Chapter 4 — BETWEEN CT AND BH

I woke many hours later, somewhat refreshed. Coral was up, of course; she had always had a fast recharge time.

We assembled for breakfast—I'm not sure what the hour actually was, but we treated it as morning—at the White Bubble dining room, served by the WB staff. Spirit, Coral, Shelia, Ebony, Hopie, and Robertico. I don't remember what we ate; my attention has been increasingly absorbed by concerns other than food as I grow older, so I tend not to notice meals, anyway, unless they are for some reason remarkable in their own right.

I deliberately kept the conversation on trivial matters, I would soon enough be overwhelmed by the consequential ones. "Hopie, we'll have to arrange for your education," I said.

She made a wry face. "Daddy, I'm fifteen years old. Most of what they teach in school is useless, anyway. I'd be better off without it."

The others ate, remaining carefully neutral. They knew I supported education.

"I had in mind bringing in a competent tutor," I said. "Surely she would teach you useful material."

"But the required courses are jokes!" she protested. "Even the best teachers can't make a pointless course worthwhile."

I frowned. "What course is pointless?"

She hesitated, realizing that she could walk into a mire of her own making. Teenagers can be imperious, but they are not, despite some appearances, total fools. "What courses did you take, Daddy, once you were my age?"

That set me back, for my formal schooling had abruptly stopped at that age. That had been by no choice of mine, however. "I had some lessons from life," I said. "I would have preferred those of school."

"So you had no more school—and where are you now?" she demanded triumphantly.

"But I did have further education," I pointed out. "I took many courses in the Navy—more than I would have in normal school. I learned a great deal."

"But those were military classes. At least they had some application to life."

"Many were," I agreed. "But many were necessary to fill out the education I had not gained from school."

She changed her tack. "Well, did they teach you geometry?"

"Certainly. In space, maneuvers are three-dimensional, and a proper understanding is essential to—"

"Plane geometry," she said with disdain. "How to solve triangles by erecting perpendiculars with a compass and straightedge. You did that?"

"Well, no, not exactly. We used the computer simulations to do the underlying calculations and projections, but—

"We must do it by hand," she said witheringly. "Two years of it. We've had computers for ten centuries, but they won't let us use them!"

"Six centuries," I said. "But it is necessary to know the fundamentals, in order to appreciate what the computers do."

"Seven. Does it take two years of ever-more-obscure two-dimensional examples to appreciate what the computers do in three-dimensional space?"

Spirit turned away, masking half a smile. I was in trouble! "I suppose the basics could be abridged," I said. "Perhaps one semester, and then the computer applications for the more advanced work."

"Exactly!" she said triumphantly. "I've already had three semesters of it, and none of it about computer applications. Why should I continue?"

"Name another useless subject," I said.

"English."

"Now I realize you are bilingual, as are a number of Hispanics," I said, "but English is the primary language of Jupiter, and it behooves those of us who have adopted this planet to—"

"Verbs and nouns," she said. "The same things, every year, over and over."

"Well, again it is necessary to know the basics before—"

"No, it isn't," she said. "I learned to speak English and Spanish before I ever heard of the parts of speech. Everyone else did too. It is no more necessary to know the names of the parts of speech in order to use the language correctly than it is to know the names of the muscles and ligaments of the body in order to live and breathe."

I sat back, considering that. She had a point! "But surely those who were brought up in less literate homes than your own require this form of education, so that—"

"No, they don't!" she said hotly. "They need to be instructed in the correct forms directly. The parts of speech are merely a means to an end, and the educational system has let the means become the end! They're trying to turn out illiterate students who can name the parts of speech!"

"Surely you exaggerate!" I said, daunted. Where had I been warned before about means becoming ends? "The basics remain useful as underlying knowledge, much as the knowledge of the basic principles of mathematics remains useful in the computer age. Speaking correctly is not necessarily a simple—"

"Define a gerund," she said.

I concentrated. I remembered the term but had forgotten to what it applied. "An animal like a hamster?"

"Gerbil," she said, correcting me in the manner I had corrected her about the period of computers but refusing to be distracted by the humor. Now Shelia turned away, smiling. "It's strange that you cannot define a gerund, Daddy, since you just used one."

"I did? Where?"

"A gerund is a verb used as a noun, ending in 'ing.' You said 'speaking,' and that's a gerund."

Now I remembered. "I guess I did, daughter."

She closed in for the kill. "You knew how to use it before you learned the name of that part of speech in school, and you knew how to use it after you had forgotten its name. Of what use is the name of it to you?"

I spread my hands. "No use that I can fathom at the moment, Hopie."

"Would two more years of instruction in gerunds and participles and indirect objects and dependent clauses and parallel structure improve your ability to speak?"

I laughed, as much at her vehemence as at her point. "I suspect not."

"Then why foist off this useless drill on me? It won't improve my speech, either."

