Executive (23 page)

She was silent. We had progressed beyond her preparation. I removed the helmet and took the chip and gave it to Shelia.

“I think I shall not monitor these anymore,” Shelia said.

“As you wish,” I said curtly, and proceeded to my other business.

Megan was now speaking out in public, not exactly criticizing the new policies of the Tyrancy but making constructive suggestions. She wanted attention paid to slum clearance, conservation, women's rights, and planetary aid. She had traveled to Latin Jupiter and bought a bright and beautiful scarf there, which she wore proudly. “The people are talented and good,” she said. "But many are oppressed by their governments. We of wealthy North Jupiter cannot be satisfied while hunger and misery remain elsewhere.

We must help in whatever ways we can but especially through education. The poor people cannot wait for gradual reform; in their frustration they will turn violently against their governments. The Tyrant should go for himself to see the situation to the south; then perhaps he would better appreciate the need."

Megan refused to participate directly in my government, but I valued her input in whatever manner it came. “Set up a Latin tour,” I told Shelia.

The ship lifted above the great rushing band of clouds that was the base for the United States of North Jupiter and slid south around the planet. I watched with my usual goggle-eyed tourist's fascination. I had been over twenty years on Jupiter, but still its atmospheric dynamics awed me. You can, as the old saying goes, take the man out of space, but you can't take the space out of the man. I had been raised on a surface that was solid, with no atmosphere beyond the dome; later I had spent fifteen years in space, mostly aboard ships. Atmosphere remained a strange thing to me, in my unconscious mind. The way it thickened and swirled as if possessed of its own volition, its cloud patterns never quite repeating themselves in detail despite their consistency on the planetary scale...

We crossed into the mighty maelstrom that was RedSpot. I saw the endless swirls and eddies that rimmed it, stormlets paying homage to the Lord of Storms, and for a while I flirted with the trance state.

To my eye the vortex seemed to accelerate, to make its grand counterclockwise rotation in seconds, so that I could appreciate the whole of it. It became a monstrous mouth that consumed the smaller swirls, one after the other, or at least sucked away much of their power. That was, of course, how it nourished itself: it was the System's hungriest vampire.

I felt a hand on mine and emerged from my reverie. It was Amber, beside me, for, of course, I had her along, as I normally did when contacting the officials of other nations. It had become accepted as one of the idiosyncrasies of the Tyrant, this constant presence of his ward, the mute girl; in fact, it was now expected. It seemed to lend an air of validity to the encounters, in the minds of the officials.

So she was with me physically. And emotionally, via the helmet. But the two were not yet merged, for she had not come to me in the manner I required, to tell me that she wanted me to love her in life as I had in the helmet—or not. I had to have that independent statement from her before I could act. My memory of Reba's lesson remained clear, and I did not want to impose a relationship of this nature on a virtual child who was in most other respects subject to my will. This much would be Amber's choice—and if she did not tell me yes, then I would leave her alone, and all would be as it had always been, overtly. I had to have this much assurance of the fairness of my position. This much.

Now we descended into the vortex of RedSpot, and the great swirl of it took us in, perhaps an analog of our emotional situation. The clarity of it was lost with proximity, and soon it was as if we were in a normal atmospheric current. That was the way of human objectivity, I realized: from up close, the daily routine seemed ordinary even if from afar it clearly was not. We could appreciate reality on the physical plane, on occasion, by rising above it, but how could we ever do so on the emotional plane?

We docked at RedSpot City, the capital of this nation. Externally it was a cluster of giant bubbles, much like any other complex. Internally, I knew, it had its own identity. But I was not properly prepared for the reality.

The halls of the upper class were spacious and elegant. Parks, gardens, and fountains abounded, and there were many statues. We toured the Plaza of the Constitution and saw the majestic cathedral there, whose spires reached up toward the center of the bubble. Amber was plainly awestruck, and I was mightily impressed myself. Then we were received at the National Palace, and the phenomenal Castle, traditional home of the president of RedSpot. We admired the University Library, its enormous facade reflecting ancient Aztec and Toltec art.

