Politician (16 page)

But I was an incumbent now, of a sort. I had a constituency and notoriety and name recognition, and I had learned some things about campaigning. I did not bother to appeal to the Hispanics; I knew, with necessary cynicism, that they were in my pocket. Instead I campaigned for the support of the Saxons, and I had treated them fairly, too, in my tenure. I had mastered my positions and was ready to argue any one of them effectively. Never again would an opponent catch me flat-footed in debate, in the manner Thorley had. Thorley had really done me a favor by showing me my vulnerability.

I had the advantage, so my opponent challenged me to a debate. Here was a direct test of my attitude: It would be to my advantage to decline, but in so doing, I would be turning my back on my ideal of fair campaigning. I didn't even need to consult with Megan; I knew where she stood. I accepted—and destroyed him on stage. Thorley commented wryly on the ethics of mismatches but concluded that I had evidently benefited from competent instruction. I still did not accept special-interest contributions, so my campaign was lean but honest. I picked up several media endorsements, including that of Thorley's own newsfax; it concluded that there was something to be said for having a token Hispanic in the Senate.

I won the special election handily, pulling in almost as great a percentage of the Saxon contingent as the Hispanic, and a fair proportion of the Black vote, too. It seemed that women noted my recent adoption of a foundling and also favored my all-female staff. I had become the candidate of all the people.

Now I had a bit of standing in the State Senate. I was no longer the most junior member; several new ones had appeared around the state, from other new districts, and several old ones had been gerrymandered out. My standing was greater because I had overcome the gerrymander; a number of senators were sympathetic. I introduced a revised literacy bill designed to give Hispanics a fair chance—not a gift but a fair hearing—but I also pushed for reform of the graft-ridden highway-construction funding apparatus. The surveying and netting of the shifting atmospheric currents was assigned to major contractors on the basis of competitive bids, but the process was notoriously corrupt. I lost my Hispanic bill, but my drive at the construction irregularities stirred up so much commotion that a certain measure of reform eventually passed. Even Thorley grudgingly admitted it: “More should have been done, but Senator Hubris's half-loaf is better than none. Too bad a competent conservative didn't initiate this one.”

Meanwhile, at home, little Hopie was a surprising joy. Megan, who had no more planned on motherhood—at age forty-one—than I had planned on fatherhood, discovered that she liked it. She believed in woman's rights, and so did I, but she claimed with some justice that I was only marginally competent at important things like formula mixing, midnight feedings and lullaby singing, so she reserved those privileges mostly for herself. All mothers, it seems, are good at singing to babies, but Megan was professional; I tended to listen with much the same rapture that the baby did. To my mind no one ever sang anything as well as Megan did. But I was permitted to bounce the baby on my knee; it seemed that men were considered minimally competent for that sort of thing. As a result it was mostly playtime I spent with my daughter, which had the perhaps ironic effect of causing her always to be happy to see me. She would chortle and hug me with her fat little arms and sometimes burp milk over my suit. Who says men can't burp babies? All it takes is a good, clean suit. We got along famously. I could hardly imagine how I had gotten along all these years without a baby.

Not all my crises were political. Periodically the state of Sunshine suffers fierce storms that rise from the fluxes between planetary bands and drift to intersect settled regions. They seldom, if ever, penetrate to the central section of the equatorial band, but Sunshine is at the southern fringe and can be ravaged. Of course, storms vary in size and intensity; any day, anywhere, there can be fleeting perturbations that cause rain to drive against bubbles. Technically Redspot is a giant storm, so big and stable that it has assumed the status of a band and is occupied in much the same manner. The citizens of Redspot fancy red-hot peppers and sauces and trace their genealogies back to the ancient Earth country of Mexico. Big stable storms aren't our problem; we know their paths and can handle them. But little spinoff storms that happen to plow through our territory can be terrors.

I learned about this the hard way. Remember, I was not raised planetside; there are no storms on airless Callisto and none of this kind in space. I had heard about them, but that's not the same.

“Storm watch,” Megan announced, viewing the news while she fed Hopie her bottle.

“Watch?”

“It could strike this area within thirty-six hours.”

“It can't hurt this bubble, can it? A little rain?”

