Imperial Stars 2-Republic and Empire (45 page)

Without speaking, Terhune turned and walked blindly toward the hatch.

He sat alone in the darkened saloon.

"Lights?" said Spike.

"No lights."

"What'll you have, pard?"

"Whiskey."

"What'll you'll have, pard?"

"Bourbon. The bottle."

The machine functioned flawlessly. The three of them, Levinson, Hong, and Terhune, sat at the bar.

"How is she?" said Terhune, after a long period of silence.

"The same," said Hong.

"No change," said Levinson.

"It's noon," said Spike. "Time for the news."

Music filled the darkened bar. "Where's the news?" said Hong. "The Party Program?"

"Must be a minute till."

"Spike don't make mistakes."

"Spike makes lots of mistakes."

The bartender stared at them. It was barely possible to read insult into his molded expression.

Levinson was asking for another beer when the music stopped and a frightened voice filled the room. The two men listened, then turned, as one, to look at Terhune.

"What's going on down there?" said Hong.

"Revolution, I would assume," said Terhune. He slugged back the heeltap in his shot glass and rapped it smartly for the bartender's attention.

"It sounds like it," said Levinson. "But why?"

"I changed the test phrase."

"On the prototype? Impossible—it worked, Kathryn triggered it, and it—"

Hong put a warning hand on Levinson's, but Terhune did not seem to notice. He was already speaking. "No. The prototype worked, all right. I changed it on the Produktor tape. Deep in the hardware, set to override whatever phrase they put in the ROM section after fifteen cycles. They must have gone into full-scale deployment on Derein's word, without waiting for thorough testing."

They listened to the voice. It went on, describing the terror of a nation suddenly left leaderless. "They're panicking," said Hong.

"The Party's not there to guide them any more," said Levinson. "Guide—I guess we'll have to get used to saying what we mean. The tyrants are gone. Null-minded imbeciles, at the mercy of the mob."

"As you sow, so shall ye reap," said Terhune. "Say, Lo, did you leave that prototype set up?"

"If nobody else tore it down," said Dr. Hong.

"Spike. One last bourbon, for the road."

"All out of bourbon," said the bartender, dead-pan. "Next shuttle, maybe."

"I don't think we should expect one for a while . . . Sam, you're next senior after me. We'd better start oxygen rationing, and see if the dust cooker out in Wing One still works. The Center may be on its own till they get things sorted out down there."

The two other men exchanged glances. After a moment Levinson said. "I'll take care of it, Mike."

"What'll it be, pard?"

"Beer. Beer. In a mug. Coors beer. A liter."

"One bronco-buster, coming right up."

After Terhune drank it he got up. He paused for a moment, then shook hands wordlessly with them both. When he left Levinson and Hong did not look after him. They stayed for a while, listening to the news two and a half seconds after the rest of America. After a while another announcer came on. She sounded not frightened, but excited. Angry. And triumphant.

When they thought Michael Terhune had had enough time, they went on in to Laboratory D.

 
Any group would break up of which there was none to take good care. And in the same way the body of man, like that of any other animal, would fall to pieces were there not within it a directing force seeking the common good of all its members. . . . As between the members, it is, whether it be the heart or the head, a ruling chief. In every mass of men there must in the same way be a principle of direction.

—St. Thomas Aquinas,
De Regimine Principium

No one supposes, when he sees a forester pruning a copse to help the trees to grow, or a gardener hunting for snails, tending young plants under glass frames, or exposing them to the health-giving heat of a conservatory, that these things are done from a feeling of affection for the vegetable kingdom. And yet care for it he does, much more so than cold reason would suppose. This affection, however, is not the motivating reason for his pains; it is rather their necessary accompaniment. Reason would ban all affection from these labours of his. But the nature of man is such that his affections are stirred by the pains he gives himself.
And so it is with Power. Command which is its own end comes in time to care for the common good. . . .