Indeed, it would not, for she had been speaking to me most effectively. I was privately proud of her ability to make her point. She was a bright girl who reminded me a lot of Spirit, and I was always pleased to be reminded of that.

"What would you have me do, Hopie?" I asked. "Abolish school?"

She considered. "No. School could be useful—should be useful, if correctly instituted. What you need to do is make the schools relevant."

"And you know what reforms contemporary education requires to make it relevant?"

"I know where to start," she said.

"Well, start there."

Her eyes widened. "What?"

"I think that's an incomplete sentence."

"What are you telling me, Daddy? That I don't have to take those stupid courses anymore?"

I glanced at Spirit. "The Department of Education remains unassigned?"

"Unassigned," she agreed. "We got tired last night."

I returned to Hopie. "You are now in charge of the Department of Education. Do your job."

"My job?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"Reform education."

"But I'm only fifteen!"

"So?"

"That's too young to—"

"By whose definition?"

"But the minimum age—"

"The old order changeth. This is the Tyrant speaking. You are old enough."

"But—but—I really wouldn't know how to—I mean, who would even listen to me?"

"The school system," I said. "Of course, you will want a staff to advise you and implement policy. I suggest that you select it carefully. Perhaps some of the really good teachers you know."

"You mean—honest? Me?"

"Honest, honey. I think the experience will be as good an education for you as the conventional system would have provided. Just keep in mind that many other people will be profoundly affected by your decisions."

"Um," she agreed, daunted.

Breakfast broke up, and we got to work. Hopie saw to Robertico's needs—she was certainly good in that capacity—while she assimilated the magnitude of the responsibility I had laid on her. Spirit and Shelia and I adjourned to the conference room.

"First you will want to look at these," Spirit told me, showing a sheaf of papers.

"What are they?"

"Your daily news summary. It's a normal presidential service. The top man has to be kept informed."

"You have gone over these, of course?"

"Of course," she agreed.

"Just acquaint me with what I need to know to function."

"Saturn is making a move," she said.

I sighed. "That's to be expected, isn't it? They always work over a new president."

"Always," she agreed. "But this is not a normal presidential transition, and so this may not be a normal Saturnist move."

"Exactly what is it?"

"They are shipping troops to Ganymede."

I frowned. "That's their prerogative, isn't it? It is a Saturnian puppet-state."

"Less so than it was, thanks to your tenure as ambassador there. I think you should talk to the ambassador from Ganymede."

"I can call the premier himself, if—"

"No. That call would be tapped and entirely too official. This has to be private."

"Shelia, get me the ambassador," I said. My secretary had evidently profited by the night's rest; she looked perky again.

"He is on his way, sir," she said.

"I see." A personal meeting signaled something sensitive indeed.

We got down to the remaining appointments. All of the top ones were to people I knew personally and trusted; trust was more important than competence here. Senator Stonebridge was in charge of economics, Admiral Phist would handle industry, Spirit herself had the interplanetary arena, Hopie had education, Roulette Phist had crime, my other sister Faith had poverty, and our gofer Ebony had population. I confess that this was something of a hodgepodge; there would be plenty of redefinition later. But it was a start. Meanwhile the existing institutions of the state level, from governor on down, remained in force, and, for now, the Supreme Court. So we had a haphazardly functioning government. I planned to do substantial interviewing, approving all the top personnel of these departments, so that they would be both loyal and competent. That was, of course, my special skill; there would be no bad apples in our top echelons.

Next we would turn to policy. But before we could get into it, the Ganymedan ambassador arrived. He was a somewhat harried man in his fifties, a political nonentity, basically a mouthpiece. I had never met him before but hadn't needed to. At this point I don't even recollect his name, but that doesn't matter.

We exchanged normal amenities, then got down to business, "What is this about Saturn troops?" I asked.

"Señor, I am instructed to be absolutely candid with you," he said nervously. "The premier begs complete privacy."

"Granted," I said.

"The Saturn troops—they are not coming to bolster the present government of Ganymede. They are coming to assume it."

This was electrifying news. Now I understood the need for secrecy. "The premier—to be deposed? Ganymede to become a complete puppet-state?"

He nodded gravely. "Señor, this is not at the behest of the premier. He cannot ask your help, but—" He shrugged.

I pondered. Naturally the premier could not formally enlist my aid; he governed a Communist planet that owed substantial credit to the Union of Saturnine Republics. If they pulled the rug out, his administration would collapse in days, unless bolstered by some other power. But if he permitted them to depose him and assume total power, he would be finished.

I did not agree with all of the premier's objectives or methods, but I had come to know him well enough during my own term as ambassador, and we had what would pass for a private friendship. In addition, I was sure that his administration posed a great deal less of a problem for me than a straight Saturnist puppet regime would. I remembered how Saturn had tried to implant interplanetary missiles on Ganymede not that many years ago and triggered the Ganymedan Missile Crisis, which had brought Jupiter and Saturn to the verge of war. It was entirely possible that Saturn would be trying this again, under the cover of the confusion of my assumption of government. Such missiles, once in place and activated, would represent an almost literal dagger poised at Jupiter; our interplanetary policy would be severely circumscribed, and the balance of interplanetary power would shift decisively to Saturn.

