by Joe Haldeman
The theater seats had slips of plastic with names on them. I helped John to his, in the front row, and then went to mine, in the rearmost. There was a definite pattern. Engineers and other grown-ups toward the front. I shared the back row with Tom Smith, Education; Carlos Cruz, Humanities; Janet Sharkey, Fine Arts; and our historian, Sam Wasserman.
I hadn’t seen Sam since Launch. He gave me a shy grin and blush. We’d been lovers for a short intense time a few years ago, although he is exactly young enough to be my son, if I had followed my mother’s example and become pregnant at the gray old age of twelve.
“Lovers” is too strong a word, or too polite a one. When Evy joined the line, which made me feel somewhat plain and middle-aged and dumpy, he was there for me. It was more complicated than that, and still is. I knew he would be at the meeting, but when I saw him I got a nice glow of physical surprise, or physical something. Maybe someday again.
(Prime says that she can keep this diary secure from prying eyes by shunting it over into her own cyberspace. I guess so, since she’s supposedly self-aware, whatever that actually means.
(Do I really care whether Dan or John knows I get a little damp in the jeans, thinking about Sam? I’m not sure. I remember how he tastes, different. Kosher, I guess.)
Once everyone was in the proper place we had to sit still for a minute of camera registration. This was so the archives could properly record our gasps of admiration at Purcell’s inspiring rhetoric. The sparkling wit that used to almost keep us awake in class.
He actually didn’t start out too badly. With a mild joke he apologized for the necessarily ceremonial nature of this first joint meeting, and asked us all to introduce ourselves, for the record, then turned the proceedings over to Eliot.
That did make it interesting since we don’t normally have joint meetings with the Engineering side. I like Eliot anyhow; he stood up for me back when old Casey tried to limit my powers in the demographics part of pre-Launch. He’s also a funny guy.
Most amputees I’ve met opted for realisticlooking waldos (and of course we’ve all met people we couldn’t tell were amputees), but Eliot goes in the opposite direction. His left arm and hand are usually a metal-and-composite skeletal framework with all the bearings and wires exposed, though sometimes he screws in a special-purpose tool. His legs clank against things, and he doesn’t bother to wear shoes over his metal feet.
One night at the Light Head bar with Daniel and me, he pointed out the creepily obvious: the arm and legs were engineered better than he was. After he died they would cut off the arm and legs and file them away for the next clumsy person. He wondered if there was a library of prostheses somewhere in the hospital. He’d never tried to find out.
(Evy later told me there was such a collection, and there had been a battle royal with New New as to how many we were allowed to take along.)
For the meeting he wore an actual realistic hand, but kept the Meccano arm, looking intentionally ludicrous in a short-sleeved shirt. First he had Dan and Lenwood Zylius report in their capacities as New New Liaisons. Nothing significant on the Engineering side (Dan had told me he could give an hour of boring figures or a half-second shrug) and Zylius, Policy, could report only that putting one light-minute of vacuum between us and New New had not materially changed the amount of red tape involved in relations between the two structures.
Ito Nagasaki, Criminal Law, reported that her men and women were all working twenty-five-hour shifts and falling behind; she desperately needed police and counseling volunteers. A lot of people were reacting to the stress of parting by punching or pulling the hair of the person nearest to them; sometimes dearest.
I had known that Evy was working overtime, too; Indicio Morales, in charge of Health Care facilities, confirmed that out of ten thousand people, fifteen hundred had fallen ill with something—mostly homesickness, anxiety, angst, and the aforementioned black eyes and contusions. They’d predicted it was going to happen, but were surprised at the volume of complaints.
Morales rolled pills and Nagasaki handed out fines and counseling appointments; both of them figured that their troubles would slack off in another week or so. (If not, we’d have to turn around and go back!) There were short business-as-usual reports from Agriculture, Ecosystems, Life Support, Maintenance, and so forth. My own report was almost a nonreport, since people were still so busy figuring out what they were going to do for the next ninety years that they weren’t checking out a lot of volleyballs and clarinet reeds. The zero-gee “saunas,” a euphemism rarely used, were occupied round the clock, which I suppose is entertainment, though few people have to check out extra equipment for the sport.
Then Purcell took the floor again, for his bombshell. “This is very bad timing,” he began, “but obviously it isn’t the sort of thing one apologizes for.” He looked at Eliot thoughtfully, and shook his head. “I’m afraid… well, my physician has informed me that I am the victim of a rare disorder called Murchinson’s Syndrome.” I was sitting close enough to Morales to hear her sudden intake of breath.
“Murchinson’s Syndrome involves a rapid and irreversible breakdown of the immune system. There’s no actual treatment for it.”
Eliot’s voice was almost inaudible. “How long?”
“It could be months. Or it could be weeks or days. Eventually a single rhinovirus… would be sufficient.”
“You could be isolated. Sealed off from any disease vectors.”
He shook his head. “I thought of that. As unpleasant as living out the rest of my days in a space suit would be. But like anybody, I’m carrying around a large number of disease factors that are currently more or less kept in check. As the doctor put it, there is no way to isolate a person from his own body. When the immune system weakens sufficiently, one of those factors will kill me.
