“That’s a good thought,” she said, unsurprised by my age; she had known it. “There must be good reason. Did you work in some sensitive military job where a seemingly minor decision could make a big difference?”
“I wish I knew,” I said.
“Maybe you knew too much about something in the Hispanic sphere.”
“Maybe. I just don’t remember.”
“I don’t, either, though I suppose less of my life is missing than yours. It must be pretty important.”
“It must be,” I agreed. “Perhaps if you reviewed the major System events that occurred during your life, which falls in the period of my life that has been washed out, I could remember.”
She put her hand on mine. “Hope, since you came to me yesterday, I’ve been thinking about you so much. I was alone—no one to meet except my torturers—and suddenly I saw your face across the hall—part of your face—and then I touched you. You gave me something to live for just by existing. In one day it’s as if I’ve known you all my life.”
I knew she was playing a part, and I noted how adroitly she had diverted my suggestion about catching up on System events; but she played that part very well. I had had in mind obtaining some information from her, not only to try to trigger more of my memory, but also to account for any slip I might make about the period I did remember, such as Tocsin’s rise in politics. Obviously Dorian was under orders to tell me nothing of this period. I had to admire the finesse with which she distracted me; it would have been easy to believe she was sincere. Now I knew it would be hard to come up with some excellent reason to distract her forthcoming physical advances very long. This trap was closing on me. “I think time dilates in a situation like this,” I said.
She nudged closer. “I don’t even know whether I’m married,” she said. “But I don’t think so, though I’m not a virgin. I feel so close to you, though we are of different ages.”
That was my cue to confess that I didn’t know my own marital state and to deny that age made a difference. She had let me know the state of her availability. I had to think fast. “I—I think I was married, in the Navy. I remember a girl I shared residence with. Her name was Juana.”
“Hispanic?”
“Yes. She was a really nice girl.”
“But those service liaisons are impermanent,” she pointed out. “Only for the duration of an assignment.”
“True. So I suppose it didn’t endure.” I tensed, as if just thinking of something. “Maybe I’m involved in some sexual scandal!”
She laughed. “No, it’s not that!”
“You know?”
She retreated hastily. “I overheard once—about a prisoner who was a politician. I think it must have been you.”
“So it’s something political!”
“I suppose so.” I knew she regretted her slip. Now I knew that she knew why I was here. Could I get that information from her? Surely not by asking for it. But perhaps if I turned the ploy and seduced her emotions ...
But that would take careful management. First, I had to show some mettle of my own. “I’ll ask them,” I said.
“Don’t do that!” she exclaimed in genuine alarm. “They’ll torture you!”
They probably would. “Well, maybe I’ll just argue with them and force them to show what they really want of me.”
“I don’t like this,” she said. “You are flirting with real trouble.”
“Some things just have to be done. I’ll tell you what I find out.”
“Can’t I talk you out of this folly?” she asked, moving very close to me.
“If I could be talked out of folly,” I said firmly, “I probably wouldn’t be here.”
To that she had to agree. “Be careful, Hope. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
And with that we separated, for too long a stay was risky. The seduction was forgotten for now. The ironic thing was she was now genuinely concerned for me. She had her mission, but she was coming to respect me as a person.
• • •
Next day I implemented my decision. I had more than one reason for my course. I wanted to impress Dorian with my character, to reassure her that I trusted her. Of course, she would tell my captors, so they would be prepared, but they would not give her away. They, too, would know that I trusted her, and that she was doing her job. This trust and reinforcement of positions was important in a project like this. But also, I wanted to be punished by being returned to my original cell. I was sure they wouldn’t leave me there long, for that would interfere with Dorian’s subversion of my emotion. They would incarcerate me just long enough to bring home to me the consequence of my unreasonableness.
We were discussing taxation. My textbook recommended the so-called flat tax, a concept that had existed for centuries, perhaps for millennia, but somehow had not become established. It consisted of a personal deduction for each person in a family, certain necessary business deductions, and a set percentage of taxation on the remainder of earned income. It was quite simple.
“What’s wrong with the present system?” I demanded. “It’s worked well enough for centuries, hasn’t it?”
Scar demurred. “It has bumbled along for centuries. There are three serious flaws in it. First, its immense complexity, which forces every taxpayer to spend interminable time merely calculating what he owes and requires many to seek some kind of professional help to draw up the required forms. Second, its loopholes, which enable clever or unscrupulous people to escape without paying their proper share, thus shifting the burden of payment to others. Third, its graduated stages, so that the person who earns more pays a larger percentage of his income to the government. That discourages initiative and penalizes the hardest or most efficient workers.”
“It’s not complex for the average wage earner,” I countered. “He has no loopholes. It’s only fair that he pay the lowest rate; he barely has enough to survive on as it is. When I was with the migrant workers—”
“He would be no worse off with a simple flat tax,” Scar pointed out. “In fact he would benefit by—”
“No!” I exclaimed unreasonably. “The old system’s good enough for me. I won’t listen to anything else!”
