Queen of Denial (24 page)

"Now, before you start calling me a cold, calculating bitch and accuse me of being uncompassionate, let me say this. Right now, only one in twenty can afford health care. Under my new program, only one in twenty won't be able to. I also have a parts two and three to this program. They will all tie in, so please let me continue before you stop listening.

"Part 2: No one shall be unemployable simply because of their age, nor shall their age be an excuse to stop working. Under the new law, all employers will find a suitable position for the aged employee—his or her work day not to exceed five hours, four days a week, with no cut in hourly rates. Such employees will then receive the same medical benefits that all tax-paying individuals receive. Because the government will not be paying old-age pensions, and because the elderly employed will still be paying taxes, not only will they save the country several million Gildoltars, but I have to believe that the resulting feeling of productivity should reduce the now high rate of suicide among our elderly.

"Part 3: No one shall be considered too handicapped to work. Employers accommodating a handicapped worker shall receive tax cuts matching the wages paid to these people. Citizens too debilitated to leave their homes shall be given the chance to do piece-work from their homes, or other home-based work, depending upon their skills. In this manner, all handicapped persons can be covered under the national health plan. And again, because we would not be paying these persons for their disability, and because they will be paying taxes, this will once again save the country millions."

She paused long enough to drink half a can of beer, and to wink at the camera man, and then she continued.

"Second problem: The indigent—people who are unproductive for no other reason than it's become a way of life. Because of our free medical to the 'poor' they have bred like flies. Why? Because we give them more money for each child they have. Well, the days of the hand-out are over, boys and girls. Our country's roads, parks and space-ports are in bad need of repair. All people now receiving free rent, free utilities, grocery allotments, and/or large sums of money for sitting on their asses will be put to work. You will be moved to government housing and given food of our choosing. While you are working, a government staff will keep under-age children. A government staff will also clean quarters. All such government staff members will be drawn from those presently indigent persons who are living off the government. Since we are already supporting these people, this program will cost the government nothing, and hopefully we can teach these people—or at least their children—a little pride, as well as cleaning up our roads and other much needed work. Since taxes would be taken from their wages, they would then fall under the medical program.

"Third problem: The outrageous cost of medical care. These costs brought my attention to the fact that there are a whole lot of people out there making outrageous wages who don't work any harder, if as hard, as the rest of us. These people are systematically raping our population. Extravagantly high wages were a big part of our employment problem. It also caused a huge gap between the so-called classes that had nothing at all to do with the real productivity of a worker. This problem was the most easily solved. There is already a minimum wage. I will also make a maximum wage, under which no one will be allowed to make over a certain amount of money per hour. This law covers everyone from the factory worker to the doctor and the guy who owns the pharmaceutical company. This in itself should bring the cost of health care, cars, textiles, etc., down. For those of you who think you cannot get rich under this program, please take some time and figure it out. In an economy where a man can't make less than one Gildoltar an hour or more than twenty, any man who makes eighteen is rich. He's just not filthy stupid fucking rich.

"Fourth problem." She finished her beer. "Crime." She laughed and shook her head in disbelief. "The way we handle crime in this country is nothing short of ludicrous. When a criminal is convicted of a crime they take him to a special hotel where he is given free room and board, an athletic training area, free higher education, and free medical. In short, they live better than most tax payers—at a high cost to the government."

She leaned forward and her expression suddenly got very dark. "Solution: Trenches are now being dug. Tomorrow, every person now in prison having been convicted of a violent crime-violent crimes being murder, attempted murder, rape, attempted rape, and child abuse in any form—shall be shot and buried. From this day forward, such crimes shall be punishable by death upon conviction without appeal."

She sat back, and some of the tension left her face. "All other prisoners shall be released. All those newly-released prisoners convicted of robbery or other 'non-violent' crimes, and all who have a previous conviction of any type on their record, shall be shot without appeal upon conviction of the next offense of any type. First-time non-violent offenders will spend five years in jail upon conviction without appeal. In other words, get caught the first time committing a non-violent crime, and you rot in jail doing hard labor without pay. First-time violent offenders and second-time non-violent offenders will rot in the ground."

Drew took a deep breath, smiled and shrugged.

"Obviously, this program will save us countless billions. Not just in care and feeding, but we will only need one in five of our present prison facilities. So, what do we do with the other buildings? You should all know me too well by now to believe that I don't have a plan to re-use them." She grinned again, widely this time. "Well, the soon-to-be-empty buildings will be used to house those people in the new government work program—remember the second problem? Their first job will be to make these former prisons into decent housing. The housing they are now using—mostly rental property—should give affordable housing to the tens of thousands of working people who desperately need it.

"That leaves us with problem number five." She started a new beer."The plight of our country's farmers. The only problem they seem to have is that they had a good year, and so did everyone else. Their store-houses are full of Rash. Next year, they'll know to diversify. In the mean time, they're all going to go broke unless we help them—but they're also going to help us. As most of you know, Rash is the one grain known to be a complete diet. So, the people on the new work program will be eating a lot of Rash. In the future, whatever the product, the government will buy the farmer's surplus to feed the people on the work program." She downed the beer. "So, that's about got it. Any questions?"

Everyone started shouting at once, and she held up her had. "Yo! One at a time, or you can forget it. I haven't really slept in two weeks, and I'm on the rag, so don't push it."

