Chapter 5 — FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

The Saturn ship cruised on inexorably. I fidgeted, unable to concentrate properly on the details of organization. Shelia handled most of them, and I spoke directly to others only when she prompted me to. When would that sub make contact with me?

"Sir," Shelia said.

"Sir," I mimicked her, teasingly, and she smiled. She was in this period my closest and most valued associate, Coral's nocturnal ministrations notwithstanding, because she was dealing with my intellectual needs in the crisis. I had hired her for merit, not body, and that merit remained solid.

"A Navy man to see you."

"I'm not seeing any other—" I began, then broke off, looking at her.

She nodded. "The Navy man," she amended.

"I expected a message."

She spoke into her unit. "The Tyrant will see him now," she said.

"But he could be an imposter!"

"No, sir," she said. Obviously my lower personnel had verified the man's identity.

The man entered. He wore the outfit of a mechanic, and it was dirty. He had the stripes of a corporal. He was middle-aged. Taken aback, I stared at him.

He stepped up to me and saluted. "Commander Jenkins reporting as directed, sir."

I returned the salute, bemused. "You seem to be out of uniform, Commander."

"No officer leaves the ship, sir," he said.

So he was anonymous, beyond his ship or this office. I spoke briefly with him, quickly ascertaining that he was familiar with the Navy and had known of my unit when I was there. He did seem to be legitimate. Of course, I trusted the verdict of my lower staff; I just liked to verify things in my own fashion.

"Commander," I said, getting down to business. "There is a Saturn cruiser on course for Ganymede. It carries contraband that must not be permitted to reach port. But because we have not been officially notified of this, we need to balk this ship off-the-record, so as to provide Saturn no pretext for protest. Are you able to handle this?"

Now the man's nature came through clearly, as he tackled the problem. "Coordinates of target vessel, sir?"

I glanced at Spirit. She gave them.

He did a quick mental computation. "We can reach them in two days, sir. That will be a margin of two days. It would be better to let the target enter the mine field, however."

"Mine field?"

"Perhaps your predecessor didn't advise you, sir. Ganymede is protected from intrusion by a mine field laid down fifteen years ago."

I thought back. "When Tocsin was vice-president. Didn't the administration protest?"

"Why should it? Tocsin was in charge of the project."

I was stunned. "You mean, we laid those mines?"

"Surreptitiously. To inhibit the Saturn connection."

"But there has been no news of detonations!" I protested.

"Not in our press," he agreed.

I digested this. "What of the Ganymede press?"

"Not there, either. They have preferred to scout paths through the field and to move some of the mines. Now they do serve as a kind of protection from invasion, because only Ganymede knows the precise route through."

Spirit laughed. "So the mining backfired! It helps Gany, rather than hurting it!"

"I am not responsible for the blunders of our leaders," Commander Jenkins said somewhat stiffly.

"But I went there as ambassador! My ship encountered no mines!"

"Not while you followed the route charted for you by Ganymede," he agreed.

"The premier never mentioned—"

"The premier keeps his own counsel."

So it seemed. "But if the Saturn ship uses a Gany-cleared approach—"

"Errors occur," he said. "Sometimes individual mines drift."

Now, at last, I caught on. "If one should drift into the entry channel—"

"An unfortunate accident," he concluded.

"But can you move one to the right place in time? Do you know their specific channel?"

"No."

"Then—"

"It can be very difficult to tell the difference between a mine contact and a torpedo contact."

I nodded. "So, in that region you could take out that ship without making it obvious." I frowned. "I wish there were some way simply to turn it back. I don't like unnecessary bloodshed."

"Saturn cannot be cowed the way pirates can, sir. You cannot bluff it. The ship must be taken out."

"Besides which," Spirit added, "we cannot afford to advertise our part in this. It must seem like an accident."

The logic was inescapable. We had to destroy that ship. Already I was being forced into exactly the kind of dirty secret dealings I had condemned in Tocsin.

But I couldn't allow Ganymede to be transformed into a true Saturn base. "Do it," I said, feeling unclean.

Commander Jenkins saluted, turned, and departed. As he left the room his military bearing dissolved, and he slouched into unkempt mechanic status. My respect for this aspect of the Navy increased.

Now I could relax, to a degree. The problem of the Saturn ship was being handled. Perhaps Saturn would suspect what we had done, but it would not be sure and would not know why. That doubt should protect the premier, until we found some other way to "discover" the Saturn plot. In fact, debris from the ship could reveal that plot.

The rush of setting up continued. Spirit brought prospects in for me to interview; I talked with each, using my talent to read his or her basic nature, and made my judgments. My talent is not a solution to all personnel problems, because it does not tell me how much a person knows or how competent he is, only what his basic reactions are as I talk to him. Yet, if I ask probing questions or stir some emotion in him, his true reaction is clear to me, and that counts for a lot. A person who seeks to deceive me, or who has some guilty secret, rings like a false coin to my perception. I have never been betrayed by one I have analyzed in my way, even if I have taken only a few minutes.

The problems continued too. Now that the initial shock of the changeover had passed, the population was asking questions. What were the basic policies of my administration to be? Would the average man be better off than before? Would my supporters be directly rewarded? Would Hispanics be appointed to all the best jobs, at the expense of Saxons? These things were important to them. It was necessary to formulate reassuring messages, to keep the populace quiet until the actual policies were formulated and implemented. I had hardly any greater notion of what the final configuration of my administration was to be than they did.

Hopie called Thorley, explained her mission, and was astonished when he invited her to his residence for consultation. "But he's your enemy!" she exclaimed. "He condemns everything you do! Why should he help me?"

"Thorley is not my enemy," I reminded her. "Remember how courteous he was when he accompanied us to Saturn several years ago? He is merely an honest man with a differing philosophy."

"But he still writes the most horrible things about you! About how you have preempted the established Jupiter system of government and become the first true Tyrant we have had—"

"All true," I said. "Thorley never lies."

