“It is difficult.” Jerrimine inclined his head. The man seemed always on public display; perhaps, Alphard thought raggedly, he was. “But now, the funeral over—”
“The riot over.”
As smoothly as could be imagined, the Cardinal accepted the change of noun, and qualified it: “We were not responsible.”
“And we did nothing to stop—”
“We did all that we could.” The man seemed, suddenly, as sincere as he could ever be; Alphard had a vision of the Church, the thousands of men in balance, the thousands of different needs, different moves, different motives; within that balance, perhaps, Jerrimine truly was the best possible agent. “There was no more,” the Cardinal said, from his stiff height.
But Alphard could not resist the jab that came to him; it was as if he were writing it in his journal, that scribble of nothing-in-particular: “An absolute?”
Jerrimine’s mouth twisted. “Son—in the—” He stopped, breathed and began again. “Son, don’t play seminary games. Not now—these games with words and thoughts. Not here. Not when there is so much—so much to do....”
But was it all a game? Did not the Church play the same game, with men for counters and with power for the dice? Did not . . . Ah, it was an old, a terrifyingly old, disease. “You played it, all the same.” Jerrimine shook off the thin ragging as if he were himself a massive bull. “We must see Penn himself.” It was a bull’s decision: charge for the spear. “Only through Penn may we—”
“Have your audience,” Alphard said, and emphasized a single word; the Cardinal’s eyebrows went up, his head shook softly, silently.
“No, my son. It is necessary that we both have audience.”
Very well: it was not reason, nor doubt, nor some theological game; it was flat and simple fear. Putting a name to it did not shrink the thing at all. “But I can not—” Alphard began, trying at least to keep fear out of his voice, and not succeeding.
“In obedience, my son.”
The strong words, the totally sincere words; the only answer, ever, to doubt and fear and to distrust; the answer he had given at his entry into the Church, which never in all his life his father had heard.
The only answer was obedience, as Alphard knew.
“Yes, Father.”
Jerrimine’s nod was high and distant, full of satisfaction and of duty. No more (as he must know) could be asked; no more could be given. The necessary gift had an immense value; briefly, Jerrimine thought of the boy’s father, and suppressed the thought as quite unworthy of his station and his job—in fact, as quite irrelevant.
33.
I shall never act in any way except that, given my motives for an action, those motives would be worthy of the force of universal law.
—Immanuel Kant, Critique of Morals:
(translated by Laurence M. Janifer).
34.
He had to see them, of course: the audience was not remotely avoidable. The crew of the Valor had to be made to feel that their grievances, whatever they were—and few enough of them had any notion—had been satisfied; it was the only way for them to show their satisfaction to the outside world. The gap had to be bridged, Penn understood; it was the most obvious necessity of practical politics.
But to have Jerrimine in the same audience, at the same time . . .
Impossible.
Penn, though, had thrived on impossible, waxed fat upon it, used it as a daily staple of his daily diet. He’d never liked it (and there were people who had no love for vitamin pills, either, or neo-insulin; and what difference did that make? There were moments when Penn accused himself—no accusation more bitter, surely—of thinking like Norm)—he’d never liked it, but he was good at dealing with it.
As, for instance: the Grand Audience Chamber. To overawe the crew, of course, to make them feel that any small gift was a great one; Jerrimine, who’d know that move, looked round the glittering bowl sourly enough, scowling at the servants as if he wanted them all set free. And his assistant. . .
Ah, God, Alphard Norin: pale as ten spirits, rigid as twenty sticks. And what, would some helpful God-ling tell me, was to be done about that?
Nothing, Penn told himself; the question need never come up.
Nothing.
Ignore it.
And go into the prepared speech; that was what they’d know from 3V, that was what they’d all be waiting for.
Therefore:
“Gentlemen, I am here to listen, not to your demands, but, I hope, to your requests. As a man living merely on the sufferance of your election—for you will vote again, once free, as you will be, of the Service—I can do no less; as a man responsible to those who have already given me that sufferance, I can do no more.” Orotund, but average; effective, if just a trifle boring.
