The Iron Maiden

by Piers Anthony

  “Granted,” Hope said.

  Thus simply did the crisis end. Hope was Tyrant again.

  The first thing Spirit did was go to the prison to release Thorley. No one challenged her. Everyone knew that the old order was returning, and that she spoke for the Tyrant. Why the Iron Maiden would want to free the Tyrant’s leading critic was her own business. Oh, yes—because the Tyrant believed in free speech, even for those who chastised him. That had been absent in recent years.

  Thorley stood as she entered his cell. He looked older, and not merely in age. The stifling of the press had been destroying him more than the imprisonment. She plunged into his embrace, avidly kissing him. “You knew I’d come for you, troglodyte.”

  “I knew,” he agreed. “But I feared for you. And for others.”

  “Fear no more. Just write your expose.” She kissed him again. “After you take me to your apartment.”

  “But others will see! They will know!”

  “Let them know! I love you.”

  He gazed at her in wonder. “It can be open now?”

  “Don’t you believe in freedom of expression?”

  “Not when it pointlessly hurts those I love. There is such a thing as privacy.”

  “Let this be public. All except–”

  “I understand.” They went to his apartment, and it was much as it had been thirty five years before. They were both old, but there was, as he would later put it, a mighty store of passion to expiate.

  Forta, Spirit and Hopie went to Ganymede to join Hope. He hugged each in turn, then reverted to immediacies. “Why didn’t you tell me about Roulette?”

  Hopie caught on. “Forta emulates your former wives?”

  “Something like that,” he admitted, embarrassed.

  “And you lacked time to cover your body when the broadcast started?” Spirit asked Rue with a smile.

  “I didn’t want anyone disconnecting early,”

  “Nobody on the planet disconnected!” Spirit agreed.

  It was the end of the affair, in more than one sense.

  CHAPTER 19

  FIFTEEN WOMEN

  The following three years were busy ones, as Spirit organized the renewed Tyrancy and kept the mechanics of the Dream operating. Hope, under doctor’s orders to relax, was satisfied to be the figurehead. He wrote most of the final volume of his memoirs, directing that all of them go to his daughter at his death. Hopie had an education coming!

  In those three years there was full production of another breakthrough: self-receiving light-travel units. With Jupiter participating, technology was advancing rapidly. This meant that a slow physical ship did not have to take decades or centuries to reach a new settlement region and set up a receiver; the lightship itself could translate to physical form and set up the new bubbles. Colonization of far reaches would still take time, of course, for space was huge, but the process could start immediately. To the colonists, translation from the local System to that of a far star would seem instant, though many years would have passed.

  Hopie was much involved in this effort, and she roped in Robertico and Amber. Hopie was also assuming more of the likeness of Hope, in little mannerisms and talents. She had known Hope all her life, of course, and admired his ways (with certain limited exceptions), but this was more than mere imitation. She sometimes had visions, and on occasion seemed to be able to read people. She was of course related to him by blood, if not the way she supposed; something could have been passed along. Thorley, now a widower, remarked on it also.

  Spirit went with Hope and Forta to review the Triton Project. She had been in close touch with it all along, of course, but Hope had not. As their ship approached Triton she saw and appreciated his amazement. The project had started as a single dome on the planet. Now it was a monstrous complex spreading from crater to crater. Projection tubes orbited it, not one or two, but hundreds. As they drew near, the size of them became apparent: each greater in diameter than any ship they had known in the Navy. What monstrous vessels were they designed to accommodate?

  Then, in closer orbit, they spied those vessels: colony ships of a scale hardly imagined before. Even after allowing for necessary supplies for a decade or so, including construction equipment for planetary sites, each ship looked big enough to handle tens of thousands of colonists. Yet these were not the major vessels; the big ones were bubbles, to be projected entire, with up to a million residents each. Those were being outfitted in the atmosphere of Neptune. No wonder this project was expensive!

  Hope shook his head, bemused by what was being wrought. “If only Khukov could have seen this,” he murmured.

  Spirit squeezed Hope’s scarred arm, signaling her understanding. Her life, too, was merged in this project. She had done the actual organizational work to make it come to pass. She also had been closer to Khukov than many others knew. She had not loved him, but had come to care for him, and his untimely death still pained her. She had of course told Thorley, and he had understood. He knew about illicit romance.

  Hope glanced at her. They had been apart much of the time in recent years, as she traveled to Jupiter and the inner planets, handling the myriad executive details of the organization of man’s effort of colonization. She was sixty-five now, and believed she looked it. She had not bothered with the treatments and cosmetics that retarded the semblance of aging, and the faint pattern of scars on her face had become more pronounced.

  Then he was kissing her. She had not known he was going to do it. She was kissing back; she had not known she would do that, either. She felt as if she were twelve again. Then he drew away, and looked away, and she neither moved nor spoke. They still shared a secret: their continuing muted passion for each other.