"And I'm your daughter. I'm trying to do a job you assigned me. Why should he help?"

"The complete rationale of a man as complex as Thorley can never be properly understood by others," I said. "But I suspect that in this particular case he realizes that if he is to have any positive effect on the new order, this is the most likely avenue. If he can influence you to make truly effective reforms in education, that is worth his while."

"But education isn't even important!"

I smiled. "Try telling him that."

"I will!" she said defiantly, and flounced off in the manner her kind has. How I loved that child!

Within an hour she was gone, taking little Robertico with her. Spirit had arranged for a small Navy vessel to transport her to Ebor in Sunshine, where she would stay with Megan. Thorley maintained a residence in the vicinity, as he had emerged professionally from roots in that region, much as I had. Hopie would ferry across to interview him as convenient.

I made a formal public address, explaining about the departments I was in the process of setting up and reassuring everyone that I intended to be fair to all parties. "But my first priority is to balance the budget," I concluded. "I suspect that this will require some sacrifices, so I want to do it very carefully. Senator Stonebridge is working on that now."

Then I turned to questions. Representatives of the leading news services were in the network, and Shelia selected individuals randomly to pose their questions.

The first one, as luck would have it, was from the Gotham Times. "Tyrant, when will the next elections be held?"

There was a murmur of humor at the manner in which he addressed me, but I knew that my preference for exactly that title would soon be accepted. His question set me back. I hadn't thought about elections, but, of course, I had abolished Congress, and I myself had taken power through no elective process. Would I step aside in four years to allow a new president to be elected? I didn't have to. Yet elections had always been vital to our system. There would be broad and deep popular outrage if I did not commit myself to the restoration of elections.

"There will surely be elections," I said somewhat lamely, "but I'm not sure when."

Then they were on me, figuratively, like a pack of wolves. If I was serious about future elections, why couldn't I name the date? Was I in fact planning to remain a dictator for life? Did I think the people of Jupiter would stand for that? How could there be congressional elections if there was no Congress?

I answered as well as I could, which wasn't really adequate. I felt like a less-than-bright student before a university panel. I had to promise to try to come up with better answers, after researching the matter.

Then a respected member of the Holo Guild had his turn. "Tyrant, suppose I were to call you a gnat-brained, pigheaded, philandering son of a spic?"

Suddenly there was silence in the chamber and on the air, and probably all around Jupiter, for this was being broadcast live. I knew what he was doing: He was testing my commitment to the freedom of the press, which encompassed all the present media. Actually Spirit had arranged to plant the question without telling me; that was her little bit of teasing.

It took me only a moment to recover. I hauled my open mouth closed. "I really don't think of myself as gnat-brained," I responded.

There was a pause as the audience assimilated the significance of that. Then the laughter began, timorously at first, swelling to heroic proportion. It was, I think, comprised mostly of relief. I had answered the true question: There would be no censorship. If the Tyrant himself could be openly insulted, without consequence, then anyone could.

In all my tenure as Tyrant I never suppressed the press. I remained true to my commitment to Thorley, made some fifteen or sixteen years before I assumed the power. In retrospect, that is one of the things I view with greatest pride. I believe Asoka would have approved.

The time proceeded in the usual manner, seeming at once phenomenally extended and laser-swift. My next sharp memory is of the handling of the Saturn ship. It cruised to within a day's range of Ganymede, slowed, and maneuvered through the mine field. Our watching instruments perceived a fleeting little nova; a ship had been blown up. But my regretful relief converted abruptly to dismay.

It was not the Saturn ship. That vessel proceeded on toward the planet, untouched.

What, then, had it been? Our survey of the debris made it all too clear: a sub had blown. Our sub.

What had happened? We consulted with our Navy man and came to a conclusion: Either the sub had encountered one of the mines, which would have been colossal bad fortune, or—

Or there was another sub. One that had lurked in ambush for ours and torpedoed it as the opportunity arose.

If there was another sub, the implications were chilling. It suggested that Saturn knew that we knew of their Gany ploy and had anticipated our reaction. That they had planned further ahead than we had guessed and secured their plot from our interference. Or that the premier had acted to lure us into the trap.

I rejected the latter notion. I knew the premier of Ganymede. He was a hard man, but he would not have done that to me. It was not honor so much as the particular brand of acquaintance we had: not precisely friendship but mutual respect.

Yet I was not sure I could accept the other hypothesis, either. Saturn could not have hidden a sub in Gany space without Ganymede's knowledge and acceptance. Had it done so, the premier would have warned me.

"She brought her own sub," Spirit said.

That had to be it. A Saturn sub could have traveled under the cover of the Saturn ship, perhaps even attached to it. Then, as the ship approached the dangerous region of the mine field, where an ambush would be most likely if any were to occur, the sub could have been launched. It was no easier for one sub to spot another than for a normal ship to spot a sub, but the advantage lay with surprise. Our sub had been intent on the ship it was stalking; it could readily have missed the other sub. But the enemy sub had no such distraction; it was questing only for another sub, and if it nudged ahead of the Saturn ship, it could have spotted the other. Not easily—but as Commander Jenkins (rest his soul) had reminded me, Saturn was no slouch in space. In fact, Saturn was the most sub-oriented of all the planets. If anyone had the technology to spot a sub, Saturn did.

If this was the correct scenario, then Saturn did not necessarily know that we knew of its Gany plot. It was simply exercising normal caution. Or special caution, because of the importance of this particular mission. There need be no suspicion of the premier.

But our sub had been there. Why should we have been there, if not to take out the Saturn ship? That had to suggest that we did know.

Spirit sighed. "Brother, we are in trouble."

"Double trouble," I agreed morosely. "Not only does Saturn now know or strongly suspect that we know, it is about to dock that ship on Ganymede—the one thing we can't afford."

