The Worthing Saga (55 page)

“Like flying. And every movement of the horse's muscles under your crotch is like a lover. When we stopped we were covered with horse sweat but he was so aroused he couldn't stand it and he took me in the gravel on the edge of a cliff. There were cliffs on Crove then. I wasn't very good, being a novice, but I knew what I was doing. I'd got him so hot he didn't notice I wasn't helping him much. And I bled all over the place. Very impressive. He was incredibly gentle with me. Led the horses so I could ride sideways, and we found our clothes and made love again before we went home. He never left me. Found plenty of women, of course, but he always came back to me.”

It was an incredible world, to Hannah, where one could mount an animal and ride for kilometers without meeting anyone, and have sex on a
cliff
.

“Didn't the gravel hurt? Isn't gravel little rocks?”

“Hurt like hell. I was picking stones out of my back for days.” Mother laughed. “You gave yourself too easily. You could have held out for more.”

Hannah looked wistful. “There aren't any conquerors available these days.”

“Don't fool yourself, girl. Hannah, I mean. There are more conquerors than you know.”

And they talked for another hour, and then Mother remembered there was work to do, and sent the girl away.

•    •    •

“Good job, Hannah. Like a trouper.”

“It wasn't bad,” the girl said. “I like her.”

“She's a nice old lady.” Dent laughed.

“She is,” Hannah said defensively.

Nab looked her in the eye. “She's personally murdered more than a score of men. And arranged for the deaths of hundreds of others. Not counting wars.”

Hannah looked angry. “Then they deserved to die!”

Nab smiled. “She still weaves the old webs, doesn't she? She caught you well. It doesn't matter. You're on somec now, three years early. Enjoy yourself. Only one woman in every five years gets to meet Mother. And you can't tell anyone about it.”

“I know,” she said. And then, inexplicably, she cried. Perhaps because she had come to love Mother in that hour of conversation. Or perhaps because there were no horses for her to ride, and her first time had been in her parents' bedroom when they were away for an evening. Stolen, not freely taken in sunlight on a cliff. She wondered what it was like to be at a cliff. She imagined standing on top, looking down. But it was so far below her. Meters and meters down. In her imagination she shied away. Cliffs were for ancient times.

“So you are Abner Doon.”

He nodded. His hand did not tremble. He merely looked at her steadily. His eyes looked deep. She was a little disturbed. She was not used to being looked at so easily. She could almost imagine that his gaze was friendly.

“I understand you thought of the clever plan to colonize planets behind the enemy's holdings.”

Abner smiled. “It seemed more productive than wiping out the human race.”

“A war fought by outbuilding the enemy. I must say, the idea is novel.” She leaned her head against her hand, wondering why she didn't want to go to the attack with this man. Perhaps because she liked him. But she knew herself better than that, knew that she hadn't attacked because she wasn't yet sure where his weakness was. “Tell me, Abner, how extensive the enemy's holdings are.”

“About a third of the settled planets,” Doon answered.

•    •    •

Dent was startled, then furious. “He told her! He just told her! The chancellor's going to have his head.”

Nab only smiled. “No one's going to have his head. I don't know how he figured it out, but he and that girl, Hannah—they both understand the bitch. The rule is be accurate, even when you lie.”

He's undoing everything!

No, Dent. The other ministers undid themselves. Why should he shoot himself down along with them? The shrimp is smarter than I thought.

She kept Doon with her for fifteen minutes—unheard of, when full ministers rarely got an audience of longer than ten. And the chancellor was outside cooling his heels.

Mr. Doon, how can you bear being so incredibly short?

Doon was finally taken by surprise, and she felt a small sense of victory.

“Short?” he asked. “Yes, I suppose I am. Well, it isn't anything I have control over. So I don't think about it.”

“What do you have control over?”

“The assignments sections of the ministry of colonization,” he answered.

She laughed. “That isn't a complete list, is it, Mr. Doon?”

He cocked his head. “Do you really want an answer to that?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Doon, I do.”

“But I won't give an answer, Mother. Not here.”

“Why not?”