—Bertrand de Jouvenal,
On Power

It is the necessary and sufficient condition of a social order that there be defenders both powerful enough to preserve it, and dedicated enough that they want to. This is of course a truism, but it is one often forgotten.

Some social orders are constructed more on
duty
than right. For whatever reason, the Oriental model has long been this way. It is rare that an Oriental society co-opts outsiders into itself, but that has been done as well.

Until recently, Donald Kingsbury was a professor of mathematics at McGill University. He is also one of the best creators of strange human societies in the business. Herewith, Dr. Kingsbury's picture of a possible future in which mankind has gone to the stars and beyond.

I
am an arrogant man,
he thought.
It was arrogance that brought me out to the Frontier and arrogance that has given me this ironic reward.

Throughout the Akiran System, from the mines of inmost Sutemi to the cold wastes of outer Kiromasho, farmers and merchants and craftsmen and lords were celebrating with fireworks and dancing. Now the Akirani could forge an empire out here in the Noir Gulf within this thin wisp of stars that pointed Solward. They had their own shipyard. They had their first home-built starship, the
Massaki Maru
, the First One, the Leader.

I
gave it to them.

He stood naked, fresh from the hot pool in the rock garden that mimicked the old wilderness, servants toweling him while two of his children still splashed in the water. His woman Koriru waited patiently for the servants to finish. She had picked out for him a robe of softness, one with black stripes dotted by the crest of the Misubisi. She was a Misubisi. He was not.

For a moment he felt a lonely defiance. He would wear his Engineer's uniform to the celebration, black boots and cling-cloth that protected a man in arctic or desert and, with a helmet, in space. On his chest would be the badge of a shipwright.

I
am a Lagerian!
The smartest male of the greatest line of engineers in the galaxy.

A burst of white fire exploded in the sky, then turned to red and blue. The blue comets whirled in violent spirals, celebrating his achievement. Somewhere a parade was dancing.

But Lager was 400,000 light days behind him, kilodays by starship, across the Noir Gulf, through a star-fog of worlds. He had thrown away his uniform long ago for the soft robes. He remembered kicking it, wiping his feet on it, laughing as he left it. Putting on the Misubisi robe he smiled at that distant elation. It was too late to regret his foolishness. He was not happy, yet he was proud in the sad way a man is proud when he has disproved a cherished theory.

Well, no matter about the Engineer's uniform. He was not of Akira but the Misubisi were all part of him.

Even fierce little Misubisi Koriru was some kind of relative of his. He'd had their women in his hair for a long time. He looked at her in her formal kimono. A ghost of the Caucasian peered thru her Akiran face.

"You should be a Plaek instead of a Misubisi." he demanded impulsively.

Koriru bowed. "I respectfully remind you that you did not marry Misubisi Kasumi!"

He smiled inwardly at her seriousness. "But you're related to me."

She bowed again. "All Misubisi know and cherish how they are blooded to the great Engineer Jotar Plaek."

"Do you know your ties?"

"It is of no consequence. I am proud that a small part of me is you. My life is yours."

"What are the ties!" he insisted.

"For not answering immediately, please pardon me! I am your great granddaughter three times—seven, ten, and forty-one generations back, the last thru Kasumi."

"But of my mad enthusiasm for the machinery of stardrives there is not a trace in you."

Koriru's dark eyes flickered to the floor in embarrassment, showing dark eyelashes. She held her hands in front of her. "My stupidity is inexcusable."

He was inclined to agree. She got mass and charge mixed up and couldn't for the life of her remember whether unlike charges attracted each other and unlike masses repelled each other, or vice versa.

But she nuzzles me in the morning and brags about me to all the powerful people I want to impress so why should I complain? Heredity is strange. Her sister is one of my most brilliant engineers. I suppose I keep her around because I'm lecherous and because she's kind to middle-aged men. She worships me and that makes it easier to be unhappy here out on the Frontier.
He smiled at her fondly and sadly.
It won't last. It never does. Koriru will get bored with a man she can't understand. But there will be another. The Misubisi clan takes good care of their Shipwright.