"Maybe we can still put it out," she said. "We can take the offense. We can accuse Ganymede of blowing up one of our strayed vessels and demand reparation."

"That might shield the premier from suspicion," I agreed, "but it won't stop the Saturn ship from docking."

"It will if we get so outraged by the unprovoked attack that we invoke the Navy. We could pick that ship out of space long-distance if we used a saturation launch of homing missiles."

"But that would be an overt act of war!" I cried. "That's theoretically a Saturn freighter!"

"If that ship docks, we'll soon be at war regardless," she pointed out.

I pondered, ill at ease. "It would also be a lie," I said. "Covert activity is one thing; a lie is another. I want my administration to be based on the truth."

"The truth is that the Premier of Ganymede tipped us off," Spirit reminded me. "Do you want to put that out as news?"

"No. To preserve a confidence is not to lie. We must find a way to act without violating either the confidence or the truth."

She shook her head as if in frustration. Then she took hold of me and kissed me. "My brother, you are my conscience. Without you I would be lost."

I was halfway dazed by the compliment. My sister does not speak often in that manner. But even in my distraction of the moment I noticed Coral exchanging a glance with Shelia and nodding. Apparently the guideline that was obvious to me was not as clear to the others until enunciated.

Spirit regrouped. "Well, Saturn now knows that we had a sub in there. Would it be fair to say that we had a suspicion about their ship, that we now feel is confirmed?"

"Yes," I agreed. "But we can't say what our suspicion is."

"Suppose we accuse them of renewed arms smuggling? That's not exactly what they're doing, but it is something Jupiter has always been sensitive about. After that business with the impounded ship..."

She meant the ploy Tocsin had used to discredit Ganymede and void our exchange of ambassadors. That had been aimed primarily at my candidacy, because I had been the first ambassador to Ganymede after President Kenson reestablished diplomatic relations. I had acted to expose that ruse, but certainly it had heightened Jupiter awareness of that particular issue. It could account for our increased surveillance of Ganymede.

Where was the line between diplomacy and duplicity? What means were justified for what ends? I remained disquieted, finding this philosophical territory murky, but saw no better alternative. "Do it," I said.

So it went out to the media: our accusation that Ganymede was violating the covenant and shipping arms again. An alert went out to the Jupiter Navy, and our ships changed course and made for Ganymede. Of course, it would be days before the majority of them were in position, but the order was dramatic enough.

"Sir," Shelia said.

"Have I mentioned that I plan to have you keelhauled without a helmet, just to keep you quiet, girl?"

"After the crisis," she agreed. "A Saturn defector wishes to see you personally. He seems to have information."

"He has been checked by our personnel?"

"Now in progress. They are impressed."

"Information relevant to the present situation?"

"They think so, sir."

"Then move him on through and bring him in."

She returned to her equipment, relaying the order.

Within the hour the premier of Ganymede was on the screen. "Señor Tyrant, we are not guilty of this thing! We are shipping no arms!"

I scowled impressively. "We sent a sub in to intercept your freighter from Saturn. It did not even wait for our challenge. It torpedoed our sub! What greater evidence of guilt can there be than that?"

"That ship contained no arms!" he protested. It took about three and a half seconds for the signal to travel at light speed, each way, so there was a necessary pause that we accepted as a matter of course. "It acted only to protect itself!"

"Then what was its cargo?" I demanded. We both knew what it was, but it was necessary to put the mystery on the record.

"Why did you send a sub into Ganymede space?" he countered. "We offered no provocation! You tried to attack a routine supply ship!"

"That was no supply ship!" I exclaimed angrily.

He gazed at me cannily. "How can you say that, Señor? Do you accuse me of falsification?"

Of course, he was guilty of just that, but his code was not mine, and this declaration was necessary to clear him of the particular suspicion that counted.

I formed a smile with obvious difficulty. "Of course not, Premier. If you are giving me your word that that ship carried no arms, I must accept that." I hoped I did not look as if I accepted it. The agents of Saturn would be analyzing my every nuance of expression, trying to determine exactly how much I knew or suspected.

"Thank you, Señor Tyrant. Now about that sub in our space—"

"Sir," Shelia said.

"I'm on screen at the moment," I reminded her, nettled. She knew this was not the time for an interruption.

"This may be relevant, sir."

I caught her tone. I heeded it. "Premier, if you will pardon me one moment..." I said quickly in Spanish.

Seven seconds later the premier made a gesture of unconcern. But I was already inspecting the intruder. He was a man of about thirty, wearing ill-fitting Navy fatigues that had evidently been borrowed recently. Probably his own clothing had been taken by my security crew, to be quite sure he had nothing that could harm me.

"Admiral, I am from North Saturn," he said in Russian.

I looked suitably baffled, though, as it happens, I do speak the language. It was not at that time a talent I wanted to advertise. "English," I said. "Can you speak English? ¿Español?"

"I—from Saturn," he said haltingly in English. "Infor—information. Interest you."

"Perhaps," I agreed guardedly. "But right now I'm in the middle of a call."

"About cargo—ship." I could tell that he believed that what he had to tell me was vitally important, and I knew that my personnel, including Shelia, had shunted him on up to me as rapidly as possible.

"The ship?" I asked, my pulse quickening. "The one now approaching Ganymede?"

"Think—so," he agreed. "I—technician on special equipment. Control brain—distance. Very new."

"Mind control—without drugs?" I asked, beginning to see the relevance. "Take over people without touching them?"

He nodded vigorously. "Experimental—but effective. Sent to Ganymede."

With new surmise I returned my gaze to the screen. "Premier, if not arms, what about experimental equipment?" I demanded. "To subvert our agents without leaving any telltale drug traces or brain-wave distortions?"

"Absolutely not, Señor!" he exclaimed indignantly. "How can you believe a defector? He would say anything to gain a rich reward from Jupiter!"

