Editorial Preface

There have been many biographies of the so-called Tyrant of Jupiter, and countless analyses of the supposed virtues and vices of his character. He was, after all, the most remarkable figure of his generation, as even his enemies concede, and will no doubt be ranked with the other prime movers or disturbers of history, such as Alexander, Caesar, Attila, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, and the like. But his personal model was Asoka, who was also called a tyrant in his day, though he may have been the finest ruler the subcontinent of India, Earth, ever had. It is virtually certain, however, that neither the inimical nor the sanitized references adequately describe the real man.

Now that the Tyrant of Jupiter is dead, his voluminous private papers have been released to researchers. These reveal some phenomenal secrets, confirming both the best and worst aspects of his reputation. It turns out to be true, for example, that this man was personally responsible for the deaths of between fifty and a hundred human beings before he was sixteen years old, and thousands more thereafter—but still, it is not fair to call him a cold-blooded mass murderer. It is also true that there were many women in his life, including several temporary wives or mistresses—the distinction becomes obscure in some cases—but not that he was promiscuous.

The legal name of the Tyrant was Hope Hubris, literally reflecting the hope his family had for him. He was of Hispanic origin, and the name Hope was at that time an unusual appellation for a male of his culture. It is perhaps a measure of his impact that it is so no more. He was, throughout his life, literate in two languages, and able to speak others. He was, in any language, always possessed of that particular genius of expression any leader needs.

Hope Hubris was charged with many terrible things, and his seeming unwillingness to deny or clarify many of these charges appeared to lend credence to them. It was said that he watched his father being murdered without lifting a hand; that he sold his sisters into sexual slavery; that he permitted his mother to practice prostitution in his sight; and that he killed his first girl friend in order to save himself. He was also accused of practicing incest and cannibalism, of trafficking in illegal drugs, and of being a coward about heights. There is an element of truth in all these charges, but appreciation of their full context goes far to exonerate him. As he himself wrote: "We did what we had to. How can that be wrong?"

Hope was fallible in the fashion of his kind, especially during his truncated youth, but he did possess a single and singular skill, and there was a certain greatness in him. His early and savage, if limited, experience in leadership was to serve him excellently later in life, as Tyrant. He seldom repeated his mistakes. Remember, too, that he suffered tribulations such as few survive. How pretty do we really expect the survivors of holocaust to be?

The Tyrant was not a bad man. This assessment is well documented by the series of autobiographical manuscripts he left, each written with disarmingly complete candor. It seems fitting that the final word on his nature be his own. The intelligence and literacy of young Hope Hubris, who wrote at age fifteen in a secondary language, is manifest, coupled with a quaint naïveté of experience. This is, however, no juvenile narration!

Herewith, edited only for clarification of occasional obscurities, and for separation and titling of episodes, but otherwise uncensored, is the earliest of these five major documents, editorially titled Refugee.

HMH