Privateers (31 page)

“It makes perfect sense, and you know it!” Jane’s green eyes flashed. “That’s why it is critically important that neither you nor I do anything to antagonize them.”

“Just let them have their way, huh? Well, I never believed in the Chinese advice to a woman about to be raped. I like the American advice better: Kick the bastard in the balls.”

“Dan, you’re such a fool! Why can’t you face reality? Why can’t you see the world as it is?”

“I do see the world as it is, and I hate it.”

“But don’t you understand what’s happening? Can’t you see that the Russians are going to lose, in the long run? If we can hang on . .

Feeling suddenly confused, Dan asked, “What are you talking about?”

“In the long run, we will prevail,” Jane said firmly. “The Soviet system is crumbling, bit by bit. a little more each year, each day.”

“Crumbling? I don’t see …”

“They’re getting fat and lazy,” Jane insisted. “Their economy is sinking deeper into the morass every year. They’re dependent now on Western goods and Third World raw materials. They buy manufactured items from you and the other space factories. …”

“And set the prices for raw materials,” Dan added. “And the prices for oil. And the prices for foodstuffs.”

“But how long can that go on? They never could compete with a free economy, and they’re falling farther behind with every luxury item they import.”

Setting his snifter down on the coffee table, Dan replied,

“They don’t have to compete, Jane. They command. They run the world’s economy because they have nuclear weapons and a huge army, and we don’t. They have the guns, and the power.”

She got to her feet and began pacing the little room. “You don’t understand. Yes, they have the power-for now. But it’s slipping from their fingers, a little at a time. If we can be patient, if we can hang on for another decade or so, the Soviet system will dissolve. The Russians themselves will get rid of it.”

“Bullshit!” Dan exploded. “That’s the same kind of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place!”

“Don’t raise your voice to me,” the President said.

“Double-dammit to hell, Jane, I’ve been hearing that kind of crap all my goddamned life! Don’t antagonize the Soviets, they might get angry and start a nuclear war. They’re paranoid, so we’ve got to treat them very carefully. Let’s reduce the number of weapons we’ve got, that’ll make the Russians feel safer. Jesus H. Christ! We disarmed ourselves piece by piece and all they did was build better weapons and more of them!”

“That’s all in the past,” Jane admitted. “But now we can outlast them. Socially, politically, economically, we’re stronger than they are, Dan. Time is on our side.”

“You’re just dreaming, Jane.”

“It’s no dream.” She faced him with glaring eyes. “My forecasters have examined every possible scenario. The computers show it quite clearly. The Soviet system will fade away”-a smile lit her face-“just as Marx always said it would.”

“And what do we do until that happy day?” Dan grumbled. “Bend over so they can kick us harder?”

“We do nothing to antagonize them,” Jane answered. “We let events take their natural course.”

With a shake of his head, Dan said, “No, Jane. Not me. I don’t care what your forecasters and your computers say. The Soviet system isn’t going to fold itself up and disappear.

They have the whole world in their grip, and they’re tightening that grip every day.”

“For the time being.”

“The time being? Jesus Christ, Jane, look outside your own window! This country’s falling apart! They’re hungry out there. They have no jobs. Their money’s worth nothing. They have no future to look forward to.”

“I know it’s going to be difficult,” Jane said, almost in a whisper. “But there’s no other way. We’ve got to walk through the fire.”

“Not me,” said Dan, getting to his feet. “I’m going to fight those sonsofbitches in every way I can.”

“That will just make things worse.”

He stared at her long and hard. She really believed what her aides were telling her. She really thought that, given time, the Soviet system would collapse. What they haven’t told her, Dan realized, is that the American system is already collapsing.

“Jane,” he said, softening his voice, “I came here to ask for your help … or at least your understanding.”

“Are you going to fly out to another asteroid?”

She was smiling again, smiling at him like a patient schoolteacher or a mother who knows that her boy has been up to some mischief. She doesn’t know, Dan told himself. The hijacking scheme hasn’t leaked.

