Politician by Piers Anthony
Could that be the “bad political advice” I had fallen into? The determination to represent all the people, not just one ethnic minority? If so, the mem-wash had not eradicated it.
My next—and probably final—memory should provide the answer. I had to read that key term. I knew there was some important element missing, and I had to know what it was before I gave that speech. But how could I get to read that word, without giving away its location to my captors?
Then I realized that it might not matter. Their deadline was close; I probably would not be here for any further terms, even if there should be a hundred of them. The next one would be the last, perforce, and discovery of the message location would no longer matter. But it probably was the last, for only seven spaces remained in the key sentence: “(space) HERE. (space).” I had read it up this far: ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER
That clarified my course: I would show Scar where it was and call out the untranslated symbols to him, and remember them for myself. He would not then be able to stop my mental revelation.
But my thoughts were not finished. What would happen, here in the sub, if I did not give the speech I had rehearsed? Dorian would be revealed as a failure and would surely suffer. I could fetch her baby, but she, herself, might not survive to receive it. I had to find a way to protect her.
But, again—since this was a political operation—Scar would merely be a mercenary doing a job. The real person in charge would be elsewhere, and that person would not permit failure. The revelation of the sub and its business would be a serious political embarrassment. So there would be a way to eliminate that embarrassment.
My time in the Navy assured me what that way would be.
Under the guise of reading, I opened the text on Economics and made a penned note in the margin of page one hundred: “There is a bomb aboard. Defuse it before I speak.” Then I riffed through other pages, read randomly, and in a bored manner closed the book. I doubted that my real action had been noted.
Then I paced the floor for a suitable time and finally spoke aloud. “Give me Dorian Gray tonight, and I will show you the place tomorrow.”
There was no immediate response, but soon Scar came down the hall to my cell. “Show me now, and you can have her now.”
Could I risk that? I didn’t want my captors to have time to decipher my code. It was a good code but not perfect. I decided not to risk it. “No. Show me your good faith first. I need to know she is all right.”
“No. You must trust me, because you have no choice. First the place.”
“I do have a choice,” I said. “I want her first.”
He simply turned and walked away. I had lost the ploy.
Next day the bargaining resumed. “Show us now, and she joins you now.”
That seemed to be the best I could do. “I will show her the place.”
Scar shrugged. In a moment Dorian was brought to me. Her hair was in disarray and her hands were cuffed behind her. It hurt me to see her that way, but I had to play it through.
I went up to her and embraced her, though she could hardly respond. I kissed her on the lips, and then she did respond. I murmured in her ear, “Look in the economics text as soon as I go. It’s important.” The captors thought I was whispering an endearment. “Page one hundred.”
Then I turned to Scar. “It’s in the smell-cell. I will show you.”
He took me there. Probably he knew he should check it himself, but he had no desire to get into that hole. What a joke, if I tricked him into fouling himself in my refuse—for nothing!
“Let me get down in there,” I said as he hesitated. “I will locate the place.”
He let me get down. I settled myself in a squatting position, heedless of the clothing, and felt under the muck with my fingers. I found the place immediately. I knew Scar wouldn’t let me linger for more than a moment, so I feigned a continuing search, turning my head about, while I actually slid my fingers across the last seven symbols and committed them to memory. I did not try to translate them; I just remembered their configuration.
“Here,” I said, as if just finding them. “Scratched beneath the muck, in the form of symbols.”
“Under the—” Scar asked distastefully
“That’s right. In code symbols. I can read them off for you, if you give me time.”
“No. Get out of there. I’ll get it cleaned out and verify them for myself.”
So I got out and retired to the shower and a change of clothes while a crew got to work on the pit. Scar had intended to prevent me from actually reading the key term, once he knew where it was, but I had it locked in my memory in code:
Seven symbols, fortunately easy to remember because three of them repeated. I concentrated, burning them more firmly into my memory so that they could not be lost. All I needed was time to myself and I would have my final memory.
When I emerged, Dorian was gone. Somehow I had expected that. She remained hostage for my performance on the speech, as did any further doses of the drug to which they thought they had addicted me.
Scar rehearsed me again, instructing me exactly where to pause for effect and where to raise my voice. “Do this well and we’ll all benefit,” he said, and he believed it.
He believed it, but I did not. His employer had to know that a sincere fanatic was much more effective than an insincere one. Yet I still didn’t know the specific nature of the lie. So I perfected the speech, and indeed it was a splendid effort of its type.
Abruptly I faded out; they had zapped me with a knockout beam. I woke in free-fall; I was evidently in a shuttle ship descending to the Jupiter atmosphere. It was a good thing I had taken the precaution of preparing my message for Dorian in advance, for Scar had tried to prevent any last moment exchange of information by shipping me without warning.