One man—what was his name? Gover?—came forward. A small one, round and black as a tropical nut, hairy as an ape. “Freedom,” he said in a voice that combined, oddly, thud and whine. “That’s what we want, and what we—well, what he—died for. Freedom.”
And then someone else—a featherlight, featherpale man: Allemeine, that was it—assistant to the astrogation team—sidled his way to the front of the subdued crowd. “And nothing less than that,” he said. Sparkle in his eyes: the pure fanatic. But not the leader, not the rabble-rouser; no. Young Norin gone, Allemeine would have had no direction to travel in, except with the others.
“Freedom,” Gover said again, and the cry was taken up. They shoved themselves together, feeling, like all such crews, more secure in the tight mass of free-fall meetings; the sound grew until they were actually shouting. Freedom. Penn withstood it for, perhaps, half a minute. Then he raised a hand, and they were silenced. .It wouldn’t have worked, out on the roadway. He could see Jerrimine realizing that fact, and not liking it much.
“I will listen to you speak,” Penn said, as slowly and as clearly as he could, keeping his voice low. Contagion, perhaps; but it worked, more often than not. “I will listen to your requests. But no man alive can hear you all at once.”
The silence filled with murmurings. Jerrimine’s eyes flashed from one face to another, looking for— what, old man? An entry for yourself? Into this standing-place? Not while I’m alive to check you. Gover seemed to have been selected, God knew how, as leader for the pack. His thick lips pursed out as he felt his own importance. It would have been a good deal easier to point a gun and flash them out of existence; good sense, but damned bad politics. And— well, they were human, too. The silly sheep were the ones who needed a shepherd....
Having caught himself in such a bath of egotism, Penn grinned privately, and decided to wait the meeting out before determining a penance. “We have no requests,” Gover said at last: hand on hips, feet astride, in full swagger, full cock-stance. “We demand—freedom. All of us.”
The shouting-match that Gover had sparked off took less than ten seconds to shut down. “Very well,” Penn said, still quiet, still controlled. Still friendly: man to man. From Emperor to passing clown . . . What was that garbled line? A habit of quotation, he reflected (for the fiftieth time? the thousandth?) made a ragbag of the mind. There must be some good in it—there was some good in everything—but Penn was damned, he told himself, if he could find it. “Very well. In what way are you not free?”
Logic. Gover began: “We can’t—” and stopped dead while the murmuring behind him started up again. Logic, that necessary, fallible, and always unexpected tool.
Allemeine said: “Can’t even vote,” but the halfhearted offer made no followers. Someone else, far back in the mass, shot out words and phrases like bullets from a middle-baritone gun:
“Officers. Politicians. Can’t decide a thing for ourselves.”
And before Penn could reply to any or all of that, Jerrimine had cut smoothly in—declaring his own hand, or a piece of it, as early in the game as possible. “My sons, in what you wish, the Church is on your side.”
A power play; a piece of honesty; or what? Alphard�
��s face was whitened stone, and never changed.
Penn felt his own face tense. Engaging all the Valor was a job for a fourteen-year-old boy; engaging Jerrimine was something else again. “I intend to work for you,” he told the mass of men. “As you well know, I intend to work for you—and for all of you. It is what I have done; it is what I shall continue to do.”
Gover, naturally, was unimpressed. The independent man, God help him; the man who knew what was what, who knew where to get off, who knew how to handle Them—whoever They were. “Sure,” Gover said, more thud than whine in the mixture for a second. “It’s easy to say—”
Somebody somewhere in the crowd cut him off with a voice so high it seemed hardly to have broken. “Let ’im talk.”
Penn nodded toward the owner of the voice, invisible; Gover stood, sullen, waiting for the next trick. Knowing what was what. “But I cannot give in to your demands—” Penn began, and waited for the expectable uproar, and got it, and heard it quiet to a whisper —“until I know what they are. You speak of freedom, very well. Tell me what freedom it is you do not have, and wish for, and expect.”
