Power

by Laurence M. Janifer

  A GENERATION GAP

  WIDER THAN

  THE GULF IN SPACE

  Close to the top of Earth’s pyramid of power was Isidor Norin, leading member of the Council, respected advisor to Emperor Penn VII, and honored pillar of the Establishment.

  In a spaceship orbiting Mars was his son, Aaron Norin, issuing his ultimatum to the government on Earth: that liberty be restored to humanity, or the vital nerve center of the Empire would be destroyed.

  It was father against son, as a young man battling for old dreams and an old man defending new realities faced each other across space in a showdown to the death....

  POWER

  Laurence M. Janifer

  A DELL BOOK

  To S. J. Treibich, who taught me more

  than I could ever teach him.

  Published by

  Dell Publishing Co., Inc.

  1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza

  New York, New York 10017

  Copyright © 1974 by Laurence M. Janifer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced

  in any form or by any means without the

  prior written permission of the Publisher,

  excepting brief quotes used in connection with

  reviews written specifically for

  inclusion in a magazine or newspaper.

  Dell ® TM 681510, Dell Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America First

  printing—September 1974

  HISTORIAE PERSONAE

  OF THE IMPERIUM:

  PENN VII, Most Humble and Graciously Elected Sovereign Emperor of the Comity

  WALTHER IV (deceased), “the first true Emperor of the Comity”

  OF THE IMPERIAL COUNCIL:

  STEPHEN DEMPSEY BETA, Councillor for Ecological Trusts and Interests

  SANN CALLEPARY, Councillor for the Arts

  WYLLIS FORD, Councillor for the Treasury

  ANSON FORMAN ALPHA, Councillor for Defense

  FLOYD WALLER GERRIS, Councillor for Church Order

  ISIDOR NORIN, Councillor for the Dichtung

  ABRAM WALTERS, Councillor for the Outer Satellites

  OF THE DICHTUNG:

  VLADIMIR AARLBERG, Member for the 2nd Asian District

  FRANK DALE, JR., Member for North American Universities

  SUNOMAN DAVIDMAN, Member for African Universities

  CHAKIRIS DEMEUTH, Member for Australasians over forty years of age

  ALDER DUTRAVE, Member for the 2nd Polynesian District

  WALTER FREDERICKS, Member for Manual Trades

  INSTANS GAUGHLIN, Member for the 1st African District

  KNUTE GREENE, Member for the High Judiciary

  PAULUS GRENDON, Member for the European Arts Community

  CHARLES LEVERETT, Chairman

  PERRY ARTHUR REISINGER, Member for Banking Trades

  GERALD TRANSCOME, Member for 1st Division Medical Guilds

  GEORG WEIKI VYABOR-SHU, Member for the Polar Communities

  HARRIS DULLAN WELLS, Member for 3rd Division Secretarial Guilds

  LUIS DANVERS WRIGHT, Member for Agricultural Technicians

  OF INFORMATION SERVICES:

  AMOS DEVORIAS, Public View

  SALVADOR GREIM, Mundo Nuevo

  LIAM HOLYWEN, IP Services

  WILLIS JOHN PFEIFFER, 1st News (announcer)

  FRANCIS ABRAHAM STEIN, Public View

  WALTER TURNBUL, 1st News

  FREDERICK WARRENTON, 1st News

  OF ENTERTAINMENT:

  MILTIADES CANNAM, actor and comedian

  RACHEL NORIN CANNAM, his wife

  his writers:

  JASON GROSSBECK

  SAMUEL HOLLIDAY

  DANIEL DAVID SCHOR

  QUINN ELLIS TRIPP

  RAMON VINDI

  OF THOTH, ON MARS:

  KENTEN ARNOLD, trader

  DORIAN BOHLE, trader and Representative to the Fair Practices Council of Thoth

  JACQUES FROHLICH, Comity Fleet Officer, Sky-watch Mars Fourteen

  WILLIAM HAZELTINE, Comity Fleet Commander, Skywatch Mars Fourteen

  MANVILLE QUIST, trader and entrepreneur

  OF THE COMITY SHIP VALOR:

  SIEGMUND ALLEMEINE, Astrogation Team Assistant

  MARCUS GOVER, Ordinary Machinist

  AARON NORIN, Vice-Commander

  SULIAS WOHNER, Weapons Team Assistant

  OF THE CHURCH OF CHANCE AND PROBABILITY:

  JASON JERRIMINE, Cardinal-explicator for mid-America

  ALPHARD NORIN, his Auxiliary

  OTHERS:

  Members of the Dichtung, information reporters, citizens, officers and men of the Comity Space Arm, functionaries of the Imperial Staff, etc.

  PART I.

  1.

  A prince, therefore, who possesses a strong city and does not make himself hated, cannot be assaulted; and if he were to be so, the assailant would be obliged to retire shamefully; for so many things change, that it is almost impossible for any one to maintain a siege for a year with his armies idle. And to those who urge that the people, having their possessions outside and seeing them burnt, will not have patience, and the long siege and self-interest will make them forget their prince, I reply that a powerful and courageous prince will always overcome those difficulties by now raising the hopes of his subjects that the evils will not last long, now impressing them with fear of the enemy’s cruelty, now by dextrously assuring himself of those who appear too bold.

  —Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (10): translated

  by Luigi Ricci, further revised by E.R.P. Vincent

  2.

  Isidor Norin: it was as if he carried the name blazed on his forehead or at the fold of the official white drop he wore, now, as naturally as street-clothing. As if he were stamped once and for all with name and title, yes: Isidor Norin, Representative in Council to his Humble and Graciously Elected Sovereign Penn VII. Something one got used to, he had heard, and found that he still somewhere believed; but somehow

  one didn’t. He was—at fifty-eight, no less!—just accustomed enough to play a part for them, for the chattering carrion outside every major meeting in all the Government, in all the Comity. Just accustomed enough, after so many years, to pretend that he was on his way, quite uninvolved with the knots of talkers and scribblers and lookers-on—to pretend, in fact, that he was no one at all, quite thoroughly no one— and certainly not Isidor Norin. The feature of the next several hours’ worth of news reports, if the pack that followed him had any say in the matter; as of course they were bound to have. “Every man to his trade,” Penn’s father had been used to say, a propos of nothing, it seemed, in particular; it had taken Norin nearly all of his fifty-eight years to hear the bitterness, the resignation, and the acceptance of knowledge and use behind five words as simple as those. To someone gabbling at his right shoulder he said, “Nothing. Nothing.” But that, he knew, they expected; that deterred not a single jackal, and would not. Especially . . .

  “But, sir—” A newcomer, that one: much too polite to be one of the old guard. “But, sir, the Council discussion—”

  “Is a private matter,” Norin snapped. Well, let them do their irritated worst; he was long past imagining he might ingratiate himself with the fools. “Matters between the Emperor and his Council are private, and are privileged.”

  “And always have been,” another voice said, this one behind him—Turnbull of 1st News clearly enough. Norin went on down the corridor with his long uneven stride, not giving the least of them the satisfaction of stopping, or staring back; they were, when one came to think of it, nothing much to look at. Not now, he thought; not now, and it might be never again. “Which doesn’t mean we can’t chat a bit about it, you know. Never has,
never will. Why—the Comity ought to have news. Information. The facts, man, the facts. We all know that much, now, don’t we? Of course we do. And—”

  “A sacred right,” Norin spat. “Is that what you want to sell me today, Turnbul? I’m not buying.”

  The big 1st News correspondent slipped from behind to walk a few inches ahead of him. “We want your side of it,” he said. “We’d like to be fair—”

  “My side of what?”

  “Ah.” Tumbul, unavoidable, shrugged. Norin found him detestable: a big redheaded man who insisted on all the falsities of bluff heartiness; a back-slapper, a storyteller, a peeping (in short) imbecile. “Of whatever happened in Council,” he went on casually. “We’ll get something from someone—you know that, and there’s no use talking about it. Might be, we’ll get it from someone who doesn’t especially want you to look good. In the eyes of our subscribers.”

