In the Hall of the Martian King (31 page)

“But at what cost?”

“I don’t think they’ll charge us anything. Very likely they’ll pay us.”

“Jak …” Dujuv sighed. “I wish you’d burst out laughing right now and tell me you’re playing dumb. It’s weird. You’ve traveled
as much as I have, but you’ve never been anywhere.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Jak, suppose human civil war breaks out. What’s that going to mean on Mercury, which is a prime piece of strategic real estate,
occupied by hardworking—god, nobody works harder than they do—people who are used to getting no reward at all, when all of
a sudden everyone is trying to grab their world from each other? When ten different armies land there and start to fight and
six different spatials try to blockade it and a whole planet that has to import food has all its space cargo facilities bombed
out?

“Or what’s it going to mean to the merchant crewies? Nakasen’s hairy bag, old tove, with all that sail spread, you can see
a sunclipper with binoculars from five AUs away, and their habitats are just thin-walled cans. And everyone will be trying
to shut off trade with everyone else, and if there’s general war and civil war and revolution besides, no one is going to
be respecting all the old conventions about letting neutral shipping alone. All our old trusted pizos on the
Spirit of Singing Port
might as well be glued to the center of a bull’s-eye the size of Jupiter.

“Or think about the Harmless Zone. Think of every castle and palace and every delicate little opera house and every beautiful
museum and statue … think of all those people just living and making life good where they are … and have you noticed that
it’s a perfect place to turn into one big industrial park? Vast resources, great transport, educated population—it was an
industrial belt once, and that’s what it will be again, because some damned fool is going to take the chance to take a shot
at starting the Third Empire, and the Hive and the Jovian League will both be down on that—and at each other’s throats besides—

“Or think about the Aerie—two billion people living fifteen centimeters from vacuum—or remember Africa, on Earth, how beautiful
it is? Right in the middle of it is the capital of Uranium, and most of the continent belongs to the duchy, and when big trouble
starts, everyone will be gunning for that. At the bottom of the deepest gravity well that human beings live in. There’ll be
a second and a third and a two hundredth Bombardment, and then what happens to the grasslands and the wild horses and the
elephants and all?

“Don’t you see how much we’re about to lose? And that our whole bet—the whole Wager itself—is toktru
lost?
Ninety-five percent or so of humanity
took
the Wager, and it turns out, no, we were all wrong, it’s not the way to live, it’s not the likely pathway to a decent world,
it’s a bitter joke! We don’t even have a decent religion or philosophy to get the human race through the nightmare that’s
coming!”

Dujuv had been leaning forward, fingers locked together, speaking very fast but not raising his voice at all, as if whispering
the most dreadful secret of all time to Jak. Now he stopped as if switched off.

The warm water and the relief of no longer being in the nightmare had relaxed Jak; he had sat and listened without reacting
much, his soft comfortable muscles allowing his mind to just relax and accept his old tove’s words. Jak breathed deeply, three
times, tongue resting lightly against the roof of his mouth, gently opening and filling his sinuses, the way Sib had taught
him to do when you were trying to perceive something difficult and unclear; he let the relaxation wash over him and the knowledge
of the situation come in after it.

“Dujuv, maybe I’m toktru misreading you, and maybe this is completely wrong, but I have a feeling. I think there’s some weird
way that you’re
glad
all that is coming, and you’re
glad
that the Principles turned out to be what they are, and you’re trying to talk yourself out of feeling that way, trying to
make it feel like you don’t want all that upheaval, when I think another part of you really just can’t wait. And maybe you
should tell me about that part before I try to say what I think about what you just said. Because I don’t think I should answer
only half of what a toktru tove has to say, and especially not the half that he maybe doesn’t believe himself, or maybe he
just won’t say what he really feels about it, or something.”

Dujuv heaved a sigh and buried his face in his hands. “Nakasen, Jak, I thought I had a better act going than that. Was it
that easy to see through it? This feels like a case of Principle 29: ‘If your friends see through your act, expect the blow
from your enemies at any moment.’ ”

“The only thing I’m seeing, old tove, is that you’re not telling me everything you’re thinking, and you’ve just made a long
speech to avoid saying whatever it is that you toktru want to say.” Jak fiddled with the reheater, adjusting it slightly upward,
and lay back to enjoy the warmth flowing in; he slowed his breathing and heart rate, the better to accept whatever Dujuv might
be about to say.

