Politician (15 page)

Once a weapon was identified, it could be neutralized in several ways, such as the use of a spot-infra-red heater that would cause the metal of the weapon—and no other metal—to heat until too hot to handle, or to melt.

“Will you swear loyalty to me and mine?” I asked.

She nodded, knowing she had the job. The code of the bushido under which she had been trained made such a commitment absolute; having so sworn, she would dedicate her career to my service.

I had my bodyguard and, to my surprise, an all-female team. It was of course not long before the media remarked on this, both positively and negatively, but I had not done it for either sexist or social reason; it just happened. I always did get along well with women.

There followed a flurry of work. The state of Sunshine was growing rapidly in population, which complicated things, and that growth was comprised in part by the influx of conservative middle-class Saxons from the industrial north and in part by the influx of poor Hispanics from the politically and economically desperate south. The problems increased logarithmically as the two elements merged.

Merged—like fire and water! Mine was one of the two districts where the most solid collisions occurred, for Ybor was a city with a significant Hispanic base, while nearby was Pete, a resort and retirement city.

It hardly helped that both groups, whatever else they might have left behind, brought their cultural prejudices with them undiminished. I was Hispanic, so I got hate mail from the Saxon bigots and also love letters from the militant Hispanics that were just as awkward, because they expected me to solve all problems instantly. The truth is, a state senator has very little real power. He can not reduce a person's planetary income tax or sales tax or property tax, and even in the in-between region of state taxes, he's only one of a hundred senators. Sunshine had fifty somewhat arbitrarily defined districts, crafted to be equal in population, each electing two senators on a staggered basis: an election every two years for a four-year term. As one of the most junior senators, I was at the bottom of the totem in just about every respect and had no effective leverage in the State Senate. In addition, that Senate was in session only two months of each year, its agenda determined by the governor and Senate leaders, and it related to things like the regulation of intrastate commerce, insurance, and educational requirements. There was another sore spot. Recently a state literacy requirement had been restored, in the form of a standardized test for all high school students. They had to make a certain minimum score or be denied graduation, and any county school system with too low an average would be penalized. Since many Hispanics spoke English poorly, and some spoke it not at all, they were at a serious disadvantage and scored in the lower percentiles of this test. Not only was this unfair but also it annoyed all parties: those who scored low, those who blamed the Hispanics for pulling down the county averages, and the school administrators who were caught in the middle. But I couldn't even get the matter on the agenda for reconsideration. Not as a fledgling senator, Hispanic at that. So I simply could not do very much for my constituents, whatever their culture. The office I had won seemed a lot less effective from the inside than it had from the outside.

I did the best I could. I was allowed a small staff, and the budget for that just about covered the salaries of Shelia, Ebony, and Coral, who had to pitch in to help answer my mail. Soon the letters I dictated became so repetitious and familiar that Shelia rigged the word processor for standard statements and simply brought me the printouts to sign. It was impersonal, which bothered me, but how personal can you get when trying to explain to a constituent that you have very little control over interplanetary relations or the price of imported vehicle-bubbles? In those rare cases where I really could do something positive, such as sending my autographed picture to a grade-school civics class, I did give them my personal attention. But all this was another learning experience, as Megan had warned me it would be. I now understood why the bureaucracy tended to become impersonal. My attitudes toward government were changing as my knowledge of it increased. In these practical matters my philosophy became almost indistinguishable from that of the most conservative of senators, and indeed I found myself making friends with exactly such folk, because they understood my situation as perfectly as I understood theirs. It became increasingly easy to indulge in the quid-pro-quo bartering I had, as an outsider, condemned: I'll give you your tax break for the citrus beverages if you'll give me mine for disabled Hispanics. We were, after all, friends, but we did have our separate constituencies, and this was perhaps the only way to do any good at all for the people we represented.

“Am I being corrupted by power?” I asked Megan in some distress. “I am doing the very things I once condemned.”

“You are not being corrupted as long as you retain your ideals and strive to achieve them,” she reassured me. "What you are doing now is coming to terms with the realities of government. It is a somewhat debasing process, but necessary, like cleaning up after a sick animal. I had to do it when I was in office.

Do the best you can and broaden your base of acquaintance, but never lose sight of your ideals."

There was the formula, of course. I knew that the moment I started accepting money or privilege for special-interest legislation, I would be on the road to corruption. I swore to myself never to do that.

Meanwhile I had another problem: earning my living. My Navy stipend halted when I won election, for I was now employed, and there were laws against so-called “double-dipping” that had been passed by reformers like me. Spirit had elected not to take any paid position in my office, so her pension remained, but I was not seeing much of her at present. I knew she could take care of herself and would return the moment I truly needed her; I was not concerned. But the job of state senator was part-time, and the pay was not enough to sustain a family in the manner a public family needed to be sustained. So I had to moonlight: that is, get another job. The term dates from centuries past, when people worked on Planet Earth and the light of Earth's relatively huge moon shone down at night. The term doesn't apply well in the present situation but remains because of its usefulness as a concept. There was nothing illegal in getting other work; it was standard and open practice, justified on the basis of not soaking the suffering taxpayers unnecessarily. I agreed with the principle, but how was I to hold a full-time job without shortchanging my constituents? There was a lot less glamour in holding office than I had fancied.

Megan again had the answer: I would become a consultant. “Use your talent, Hope,” she told me.

“There is a great need for expert advice on the employment of key people in industry, and you need to establish statewide contacts beyond the legislature.”

“Statewide contacts?”

“For the time when you run for governor.”

Oh. She had never lost sight of the stages of my political career, however embroiled I might be in the problems of the moment. I had married her, theoretically, for that, and she was delivering. The fact that I loved her was presumed to be secondary.