This was a crisis worthy of my immediate attention, certainly! "You know that Jupiter cannot tolerate such a change in our sphere," I told the ambassador.

He nodded gravely. "The premier believes you will know what to do."

"I will figure out what to do," I agreed. "Meanwhile tell the premier to arrange a leak of information, so that Jupiter can be apprised of this development without implicating him. You understand, Señor."

"The premier understands."

"There must be no further private communication between us. We must play our parts perfectly."

"You will support... the present regime?"

"In my fashion," I agreed. "But my words will not necessarily indicate that. The premier understands."

"Gracias," he said with perfect sincerity.

That was it; the ambassador departed, and we considered. "I think we shall have to have a confrontation," I said.

Spirit nodded soberly. "We shall have to be prepared to go to war. If our resolve falters, even momentarily..."

"Get in touch with Emerald. She'll have to get the Navy ready, without making any obvious moves yet."

Shelia placed the call. Emerald's dusky face appeared on the main screen. "You have a small crisis or two, sir?"

I hesitated. I knew that the Saturn monitors could intercept supposedly private communications; to tell her the real problem now would be a giveaway. "Um, Admiral, I'm considering reorganizing the Navy. Naturally I want to consider the input of those most concerned. The details may become tedious—um, suppose you stop by here, so we can discuss them at leisure?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly. She read me well, as all my women do; she knew that something important was up. "A personal visit? I'm not sure my husband would approve, sir."

I smiled. "I won't lay a hand on you, woman!"

"He isn't worried about your hands, sir. It's mine that concern him."

I laughed. Emerald certainly had facile hands; how well I remembered! She and I were both fifty, but it was mutual fun to imagine that we were twenty-two again. "Then bring him along!"

"One hour," she said. Her ship was not far from New Wash, as she was guarding me personally, in her fashion, but she needed time to fetch her husband, Admiral Mondy (retired). Of course, I needed to talk with him, too, for he was the expert on intelligence. He would be an excellent consultant for this crisis, which was, of course, why Emerald had suggested his presence. It was possible she already had an inkling of the Saturn threat.

The press of contacts resumed. Shelia shielded me from all but the most important calls, but even those were constant. Already we were instituting a subsidiary network of secretaries, to screen out the barrage of junk calls. It seemed that every member of Congress, including the opposition contingent that had walked out as a bloc, was outraged by my decision to abolish that institution, and every one of them felt it incumbent upon himself to advise me of his distress personally. But wherever possible we were appointing the same people, whether of my own party or the opposition party, as representatives of their districts: true representatives with no other function than to advise me of the needs and concerns of their constituencies. Those who accepted such appointment—which entailed a concomitant acceptance of my authority as Tyrant—were granted access to me or simply provided with what they requested by someone in my developing chain of command. I may make it seem, in this narration, as if nothing much was happening apart from my dialogues with particular individuals, but that was not the case. Spirit had a number of aides who understood her purposes, and they were doing much of the job of organization while Spirit and I focused on the high spots. I repeat: I was in many respects a figurehead, while my sister actually ran the show. Our campaign organization was converting rapidly to our administrative organization. This was not intended to be an application of the notorious spoils system, but the most convenient way to post responsible people in responsible positions rapidly. So we did have a mechanism for handling specific problems but needed to broaden it enormously, and the former members of Congress represented prime candidates for the new offices. They would not be given power until we were satisfied that they would use it properly, but they were given token recognition—and when one called, I had to answer, even if I did no more than congratulate him on his patriotism in facilitating the new order. You see, in politics, appearance is generally more important than reality, and the reassignment of existing representatives facilitated the appearance of a smooth transition.

Thus the hour passed, hectically, until Emerald and Mondy arrived. Then Spirit and I took them into another room, leaving Shelia to fend for herself, which she was competent to do. She would let me know what decisions she had made in my name when I returned. There are those who think that a cripple is necessarily a nonentity; this is never the case, and Shelia was as intelligent, competent, and experienced a person as I had on my staff. Ninety-five percent of the time she knew my answers before I did, and she could make a pretty good guess on the other five percent. I suspect, in retrospect, that my act of love with her was neither as spontaneous nor as strange as it seemed at the time; it was my recognition of her importance to me. It was not the type of recognition I could give while my marriage to Megan was sound, but the moment my marriage ended (in fact, if not in name), the overt expression of that relationship was possible and perhaps necessary. It was not that I loved her, though she loved me; I have had only two true loves in my life, Helse and Megan. All of my women love me, but all recognize the limitation of my nature. I do for each what I can, when I can, inadequate as this may be.