"Or the locks at Tanamo," I said, as if just tuning in on something new. "Presently coded to our personnel, though under Ganymedan suzerainty. If those personnel could be subverted by such a device without our knowledge—" My expression abruptly hardened. "Premier, what the hell are you pulling?"

"All a mistake!" the premier exclaimed. "A lie, to sully Ganymede!"

"Then you won't object to allowing our personnel to board and inspect that Saturn ship before it docks," I said. "To verify that what you say is true, Señor Premier."

"It is a Saturn ship!" he protested. "Only the Saturn authorities can permit that! But I'm sure that if you apply to them, they will be happy to assuage your doubt."

"Señor, I mean to inspect that ship before it docks!" I said. "Will you deny docking clearance until this is accomplished?"

"I cannot do that!" he countered desperately. "Saturn is the ally of Ganymede! But I assure you, Señor—"

I cut him off with a Spanish expletive that related to the manner in which he pained my genital member. I returned to the defector. "What details can you provide?"

He provided what he could. Soon I was satisfied that Saturn was doing research of the nature described and did plan to use it to corrupt the agents of other planets. Whether this was the equipment actually on the present ship was uncertain, but it did provide us with what we vitally needed: the alternate source of information right at the critical moment. Now we could act without implicating the premier of Ganymede. Indeed, on the record, the premier had done his best to conceal the information from us.

Later I learned that QYV had been responsible for producing the defector at the critical moment. I was glad I had put Reba in charge; she had really helped me that time.

We spirited the defector away to a safe and comfortable hiding place and contacted Saturn. Naturally their bureaucracy stalled. They didn't deny our demand, they merely ran it through their labyrinthine channels. It was obvious that nothing would be accomplished within the day's time required for the ship to arrive and dock.

I cut that short by putting through a hotline call directly to the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Saturn, Comrade Karzhinov. Any call to Saturn, under optimum conditions, requires a minimum of half an hour, because the orbit of that planet is more than four astronomical units from the orbit of Jupiter, and, of course, one astronomical unit is the archaic measure of Earth's distance from the sun, or about eight and a third light minutes. Normally Saturn is farther from Jupiter than that, depending on the planets' positions within those orbits; at its worst, the separation can be about fifteen astronomical units, or over two hours' one-way signal time. It has been claimed that this slowness of communication is responsible for the deteriorating relations between the two, but I regard that as nonsense. After all, Uranus is never closer than fourteen astronomical units to Jupiter, yet our relations with that planet generally have been good. No, it is political, not spatial, relations that generate the problem.

But while we were expending the hours required to contact Karzhinov directly, that Saturn ship was still proceeding to Ganymede. I'm not sure what the Saturn day-night cycle was at that time relative to ours or how long it took the North Saturn leader to read my message and formulate his reply. Probably he took time to consult his advisers. Thus it was about ten hours before I heard from him. I did not stand on one foot waiting; I retired and slept and handled the onrushing routine.

Then, when the ship was within twelve hours of Ganymede, I received Karzhinov's response. It was terse and to the point: The ship was a Saturn freighter, not subject to our interference, and we would respect its integrity or pay the price.

Spirit and I exchanged a glance. "He's toughing it out," she said. "He knows that by the time we exchange many more messages, the ship will have docked."

"He thinks I am made of putty," I said. Putty is a concept derived from the nature of a substance once used to caulk windows; it deforms readily under pressure.

"Saturn does not respect putty," she said.

"Then let's up the ante. We have time for one more exchange, at this rate, before that ship docks. What can we do to dispel the putty image?"

"We can put the Navy on Full Alert."

I pursed my lips. There have been various procedures over the centuries for the preparation for action, with various names and codes. At present Alert meant that the Navy would be marshaling for possible battle. It did not signal war, but it was not a thing that was done without reason. We had invoked a partial Alert when we oriented on Ganymede; a Full Alert would involve all our ships disposed around the Solar System, including those in Saturn Space. That could be construed as menacing. Certainly it would signal the seriousness with which we viewed the present situation.

"Do it," I said.

Shelia made the call. Within a minute Emerald's dark face was on the main screen. "You sure, Tyrant?" she demanded.

"Full Alert," I repeated.

"Done. It will take awhile for it to be effective in the farther reaches. To what extent do we grant local autonomy?"

Because when it required four hours to send a signal to a ship in the Neptune region, the admiral in charge there could not necessarily afford to wait eight hours for the answer to any query.

"Limited," I said. "I don't want some fool starting SWIII on his own itch."

"Just see that he doesn't start it right here," she replied, smiling grimly as she faded out.

I smiled in return, though the screen was now blank. Emerald had called on a private beam, but we both knew that the transmission would be intercepted, recorded, and decoded by Saturn agents. She knew I was making a gesture for Saturn to interpret, in the game of hints and signals that interplanetary relations was. Her informality suggested that we did not know we would be tapped, and her remark about the possibility of accidentally launching Solar System War Three suggested that I had that potential. It would not be a comfortable interpretation for the Saturn experts—and that was good. I wanted them to become uncertain. How well Emerald still understood me!

"So much for the indirect message to Saturn," Spirit said. "Now for the direct one. What tone do we assume?"

"A reasonable one," I decided. "We have information that that ship is transporting equipment that threatens the security of Jupiter, and we cannot allow it to dock. They must turn it back to Saturn or suffer the consequence."

"And our closest ships will simultaneously orient for firing on that ship," she agreed. "We remain out of range, but we can make quite a show."

"Do it," I agreed.

This time the Saturn response came in four hours: To fire on that ship would be an act of war, and Saturn would not be responsible for the consequence.

"They're still toughing it out," Spirit said. "They are sure you'll back down."

"Do you think they'll go to war over one ship?" I asked.

"I doubt it. They don't want war, they want the critical advantage that a converted Tanamo base would provide."

"Then let's fire on that ship."

