The 97th Step (35 page)

To a group of would-be radicals on Rim, he preached: "There is no one man upon which we can focus.” the skinmasked man known, as Stoll told them. "The villain is the system. Ten million bureaucrats work at their jobs, unaware, that they are evil. They must be shown! They must know that the will of the people is to be free! It is up to you to demonstrate it to the galaxy." The would-be radicals cheered.

On a moonless night at a wooded site on Fox, the man called Ferret spoke to a small gathering around a campfire:

"The Confed seems invulnerable only because it is so large. A group our size can do little more than sting it, but we can spread the word! United, we can stand and make the monster take notice of us! If each of you can convince five people of the tightness of our cause, and each of those can convince five more, we will ripple through the galaxy!"

The small gathering roared its approval. His words inflamed with the idea, but even as he spoke, Pen was less than certain of it himself. You bring in five, and they bring in five and so on and so on, he thought. At that rate, we'll be in a position to stand toe-to-toe with the Confed in about a thousand years.

There were times when he looked at his chosen task as not only impossible, but as downright funny. Still, he kept at it. One could not expect success on such an undertaking overnight. A year, five years—these were short times in the life of a galaxy, after all. Not even particularly long in the life of a single man.

The tropical heat of the bush around the group of tree cutters simmered even after the bright sun had set.

Insects buzzed the gathering, as Pen said:

"Nothing worth so much can be achieved without hard work and danger! No one gives up any power willingly, and certainly no one gives up the complete power that the Confed has without a fierce struggle!

The price of freedom is high, but the goal is worth it!"

The tree cutters buzzed, louder versions of the insects.

And while the cold winds of winter laid a white coat over the roof of the prefab shed, a dozen miners hunched together for warmth listened to the man called Mwili Dain as his voice seemed to thunder in the small space:

"United, you can stand! You have nothing to lose but your shackles! Is a slow but certain death in the mines better than learning how to fight back?" The miners rumbled their approval.

On it went. Pen learned to move into a territory, find the local troublemakers, get them organized, and leave. Never such a small town that he would stand out. Always taking care to screen each potential member. There were Confed agents, he had run into some of them, but he was lucky as well as careful.

On the rare occasions that the Confed made a sweep to gather up treasoners, Pen was never among those collected. He moved, he ate, he slept, he sometimes found partners for sex, but he stayed a loner: He slept lightly, part of him always listening. He, checked his clothing for electronic taps, and knew within a few seconds the position of everyone in any room he entered. It was not paranoia, it was caution.

Somewhere along the way, he realized that his undertaking was much vaster than he had thought at first.

A simple goal, certainly, but never easy. Well. He had time.

Sometimes, though, he thought about Moon and the peaceful life he had enjoyed on Earth. Ah, if he could but see her again, even for an hour…

No. He damped that thought when it came up. Moon was no longer his goal. He was not enough for her.

When the Confed went to hell, sent there by him, then,
then
he would return to Earth in triumph. Then he would be enough. That kind of accomplishment would impress anybody.

Although he was not much of a writer, he sent Moon letters. He tried to keep them dispassionate, a generalized chronicle of his mundane life—how he'd collected a special curved knife from a miner on Rim, what kind of thing they liked to drink on Mason—and he never mentioned anything about his revolutionary activities. She knew, if she had spoken to Von, and Pen was certain that she had done that.

Now and again, when he was still long enough, a letter would arrive from Moon. Her words were much like his, superficial, filled with everyday happenings at the compound on Earth. Anyone who might chance to read their correspondence would see nothing seditious in it. Beneath the chatty tone, Pen could feel more depth, a between-the-lines thing, indicating that Moon had not forgotten what they had shared. He felt from her what he felt for her. The light-years between them could not take that away.

So he continued his work. So it would take longer than he had thought. All right. Whatever it took, he was prepared. Whatever it took.

Thirty-Five

FIFTEEN MORE YEARS passed.