  Five hundred million subscribers on three planets and three moons; and Turnbul had the same opinion of them, the big man’s sudden change of tone made clear, that Norin had himself. Which was no prick toward finding Turnbul any more likable: add hypocrisy to peepery, Norin thought. . . .

  “As for instance?” he asked. It seemed necessary to spar with the pack; that was the hold they had over one. Or a sample of the hold . . . The others had bunched a step or two behind, though quite close enough to hear; they were perfectly willing to let Turnbul have his turn. As long as they got their story—which, Norin knew, they were going to do. Turnbul grinned. “That,” he said, “you tell me.”

  “I have no intention—”

  “Of starting a feud between Councillors?” Tumbul cut in. “Understandable, I’d call that. Clear. Simple. So: let’s forget all about it and start from the beginning instead. What was the reason for a Council meeting? This is out of the usual order, and—”

  Norin shrugged, trying to appear casual. “Meetings are called at the pleasure of—”

  “His Humble Et Cetera,” Tumbul said. His eyes moved, summing Norin; clearly, he hadn’t even felt the temptation to be fooled. “But the pleasure usually has some purpose behind it.”

  “I suggest,” Norin said slowly and after a pause, as they all approached the end of the long straight corridor of wood, and came to the three doors arranged right-side, left-side and straight-ahead, “you ask someone else. I do suggest that; you may find the idea helpful.”

  Turnbul, immune of course to any imaginable tone, grinned. “I’ll do that. Others are doing it already, you know. After all, you couldn’t help knowing, now, could you—after so long? But I did think that your side of the matter—”

  “Must I have a side?” One hand on the leftward door, Norin paused, waiting. And thoroughly irritated with himself for doing so.

  “That,” Tumbul said, almost airily, “would depend. As Representative in Council for the Dichtung, you’d naturally have an opinion of some kind—whatever the Dichtung thinks best. If, for instance, the Council was called to discuss possible revisions of the private-revenue statutes . . .” Still grinning, he let the words trail into comparative quiet.

  “Private-revenue problems?” Norin said flatly. “The wrong tree, Turnbul—in the wrong forest.” And yet he did not move. The big man’s calm pose,, the big man’s fixed grin, held him like a hypnotic command. “Sorry. There’s nothing at all to say.” The link would not break. His hand continued to touch, without moving it, the door.

  “Not money,” Turnbul said after a second, speaking as softly as if he were—as he might have been— thinking aloud. “Arms, then? A new reduction in supervisory personnel for the space arm? The Dichtung would have an opinion there, too, wouldn’t it?—five or six opinions, in fact. Walters, Callepary — oh, maybe even eight opinions, or ten. When you think about it.” The grin nearly became a laugh, inviting

  Norin to join in; but the stiff old man stared as if he had been turned to rusted metal in the wooden hall.

  “I’ve said there’s nothing.” And still he stood. Perhaps, subconsciously, he wanted . . . but doubtless anything and everything was in his subconscious, as in everyone’s; from that inexplicable vat you could pull anything you liked, and prove, by psychologic means, anything you wished. The “thinking citizen’s religion,” it was called; but past its palliations and a definite, small number of cures, Norin had found very little thought or care in its wavering revivals.

  Turnbul nodded. “A change in the Council, then. We’ve heard rumors, of course: Forman Alpha grates on too many nerves, which may be the right sort of personality in a Defense Councillor, but doesn’t exactly endear him even to His Humble, not to mention Ford, Gerris, Dempsey Beta, Norin . . . It wouldn’t be something like that, would it?”

  Norin’s hand began to push open the left-hand door. He turned toward it and then, without knowing quite why he did so, turned back once more to give Tumbul a sharp savage smile, remote as Sirius and colder than death. He had never, in twenty years as Councillor, been closer to losing all control over himself. Subconscious, he found himself thinking—as if the bare word meant something. “Do you want to know?” he heard himself say. “Not money, not service distribution, not politics. No. Money . . . men . . . politics . . . No, Turnbul, it’s nothing like that at all.” The smile remained on his face, as if it had been etched there in a deep single slash. No one else seemed to be talking or moving.

