***
I wish Wemply the Voyager had lived. I’d like to send him searching for the bottom of the Sea of All Things.
—Mutterings of Habiba
I am not the Habiba of old nor will I ever be again.
The thought drifted through Habiba’s mind and was gone.
She stared out of her cupola at the gray morning shadows of her beloved Dreenor. Amplified vision revealed a crowd of her most responsible Taxables lurching along a pathway near the horizon, all obviously far gone on bazeel. She did not have the heart to reprimand them nor prohibit the drug. It was being grown quite openly now in many homes.
Jongleur had just departed after delivering an account of Deni-Ra’s captivity.
“Mugly says Deni-Ra may be a Latent,” Jongleur said.
Latents, capable of wildly unpredictable idmaging, were a periodic problem among Dreens, but they had always been managed with Soother therapy.
It did not seem possible in the present circumstances that they could get a Soother to Deni-Ra.
Of late, Habiba had entertained the suspicion that Wemply might have been a Latent. That would explain many things, but the suspicion came far too late.
“We will waste no more of our people on that accursed planet,” Habiba ordered.
“Does that mean you will not send the erasure ship?” Jongleur quavered.
“It means only what I say it means!”
Jongleur, recoiling as a wave of Habiba’s rage-scent swept over him, fled into the morning without her dismissal.
“Send Mugly!” she bellowed after him.
Mugly appeared presently but stood at the base of the cupola’s spiral ramp. Did he think distance protected him from her probing stare?
“If I ordered an immediate Thoughtcon, what would I learn from you?” she asked.
Mugly, with no time to idmage a memory block, looked around him in fear and trembling. No other Elites shared the cupola. He had never heard of a Thoughtcon with a single Elite. Was that possible?
“I know what I would find,” Habiba said.
Did my idmaged memory block fail?
“I have never needed a Thoughtcon to read the hearts of my Taxables,” Habiba said. “You have conspired against me, Mugly!”
“Blessed Habiba! I have always acted only for the good of Dreenor.”
“Don’t give me that Blessed Habiba crap! You’re the most prideful Dreen I’ve ever known. You planned from the first to be the captain of that erasure ship!”
Mugly drew himself up stiffly on all four legs. “I am willing to sacrifice myself for the good of my people.”
“They are not your people. And what do you know about the good of Dreendom? You have infected us all with an illness for which there may be no cure!”
“Habiba!”
“Erase Earth and the consequences will be catastrophic!” she said. “The accursed planet and its life forms are woven all through our legends and lore. Before I put a ban on it, Earth was our most frequently visited Storyteller scene!”
“The more reason to remove it, Habiba.”
“You don’t listen to me! Without Earth, Dreen abilities will be crippled. Storytellers will fear the consequences of every idmage. ‘Am I creating another Earth?’ they will ask. And our universe will explode in a burst of Storyteller frustration!”
“But the flaw of Earth is known to us. Free Will and its evolution have—”
“Pride, that is the flaw! The same pride that drives you, Mugly, drove Wemply to that insane creation.”
“Surely, Habiba, this cannot be as bad as—”
“Your pride drives you now to question even me!” Habiba accused. “I have a cure for that, Mugly. We will hold a Thoughtcon immediately. It will place you on trial. You are the shame of Dreendom. Your evil will be known to all!”
Mugly’s horn-tool nose quivered. Abruptly, he lurched into motion and began climbing the ramp.
Habiba watched him approach, curious at his behavior. She had not asked him to come closer. What was he doing?
Two paces below Habiba, Mugly paused. The odor of his rage was unmistakable. She saw his eyes swivel inward for idmaging. A length of the ramp vanished to supply idmaging material and a long staff appeared in his hands. When his eyes swiveled outward, he lunged at her with the staff.
A spear!
She recognized it from stories of Earther violence. The smell of anesthetic poison on the blade chilled her. Mugly intended murder!