Nine planets, six systems, thirteen cities, twenty pubs. He spoke millions of words, roused thousands to his cry for freedom from the Confed yoke, met dozens of would-be saviors like himself. He no longer worried about the end. Not after fifteen years. It was enough to survive each day, growing a little more tired of it all with each new cell of shiny faces looking at him for direction. He was like an actor who had exhausted his roles, to-the-bone weary of giving the same speech over and over again. True, he spoke to a passing parade, it was new to them. Of course it was new, most of his listeners were little more than children, some of them barely born when he had started his crusade.

What had he to show for it? He could mix drinks or dispense chem as well as anyone. He was fit for a man approaching his middle years. He had begun hundreds of small groups around the galaxy, but—

Nothing was happening. He had spent more than twenty years running around, beating a horse that, if not dead, certainly seemed immune to his whip. He was a good speaker, he knew that, but something was lacking. He could pump up a group and keep them inflated to near bursting, but when he left, they deflated. He did not seem to have the power to keep them volatile once he departed. He was not charismatic enough to be a symbol, once he was out of sight. Oh, they meant well, but something seemed to go out of them without him there goading them. It was not that his revolution was dying so much as that it had never really gotten born. His fire-breathing children. Left alone, they wandered away, lost their focus. Or maybe just grew up: Bring down the Confed? Are you crazy?

He did not doubt that it was largely his fault. The thing he had worried about, his lack of ruthless drive, that was part of it. A real revolutionary would not worry if he had to harvest lives like wheat. Martyrs, soldiers, innocent civilians, whatever it took. He had usually found a way to avoid that. Sometimes his children went out on their own, but always after he was gone, or without his knowledge. Now and again, he would firm his resolve, decide he was going to lay waste to a target and too bad about anybody that got hurt; it never happened. At the last moment, something would stop it. Always.

Often, he wondered about what his life would have been like had he found what he'd been looking for when he'd left Moon. He still dreamed of returning to Earth, to the headquarters of the order, seeing Moon again. He wrote, he felt the connection, though time had dimmed the brightness of it. At times, he thought he would simply walk away from it, climb on a ship for Earth and to hell with it all.

No. His path was hard, but he had expected no less. Had he truly thought to bring down the Confed with a few words to a few people? Had he been that naive?

Yes, he supposed he had. All right. It didn't matter. He was committed. You didn't just throw out more than two decades of effort. He'd keep going. He'd figure out something. His life was not going to be wasted.

His life was going to mean something.

Pen lay in bed next to a naked young woman who slept the sleep of one sated, if not exhausted. Idly, he stroked her hair, raising a dream-smile from her that quickly faded. She was one of the idealistic ones, mesmerized by the words of the man who spoke revolution. She wanted to warm herself with Pen's fire, and he was not averse to the idea. Each had something for the other, and it was a fair exchange. Under him, she was passionate and practiced for one so young. He had worked hard to stay with her. It had been satisfactory to them both. She slept, but he lay there awake.

There had been other lovers. Pen was not immune to that call. Lovers, but not friends. He was too deep inside his shell to permit anyone to peer in, much less join him. Sometimes he felt sparks when he lay next to a compliant woman, the desire to share his vision and himself with her. He never did. Some tried to touch him other than physically, but his defenses were too sound. There was no room for love, for a partner, for family. He took what he needed and gave what he could. The machine worked on that level, piston and receptacle, but there was only physical release without joy. He got no complaints on his technique, he was adept at knowing what went where, but he got no compliments on anything other than his technique. Sex without love, he discovered, was hollow.

As his life seemed to be hollow. The fire that had burned within him so long ago smoldered low, only a few dusty coals barely glimmering under mounds of ash. It was a worthwhile goal, he still believed that, but he was also beginning to wonder if he would ever accomplish it.

The young woman rolled toward him, still asleep, and draped one leg over his groin. She pressed against his hip, humping gently for a minute before she drifted deeper into slumber.