My romance with Emerald, of course, was long dead. We retained the dream of the past, but today our respect for each other had other forms of expression, as her husband understood. We got right down to business.

"Saturn is sending troops to take over Ganymede," I said. "What do we do?"

Mondy had been middle-aged when I met him; now he was old. For some men seventy is not old, but for him it was. He looked terrible: bald and fat and pallid. But his mind remained murkily penetrating. "You underestimate the problem, sir," he said. "Those are not mere troops; they are technicians."

"Technicians? I don't see how—"

"Bearing sophisticated new equipment to recede the locks at Tanamo," he concluded.

Spirit whistled. "That puts a different complexion on it!" she exclaimed.

"We thought it might," Emerald said, a trifle smugly.

Tanamo was the big naval base on Ganymede, whose transfer I had arranged during my ambassadorship. It had moved from the control of Jupiter to the control of Ganymede. In exchange Ganymede had agreed to cease all covert fomentation of revolution and shipment of arms to dissident elements of Latin Jupiter. This had eliminated a prime source of irritation and saved Jupiter much mischief. Former President Tocsin, of course, had done his best to undermine this accord, preferring open hostility, as hostility facilitated his endorsement of the monstrous military-industrial complex of Jupiter. There were great profits to be made in the fever of threatening war. It was my intent to dismantle that complex, and Admiral Phist was just the man to do it. But this move by Saturn—that could torpedo everything.

I shook my head. "Why?" I asked. "I was ready to get along with Saturn!"

"Did you suppose Tocsin was the only tool of the special interests?" Mondy inquired. "The ruling council of Saturn is engaged in a continual and savage struggle for power, both internal and external. They perceive an opportunity to achieve a significant advantage during your period of indecision, which will not only put Jupiter on the defensive but will thoroughly refute dissent in their own population. That dissent has been growing in strength in recent years, spearheaded by people like Khukov."

"Khukov!" I exclaimed. "I have no quarrel with him." For Admiral Khukov had been the other party to the compromise of Ganymede; together we had helped both Ganymede and ourselves. I had taught him Spanish, privately, and he had taught me Russian; these secret abilities were most useful on occasion.

"It is the Politburo that has the quarrel with him," Mondy said. "He has criticized their inefficiency, such as their repeated failure to become self-sufficient in food grains, but his power base is such that they cannot liquidate him. But a coup like this would enable them to eliminate threats both external and internal."

It was coming clear. "The Ganymedan ambassador said they planned to depose the premier."

"That would be the premier's first concern, naturally," Mondy agreed. "But that is only the initial step. It is necessary because the premier insists on honoring the covenant he made with you. He will not pervert Tanamo or resume clandestine arms shipments. Once they have changed the government of Ganymede, there is no practical limit to their mischief."

"We'll have planet-buster missile bases there again!" Emerald put in.

"Obviously this must be stopped before it starts," I said. "Emerald, you can call an alert—"

"No, sir," Mondy said. "That would not be expedient."

"But we can't let it happen!" I protested.

"There are ways and ways," he said. "Jupiter has mismanaged interplanetary relations for so long that it has come to be expected. You have a chance to change that."

"But if we don't intercept that ship before it reaches Ganymede, there will be hell to pay!"

"And if we do, Saturn will know who told," he countered. "The premier of Ganymede will be finished—by assassination, if not by political means."

"But you knew!" I said. "So I didn't have to find out through the premier."

"I found out, once given the hint," Mondy said. "My source was coerced, and connected to the premier. I must not betray it."

I sighed. "No, you must not, and I must not. But we can't sit idly by while that ship lands. How do we proceed?"

"We assess our resources and our desires. Then we formulate a program to best utilize the former to achieve the latter. We stand to gain considerably if we manage this correctly."

"Gain?" I demanded. "If we even come out even, I'll be surprised!"

"Ganymede could shift orbits, from Saturn to Jupiter," he said. "That would be the minor gain."

"It would be a phenomenal gain! It would signal the failure of Communism to establish any lasting foothold in the Jupiter sphere. And I can see how, if we save the premier's hide, that shift could occur. But if that's minor, what would be the major gain?"

"We could in effect shift Saturn itself to Jupiter orbit," he said seriously.

I whistled. "You had better spell out the details!"

"If an issue is made and Saturn loses, the present government there will fall. The man who manages to resolve the crisis will probably step into power there."

"And that man would be—" I said, seeing it.

"Admiral Khukov."

"Admiral Khukov," I echoed.

"Who remembers his benefactors, by whatever device."

"Who remembers," I agreed. "With him in power, there—"

Mondy nodded. "You could end the cold war."

"And make the Solar System safe for mankind," I said. "What a dream!"

"But at a price. The confrontation could destroy the System."

"Is it worth the risk?" I asked musingly.

"That doesn't matter. The situation is already upon us."

I sighed. "It is indeed!"