I didn’t know how much time I had before the speech, so I got right on my symbol translation. I visualized the seven symbols; the knockout had not dislodged those precious scratches from my brain. Scar had wanted no memory loss this time, lest it interfere with my prepared speech. What would this key term evoke in me? was 30, counted from the space between ENTER HERE in the open message. I counted methodically, as the knockout had not yet faded entirely. It came to S. I double-and triple-checked, to be quite sure; it was definitely S. was 9, from the H, and easier to count to P. was 5 from E, easier yet: I. was one from R, which was itself. , 5 from E, or I again. , another 30 from the period; more tricky, but I got it: T. And , one from the space following the open-code sentence, another space. The word was done.
SPIRIT.
CHAPTER 15
SPIRIT
It was two years before the next presidential election for the United States of Jupiter, but that was barely time to do the job. Spirit was my campaign manager, of course; Megan was my strategist, and Shelia my coordinator. They worked together, organizing a complex political entity of publicity and fund-raising, hiring specialists for particular aspects, and dictating the very footsteps of my climb. I really had very little to do with this; I merely did as directed, much in the manner of Ebony, our gofer. In fact, sometimes when Ebony was overloaded, I helped her out; she promised not to tell on me. So if I seem to be glossing over much that is essential to a political campaign, it is not because it was neglected but because it wasn’t in my department. The operation was somewhat like a military campaign—an analogy that would have appalled Megan—with every effort made to apply our maximum force to the key vulnerabilities of the enemy. The enemy in this case was the apathy of the public and the reputation of opposing politicians. Specifically Tocsin; somehow I had always known I would one day try my strength against him, to the political death.
I started with several considerable assets: I had a planetary reputation as the Hero of the Belt, now being refurbished by special ads and news releases. I had a national one as the “rescuer” of the bodies from Saturn and as the author of the first effective drug-control program of the twenty-seventh century. I had a sympathy vot
These assets were basically raw material. They would not win any campaigns for me. I had to do that myself, by generating a great deal of new and favorable publicity. Some of that was handled by advertising, but our funds remained limited, as the wealthy special interests, who were not stupid, regarded me as their enemy. Most of it had to be done by making provocative public appearances. That is what I remember most clearly, rather than the many quiet strategy sessions.
The other face of that coin was Tocsin’s liabilities, which I could exploit politically. He had catered shamelessly to the special interests, alienating a large segment of the ordinary population. He had gone in for extensive deficit spending, putting the government in debt at an extraordinary rate. To facilitate the printing of money to help cover this, he had cut the last tie of the Jupiter dollar to tangible value: gold. Now the paper money had nothing to halt its erosion of purchasing power. Inflation was increasing, and the common man was being squeezed between relatively fixed wages and rising prices. Crime and suicide were becoming more popular, and bankruptcies proceeded at a near-record rate. The economy was suffering a fundamental malaise that was to a significant extent traceable to the insensitive and wrongheaded policies of this administration. I could orate on all of this and find a responsive audience anywhere in northern Jupiter.
But first there was the problem of transportation. In my campaign for governor I had rented a car that hitched rides on freight trains, but now I had to do national campaigning. My schedule was tighter, I had a larger entourage, and freights did not necessarily go where I was going. The problem of expense remained; money is like oxygen to a political candidate, and travel for a group is expensive. We had been able to raise only so much by solicitations, as I was considered to be a far-out candidate; no Hispanic had ever won a major party nomination for president of the U.S. of J., let alone won the office. Of course, neither had any Black, Mongol, or woman. North Jupiter, touted as the greatest nation in the System, was regressive in some great ways, too. So my campaign was, as the saying goes, climbing the gravity well without a shield. But I seemed to have a better chance than any minority candidate before me, and I intended to accelerate.
My staff huddled and concluded that the best and cheapest way to travel was still by train. Only this time we rented a whole train, locomotive and all. The days of passenger trains were fading on Jupiter, though not elsewhere in the System, so good equipment was now surplus and available for a fraction of its original value. The best bargains were in the older steam engines, with their matching antique cars, for these remained the most reliable heavy-duty items. I wondered why, suspecting that Jupiter’s attention to quality was eroding in the modern day, but didn’t argue. We wound up with a fine old luxury train, the Spirit of Empire, with seven ornate coaches. What significance there might be in that name I could not be sure; it is possible to put too much store in symbolism. Certainly my sister liked it, because of the coincidence of names, and perhaps it portended success.
Each coach was about eighty-five feet long and ten feet wide, and looked very much like its ancient terrestrial ancestor. The engine puffed clouds of dissipating smoke. All in all, I found it a highly satisfying vehicle, for reasons that surely derived from the genetic fascination of the species of man with size, power, and motion. Hopie was delighted; she was thirteen years old now and reminded me extraordinarily of Spirit at that age, though I had never known Spirit at that age. I had known her to age twelve, and from age sixteen. I had never seen her in transition from child to woman. Now, in a fashion, perhaps I would.