“But what about the residential areas?” I inquired.

There was a certain confusion while they tried to persuade me that such regions were not really of interest to me. Ah, but they were, I insisted innocently. I reminded them that I was Hispanic myself and had come from a Hispanic planet; they were my people and I wanted to see them personally. What I did not remind them of was that it was evident that much of the aid rendered in prior years to this and other Latin Jupiter nations had been wasted. So I needed a closer look at their real nature, to justify the intransigence I had in mind—and they preferred to deny that justification without stating why.

They could not deny me, though misgiving was manifest on every RedSpot face. Soon Amber and I were treated to an impromptu ride through one of the neighboring sections. They tried to confine it to the favored gee-norm level, but I asked to see the upper reaches, where the poor folk resided. Because courtesy required that I be humored, and because my lone say-so could cause another massive North Jupiter loan to be approved for RedSpot, they obeyed again. We went directly to the top.

Gee was noticeably diminished here, for this was nearer to the center of the mighty city-bubble, with correspondingly smaller centrifugal force. That was why it was not a favored level; prolonged residence here would weaken the body, making activity on the full-gee levels difficult. It had been to avoid a similar fate that my family had emigrated from Callisto, the better part of forty years before. We had been threatened with residence in the half-gee coffee bean plantation, and we could never have won free of that, once committed. This level of RedSpot was not that extreme, but still it was not healthy.

The travel-hall was a complete contrast to the broad lanes of the display region. It was low and narrow, the lighting was bad, the air was polluted. The fact was that RedSpot City was so congested, so over-populated, that its recycling mechanisms were unable to keep up with the demand. The diameter of the main bubble was no greater than that of Nyork or Cago in North Jupiter, but its population was swelling so grotesquely that it was now the largest city of the planet, and soon it would be the largest of the entire System.

Amber coughed, unused to such foul air, and I was not enjoying it myself. In addition to the pollution there was a certain stench, suggesting that the sanitary mechanisms were also overcapacitated. But I held firm; I wanted to see the people of this nation as they really were.

We came to a park area, but it was no longer a park. Instead it was a grotesque conglomeration of junk.

Old containers, crates, segments of packing material and things I could not quite identify were piled around haphazardly, filling the chamber.

“The park... is now a garbage dump?” I inquired, appalled.

“We shall send a crew to clean it up!” my guide promised hastily.

I knew this was more complicated than that. Remember, it is my talent to read people, and this man was excruciatingly eager to get me away from here. Therefore I resisted. “Let's take a look at it now,” I said.

I helped Amber to get out of the vehicle, remembering as I took her hand the secret that lay between us.

She was now in the Spanish mode, so could talk, but she had remained silent. Perhaps my insistence on extending this tour to the seamier side of the city was also a sublimation of my need to gain some sort of commitment from Amber, whatever its nature might be. As long as we were here, we were together without suspicion. Or perhaps it was more sinister: if she disliked this oppressive region, she would have to initiate some sort of gesture to inform me, and once she had done that, she might find it easier to inform me of the more important decision.

I studied her covertly as she stepped to the floor. She was slender but attractive enough in her public dress. For this occasion her outfit was in the style of RedSpot, a full skirt with a frilly border, and she had a flower in her hair. She looked completely Hispanic and completely innocent, a little girl just merging into maidenhood. I found her wholly desirable and condemned myself for that. I had always had contempt for those older men who took very young mistresses; now I understood their position better than I liked.

As we approached the piled junk a small boy emerged. He spied us and retreated.

“Wait!” I called in Spanish. “Let me talk to you!”

But the boy did not reappear. “Please, Señor Tyrant,” our guide said. “We must get clear of this region.”

“In a moment,” I agreed. I stepped to the crevice where the boy had vanished. Sure enough, there was a passage there.