We hashed it out, and Mondy and Emerald departed. We had devised a strategy, but we all knew it was risky. We could indeed precipitate a devastating System war if we miscalculated at any stage or even if luck went against us. I would not have entered into such a program had I been able to avoid it, but as Mondy said, we were already committed. If Ganymede became a Saturnian military base, Jupiter would be in dire peril. And Ganymede would become that, if we did not act.

First we had to develop a legitimate source of information, so that Saturn would not know that the premier had told us. Until we had that we could not afford to make our first move.

Meanwhile, the job of setting up our new departments proceeded irregularly. Senator Stonebridge advised me that he was assembling a package of programs that should halt inflation and balance the budget but that there would be formidable resistance to it.

"Resistance—to accomplishing what I have been installed to accomplish?" I asked. "Why?"

"Because the standard of living of the average citizen will have to be materially lowered," he said. "This entails a universal income tax of fifty percent, and—"

"Fifty percent!" I exclaimed. "Impossible!"

"I told you there would be resistance," he said.

"Suppose we make it a flat tax of twenty-five percent? That seems more equitable."

"Suppose you find me an additional source of revenue that will produce six hundred billion dollars per year?" he returned.

"I'll look for it," I agreed. But I knew I was in trouble. There were no easy answers economically, but somehow I had to find a way to balance that budget without triggering a revolution on Jupiter.

We watched the Saturn ship as it moved steadily through space toward our sphere. Theoretically it was one of a regular supply convoy, relatively innocent; we had no reason to intercept it, other than the one we could not reveal. It was scheduled to arrive in seven days if we did not find a pretext to stop it.

We tapped its communications with the home base and with Ganymede, hoping to intercept a revealing message. The transmissions were coded, of course, but our technicians decoded them as rapidly as they were sent. Saturn was aware of that; Saturn did the same to ours. Saturn was too canny to put anything truly private into any such transmissions. So we got nothing, as expected—and the ship moved on. Six days till arrival now.

My sister Faith came to see me. I had appointed her to the Department of Poverty: it was her job to eliminate it. She was having a problem getting started. "We need full employment, at fair wages, with fair working conditions," she said. "My consultants tell me that there simply aren't enough jobs and that legislation will be required to define the wages and conditions. The only possible answer..." She hesitated.

"Out with it," I said.

"Is for the government to become the Employer of Last Resort, for all those who cannot otherwise find work."

I called Stonebridge. "What's the price tag for the government to become the Employer of Last Resort for all the unemployed?"

"Three hundred billion dollars minimum," he replied without hesitation. "That assumes a thirty-three percent cost of administration, which I fear is conservative."

"But if they were working, paying their way—"

"At what jobs? Believe me, Tyrant, it would be far cheaper to put them all on welfare—and cheaper yet to simply hand them each the money."

"But that would lead to complete indifference to working for a living!"

"Exactly. Therefore, that is no solution to your problem. Don't try to eliminate unemployment that way." He faded off.

I sighed as I returned to Faith. "Let's see whether Gerald Phist is making progress at providing new jobs." I called him.

"Good news, Tyrant," Phist said as he came on screen. "I am developing a program that will virtually eliminate waste and fraud, and reduce the cost of industry by enabling us to produce the same products and services with only seventy percent of the personnel!"

"Seventy percent," I said, not reacting with quite the joy he expected. "That means—"

"About thirty million jobs saved," he finished. "No more inefficient duplication of effort."

"And thirty million more unemployed," I concluded.

"Well, perhaps new industries can be developed to take up the slack—"

"Work on it," I advised him, signing off.

I looked at Faith, and she looked at me. "Believe me," I told her, "when I find an answer, you'll be the first to know. Meanwhile, work things out as well as you can."

"I think you're in over your head, Tyrant," she replied.

"In more than one respect," I agreed wanly. Certainly the Tyrancy was not getting off to a polished start.

Meanwhile, that dread ship moved closer to Ganymede. It might as well have been a planet-buster headed inexorably for the heart of the Planet of Jupiter!

We tried to arrange for a "coincidental" encounter with the ship: a playboy yacht that lost its bearings and strayed into the Saturn vessel's path. But the ship was the soul of courtesy, putting on the screen an English-speaking officer, who provided meticulous and accurate bearings for the stray. Now there were only five days till arrival.

Roulette called. She was in charge of crime—the elimination thereof. "Crime is costing the planet hundreds of billions of dollars per year," she informed me. "Much of it relates to drugs and gambling. But to eliminate those we have to eliminate the hard-core criminal element. We can spot most of the bad types, but can you keep them out of circulation?"

More unemployed! "I'll work on it," I told her without conviction.

"She's onto an ugly truth," Spirit said. "Ninety percent of the crime is done by ten percent of the criminals. That is, most people may stray once or twice but aren't hard-core, while a few are solidly into it. We have to deal with them."

"How?" I asked. "I seem to remember a debate with Thorley that bore on this, and he was tearing me up. If we imprison all the hard-corists, we are in effect supporting them at the expense of the state, and that will, as Stonebridge will surely advise me, add to the deficit. But I really don't like capital punishment."