My term as governor of Sunshine was over; by the time Thorley’s analysis had run its course and restored my honor to me, there was too little time remaining in my term to make it worthwhile. I was free to campaign full-time. My secretary, Shelia, organized our office for portability, and the group of us presented ourselves at the station when our train came in. Of course, our baggage was moved aboard separately, and Ebony had been back and forth setting things up. We had other personnel who remained at my campaign headquarters in Ybor. We boarded, officially, as a group: Megan, Spirit, Shelia in her wheelchair, Ebony, Coral, Mrs. Burton, Hopie, and me. There was a small crowd of supporters to cheer us on, and, of course, the train had its own staff of two engineers, cook, maid, and porter. So we were to be a group of a dozen folk, touring much of the planet. It promised to be interesting, even if my quest for high office proved unsuccessful.
The railroad station was in the basement of Ybor, below the residential section, where gee was slightly high. It seemed cavernous, because it was mostly empty and poorly lighted. Gee and illumination combined to provide an illusion of great depth, though in fact we were now at the outer rim of the bubble. The cars stood beside the long loading platform, the tops of their wheels barely visible in the crevice at its edge. The glassy windows reflected the things of the station, making the whole scene seem stranger yet.
“Ooo, I like it!” Hopie exclaimed, clinging tightly to my hand. She was now almost as tall as Spirit, but she wavered back and forth between child and adolescent, and this new experience put her at the younger range. “A real old choo-choo train!”
I let the girls board first, then stepped on myself. I turned at the entrance platform, before the lock closed, and smiled and waved to the crowd, and they cheered. Then the panel interrupted the view, and I turned again to enter the coach.
It was like an elegant dayroom, with swiveling couch-chairs and ornate pseudowood tables and fluffy curtains on the windows. Light descended from hanging chandeliers. The floor was lushly carpeted, with protective plastic over the spots wear was likely to be greatest.
“Please take your seat, sir,” the porter said. Originally a porter had been a person to carry bags, but evidently the job description had been amplified; he was making sure we were properly installed. “If you dim the lights you can see out the windows better.”
Hopie plumped into a seat next to mine and clasped her hands. “I want to see us pull out!”
We doused the light. Sure enough, the station outside now became more visible, because the light was brighter there. The people were still standing on the platform, watching the train.
There was a jolt; then the platform began to move. Correction: We began to move, ever so slowly, seeing the platform with its burden of people pass behind. Gradually we accelerated, so that the platform moved back at a walking, then at a running, pace. The vertical support pillars started to blur. Our weight increased because we were moving in the direction of the bubble’s rotation, adding to the effective centrifugal force. Centrifugal force is, of course, nonexistent; we postulate it as a convenient way to perceive the constant acceleration that the vorticity of the rotating bubble generates in us. Every so often I bemuse myself by realizing how real that imagined force seems. There is no outward pull from the center, merely inertia, but since the moving bubble seems stationary to our perspective, we then assume that inertia is the force. Now that pseudo-force was increasing because of our increased velocity of rotation.
“If you will buckle in, sir,” the porter reminded me gently.
Oh, yes. I fastened the seat belt. I have always been a trifle absentminded when I’m thinking.
“I like this part,??
There was a warning whistle, a double note. Then the coach flung out of the station, going into free-fall, and simultaneously rotating a quarter turn to my right. The surface of the bubble had seemed to rise abruptly; now it descended again, and I saw that we were drifting parallel to Ybor’s equator. My body was not entirely weightless, for now the engine was drawing the cars briskly forward, pressing us all back into our seats.
In a moment we were out of Ybor’s gravity shield. Now we felt Jupiter’s real gravity, diffused more than halfway by the train’s own gee-shield, to reduce it to Earth-normal.
The city’s centrifugal gee was at right angles to planetary gee; hence our need to rotate ninety degrees as we shifted from one to the other. We would suffer the same twist when we pulled in to the next city-station. It was a minor inconvenience, and for Hopie, no inconvenience at all.
We unbuckled and relaxed. We were on our way. Naturally Hopie and I set out on a tour of the train the moment Ybor city fell behind; this was a novelty for both of us.
First we saw the dining car. This was domed, with a restaurant in the dome that seated as many as eighteen people; they could peer out to either side and above, seeing the sights while they ate. Beneath it was a smaller restaurant for greater privacy, that I might use when entertaining some important supporter or local figure. There was also the sleeping car, with neat cubicles containing wall-to-wall beds; we agreed that we could hardly wait for evening to come so we could try it out. There was a conference car, with an office-like section and equipment; Shelia’s files were already ensconced. There was a playroom car, set up for games and entertainments ranging from pool to commercial holovision; Hopie’s mouth fairly watered at that. There was a baggage car, used also for supplies. And there was the caboose. This was where the train’s own staff resided; they ate and slept there when not on duty, staying out of the way of the paying clientele. Naturally Hopie found it the most fascinating one of all, perhaps because it was tacitly forbidden; we were not supposed to intrude on the crew’s privacy. We had rented their services, not their lives.