She frowned. "Um, let's keep within protocol. We have time for one more exchange of messages before it docks. We can send an ultimatum, and if they don't respond by the deadline, then we shall be justified in taking action. In that time our ships will get that much closer, and their fire correspondingly more accurate. We might be able to take the ship out."

We did it. Knowing that a difficult period was coming up, I took a nap. This might seem strange, but I had been in combat and knew the importance of being properly rested. I had learned decades ago to sleep when I needed to. I would have done so that first night after I assumed power, had Coral not forced the issue. But it had been more comfortable letting her handle it, as I am sure any man would agree.

The response from Karzhinov came just two hours before the docking, and it was blunt indeed. It translated: "Do not interfere with ship. Saturn will retaliate."

Spirit sighed. "They simply won't take us seriously! We have no alternative but to do it."

"Remember when we delivered ultimatums to pirates?" I asked her. For though I regarded pirates as the scum of the System and hated the entire breed ever since they had slain our father, I had tried to be fair. This was not so much for their benefit, as for my own: I needed to believe in the justness of my cause and the rightness of my actions. Just as I did now.

"We did have to kill a number of them," she reminded me.

It was my turn to sigh. I have never liked killing, but I have done it when necessary. I was prepared to do it again.

We contacted Emerald and gave the order. The Navy ships opened fire.

The attack failed; the range was still too great. But there was a virtual explosion nevertheless.

First there was a call from the premier of Ganymede. "Tyrant Hubris, you are attacking Ganymede territory!" he protested.

"Correction," I said. "We are firing on a Saturn ship that our intelligence informs us is a threat to Jupiter. Its location at the moment is coincidental."

"You are violating Ganymede space! I demand that you desist instantly!"

"Turn over that Saturn ship and we'll desist," I replied.

"But I have no authority over a Saturn vessel!"

"Then deny it clearance to dock. It will have to return to Saturn."

He looked truly pained, though, of course, this was what he most wanted to do. That ship represented disaster for him as well as for Jupiter. But he could not express his true sentiment. "Saturn is Ganymede's ally and benefactor! I cannot insult Saturn in this manner!"

My expression hardened. "I had thought that relations between Jupiter and Ganymede were improving. We maintain embassies. We buy your sugar. Now I learn that you have deceived me, Premier. You have tried to bring in technicians to make Tanamo an enemy military base. This is a dagger at Jupiter's heart and a betrayal of my personal trust."

His protest was already coming in, crossing with my harangue. I overrode it, lapsing into Spanish in my supposed rage. "I arranged the transfer of that base!" I roared. "I trusted your sincerity! And how do you repay my trust, you dog's penis? You try to convert it to a Saturn missile base! You try to destroy me, just as I come into power in Jupiter!"

"...only supplies, I swear!" he was saying in English. "No arms, no special equipment, only food and tools for our agriculture!"

Then, as I paused, my Spanish outburst caught up to him. He changed to Spanish himself. "You eater of sweet rolls!" he cried, reddening in the face. I should clarify that in the Gany dialect of Spanish, a certain type of food becomes the vernacular for the female genital and is not spoken as a compliment. "You fire into my space, violating interplanetary protocol, and dare to accuse me of bad faith? You look for a pretext to invade our planet and make it a Jupiter colony! But do you know what will happen if you do that, Señor animal fornicator? Twenty thousand gringos will die!"

I cut off the contact, then settled back, laughing. "He understands, all right," I said.

"He had better," Spirit said. "We're going to have to invade Ganymede, you know."

"With about twenty thousand troops," I agreed. "But with lasers set at stun only."

"The Saturn forces there won't set theirs at stun," she said.

"He'll keep them clear. Ganymede is not our worry. Saturn is."

"Saturn is," she agreed. "If Karzhinov doesn't bluff, we really will be in Ess-Doubleyou-Three."

That sobered me. "We have to risk it, though."

"Sir," Shelia said.

"Put him on," I said.

It was, as I had anticipated, the ambassador from Saturn. There was no delay in transmissions here, because he was in New Wash. "I must sternly inquire as to the meaning of this outrage," he said.

"The meaning is that Saturn is trying to change the locks on Tanamo Base on Ganymede, and the premier of Ganymede is playing along," I said severely. "This cannot and shall not be permitted. Your ship must turn back before docking or we shall take more specific action."

"It is only a supply ship!" he protested.

"Guarded by a killer sub," I said. "Why are you so protective of this particular ship? A true supply ship has no fear of inspections."

"This is preposterous!"

"I agree. Turn back the ship."

"But I have no authority to—"

"Then don't waste my time." I cut him off.

The ship did not stop. We remained unable to knock it out at long distance; we would have had to launch a CT missile at Ganymede itself to take it out, and I was not prepared to do that.

"Ganymede is organizing to repel invasion," Spirit said.

"Invade," I agreed. "But watch Saturn."

"Emerald's on it."

We tracked Saturn's ships in the Jupiter sphere. They were now on alert. Ours moved into position to oppose them, even as Saturn ships defending Saturn moved to counter our formation there. Indeed the invasion of Ganymede might be a joke, but the siege of Saturn was not. If any missile was fired at a Jupiter city—

Now the White Bubble was deluged with calls from our own population. We had not censored the news; the people were catching on that real trouble was brewing.

"Sir, you may want to watch this," Shelia said, and put on a local interview.

It was Thorley, my most eloquent critic, speaking editorially. The startling thing was who was in the background: my daughter Hopie. Evidently she had been consulting him about the prospects for education when both were caught by the Saturn crisis, and the pickup caught them both.

"That will make tongues wag!" Spirit murmured.

"...seems to be madness," Thorley was saying. "There is no reputable evidence I know of that the Saturn ship carries contraband, and to launch an attack on the mere suspicion—"

"My father's not mad!" Hopie exclaimed. "He always has good reason for what he does!"

Thorley gave a wry smile. "Such as appointing a child to be in charge of education?"

"He told me I could do the job if I got the best advice!"

