Then the news of the hour moved on and the furor subsided. Slowly my popularity revived, until it nudged back above fifty percent, but it never recovered its former health. I had learned a cynical political lesson. Like a military commander who first experiences the carnage of battle, I had been blooded.
I stood for the things I stood for, but never again would I believe that the voters did. Their love was superficial. Perhaps they deserved the type of politician they usually got.
I had pardoned the four bombers, but I would not pardon the fickleness of the electorate.
CHAPTER 12
SATURN
When I was two years along in my governorship, President Kenson’s second term expired and his party put up an inadequate candidate for the office. The precession of politics can tilt it into the promotion of imperfection, with the reaction seemingly at right angles to the force applied. The candidate favored by the party regulars is not necessarily the one favored by the majority of the electorate, and neither of these may be best for the actual office. As a result the opposition party won, and their standard-bearer was Tocsin, Megan’s nemesis, who had lost to Kenson before. His second try, like mine for governor, had proved successful, and now he was president.
It did not take Jupiter long to feel his nature; the special interests were flourishing, and programs for the disadvantaged were being drastically cut back. Tocsin had railed against the bleeding-heart liberalism of his predecessor, equating it with Saturnism. He had promised to bring monetary discipline to the planet, along with good old-fashioned law and order. The results of these thrusts, which, of course, did not apply to the wealthy or the special interests, were increasing separation between the rich and the poor, erosion of the broad middle class, and various forms of rebellion. Violence had been increasing over the years, as my direct experience had shown; now it magnified. Strikes and demonstrations abounded, and there were more—and more savage—riots. Everywhere except the state of Sunshine. For reasons that remained somehow obscure to the conservative commentators of the planetary scene, the Hispanic and Black neighborhoods of Sunshine were comparatively quiet.
It was not coincidence, of course. We had bypassed irrelevant state requirements and certified more language teachers in the past two years than any state had ever done in a similar period before. We had freed more prisoners. There had been dire predictions of a wave of crime, but no such wave had appeared. We did not coddle true criminals; we just made sure of their nature before we put them away. The state of Sunshine also now had more female appointees than ever before; all we required for any office was competence, and Spirit handled the details. Thus Sunshine was becoming an island of quiet in a nation that was moving the other way.
Elsewhere in the Solar System, things were also intensifying. Tension was rising everywhere, so I realized that it could not be blamed simply on the policies of one government, tempting as that might be. Assassination was becoming a leading device for political change. Bombs were going off at embassies, and citizens of the southern nations of Jupiter were being “disappeared” at an alarming rate. I liked none of this, but there was little I could do about it.
Suddenly a portion of that situation changed. A small interplanetary passenger-ship line that operated between the moons of Jupiter and the moons of Saturn had had a problem: One of its ships that had been headed for Titan had somehow drifted off course and passed through restricted Saturn-space. The Saturnines had tracked it, fired on it, and holed it. All its crew and passengers were dead. It included fifty Jupiter citizens, eight of which were residents of Sunshine, and one of whom was a representative from a Sunshine district. That made it my business. The representative had been conservative, opposing my policies; it didn’t matter. As governor I had a responsibility to all residents of Sunshine.
There was a national hullabaloo, of course: cries of outrage, angry denunciations, demands for action. “The Saturnines aren’t like us!” pontificants exclaimed. “This proves it! Those beasts like to hole unarmed passenger ships!” I knew it couldn’t be that simple, but I was angry, too. But what could I do? President Tocsin raged against Saturn in a special news conference and promised appropriate action, but did nothing.
A message from Faith in Ami heightened my dilemma. “Two Sunshine Hispanics were on that ship. The folk of this community are asking when you will recover their bodies for proper burial.”
Recover the bodies? A fantasy! The ship was in a decaying orbit around Saturn, and only the Saturnines could get at it. Yet my people expected me to act when the president could not.
“You know, Hope—” Spirit murmured thoughtfully.
“But it’s crazy!” I protested, though she had not actually voiced the thought.
“Yet, correctly played ...”
I knew what she meant. There was a daring opportunity here. “Still, it could mean my life.”
She put her hand on mine. “Our lives.”
I sighed. It was time to be a hero again.
“You’re crazy, sir,” Shelia exclaimed when I told her what I wanted arranged. But she got to work on it.
“I cannot go there,” Coral protested. “They would—”
“They would treat you the same way the authorities of Callisto would treat me if I went there,” I agreed. “Don’t worry; you will remain here with my staff, for this.” I understood about the special problems of refugees, being one myself.
We chartered a yacht, a sleek and swift civilian ship with a competent crew. I made sure that her captain knew the nature of my project, so he could turn it down if he chose. He paled but accepted. “It’s time someone did something like this, sir,” he said.
I told Megan and Hopie, of course, expecting them to condemn this as idiocy. Indeed, Megan did: “You’re going to Saturn? Hope, this is preposterous!”
“I want to go, too!” Hopie exclaimed, clapping her hands. She was eleven now, and already she reminded me hauntingly of Spirit at that age. Perhaps all little girls are somewhat alike, or maybe it’s my foolish fancy.
