The Iron Maiden

by Piers Anthony

  “Give my regards to your wife.”

  “Rue is a good woman,” Phist said seriously. “It is unfortunate that she and I both love others.”

  “Still?” Hope asked, though he had heard as much from Emerald. He had not realized that Phist still longed for Spirit.

  “Still. But we do have a good marriage. We understand each other’s positions exactly.”

  After two years as Ambassador, Hope returned to Jupiter, having made a considerable name for himself by his actions on Ganymede. He resumed political activity, with Spirit and his staff falling naturally into their prior roles, and this time was successful. He became Governor of Sunshine. He immediately set about implementing populist reforms. Partly as an example of his opposition to ageism he hired an old woman, Mrs. Burton, as stage technician, and not only was she competent, Hopie adopted her as a grandmother figure. He also put his sister Faith on the state payroll in open nepotism, for she worked with the state’s sizable contingent of Hispanic refugees, and her relation to the governor made them realize that their plight was now being taken seriously. Spirit had had a hand in that assignment, and it proved to be an excellent one.

  Thorley, of course, had the earliest news of what was in the offing, and used it to craft a clever excoriation. No one knew how he got his information; it was as though he had a bug in the governor’s office. He did, and her name was Spirit. Hope guaranteed that the press was never muzzled, by keeping Thorley fully informed, and the news was always delivered with love. He concluded: “If this man Hubris had ambition, he would be dangerous.” And of course Thorley knew exactly what Hope’s ambition was, but some secrets he kept.

  But Faith’s participation was to lead to a serious crisis in Hope’s administration. There had been a riot in the Black community before Hope’s administration, and four men were on death row for crimes supposedly committed therein. Faith believed they were innocent, and that there would be much worse riots if they were executed. Hope investigated and concurred. So he pardoned them. And there was outrage. His popularity as governor dropped thirty points in the polls. He was excoriated by conservatives and much of the general press, with one seemingly odd exception: Thorley. The columnist was not free to support the pardon, but his commentary suggested that the authorities had brought it on themselves by making an inept case that allowed a liberal governor the technical grounds to overturn it. That was correct, and Thorley had the grace not to say more. The public outrage softened, for Thorley was now a potent conservative voice. Spirit rewarded him with special passion the next time Sancho met him.

  Two years later something happened that led to Hope’s finest political hour as governor, and a very special union for Spirit, Hopie, and Thorley. An interplanetary passenger ship that had been headed for Titan had somehow drifted off course and passed through restricted Saturn-space. The Saturnines had tracked it, fired on it, and holed it. All its crew and passengers were dead. Including fifty Jupiter citizens, eight of which were residents of Sunshine, and one of whom was a representative from a Sunshine district. Two were Hispanics, and Faith wanted to know when their bodies would be recovered for proper burial. As governor Hope had a responsibility to all residents of Sunshine, but this was not state or national business, it was interplanetary.

  “You know, Hope—” Spirit murmured thoughtfully.

  “But it’s crazy!” he protested, though she had not actually voiced the thought.

  “Yet, correctly played ...”

  He knew what she meant. There was a daring opportunity here. “Still, it could mean my life.”

  She put her hand on his. “Our lives.”

  He sighed. It was time to be a hero again.

  Sancho notified Thorley that day. “But please do not break the news until after we are on the way, because–”

  “Credit this old conservative with some modicum of discretion,” he said as they made love.

  “I will give you a full private report when we return,” she promised, kissing him.

  “You are going too?”

  “He’s my brother.”

  He pondered only a moment. “Then I will go as well.”

  “You? Thorley, you can’t possibly–”

  “News somehow leaked out, I saw my chance for a scoop, I demanded to come, in the name of the free press. Can your brother stop me?”

  “I think not. But Thorley—you and I together on such a trip—suppose someone catches on?” For she was thrilled with the notion, and knew they would have a torrid sequence of love during such a trip.

  “It will be a hostile association, and I will report it as such. I doubt your brother will refute it.”

  “He won’t,” she agreed.

  They chartered a yacht, a sleek and swift civilian ship with a competent crew. Hope made sure that her captain knew the nature of the project, off the record, so he could turn it down if he chose. He paled but accepted. “It’s time someone did something like this, sir,” he said.

  Hope told Megan and Hopie, of course, expecting them to condemn this as idiocy. Indeed, Megan did: “You’re going to Saturn? Hope, this is preposterous!”

  “I want to go, too!” Hopie exclaimed, clapping her hands. She was eleven now, and Hope claimed she reminded him hauntingly of Aunt Spirit at that age.

  “You will do nothing of the kind!” Megan exclaimed, horrified. “This thing is suicide!”

  Hopie frowned. “You mean Daddy’s supposed to go die alone?”

