by John Helfers
I always gave George what he wanted, and he nicknamed me Fredo, after the weak and traitorous brother executed by Michael Corleone in those frightening ‘‘Godfather’’ movies. What was that all about? That he would have me killed if I refused to be a ‘‘yes man?’’ I was glad to be one, so why the obvious threat on my life?
I remember what it was to be that man, and what it took to open his eyes and change him, as the shadows of the future took on substance and grew teeth. Justice needs teeth, but they need time to grow. Our history is a teething child, but I imagined that I could make of it what I wished, around myself and my family, as if I could repeal gravity. The junta told me, especially Karl Rove, that they could do anything, even make two and two equal five.
But the teeth of justice have deeper roots than those who pull them, and they grew back, I learned when I was released from prison, where they gave me new organs and increased my modest intelligence. Without this help I would not have understood Vice President Cheney’s death, Bush’s pardoning of Wolfy, Rummy, Rice, Rove, Libby, and himself, with many others, just before his disappearance. Oh, how I repent of the man I was. I am not he, and never will be again! Never, never, never!
But now the Twelve have chosen Jesus One as their candidate and another, Jesus Two, as his vice president, and despite being banned from running for office, Jesus One has proclaimed that the two of them will win on a write-in.
My time has come. Chief Justice Roberts has resigned in despair, saying that he now knows too much to function with a clear conscience. I have taken his place, and our court stands ready.
Is theocracy the worst form of government, as some have claimed? Where are values to be found? Where does the buck of moral judgment stop? Where should it stop?
My conscience whispers to me that the rule of Jesus would make all courts unnecessary—for no one would govern us better than the Son of God, if he would truly come to us, and stay. If we could truly know that it was He, we would rejoice that there is a being in whom all problems dissolve, from whom we can learn how we should live and what we should know about our universe, because he loved us enough to send us a savior out of his own cosmic body, to die at our hands in payment for our sins, past present and future, and to show us that death is nothing to fear.
But Jesus One and Two are not the Sons of God. On their tour before the court’s decision went against them, they proclaimed their social agenda of so-called love and sharing; but this professed goal is not of the Kingdom of Heaven. One and Two would take everything from the strong and leave them with nothing but insults about rich men and camels unable to pass through the eyes of needles. The Twelve have insisted that they will not bargain with private wealth and privilege, give no preference to prideful individuals and families whose hearts hold back allegiance to universal love and sharing. The Twelve only lie to us when they say that theirs is a kingdom not of this world, because it will take our world from us if their ways are accepted.
If they seize the presidency, my court will strike down the election. If by some strange chance they take office and attempt their destruction of our history, my court will strike down their laws. For only ours is the kingdom that is One with God.
Twelve legal crosses await the imposters.
THE ROTATOR
by Pamela Sargent
Pamela Sargent (www.pamelasargent.com) has won the Nebula Award and the Locus Award; she has been a finalist for the Hugo Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the Sidewise Award for alternate history. She is the author of several novels, including her Venus trilogy, The Shore of Women, the historical novel Ruler of the Sky, and the alternative history novel Climb the Wind. Her most recent novel, Farseed, a sequel to Earthseed, is out and will be followed by a third volume, Seedship. She lives in Albany, New York.
‘‘To these I set no bounds in space or time; They shall rule forever.’’
—Vergil, The Aeneid
ALL OF THIS HAPPENED in worlds nearby.
The tanks rolled down Pennsylvania Avenue and stopped at the edge of Lafayette Park, near the White House. To the east, more tanks were rolling along New York Avenue, while other tanks had also been spotted on 14th and 17th Streets and on Constitution Avenue.
They were closing the circle, surrounding the White House. No one knew where they had come from, but there they were, a procession of Abrams M1A1 tanks, all with the markings of the United States Army. No one had stopped them, and whatever the tourists and bureaucrats and police standing around in Washington’s streets might think, none of the guards stationed on the White House grounds seemed to be at all concerned when the tanks rolled to a stop and two uniformed men in desert camouflage with stars on their shoulders climbed out, followed by a balding, white-haired, out-of-shape bespectacled man who looked a lot like the vice president.
‘‘What the hell?’’ somebody milling around in the crowd of sightseers near the Ellipse muttered. ‘‘Something’s up,’’ an old wino said to his homeless companion in Lafayette Park as they shared a bottle of Night Train. Then again, the unusual and even the unthinkable had become so commonplace by now that even the networks didn’t seem to be covering the movement of tanks that had seemed to appear out of nowhere. There was no sign of satellite trucks or of any TV personalities doing stand-ups in front of cameramen.