I knew now that the political program that Spirit and I had envisioned before we went to Megan would never have worked. We had asked Megan whether she wished to be a part of my drive toward the presidency, but I now know that without Megan there could never have been such a drive. Megan, of course, had known it from the outset but had joined me, anyway.

“Why did you do it?” I asked her.

She understood me. “Your sister was persuasive.”

“But our program was hopelessly naïve. We had no notion of the nature or magnitude of the task.”

“It was her love for you that was persuasive,” she clarified. “I suspected that if a woman of her caliber could love you, then perhaps you were worthy of it.”

“But she's my sister. We Hispanics are very close—”

“She is more than your sister. Do you not have another sister?”

I nodded soberly. “Faith, my senior by three years. But she is gone, perhaps dead.”

“But when you were with her, were you as close to her as to Spirit?”

“No,” I admitted. “Spirit has always been like part of me.”

“She is a very special woman, and I would do more for her than perhaps you appreciate. She is strong where I am weak, but I sought to understand what she saw in you, and I think I have not been mistaken in the effort.”

“I don't think I understand,” I said.

She kissed me. “Of course you don't, Hope. But we shall make you president.”

And so I became Hubris Consultations, Inc. Here, Megan's national contacts helped. She spoke to friends of old, who spoke to other friends, and some fairly large companies began soliciting my advice. I knew they were doing it mainly as a favor to Megan, but I responded seriously. I traveled to home offices and interviewed personnel and prospective personnel. I was quickly able to perceive who was competent and who was not, and who was motivated and who was not, and who was honest and who was not, and I made my recommendations accordingly. In one case I had to tell the man who solicited me as consultant that he himself was not fitted for the job he held. “You are honest and trying hard, but the sustained tension is destroying you,” I said. “Thoughts of suicide are coming to you, and your family is suffering. I recommend that you step aside, accept a non-decision-making position, and relax. It may save your life.”

He stared at me. “You have read me like an open book!” he exclaimed. "But it's an executive rat race!

How can I ease up without being destroyed?"

I showed him the company chart of responsibility. “Promote this man to your present position,” I said.

“He is hard-driving and competent—and he never forgets an affront or a favor. Do him this big favor, and trust him to protect you in the future. I believe you will be secure.”

He frowned. “But what of this man?” he asked, pointing to another name on the chart.

“He is embezzling from the company. Fire him.”

“How can you possibly know such a thing? You've only been here two days.”

“It is my private skill. I can read the guilt in a person. Verify the facts in your own fashion. Have a surprise audit made now.”

“I will,” he agreed. “Though it tears me up to do it—”

“That is why you must step down.”

“But if you're wrong—”

I was not wrong. Within a week the personnel changes I had recommended were made, and news spread through the business community. My business picked up. This was something I was good at. My financial concern was over; I was starting to get some fat fees. My income rose, and I entered a higher tax bracket. I began to understand why wealthy folk objected to the graduated bracket system. Through my own effort and skill I had made my business a success; the government had contributed nothing. Why should the government take a larger cut?

In the second year of my office, something quite different and significant happened. A baby appeared.

Spirit had been away on separate business for some time, but she returned to consult privately with Megan, and Megan consulted privately with me. It seemed that Sancho had obtained this newborn infant from a mother who could not keep her, as the mother was single and the father was married. The child was a Saxon/Hispanic cross, difficult to place. What was to be done?

“Hope, you know I cannot bear a child,” Megan said.

“You decided long ago never to bring a child into this System,” I agreed. “I understand that and accept it.”

“I want to adopt this one.”

I knew her well, but this surprised me. “Are you sure?”

“Completely sure.”

My wife was a generous woman, but it had not occurred to me that she would be generous in this way.

“Why this one?”

She looked at me as if I were hopelessly naïve. “Hope, you know why.”

“But you know what people will say. That baby is Hispanic!”

“And Saxon,” she said. “Hope, I never wanted to be a mother, but now I do. For this one baby.”

Amazed and gratified and more than slightly discomfited, I acceded. We undertook the necessary paperwork and the foundling became ours. We named her Hopie Megan, because we wanted her to be ours as completely as she could be, in name as well as in law. We became a full family.

It took me some time to adjust to the idea of being a father, but Megan seemed to know what to do.

She handled the feeding and changed the diapers and whatever else was required; I was permitted to hold the little thing for a few minutes at a time, and that was about it. Still, my outlook changed significantly, for now there was someone to follow me. When I aged and passed on, she would remain, and perhaps remember me fondly. That made the prospect of eventual extinction less objectionable.

Trouble cropped up on the political front. A court decision struck down the system of districts on which the last election had been based and required redistricting with a more equitable division of population.

The districts were supposed to be even, within a couple of percentage points, but they were not. The bubbles of Ami, Ybor, and Pete had grown much more rapidly than the state's average, and now my district was a good twenty percent overpopulated. The state legislature had to redraw the lines.

The lines were redrawn in a heated sequence, but in the process I was gerrymandered out of my district.

What had been mine was now split between two new districts and incorporated parts of what had been in other districts. My four-year term was cut to two years, and I was forced to run again, for a new four-year term.

They hadn't had to do it that way, but I was short on tenure and had little clout, and I was Hispanic, which was sufficient reason to make me the odd man out. I seethed at the injustice of it, but I had no choice; if I didn't run again, in a district that excluded half my natural constituency, I wouldn't have my office at all.

I ran again. Thorley's caustic pen followed my progress. If we had respect for each other—and we did now—it didn't manifest in public. He pilloried my positions as “bleeding-heart liberal” and “knee-jerk Hispanic” as I suspect they were.