She half smiled. "Maybe you should put Thorley in charge of crime."

"Thorley is a good man," I said seriously. "We differ on principle, but I respect his competence and integrity. If I thought there was the ghost of a chance that he would work for the Tyrancy—"

She shook her head. "Not even the suggestion of the ghost of a chance. Have you seen his recent columns?"

"I've been too busy."

"You have been most eloquently castigated. He makes you seem a complete ass, and dangerous as well."

"All true," I said, smiling.

"Most of the other critics are silent. They are waiting to see what happens to Thorley."

"Nothing will happen to Thorley!" I snapped. "I honor freedom of the press; you know that."

"All dictators promise freedom and reform," she reminded me. "Few follow through."

"Asoka did," I said.

She shrugged. "As I recall, Asoka had some consolidation to do at the outset."

"And so do I. What next, on that Saturn doom ship?"

"How about a Naval exercise that happens to cut off its approach to Ganymede?"

We explored that. Emerald had sent a representative, a lower officer who was conversant with the current situation of the Jupiter Navy. That enabled me to get information without going on the beam to her ship and also protected my privacy.

"Sir," the officer said, "that isn't feasible. Such exercises have to be scheduled well in advance and planned meticulously. The Saturnines know all of our schedules, as we know theirs. Such a deviation would be well-nigh impossible, and even the attempt would alert them to our real problem. They are not fools, sir."

Which was exactly what I had suspected. Naval fleets are not turned on a dime; I had learned that well during my own Naval command. If we tried to arrange something on the spur of the moment, it would be a virtual advertisement that we had some pressing ulterior motive. We might as well challenge the ship outright.

But that I was not ready to do. Mondy's advice was sound: Do not let Saturn know that the premier of Ganymede had tipped us off. Learn about the ship some other way.

Hopie came to me in her official capacity, distraught. "I went to my teachers," she said, "and they gave me all sorts of fancy reasons why all the present subjects are necessary. I don't believe them, but I can't convince them. I can't find anyone who agrees with me to advise me."

I smiled. "All Tyrants should have such a problem! Most men of power are surrounded by yes-men who only echo what the leader wants to hear. That's no good."

"Daddy, you aren't helping," she said severely.

Something clicked in my mind. "I can give you an excellent source of advice whose notions will agree with those of no one you know but who can really critique contemporary education. Listen to him and argue with him, and you will surely emerge with some positive ideas."

She viewed me somewhat distrustfully. "Daddy, you're up to something."

"Of course I am," I agreed. "But what I tell you is true."

"All right, I'll bite. Who?"

"Thorley."

"Thorley!" she exclaimed, shocked.

"Go to him. Tell him your problem. Ask his advice. If he fails you, I'll suggest another name."

"He wouldn't help you in anything!" she said.

"But you he just might help. You're not the Tyrant; you're just an underling trying to do a job. That, he might understand."

She shook her head doubtfully. "All right, Daddy, I'll call your bluff. But you'd better be ready with another name." She flounced off.

Spirit nodded. "Tyrant, you play an interesting game."

"You know he won't turn her down."

"I know. Still—"

"She's fifteen. Old enough to wrestle with reality. And it's the only way we'll ever get Thorley's input for the Tyrancy."

Spirit shrugged, not debating it. We returned to the problem of the ship.

"QYV has sources," I said.

"But do we want to risk exposure of that connection?"

"If that ship lands, that and the status of Jupiter may become academic."

"There is that," she agreed.

"I have something for Reba, anyway."

So I put in a call to Q. A diagram flashed momentarily on the screen. "Got it, sir," Shelia said, and put it on again as a still picture. She had captured it on her recording so that now I could study it at leisure without holding open the connection. QYV (pronounced "kife") was a very private party.

The diagram was a stylized map of a section of New Wash. One chamber was marked. "I'm not ready to go there yet myself," I said. "I'll send Ebony with the package." The package was my private narrative of my twenty years as a politician, leading to the moment I assumed the office of Tyrant; I had taken a few minutes to scribble the last sentences, so that it ended at the very point at which this present manuscript begins. QYV had become the repository for these manuscripts; I knew they were safe there.

I gave the package and the address to Ebony to deliver. She could no longer run errands as she had when she was only our gofer, for now she was head of the Department of Population, and a Secret Service man tagged along with her, but I doubted that anyone would pay much attention. Ebony was very good at being anonymous.

"And tell her this," I said. " 'I need a pretext.' She will understand."

"Got it, sir," she said, and departed.

I brooded over the blip on the screen, now four days distant. "Maybe a rogue ship, a pirate," I said. "Something out of our control, seeking plunder."

"Can't," Spirit said. "We cleaned the pirates out of space, remember?"

"For the first time I wish there were a pirate left!"

