Saturn (13 page)

Now he sat back in his desk chair, handsome and suntanned, slightly chubby, a series of holograms on the wall behind him showing him at tennis tournaments and on golf courses. He smiled warmly at the dour, pinch-faced Vyborg.

"What's the matter, Sammi?" Berkowitz asked jovially. "You look as if you swallowed something ugly."

Taking the chair in front of Berkowitz's desk, Vyborg began, "I don't enjoy bringing this to your attention
—
"

"But you're going to do it anyway. Must be important."

"I think it is."

"Okay. Out with it."

"It's Romero."

"Old Don Diego? What's he done that bothers you?"

Vyborg hesitated just long enough to show Berkowitz that what he was doing was distasteful to him. "It's very difficult for me to say this, since he's my direct superior, but... well, he's simply not pulling his own weight."

"He isn't."

"No, he isn't. He spends only half a day in the office and then he's gone. How can he do his work?"

"That's why we've got you, Sammi."

Startled, Vyborg blurted, "What?"

Berkowitz put on his most amiable grin and, clasping his hands prayerfully on the desktop, said, "Diego Romero is a wonderful old coot, a great teacher with a very distinguished career behind him."

"Behind him," Vyborg echoed.

"He's in this department more or less because Wilmot wanted him aboard this habitat and had to find a place for him somewhere. So he's working with us."

"But he's
not
working," Vyborg snapped. "He's hardly ever at his desk."

"That's okay, Sammi. I haven't given him much to do. I rely on you to get the work done. Leave Don Diego alone. He's going to be very valuable to this habitat
—
as a teacher."

"A teacher?" Vyborg gasped. "They got rid of him in Mexico because he was teaching unauthorized garbage. Do you want him teaching his blasphemies here?"

Berkowitz's smile diminished by less than a millimeter. "Freedom of thought is not blasphemous, Sammi. He's a great teacher."

Vyborg muttered, "Yes, and he's teaching the rest of the office staff how to get by without working."

"If you find anybody goofing off in this department, you tell me about it. Pronto. Don Diego's a special case. Leave him alone."

Admitting defeat, Vyborg nodded and rose from his chair. "I understand. I'm sorry to have bothered you."

"No bother at all," Berkowitz said grandly. "My office door is always open to you, Sammi."

Vyborg looked around the director's office. It was much more spacious than his own. It even had a window that looked out onto the park and the shimmering lake beyond. Without another word he turned and walked out, thinking, I'll have to get rid of them both, somehow.

By the time he got back to his own office, Vyborg had brightened considerably. Berkowitz wants to allow Don Diego to teach heretical ideas, he realized. That makes Berkowitz just as guilty as the old man himself. Perhaps I can get them both in one swoop.

But as he sat at his desk again his mood darkened once more. That means I'll have to wait until we're established at Saturn. Much too long. I can't wait all those months, more than a year, actually. I want to get rid of them
now.

When Holly got to her office the next morning there was a message on her screen:
see me immediately. morgenthau.

It still bothered Holly to see Ruth Morgenthau sitting at Eberly's desk. Even though nearly two months had passed since Eberly had left the office, Holly always expected to see Malcolm there. Instead, when she opened the director's office door, Morgenthau was behind the desk, her fleshy face dark and ominous.

Even before Holly could sit down, Morgenthau demanded, "Where were you yesterday afternoon?"

Holly stiffened. "I took the afternoon off. I caught up on my work from my quarters, after dinner."

Morgenthau asked, "Were you ill?"

Holly thought that a simple lie could end this conversation. Instead, she replied, "No. I
—
I just needed some time away from the office, that's all."

"Do you think you're working too hard?"

"I enjoy my work."

Morgenthau drummed her chubby fingers on the desktop. Despite the dress code they had agreed to, the woman's fingers were heavy with jeweled rings, and her tunic ablaze with colors. Holly noticed that the desk was littered with papers. Malcolm had always kept it immaculately clear.

"Sit down, please, Holly," Morgenthau said.

Holly took one of the chairs in front of the desk, feeling resentment simmering inside her. I'm entitled to take an afternoon off if I want to, she said to herself. I'm running this warping office. I'm doing all the work. I can go off and have a little fun if I want to. But she said nothing and meekly sat down.

Morgenthau stared at her for a long moment, then said, "You know, and I know, that you are really running this office. I'm just a figurehead covering for Malcolm while you do all the real work."

