Power Page 9

  He took, then, his final deep breath, smiled his familiar smile, faint, knowledgeable, calm; and waited. The network of cameras surrounding him

  were very still; then they all lit up at once with the ancient red marker. On the air.

  Ladies and gentlemen . . .

  And first, of course, there were the few minor items he’d picked out, to set the conversational mood his listeners had, apparently, learned to like. Nothing of any great importance: a petition, for instance, requesting a special referendum, from the tiny subdistrict of Arkansas, claiming that the Emperor’s chosen representative for Arkansas in the Dichtung did not truly represent the majority of the people. The referendum (Turnbul knew) would get nowhere; Arkansas, for some reason, had been addicted to referendums for thirty years, and Turnbul flattered himself with the thought that most of his audience knew that as well as he did; in fact, his job was, he had always felt, entertainment only by courtesy, being more truly described as a kind of education.

  The latest Arkansas bid for turbulence deserved the flick of notice he gave it, for amusement value if for no other reason; a new move in the rearrangement of league handicap agreements throughout the Comity Hockey Association deserved, and got, about the same air-time; and other items of the same sort followed. “A full and responsible survey of the events of the day,” Pfeiffer always hawked him, and Turnbul tried to live up to that.

  As he went on, he was arranging the final details of his major speech for the day. There were a few who wrote such things out in advance, but Turnbul had always felt they lost in interest, somehow, and in that indefinable necessity, “a sense of reality,” by doing so, and he left all but the bare skeleton to improvisation, the spirit of the moment. Freddy War-renton had broken the news on his own earlier show, and that had to be considered, but he’d had no more than a bulletin; no one had been able to put together much more news than a bulletin would cover. It was for Turnbul, then, to fill in all the essentials. A full and responsible survey: of course. He’d spent his time until deadline digging out all he could: Forman Alpha was, as always, worth the boring time one spent with him, once he’d been found; Leverett had said very little indeed, but his attitude alone provided, to an experienced man, dependable clues; others in Council, and a few friends in Skywatch, had helped pull it all together—along with such chatter as he could gather up from other newsmen; naturally. He had his story, and it was worth—well, all the time he could manage to give it.

  Timing had given him all he could want: within the hour, the story would be wide open. The Dich-tung was seized of it as he spoke, and that would crack it wide for the world. But the first real break—the first analysis, and Turnbul knew exactly how important that could be—was his, and his alone.

  He wrapped up one last minor story; his smile faded slowly; he looked out into the clutter of cameras with a solemn and immobile expression for one—two—nearly three beats. A long prelude; an impressive time.

  Ladies and gentlemen: this afternoon, Capitol time, a message was received from the Comity warship Valor. That message, received in secrecy, is even now being debated in the Dichtung. It tells of a mutiny, of an attempt by the officers and crew of the Valor—or most of that number—to seize the reins of government for their own, and to use the power of their ship to overthrow what they describe as the oppressive weight of Comity rule. In their message they express the hope that others will join them in this effort.

  The message was spoken by the vice-Commander of the Valor, Aaron Norin, who is apparently now in control of the ship. Vice-Commander Norin is the youngest son of Councillor Isidor Norin, who is in the Dichtung at this moment, having been closeted privately for some time with the Emperor.

  You will recall that the Councillor’s daughter, Rachel, recently married. . . .

  He gave them background, of course, but not too much of it. Enough to bring the old man and his family to their minds, that was certain; in fact, perhaps that crowd never left most minds, not really. A family of Norin’s sort was a power in its own right, and knew it. Well, regardless . . . He let them think the background was all that was left of the story. He let his voice trail slowly off.

  Then he brought them bolt upright with one sentence. Who’d ever said newswork wasn’t an art? Almost everyone had, at one time or another; but the newsmen knew better.

  The Valor has threatened, if its demands for autonomy and for the actual dissolution of representative government are not met, to destroy the city of Thoth, Mars.

  No firm assurance that this cannot be accomplished has come from any government official. Sky-watch states that its men “are not worried,’’ but offers no other word.

  It is not my intention to create a panic. The threat is not a matter of moments, nor, as yet, even a matter of hours. This is not, then, a call to action.

  What we must do is think. What we must do, before any decisions can be taken, is to analyze the demands themselves.

  It is certain, to begin with, that vice-Commander Norin is entirely serious. His experience of government—the experience, in these years, of any Norin—is extensive. And his claim, based apparently on that experience, is that what is normally called “representative government" is nothing of the sort; he claims, in fact, that it is tyrannical and unjust. We should examine that claim.

  The people, it is true, have constantly available to them—as Arkansas has, in the recent past, repeatedly shown—referendums with power over any governmental employee, or over any major issue of policy. We are clearly too numerous to represent ourselves on every such issue, and we cannot each be learned in all the arts and sciences; therefore, we delegate our power to these representatives of ours: we delegate it to the Emperor by our elections, and we delegate it to his chosen representatives for us in Dichtung and, even more, in the Council, by means of referendums. It is difficult to imagine any simpler or more complete method of representation—given only the sheer size of our population.