“You will do nothing of the kind!” Megan exclaimed, horrified. “This thing is suicide!”
Hopie frowned. “You mean Daddy’s supposed to go alone?”
Megan turned away, wounded. Children lack the subtlety of adults, and their innocent words can cut like lasers.
“Of course, she should stay with you,” I told Megan quickly
Megan turned back to face me. “We’ll both go,” she said shortly.
Hopie jumped up and down. “Oh, goody! I’ll do a school paper on it!”
Megan had decided that if I was determined to risk my death in space, she would accompany me. The stories on the entertainment holo imply that only young love is self-sacrificing; they err. I would give my life for Megan, and she for me. This is not to suggest that we don’t have differences on occasion. This trip was an example of both unity and difference.
We wasted no time. We issued no public statement, but naturally Thorley knew. He phoned me.
“Governor, is this an official excursion?” he asked, his familiar face looking supremely relaxed on the screen. I have never been certain just how he manages that atmosphere; certainly he is most dangerous when seeming least attentive.
“It—will be,” I answered guardedly. I didn’t want any advance notice in the media but knew that what the governor did was, almost by definition, public business.
“Then you cannot bar the press.”
I nodded grimly. I had not anticipated this. Even an innocent remark in the media, prematurely, could ruin the effort.
“I will be there in two hours,” he said.
“You ? Thorley, this may be dangerous!”
“And the supreme news event of the month,” he said.
He had courage; I had never doubted that. “As you wish. But if that news gets out before we take off—”
“Credit this old conservative with some modicum of discretion, Governor,” he said smoothly, and faded out.
Discret
ion? That, too, he possessed in considerable measure. He was my perpetual gadfly and annoyance, but he was no yellow journalist.
We set out for Saturn. When we were safely in space, my staff in Hassee issued the press release that announced my intention. I was going to Saturn to recover the bodies of Sunshine citizens, demand an apology, and obtain reparations.
The reaction, as it was relayed to us, was explosive. We had time to catch it all, as we were accelerating initially at 1.5 gee, then easing off to free-fall, spin-ship, and the settling in for a ten-day journey.
First, there was a cheer from the Hispanic community that we almost thought we could hear directly: “Viva !” Second, there was a media headline: HUBRIS DOES IT AGAIN! That meant that I was making another ass of myself, tilting at another windmill. Third, President Tocsin hit the phone.
We received his signal, coded for privacy. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Hubris?” he demanded, his jowls working. In that moment he sounded just like Kenson. Presidents of any party or philosophy cannot stand to have their prerogatives infringed. But what I owed Tocsin was rather different from what I owed Kenson.
“Mr. President, I am doing my duty by my constituents,” I said, pleased to see him so angry. This was an incidental benefit.
“You have no business dabbling in interplanetary matters!” he exclaimed with some justice.
“When those whose business it is renege on their responsibilities, it becomes necessary for others to take up the slack,” I said smugly.
I had hoped to provoke him. I succeeded beyond my expectations. “You shithead spic,” he swore. “Turn back or I’ll blast your ass out of space!”
He was bluffing. He could indeed order my ship to be downed, but such an act would carry a horrendous political penalty, for the people of Jupiter were overwhelmingly with me on this matter.
Presidents, like governors, are highly attuned to popular reaction. “You do your duty as you see fit, Mr. President,” I said calmly. “I will do mine.”
“I’m going to see you hung by the balls for treason, Hubris,” he snarled, his face mottling red as he cut off.
“At least I’ve got them, Mr. President,” I muttered under my breath to the blank screen, smiling. What a naughty pleasure this was! I had hated Tocsin since I learned of what he had done to Megan.
Megan stepped into the communications chamber. “I wish you hadn’t done that, Hope.”
I gazed at her levelly. “That man destroyed you politically. I will destroy him.”
“And become just like him?”
That shook me. It wasn’t that I believed it could happen, but I saw that she did. She really disliked hard-nosed politics. “I married you so that you could make sure I never go that route,” I reminded her.
“I only hope I have the power.” But she smiled, forgiving me, and I kissed her. She would never confess it openly, but she had to have felt some illicit satisfaction in my treatment of her nemesis Tocsin. That is about as much as I care to say on that. If I do not go into much detail on my private relations with Megan, it is not because they are unimportant to me. Rather, it is that I have no wish to perhaps demean them by setting them to crude paper. Megan was always a very private person, personally, and I respect that.
“I’ll try not to bait Tocsin anymore,” I promised her.
And, of course, Thorley sent his dispatch from the yacht. It was remarkably gentle to me, almost suggesting that the notorious Hubris might for once have done something of which he could approve. Certainly he would not have complimented me merely because I had permitted him to come on the major news scoop of the month.
Why all the fuss? One would almost suspect that the errant governor of the Great State of Sunshine had pardoned someone. Doesn’t it make perfect sense to challenge the Saturnines on their home turf when they have done something slightly more than routinely reprehensible? Somebody has to, as it were, pick up the pieces.