"Even if there were, it wouldn't have either the nerve or the power to take on a Saturnian ship. That's a cruiser, theoretically converted to merchant duty, but you can bet she can blast anything less than a Jupiter cruiser out of space—and will, if provoked. The Saturnians aren't lily-livered the way we are."

"I'll gild that lily-liver before I let that ship dock!" I swore. But she was right, as she always was. We could take out that ship, but we would have to do it directly, using the Navy—and that would be an act of war. That was to be done only as a last resort. For one thing, if we challenged the Saturn ship and it did not turn back, we would have to blast it—and that would destroy any proof we might have had of its designs.

It seemed that we were caught between being in the wrong, which would be a very bad beginning for the Tyrancy on the interplanetary scale, and allowing Saturn to achieve a significant, perhaps critical, tactical advantage. Scylla and Charybdis—or in the contemporary parlance, CT and BH. To be caught between contra-terrene matter, whose very touch would render a person into something like a miniature nova, and a black hole, that would suck him in and crush him to the size of the nucleus of an atom. I rather liked the imagery but not the situation.

"SeeTee and BeeAitch," Spirit murmured, echoing my unspoken thought.

We continued to handle routinely hectic matters, trying to get the new government formed enough to function while reassuring parties of both the planetary and interplanetary scenes that everything was under control. Many functions had continued for a while on inertia, but the existing structure was deteriorating, and we had constantly to shore it up on a patchwork basis.

Ebony returned. "She took your package and sent you this one," she reported, handing me a small box. "She said it's a fair exchange but that there need be no messenger for the next."

"Thank you, Ebony," I said. I would certainly have to deal with Reba directly—but not until this crisis had been negotiated. "How is your own project going?"

"There are too many people," she said simply. "I went to the library and did some reading. We'd be better off with half our present number, but more keep coming in from RedSpot, and more keep being born. But the resources are running out."

"Have you a program to deal with this threat?"

She spread her hands. "Sir, short of a planet-buster war, I don't think anything would work."

"Keep working on it," I told her. "Root out some experts—Shelia can find their names for you—and see what they say. You're one of the common folk; I want to know what you think is best, once you know the full story."

"I'd rather just be your gofer," she said.

"Think larger," I advised.

We opened the QYV package. It was a miniature holo projector that projected the image of a sheet of paper on which was scribbled the military designation of a ship. As a former Navy man, I knew the system, but I didn't recognize the type.

We summoned the Navy officer and showed him the designation. He squinted at it, puzzled. "That's not one of ours, sir."

"It has to be," I said. "That's a JupeNav designation."

He frowned. "I realize that, sir, but I also know our listings. There's no ship by that designation."

I got a glimmer of a notion. "How about a sub?"

"Sir, I wouldn't know about that. All subs are classified."

"Precisely. Because their location must be secret at all times, so the enemy cannot take them out by blind fire at the specific coordinates. But this could be one such."

"It could, sir," he agreed, discomfited. Regular Navy personnel did not feel easy about subs, because a sub was a ship-destroyer. In my term in the Navy I had never dealt with a sub. I had, however, had some rather recent experiences with them and fully respected their devious potential.

"Put out a call, Navy protocol, for that ship to contact the Tyrant," I said.

"But sir, without knowledge of its location, a sealed beam communication is impossible!"

"An open call," I clarified.

"But a general call—anybody could read it!" he protested, appalled.

"Saturn reads our sealed transmissions, too, and deciphers them as fast as we do," I pointed out. "But how much attention do they pay to unclassified, uncoded calls?"

"Very little," he conceded. "It would hardly be feasible to track every open call. There are thousands of routine transmissions every minute. Still—"

"So an open call may be the most private kind we can make, in practice."

"Well, sir, if you look at it that way..." He was obviously distressed.

"That is the way I look at it," I agreed.

He stiffened and saluted. "As you wish, sir."

I returned his salute, and he turned stiffly and departed.

"Sir," Shelia said.

"Woman, one of these days I'm going to gag you!" I exclaimed. "You don't even let me have five seconds to relax between crises!"

"You told me to cut you off at ten o'clock, local time," she reminded me. "It is that time."

Coral came forward. "Day is over, Tyrant. To bed with you."

"But that sub—"

"Won't answer you directly. Those vessels don't keep their locations secret by sending any kind of transmission. It will reach you in its own time and fashion. You can relax."

"But there's still so much to—"

She reached up and caught me by the ear. "Move, Tyrant!"

Spirit smiled and sent Shelia an end-of-shift signal. I knew that the enforced break was for them as much as for me; we could not afford to run ourselves down to the point of irrationality. I went.

But the notion of that sub still held me. A sub could take out a ship readily enough, but that would still be an overt act of war. Reba must have had something more sophisticated in mind. How could—?

Coral did not nag me. She simply led me to the bathroom, undressed me, and shoved me into the sonic shower. I continued to mull over the sub. Could it make the attack seem like an accident? Yet the Saturnians were fully as canny about such things as we.

