Executive

by Piers Anthony

  “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 can not 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 in 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!”

  “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 one” 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, 2651, 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 destruction 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.