  Her words were a question, not an accusation, but Megan was wounded. “We’ll both go,” she said shortly.

  Hopie jumped up and down, oblivious to the subtle pain. “Oh, goody! I’ll do a school paper on it!”

  They wasted no time. They issued no public statement, but Thorley phoned Hope. “Governor, is this an official excursion?” he demanded. “Then you cannot bar the press. I will be there in two hours.”

  Hope glanced at Spirit as the screen faded. “You put him up to this?”

  She spread her hands. “Please, Hope.”

  “What of Hopie?”

  “We didn’t realize she would be coming. But she does not have to know everything.”

  Hope nodded, and went to inform Megan of this new detail.

  They set out for Saturn. When they were safely in space, Shelia in Hassee issued the press release that announced the governor’s intention. He was going to Saturn to recover the bodies of Sunshine citizens, demand an apology, and obtain reparations.

  There had been a national election, and Megan’s enemy Tocsin was now president. They received his signal, coded for privacy. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Hubris?” he demanded.

  “Mr. President, I am doing my duty by my constituents,” Hope said evenly, and Spirit knew he was pleased to see the man so angry.

  “You have no business dabbling in interplanetary matters!”

  “When those whose business it is renege on their responsibilities, it becomes necessary for others to take up the slack,” Hope said. Spirit, standing beyond the camera range, bit her tongue to stop from laughing. Hope could be so fiendishly annoying when he tried.

  “You shithead spic! Turn back or I’ll blast your wise ass out of space!”

  He was bluffing. He could indeed order the ship to be downed, but such an act would carry a horrendous political penalty, for the early news holos showed that the people of Jupiter were overwhelmingly with Hope on this matter. “You do your duty as you see fit, Mr. President,” Hope said calmly. “I will do mine.” He was doing what he did best, playing a scene.

  “I’m going to see you hung by the balls for treason, Hubris,” Tocsin snarled, his face mottling red as he cut off.

  “At least I’ve got them, Mr. President,” Hope muttered under his breath to the blank screen, smiling. Now Spirit let her stifled laugh burst out. What a naughty pleasure this was! Hope had hated Tocsin since he learned of what he had done to Megan, and Spirit shared his sentiment.

  Megan stepped into the communications cham
ber, followed by Thorley and Hopie. “I wish you hadn’t done that, Hope.”

  He gazed at her levelly. “That man destroyed you politically. I will destroy him.”

  “And become just like him?”

  That set him back. He promised not to bait the president any more.

  “What does shithead spic mean?” Hopie inquired.

  Megan, who evidently had been unaware that the girl was close enough to overhear the dialogue, seemed about to faint. “Please, allow me to explain privately,” Thorley said. He took Hopie by the hand and let her out of the chamber. Spirit knew the man would find a way to defuse the language. Perhaps Hopie had been too protected.

  In due course, Thorley sent his dispatch from the yacht. It was remarkably gentle to Hope, almost suggesting that the notorious Hubris might for once have done something of which a conservative could approve. “Why all the fuss? One would almost suspect that the errant governor of the Great State of Sunshine had pardoned someone. Doesn’t it make perfect sense to challenge the Saturnines on their home turf when they have done something slightly more than routinely reprehensible? Somebody has to, as it were, pick up the pieces.”

  “You don’t like Tocsin either!” Spirit exclaimed when they were alone. They had adjoining staterooms, with locking doors and a private portal between them, so that nobody’s daughter could accidentally discover the governor’s sister making love with the governor’s most persistent critic.

  “Sometimes it is expedient for a good conservative to stand aside and allow events to take their natural course.”

  “Such as when a good liberal does what no conservative dare do, and stands up to the Saturn bear?”

  “Liberals may have their uses, on rare occasion.”

  “And liberal wenches have only one use?”

  “Bait me at your own risk, wench, lest I make that use of you.”

  “Show me your power!”

  They made love, delighting in doing it in a bed after twelve years. “Oh, Spirit,” he said. “I wish I could marry you!”

  “Perhaps if you converted to Mormonism, so that you could have plural wives?”

  “It is a thought.” But of course they knew that marriage between them had never been in the picture.

  The journey took several days, and boredom soon threatened. But Thorley was in person a most engaging companion; he kept his politics out of polite conversation. He joined the liberals for meals and made a fourth for games of old-fashioned cards, teaming with Spirit against Megan and Hope, and his smooth wit made him a delight. He also taught Hopie to play chess, which he claimed was a game of royalty. Spirit was privately thrilled to see them getting along so well, for a reason no one would speak aloud.

  Then it threatened to fracture. “You seem like such a nice man,” Hopie told him. “Why are you always so mean to my father?”

  Thorley laughed, as if this were rare wit. “It is my profession, child. I do to public figures metaphorically what your father does to them politically.”