She didn't comment. She just tracked the weather reports.

Next day it was a storm warning. “It could strike within a day,” Megan said worriedly. “I think we had better take refuge in Ybor.” She sounded genuinely concerned, so I humored her. We packed the auto-bubble for overnight, checked out of Pineleaf, and blew out to the highway leading to Ybor.

I began to appreciate Megan's concern. Bubbles jammed the route, and the netting was twisting slowly like a giant python. The current of wind was irregular, as if disturbed by some unseen force. The cloud layer above was thick and restless, forming goblin-faces that glared momentarily before dissipating.

Tendrils of cloud descended, with spinoff cloudlets. Occasional flashes of lightning illuminated large patches of cloud. It was indeed ominous.

I drove while Megan held little Hopie in her arms. The baby evidently picked up the tension, for she began to cry and would not be pacified. But we were stuck for the drive, however long it took. The traffic was slow, and I watched nervously as other bubbles crowded closer to ours. The velocity of the highway current changed, causing the bubbles to jam in closer yet. I saw one bubble try to pass on the outside; it bounced off the net and struck another bubble. Suddenly there was a mayday call on the emergency channel: “Collision-crack in hull—need immediate repair!”

A police vehicle answered. “All units occupied. A repair unit will be with you in fifteen minutes.”

“Can't wait fifteen minutes,” the damaged vehicle replied. “That crack is creeping!”

“We're tied up with four separate accidents and a hole in the net,” the police replied. “Get to you soon's we can.”

“Four separate accidents,” Megan said, appalled. “And a hole in the net! That means a car crashed through and is lost.”

For the reaches of the Jupiter atmosphere were so vast and turbulent that any bubble going out of control off the highway was very likely to disappear into the swirl. It might be rescued if its radio-beacon operated, but the chances diminished when the police were already fully occupied. This was ugly.

We moved on, trying to ignore the repeated pleas for faster service by the stricken bubble; there was nothing we could do. Hopie bawled more loudly, adding to our tension. “There just aren't enough traffic police for a situation like this,” I said. “After the last budget cut—”

“ It's leaking! ” the stricken vehicle cried.

“Emergency vehicle now being dispatched,” the police reported. “What magnitude leak?”

There was no answer. We knew what that meant: Once the leak had started, it had widened, and suddenly the bubble had been filled with hydrogen at five times Earth-normal pressure. We didn't care to think about what that would do to unprotected occupants.

We blew on, and finally we reached the giant bubble of Ybor. The wait to enter was interminable, and Hopie cried incessantly. I felt as if I were in a space battle, only more helpless.

Inside, we had to pay a ruinous price for a hotel accommodation; naturally prices had been jacked up for this emergency. I smoldered. Gouging those who came here for safety reminded me of pirates preying on refugees. “There should be a law,” I muttered. But then I thought of Thorley, raising his eyebrow eloquently as if to inquire, “A law for every little detail of human existence?” and I knew I could not defend that position. The free market had to be given play, even when elements of that market abused the situation.

We thought we were now safe from the storm, but we were wrong. We watched on holovision as the approach was recorded. Small bubbles were rocking like chips on a wave of liquid, and large ones were being shoved from their normal positions. The city-bubble of neighboring Pete was struck first. We watched with awe as the cloud layer broke up, dropped down, and enveloped that bubble, lightning radiating. A report from within showed debris scattered across the central park. “Tremendous vibration,”

the announcer was saying. “Spin is affected; we're processing as the winds fight our rotation. Gee is down, and power is low. But the hull is tight. Repeat: The hull is tight.”

It was a necessary reassurance, for if the hull leaked, the whole city could be afflicted with five-bar hydrogen atmosphere, exactly as the stricken car had been. That would mean hundreds of thousands of deaths.

The holo switched to another locale. “One of the suburbs is moving out of control!” the announcer exclaimed. “It's starting to drop. Power seems to be out—” Then, with open horror: “The gee-shield's failed!”

We watched, appalled, as that small bubble, about the size of Pineleaf, started its fall. Nothing anybody could do could save it now as it spiraled down into the immense and deadly gravity well of the planet. All its occupants were doomed to implosion and pressure extinction.