“It doesn’t matter what I’m going to do,” he said, feeling weary of the whole business. “I came here to get your support, but I can see that it’s useless.”

For a long moment, Jane said nothing. Dan could see uncertainty in her eyes, conflicting emotions playing across her beautiful face.

“Then why don’t you give me your support,” she blurted. She said it quickly, all in a rush, as if she were afraid the words would not come out at all if she spoke at her normal pace.

They stood facing each other, the little coffee table between them. “What do you mean?” Dan asked.

“Stay here with me, Dan,” said Jane. “I need your strength, your courage.”

“Stay?” He felt an electrical shock surge through his guts. “You want me to stay-here?”

With three quick strides Jane was in his arms, head nestled against his chest. “I want you, Dan. I don’t want to face the world alone. I need you beside me.”

He laughed softly. “Jane, do you have any idea of what the media would do to you if you-”

“They can be controlled,” she murmured. “They won’t get in my way.”

“But we never did agree on politics,” he reminded her.

“I can trust you, Dan. The others all have their own axes to grind. I can rely on you even when we don’t agree.”

“We’d be at each other’s throats the first day.”

She replied, “I was thinking more about the first night.”

Dan held her tightly, inhaling the scent of her, feeling her hair brushing against his cheek. Once he had loved her, or thought he had, while she had been married to his closest friend. Now, as he stood with her pressing against him, he saw Lucita in his mind’s vision, her dark, somber eyes, her waif’s face sad and vulnerable.

“It won’t work, Jane,” he whispered.

Her body stiffened. She pulled away from him.

“We’d end up hating each other inside of a week,” he said. “Besides,” he added carelessly, “what kind of a reputation do you think we’d get? You keeping a lover in the White House? And can you see me as a kept man?”

She did not smile. “Yes, I can see you as a kept man. Kept in prison.”

Dan realized he was dealing with an explosively volatile woman now.

“I can even see you being shot by the security guards,” Jane said, coldly furious. “You came here under an alias. You’re determined to undermine everything that I’m working for. Maybe shooting you here and now would be the best thing.”

He made himself grin. “It would save the Russians the trouble.”

Her green eyes snapping at him. Jane said, “I ought to do it. I ought to get rid of you once and for all. You’ve been nothing but trouble for me.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he admitted. “Maybe it would save us all a lot of misery.”

She huffed angrily, “You’re impossible! You’ve always been impossible!” She stamped to the door.

“Jane,” he called.

She turned, bitter rage blazing from her eyes.

“Whatever I do,” Dan said, “it’s because I still consider myself an American, despite everything that’s happened.”

“You’re a fool,” she said. “And I’m an even bigger one.”

She left Dan standing alone amid the Victorian furniture in the little sitting room. Within moments, an elderly butler stepped through the open doorway, his parchment-wrinkled face looking sleepy and apologetic at the same time. He was small, bald and slightly bent, as if bowing was a permanent habit with him.

“The President wants you to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom,” the old man said, gesturing stiffly. Dan followed him back into the hall.

The butler opened the heavy door of the bedroom and stood to one side. Dan saw a mammoth rosewood bed, Victorian tables with ornately carved legs, topped with marble, a portrait of Lincoln next to the bed. His travel bag had been deposited on the sofa that sat in the middle of the room.

“Lincoln never slept in this room,” the butler said as Dan stepped in. “He used this as an office. He signed the Emancipation Proclamation in here.”

The old man showed him the connecting bathroom, the light switches and the television set hidden behind draperies opposite the huge bed. Dan thanked him and was glad to see him leave. Feeling very tired, Dan went to his travel bag and began to unpack his toiletries. Then his eye caught a framed set of three pieces of paper, covered with handwriting. He went to the wall and studied the patient, forceful pen strokes:

“Fourscore and seven years ago. our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation …”

A dull rumbling sound seemed to shake the room slightly. A roar, almost like the distant thunder of a rocket lifting off. Dan went to the window and pulled the curtains back.