  And yet, as many analysts have said, there is constantly the “tyranny of the majority” to consider and to restrain. A proper selection of representatives is our safeguard against that very real tyranny—a selection which includes representatives of geographical sections and of particular trades, of viewpoints and of skills, even (in the larger districts and provinces) of entire legislative houses.

  It might, of course, be argued that this method is not adequate, and that a further refinement of method is needed.

  Is this what vice-Commander Norin claims?

  It is not. Such a complaint could be dealt with simply and with comparative ease, as similar matters have in past years, by bringing it before the Dichtung. Reapportionment, in one form or another, is a familiar issue to anyone who spends much time in our Capitol, and perhaps it always will be.

  No: vice-Commander Norin attacks the system itself.

  What he would put in its place is not clear; he speaks of democracy but his statement gives us little idea what he means by the term. He appears to feel that he has attacked the center of political power in the Comity—and that such an attack is in itself praiseworthy.

  That is certainly not the case. Vice-Commander Norin’s attack may home in on the political center;

  but in order to praise such an attack we would have to find out whether it had praiseworthy objectives, and it is just here that we are left uncertain.

  One would like to hear, on this matter, the views of Councillor Norin. Doubtless they will be forthcoming as the session of the Dichtung, now in progress, continues.

  And, of course, 1st News will bring you full details of this sudden crisis of government—and of events on Thoth—as always:

  First.

  Not bad, Turnbul told himself, a few minutes later and off the air; not bad at all.

  And wondered, idly, what (in truth) he did think about the mutiny. Perhaps there was nothing, finally, to think about; the full story wasn’t nearly available, and might never be. To get that, one would have to start, after all, with old No
rin, and his son, and their life together—and Norin’s privacy was as closely guarded as the architect’s plans for the Imperial Sector of the Palace.

  Even so . . . Tumbul frowned, and twisted his face into a wry grin.

  Democracy. Indeed.

  It wasn’t a word, and seldom had been: it was a banner. One waved it, and one’s followers came on. It meant—

  Within limits, Turnbul told himself, it meant whatever one put into it.

  If that.

  If (in fact) anything. Anything at all.

  The audience chamber, Penn realized for the fifteenth time (or the fifteen-hundredth, and what difference did it make?) was both too large and too bare. Officially, that didn’t matter. Protocol insisted upon it, even when the entire habitation of the room was three people, and even when, in such restrictive .company, the walls of the place seemed to press in on them all, making Penn as uncomfortable as, he remotely wished, Cardinal-explicator Jerrimine was. Penn had no special love for the Church, which was at once too intellectual and too popular for his taste— and, in any case, more a force to be dealt with than a set of factual statements; what fact meant in theology, to be sure, he had never been remotely able to discover; and at that the grating repetition of sound inside his head irritated him sufficiently to break the chain of musing, and he said, as politely as possible, discovering the silence: “Cardinal?”

  Jerrimine—worse and worse—was known neither for sympathy nor tact. He had brought his assistant along to the conference: Alphard Norin, no less. Devoutly (if, he thought, the word were possible for a pragmatist), Penn hoped that the assistant would find something else urgent to do, at once—preferably something on Phobos, or better yet on Ganymede. No such luck, of course; which made everything, Penn considered, just ducky, and perfectly wonderful.

  The Cardinal-explicator turned his mellow gaze upon the Emperor, and: “I feel I must speak to you,” he said in his buttery voice—odious and soft; there was to be no harshness, Penn saw, in the audience. Regardless of any public and necessitous relationship, Penn in private was not to be treated as a “subject of the Church,” to be ordered round, made to cower and obey. Smooth talk, then, was clearly called for; it would do no good, but Jerrimine undoubtedly considered that the forms had to be followed. Until his own familiar Hell froze over, if that were what it wasn’t supposed to do. “The—ah—situation, Sire, is a difficult one, as we must both see; more, it is one in which we may wish to mediate.”

  Of course. A move toward power; but: “Mediate?” Penn asked. “You speak, I imagine, of the mutiny?”

  All three men were, and had been, standing—and pretending to be relaxed. Jerrimine turned to Alphard Norin for less than a second, and turned back. “The

  mutiny,” he said, “and, as well, the solution to its— ah—message of defiance. We have heard of the solution you propose, Sire; we cannot approve of it.”

  More than a simple power-play, then; but it was the strangest of times, Penn thought, for morality. However: “I doubt that you’ve heard correctly, My Lord.”

  Jerrimine’s expression never changed. “I am sure that we have.”

  “In privacy—”

  Taking the privilege of a Cardinal, Jerrimine, waving a hand, broke in with drawling aplomb. “Certainly.”

  “We are attempting, in privacy,” Penn said, adding an edge to his tone, “to make possible a discussion between the ship, and its leaders, and Ourselves.”

  The sentence brought no real silence, nor any hint of surprise; Jerrimine only nodded, softly, as if he were conducting a dialogue entirely with himself. “Discussions, Sire? To what end?”

  “To the end of peace, and satisfaction,” Penn said flatly. “Satisfaction—for all persons involved, and for all points of view.” He favored Jerrimine with a brief, bold grin—and relaxed again; that, he told himself, would show the ancient hawk.