He shook his head. "Mayhap he is but mad north-northwest; when the wind is southerly, he knows a hawk from a handsaw." He returned to the camera, smiling in the eloquently rueful way he had. "It seems the Tyrant sent his daughter to me for advice."

I heard someone laugh; it was Shelia, losing her composure for the moment. Thorley was, as I mentioned, my most effective critic, but it was impossible not to like him.

"...yet it remains difficult to see the logic in such brinksmanship," Thorley was continuing. "In a matter of hours the Tyrant has brought us closer to the brink of holocaust than has been the case in twenty years. I am, candidly, appalled."

Then we had to return to the business at hand. Another message had arrived from Chairman Karzhinov.

"Madness!" he exclaimed, as if echoing Thorley. Actually the word was that of the translator, for Karzhinov did not speak English and did not know that I spoke Russian. "You are committing an act of war! Desist or we must react!"

"Send a bread-and-butter note," I told Shelia. She looked pale, but she got on it: a routine repetition of our demand that the ship not dock. Of course, it would be too late by the time that message reached Saturn, but it maintained contact. I wanted it clear that we had reason for our action and that only a Saturnian backdown would avert catastrophe.

But the ship did dock. Our invasion force moved into position, Tanamo the obvious target. We wanted no confusion on the part of the premier of Ganymede; he had to know precisely where and when we would land.

I looked about me during a lull in the activity, if not the tension. Ebony was there, having reverted to gofer status for the crisis. She looked as pale as a Black woman could. I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Sir, how do they know not to shoot?" she asked. "You sent no message. After the way you yelled at the premier—"

"The premier and I understand each other," I said.

"But—"

"Any message of that nature would be intercepted," I explained. "Therefore there has to be no message. But the premier knows what he has to do, as do I."

"But the Saturn fleet—"

"Do you happen to know who commands the Jupiter-sphere division of the Saturn fleet?"

Wordlessly she shook her head.

"Admiral Khukov."

"Oh! We know him—"

"As well as we know the premier."

"But he's a ruthless man, sir."

"He knows his priorities—as do I."

"I sure hope you do!" she said.

"It is a bit chancy," I agreed. "But, I think, necessary."

The Saturn fleet became more menacing. Their dreadnoughts were impressive, but it was their formidable subs that concerned me most. Our destroyers were trying desperately to track them, and we had most located but could not be sure of some. In any event, unless we launched a preemptive strike at them, our cities would be vulnerable to their strike. Yet, at the same time, our subs were closing on Saturn and giving their defenses similar fits. One CT warhead could do a horrendous amount of damage. In fact, there was a growing question whether the disruption of planetary atmosphere would not generate a greater long-term mischief than the destruction of a city. But at the moment it was the immediate situation that concerned us. Saturn had to be made to believe that I really would push the final button—if driven too far.

"Sir," Shelia said.

Wearily I glanced at her.

"Ganymede is carrying it live."

"So far so good!" I exclaimed, relieved. "Put it on."

The screen showed the Gany militia moving into place, ready to repel the invader. They were armed with laser rifles and pistols.

They were evidently outside the Tanamo base, their entry balked by the resistance of our gatekeepers. That was the peculiarity of the compromise I had arranged, about seven years before: Tanamo had passed to Gany control, but the locks had remained keyed to Jupiter personnel. Thus it had been impossible for the base to be abused by Saturn, because the very specialized equipment necessary to recode the locks could be docked only at Tanamo itself, and our personnel would not permit that. Now, of course, that situation had changed; the more sophisticated equipment being landed at the other port could do that job. Once the premier was out of the way, the treaty could be voided by Saturn.

The ships of the Jupiter Navy, naturally, had no difficulty docking at Tanamo; our personnel facilitated their clearance. In short order we had twenty thousand laser-armed troops there. They stormed out, covered by our own cameras, and rushed to shore up the defenses of the planet-bound accesses.

There was a blazing battle at the perimeter as the Gany forces charged. They had to expose themselves in the straight access tunnels, and our troops mowed them down.

It was beautiful. The Gany troops clutched themselves and collapsed. Had I not known they were not hurt, I would have winced. They had been well coached.

Would it fool the Saturnians? I knew it would not deceive Admiral Khukov for an instant, but I also was pretty sure that he would not expose the ruse. He would read it correctly, censor the Saturn records of anything that would undermine the effect, and send the tapes on to his superiors: the clear violation of Gany territory I had initiated. Then he would wait for his orders.

After our troops had cleared the corridor they moved out to secure a broader foothold. Now they were to some extent exposed, and snipers caught them. They died as convincingly as had the Ganys. The gringos were starting to get it.

The reaction in our media was immediate: NAVY INVADES GANY! the Gotham Times headline read. Others put it more succinctly: WAR! The calls to the White Bubble multiplied but were blocked off; we were now too busy to bother with them. Only communications through channels were accepted—and there were more than enough of those to swamp us.

Very soon the second reaction came: "This is madness!" a commentator cried. "For no reason we invade Ganymede? What kind of a fool do we have at the helm?"

That reaction quickly spread across Jupiter. The ousted opposition Congressmen were quick to cry warning: the planet could not afford to tolerate a crazy man in the White Bubble!

But the great ships of the Jupiter Navy remained in place above our cities, orienting on Ganymede, and tracking the Saturn ships and subs. They represented the ultimate power in this region of space, and they answered only to Admiral Emerald Mondy, who served the Tyrant with absolute loyalty. The power was mine.

Actually the sequence took more time than it seems in my memory, and the details were more complex than I can render here, because of the distance to Saturn and the enormity of planetary proceedings. But I must render it as I perceived it, trusting to the official records to correct my confusions. One thing is certain: The System came extraordinarily close to war and possible annihilation in that period. Yet I am not certain that there was any better way to accomplish what had to be accomplished. Some risk is always entailed in surgery, and the dangers of leaving the situation uncorrected were, in the long term, greater. I did what I had to do.