  Megan and Spirit and Hope, theoretically engaged in their separate pursuits at that moment, paused to listen without interfering. “Is it true you saved his life?” Hopie asked with her typical directness.

  Thorley smiled. “That might be an exaggeration. It is true there was an incident some time ago.”

  “And you got lasered instead of him?”

  He shrugged. “It could be put that way. Actually I believe it was your mother the man was aiming at, as a target of opportunity.”

  “Back before I was born?”

  “Prehistoric,” he agreed wryly. “So the matter need not concern you, Hopie, if I may address you so familiarly.”

  “So if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t exist.”

  Thorley knew what she had for the moment forgotten: that Hopie was an adopted child, not Megan’s own. But he did not remind her of that. “It is certainly possible.”

  “So I suppose I can’t hate you, even if you deserve it.”

  “I would be distressed to have you hate me, Hopie, however deserving of the sentiment I may be.”

  “Then will you stop writing those mean things?”

  Thorley spread his hands. “I can no more change my nature than your father can change his.”

  Surprisingly she smiled. “Well, at least you are honest.”

  He smiled back. “I fear I may not merit such an accolade. Let’s just say I am consistent.”

  “Okay.” She returned her attention to the chess game. She was doing well, there, for Thorley had spotted her the queen, both rooks, a bishop, and a knight. There was a savage battle among pawns in progress.

  Spirit and Megan exchanged a glance. It seemed that a necessary hurdle had been navigated. And indeed, the two continued to get along well. Thorley was a marvelous font of arcane and sometimes odd humor, and he made Hopie laugh often. He taught her other games, and did not try to feed her any conservative lore. Soon she was calling him Uncle Thorley.

  And in private at ship’s night, and often also in the day, Spirit and Thorley found time to make more love. They were both in their 40’s, but pent-up longing made them lusty.

  The spoke often of love and desire, and not of marriage.

  “But you know,” Spirit reminded him “this mission is dangerous. Saturn could blast us out of space.”

  “It could indeed. Why do you think I wanted to come along?”

  “But you’re not suicidal!”

  “I wanted this last chance with you. If you are to die on a foolish extravaganza, let me die with you. Then I will not have to endure the loss of you.”

  “But you have a wife to console you.”

  “And an excellent wife she is, and I do love her. But you are my forbidden passion. If I live for her; I may die for you.”

  “Forbidden fruit,” she agreed.

  “Fruits,” he said, kissing her breasts.

  “Always the tastiest, I’m sure.” She delighted in this by-play, so long denied.

  In due course they approached Saturn, with its phenomenal rings, the splendor of the System. They were hailed by a Saturn cruiser. “Jupiter ship, you are intruding on private space. Turn back immediately.”

  Hope took the screen. “I am Governor Hubris of the state of Sunshine of the United States of Jupiter Planet,” he replied in English. “I am coming to claim what belongs to my state and my planet.”

  That did not seem to faze the officer. “If you do not turn we shall fire on you.”

  “I am sure that will make excellent news,” Hope said, playing out his scene. “I am Governor Hope Hubris, and the members of my party are my wife Megan, my sister Spirit, my daughter Hopie, and the correspondent Thorley.”

  “We are firing one warning shot,” the officer said.

  Indeed, the in-ship report came immediately: “Laser beam at twelve o’clock.”

  “Saturn does seem to be competent at holing unarmed ships,” Hope reminded the officer.

  The screen went blank. “Bluff successful,” Thorley remarked laconically.

  “Even the Saturnines do not knowingly shoot down a governor,” Hope said. But Spirit knew that Megan was as relieved as she was; it had been a formidable risk.

  Two hours later they were signaled again. “Governor Hubris,” a new officer said. “Please adjust course for orbit at Ring Station; a shuttle will convey your party to Scow.”

  “Understood.” This was victory indeed, for Scow was the capital bubble of North Saturn, the seat of government for the Union of Saturnine Republics. They were now accepting the visit.

  “If you will pardon the curiosity of a political innocent,” Thorley said with his special brand of irony, “what guarantees do you have against arrest and execution as a spy?”

  “The Governor of Sunshine, former ambassador to the Independent Satellite of Ganymede? Our esteemed president would be forced to make an issue.”

  “And you have placed Tocsin in the same bind you have placed Saturn,” he said. “However much he detests your i
ntestines in private, Tocsin can not undermine you in public. This could precipitate Solar War Three.”

  “Oh, I doubt it will come to that.”

  Thorley laughed. “One must admire your finesse, Governor, if not your politics. To make the Eagle and the Bear waltz to your tune involuntarily.”

  “Finesse does have its compensations.”

  “Still, I want to advise you in advance that I will be most perturbed if this leads to my obliteration in SW III.”

  “I will take your perturbation under advisement at that time.”