Yet, of course, there was the chance that we would become pieces ourselves, for Saturn was no gentle power. Why was Thorley putting his own life on the line along with that of the governor, whose liberal policies he deplored? I didn’t need to ask, for my talent brought me understanding. Thorley had a nose for significance; that was his talent. He liked to get close to the truth, whatever it might be, so that he could shape it into his image. Indeed, in his hands the truth could assume an entirely new aspect. He also knew well the value of publicity; his career could profit handsomely from this exploit.
And there was something else, deeper and more important than any other motivation, that would never be mentioned, that did him credit of a sort. But I think it is not my business to pass judgment on that. Thorley, like Megan, deserves the privacy of his deepest heart.
We ate and slept and ate again, and set the ship’s time for Saturn time, which differed from Jupiter’s by several hours. The days passed. No Jupiter ship came after us, and Tocsin made no public statement about my excursion. But he could not prevent the media from doing so, and they had a ball with it. An open planetary raffle was set up, to guess the day that Thorley would be put out the lock without a suit; naturally it was presumed that we were fighting tooth and nail. There were innovative and at times off-color skits broadcast, in which the actors portrayed Critic and Governor and spewed out invective at each other while the ship headed for collision with a planetoid.
But Thorley, as I had learned early, was in person a most engaging companion; he kept his politics out of polite conversation.
He joined us for meals and made a fourth for games of old-fashioned cards, teaming with Spirit against Megan and me, and his smooth wit made him a delight. He also taught Hopie to play chess, which he claimed was a game of royalty.
“You seem like such a nice man,” Hopie told him. “Why are you always so mean to my father?”
Thorley laughed, as if this were rare wit. “It is my profession, child. I do to public figures metaphorically what your father does to them politically.”
Megan and Spirit and I, theoretically engaged in our separate pursuits at that moment, paused to listen without interfering. There was more to this than was evident.
“Is it true you saved his life?” she asked with her typical directness.
Thorley smiled. “That might be an exaggeration. It is true there was an incident some time ago.”
“And you got lasered instead of him?”
He shrugged. “It could be put that way. Actually I believe it was your mother the man was aiming at, as a target of opportunity.”
“Back before I was born?”
“Prehistoric,” he agreed wryly. “So the matter need not concern you, Hopie, if I may address you so familiarly.”
“So if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t exist.”
Thorley knew what she had for the moment forgotten: that Hopie was an adopted child. But he did not remind her of that. “It is certainly possible.”
“So I suppose I can’t hate you, even if you deserve it.”
“I would be distressed to have you hate me, Hopie, however deserving of the sentiment I may be.”
“Then will you stop writing those mean things?”
Thorley spread his hands. “I can no more change my nature than your father can change his.”
Surprisingly she smiled. “Well, at least you are honest.”
He smiled back. “I fear I may not merit such an accolade. Let’s just say I am consistent.”
“Okay.” She returned her attention to the chess game. She was doing well, there, for Thorley had spotted her the queen, both castles, a bishop, and a knight. There seemed to be a savage battle among pawns in progress.
I glanced about and caught Spirit and Megan exchanging a glance. It was as if a necessary hurdle had been navigated.
In due course we approached Saturn. This planet has, of course, always been known for its phenomenal ring system; indeed, there was a period in the history of man when it was believed that Saturn was the only planet to possess r
ings. Now it is known that all planets and a number of moons possess rings, albeit sometimes of insignificant scope. But those of Saturn are truly in a class by themselves, and all of us were fascinated as the details became clearer. First the eye perceived the archaically named A, B, C, and D rings, with the Encke, Cassini, and Guerin divisions. Then the rest of it came clear, for the total ring system is enormous, extending out some eight times the radius of the planet, and fading only as a matter of diminishing returns. We knew that the rings were inhabited by refugees from the former government of South Saturn, who had had to exchange embassies when Jupiter did the same with Ganymede. That gave me a certain feeling of identity, irrelevant as it was. We also knew that on one tiny moonlet, hardly more than a large ring-particle, was an isolated colony of Uranus’ moon Titania, one of the diminishing vestiges of the Titanian Empire that had once spanned portions of the entire Solar System. Thus, in physics and politics, the rings of Saturn were a microcosm of System history.
As we came within local communication range—that is, close enough to allow conversation without significant pauses for transition—we were hailed by a cruiser of the Saturn Navy. “Jupiter ship, you are intruding on private space. Turn back immediately.”
I took the screen. “I am Governor Hubris of the state of Sunshine of the United States of Jupiter Planet,” I replied in English. “I am coming to claim what belongs to my state and my planet.”
“You are intruding on Saturn space,” the officer repeated firmly. “Turn back. We are giving adequate warning.”
I stared him in the eye. “Please state your rank and identity. We are rebroadcasting this exchange to Jupiter for use by the uncensored news media and wish to give credit where it is due.”
That did not seem to faze him. “If you do not turn we shall fire on you.”
“I am sure that will make excellent news,” I said. “I am Governor Hope Hubris, and the members of my party are my wife Megan, my sister Spirit, my daughter Hopie, and the correspondent Thorley. The others are ship personnel who need not concern you; only we five will make planetfall at Saturn.”
Bio of a Space Tyrant Vol. 3. Politician Page 24