Our invasion of Ganymede proceeded while Saturn expostulated. Because it took four hours for Karzhinov's reactions to reach me, much happened between calls. Now we stalled them, reversing their prior ploy, and they were as helpless as we. They lacked the resources to defend Ganymede directly; this was, after all, the Jupiter sphere. Certainly they did not desire to initiate System War Three over Ganymede; the planet was a loss to them even under favorable circumstances and hardly worth the horrendous cost of full war. Yet Saturn pride could not let us take over without opposition.

Karzhinov temporized: he issued an ultimatum. "Withdraw your troops from Ganymede by 1200 hours, January 28, 2650, or the Union of Saturnian Republics will be forced to consider your action an act of war."

I laughed when Shelia read me the translation. "Send this reply," I told her. "Saturn, keep your nose clear of Jupiter business, lest it get cut off. Signed, the Tyrant of Space."

"You're sure Karzhinov can be bluffed?" Spirit inquired.

"Who's bluffing?"

She smiled, but I could see that she was worried. She understood me well, but she got nervous when I got like this.

Actually I was pretty sure about Karzhinov. He was typical of the Saturn hierarchy: an unscrupulous, atheistic bureaucrat who had risen to the apex by conspiring against his enemies, betraying his friends, and being lucky. Like most bullies, he was essentially a coward. I had never met him personally, but I had read him through his public pronouncements and interviews and updated my information during the current exchange. I knew I could bluff him out.

The danger was that when he stepped down or was replaced, there would be a new and tougher Saturn leader who lacked the judgment to back off. I could handle a man I had studied; there might not be time to study the next.

But if the right man seized the occasion—

The Navy spread out and conquered new territory on Ganymede with surprising alacrity. Horror stories of death and destruction were broadcast by the hour, sometimes by the minute, from both sides, and the toll in lives and property mounted. Censorship was clamped down by both sides, but selected tales leaked out. It was, by all appearances, an awful situation. Our body count differed from theirs by the usual ratio: we claimed two and a half times as many casualties inflicted as they acknowledged, and they claimed two and a half times as many as we acknowledged. The Navy threw in more men as other ships arrived, and the toll of dead gringos mounted steadily toward the predicted total.

The Saturn ships maneuvered, orienting on all of our major targets. Their subs played tag with ours—those that either party could identify. We knew that the greatest threat was from the unlocated Saturn subs, which would torpedo our defensive ships from hiding. Ours would take out their ships similarly, but that would be too late to save our cities from the initial bombardment by those ships. Our real response would not be defensive but offensive: as our subs took out the major Saturn cities. That was the true balance of terror: the civilian populations of each planet were hostage to the Navy of the other. Karzhinov was not secure from that, and neither was I; we would both be dead men once the war began.

But Karzhinov was a coward and I was not.

The hours passed. The Saturn deadline drew nigh. I knew Karzhinov would back down, but others did not know that, nor could I tell them. The Gany invasion was fake, a construct of tacit collaboration between the premier and me, but the confrontation with Saturn was not. I had to trust that the Saturn structure had the same discipline as ours, so that no nervous admiral pushed his button and triggered the ultimate holocaust. I was conscious of the potential for error and of the enormous consequence thereof.

I told the others to sleep—Coral, Ebony, Spirit, and Shelia—but they would not or could not. Certainly I would not. Thus as the Saturnian deadline approached, we had been awake for more than thirty hours. I don't think any of us felt it or were aware of our natural functions. We ate and drank and eliminated on a different level of awareness, as though our bodies were disconnected from our heads.

In retrospect I realize that I drifted into one of my visions. I was not then aware of its coming, and I still am not certain to what extent the others were aware of it or participated in it. Helse did not come to me this time; that was one reason I did not realize. Perhaps the others were afraid to bring me out of it, lest in my confusion or reaction I do something rash—such as giving the Order—so I played along. I never cared to inquire afterward, and they never cared to volunteer. Thus we went through a special experience together, whose complete nature remains opaque.

In my private awareness it seemed that the barriers of space and time dissolved, and I faced Karzhinov via a screen that had no delay of transmission. "Why do you do this, Tyrant of Space?" he demanded, beads of cold sweat showing on his jowls. "Why do you force us into this folly of war?"

"You were the one who started it," I replied. "You sought to corrupt the pact we fashioned years ago, when Tanamo returned to Ganymede."

"A lie!" he cried. "You only sought a pretext to invade Ganymede!"

He had been speaking in Russian, I in English, neither being surprised that we understood each other. Now I addressed him directly in Russian. "You running dog! You tried to sneak that ship by me, and now you deny it! You make me so angry!" And my finger hovered above the big red button that would ignite the holocaust.

"Don't touch that!" he cried. Then, in a verbal double take: "You speak my language!"

"That is why you cannot deceive me, you Bolshevik bureaucrat!"

He brought out his own red button, mounted on a little box. His face turned red with embarrassment. "You knew! You understood my language! You have made a fool of me! I will show you! I will have revenge!" And his fat finger moved to the button.

But I read him better than he read me. I knew he was bluffing. He feared death too much to launch the holocaust. "Go ahead, imperialist Communist!" I baited him. "Push the button! Strike it with your shoe! Show the System what you are made of!"

Now, challenged to the point, he realized that he was lost. Slowly he crumbled. He sagged to the floor.

The box with the button fell from his hand and bounced on the floor. It flipped over and came down on its button. There was a crackle as the connection was made.

"Uh-oh," I murmured in English.

Responding to that signal, the Saturn fleet opened fire on Jupiter, Our fleet responded, firing on Saturn.

There was a pause. Then the CT missiles, impossible to intercept at short range, scored. Almost simultaneously Jupiter and Saturn flared, their city-bubbles exploding. The shock of the explosions rocked the atmospheres and caused the remaining cities to crack and implode, so that no significant life remained at the planetary level. Meanwhile, other missiles scored on the various moons, taking them out also.