Specifications: guaranteed to confuse the knowledgeable man—like Gover. Jerrimine went on, coldly watching. The crowd began to mutter; over the sound Gover said flatly the only thing he could be expected to say:
“We want it. We don’t want to talk. We’ve had all the talk we need.”
Over the growing mutter, Penn shot: “You want what?” straight at the man like a dueling-blade. He blinked, and came back:
“Freedom.”
And Allemeine began with: “But—” before the Cardin al-explicator, that great one of the Church, cut him off with smooth and perfect timing, in a smooth and trustworthy voice. It had been quite a valuable thing to cultivate, that voice.
“Perhaps I can simplify matters,” Jerrimine said. “Is the word autonomy more familiar to you?”
Directed straight at Penn, of course; and, by Jerrimine’s or anybody’s God, the man meant what he said. Autonomy; hardly a word for a gang of space-arm maniacs. “Complete autonomy?” Penn said, sparring both for time and explication. “But that would wreck—”
The wrong word. Gover recovered quickly, and the word pricked him like a needle. “That’s what we
want. Tear it down. Build it up better.” Higher and higher, more whine and more, less of the pure thud. “You saw him dead, you did. You know we won’t settle for—for—words.”
Nor, Penn told himself in that large section of the mind reserved for analysis and judgment, for sense. However: “Anarchy,” he said. “Every man his own man. We have discussed it—”
“Sure you have.” Gover again; given the freedom to sneer, the man was a nuisance. If hardly a serious one; he could be swept out with little loss. But if Jerrimine had truly joined him—to that extent. . .
“We have indeed,” Penn said steadily. “In the Dich-tung. Member Gaughlin and others—members elected by some of you before your service began. We’ve hidden nothing, as you know.” Make them feel like statesmen; that’s the ticket. “The records are available to you, as they are to every citizen—and as they always have been.”
“Talk,” Gover said. The odd voice grated in the big and shining room. “That’s all it is, and that’s something we know damn’ well. Talk.”
Alphard’s face was changing, and for the worse: whiter, tenser. For the first time Penn told himself: This cannot be allowed to continue. Dueling-swords? Penn lugged out the heavy weapons: killing-stuff.
“I give you the records.” His strongest, his most sober voice. “They will be brought here if you will. The entire records.” And made it sound like a concession, and an enormous one—to everyone but Jerrimine, perhaps.
Who smiled, and ducked his head, and asked: “My liege—my son—what action will be taken upon these records?”
Again one word sparked flame: uproar, a shove-and-push, an occasionally audible word:
“Action.”
“That’s it—”
"Action.”
Penn raised a hand again. The men did not entirely subside. The heavy weapons took some bringing-forth, they’d been so far behind the front of battle. Meanwhile: “After you have seen them—”
“Now,” a voice said, and another—Gover? Penn was beyond telling—chimed right along, as everyone shoved and agreed, and Jerrimine and Alphard Norin watched.
"Now”
“No more waiting.”
That brought a . cheer, and momentary silence— which Jerrimine was quick to use. “I feel I must support these brave men—” he began, and Penn felt the weight of killing weaponry about him, and cut off the Cardinal-explicator in mid-flight; it had been a play for power, after all. Jerrimine’s power; and Gaughlin’s, God help us all; and . . . Aaron’s, I suppose. A play that (sparing heavy weapons) had quite a real chance.
“You will have the records as well, Father.”
“But we have no need of—” Jerrimine began, and the crew carried him away in babble and support, all fatal.
“No: no scribbles.”
“No.”
“Action. Now.”
"Now”
The uproar was general; within it, not bothering to soften it, Penn could still speak to the Cardinal. The stroke was meant to kill, and would not fail. Why— whatever made him think he had a chance? Some Churchly faith, most likely.