He looked at me and sighed. “I’m sorry to hear you say that.”
The session was over. I was conducted to my dark, filthy original cell, which had been saved unchanged. The smell almost gagged me as the hatch slid open. This was my punishment for being recalcitrant, and I knew that if my attitude did not improve, I would face more sessions with the pain-box and deprivation of the drug-beverage. Two of those were real punishments, and the third
I would have to honor as if it were equally effective. Oh, yes, it was easy to reconsider my position with my self-interest so obviously in the balance. But now I was where, ironically, I wanted to be. I needed more information, and this was where I could get it. I squatted in the grime and supported myself with my hands, and slowly I slid my fingers under the muck, feeling out the next set of symbols. I had an irrational fear that the scratches would be gone, but they were there:
which meant 7, counted off from the N in ABANDON, or T. , which was 19, counted off from the space following ABANDON, or H. meaning 8, counted from the H in HOPE— oh, the new significance of my name!—or O. , 4, from the O, or R. 34, from P, or L. , 1 from E, which, of course, was the same letter, E. , 34 again, this time from the comma following HOPE. I wrestled with that and decided that most likely the order of punctuation in the font was space, period, comma; on that basis it came to Y. , 1, which was a space, translating itself into itself, a space. I had my word. I assembled the letters mentally, so that I could appreciate them as the word, so that my second memory-vision could commence:
THORLEY.
CHAPTER 6
THORLEY
I quickly learned how naive I had been about politics. I had thought I would simply pick an office, run for it, and win it. Megan disabused me: rarely could a newcomer to politics pluck the office of hi
s choice from the electorate. The great majority came up through the grass roots, building their constituencies before emerging as serious contenders for the favor of the voters.
What were these grass roots? She sent me into the turf to find out. The process reminded me of Basic Training in the Navy, though the education was not physical.
I had to join a citizen’s activity organization and do my homework. This was the Good Government Group, better known as GGG, or Triple-Gee, or 3-G, whose stated purpose was to accelerate the existing government into conformity with the needs of the citizens. The present government, GGG said, was seriously out of phase, and hardly represented its constituency at any level. The result was corruption, inefficiency, and despoliation. A monthly national publication, Gee Whiz, pinpointed specifics on the planetary scene, and a state publication, Sun-Gee, included the local issues. Everything was covered: the nefarious influence of special interests; the ongoing weapons development race; sloppy accounting practices by the government; the Saturn hot line that was supposed to keep interplanetary communications open in times of crisis; the perennial Balanced Budget Amendment; controversial subsidies for agricultural interests; wasteful use of chauffeured autobubbles by bureaucrats; tax reform; the campaign for the G-1 Space Bomber that threatened to bankrupt the planet before it was produced; the question of monopolistic mail service; an attempt to enable Congress to overturn Supreme Court decisions; protection of the atmospheric environment; the Equal Opportunity drive; pros and cons of subsidized bubble-housing; the revised Planetary Voting Rights Act; another routine administration scandal; the problem of continuing monetary inflation; unemployment; neglect of the elderly; restrictive construction codes; prison reform; retirement reform; the activities of the Jupiter Medical Association; the Jupiter Weapons Association; the ethics of drafting citizens into the Navy; athletes making commercials; huge cost overruns on military contracts; a bill to subsidize private schools; the problem of organized crime; a survey on the ages of members of Congress; research for new applications of contra-terrene matter; an anti-drug campaign; city-bubble pollution; ways to prevent interplanetary war, or at least postpone it. There seemed to be an endless array of issues, and Megan assured me that most of them had been around for centuries in one form or another without any real resolutions. “But how can I make sense of all this?” I asked plaintively. “We were never faced with such matters in the Navy.”
“You have led a sheltered life,” she replied grimly. I found that statement ironic, but, of course, I knew what she meant. I had been exposed to the problems of survival in space but not to the problems of planetary political interaction. “This is the cesspool of civilian life. Keep reading and thinking, and it will start to fall into place. You must acquire a sensible grasp of every significant issue, for the one you do not master will become your Achilles’ heel. It has happened many times to politicians before you. A single ignorant statement can finish you.”
“Like a pinhole leak in a space suit,” I murmured.
“Meanwhile, focus on one particular issue, the one you feel is most important, and learn what you can about that. Become active in that one area, become expert if you can—and when you are satisfied that your position is correct, you will be ready to tackle the next issue.”
“But there are hundreds of important issues,” I protested. “I’ll never have time to master them all!”
“Now you perhaps appreciate why public officials occasionally make ignorant statements or do foolish things,” she said. “The perfect candidate knows everything about everything.”
“But in the Navy my staff—”
“True. And you will have a political staff, too, and use it similarly. But first you must grasp the basics yourself.”
I delved back into the myriad issues, and so did Spirit, as if we were two students in school, seeking the one I could deem most important. It was a headache, for they were all important in one devious way or another.
