The Worthing Saga (54 page)

Hort reached into his hip bag, pulled out his id and his cred, and handed them to Link. “I won't report them missing until you are on a ship out of here.”

“Ship?”

“Go to Capitol. You'll have little trouble there, finding a place. Even without money. There's always room for someone like you.”

Link snorted. “That's a damn lie and you know it.”

“Right. But even if they send you back here, your mother will be dead by then.”

Linkeree nodded.

“Now here's the door control. When I say, open the door.”

“No.”

“Open the door and let her in. I'll keep her under control until you get out the door and close it from the outside. There's no way out of here, then, except Gram's master key, and this note should take care of that.” Hort scribbled a quick note. Hell cooperate because he hates your mother almost as much as I do. Which is a terrible thing for an impartial psychologist to say, but at this point, who the hell cares?

Linkeree took the note and the door control and stood beside the door with his back to the wall. “Doctor,” he asked, “what'll they do to you for this?”

“Raise holy hell, of course,” he said. “But I can only be removed by a council of medical practitioners—and that's the same group that can have Mrs. Danol committed.”

“Committed?”

“She needs help, Link.”

Linkeree smiled—and was surprised to realize it was his first smile in months. Since. Since Zad died.

He touched the open button.

The door slid open and Mrs. Danol swept in. “I knew you'd see reason,” she pronounced, then whirled to look as Link stepped out the door, closing it so quickly that he almost got caught in it. His mother was already screaming and pounding as Link handed the note to Gram, who read it, looked closely at the man, and then nodded. “But hurry your ass, boy,” Gram said. “What we're doing here is called kidnapping in some courts.”

Linkeree set the door control on the desk and left, running.

He lay in the ship's passenger hold, recovering from the dizziness that they told him was normal with a person's first mind-taping. The brain patterns that held all his memories and all his personality were now in a cassette securely stored in the ships cabin, and now he lay on a table waiting for them to drug him with somec. When he woke up and had his memory played back into his mind in Capitol, he would only remember up to the moment of taping. These moments now, between the tape and the tap, would be lost forever.

And that was why he thought back to the infant whose warm body he had held, and why he let himself wish that he could have saved him, could have protected him, could have let him live.

No, I'm living for him.

The hell I am. I'm living for me.

They came and put the needle into his buttocks, not for the cold sleep of death, but for the burning sleep of life. And as the hot agony of somec swept over him, he writhed into a ball on the table and cried out, “Mother! I love you!”

Of all the people on Capitol, only Mother was allowed to awaken on her own bed, the bed where she had slept with Selvock Gray before his death eight hundred years ago. She did not know that the original bed had fallen apart centuries ago; it was always remade, right down to the nicks and scratches, so that she could awaken on it and lie there for a moment in solitude, remembering.

No attendants murmuring. No flush of fever. Of all the people in Capitol, only Mother was given the delicate combination of drugs that made waking a delight—that cost more for each of her wakings than the entire budget of a colony ship.

And so she luxuriated in the bed, cool and not feeling particularly old. How old am I? she wondered, and decided that she was probably forty. I am probably middle-aged, she said, and spread out her legs until they touched both sides of the bed.

She ran her hands over her naked stomach, finding it not as fiat and firm as it had been when Selvock had come to visit Jerry Crove and had, as an afterthought, seduced his fifteen-year-old granddaughter. But who had seduced whom? Selvock never knew it, but Mother had chosen him as the man most likely to accomplish what her grandfather was too good and her father too weak to accomplish—the conquest and unification of the human race.

It was my dream, she said to herself. My dream, that I needed Selvock to fulfill. He bloodied himself in a dozen planetside wars, sent fleets here and there at his command, but it was I who made the plans, I who set the wheels in motion, I who fired the starships and sent them on their way. I found the money by bribing, blackmailing, and assassination.

And then, on the day Selvock was confident of victory, that bastard Russian had shot him with (of all things!) a pistol and Mother was alone.

