-male spy corps, I gather?”

  “Obviously.”

  “And this is the keystone of the vast political edifice you’ve built up on your own behind my back?” Carlotta said. “Who’s the Chairman here, anyway? You’ve been a busy little bucko, haven’t you?”

  “I’ve been doing my job,” Royce said stonily. “I’ve done what I thought best.”

  “What you thought best!” Carlotta shouted, bolting to her feet. “I thought I was the effing Chairman! I thought we were a team! Now you tell me you’ve committed my administration to some godzilla-brained scheme without even bothering to consult me!”

  “Yeah, well I thought I was the Minister of Media, not just your tame errand boy!” Royce snapped. He rose, and they stood there glaring at each other, nose-to-nose, toe-to-toe.

  “That doesn’t mean you can commit this administration to a policy without my authority!” Carlotta said.

  “I didn’t commit your effing administration to anything, Carlotta! I committed me, Royce Lindblad, Minister of Media of Pacifica. I gave Falkenstein my word, not yours. I made it clear I wasn’t speaking for the whole government. For once in my life, I made a personal political decision on my own. Falkenstein seemed to think the support of the Pacifican Minister of Media was worth something on its own, without the great Carlotta Madigan, even if you don’t!”

  “And if I tell you I think what you’ve done stinks? If I tell you that it’s my independent decision to come out for the closing of the Institute now?”

  Royce paused. The anger seemed to drain out of him. He walked over to the railing of the veranda, leaned up against it, and stared out over the tranquil turquoise sea. “You’re an indepen
dent human being, Carlotta,” he said quietly. “You’re entitled to go your way if you think it best. And so am I.”

  Carlotta came up beside him. A flock of boomerbirds overhead began honking in chorus, and for once the sound seemed sad and mournful, a far-off dirge. “But you wouldn’t support me, would you Royce?” she said softly. “We’d be on opposite sides. You’d do what you could to keep the Institute open.”

  “I made my decision and I gave my word,” Royce said, turning to her. “What am I if that means nothing? A Terran breeder on a chain? Can’t you respect that, Carlotta?”

  “Bucko Power…?” Carlotta muttered sardonically. Royce laughed, and for a flash, he was her bucko again, the breeze ruffling his long hair, the sun shining golden through his eyelashes, and Carlotta sensed that this was not a death; that which bound them together was stronger than what was now driving them apart. Stretched a little thin by the pain of this moment, perhaps, but yet alive.

  “You could call it that,” Royce said softly. “I love you, and at least as far as I’m concerned, no political hassle is going to change that, babes. But I’m the second most important official on this planet, and if I didn’t have the balls to stand on my own against my woman when I thought I was right, what would that say about Pacifican men? If you can’t live with that, what does it say about you? About us? About what we’re supposed to believe in?”

  “Am I really like that?” Carlotta asked. “Have I really kept you in my shadow?”

  Royce shrugged. He touched her arm. “I think maybe we’ve been like that,” he said. He smiled at her. “Besides, you’re one hell of a lady, and you’re usually right.”

  A strange feeling came over Carlotta. Without Royce’s support, any move on her part to close the Institute now would be an utter disaster. Her own Ministry of Media would be against her, and the man who had done so much to get her past other crises would be on the other side. And this deal with Falkenstein, this plan to infiltrate the Institute with male spies personally loyal to him, stank of faschochauvinism and the pathology of the Pink and Blue War. She was blocked, she was hamstrung, and it was Royce who was doing it to her.