Jupiter and Saturn were sparkling with the pinpoint destructions of their cities. But the other planets were not immune. The moment the hostilities commenced, commands went out to the ships of the Belligerents, and missiles were fired at their allies. Uranus erupted, and Mars, Venus, Mercury, and Earth itself. Then, in slowing but inevitable order, the more extreme planets, and the major settlements of the Belt. Humanity was destroying itself.

I was dead, too, of course, and all who were with me. Together we had brought to a halt man's ascension toward space. Whatever our species might have been or become was ended. Was it worth it?

 

"Hope, for the love of God!"

The words transfixed me. That was Megan!

I emerged from my vision to discover myself standing before the main screen. Megan's image was on it. She had spoken, and not from the dead. The Saturn deadline was upon us, the moment of decision.

I glanced around me. My sister Spirit stood at my side, her face drawn. Coral and Ebony stood near the door, frozen: of two different races and types but almost alike in this moment. Shelia was as always in her wheelchair, her right hand resting by the computerized communications controls, her eyes fixed on me. None of them would gainsay me; my word was law, here, though it could bring destruction on us all.

But Megan was, and had always been, her own woman. I had kept company with her for almost twenty years, and I would always love her, and she reciprocated. It was in part love that separated us, for she had been unable to join me in the Tyrancy but unwilling to deny me my destiny. Now she was addressing me directly, and it shook me more deeply than the very vision of the end of humanity. Megan was not only the woman I loved; she was a truly great and good person whose instincts were almost unfailingly correct. For her I would give up anything—if she let me.

I gazed at her, and I could not answer her. I knew that she did not know what I knew: that the ongoing conquest of Ganymede was a sham, the tolls of the dead a carefully nurtured fiction crafted by both sides. That the real target was not Ganymede or Saturn but the present leadership of Saturn. This was our best and perhaps only chance to achieve the breakthrough that would enable future changes of enormous significance. My present course could accomplish more of what Megan desired for mankind than any other course could. All she saw at the moment was the concurrent risk. I could not blame her for that, for I had fostered the illusion of madness to which she was responding. Yet I could not at this point disillusion her, for that would damage or destroy the whole of my thrust.

For the sake of all that Megan and I both believed in, I had to deceive her in this. I felt the terrible dread of the alienation I was making, for there was no one I wished to hurt less than this woman. But it was necessary.

I turned away from her. I signaled Sheila and saw her fingers move, cutting off the connection. It was done.

"I remember when you raped Rue," Spirit murmured.

That was it, exactly. Rape was an abomination, but I had been forced by circumstance to do it, and my sister had witnessed it. What I had done to Megan was more subtle and more cruel but as necessary. I almost would have preferred the denouement of the vision.

 

Now we waited. The Saturn deadline was past, and there had been no change in my policy. The action on Ganymede continued. We had secured Tanamo but were broadening our base in an evident campaign of complete conquest. The casualties, as represented by both sides, were high, but the outcome was inevitable: Ganymede would be restored as a satellite of Jupiter, if Saturn did not act. And Saturn could not act—short of System War Three.

The four hours required for the news of my refusal to honor the Saturn deadline passed. Now was the second siege of tension: awaiting the reaction of Saturn. If I had miscalculated, if I had misjudged Karzhinov, then all was over. I was sure I had not done so, yet the stakes were so high that I remained quite tense, anyway.

The time for the response came—and nothing happened. We did not relax; it could mean that there was simply a bureaucratic delay in implementation of the attack command. Yet the longer the delay, the better.

The hours passed without reaction. Saturn neither attacked nor retreated. Was Karzhinov trying to wear me down? I simply waited. All of us were tired, but none of us could sleep.

It seemed that not many others were sleeping, either. Shelia glanced at me inquiringly, having something of interest coming in, and I nodded, and it came on: Thorley, commenting.

"It seems that Jupiter and Saturn are engaged in a contest to see who will be the first to blink. Saturn set a deadline; the Tyrant ignored it; now it is Saturn's move. This would be an intriguing study, if the fate of mankind did not hang upon the outcome."

"He always was good with a summation," I said.

"Which demonstrates in more direct fashion than I would have preferred the folly of bypassing our established and time-honored conventions," Thorley continued. "Had the democratic process been honored, we should not now have a madman inviting destruction for us all. Let this be a lesson, should we survive it."

"Yes, indeed," Spirit agreed, smiling wanly.

We waited, and the System waited with us. The planet of Jupiter, and probably Saturn also, had paused with bated heartbeat, waiting for the ax to fall—or turn aside.

"Sir."

I jumped at Shelia's word; I had not been aware I was dozing. "Um."

"Admiral Khukov."

"On."

Khukov's familiar face appeared. "Will you meet with me, Tyrant Hubris?" he inquired formally in English.

I knew by his bearing that victory was at hand. Khukov had a talent similar to mine, the ability to read people, and he and I could read each other. That was why we trusted each other, though our motives and loyalties were in many respects quite opposed. "I will, Admiral."

"I will send a boat for you and your sister."

"Agreed."

The screen went blank. "Sleep," I said. "The crisis has passed."

"Should we make an announcement, sir?" Shelia asked.

I walked over, leaned down, and kissed her on the forehead. "That a meeting has been arranged. No more. Then rest until the ship comes."

She activated her console. "For release from the office of the Tyrant," she said. "A meeting has been arranged between Admiral Khukov of the Saturn fleet and the Tyrant." She touched a button. "JupNav, arrange escort for the Saturn ship to the White Bubble." Then another button. "No further calls to the Tyrant's office until the Saturn ship arrives." Then she let her head fall back against the headrest and closed her eyes.

Spirit and Ebony were already gone. Coral took my arm and brought me to my bed, where I flopped prone and slept in my clothes. She must have done likewise.