Patriarch's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 6)

by David Feintuch

  Manfully he downed it, and spluttered until his face was red.

  Philip started the engine. “The hotel?”

  “Where is it?”

  “I booked us in Devon.” He tried to sound casual, knowing I’d be pleased.

  “Not quite yet. Can you find the cemetery?”

  “From the air.”

  Again we set down. I visited Father’s grave. Those around it were untended and forlorn, but his plot was neatly mowed. A few flowers drooped. I raised an eyebrow within my mask.

  Philip shrugged. “It doesn’t cost much.”

  “Thank you.” It was my task, unfulfilled. Forgive me, Father.

  “Shall we go?”

  “In a moment.” I tried to wheel my chair up the hill. Breathing heavily through his mask, Danil came behind to push. “Over there, to the left. Two rows back.” I could find the place in my sleep.

  Oftentimes, I had.

  “That granite marker. The brown one.” We stopped. “Help me out of the chair.” I hadn’t knelt for Father, but I would here.

  He lowered me to the ground. “Who is it, sir?”

  “My best friend, Jason. He was just your age.” As I had been, in the distant past.

  I bowed my head. Presently, I became aware of a small form, kneeling at my side.

  Somehow, it gave me solace.

  A few minutes later, I struggled into my chair. “The demerits are canceled.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m sorry I’m cruel.”

  “I’m sorry I provoke you. I’ll try to do it less.” A wise young joey. He didn’t promise the impossible.

  13

  “A COMPLETE REVERSAL.” JERENCE Branstead looked stunned.

  “I’ll do what I can to help.” I drummed my desktop. It was an immense relief to be home. Outside the complex, a crowd had once more gathered. Perhaps I ought to make time to see them, but shaking each outthrust hand could fill my day, if not my life. I sighed. With what I had planned, I’d probably not be in office long. Perhaps somehow they sensed that, and were saying their farewells.

  “I’m not sure who’ll stay faithful,” he said. “It’ll split the party.”

  “Yes.” So be it. I’d spent a sleepless night debating my course. “Jerence ...” Automatically, I looked about to make sure no one heard except Philip, sitting quietly in the corner. “About a third of the Terries are closet enviros. If we hold half our Supras, and pull in the Enviros and the Indies, we’ll have just enough votes.”

  “Form a new coalition? Sir, on an issue this big, there’s no going back. The parties will realign.” He seemed awed.

  “Perhaps that’s for the best.” The Terries and the Supras had traded Governments between them long enough.

  “But ... scrap the Greenhouse Gases Act, after we barely saved it?”

  “I won’t pretend that a five percent reduction is enough.”

  “Last week it was too much for you.”

  I closed my eyes, recalling our long deliberation at Devon. During the course of the evening P.T. had overwhelmed me with figures, with charts he called up on my puter, with frightening statistics. He gave me his word they were not exaggerated, and Philip’s word was rock.

  Why, during all my years, had I not seen?

  I’d been occupied with the fish wars. Busy restoring our desperately injured economy. Busy halting the extermination of the transpops, the spoliation of our cities.

  It was fundamentally wrong to interfere with His plan; nothing Philip showed me changed my belief. But we had interfered. Surely, Lord God couldn’t have meant us to befoul Father’s homestead. Or reduce Bavaria to a sodden ruin. Or devastate Volgograd, or Amsterdam, or Louisiana ...

  I’m sorry.

  When You send me to Hell, You will hear me bleat, as always, “I’m sorry.”

  I said, “We need a full sixteen percent reduction.”

  “Unachievable, politically.”

  We’d see.

  “That’s only the start,” I warned. “Of course we’ll work on cleaning up the filth we spew—that goes without saying—but atmospheric warming is our biggest problem. Every time we burn a fossil fuel, we’re releasing the energy of sunlight stored millions of years ago. That, in addition to our normal complement of sunlight today. We simply put out too much energy.”

  “I’ve seen the briefings.”

  “We can reduce the energy we expend, or the energy that reaches us. A top priority will be the Solar Umbrella.” As I spoke, P.T. watched with approval that was almost parental.