Holly almost blurted out her agreement, but she managed to keep silent.

"I don't mind that arrangement," Morgenthau continued. "In fact, I find it quite satisfactory."

Holly nodded warily, expecting worse to come.

"But," Morgenthau resumed, "you don't have to rub my face in it. You must show at least some outward respect for my position."

"I do!"

"Yesterday you did not. It is not proper for you to take the afternoon off without informing me. Actually, you should ask my permission, but I don't want to be a stickler. Still, how does it look when someone like Professor Wilmot asks me a question and I tell him that my assistant will look up the information and my assistant isn't at her desk? Isn't even in the office? And I don't know where she is?"

"You could have called me. I always carry my comm."

"You should keep me informed of your whereabouts at all times. I shouldn't have to search for you."

Holly's temper was rising. "You don't like me very much, do you?"

For an instant Morgenthau looked surprised, almost startled. Then she admitted, "You are not a Believer. And, worse, you're a reborn. I find that..." she struggled for a word, "...distasteful. Almost sinful."

"It wasn't my decision. My sister did it when I was too sick to know what was happening to me."

"Still. You tried to avoid God's judgment on you. You tried to cheat death."

"Wouldn't you?"

"No! When God calls me, I'll be happy to go."

The sooner the better, Holly snarled silently.

"But my religious beliefs are not the subject of this conversation. I want you to keep me informed of your whereabouts at all times."

Holding back her anger, Holly replied, "I understand."

Breaking into a smile that looked forced to Holly, Morgenthau added, "During office hours, of course. What you do when the office is closed is on your own conscience, naturally."

"Of course."

"Unless it involves Dr. Eberly."

So that's it! Holly realized. She's clanked up because she can see that I'm interested in Malcolm. Maybe she knows more than I do. Maybe she can see that Malcolm's interested in me!

"Dr. Eberly is much too busy for personal involvements of any kind, Holly. You should stop trying to distract him."

She's trying to protect him. She's standing between Malcolm and me.

Holly got to her feet. "I should have told you I was taking the afternoon off," she said coldly. "It won't happen again."

"Good!" Morgenthau smacked her hands together loudly enough to startle Holly. "Now that
that's
out of the way
—
I'll be out of the office all day. You'll be in charge."

Surprised at her sudden change in tone, Holly asked, "Where will you be?"

Morgenthau laughed lightly and waggled a finger in the air. "No, no, it's not necessary for me to tell you where I'm going. I'm the department chief, remember. I can come and go as I wish."

"Oh, right. F'sure."

"For your information, however," Morgenthau said as she pushed herself up out of the desk chair, "I will be with Malcolm all day. We are going over several drafts of possible constitutions."

Eberly sipped herbal tea while Vyborg and Jaansen argued with quiet passion. Kananga was obviously bored with the argument, while Morgenthau watched it in silence as she nibbled on pastries.

Kananga's a man of action, Eberly thought. He doesn't think very deeply, which is good. He makes a useful tool. Morgenthau, though, she's different. She just sits there watching everything, silent as a sphinx. What's going on inside her head? How much of this is she reporting back to Amsterdam? Everything, I suppose.

"If you allow the people all these personal freedoms," Vyborg was saying, almost hissing, actually, "the result will be chaos. Anarchy."

"Most of the inhabitants have come to this habitat to escape repressive regimes. If their individual liberties are not guaranteed, they'll reject the constitution altogether." Jaansen leaned back on the sofa, smiling as if he had won the argument.

"Individual liberties," Vyborg spat. "That's the kind of license that nearly caused the collapse of civilization. If it weren't for the New Morality
—
"

"And the Holy Disciples," Morgenthau interjected, then, glancing at Kananga, she added, "and the Sword of Islam."

Jaansen frowned at her and Vyborg, both. "No matter what you think, these people will not accept a constitution that doesn't guarantee their historical freedoms. They're here because they got fed up with the restrictions back on Earth."

Vyborg thought otherwise. He continued to argue.

Sitting at the end of the coffee table, Eberly thought that Vyborg, in the room's best armchair with his skinny legs tucked under him, looked rather like a coiled snake: lean, small, dark, his eyes glittering menacingly. Jaansen was just the opposite: cool, pale, but as immovable as a glacier. And he kept that damned palmcomp in his hand, fiddling with it like some voodoo charm.