"Look at me," he said. She half obeyed, not raising her eyes above his chest. "You have the smallness and grace of Kasumi," he mused; Kasumi whom he had loved and treated badly—was that only seven of his kilodays ago? It was amazing that forty-odd generations of Misubisis had lived out their lives since her death. "You are very beautiful."

"Arigato." Koriru again dropped her gaze in the conventionally humble gesture of one receiving a compliment but couldn't resist a flash look into his eyes to see if the compliment was sincere. He caught her at it and, flustered, she turned quickly to the servants. "You may go. Take the children."

The garden was still. She followed behind him along the rocky path in the tiny woods to their house that only seemed fragile.

"Goti!" she spoke the name of the robobutler.

"Hai!" answered that invisible machine.

"Call a robocar."

"Immediately, mistress!"

The Engineer turned away in displeasure. "I don't want to go to that fornicating celebration," he grumbled.

"You must be there. Excuse me for my disrespectful manner of disagreeing with you."

His eyes changed to twinkles. "I'd rather be here caressing your soft hand and gazing into your beautiful face and getting drunk!" He walked over to the liquor wall. "What I want is a bottle of Scotch. All of it."

Of the universe of drinks she feared Scotch the most because she did not understand its origin or flavor or effect. In one swift motion she threw herself between him and the devil. "No! The honor of the Misubisi clan requests that you be sober!"

He glared at her. "I'm no Misubisi!"

She stood her ground, did not lower her eyes. "As faithful servants the Misubisi built
your
ship."

"It's
not
my ship!" He shoved her aside. "It's Misubisi Kasumi's ship!" He reached and took the spherical bottle in his palm.

With one chopping motion she sent the bottle flying to the floor where it shattered. Then she was on her knees, her head touching the floor, apologizing and at the same time explaining the necessity of smashing the bottle.

He was enraged. "Sol's Blazes, I have to distill that stuff myself! It takes two kilodays to age properly!" But she wasn't listening to him; she was too busy apologizing for having done what she had to do, so he picked her up under one arm and clamped his other hand over her mouth. "Goti!" he roared.

"Hai!"

"I order you to spank this wench's bare bottom!"

"It is with abject chagrin that your humble servant informs his lord that he is not equipped to spank."

"Well, there must be some fancy service that you can order to come and do it for you!"

Pause. "My lord, I have been incomprehensibly lax in keeping my records up to date and therefore cannot locate such a necessary service. A thousand pardons."

She bit his hand and he dumped her on a pillow. She was wailing.

"It's all right. I'll go to your space damned party and we'll launch that damn ship and bask in all the glory. But after we get home, I get to spank your bare behind."

She began to smile, having gotten her way, and reached out to polish some dirt from his slippers. "If you do, I'll bite your nose!"

"You wouldn't dare. I'd blow it."

"You're impossible to take care of!"

How much she could look like Kasumi, he thought. It was painful for him to watch the way she held her head in that light with that expression. An ancient tanka of the earthbound Japanese came unbidden to mind.

Deep in the marsh reeds
A bird cries out in sorrow
Piercing the twilight
With its recollection of
Something better forgotten.

He even remembered the poet because it was Kasumi who had given him that poem in final good-bye when remorse had driven him to try to renew their love. One hundred generations ago Ki no Tsurayaki had brushed it onto rice paper back on Earth.

She was hurrying along the street that first night they chanced to meet, the light drizzle as damp as his eyes were now, her light robe soaked and clinging to her in a way no wetproof Lagerian cloth ever would. He simply stared at her. She was the first outworlder he had ever noticed. When she passed by she observed his gaze and smiled at him before she looked away.

"Focus on that trick," he said spellbound, nudging his young Engineer friend.

"Exotic!"

"Let's pick her up. It'll save us a trip." They were waiting for a robocar to take them to the Pleasure Basin.

"Maybe she's not horny. This is the business district."

"Tzom!" he exclaimed. "Did you see that smile!"