The warm brown of Dujuv’s bare head glinted in the soft indirect lights of the bathing room, but his face remained hidden
in his hands for so long that Jak began to wonder if his oldest, most toktru of toves would ever speak. When he did, it was
almost a whisper. “Yes, Jak, I think I
am
glad. I’ve seen people dying young of
radzundslag,
on Mercury, and I’ve seen the hopeless expressions on the faces of the children born into peonage. I’ve seen proud crewies
with generations of deep-space experience converted to virtual slaves on their own ships by one minor accident or one clever
trick of an insurance company. I’ve seen some of the best artistic, musical, and literary talents in the solar system wasted—and
I mean
wasted
—in the Harmless Zone, recreating things that were old a thousand years ago, encouraged to dither and fiddle themselves away
to nothing. I’ve seen that evil princess hold my best tove in thrall and torture him half out of his mind, and you and I both
remember some of the things she was doing among her own people, and that still makes me sick. And I’ve seen my own nation
help her do it.

“And the whole time, I thought
I
was insane, Jak. Because we judge right and wrong by the Wager and you know, there’s not a word in the Wager against slavery
or tyranny or war. There’s not a thing in the Wager to say that children should be loved and cherished, or should grow up
to be free and strong and unafraid. Oh, the Wager sometimes urges us to be kind, because it’s an effective way to manipulate
others, or brave, because it’s an effective way to get what you want—but, Jak, that’s all. I thought I was the only person
who felt that way.

“And now, of all things, I find out Nakasen did. I find out he was making fun of the cruel petty tyrants of his day, writing
out the guide to how they acted. And for the first time in my life, I really, truly, deeply wish I could have known Paj Nakasen,
and served at his side.”

“But I would have thought—”

“I want to make a new Wager. I want to bet that Nakasen was right—that
Bob Patterson
was right—about us. Nobody writes satire for people who can’t get the joke. You don’t mock people for what they can’t help.
But you do for what they can. And he believed that people could do better than following all those blind stupid pig aristos
on through the centuries, losing the best parts of ourselves so that the aristos can be … amused.” He stared down at the floor
for a long time, thinking of something or other. When he looked up at Jak, his voice was as neutral as a machine’s. “I bet
you can’t dak what I’m feeling.”

“Humanity tried democracy for a long time, Duj. Some places are still trying it. It spoiled and ruined most of the good things
about life.”

“Did it really? Or is that what they want us to believe?”

“Oh, come on, Duj, you’re much too smart a heet to fall for conspiracy theories. Athens, where five percent of the people
could vote, produced the Parthenon; they gave a lot of people the vote and they went down the tubes. The great cathedrals
were built by kings and popes. The Taj Mahal was built by a monarch on a whim. Medieval America conquered a continent and
gave us atomic bombs and reached the moon, then they freed the slaves and let women vote, and in no time at all they lost
all their ambition and relied on the U.N. to protect them and got squished like bugs between the armies in the Quebec-Jamaica
War. Now these are just facts, facts anyone knows from school. Oh, sure, a republic can work as long as not too many people
have the vote—”

“Jak, what I’m asking you is … how did those get to be the facts? Who
wants
us to believe all that?”

“Facts are not true because people want us to believe them, they’re true because they’re true! Every democracy ends in ruin
because there are so many worthless people and they vote themselves and their relatives into power and destroy all the beauty
and glory—”

Dujuv stood up. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, pizo. Keep up the deconditioning. I know it’s tough but I think it’s a good
thing for you to be free of her. And if I hear you scream, I promise, solemn as a Rubahy, I’ll run in to help. But right now
we shouldn’t talk more; we’re both getting angry, and I want to stay toves.” Dujuv grinned, so suddenly that it seemed as
if a different man had been substituted for him at that instant, and added, “But you know, given that the solar system is
producing twenty times the whole wealth of Charlemagne for every single human being—and yet we have hunger and people dying
young—and this has been the way for five hundred years at least, I can’t help pointing out that maybe it would be more glorious
to feed and house and take care of everyone decently, than it is to hold a really fine parade or have a really great-looking
ruler. Just can’t help thinking that.”