Kananga butted in. "In a closed ecology like this, we can't tolerate fools and troublemakers. Pop them out an airlock without a suit!"

Morgenthau laughed. "My dear Colonel, how can we resort to airlock justice if each citizen is guaranteed due process of the law for any offense they might commit?"

"Exactly my point!" Vyborg exclaimed, staring straight at Jaansen. "We have no room here for legal niceties."

Pursing her lips for a moment, Morgenthau said, "There is another possibility."

"What?"

"I've heard that some scientists on Earth are experimenting with electronic probes they put inside peoples' skulls. They attach the probes to the brain
—
"

"Bioelectronics," Jaansen said.

"Yes," agreed Morgenthau. "With these probes attached to various brain centers they can control a person's behavior. Prevent violent criminal behavior, for example."

Vyborg scowled. "What of it?"

"Perhaps we can use such probes to control behavior here," said Morgenthau.

"Insert neural probes to control people's behavior?" Jaansen shuddered.

"It could work," said Morgenthau.

"They would have to agree to the operation," Vyborg pointed out.

Kananga countered, "Not if they were found guilty of criminal behavior."

"It might be a way to control the people," Morgenthau said.

Shaking his head, Jaansen said, "The population would never agree to it. These people aren't stupid, you know. They wouldn't give the government that kind of power over them."

"We wouldn't have to tell them," Kananga said. "Just do it."

That started an argument that grew steadily more fervent. Eberly watched and listened, sipping his tea, while they squabbled louder and louder.

At last he asked them, "May I make a point?" He spoke softly, but all eyes immediately turned to him.

"Even in the so-called democracies back on Earth, the desperate conditions caused by the greenhouse crash have led to very authoritarian governments. Even in the United States, the New Morality rules most of the large urban centers with an iron fist."

"Which is why most of these people joined this habitat," Jaansen pointed out. "To find more freedom for themselves."

"The illusion of freedom," muttered Kananga.

"Secularists," grumbled Morgenthau. "Troublemaking unbelievers. Agnostics and outright atheists."

Jaansen shifted the palmcomp from one hand to another as he said, "I don't disagree with you, really. I'm a Believer, too. I understand the need for firm control of the people. But those secularists aren't fools. Many of them are scientists. Even more are engineers and technicians. All I'm saying is that if you try to get them to agree to a constitution that does not include the kind of individual liberties they expect, they'll reject the constitution."

"Not if
we
count the votes," Morgenthau said with a heavy wink.

"Be serious," Jaansen countered.

"It's been done," she said, snickering.

Eberly let out a long sigh. Again, they all turned to him.

"None of you understand history," he said. "If you did, you would see that this problem has been faced before, and resolved properly."

"Resolved?" Vyborg snapped. "How?"

Smiling with superior knowledge, Eberly said, "More than a hundred years ago Russia was part of the conglomeration called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

"I know that," Vyborg said sourly.

"Soviet Russia had a constitution, the most liberal constitution on Earth. It guaranteed freedom and brotherhood to everyone. Yet their government was among the most repressive of them all."

Jaansen seemed intrigued. "How did they manage that?"

"It was simple," Eberly replied. "In the midst of all those highflown constitutional phrases about liberty and equality and the brotherhood of man there was one tiny little clause that said, in effect, that all the rest of the constitution could be suspended temporarily in case of an emergency."

"An emergency," repeated Kananga.

"Temporarily," said Vyborg.

Eberly nodded. "It worked quite well. The Soviet Union was in a permanent state of siege, and the government ruled by terror and deceit. It worked for nearly three quarters of a century, until the Soviet government collapsed under pressures from the Western nations, especially the old United States."

"We would have no outside pressures to contend with," Vyborg said.

Eberly spread his hands. "So we give the people the sweetest, kindest, most liberal constitution they have ever seen. But we make certain that we have that emergency clause in it."

Morgenthau laughed heartily. "Then, once the constitution is in effect, all we have to do is find an emergency."

"Or make one," Vyborg added.

Even Jaansen smiled. "And then, if anyone objects
—
"

"We stick a neural probe into his brain," Morgenthau said, "and turn him into a model citizen."

"A model zombie," Jaansen muttered.

"Or better yet," said Kananga, grinning, "out the airlock with them."