She lay naked on the bed, remembering the feel of his hand on her flesh, the tense, gentle hand, and she missed him. She missed him, but hadn't needed him after all. For now she ruled the human universe, and there was nothing she wanted that she could not have.

Dent Harbock sat in the control room, watching the monitor. Mother was playing with herself on the bed. If the people could only see a holo of this show! he thought. There'd be a revolution within the hour. Or maybe not. Maybe they really did think of her as—what had Nab called her?—an earth mother, a figure of fertility. If she was so fertile, how come no children?

Nab walked into the control room. “How's the old bitch doing?”

“Dreaming of conquest. How come she never had any children?”

“If you believe in a god, thank it for that. As it is, things are comfortable. The only royalty in the universe is a middle-aged woman we only have to wake up one day in every five years. No family squabbles. No war of succession. And nobody trying to tell the government what to do.”

Dent laughed.

“Better start the music. We have a busy schedule.”

•    •    •

The music started and Mother was startled into alertness. Ah, yes. It was time. Being Empress wasn't all luxury and pleasant memories. It was also responsibility. There was work to be done.

I'm lazy, now that I'm at the pinnacle of power, she said to herself. But I must keep the wheels turning. I must know what is going on.

She got up and dressed in the simple tunic she had always worn.

“Is she really going to wear that?”

“It was the style when she ruled actively. A lot of heavy sleepers do that—it keeps a touch of familiarity around them.”

“But, Nab, it makes her look like a relic of the Pleistocene.”

“It keeps her happy. We want her to be happy.”

The first item of business was the reports. The ministers had to make the reports personally, and the new ministers who had been appointed since her last waking were on trial as she talked to them. The minister of fleets, the minister of armies, and the minister of peace were first. From them she learned about the war.

“With whom,” she said, “are we at war?”

“We aren't at war,” said the minister of armies innocently.

“Your budget has doubled, sir, and the number of conscripts is also more than twice what it was yesterday. That's a lot of change for five years. And don't give me any merde about inflation. Whom, my dear friends, are we fighting?”

They glanced at each other, fury barely concealed. It was the minister of fleets who answered, affecting contempt for his fellows. “We didn't want to bother you with it. It's just a border conflict. The governor of Sedgway rebelled a while ago, and he's managed to attract some support. We'll have it under control in a few years.”

She sneered. “Some minister of fleets
you
are. How do you get something under control in a few years when it takes twenty or thirty years to get from here to there even in our light ships?”

The minister of fleets had nothing to say. The minister of armies intervened. “We meant, of course, a few years after the fleets' arrival.”

“Just a border conflict? Then why double the army?”

It wasn't that large before.

“I conquered— my husband conquered the known galaxy with a tenth as many soldiers as you have,
sir.
We considered it a rather large force. I think you're lying to me, gentlemen. I think you're trying to hide the fact that this war is more serious than you thought.”

They protested. But even their doctored-up figures couldn't hide the truth from her.

Nab laughed. “I told them not to lie. Everyone thinks he can outwit a middle-aged woman who sleeps most of the time, but the bitch is far too clever for them. Wager you five that she fires them.”

“Can she do that?”

“She can. Add does. It's the only power left to her, and these fools who think they can make their reports without following my advice always end up losing their jobs.”

Dent looked puzzled. “But Nab, when she fires them, why don't they just stay on the job and send an assistant to her?”

“It was tried once, before you were born, my boy. She was able to discover in only three questions that the assistant wasn't used to giving orders like a minister; it took only three questions more to know that she had been defrauded. She ordered the poor sap who tried to fool her brought into her chamber, and she sentenced both him and his assistant to death for treason.”

“You're joking.”

“To tell you how much of a joke it was, it took two hours to convince her that she ought not to shoot them herself. She kept insisting that she was going to make sure it was done right.”

“What happened to them?”

“They were dropped from high somec levels and sent out to administer sectors on nearby planets.”

“Couldn't even stay on Capitol?”

“She insisted.”