One man held his hand up higher than anyone else, and she nodded in his direction. He was so surprised that she had called on him, that it took him several seconds to remember what he had wanted to ask. "My Queen, your new crime program seems a little harsh. Do you really think it will work?"

"Dead people don't commit crimes," Drew laughed and nodded at another reporter.

"Don't you think the 'poor' will revolt? I mean, talk about harsh. Where is your compassion?" A young woman asked.

"If the 'poor' revolt, we will have no other recourse than to shoot them in the street. As for compassion—two things. One, my compassion is for the people whose backs the unproductive have been riding on too damn long. And two, I am offering these people a chance to be productive, live in decent housing and eat wholesome food. Plus, no one has said that they
must
enter the work program—just don't expect a check from us. Next," she nodded at an older man.

"What about those of us that have been looking forward to our retirement?"

"I'm not telling you that you can't retire. All I'm saying is that we're not going to pay for it. Many shops have retirement programs—save part of your earnings towards the goal of retirement."

"Many of us have paid into the government program . . ."

"Yes, a whole fifth of what most of you would have drawn out under the old plan. All the money will be paid back through income tax reductions to those who paid in, up to the amount they paid in, less any government support they may have received—over the next five years. Next." She pointed to a young male reporter.

"I very much approve of the idea that all can work, but do you really believe that?"

"You bet I do. If a man has no arms and no legs, he can sit at the end of an assembly line and look for defects. If he's blind, too, he can sing a happy tune for his co-workers, and if he's also mute, they can use him to hold a door open. My idea is that working makes people feel good. Knowing that you have a purpose, some place important to be every day, is worth a whole lot. Enough questions."

Drew rose and left the conference room. Her retinue followed, and Marcus turned off the TV.

Zarco sat back hard in his chair, and the cheap thing almost went over with him.

"Now, there is someone who understands the needs of the people . . ."

"Marcus! Taralin just put the poor in prison . . ."

"So?" Marcus said hotly. "You've kept us all in economic prison for years. We couldn't hope for better jobs, better homes, and hospitalization. The Queen is right. It's our turn for some compassion. We at least have worked for it."

"And what about bringing back the death penalty? We haven't had one for a hundred years! It has no place in a polite society. And a mass execution and burial—it's barbaric!"

"What's barbaric is making the victims of a crime and their families pay to keep the perpetrator alive. And just how polite is a society where hundreds of violent crimes take place every day?"

Zarco looked at Marcus then. Marcus understood what Taralin was doing. He understood Zarco's wife better than Zarco did, and Taralin understood the people better than he, their King. He might not approve of the way she was ruling, but the people did. He walked over to his cot, lay down, and stared at the ceiling.

He had already begun to believe that he had failed as a man and husband when he let the Lockhedes not only take, but also keep, his wife. But it wasn't until his wife started to run his country that he realized that he had also failed as a King. He had been too involved with the war and his hatred of the Lockhedes to notice the ills of the people he was supposed to be serving. It was easy to say "feed the poor" when the bread didn't come off your table. Easy to forgive a killer when he hadn't killed your loved one in your home. He thought about how he had gone after the Lockhedes with such vengeance, how he had wanted them all dead because they had taken Taralin. How their actions and his inability to act had made him feel helpless and impotent . . . the way commoners must feel all the time. How many men's wives had been killed while he warred with the Lockhedes, wanting revenge upon them for what they had taken from him? Had he found the men that took Taralin, he would have killed them without a second thought. Yet he had deemed it cruel for the common man to enjoy such justice.

He hadn't even known that so many of them had no medical care, or for that matter that it was so costly. And when did the farmers start growing Rash? He had failed his wife, because he refused to put his own needs above those of the people. And then he had failed the people because he refused to put their needs above his own.

"Are you all right, Sire?" Marcus asked with concern.

Zarco looked at the young guard. He now saw him as he truly was; not a traitor at all, but a good man driven to this deed by Zarco's neglect."How long did she ask you to keep me here?"

Marcus looked startled. "It wasn't her idea . . . !"

"But it was convenient for her. How long?"

"Three months. She wouldn't meet our initial demands. I said we'd kill you, but she didn't believe us. She said if we kept you out of the picture for awhile, she could fix things . . ."

"How long have I been here?"

"Eight weeks."

"Couldn't you let me go now? I mean, she's changed everything, and you seem pleased . . ."

Marcus shook his head. "Give her programs a chance to get under way. Right now, you could ruin everything. I figure if her ideas work, you're not going to be so gung-ho to run in and change things. No matter how much flack you get from your blue-blooded kin."

After the press conference, Drew dismissed everyone, went straight to her room and flopped on her bed without even bothering to turn down the covers. Margot would be livid. She was so exhausted that she couldn't go to sleep—naturally. She stared at the ceiling and wondered why she couldn't turn her brain off.

"Maybe it's the thought of all those convicts I've just ordered put to death. Maybe I feel guilty in some way." She spoke out loud and thought about it. "Nah."

She moved to a more comfortable position, and something moved at the foot of her bed. She must have been closer to sleep than she thought, because it took her several minutes to realize that there shouldn't be anything in her bed but her.

"Van, I'm tired," she mumbled, half asleep. There was no answer, but she felt something move again. Suddenly wide awake, she jumped out of bed and quickly threw back the covers. Squirming at the foot of the bed, right where her feet would have been if she had jumped between the sheets, was a hideous slug-looking thing. It was about two feet long and two inches around. She grabbed the gun off the bedside table, and shot it twice.