“Most of you know me well enough to know that I would appreciate a minimum of sympathy and condolence. Of course I feel chagrined, cheated. Betrayed by my own body. I was looking forward to at least another half-century of observing this splendid experiment in economic isolation. But of course this does come to all of us sooner or later, and I have no new insight to offer about that.
“Fortunately, I have been working closely with my Coordinator-elect, Tania Seven, and over the course of the next few days I shall be transferring all of my responsibilities over to her in an orderly way.” Seven was sitting in the front row, and had shown no reaction; Purcell must have already discussed it with her. “I would also like to work closely with her in selecting the new candidates for Coordinator-elect.” She nodded. He paused. “I suppose that ends the formal part of this meeting. Good-bye.” He stepped down from the stage and walked out.
The rest of the meeting was short and quiet. Tom Smith and I did some preliminary hashing out of a procurement system that might simplify life for both of us (Education shares a lot of material with Entertainment, but we have separate storage areas, nearly a kilometer apart). I would have someone from John’s office go over the proposed design changes for the next couple of years and see whether Tom and I could get offices close to a large enough storage volume to hold all of our stuff in one place. I’d miss the luxury of Uchūden, but it would save a lot of time.
Evy was waiting outside in the corridor. She’d never heard of Murchinson’s Syndrome, but she had her keyboard with her. She unfolded it and asked.
The disease had never been reported on Earth. Over the past century there had been two cases in New New and one in Devon’s World; every victim had been at least third-generation spaceborn.
“That’s a little scary,” I said. “Cosmic rays?”
John laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about it. People probably did get it on Earth, but it was misdiagnosed. As Harry said, whatever bug’s next in line is the one he’ll actually die of.”
“Let’s talk about something morbid.” Dan looked at me. “Are you going to throw your hat in the ring?”
“Hat?” Evy said.
“It’s an Americanis
m; run for office. No. I thought about it for a fraction of a second. No, thanks.”
“You’d be good.”
“Someday. Most people would think I’m too young.”
“Tania Seven’s about your age.”
“The hell she is.”
Evy primped her short kinky hair. “You white people age so fast.”
“I’ll age you!” I turned back to Dan. “Besides, I don’t want to give up the Cabinet position.” That was a precondition for running, though the logic of it has always eluded me. If I won Coordinator-elect, it would be two years before I was Coordinator. Plenty of time to train someone to pass out the volleyballs.
(It made even less sense on the Engineering side, since every Cabinet member is in essence a lobbyist for one academic specialty’s research needs. When the Coordinator-elect takes office, that specialty automatically has two people arguing for their slice of the more-or-less fixed pie of resources and personnel available for research. A couple of years ago I submitted a proposal that the process be reversed: have the Coordinator-elect continue to sit as a Cabinet member, so as to keep all the influences more or less even. The Engineering track didn’t see much merit in the proposal. I think that’s because they like to gamble—every two years they get a chance to double their influence.)
We argued a little bit more about my running, Evy as usual on my side; Dan thinking that I was old enough and John claiming that age wouldn’t be important. I told Dan that he only wanted me to do it because he’d had to go through a term as Coordinator in New New, and misery loved company.
When I got back to the office there was a note on my message queue from Purcell; he wanted to see John and Dan and me after dinner. I could think of a few thousand things I’d rather do with my evening. But as it turned out, the experience was at least informative, if not pleasant. We even managed to bury the hatchet, in a way, and not in each other. He was never a particularly graceful man, but most people agree that he handled his exit well.
We joined him in a small teaching lab on Level 5, racks of glassware in place for some arcane demonstration. There was a trace of sulfur dioxide in the air, as there usually seemed to be in such places, and it gave me an instant headache, as usual. I think John and Dan thrive on it. A homey sort of smell for science types, like bread baking.
Purcell was leaning against a sink, studying some small wire contraption. He nodded to me but talked only to John and Dan, mostly filling them in on his assessment of Tania Seven, and how her training and prejudices might affect their jurisdictions. It was an odd coincidence that they held two of the only Engineering-track Cabinet positions that required daily contact with the Policy Coordinator’s office. I was Policy track, but could probably survive for months without bothering the Coordinator.
It was interesting to eavesdrop on them, and interesting that I was allowed to. Purcell was a cold-blooded manipulator—one who wanted to keep manipulating from the grave!—but he was also a solid if cynical judge of character. I was wondering out of what obscure motivation he had invited me along, when he abruptly dismissed John and Dan, saying he had to talk to me alone.
He was a great one for amenities. “I don’t like you, Marianne, but then I don’t like many people. Including myself.”
“Dr. Purcell—”
“You might as well call me Harry. You won’t have to for long.” He tossed the little wire thing onto a table, watching its slow third-gee trajectory rather than look at me. “Daniel thinks you would be a good prospect for Policy Coordinator-elect. Don’t run.”
“I already told him I wouldn’t. I’m not old enough.”
“You’re old enough. You’re competent. But there are a lot of people in this can—like me—who are rather hostile toward you.”