So: “Your assistant, perhaps . . .”
He let the words trail off. Alphard was dead-white, fishbelly-white. (An oddity, that one; a throwback in the family.) The Cardinal stepped closer to him, and then checked himself. Division in his ranks could not be thinkable—not for his supporters. Not for the Valor’s crew. And Alphard Norin, come to be used as
weaponry, whether he knew it or not, had so been used—by the opposing side. “What the Church believes—” the poor boy began, slowly, as if hypnotized. Penn pressed the advantage.
“I’m opening the records for you. Do you wish me to withdraw that offer?”
“Of course not,” Alphard had to say—and said. “But—”
Gover, weaponless, saw what was turning in the room. “Listen, now, you—” And (all quite predictably, as simple as ABC; as simple as—Alphard Norin, perhaps, the Emperor thought; but that thought, too, he buried, having no wish to be cruel)—and Gover’s own supporters, trying to add all force to Gover, drowned the odd man out.
“Freedom. As simple as one word.”
“We want freedom; we want it now.”
“Now.”
“That’s all.”
“—as simple as—”
As simple as one word. Which, Penn told himself, it never had been, and never would be. Though a great many people could always be convinced . . . well, Penn was no more infallible in such matters than anyone else. No man was; but some knew it, and some did not.
As simple as one word.
And the word was (put most politely):
Bosh.
“If there are no further eulogies here, in public . . .” Leverett began, and let his voice trail off. Perhaps, just perhaps, they could get out without a further scramble on the issues; or what members called the issues.
The chamber’s inhabitants seemed to stir, but no hand was raised, and no man rose.
Just possible. “Very well, then,” Leverett said—relieved to get off so easily, and deeply suspicious that
he had. “The normal business of this session,” he went on, in just as brisk and businesslike a tone as ever the Chair had used, “involving a motion made by Member Dutrave, which involves the construction of a new spaceport near the twilight-belt at latitude thirty-six, on Venus, is now under consideration.”
Dale spoke up instantly—no recognition, and no relevance. The damned young fool . . . “But we haven’t settled—”
“Member Dale,” Leverett said, still businesslike (for there was still a chance). “You have not been recognized.”
Dale stood, rigid as a poker, red-hot and defiant
. Not for the first time, Leverett wondered if young fool weren’t, after all, a tautology. Though perhaps not... “I ask recognition of the Chair.”
The formalities, clearly, had been called for. One slim chance. “For the purpose of debate or information upon the motion now before us?”
Dale’s voice rang like plucked wire in the chamber. “To settle the important issues.”
Leverett sighed. No chance at all. Not any more: the Members stirred, drawn like iron to the magnet of that voice. Of course, he could pretend he hadn’t understood—which bought nothing, and irritated members. “It has been finished,” he said quietly, in the active chamber. “Eulogies have been completed, and—”
“Eulogies!” Dale snarled, still on his feet; as he readied himself, his hands went clasped behind his back, his head went forward. The classic demagogue: a case study, Leverett told himself. The Emperor, who collected such oddities, would be interested; but the Emperor, from all he’d heard, had problems of his own. “What about what he fought for?” Dale was saying. “What about the things he meant? We haven’t settled that—or nearly.”
That morning, Leverett had selected several lines of possible action. Time had struck; he took a second to choose between them.
“The Emperor . . . the question, Member Dale, is substantive, and not procedural. The Emperor will deal with it. We can hardly deal with what is, in effect, a motion to dissolve ourselves-^”
The piercing ancient voice of Transcome cut the air. “Maybe we’d better.”
But Leverett overrode that, as strong as he had ever been within that chamber; he had his line, and he would use it. “—and the matter therefore lies properly within the province of the Emperor, who—”
Dale spat: “Thai old idiot,” and a dead silence fell.
No member moved, or spoke. Or breathed, as far as Leverett could see.
Dale had gone too far. . . .
Perhaps. “Member Dale,” Leverett said at last, “you will take your seat.”
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