Habiba jerked aside as the spear gashed her left arm. She reacted in pain and dismay. I need a defensive weapon!
From the depths of her survival instincts, and with superior idmaging, she sealed her wound and created a weapon. A tommy gun materialized in her hands as Mugly drew back for another thrust. Without conscious volition, Habiba squeezed the trigger. A chattering roar deafened her as bullets drew a line of yellow holes across Mugly’s chest. The impacts threw him off the ramp and he fell far down to the floor with a sodden “thump.”
Feeling coldly remote, she leaned over to stare down at him. Was he conscious? Could he idmage repairs to his damaged flesh? But the fall had rendered him unconscious. She saw his yellow blood oozing onto the floor. He lay there unmoving as life drained from him.
Habiba felt the moment of Mugly’s death and a dreadful stillness permeated her, draining her maternal spirit. The skin tightened across her forehead, removing Storyteller wrinkles.
She looked down at the tommy gun in her hands and grined it out of existence with a shudder of revulsion.
What have I done?
She tried to rationalize the awful occurrence.
Mugly would have killed me, I defended myself for the good of all Dreens.
That carried the suspicious ring of Mugly’s arguments.
Am I the most prideful Dreen?
It was a shattering thought. Could Mugly have been right about Earth? No! Her arguments about the consequences had skirted something far deeper in her awareness. Somewhere within her lay the certainty that Dreenor would end if they erased Earth.
Premeditated annihilation of all that life? I cannot bring myself to order it.
But I killed Mugly.
Slowly, she descended the ramp and stood over Mugly’s body. It looked pitiful. A wave of anguish swept through her. She picked up the body, pausing to grine away the evidences of disaster on the floor. Once again, deadly stillness drained her. The ancient familiarity of the feeling set her trembling.
My Taxables must not learn what I have done.
Carrying Mugly, she descended a private passage to the red mudbrick dwelling, her first home on Dreenor. There, she idmaged a deep hole in the floor and buried Mugly. When the floor was restored, she squatted and contemplated her problem.
I am but one person. I cannot hold all creation together by myself.
But what is the difference between defending myself from Mugly and defending Dreendom by erasing Earth?
Consequences.
The consequences of defensive actions always had to be weighed. Mugly was gone and his absence certainly would involve her in elaborately fanciful storytelling fabrications.
But am I not the Supreme Story teller?
This thought vibrated an odd chord of memory deep within her. She could not quite place it. But someone once had called her that.
“You are the Supreme Storyteller. The task is yours.”
She could almost hear the voice. It was someone she could not identify. Someone who no longer existed.
How could there be someone such as that? Did she not know every Dreen?
She squatted there, trembling with the things hidden in her, unaware for several heartbeats that Jongleur had returned and stood in the doorway from the lower hall.
“Habiba?” he ventured. “What was that loud noise? Many heard it but. . .”
“I did not summon you,” she said.
“Love brings me, Habiba. What is wrong?”
Thus the fabrication begins, she thought and said
: “I have had to send Mugly on a difficult mission.”
“Mugly? I did not see him leave. What mission, Habiba? Not the erasure ship!”
“A mission even more difficult than that,” she said.
***
Medical records available to us show Candidate Hanson has grown several centimeters taller and gained at least seven kilos of weight in the past few months. How does he explain this? Does he suffer a dangerous hormone imbalance? The public deserves a full clarification of this oddity.
—An opposition news release
“Ladies and gentlemen, in two days we will elect the next President of the United States.”
The announcer, Utley Trask, a familiar, benign, gray-haired figure chosen especially for this moment, paused and smiled as cheers, whistles and shouts erupted from the crowd packing the floor of the convention hall below him.
Lutt, seated to Trask’s left with Eola VanDyke Hanson at his side, thought they had done pretty well filling the hall at 9:00 a.m. He glanced at Eola, seeing the glitter of her new wedding ring. She produced her finishing-school smile for the cheering people. Although he had purposely avoided subduing Ryll with basil, Lutt felt a surge of belligerence.