“Because there are two men in the control room listening to everything we say and recording everything we do. I'll talk freely to you when there isn't an audience.”

“I'll command them to stop listening.”

Doon smiled.

“Oh. I see. I may reign, but I don't always rule, is that what you're saying? Well, we'll see about that. Lead me to the control room.”

Doon got up, and she followed him out of the room.

•    •    •

“Nab! Nab, he's bringing her here! What do we do?”

“Just act natural, Dent. Try not to throw up on the looper.”

The door to the control room opened, and Doon ushered Mother into the room. “Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she said.

“Good afternoon, Mother. I'm Nab, and this petrified mass of terror is my assistant, Dent.”

“So you're the ones who listen in and answer my every request.”

“As much as possible, of course.” Nab was the image of confidence.

“Monitors. Television! How quaint!”

“It was decided hololoops wouldn't be appropriate.”

“Bullshit, Nab,” Mother said sweetly. “This is a looper right here.”

“Just for the historical record. No one ever watches it.”

“I'm glad to know how closely I'm observed. I'll be more careful how I arrange my body in the morning.” She turned to Doon. “Is there anywhere that we can meet where the birds won't be watching from the trees?”

“Actually,” Doon answered, “I have the only place on Crove where the birds do watch from the trees.”

She looked shocked. “Real ones?”

“Complete with droppings. You have to watch where you step.”

Her voice was husky with eagerness. “Lead me! Take me there!” And she whirled on Nab and Dent. “And you two. I want this looper out of here. You can listen and you can watch, but there is to be no permanent record. Do you understand?”

Nab agreed pleasantly. “It'll be done before you return.”

She sneered at him. “You have no intention of doing it, Nab. Do you think I'm a fool?” And she went out the other door, which Doon was holding open.

When the door swung shut, Dent gagged and retched into a wastebasket. Nab watched unconcernedly. “You haven't learned anything, have you, Dent? She's nothing to be afraid of.”

Dent only shook his head and wiped his lips. Stomach acid burned in his sinuses and throat.

“Go get the technicians. We have to hook the looper up somewhere else. And have some phony spots ripped out of the wall, so that workmen will be repairing when they get in. It has to look like the lasers have been removed. Hurry it up, boy!”

Dent stopped at the door. “What are they going to do to this Doon?”

“Nothing. Mother likes him. We'll simply use him to keep her happy later on. The man's a nonentity.”

Mother could sense Doon's increasing pleasure as they went (under heavy guard) through corridors that had been cleared before them, until finally they were at a door where Doon told the Little Boys to go wait elsewhere.

“This had better be good, Doon.” Mother said, knowing from the way he acted that it would be good.

“It'll be worth the walk. Though you used to walk much farther than this in your childhood,” he said.

“Kilometers and kilometers,” she said. “What a wonderful word. It even sounds like going up hills and down them again. A traveling word. Kilometers. Show me this place where the birds sing from the trees.”

And Doon opened the door.

She walked in briskly, then slowed, then stopped. And after a moment she began walking briskly among the trees, pausing only to strip off her shoes and dig her bare toes into the grass and the dirt. A bird fluttered past her. A breeze spun her hair out like a fan. She laughed.

Laughing, she leaned against a tree, put her hands on the bark, slid down the tree, sat in the grass. The sun shone brightly above her.

“How did you do it? How did you hold this spot of earth? When I last touched ground like this, I was twenty, and it was one of the few parks left on Capitol!”

“It isn't real,” Doon answered. “The trees and birds and I grass are real enough, of course, but the sky is a dome and the sun is artificial. It can tan you, though.”

“I always freckled. But I said, 'Damn the freckles, I worship the sun!'”

“I know,” Doon said. “I tell everyone that this place is modeled after Garden, a planet where they restrict immigration and industry is kept to a minimum. But you know what this place really is.”

“Crove,” she said. “My grandfather's world! What this planet used to be before it was sheathed in metal like a vast chastity belt, blocking life from this place forever; oh, Doon, whatever it is you want, you can have, only let me come and spend afternoon here on every waking!”