  “What then?” Turnbul said quietly—as if, Norin realized, he was a bit afraid of interrupting at all. The smile grew colder.

  “Blood, Turnbul,” Norin said. “Blood, there’s your story. And I hope you die before you get a chance to use it.”

  “But—” the big redhaired man was saying, and behind him someone else yelped, as Norin pushed the door open and was gone. It seemed to him a terribly long time before, all along the shiny metal corridor that led to the Dichtung, he heard the great blow as it slammed shut.

  Blood.

  Damned foolishness; and they’d get the story from someone. Forman Alpha might think disclosure would net him a temporary friend or two among the correspondents. Or Gerris—leaking chatter, as usual, the way a holed ship leaked air. And every one of Tumbul’s fellows knew that, you could depend upon it. All the pack, and all out in full cry . . .

  Oh, yes, they’d get the story. And then he’d be the target for them all, and no mistake. He would have to say something, then. Perhaps . . .

  Perhaps, by that time, he’d have something to say.

  Blood . . . Thin, stiff, old, he clacked down the corridor, wishing Tumbul would stay off the story, wishing they all would, and knowing quite well that they would not. It was just too much of a story; even if it had been no more than the usual failure of a mutiny, they’d all be on it like wolves on—on carrion? On human beings?

  And the mutiny wasn’t a failure. The mutiny was altogether too successful a job. In six hours the story would cover Earth; in sixteen it would cover the inhabited Comity.

  And then . . .

  Figures, persons, attitudes tumbled through the old mirid without mercy. All the worlds of space, of 3V, of fashion, of politics, of government, melted, ran together, offered no solution but a scream . . .

  The metal door ahead, needing no legend, carried none. Norin stood silent before it for two long breaths, and then pushed it open and (as if the great room and the inescapable madness of echoing sound provided him an anaesthetic) plunged into the Dichtung.

  Freddy came running up before the door had even shut, and that, Tumbul told himself, was the wonder and the glory of youth. It was obviously remarkable how quickly you could get somewhere, though it was just as obvious, at the very least, the very, very least, that you had no notion of what to do when you arrived; well, Turnbul reminded himself familiarly, to every age was given its own handicaps. And for every age, most of the handicaps consisted, most of the time, of people of other ages. “Now what in Hell,” Freddy was saying, “was that all about?” Which in its way was not a bad question, though Tumbul wasn’t at all sure it ha
d an answer.

  He shrugged. “Give me a little time to analyze matters,” he said. “After all, it is in the depth and care of their analyses that the veteran correspondents display their experienced value to a wide audience which must, if it is to act properly, be informed not only of the facts but of the—”

  “Oh, dam Niagara, will you, Walter?” Freddy said. “Whatever it is, it means about as much as old Flint-nose meant by whatever-the-Hell that was. Your idea of help?”

  “—meanings and interpretations behind the facts, and who’s old Flintnose?”

  “Norin,” Freddy said, really no more impatiently than usual; one had to preserve a sense of proportion in these matters. “All that—blood, for God’s sake. Whatever God. What does he mean, all that about blood?” Freddy made a violent gesture which looked at the same time awkward and entirely correct; another privilege of the young, Turnbul told himself. At times they seemed to have every privilege except the privilege, somewhat unsatisfying to its owner but rather pleasant for his surroundings, of making sense. Not all of the time. But was making sense even some of the time too much to ask? Apparently.

  “He means: blood,” Turnbul said. “Which, after a lengthy analysis, I may be able to elucidate in terms which—” Freddy made another gesture, equally impatient, and Turnbul blinked rather sadly and asked: “What do the others say?” The hail-fellow-well-met stuff was for sources, not for workmates or apprentices, and it dropped from him like a loose blanket. Not that that made any difference either; what, Turn-bul asked himself for the first, slow time, is happening to me?