  Branstead folded his arms. “Not that wild scheme again.”

  “It’s been around almost two hundred years. Set a shield between us and the sun—”

  “It would be two thousand kilometers across! Mr. SecGen, no matter what we make it of, we can’t lift that much mass from our gravity well.”

  “We don’t have to. We’ll buy ore from the asteroid mines.”

  “The Navy won’t be amused.” The vast majority of asteroid production was earmarked for Naval hulls, years in advance.

  “The Navy will do what it’s told.”

  Jerence sighed. “Give me a few days to break it to our joeys.” He shook his head. “A shake-up this big ... You’ll have to lead. Actively.”

  “Very well. I’ll work the caller, and make speeches.”

  “Deals, also. Not every pol is a visionary.”

  I’d known it would be necessary. “That too.” I smiled, thinly. “What shall we call ourselves?”

  Philip cleared his throat. “The Born Again Ecos?”

  My smile vanished. “That’s not funny.” We would birth a political party, not a religious revolution. To suggest otherwise, even in jest, skirted heresy.

  “And then there’s the Eco League.” Branstead looked grim. “It’ll look like you’re caving in, no matter how we phrase it.”

  “Not after they’re captured.” Even Jerence didn’t know the extent of Donner’s surveillance.

  Our meeting drew to a close. Jerence shook hands gravely, wandered off with P.T. to find Arlene. I rolled to the door. “Is our cadet up? Oh. You.” I frowned.

  Mikhael stood quickly. “May I see you?”

  “Very well.”

  He shut the door, leaned against it. “I apologize. I won’t do it again, sir. I’m here for two months and I won’t give you any more goofjuice about it.”

  I regarded him. He was sweating. “Getting along with Arlene?” My tone held a gentle malice.

  “She’s—” Whatever he intended to say, he thought better of it.

  “Not to be trifled with,” I finished.

  “No, sir.”

  “Take a seat.” Promptly, he did so. Perhaps that was the solution to all my problems: pass them to Arlene. “Did she hit you?”

  “No, she—” He swallowed. “Almost.”

  “Anything else she told you to say?”

  He flushed deep red. “I’m to call you ‘sir,’ agree with you or keep my opinions to myself, and that it’s decent of you to take me in.”

  “She went a bit too far.” I permitted myself a wintry smile. “You’re that afraid of her?”

  “Not afraid, exactly. It’s ... sir, the next time you take a trip, could I come along?”

  My smile widened. I’d have to ask her technique. On the other hand, perhaps I didn’t want to know. “Easy, joey. I want you civilized, not terrorized.”

  “Thank you.” He hesitated. “Would you tell her I spoke to you?”

  “Ahh.” I made a tent of my fingers. “What was her deadline?”

  “One o’clock sir. Would she really ...” He squirmed. “May I be excused?”

  “Yes.” As he stood, I said, “No, stay awhile.” I liked the new Mikhael much better. On the other hand, fear wasn’t respect; I still had to reach him. “I’ll be going on a speaking tour. Would you like to come?”

  “Yes, please.” His response was instant. Then, “Does it have to do with your closed door meetings? All the calls
?”

  “It’s none of your—Yes.” I shouldn’t tell him; he had no discretion. But he was Alexi’s son, and in my care.

  “We’re planning a major change in policy,” I said.

  “Enviro policy.”

  If I could, I’d have bolted to my feet. “How’d you know?”

  “I’m not stupid.” Seeing my face, he added hastily, “Bevin, sir. The cadet’s had a goofy smile on his face ever since you got home. He’s enviro, isn’t he? Told me his father worked for the Enviro League.”

  “Council. The Eco League is an entirely ... the Enviro Council.”

  “Whatever. So, if it made him so happy ...” Mikhael shrugged.

  For an instant I hesitated, then thrust my future in his hands. “We’re going all out for enviro restoration.”

  “Why?” It wasn’t a challenge, just curiosity.

  “Don’t you think we need it?”

  “Who cares what I think?” His tone was bitter.

  “I do.”

  “I suppose. The sea levels are ...” His face twisted. “I didn’t mean anything by that Dutch joke, sir!”