“I'll be glad to have you come. Only you know what it means.”

“But you want something from me, anyway,” she said.

He smiled. “Want to swim?”

“You have water?”

“A lake. Crystal clear water. A bit chilly, though.”

“Where!”

He led her to the water, and she unhesitatingly took off her clothes and dove in. Doon met her in the middle of the lake, where she floated on her back, looking upward as a cloud passed before the sun.

“I must have died,” she said. “This must be heaven.”

“You're a believer?” Doon asked.

“Only in myself. We make our own heavens. And I see, Doon, that you have created a good one. Well, Doon, you're the first man I've talked to today who wasn't an utter ass.”

“I do not aspire to surpass my superiors.”

She chuckled, fanning her hands to propel herself gently in the water. Doon too lay on his back in the water, and they heard each other's words through the rushing sound of water in their ears.

“Now the complete list, Mr. Doon,” she said.

“As I told you,” he said. “Part of the ministry of colonization.”

“And?”

“The rest of the ministry. And the rest of the ministries.”

“All of them?” she asked.

“Through one means or another. No one knows it, however. I just own the people who own the people who run it. I don't bother much with the everyday affairs.”

“Good of you. Let them think they're independent. And—”

“'And'?”

“The rest of the list?”

“That's the list. All the ministries. And the ministries control everything else.”

“Not everything. Not somec,” she said.

“Oh, yes. The independent, untouchable agency. Only Mother can make the rules for the Sleeproom.”

“But you control that, too, don't you?”

“Actually, I had to take it over first. That let me control who woke up when. Very useful. It lets me get rid of people I don't want. I just put them on a lower level of somec, if they're weak, and they die out very soon; Or I put them on a higher level of somec, if they're strong, and they aren't around often enough to bother me.”

“You rule my empire, then?”

“I do,” Doon answered.

“Have you brought me here to kill me?”

Doon swung over and treaded water, looking at her in alarm. “You don't believe that, do you?” he asked. “I'd never do that, Mother, never. I've admired you too much. I've modeled my life on yours. The way you controlled the empire from the start, and everyone thought it was your husband. Selvock, the poor stud.”

“He wasn't much of a stud,” Mother mused. “He never fathered a child on anyone.”

“No, Mother. You're the only person in the world, though, who could stop me. And I knew that sooner or later you'd realize who I was and what I was doing. I've looked forward to this meeting.”

“Really? I haven't.”

“No?” Doon broke into a crawl stroke and made his way to shore. Not long afterward, Mother followed, to find him lying on the grass.

“You're right,” she said. “I have looked forward to meeting you. The thief who would take it all away from me.”

“Not at all,” Doon said. “Not a thief. Just your heir.”

“I plan to live forever,” she said.

“And if I have my way, you shall.”

“But you don't want just to own my empire, Doon. You don't want to just inherit.”

“Consider this a springboard. If you hadn't built this empire I should have had to. But since it's built, I shall tear it up and use the building blocks to make something better.”

“Better than this?” she asked.

“Can't you smell the decay? Nothing is alive on this planet. Not the people. Not the atmosphere, not the rock, nothing, its all dead, all going nowhere. The whole Empires like that. I'm going to kick it into gear again.”

“Kick it into gear!” she giggled. “That was archaic when I was a girl!”

“I study old things,” Doon answered. “Old things are the only things that are new anymore. You were great. You built a beautiful thing.”

She was happy. The sun was beating down on her for the first time in decades (centuries, actually, but, since she hadn't lived the years, she didn't feel them); she had swum in fresh water; and she had met a man who just might be, just might perhaps be her equal.

“What do you want me to do? Make you chancellor? Marry you?”

Doon said no, none of those things. “Just let me go on. Don't challenge me. Don't force my hand. I need a few more centuries. And then it'll all break loose.”

“I could still stop you,” she said.

“I know it,” he answered. “But I'm asking you not to. No body was in a position to stop you. I'm asking for my chance.”

“You'll have your chance. In return for one favor.”

“And that is?”

“When you make your move and everything, as you put it, breaks loose—take me with you.”