  “But that is—impossible. . . .” The Cardinal’s voice, beginning explosively, trailed rapidly away; so he had, a bit late, had his surprise after all.

  And to nail it down: “Your Church, My Lord, tells us otherwise. Impossible: is that not one of those—ah—generalities from which you are to deliver us?” A fencing-match, stroke for stroke, since he wanted to play at diplomacy; and the fool was being worn down.

  “Yes, of course; but—”

  Penn exercised, calmly, his own' privilege. “And your assistant, My Lord: what does he think?”

  There was a frontal attack, and a bold one as well, but it would hasten the end of the damned audience, and it followed, as well, one of Penn’s oldest maxims: use anything and everything to hand. One kept other people on their toes; that was what toes—and occasionally other people—were for.

  He stared straight at Alphard Norin, whose face was an expressionless blind surface, but of course it was Jerrimine who was earliest with a reply: “He thinks, Sire, as the Church thinks.”

  “So monolithic a structure—within such wide bounds of theory,” Penn said, and let that attack drop for the second; instead, he continued his stare at Alphard, and in a louder and more demanding tone asked: “Really?”

  There was a little silence. Jerrimine, as the Cardinal knew very well, could make no reply to that; confirmation of Alphard’s belief had to be Alphard’s confirmation. Penn kept his gaze steady: a good boy, he thought. A milk-and-water version of Norin, in fact, plus forty pounds and blond hair, and minus twenty-five years and any sign of usable brains. The boy was going to have to speak for himself, and Penn was interested, if not in the expectation of any feat of intellection, at least in what weapon the boy would, all unwittingly to be sure, give to—somebody. “I— wish no violence,” he said at last. Perhaps fifteen seconds had passed. “Yet I can see only—only—” He paused again, swallowed in the silent room, shut his eyes and fluttered them open. No one spoke, or moved. “Only violence here,” he went on, the words weak as half a breath in the great room. “Between— them, and . . .” The voice became a whisper, trailed away, died; was gone.

  Penn, as the Cardinal had noticed (Penn saw in one flick of notice; the eyes had narrowed, the body had set as if for physical defense—so slightly, so very slightly, but one learned to learn from everything)— Penn had been given the weapon. In the most obvious manner, he began to use it, pressing advantage out of the boy. “Between your brother and your father, my son?”

  “Sire—”

  A strangled single word, and silence. Penn shrugged: the final gesture. Broken foils, My Lord. Game, set, and match. “Well, no matter now,” he said easily. “But —there is more at issue than you realize.”

  “Sire?” Alphard said timidly, heavily; Jerrimine, unable to restrain the echo, made a more certain sound from the same word.

  “We are much involved in discovering a solution,” Penn went on, in much the same tone; we are all honest men together, here. It would irritate Jerrimine, that tone—irritate him and make him listen, make him think. It might convince Alphard, for all Penn knew, or at the moment could afford to care. “We are set to find a—balance of power, if you like.”

  And that phrase, of course, acted on Jerrimine like an electric shock. “The Church, Sire, feels that her role—”

  Penn cut in brutally, lest anyone forget who’d won the game, his voice sharp and harsh. “Very well, My Lord; we need no veiled formalities. Your view is heard, and will of certainty be considered. Your task here is done.” A pity, in a way, to triumph over an unarmed man; but, after all, he hadn’t begun unarmed. “Though I have no liking for your choice of tools.”

  “Sire—”

  Penn allowed him neither time nor room for maneuver. “What could you have expected from— the presence of your assistant? A surprise great enough to unbalance me?” And then, in a calmed tone, he added, backing precisely the calm with all the assurance of his role and his office, “You may go”

  All things considered (Penn thought), it was a record of sorts, for Jerrimine. The man had actually turned and marched for the door w
ithout a word or sign, poor Alphard trailing him. It was even at the last moment hard to believe that he was going to do what Penn had forced him to do: disappear without a farewell message, without a curtain line—without anything at all to soften the departure, to revive, in the end, his most necessary sense of his own respected position.

  Penn discovered that he was, gently, invisibly, as the men moved away from him, smiling. Jerrimine, then Alphard, crossed the threshold. The door went shut.

  13.

  Master Yu said, Those who in private life behave well toward their parents and elder brothers, in public life seldom show a disposition to resist the authority of their superiors. And as for such men starting a revolution, no instance of it has ever occurred. It is upon the trunk that a gentleman works. When that is firmly set up, the Way grows. And surely proper behaviour towards parents and elder brothers is the trunk of Goodness?

  —Confucius, The Analects (L:2)

  (translated by Arthur Waley).

  14.

  The phone had no vision circuit, and the piddling oddity bothered Cannam more than he wanted to admit, even to himself. In privacy—such as it was, and it& wasn’t often—thank yourself a God. No. But, dealing& with Quist, himself, was never simple, and he needed& (he felt instantly, and continually) all the help he& could get. And that meant using all of his well-known& famous public-appearance dealie. What they always& called his impact. Except . . . the call was a necessity, and the phone—due to some idiotic foolery& about “privacy” he’d managed to kid himself into& four years back—five? and who cared?—was a& sound-only carrier.