by Robert Reed
“I see.”
Morris smiled as if embarrassed, but he couldn’t stop talking. “Honestly, this is awful stuff. I try to be kind in my Human Labor chapter…but I’m talking about the kinds of servitude left behind in the Dark Ages. Or in Mississippi.”
“You have chapters?”
“I have a very big book,” Morris said.
“How big?”
“Fifteen hundred pages, plus charts.”
“Charts?”
“Several hundred. And a PowerPoint presentation.”
The governor wasn’t startled or upset, or much of anything. But he took a moment, giving the matter considerable thought before saying, “Okay, this is my offer. My deal. Give me your book. And I want every last copy of your research, too. Then you continue with your campaign, and to keep your associates happy enough, I want you to soften your message. Let’s keep the billionaires out of our business. And when this race is over, I promise—I do promise you—I will keep your work as a resource, and I’ll even put you on my staff if the nightmare comes. Is that a worthy enough solution to satisfy you, Dr. Hersh?”
Big eyes filled with tears, and laughing sadly, Morris confessed, “You know, I’m about the last person you’d want to be governor.”
He didn’t need to worry.
And thirteen days after the state’s final election, the same Kashmiri separatists drove a heavy truck into Delhi, unleashing a fifty-kiloton device that may or may not have been supplied by elements inside the Pakistani military. The war lasted two weeks, killing millions while injecting soot into the stratosphere, and just as the world situation couldn’t appear any worse, a substantial portion of the West Antarctic ice field decided to begin its majestic and inevitable slide into a rapidly rising ocean.
The funeral was held on the highest hill outside the capital. It was an overcast November morning, but a Lakota shaman and a Lutheran minister worked together, convincing the rain to stay away. The tomb was the most splendid and ornate structure built in forty years. For his genius, the Mexican architect was awarded citizenship and five acres of bottomland. Oxen trains carried the granite from Colorado, but every block of limestone was native. State engineers had overseen the project. Estimates varied, but as many as two hundred guest workers died in order to make the target date. Yet the Old Man had rallied, recovering from the cancer. The tomb had to be mothballed until he was eighty-two, and that’s when the only autocrat the state had ever known passed away in his sleep.
His body had lain in state for three days. Well-wishers brought dried flowers and religious offerings and prayers, and delicate embroidery intended for the leader’s six daughters and two youngest wives. Disgruntled individuals managed a few incidents, but nothing of note. The Land’s Militia took charge of security, sweeping the tomb grounds for bombs and poisons. This was to be an enormous day, and to help ensure peace, five thousand individuals were rounded up under the Quarantine Laws. Some twenty thousand chairs and benches were placed on the wet grass, and they weren’t enough. Supporters rode bikes from the farthest corners of the state, while neighboring autocrats and strongmen and self-appointed generals traveled to the capital in motor vehicles and several working airplanes. Despite rumors of immortality, the Old Man had died. His rivals were relieved, and they were definitely hungry for opportunity. What mattered was to meet the son who had been given reins to this flush and wet and very green state—a kingdom that by every past measure was poor, and compared with every other corner of the sickly world, was enviably wealthy.
The new governor was thirty-nine and ready. His stride showed the world his measured confidence, and his voice was a booming, masterly instrument. Without break and almost without water, he told the full story of his father, reciting the history of their Free State, including three wars and one famine, and the legendary Eastern Incursion that brought back several nuclear weapons—each traded for gold and seed as well as the race horses that became the basis of the world’s best cavalry. Then the young man pulled back the clock to days that few remembered. Of course he repeated the story of his dear father working the fields as a child, wearing his hands bloody doing exactly the same jobs required of every school age boy and girl today. There were twenty stories of sacrifice and toughness, and he told the fake tales with the same sure voice that he used with those that were a little true. Then he concluded by mentioning the Old Man as a golfer—an average-looking fellow underestimated by every opponent, but blessed with a grace and strength that endured until his last day.
That is when the new governor stopped talking.
Five different religious authorities gave appropriate prayers, and the Shadow Riders brought the body and its long wagon up to the tomb. There were more prayers to come, and ceremonies, and the new governor had settled in to endure all of it. But a face caught his eye—a pretty woman that he didn’t remember yet felt familiar. He asked for the woman’s name. Hersh, was it? Of course he knew who she was. It was the granddaughter—a minor figure in small-town politics out in wheat country.
He made a request and then slipped back into the still-open tomb.
Miss Hersh was brought to him. Flustered but trying to appear brave, she watched him, probably fearing the rumors told about him. But no, he was going to behave, certainly today and in this place. Not that he was superstitious, but the tomb stood around them, and even his voice was more hushed than usual. “I want to show you something,” he said. “It’s something you might have heard about. Something that will definitely interest you.”
“What?” she asked quietly.
Many of the Old Man’s effects were to be buried with him, preserved for future historians and whatnot. Inside one steel box were crystals meant to absorb moisture and a single enormous manuscript, plus two flash-drives and the hard-drive that had written the entire work.
“Is that my grandfather’s?”
The governor nodded. “Yes, it is.”
“It is,” she agreed. “This is the template to everything. It is.”
He let her dream, and then with a firm, stern voice, he said, “No.”
“No?” She looked again. “Why is it still wrapped in plastic? I’ve heard. My father told me. It was wrapped in plastic when Grandpa gave it to your father, and I think that’s his signature there.”
“It’s never been opened.”
“Did the governor use the flash-drives?”
“No.”
“What did you say?”
“Never.” And the new governor laughed. “I know the myth. But this is the truth: Years ago, my father showed me the sealed manuscript and the drives and everything. ‘That poor professor,’ he told me. ‘Dr. Hersh believed he had something of genuine value.’”
The young woman was trembling, and maybe she was about to cry.
“’Years of work and hard scholarship on his part,’ my father said, ‘and do you know what it taught that old chemist? It taught him exactly what any good politician knows on Day One. Power and authority are built on many, many little steps.’”
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
He watched her.
“You’re lying,” she said. “I know you’re lying. My grandfather’s plan is what saved our state from falling apart.”
The governor said nothing. When neither of them spoke, the tomb was wonderfully silent.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He had changed his mind.
“Don’t touch me,” she said.
No, he wasn’t superstitious. The next generation was always talking about signs and omens, but to him, this place was nothing but cool and polished limestone that could use a little fun.
END
Copyright © 2011 by Robert Reed
Art copyright © 2011 by Tom Jellett
Books by Robert Reed
The Leeshore
The Hormone Jungle
Black Milk
Down the Bright Way
The Remarkables
An Exaltation o
f Larks
Sister Alice
Flavors of My Genius
VEIL OF STARS
Beyond the Veil of Stars
Beneath the Gated Sky
MARROW
Marrow
The Well of Stars
Mere
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
The Dragons of Springplace
The Cuckoo’s Boys