  “I know, Mikhael.” My tone was gentle.

  “She made me feel like I drowned them myself. It wasn’t fair.”

  “We don’t laugh at people in pain.” I told him of the visit from the Dutch relief committee, described the appalling devastation of Bangladesh I’d seen on my overflights. “Arlene was with me. She cried.”

  Mikhael scuffed his foot. “I’m sorry.”

  “She’ll be glad to know.”

  “But Holland is nothing new. What changed your mind?”

  “Philip. Though it was there for me to see.”

  He studied me, as if weighing my answer.

  I said, “In Academy nowadays, they don’t let cadets outdoors when gamma radiation is high, and it happens more and more often. We’ve had spills, spews, horrid floods, fires, an upsurge in cancers for the first time in a century. Food production is in chaos; we’re utterly dependent on the colonies. It’s all eco-related.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I made myself blind!” I rested head in hands. “How many died while I was obstinate?”

  “Dad told me, don’t take on the cares of the world.”

  “Father taught me otherwise. The joey who shot at me ... his family lost their fishing boat in the Pacific die-off. That sergeant who killed those cadets: his family died of toxic contamination. The Eco Action League is wrong, and irresponsible, but I ignored their pleas, goaded them until ...” I cut it off, appalled.

  “Yes?”

  I couldn’t say it.

  No. Let it be part of my punishment.

  I whispered, “You were right. I killed your father. If I’d seen reason, the Eco League wouldn’t have set off the bomb.”

  “Oh, Mr. Seafort!” His eyes glistened. “I want so much to hate you.” A long pause. “But Mr. Carr told me all about you and Dad. I know why he wanted to go to the Rotunda.”

  I swallowed. “I’m sorry, Mikhael.”

  “I miss him so damn much.” He hugged himself. “But I won’t blame it on you.”

  A silence, in which we found a sort of peace. Eventually, I cleared my throat. “Let’s sit on the veranda. I’ll pretend I’m Derek, and tell you stories.”

  “Yes, sir.” He jumped to his feet, still anxious to show his good behavior.

  I gestured to him to open the double doors.

  It was one of those increasing rarities, a cool summer day. A few years ago I’d had alumalloy awnings installed to block the sun. Unconsciously, I now realized, I’d made my accommodations to the growing enviro calamity.

  I patted a nearby seat. “I met Derek—I mean, Mr. Carr—when he was about your age.”

  “You enlisted him. He told me.”

  “As a cadet, first. I couldn’t make him middy directly.”

  “My dad thought it was a stupid idea. He told Mr. Carr—I’m sorry!” Mikhael jumped to his feet. “Sir, I didn’t mean that!”

  This had gone far enough. “Sit.” I waited for him to comply. “I’ll tell Arlene you’re my responsibility, except when you irritate her. I’ll handle the rest.”

  “I feel like a fool.” He stared at his shoes. “I’m being so careful, I stumble over my tongue.”

  “You need not be quite so afraid of me. Or her, for that matter. I’ll allow you an occasional lapse. Now, go change your shirt, you’ve sweated through it. And then I’ll tell you about your dad and Mr. Carr.”

  Three days passed, in relative calm.

  As far as I knew, Anselm stayed out of my liquor. He helped me in the office, and during his off-hours coached Bevin at his studies. The fact that the cadet was off campus didn’t excuse him from his learning. Or, for that matter, from physical labors. From time to time, of the mornings, I took a break and wheeled myself to the lawn, where the middy led two perspiring youngsters at calisthenics.

  Bevin exercised without complaint, as was fitting. Cadets were worked hard, and thrived on it. Wistfully, I remembered my own Academy days, the slow filling out of my form, the gradual growth of pride and confidence.

  Mikhael was another matter. Though trim and relatively fit, he hated the exercises with a passion, particularly in that Anselm led them. He decided to test me; I was adamant in refusing him reminiscences until he earned them with calisthenics. He responded with a volley of curses, and was made to spend a day in his room. Next time I’d be harder on him.

  The next morning he joined Anselm and Bevin for their full two hours. I was lavish in my praise, and wracked my brain for tales of my youth.