“But then—then she does rule!”

“Like hell she does.”

The minister of colonization was next to last. He was new in his job, and frightened to death. He, at least, had believed in Nab's warnings.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Who are you trying to impress? One thing I hate is cheerful morning greetings. Sit down. Give me your report.”

His hand was trembling when he gave her the report. She read it, quickly but thoroughly, and turned to him with an eyebrow raised. “Who thought of this cockamamy scheme?”

“Well—” he began.

“Well? What's well?”

“It's a continuing program.”

“'Continuing'?”

“I thought you knew about this from prior reports.”

“I
do
know about it. A unique way of handling war. Outcolonize the bastards. Great plan. It hasn't shown up on any reports until now, fool! Now, who thought of it!”

“I really don't know,” he said miserably.

She laughed. “What a prize you are. A cabinet full of ninnies, and you are the worst. Who told
you
about the program?”

He looked uncomfortable. “The assistant minister of colonization, Mother.”

“Name?”

“Doon. Abner Doon.”

“Get out of here and tell the chancellor I want to meet this Abner Doon.”

The minister of colonization got up and left.

Mother stayed in her chair, looking gloomily at the walls Things were slipping out of her control. She could feel it. Last waking there had been little hints. A touch of smugness. This time they had tried to lie to her several times.

They needed shaking up. I'll shake them up, she decided. And if it's necessary, I'll stay awake two days. Or even a week. The thought was exhilarating. To stay awake for days at a time the prospect was exciting.

“Bring me a girl,” she said. “A girl about sixteen. I need to talk to someone who will understand.”

“Your cue, Hannah,” Dent said. Hannah looked nervous. “Don't worry, kid. She's not a pervert or anything. She just wants to talk. Just remember, like Nab said, don't lie. Don't lie about anything.”

“Hurry up. She's waiting,” Nab interrupted.

The girl left the control room and passed through the hall to the door. She knocked softly.

“Come in,” Mother said gently. “Come in.”

The girl was lovely, her, hair red and sweet and long, her manner confused and shy.

“Come here, girl. What's your name?”

“Hannah.”

And they began to converse. A strange conversation, to Hannah, who knew only the gossip of the younger members of upper-crust Capitol society. The middle-aged woman kept insisting on reminiscing, and Hannah didn't know what to say. Soon, how ever, she realized that there was no need to say much at all. She had only to listen and occasionally express interest.

And after a while the interest did not have to be feigned. Mother was a relic of an earlier time, a strange time when there were trees on Capitol and the planet was named Crove.

“Are you a virgin?” asked Mother.

Don't lie, Hannah remembered. “No.”

“Whom did you give it up to?”

What does it matter? She doesn't know him. “An artist. His name is Fritz.”

“Is he good?”

“Everything he does is beautiful. His pieces sell for—”

“I meant in bed.”

Hannah blushed. “It was just the once. I wasn't very good. He was kind.”

“Kind!” Mother snorted. “Kind. Who asks a man to be kind?”

“I do,” Hannah said defiantly.

“A man who is kind is in control of himself, my dear. You wasted a golden opportunity. I gave my virginity to Selvock. Ancient history to you, girl, but it wasn't all that long ago to me. I was a calculating little bitch even then. I knew that whoever I gave it to would be in my debt. And when I saw Selvock Gray I knew immediately that he was the man I wanted to have owe me.”

“I took him out riding horses. You don't know horses, there aren't any on Capitol anymore, more's the pity. After a few kilometers I made him take off the saddles so we could ride bareback. And after a few kilometers more I made him take off his clothes and I took off mine. There's nothing like riding a horse bareback, in the nude. And then—I can't believe I did this—I forced my horse to trot. Men don't enjoy trotting even when they have stirrups, but without stirrups and without clothes, the trotting was agony for dear Selvock. Damn near castrated the poor man. But he was too proud to say anything. Just gripped the horse, turning white with every jolt. And finally I gave in and let the horse run full out.”