  Forta was gazing ahead, looking at Triton and the massive complex of the project on its surface. “You left your kidneys here,” she murmured. She did not comment on the kiss. And Spirit wondered again: did Forta emulate Spirit for Hope on occasion? She had done it to conceal Spirit’s absence, but did she also do it in bed? It was a question Spirit could not ask. It sent her into a daydream: could she do what Roulette had done, and substitute herself for Forta’s emulation of her, so that Hope did not know? What would happen then?

  But now they were landing, and her daydream was left incomplete. It was unrealistic anyway; surely Forta would emulate Spirit as she had been in her twenties, not her sixties. Spirit could not emulate that herself.

  Then they parted. Spirit had special business to handle on Triton, while Hope and Forta went to South Saturn to enlist its participation in the Dream. There was a problem: the Rings of Saturn were needed as a staging area for South Saturn supplies, and the two governments were hostile to each other. Some reconciliation had to be accomplished, but neither side would yield any power to the other. This was the kind of challenge Hope was good at solving; could he do it again? She followed his effort via the news releases.

  Hope managed to talk the two parties into what he termed a decision of fate: each would choose a champion, and the two champions would meet in combat, and the winner would decide the issue. The Middle Kingdom selected a finely trained warrior, perhaps the ranking martial artist of the System. But Wan was smarter than that. It selected a young woman, the fairest flower of her age, stunningly beautiful, skilled in the creative and performing arts and of an endearing disposition. Any man would welcome her as his bride, and probably would do anything for the mere favor of her smile.

  The Premier of the Middle Kingdom wanted to abort the contest, but feared losing face. Especially if it seemed that South Saturn was afraid to risk its champion against a mere girl. Also, news leaked to the public, together with a holo photo of the girl, and suddenly the imagination of the nation was caught up in the notion of their virile hero having total access to such a creature while they watched. Let him use her, then win the contest by escaping. So it proceeded. They used a honeymoon bubble: an enclosure with supplies for two for one week, rather luxuriously appointed, and a single jet-powere
d space suit. Only one could escape it; the other would die, one way or another. The two were placed within it unconscious, their memories washed; then the watch began. For almost every part of the bubble was covered by concealed holo cameras.

  Both nations—and indeed, the rest of the System—became riveted to the saga of King and Wan as it played itself out, that week. The two became lovers, of course, and their lovemaking was enjoyed by virtually the whole of the System.

  Then, realizing that they could not both escape, they made a mutual suicide pact, to occur on the day the food ran out, two days thereafter. He would use the largest sword to decapitate her cleanly, then stab himself through the heart. Their blood would mingle, and they would travel together to the afterlife.

  Now the public will became urgent: save the lovers. Abort the contest. Make them instead the Prince and Princess of the local Titan Project mission. But all the provinces of the Middle Kingdom had to ratify the compromise—and one refused. This was Laya, where Tocsin had gone in exile.

  Thus it was that Hope went on one more special mission: to Laya, to persuade it to agree. He went with Forta, emulating Spirit. Spirit herself remained out of sight; it was not generally known that she had not been with her brother all the time. Smilo was also with them.

  And then, suddenly, the horrifying news came: Tyrant Hope Hubris and the Iron Maiden and tiger were dead.

  But Spirit was already on the way to Saturn, rendezvousing with Hopie. Reba Ward had known before the news was released, and sent an urgent private call to her and Hopie.

  “Secret message from the Middle Kingdom?” Spirit inquired as they traveled.

  “From Laya,” Hopie said. “Reba said the common folk there like the Tyrant; he worshipped at their shrine. But they could not help him.”

  But Reba’s call had come before any such message could have arrived. It was her business to know things, and she made a specialty of Hope, but there was something eerie about this. Spirit let that pass, and invoked her resources to ascertain exactly what had happened on the mountain retreat in Laya. It was an ugly scene, but she controlled her grief and rage. She had a job to do before she could mourn.

  It was hours before a party came to the place where Hope and Forta lay, in snow on a mountain, and it was no rescue operation. Their bodies were locked together, his face against her breast. They were dumped unceremoniously on a sled and brought to a holo unit. “The Tyrant and his evil sister are dead!” they exclaimed for the camera, and broadcast the picture to the System. “They fell down the mountain, and we could not reach them in time.”

  “Daddy!” Hopie cried in anguish as she saw the cruel picture.

  Now it was Spirit’s turn. “Here is the first lie,” she said on the planetary holo. “I am not dead. It is the Tyrant’s secretary who died with him, garbed as me.”

  Astonished, the men of the city of Hasa went to Forta. Her mask came away. Their chagrin was apparent.

  “And the second lie,” Spirit continued resolutely. “It was no accident. The Panchen sent his robot snow monster to throw them down. See, there is the wreckage of the machine in the background.” And, indeed, the guilty robot was there.

  “And the third lie,” Spirit said. “The rescue party did not try to come promptly. They could have reached any point in that park in minutes, had they wanted to. Instead they prevented the common folk of the city from coming.”