Eola for show, Ni-Ni for bed!
No response yet from the French but he felt confident. The Legion still kept the Phoenicia story under wraps. A sure sign they won’t refuse my demands.
Utley Trask raised both hands to restrain the crowd. The calls and cheering slowly subsided.
Lutt glanced into the platform wings to his right. A wheeled cage containing Deni-Ra in human guise waited there.
In a few minutes we cinch the election! Lutt thought. Fear and the promise of jobs will do the trick. I’ll win by a landslide.
“The moment has come to show you why Lutt Hanson, Jr., is the only man for this most sensitive position in our universe,” Trask said. “But first, one of the most pleasant moments of my life.”
He grinned at Eola, then returned his attention to the crowd.
“A wonderful surprise, folks, Early this morning, in a quiet ceremony at his home, Lutt Hanson, Jr., and Eola VanDyke were joined in the holy bonds of matrimony!”
A deafening roar boomed through the hall. Calls and shouts continued for five minutes. When they subsided, the announcer grinned and waved at Lutt.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the next President of the United States—Lutt Hanson, Jr.!”
Lutt took his position at the microphones, glancing at the ranks of cameras aimed down at him, at the crowd, then at the Portable Speech Analyzer in the palm of his left hand. He aimed a practiced smile at Eola and swung it back toward the floor of the hall. Presently, he raised both arms.
The uproar quieted quickly. They had been prepared for a momentous announcement—stories leaked about “a world-shaking revelation.” Expectation could be seen in the uplifted faces. Even the media people sat poised behind the glass of their booths, knowing he would not have built them up for anything but a big story.
What was this “alien menace” hinted at in stories being leaked from Hanson headquarters?
“My friends,” Lutt said, “we all know the time has come for us to revitalize this great nation. My opponents have led us into a desperate situation. Food prices have doubled in the past year. Unemployment is on the rise.”
He paused and assumed a grim expression before continuing to read the prepared speech projected onto the transparent screen in front of the lectern.
“How can we be uncaring when so many Americans live dreary lives in shanty homes?”
That was for the masses of voters Woon’s people had registered in the Lowtowns.
“Yes!” he shouted. “We need food for the poor. Yes! We need jobs for people my opponents ignore, people who want only to stand proud in the knowledge they support themselves.”
Lutt slid the PSA into its wrist sheath and placed a hand along each side of the lectern. He gripped the wood until his knuckles went white, a gesture he had learned from Woon.
“But there is something even more menacing my opponents have ignored . . . even though they are well aware of it!”
He looked up at the ranked lenses. The opposition was out there monitoring every word, every movement.
“I face you today with dogged determination, with a deep conviction based on Dedication, Intelligence and Ethics. Those initials spell DIE. And we all will surely die if my message is ignored!”
He gestured for the waiting Hanson Guards and Zone Patrol troopers to wheel out Deni-Ra’s cage.
The cage trundled onto the stage with a calculated squeaking of wheels. The crowd stirred. Strobe lights flared. Cameras turned toward this new development. Whispers sent a susurration through the hall.
“Who the hell’s he got in the cage?”
“Looks like a leftover John Wayne stand-in.”
“Shut up and listen!”
The guards stopped the cage two paces to Lutt’s right and stood there with weapons ready.
Deni-Ra clutched the bars and glared truculently at the crowd.
Lutt pointed at the caged Dreen. “Creatures such as this walk among us!” he shouted. “You might never give one of them a second glance! They look just as human as any of us! But they are not! They are alien! They intend to destroy us!”
On cue, Deni-Ra’s human guise slumped into a mound of protoplasm and reformed in Dreen shape. Two six-fingered hands rattled the bars, rocking the cage back and forth.
A concerted gasp lifted from the crowd. The guards pointed their weapons at the Dreen and one of them said: “Stop that or we shoot!”