Jak shrugged. “I’d like to stay toves, too. But I can’t help it either; I think if you did that, you’d have a race of slugs
with no ambition.”

“Do you have no ambition?”

Jak snorted. “Come on. You know me.”

“And have you ever been hungry and not had access to food?”

Dujuv turned and left before Jak could answer. Jak lay awake the rest of the night, growing more and more angry that he couldn’t
think of the simple, obvious reply that Dujuv’s cheap shot had demanded.

The next day, when Jak saw Doctor Falimoraza, he finally mustered the courage to ask why so little of his deconditioning time
seemed to be spent on the deconditioning itself.

The doctor nodded a couple of times, leapt up onto a counter, and perched comfortably. “Well, what we do here in the treatment
of anything is begin from the assumption that Paxhaven is a healing place. Things that come here get better—minds, bodies,
friendships, marriages, even whole societies if enough of their members visit. So mostly we give you the good experiences
you can have at Paxhaven, and encourage you to let Paxhaven work on you. For example, the conditioning itself is a trivial
problem. The serious problem is that your personality has grown, more and more, to be the personality of a person who wants
to be conditioned. So we need to get you past that. Healthy people, of course, don’t want to be conditioned … it closes off
too many other possibilities in their lives.”

“I wish it didn’t feel so much like love.”

“It
is
love, Jak. Here’s a saying of Paj Nakasen that you won’t find in the Principles—‘Love manifests the good the way the face
manifests the person.’ As we build up the good inside you, you’ll find you can love in better ways, and conditioned love won’t
attract you much.”

That evening, as Jak was drifting off to sleep, his door dilated suddenly. He sat up in bed and rolled toward fighting position,
get time, get space, get room enough to work and see what’s going on—Dujuv and Pikia were both out for the night, Shadow was
in the other wing, no help close by—

A familiar voice said, “Calm love. Hard.” The door contracted behind Shyf; the lights came up. “I have been overridden,” Jak’s
purse said, its voice tinny and twisted by the difficulty of getting even that much of a message out.

Jak stared at the Crown Princess of Greenworld as a very small mongoose might stare at a very big cobra; wanting the fight
but hating the odds. He was aroused, but not uncontrollably; her giving the “Calm love” command had soothed him but not dangerously
so. He could not quite trust himself to do the right thing if he moved.

Shyf took off her long nightgown in one smooth movement. She stretched out on the bed and said, “Hard, hard, hard, that’s
good, now,
hard rage.
”

It took less than a minute and Jak felt sick afterward. He was crawling toward the bathroom when behind him, as she was putting
her gown back on, Shyf said, “Calm love. Calm love. You’re sleepy, you’re sleepy, you’re sleepy—” and the world slowed down
and became fuzzy and soft-edged, a warm friendly place, and he just needed to rest on the floor here—

His purse howled an alarm and then was choked back. The door dilated. Bex Riveroma walked in. Jak rolled as hard as he could,
but he seemed to be at the bottom of a well filled with molasses, and Riveroma seemed to flash from point to point like a
flea with hyperdrive. He bounded over Jak, landed behind him, hammerlocked him, and clapped a stunner onto Jak’s forehead.
The last thing Jak heard was Shyf saying, “Remember you promised not to hurt him,” and Riveroma saying, “ ‘Unnecessarily,’
Your Utmost Grace, you always forget, ‘unnecessarily.’ ”

W
hen Jak awoke, the most astonishing thing was that he awoke. He knew plenty of good reasons Riveroma would have had to just
kill him. But here he was, in his bed, flat on his back, with Gweshira bending over him and saying, “He’s waking up—”

“Good,” Shyf said. She leaned into Jak’s field of view as well. “Takes a little while for the stunner to wear off,” she said.
“You won’t be able to talk for another minute or so.”