‘‘Who are they?’’ a child asked his mother as the two uniformed men and the heavyset man who looked a whole lot like the vice president started to walk in the direction of the White House. She had no answer for him, and sometimes, especially these days, it was better just to mind your own business.
The vice president said, ‘‘No way around it, Mr. President.’’ Whenever he was alone with the guy, he normally dispensed with the usual courtesies, ‘‘Mr. President’’ and ‘‘Sir’’ and the like, but this particular occasion seemed to require them. ‘‘We’ve got to get out of here.’’
‘‘We do?’’ the president asked, glancing around the Oval Office. He had his usual blank, what-me-worry expression on his face, the one that people who didn’t know him that well could easily mistake for a sign of strength and self-confidence rooted in his religious faith and a deep inner calm.
‘‘Yes, we do,’’ the vice president replied. ‘‘We’ve counted the votes seven ways from Sunday, and we’ve lost them, there isn’t a chance now. The House is going to impeach both of us, and the Senate’s going to convict, thanks to all those turncoat bastards who finally deserted us. It isn’t even going to be close.’’
‘‘Well, fuck them.’’ The president still wore his look of serenity. ‘‘History is what’s with us, and we’ve got the Almighty lookin’ out for us. We sure as shit don’t need the House and the Senate. Someday down the road, people’ll know we were doing the right thing. When the history’s all written, they’ll—’’
‘‘That’s all very well,’’ the vice president interrupted, ‘‘but in the meantime, we’re dealing with this goddamn impeachment coming up out of nowhere. They’re going to throw both of us out on our asses and put that bitch from San Francisco behind your desk until the next election.’’ And that wasn’t the worst they might be facing. He’d overheard a few low-level staffers muttering something about the World Court and war crimes tribunals and the Hague the other day when they thought he had left the room. ‘‘But I’m not waiting around to witness that travesty. We’re all set, thanks to a secret project I’ve been keeping an eye on and shepherding along, just in case it might turn out to be useful. I’m getting the hell out of here, and you’re coming with me.’’
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br /> The president’s eyes became slits; he looked confused. ‘‘That’s your idea, cuttin’ and runnin’?’’ he asked, sounding a bit petulant. ‘‘And just where are we gonna go?’’
‘‘Well, in a way, we aren’t going anywhere. In a sense, we’ll be staying right here.’’ The vice president would have to explain the complexities of his escape plan very carefully. ‘‘Here’s the deal,’’ he continued in as gentle a tone as he could muster. ‘‘What if you could go someplace where everything’s exactly the same as it is here, but where you aren’t going to be impeached, where you’ll still be the president right up until the end of your term?’’ And maybe even beyond that term, if certain irons the vice president had in the fire got properly smelted. ‘‘I’m talking about a place where we can both avoid impeachment altogether.’’
‘‘Sounds purty good.’’ The president frowned, making his eyes look even smaller. ‘‘But it still smells like cuttin’ and runnin’ to me. Anyway, how the hell do we do all that? Round up the Congress and ship ’em out for some enhanced interrogations?’’
‘‘We’ve got an even better way out than that, thanks to the research teams at DARPA.’’ The vice president paused. ‘‘They got up something for us called the Rotator.’’
‘‘The Rotator?’’
‘‘The Alternative Stochastic Variability Actuator and Rotating Transporter,’’ the vice president explained, ‘‘but it’s simpler to just call it the Rotator. And that’s basically what it does, rotates you out of one continuum—er, place, and puts you where impeachment isn’t going to happen, executive privilege is upheld, and we can do our goddamn jobs.’’
‘‘You make it sound mighty simple.’’
‘‘It is mighty simple. What happens in the end is mighty simple, anyway.’’ There was no point in trying to explain the complexities of the technology and the assumptions underlying it to the president, especially since he didn’t really understand them too well himself. ‘‘It’s like this. We’ll head out of here for the secure and undisclosed and meet there with everybody who’s coming along with us. Then we get rotated, and before you know it, you’re back in this office going about your business, but without impeachment pending and your poll ratings right back up where they should be. Hell, maybe we can even get them back up in the forties.’’
‘‘So I’ll be back here,’’ the president said, ‘‘but in a way I actually won’t be back right here. I’ll kinda be like somewheres else that’s sorta the same.’’
‘‘That’s it.’’ Somehow the kid had grasped the big picture.
‘‘And everything’ll be the same as here?’’
‘‘Everything except the stuff we don’t want to have happen to us.’’
‘‘What about my wife?’’ the president asked. ‘‘I wouldn’t want to get rotated unless she’s gonna get rotated right along with me, and she won’t be back here at the White House until the weekend.’’