Deni-Ra slouched back on all four feet. “Shoot if you must, you scumgut swine!” she bellowed. “But you nesters are agonna git yours! You’re on Dreen land! One day soon, you’ll have till sundown to git off!”
Still pointing at Deni-Ra, Lutt shouted: “Your so-called leaders have left us defenseless in the face of this menace! I am calling for an end to that head-in-the-sand stupidity! We must build weapons and warships for space! We must attack and destroy these aliens on their own ground!”
Lutt lowered his head and swept his gaze across the crowd. “My opponents whisper behind my back that lam making a secret accord with potential enemies—the French. That is a lie! Do any of you think the French Foreign Legion will fail to fight beside our brave Zone Patrol once this menace is seen?”
A cheer roared through the hall and subsided in gasps.
Lutt glanced at Deni-Ra. As rehearsed, the Dreen had shapeshifted into a cobra and threatened to slip through the bars. The guards prodded Deni-Ra back into captivity.
“All of Earth must rally behind us in the face of this threat!” Lutt shouted. “We must convert factories and build new ones! The technology to destroy these aliens is known! Yes! It is a product of my own invention! I am prepared for this terrible task! Are you?”
The roaring, stamping response told Lutt all he needed to know. A glance at the PSA confirmed it. He had them. Fear of an alien threat meant jobs in a new weapons industry. All could see it. And his people had leaked enough stories about Lutt’s Vortraveler. “An invention from the fertile mind of Lutt Hanson, Jr.”
If the French want into the act, okay. But only on my terms!
Ryll had heard and seen enough. His Earther lessons coalesced into a demand for action.
Lutt baby, Ryll intruded.
Shut up, Dreen!
No way, Lutt baby. What happens to the election if your Zone Patrol guards see you exposed as a Dreen?
You wouldn’t dare!
If I have to go to prison, too, so be it, Lutt baby.
Stop calling me that!
Calling you what?
Baby!
But I learned it from you. And this is showdown time, Lutt baby. Even if I can’t retake control of our body—which is an unresolved issue—I certainly can raise questions to which the ZP has answers. Got it?
You mean it?
Think about it—no Ni-Ni, no Presidency, nothing b
ut a prison for the creature who posed as Lutt Hanson, Jr. You’ll be part of the alien menace you’ve been at such pains to announce.
What do you want, Ryll?
I told you I wouldn’t permit you to attack Dreenor.
Okay, no attack.
But you don’t mean it.
I promise.
And I see through your empty promise.
What do I have to do?
You already know. Turn over control of our body to me on my demand and no more bazeel unless I ask for it.
Never!
Never is an awful long time, Lutt. Especially if we’re in, a ZP prison.
Can we share control of my body?
Our body.
Okay! Our body.
That’s what I’ve proposed all along. And if you agree, you’d better remember I can read every thought in your head.
The convention hall clamor was diminishing. Lutt’s shoulders slumped. The Portable Speech Analyzer immediately prompted him: “Straighten up. Look firm and sincere.”
He obeyed.
In his private thoughts, Ryll observed this and came to a determination. I will rule this Earther! And now he knew how to do it. It was a basic truth he had come to recognize through observation of Lutt. Let a person desire something enough and you can rule the person through that desire.
Lutt wanted power. He lusted after it more than he lusted after any woman.
Nishi must never be bound to this Earther, Ryll thought. I will protect her.
***
In this position, the blade gun appears to be an ordinary short-bladed pocket knife. Give the handle a half turn as shown, press the raised decoration (number three on the diagram) and the blade shoots where it is aimed—deadly within eight meters. The BG’s automatic re-arm instantly puts another projectile in place for seven more shots. Poison- or anesthetic-injector blades are available. Blades, sold in cartons of 24, and the knife handle are high-impact plastic. They will not trip a metal detector.
—A brochure privately circulated to officials