Megan cut off the holo. “Oh, I wish I had stayed in Golden!” she cried, distraught. I did not argue; at this moment I wished I had stayed in space. The deep dread of the crushing pressure of Jupiter tormented me. How was it that puny man had dared to try to tame the Lord of Planets?

There was a shudder through the city. The walls creaked. We were encountering the high winds.

Suddenly it was much easier to believe that the hull of the city-bubble could crack and leak, or that the gee-shield could fail. I felt claustrophobic. How much better it was on a moon or planetoid, where gravity was so slight it had to be enhanced.

The power flickered, causing us both to start. “Oh, Hope, I'm afraid!” Megan cried.

So was I. But I had a job to do. “It's just turbulence,” I said reassuringly. “Nothing to worry about.” But neither of us believed that, and neither did little Hopie; she was squalling with nerve-racking penetration.

I simply didn't know how to cope with this. In the Navy all personnel were trained and tough, knowing death was part of combat. But this was civilian life. I hated to see Megan like this; suddenly she was looking very much her age. Violence terrified her, and all my skill of analysis was useless in the face of the storm.

“Let me take Hopie,” I said gruffly. Wordlessly Megan gave up the baby and huddled alone on the bed.

I paced around the room, holding the screaming baby, no better at comforting her than I had been with Megan. Seldom had I felt this inadequate.

Then the door alarm sounded. “Not more bad news,” I breathed, and went to answer it.

It was Spirit. “I would have come sooner, but the traffic—” Then she saw our situation. She reached out her arms, and I handed Hopie to her. “You take care of your wife,” she said, holding Hopie close.

I went to Megan and took her shivering body in my arms. “Spirit is here,” I said, as if that made everything all right.

Megan sat up, listening. “Hopie—”

Hopie had stopped screaming. “She's with Spirit,” I explained. “Now relax.”

“Yes...” she agreed, relaxing.

Spirit was supporting Hopie close to her bosom and singing her a lullaby. Why hadn't I thought of that?

Of course, that was the way to soothe a baby, as Megan had done so often before. I had forgotten my common sense in the pressure of the moment. My sister had retained hers and acted on it, as she had during combat situations as a refugee and in the Navy. We were indeed in combat now, the foe being the raging storm. Our weapons were not ships and lasers but understanding and song.

“Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee,” Spirit sang, “all through the night.”

Megan heard. Suddenly she became animated. She sat up and joined in, her fine voice filling the room.

“Guardian angels God will send thee, all through the night.”

I joined in, too. Soon we were singing other songs, including our Navy identity songs. How clearly I remember Spirit singing “I know who I love, but the dear knows who I'll marry,” while the baby slept blissfully. I realized at that moment what I had not chosen to understand before, that Spirit had found love—and could not marry. She had been as fortunate in love as I had been but not in marriage.

And so we spent the tense night, Megan with me on the bed, Spirit with the baby on the chair. Perhaps it was my imagination, but the force of the storm seemed to abate after Spirit arrived, and we knew things were getting better. Maybe it was just that when Hopie's crying stopped, things seemed more positive.

Maybe it was that Spirit has always been my mainstay in crisis of any kind; she really is stronger than I am, in ways she seldom cares to show. It is a secret between us, this aspect of our relationship.

In the morning Spirit looked tired but relieved. She gave the baby back to Megan and went her way. I doubted that she had had much sleep, but she could handle that, too. We cleaned up, ate a quick breakfast, and checked out, nervously eager to get back to Pineleaf.

The press of traffic was much less, but the highway was just as grim: defunct bubbles littered the route.

We did not pause to peer into any, knowing there could be nothing inside we would want to see. A devastating battle had been fought here, the carnage no less awful because the enemy had been the weather. About halfway along we encountered a wrecker-bubble hooking on to a car; the cleanup was commencing. Soon all would be as before, except for the relatives of the casualties.

The Pineleaf bubble was intact. “We could have stayed here,” I said, aggrieved. Megan didn't answer, but the little grim lines deepened on her face. No, we couldn't have stayed here; she had had to have the security of a major bubble. Pineleaf's survival was mere chance; a gust could have swept it away.