  Toward the end of the week I began to prepare my tour. For a major campaign I would rely heavily on my official staff; the sat-relays between Washington and the Rotunda crackled with our conferences.

  We would announce our enviro proposals two days hence, at a session of the Assembly. I’d follow with a whirlwind of interviews and appearances. I busied myself dragooning local officials into joining me on bandstands. As more and more joeys were taken into our confidence, rumors began to swirl. I did my best to keep Cisno Valera in the dark, sure that he’d trumpet the news of our reversal if he saw advantage in it.

  Nonetheless, my speech, which I wrote myself, was kept totally under wraps, except from Jerence Branstead. No speechwriter, no staffer, not even Karen Burns was allowed to see it.

  At last the time came to pack. It would be many days before I was home. Eagerly, Mikhael readied his own gear, helped me with mine. He was crestfallen when he learned Arlene would accompany us, but made a manful effort to contain himself, no doubt fearful I’d tell her.

  He was more disconcerted when she went through his suitcase, smoothing and repacking his dress clothes. That she did the same for Anselm mollified him to a degree. Though Mikhael and Bevin got along well, there was a rivalry between Tamarov and the middy that threatened to flare into something more contentious.

  It was late in the evening; we were to leave in the morning. I sat in my office, reviewing chipnotes. Danil Bevin looked in.

  “Yes?” I frowned.

  “Sorry, sir.” He turned to go. Then, “What will you tell them?”

  “The Assembly?” A momentary annoyance, that a mere cadet had the gall even to ask. “That we’re doing an about-face.”

  “Will they understand?” Unbidden, he took his customary workseat.

  A wintry smile. “I certainly hope so.”

  “You ought to tell them about our trip.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” I’d marshaled my logic, worked endlessly to get the facts straight and in proper order.

  “But the places he took you make it interesting. Poor Philip.” He chewed a fingernail. “He must have been terrified he wouldn’t convince you.”

  “Oh?”

  Danil blushed. “Sorry, it’s none of my ... sir, I have to say it. Thank you so much.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “For?”

  “For doing what you’re about to
. For taking me along so I could see how it happened. I think ... I’m watching history in the making. I know our work’s confidential, but do you know how much I want to call my father, make sure he’ll be at the holovid?”

  “Have no fear.” My tone was sour. There’d been rumors aplenty; every enviro on the planet would be glued to the nets.

  “I cried, that night.”

  “When?”

  “In Munich, after the flood. The joeys in that town ... lives, generations drowned in mud.” His eyes glistened. “If Philip—Mr. Seafort—if he hadn’t—”

  “Easy, boy. You’re overwrought.”

  He nodded, ran a hand over his eyes. “May I see your speech?”

  “No.”

  A sigh. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” Almost, I showed it to him, but there were limits. “Your father’s enviro work is that important to you?”

  “He’s how I got interested, but ... is it true you used to be able to go out whenever you wanted? Play ball in the sun?”

  “You still can, if you’re careful.” I leaned back. “When Jason and I were joeykids ... No. I wouldn’t follow that thought, or I’d become as emotional as he. “Someday, Danil, when you’re grown, it will be that way again. If we can get the ozone layer re-seeded ...” It was our biggest unsolved problem. “You deserve a time in the sun.”

  “Will they understand, Mr. Seafort?” A whisper.

  I tapped a copy of my carefully reasoned speech. “We’ll make them understand.”

  My staff, my family, and I left for New York in full panoply. The news zines covered our departure, having for days trumpeted the rumors, now grown to near certainty, that the Seafort Administration would either resign or turn itself inside out.

  We took a suite for my family at the Skytel Sheraton, completely rebuilt after the invasion of the Transpop Rebellion. If the accommodations made Jared Tenere uncomfortable, he gave no sign. P.T. seemed troubled, and wheeled me to the stairwell that once we’d climbed to escape smoke and flames.

  To ease his mind I asked, “Have you heard from Pook?” The young Mid transpop had been sent to an Uppie tower school.

  “Not since Mr. Chang died. Fath, you’re doing the right thing.”

  “I know.” Day by day, I grew more comfortable with my conversion.