“Can’t please everybody.”
“That’s not the point. I rarely please anybody, but here I am.” The wire thing bounced and he snatched it out of the air with a surprisingly swift motion. “It’s not your personality, or that you’ve been unfair or imprudent.” He allowed himself a tiny smile. “Though your sex life, such of it as has come to my attention, seems… lurid. By my standards.”
“I have my own standards.”
“As I say, that’s not the problem. It’s much more subtle than that, and it’s complex, multiplex, and you have to do something about it before you run for office. Because the chances are you will win, and the results of your tenure could be disastrous.”
“I’m listening.” Hearing, anyhow.
“Number one. You’re an idealist. That’s attractive in the young.”
“You’re saying a leader can’t be an idealist?”
“It’s an impediment.” He leaned back, professorial. “Go ahead. Give me an example.”
“Jefferson.” I thought of him because I’d just seen his picture; one of the paintings reproduced in the hall outside of the meeting room.
“Thomas Jefferson. I don’t know American history that well.” He brightened. “But I know American economics. Jefferson owned slaves, didn’t he? Doesn’t sound too enlightened, even for that period.”
“He freed them.”
“He bought them first. Sounds like political expedience.”
“Mahatma Gandhi.”
“Religious leaders don’t count. Without at least the appearance of idealism, they would have no following.” He waved a hand to keep me from trying Adolf Hitler or someone. “It’s not that you can’t have ideals. Even I have one or two left. But I don’t let them dictate policy. I’d wind up with a few dedicated partisans on my side and a guaranteed majority trying to impede me, on general principles.”
“I understand what you’re saying. I would have to be subtle—”
“That’s not in your repertoire. Might as well say ‘I would have to be a giraffe.’ Unless you’ve changed profoundly in the last few months.”
“But it’s not as if I’m a bomb-throwing radical. Most of the people in ’Home have about the same notions of right and wrong—”
“You would say ‘right and wrong.’ That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m saying is that you’re inflexible. You wouldn’t act against principle, even when it was clearly necessary.”
“You seem to know a lot about me.”
“I do.” He unzipped a front pocket and handed me a holo slide. “This is a message to you from Sandra Berrigan.”
“What did you have to do with Sandra?”
“We were strange bedfellows together.” For a weird moment I thought he meant sex, and tried to picture it. “I was supposed to wait until we were a lot farther out to give that to you. You are to play it once, alone, and then destroy it, and never discuss it with anyone but me.”
“Not even Sandra?”
“Especially not her. She has her own problems.”
I put the slide in my breast pocket, next to the button bug that was recording our conversation. It was confusing. Sandra had been my political mentor; she knew exactly how I felt about Purcell.
“Sandra entrusted that to me for reasons that will become apparent. I couldn’t pass on that trust. And I wanted you to read it while I was still… able to discuss it with you.”
“I’ll look at it tonight.”
“It’s about principle, ideals. About complexity.”
“Okay.” Sandra and Purcell? I put it out of my mind for a while. “Number one, I’m an idealist. I’ll accept that. Is there a number two?”
He nodded but didn’t answer immediately. Then he said, “Have you ever wondered why you were appointed to the least significant Cabinet post?”
“I’ve wondered.” He waited. “All right. To be completely honest, if less than humble, I’ve always believed the position was created for me. That Sandra pushed it through so that I could have some Cabinet-level experience without too much visibility. It does seem odd to have Entertainment at the Cabinet rather than the committee level.”
“You’re ninetenths right. But it was my idea, not Sandra’s.”
That was reasonably shocking. “That’s… interesting.”
“Or unbelievable?” He scratched his head and grimaced. “I had planned to have this conversation with you when you were rather more experienced.”
“More experienced,” I said. “I have four degrees, two husbands, and a wife—not counting the hundred or so lovers before I was married. I’ve been to Earth three times. I was there for the end of the world. I can juggle three objects of different sizes and play the clarinet, though not at the same time. I even have some political experience. Not enough, I take it.”
“Are you through?”
“No. You’ve condescended to me for a good sixteen years. Now I’m supposed to believe you have enough respect for my abilities to create a position that sets me up to take over your job. You’re right; it’s unbelievable. It’s fantastic. I could use some explanation.”
“That’s number three.”
“Does the order matter?”
“Perhaps not.” He levered himself up to perch on the edge of the table, a slow balletic move in low gravity. “I will give you half of my reason. The irrational half.”
“Go on.”
“I had a daughter born about two years before you were born. She was very much like you. We argued for many years, but argument to me is a sport. I challenged her in the spirit that another man might play ball with his daughter, or chess, or go to movies.”
“I can understand that.”
“She never did. When she was eighteen she stopped speaking to me. When she was nineteen she emigrated to Tsiolkovski, of all places. Ostensibly because I was so contemptuous of their politics and economics. She left a note.”
“And she died there during the war?”
“She never got there. The ’81 shuttle disaster.”
That was the year I was in his class. He’d never mentioned it. “My God. That’s terrible.”
“I’m not sure that I loved her. I suspect that I’ve never loved anybody. Of course I feel partially responsible for her death.”