Pen looked at her face in the dim light of his bedroom, and for a moment, did not recall her name, nor the name of the city in which he lay. So many towns, so many worlds. He truly was tired. What if he were to wake the woman next to him and tell her of his past? Of who he had been, where he had gone, what he had done? Would she understand?

Unlikely. She was enthusiastic with her youthful body, but only time gave one experiences like his. How would she relate to Mwili or Ferret or the Pen of twenty years past? She might enjoy any one of them, but she would not be able to understand that one man could be all of them. He didn't understand it himself.

What he had given her was idealism and excitement. A cause. And she had given him her youth and sex.

A fair exchange, but an empty trade, in the end.

He felt old. He had lived so many lives: a farm boy, a criminal, a drifter, a would-be priest and a revolutionary. He felt as ancient as a pharaoh's tomb, weathered by storms this—this
child
could not begin to understand. Why was he here, in this bed, in this city, on this world? Despite the woman pressed against him, he was alone, had been alone all of his life. He had always put his happiness on the back of another, he'd known that for years. Stoll. Shar Li. Moon. Von. Somebody else—or in the case of his quest to topple the Confed, some
thing
else-had always been a primary focus for him.

He had always reached outside himself for approbation, for respect. For love. This had been his choice, but he wondered. Was it really for him? Or had he still been trying unconsciously to please someone else? How could a man ever know? What did it take to be sure? Even in a war, certainly there must be a way to feel some kind of inner peace?

The momentum of the thought kept it going. He remembered when Moon had told him he would have to leave. How she had said his vision was fogged, and that she was the bause. He had said then she was wrong. Now, he realized the truth of what he had said—even though his reasoning had been flawed. He had thought his eyes unsealed, when in fact he had been blind. Only it was not Moon's fault. It was his.

Now that he saw it, it was so fucking simple that he couldn't understand how he had failed to see it before. Of course. He had been blind, all of his life. Even when he thought he could see, back with Von, so many years ago. Me. I'll save the galaxy, I will topple the Confed. Pen and his massive ego. He had thought himself so clear then, too.

All of his life, he had needed some one or some thing to be complete. Now as he lay in bed next to a stranger, still wrapped in the musk of their love-making, it clawed at him with cruel talons. What was it he was doing? How could he know the truth of it?

The young woman sighed in her sleep.

Pen looked at her again. There was no certainty. Not for him, not for her, not for anybody, save those few souls touched by the
Relampago
. And that might well be a delusion. No security.

He did not want to think about it. Why not, instead, wake the woman and fuck her again? That way, he wouldn't have to think. He could spend himself totally, consume the doubts with passion, and fall into an exhausted slumber. It had worked before.

He sighed. No. Not this time. Once you could see that the escape route was only a trick, you couldn't fool yourself. He needed something else. What was it? A sign from the cosmos? A chat with God?

Right, an assurance from somebody,
anybody
, that what he was doing was right, was just, was a valid way to spend his years. Somebody else needed to say it.

It wasn't going to happen that way, he knew, but he also knew there was no other path for him at this point. He could only do what he had been doing for so long. He was trapped in the ship with a thick web of inertia, and there was no way to escape.

"—cannot stand by and allow the Confed's evil—"

"—up to you to resist the tyranny—"

"—future of the galaxy rests upon you—"

"—nothing to lose but your chains—"

The group on Tomadachi was more militant than many he'd worked with, and they were all hot to blow the Confed installations on the planet into plastic and metal confetti. Preferably with the troopers inside.

Pen had always counseled destruction of property and not lives. Even if he was not going to be the one pulling the trigger, human life had meaning. He trotted out his trained rationalizations for them.

"A lot of troops are impress," he said to the small group of cell leaders. "They didn't ask to be dragged into the military, and they are only doing what they have to do."

That didn't fuse much reaction material with this group. Was Pen talking about war or diaper school?