"Enough," Coral announced. "You're clean."

Damn it, there was no way to make a torpedo from a sub seem like an accident! And what of the innocent personnel aboard that Saturn ship? I was sure that they had not been told of its mission; only the technicians would know. I had destroyed whole ships in space during my Navy career but had never enjoyed it, and my taste for carnage was no greater now. What was needed was not destruction but to make that ship turn back.

"Sir, you aren't moving," Coral said. "Come out and retire; I don't want to have to remind you again."

Suppose there were some way to preempt that ship's controls, forcing it to deviate from its course? If it drifted out of its assigned spacelane, we could legitimately challenge it. But, of course, there was no way to take over a ship from the outside; we would have to sneak an agent aboard, and I doubted that that could be done. Saturn was no slouch at counter-measures.

"I warned you, Tyrant," Coral said severely. "Now you shall pay the consequence." She stepped into the shower.

Startled, I looked at her. She was naked and lovely. There are those who believe a woman to be beyond her prime after her twenties, but Coral had kept herself in top physical form from her martial arts, and from my vantage of fifty, the mid-thirties seemed young enough. She was of Saturn stock, with typically golden skin and Mongoloid facial features, which can be most appealing to males of any race. Certainly I found her attractive, though, of course, I had never made any move on her. I had been loyal to Megan—while I had her. Now...

The atmosphere changed. I mean, the physical one. Warm air blasted up from the floor grille. "What?"

"A froth massage," she explained. "The consequence."

"Oh. I was thinking about—"

"You mentioned Asoka. I happen to have an interest in that part of the System. The roots of my culture are there."

"But you're from Saturn!" I protested.

"And Saturn was colonized from the old Asian continent of Earth," she said. "Six centuries ago I would have been called Chinese. But aspects of our culture were spawned in the southernmost region of that continent, called India, and so I have an interest in that, too, even though India did not go to space."

"India—" I repeated, working on the connection. It had been a long time since I had studied ancient history! "It took over Earth!"

"My point is, Asoka was an Indian conqueror. At first he was called a tyrant, but later he became perhaps the finest of all great rulers. He is certainly a worthy model to follow."

I would have paid more attention to her comment, but there were distractions. Not only was she nudging against me so that her marvelous body forced a masculine reaction in me, but also the warm air around us was thickening. Now the froth was manifesting, coursing upward around our bodies, tickling intimate places.

"Is your mind off business yet?" she inquired.

I laughed. "Yes. However, if one of us doesn't get out of this shower soon—"

"I have wanted to do this for a long time," she said. She pressed her warm, slippery body against mine and drew my head down for a kiss.

The froth thickened further. It creamed up against and around our bodies, pushing, kneading, almost lifting us off our feet. I had never experienced anything quite like this before, but it was a thing worth learning about. The fact that I was next to a well-formed woman added to the effect.

"Now let me introduce you to the Tree," Coral murmured.

"The what?"

"You Westerners tend to be unimaginative about sexual expression," she said. "Sit there."

"But this is the shower! There's no—"

"There is now." And indeed there was; a seat had emerged from the wall.

I sat, and she got onto my lap, facing me, her legs spread to circle me, as the froth coursed by ever more thickly. I felt as if I were being borne up on a cloud, high in some planetary heaven, with an angel embracing me.

She lifted her body, bringing it into position, then settled firmly on me in the amorous connection. "Now," she said, "as you arrive, stand."

"Stand!" I exclaimed. "But you would fall!"

"No way, Tyrant," she breathed. Then she tightened certain internal muscles, and suddenly I felt the eruption developing. I lunged to my feet, assisted by her weight leaning back, and sure enough: she was supported and could not fall. The mass of her body pressed down most solidly, however, heightening the sensation as I pressured all that I had through that connection.

We stood there amid the moving froth, my feet planted on the floor, our two bodies branching outward at the midpoint, our heads apart. We were the Tree, without doubt! The sensation was almost painfully intense.

Then she drew her upper body into mine and reached for my lips with a frothy kiss. I felt her quiver, inside and out, and knew that she had reached her own climax.

But soon she had to put her feet down, for her support was waning. She got off me, and the froth swirled between us and cleansed us anew.

At last she turned off the froth, and we stood there, spent. "Next time, another consequence," she said. "When I tell you to rest, remember."

But I strongly suspected that I would balk again the next time, requiring her to introduce me to the next consequence.

I stepped out of the shower, feeling cleansed outside and inside, and made my way to the bed, forgetting my pajamas. It didn't matter; Coral joined me in the same state.

I suppose it seems frivolous of me to make love to another woman so soon after my separation from Megan. I still loved Megan and would always love her, but the physical portion of our relationship was over. My girls were now doing what they deemed necessary to tide me through the transition, and I have no reason in retrospect to challenge their judgment. It was, as it were, all in the family.

Certainly I slept well—when Coral put me to bed.