This was no dump. It was a region of makeshift housing. The poverty-stricken masses of RedSpot had had to fashion their own residences, squatting in the park.

The odor was worse here, suggesting that these folk did not have proper access to sanitary facilities. I was appalled that such conditions should exist in the middle of a giant city-bubble of Jupiter, but not really surprised. I had verified what I had suspected. RedSpot really did need economic improvement loans!

Amber stood beside me, not reacting, so I pushed farther. I hunched over and entered the aperture, drawing her in after me. In retrospect I realize how foolish an act this was; I had been too long away from poverty.

“ ¡Señor! Señor! ” the guide protested, horrified, and the guards strode forward.

But I moved on into the labyrinth—for so it turned out to be—of the slum village, Amber behind me. I found myself in a kind of twisting alley that wound through the jammed hut-chambers. There was literal garbage on the floor, and the passage was fraught with projecting ridges of plastic, for the chambers were not neatly fashioned.

I heard something behind and glanced back. A man had materialized, and he held a knife.

Now, belatedly, I realized my foolhardiness. I had left our guards behind and entered a largely lawless region. I could get myself killed before the guards could break through to rescue me.

But the man's attention was on Amber, not on me. “Girl, come here,” he said gruffly.

Amber shrank away from him and toward me. “She is with me, señor ,” I said.

Another man appeared on my other side. He, too, bore a blade. “What is your price for her?” he demanded. I was armed, of course. I had a laser, and I put my hand on it in my jacket. “ Señors, I wish you no mischief,” I said. “But the señorita will not go with you. Now, if you will stand aside, we shall depart; I regret intruding on your territory.”

Both men closed on us, knives extended. I fired at one through my jacket, scorching him on the right ear, then spun to cover the other. He hesitated, so I seared him on the same ear. I knew better than to bluff with this type.

There was a stirring in the chambers of this region, and I knew we would soon have more company. I hustled Amber back, watching all around us. In a moment we were out, standing before the alarmed guards. I knew why they had not pursued us into the slum passage; they had feared this would only get us immediately knifed, and themselves as well. Their relief at seeing us unharmed was manifest.

We returned to the vehicle and moved on through the level. I saw that the two guards and the guide were tight with apprehension, despite our safe return, and in a moment I realized why. “I did a foolish thing,” I said to them. "You warned me but, of course, could not prevent me without causing affront. If you three will be so kind as to forget this embarrassing incident completely, it will be a great favor to me.

I would not like to have to explain it to either my kind hosts or my own people; it would damage my image."

The three exchanged glances, then smiled with relief. “It is forgotten!” they agreed emphatically. Of course, they would keep the secret; their own heads were on the line, for their neglect in protecting me.

“And the people of the slum—I wounded two in the ear,” I continued as an afterthought. “If they should appear with some complaint—”

“There will be no complaint,” the guards reassured me grimly.

Yes, I was sure of that. We had a minor conspiracy of silence, to mutual advantage. In the process I had been reminded of something I should never have forgotten: that it is not smart to attempt too boldly to mix with the disadvantaged. They may have been wronged by their society, but they are not necessarily nice or polite people.

Amber sat very close to me now. She, too, had been shaken, realizing how precarious existence can be for all of us. Perhaps that was a worthwhile side effect.

We docked at Callisto, winding up my Latin Jupiter tour. My people were nervous about this, because I had departed this planet as a refugee, not as a legitimate emigrant. But politics and power change things, and I suspected I would be safer here today than I was back on the colossus. I felt nostalgia for the home planet; my roots, however brutally severed, were here, and I wanted to walk the soil of Halfcal again. Also, I had a specific mission here, an ironic one, that was best handled personally and privately.

I took Amber to the city-dome of Maraud, my home turf. It was good to see the barren, airless terrain of Callisto again, with the great old ice mine and the hemisphere that sealed in the city, with the gee-lens above it that concentrated the sunlight twenty-seven-fold. How the old, once-familiar things tugged at my soul today!