Chapter 14 — FORFEIT

When I was released, Scar interviewed me. This time he was angry, but he couldn't tell me why without revealing that Dorian Gray was in fact a spy. But he made a good stab at it.

"You know we watch you now," he said gruffly.

"Yes, of course," I agreed innocently.

"We have infrared cameras on you constantly, and sensitive mikes, so that we can see and hear whatever you do."

"But I thought it was all right to—to have relations with Dorian, since you put her in my cell."

"As long as you both behaved," he growled.

"But haven't we cooperated perfectly?"

"You tried to keep a secret from us!"

"What secret is that?"

"Your restored memory!" he exclaimed with righteous indignation.

"My what?"

"You thought our pickup couldn't hear, if you cupped your hands and whispered in her ear," he said angrily. "But it did hear, and we got your secret. You have been punished for concealing it from us—and she for not telling us."

Of course, it was a lie, for I had whispered only gibberish in her ear. This was my confirmation that their pickup could not intercept such sound. But I allowed my face to be crestfallen. "Dorian... is supposed to tell?"

"What do you think cooperation is?" Scar demanded. "You must report on each other, anything you learn."

I spread my hands in defeat. "I thought I could get away with a secret memory."

"Where did you see the trigger word?"

I became canny. "If I tell you that you'll erase the others, and then I'll have nothing."

"Others?"

"There were several, but I haven't read them all yet." He assimilated that. I could virtually read his thoughts: if there were other key terms, then I had not yet recovered all my memories, so his program was probably secure, so far. I would have to read the other terms, and he could pounce when I did so. All he had to do was watch me.

Naturally he didn't say that. He had to make it seem like another ploy. "You will not see that woman again until you tell," he said. "She will remain in the hole."

"Not the hole!" I cried.

"Then tell me!"

I was silent. So he returned me to my better cell, alone, to consider the matter.

I knew Dorian wasn't in the hole. She was locked away elsewhere in the sub. She was now serving in her other capacity: as a lever against my will.

I did miss her, despite my knowledge. It was not easy to be alone again. But I held out, knowing there was pressure on Scar, too. I could tell by his tension; he was almost out of time. He could neither mem-wash nor torture me; it was too late. He didn't even withhold the drug-beverage, so I didn't have to pretend pangs of deprivation. He had to have my cooperation. His own position depended on it.

I had another indoctrination session, and this one was strongly indicative. "You are going to give a speech," Scar told me.

"Why?"

"Because your girl friend will be killed if you don't." That was no lie. The lever was now out in the open. Dorian might be their agent, but if it suited their purpose to torture and kill her in my presence, they would do so.

"And if I give the speech?" I asked, daunted.

"You both will be freed."

He was telling the truth, again. His job was done when I gave the required speech, and so was Dorian Gray's. They would pay her off with her baby, and she would retire to obscurity.

"If I agree to give the speech will you let me see Dorian?"

He waggled a reproving finger at me. "Your speech will win your freedom and save her life. If you want her company in the interim you will have to show me where those trigger words are."

Again he was serious. I knew I could not afford to lose my next key term, so I had to demur. Thus I was alone, and it did bother me. I felt guilt for being bothered, knowing that it compromised my love for Megan. My captors had intended to compromise me completely; they had succeeded partially.

I had to memorize the speech. It was an astonishing one. It was a promise to benefit all constituents, right all wrongs, and make the planet a better place instantly. All criminals were to be summarily sentenced and executed without appeal. The present tax structure would be replaced by a flat tax without exemptions. Welfare benefits for the poor would be enhanced, the military budget would be increased to make Jupiter preeminent in the System, and vast amounts would be allocated to research and development. The government budget would be adjusted to produce a substantial surplus, reducing the planetary debt. The membership of the Supreme Court would be increased to twenty-four, to alleviate the caseload. Minority problems would be redressed; Hispanics would be given all the most important posts on a preferential basis. Grants would be made to all churches and philanthropic organizations. Education would be sharply upgraded by the elevation of standards and pay scales for teachers and administrators. National medical insurance would be extended to cover every citizen at any age; no one would die because of poverty or neglect. There would be legal insurance, too; no person would be denied court redress because of lack of funds. And so on. This speech promised all things to all men, with a vengeance. Perhaps in my mem-washed state I might have thought this made sense; as it was, I knew it was nonsense.

"If I may ask," I said to Scar, "am I a candidate for planetary office?"

"You are, Hubris," he assured me. "You are running for president of the United States of Jupiter. But you head a minor ticket; there is no chance of your getting elected."

He was telling a half-truth, but I couldn't tell which half was truth. My illicit memory suggested that I had been about to try for a major party nomination. Perhaps I had tried and failed, and splintered off into a minor party bid; such things had happened to others in the past. So it was possible that I had a minor party nomination that nevertheless had a fair chance to win, or a major party nomination with bad prospects. "Then why should I make a major speech?"

"To influence the election," he explained. "The two major parties are so evenly divided that the balance of power lies in the minorities. The Blacks and Hispanics, mainly. As the candidate of the Hispanic Party you influence a significant bloc of votes. You may be in a position to lever either major party into office."

"The Hispanic Party?" I asked, perplexed. "I know nothing of this."

"Because it was formed in that period you have forgotten. You, as a Hispanic refugee and former military hero, became its spokesman. Now you are going to do your best to increase its base, drawing in those Hispanics who have not yet expressed their support, together with sympathetic Blacks and liberal Saxons, to make it a significant third party. You will try to prevent either major party from winning a majority of the electoral votes. Then your power will be magnified enormously."

I looked again at the speech. "But doesn't this promise too much? I'm not sure it's possible to meet all those objectives."

"It isn't," he agreed. "Not right away, anyway. But you won't have to deliver; all you have to do is attract enough votes to deny either major party the victory. Then you will be in a position to bargain for whatever portions of your program are most important to you."

Still I was perplexed. "If my position is this, why was I mem-washed?"

"Because you had fallen into bad political advice and would not listen to reason. You were compromised, and that threatened to destroy everything that you and the party had worked for and miss the chance of the century. That had to be corrected, in time for the election. We had to erase it all and reeducate you in the basics while your mind was open. Now you are ready to do what must be done."

I did not trust this, but I seemed to have no choice. The programs of the speech seemed good, individually, and I agreed with most of them, and I did not think that this agreement was entirely a matter of reeducation. So I memorized the speech and rehearsed it, preparing myself.

Such preparation is not accomplished in a day. I returned to my cell, alone, for the night, and pondered what this signified. I was a candidate for planetary office; that much both memory and captors agreed on. My memories had caught up to what I judged to be about two years from the present. But to run as the Hispanic candidate—that did not make sense. I had never campaigned as a Hispanic; I had campaigned on a platform of competence and integrity. I had sought support from all segments of society and had tried to serve all segments while in office. It was true that the Hispanics had supported me massively, and that when I had first stepped beyond my Hispanic base to run for governor of Sunshine, I had been defeated. But the second time, with my Gany ambassadorship behind me, I had been successful, and I was satisfied that by the time I completed that gubernatorial term, the majority of the voters in the state of Sunshine had been with me, despite some bad times along the way. Why should I have thrown that away by returning to the narrower political base?

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.