The vice president scowled. His own wife was coming along with him; she had made damned certain of that once he had revealed his plans to her, but he hadn’t counted on bringing the First Lady along on this journey through the variant probabilities. For one thing, he didn’t want anybody coming with them who wasn’t absolutely trustworthy and close-lipped. This had kept the number of people to be rotated at a minimum; there was no point in getting where he wanted to go only to end up with some traitor whistle-blowing before some Congressional committee or other there. For another, he had doubts about the First Lady’s ability to carry out what would need to be done after they were rotated and confronting their variant counterparts. His own wife was coldblooded enough to do what she had to do, but the First Lady probably wouldn’t be up to it even with a triple dose of Xanax.
‘‘She won’t have to come along with you,’’ the vice president said very slowly, ‘‘because she’ll already be there, see? I told you, everything’s going to be the same except that everything’ll be going our way and we won’t have to put up with all this oversight and impeachment crap. Believe me, except for that, you won’t notice any difference.’’ The president probably wouldn’t have noticed any difference anyway, given the useful bubble of obliviousness that usually surroundedhim, but he had to know enough to avoid confusion.
The president’s eyes got really tiny and squinty then, as they always did whenever he was trying to summon up anything resembling a thought. ‘‘And my ranch? That’ll still be the same, too?’’
‘‘You’ll have plenty of brush left to clear there, believe me.’’ The vice president cleared his throat. ‘‘Um, we’d better get going.’’
‘‘Right now?’’
‘‘Yes, now.’’ Better to get out of here fast, before any of those nerds working on the Alternative Stochastic Variability Actuator and Rotating Transporter got tempted to spill the beans to the media. He had never been able to tell the ethical ones from the opportunists.
They were all there in the underground chamber of his secure and undisclosed location, his wife, his medical team, and those completely trustworthy souls who were to be rotated along with him and the president. The guys he needed from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency were there, too, along with a couple of officers who understood the research and how to operate the Rotator and other soldiers to man the tanks. He had, however, made sure that the scientists responsible for the actual research and for calculating his course were absent. He wasn’t sure they had wholeheartedly approved of his plans, and they had always seemed somewhat too anxious to outline the possible drawbacks of the Rotator, what with their talk about opening doors and altering events in other continua that might be mirrored throughout a long run of variants and that maybe there were certain doors that should stay closed. All he had needed to know was that he could get to where he wanted to go, and they had assured him of that.
It was too bad, he thought, that his old buddy, the former secretary of defense, couldn’t be here with him to take advantage of DARPA’s Rotator. But there’d be somebody just like him in the next continuum, and maybe, if everything worked out, they’d be able to reappoint him to his old Cabinet position. After all, where they were going, there was even a chance that they were actually winning the war on terror and securing the oil-fields, if what the scientists had told him about all the possible variants was correct.
‘‘All we have to do, Mr. President,’’ one of the Army officers was saying, ‘‘is go outside and get in the tanks, and before you know it, we’ll be on our way to the White House.’’
‘‘Tanks?’’ the president asked.
‘‘To protect us while we’re being rotated. You’ll notice what you might call a kind of rippling in the atmosphere, but as long as you’re inside the tank, you’ll be protected from any ill effects when we’re rolling through the gateway.’’
‘‘The get-away?’’
‘‘The gateway.’’ The officer had a patient look on his face. ‘‘The gateway through to another continuum that the Rotator’s going to open up for us.’’
The president screwed up his eyes. ‘‘This isn’t gonna be one of those deals where
I have to put on a uniform, is it?’’ he asked.
‘‘Not at all,’’ the officer replied, still wearing his patient look.
‘‘ ’Cause prancin’ around in that flight suit on that carrier deck didn’t work out so well in the end.’’ The President let out one of those laughs of his that sounded like a mixture of a snort and a whinny.
‘‘You won’t need a uniform for this trip,’’ the vice president said, stepping forward, ‘‘but you are going to need this.’’ He handed the president a Glock automatic. ‘‘Can’t miss with this baby. Even I won’t be able to miss my target.’’ He allowed himself an avuncular chuckle.
The president hefted the automatic in one hand, then slapped it into the other in a way that made the vice president grateful that the weapon wasn’t yet loaded. ‘‘And exactly what am I gonna be aimin’ at?’’
‘‘Well, it’s like this.’’ The vice president paused, knowing that he would have to phrase things very carefully. ‘‘After we’re rotated, we’re going to run into—well, I guess you could call them our doubles.’’
‘‘Our doubles?’’
‘‘Our twins.’’ That didn’t seem like the right word either. ‘‘You could even call them our clones.’’