Meanwhile, our limited activity had not gone unnoticed. The political columnist for a local newspaper was a man who signed himself simply “Thorley.” Between elections he was evidently short of material, so minor things warranted comment.
“Guess who’s coming to town,” Thorley wrote conversationally, showing by this signal that this was not a subject to be taken too seriously. “Remember the darling of the bleeding-heart set in Golden, Megan? It seems she married the gallant of the Jupiter Navy, Captain Hubris, a man some years her junior. Rumor has it that one of them has political pretensions.”
“That’s insulting,” I said angrily. “What right does he have to—”
“We are, or were, public figures,” she said. “Our names are in the common domain, his to play with at will. He tosses them about as a canine tosses a rag doll, entertaining himself. You will have to get used to this sort of thing if you wish to survive in politics. Words become as heated and effective as lasers. Perhaps you can better appreciate, now, why I was not eager to return to the arena myself.”
I took her hand, which was as much of a gesture as I felt free to make at this stage of our marriage. She was exactly the woman I needed her to be. “I confess that the political knives are more devious than the military ones, but I will master them.”
“I rather fear you will,” she agreed. “Just remember that any publicity is generally good news.”
“Bleeding-heart set?” Spirit grumbled, unappeased.
“Those who favor liberal social legislation to alleviate the ills of society,” Megan explained. “Conservatives generally hold such ideals in contempt. I certainly qualify as a bleeding heart. I’m not sure about you.”
“Social reform,” I said. “I’ve already seen enough to know that there is an immense mountain of reform required. If that makes me a bleeding-heart—well, I may arrange to make some other hearts bleed before I’m through.”
“There speaks the military mind,” she said, smiling. She was, of course, against militarism, but she was coming to understand me, so she smiled to signal that she was not condemning me personally. She was very diplomatic in little ways like that, and I appreciated it. If I had not been programmed to love her, I would have found myself falling in love with her now. Helse had been my ideal love; in that kingdom by the sea, but now I understood that Megan was to Helse as a nova is to a star. “Just keep in mind that though Thorley is at the opposite end of the political spectrum, he is a competent journalist and an honest man.”
“You would find good in the devil himself,” I charged her, also smiling.
“That might be a slight exaggeration. But Thorley is no devil. His beliefs may be wrong-headed by my definitions, but he is no demagogue. He will not compromise his principles, and that is to be respected.”
“I see no principle here!” I snapped, staring at the item. But I knew it was useless to talk back to a piece of paper.
Gradually the underlying currents came clear. Politicians as a class were not noted for their integrity, but they ran true to form in certain ways. All of them were interested in money, because they required huge amounts of it to publicize themselves, and publicity was the lifeblood of politics. All had to solicit money from their constituents, but none ever had enough. This was not greed, it was the breath of political life. The politician who spent the most to promote himself usually prevailed, when the contest was in other respects even. Of course, it was seldom even; the incumbent always had an enormous advantage, because he was already known to the electorate, and his office generated natural publicity. To unseat an incumbent, a challenger needed to spend much more money, but the incumbent had much readier access to the sources of money.
“How can any challenger ever prevail?” I asked as I contemplated the statistics.
“Now you can see why some campaigns get dirty,” Megan responded.
Of course. Dirt was relatively cheap. A little money could purchase a lot of dirt and muddy the waters so that the dirt-slinger might have a better chance. Obviously this was a strategy th
at Megan’s nemesis Tocsin had mastered. I liked Tocsin less as I got to know his ways, but my understanding was growing. It was like guerrilla fighting on backworld settlements; the government had overwhelming resources, so the opposition had to resort to stealth and terrorism. It wasn’t nice, but it evened the odds somewhat. Politics followed similar rules, but the evidences were more subtle. Tocsin had not fired a laser in to Megan’s back during their campaign in Golden; he had circulated a bogus description of her positions on issues, the paper tinted a delicate pink. This was, for complex and irrelevant reasons, the color associated with the Saturnists. Thus he had implied that she was a traitor to Jupiter. A laser in the back would have been cleaner.
The main supplier of money was the community of special interests. This amounted to institutionalized bribery. The small-arm laser manufacturers contributed to candidates who promised to prevent any legislation restricting the manufacture or distribution or sale or use of hand-lasers. The agricultural interests contributed to those who believed in higher price supports for vegetable bubbles. The military-industrial complex contributed to those who argued for a strong planetary defense. Special interests abounded, and the aggregate of their contributions to politicians was huge. Evidently it was cost-effective, for by means of contributions of thousands of dollars, they could reap legislation that returned them millions. Out of those millions in profits came the contributions to subsequent campaigns, and those contributions were tax-deductible. The common taxpayer always ended up paying for it.
Some politicians tried to be honest: they turned down special-interest money. They generally lost their elections. Thus victory went to the ones who were most freely for sale. It was open, legally sanctioned corruption, causing the entire government to be corrupt, because it was hard to get really clean government from those who became members of it only by committing themselves to minority interests for money.
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