  Now her face set into hard lines. “Hasa murdered my brother,” she said. “What does Laya say to that?”

  Laya’s answer was grim.

  Spirit could not rest; she had to contact the Triton Project personnel, to secure loyalty to the new order. The Dream would continue, but only if grasped before a vacuum at the top let it come apart. It was Hopie who went to claim the bodies. But her ship was barred by police bubbles of Laya. “First there is business we must do,” they informed her.

  And while they barred her entry, the people of Laya rose up as one, their car-bubbles massing against the city of Hasa. They covered it with the cannon of a cruiser, forcing entry even as the common folk of the city charged the locks and opened them. Then, armed, the people stormed in, making prisoners of the authorities and all who had supported them. There was little love for the Panchen beyond the city, and now he had given the people the pretext to rebel.

  “Now watch what we do,” the rebel leader announced on the holo. “The Tyrant will be avenged.”

  An automatic lock was set up, and the first prisoner was fired out into the atmosphere of Saturn. His body was pulped inward by the tremendous pressure of the atmosphere, as it fell toward even greater pressure. It was followed immediately by the second prisoner, and then a stream of them, at one-second intervals. A line of bodies was forming, streaming steadily down from Hasa: the Panchen’s supporters. The broadcast was relentless.

  It was four hours before Hopie got into the city and reached the lock. “Stop it! Stop it!” she cried.

  The carnage was stopped at last—but almost fifteen thousand had been executed. The people of Laya had made known their sentiment and saved face for their province. Face did not come cheap, in the Middle Kingdom.

  The veto of Laya was reversed, and the lives of the Prince and Princess were saved. But the Tyrant was dead, and Forta, and Smilo the tiger as well.

  They returned to Jupiter, where a considerable service was held for the Tyrant. It was held at the Shelia Foundation, and broadcast System wide. Hope’s surviving wives and other women were there, united in grief and memory. There was no apparent jealousy between them. That had always been the case with those in his orbit; each understood the feeling of the others.

  The ceremony was carefully choreographed, and was as much show as reality, but Spirit found herself nevertheless caught up in it. The key element was the Tasting of the Ashes, performed by all of Hope’s significant women, or their stand-ins. Hope’s body and that of Smilo Tiger had been cremated, ground to a fine powder, and set out in a basin the shape of the planet Saturn, the rings contiguous with the main planet: the site of his death.

  Thorley was the master of ceremonies. “We are gathered here to honor and pay our final respects to Hope Hubris, otherwise known as the Tyrant of Space,” he announced grandly. “I am Thorley, his most persistent critic. Thus I am here for this final critique. Though I opposed his politics and policies for the main part, I have always sustained a sincere respect for the man himself, and believe I understood him in a special way. For one thing, I am in love with his sister.” There was a collective gasp of surprise; this had not been known beyond a very select group. Spirit felt herself blushing as all eyes turned on her, but she nodded, acknowledging the association. It was a relief to have it out at last.

  “Here with me is the Tyrant’s daughter Hopie Hubris. She was adopted, but is generally believed to be his illegitimate child by an anonymous Saxon. Certainly she favors him.” Thorley turned to Hopie, who stepped up to stand beside him. “And certainly she loved him.”

  Spirit saw the tears course down Hopie’s face. She did favor Hope, and did love him. She was the closest to him of those not among the Fifteen.

  “There will be other events elsewhere; this one is confined to his special women. Those he loved.” Thorley paused, looking around at the vast assembly of women. He was one of only two men at this particular affair. “Of course all women were special to him, and he to them. But these were the ones who knew him in an especially intimate way.” There was a murmur of understanding; they knew what he meant. The Tyrant had been notorious for his appreciation of women, and almost every woman he had encountered in any capacity had felt special in his presence.

  “The ashes of Hope Hubris and his tiger companion are here. Each person will pay her respects as I call out her name. When this is done, there will be a orderly procession for the others present, until the ashes are gone. All of you will get to share the essence of the Tyrant, in due course.” He paused again, then commenced the names. “Helse Hubris, his first wife, deceased at age
sixteen, here represented by her second cousin thrice removed, named in her honor. Helse.”

  Music played. A young Hispanic woman walked out. There was another murmur, for not only did she appear to be sixteen, she wore a patchwork dress of exactly the kind legend said the original had worn the day she married and died. On an ordinary day she might have been average or pretty, but in this context she was verging on beautiful. Spirit was astonished at the likeness; she was the only person here who had actually known Helse, and this girl did favor her. In fact the similarity was painful; Spirit had loved Helse too, in her fashion, and never quite gotten over her loss. Helse had taught her to play the part of a boy—and to be a woman. To appreciate both the romantic and practical uses of sex. O Helse!

  She came to the basin of ashes, hesitated, then licked her forefinger, touched it to the basin, lifted a thin film of powder, and put the finger in her mouth. Applause broke out; Helse had partaken of the Tyrant, making him one with her.