The windows were double-paned with thick shatter-resistant plastic that was almost soundproof. Almost. But the noise from outside leaked through. The riot police had arrived, in squadrons of armored vehicles that were spraying streams of vile-looking greenish gas at the crowds of picketers. People were screaming, running, placards dropped to the pavement as they tried to escape the tracked vehicles lumbering down upon them. Where the gas reached them, they doubled over, fell to the ground retching, coughing, spasming. Blazing searchlights played over the seething mass of people as platoons of helmeted foot soldiers linked arms to form a cordon that stretched far out into Lafayette Square and up New York Avenue.

Dan reached down and picked the remote TV control unit from the bed table. One button drew back the draperies and turned on the set. The tube showed an old movie. Impatiently, Dan clicked from one channel to another. Nothing about the riot. The twenty-four-hour news channel was showing a tape of the President’s press conference, from the day before. Jane looked cool and totally in command of herself as she spoke about new government programs that would stabilize employment and revitalize American agriculture.

For half an hour Dan watched the troops gassing and clubbing the picketers, dragging them away into huge waiting vans, while the TV showed nothing of the riot at all. No bulletins broke the regular programming. Looking through the window, Dan could see television trucks out there among the Army vehicles. Squinting against the hard glare of the searchlights, though, he saw that even the TV trucks were painted olive green. Army. There would be no media coverage of the riot. Nor of the arrest and detention of several hundred picketers.

The last of the heavy tracked vehicles rumbled away. Cleaning crews drove up in big garbage trucks to make the area look neat and unblemished before the sun rose.

Dan let the curtain fall and turned away from the window. His eye caught the Gettysburg draft framed on the wall.

“… testing whether this nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

Jane would be reelected all right. Dan was certain of it. And she would guide the nation down the path of least resistance, telling herself and the American people that time was on their side, that all they had to do was grit their teeth and bear their present pain and humiliation, and someday in the rosy future the Soviets would mend their ways and the whole world would be free and happy.

Dan made up his mind to get out of Washington, out of the U.S.A., as early as possible the next morning.

“There she is,” said Carstairs.

Dan’s eyes flicked open. He felt a moment of confusion. “Was I sleeping?” he muttered.

“Snoring lightly,” answered the Australian.

Dan tried to rub his eyes and bumped his gloved hands against his helmet visor. Blinking the sleep away, he peered out through the flitter’s canopy and saw the Soviet ore freighter, looming huge and close, a giant hollow sphere, a thin shell of metal that could split apart to disgorge tons of lunar rock and soil-the raw materials of all space industries. A massive, perfectly round egg floating through empty space. With a big red star painted on it, above the letters CCCP.

“Soyuz Sovietskiya Socialistik Ryespublik,” Dan muttered.

“That’s an awful accent you’ve got,” Zlotnik’s voice teased in his helmet earphones.

“Sure. And I don’t intend to learn any better, either,” Dan growled.

Carstairs piloted the flitter close to the bulky ore carrier, then maneuvered their spacecraft to circle all the way around it. This close, it looked to Dan like a world of its own, bright sunlight glinting off its curving flank.

“Gawd,” muttered the Australian, “it’s huge.”

“It’s almost as if they hung it there to tempt us,” said Zlotnik. “Like they want us to steal it.”

“We’re not stealing,” Dan snapped. “We are claiming natural resources that are the common heritage of all humankind, and therefore belong to no single nation.”

He heard Zlotnik’s answering snicker. “Yeah. And we’re doing it when the Russians aren’t looking.”

Vargas, the young Venezuelan who was usually as silent as a rock, said, “We are expropriating the expropriators.”

“Paco?” Carstairs said with mock surprise. “Was that you?”

“Reciting from Marx?” Zlotnik added.

“My father is a member of the Communist party of Venezuela,” the young astronaut said. “I learned Marx and the Bible at the same time.”

“No time for religion now,” said Carstairs. “Or for chat.”

The Aussie’s gloved fingers played deftly across the control panel keyboard. With microscopic puffs of thrust the needle-shaped flitter matched its speed and trajectory to that of the massive Soviet freighter. Like a tiny pin chasing a fat, round balloon. Dan thought.