Tom Paine Maru - Special Author's Edition (32 page)

He sighed. “Just remember to avoid the likeliest paths the comin’ revolution’ll want t’follow. Each of the major political systems has its own methods of policy-making’. Authoritarianism, such as ye have here, operates on whim, divine inspiration, the stomach-grumblin’ of the monarch. Majoritarian systems appeal to the ”wisdom“ of the masses—too bad there ain’t any—usually a lot of votin’ gets done t’everybody’s ruination. Individualists, my friend, do ‘none of the above’.”

“I shall try to remember that, Woodie—once I figure out what it means.”

“It means that, no matter how pretty its promises, in order for the government t’act humanely toward somebody, it must first act inhumanely toward somebody else. Because it produces nothin’ itself, y’see? The only ‘service’ it can offer anyone is t’beat people up an’ kill ’em, or threaten t’do so. This helpin’ an’ hurtin’—usually the same people by turns—are inextricably entwined. In a free market system, everybody benefits—this we call ‘profit’—because of the marvelous, absolute, an’ totally bewilderin’ subjectivity of economic value ... ”

“Which in turn,” he replied, “depends on the Law of Marginal Utility that you taught me about. I shall endeavor to remember, my friend.”

“Ye do that—an’ someday ye’ll stop the rain.”

“Someday,” Geydes intoned, as if by ritual, “we’ll stop the rain. Goodbye, Carlos Woodrow Murphy. Whatever else, I shall never forget you.”

“Nor I you, lad. Have a nice revolution.” With that, Murphy sighed, fell immediately asleep again. His wife Dorrie barely rescued the half-full soup bowl just in time to keep it from spilling on the floor.

-3-

Notes from the
Asperance
Expedition

Armorer/Corporal YD-038 recording

Page Thirty-Nine:

Ships of the Confederate Fleet

Tomfleet: Bobfleet: Trans-universe:

Tom Paine Maru Bob Heinlein Maru Ragnar Danneskold

Tom Jefferson Maru Bob Wilson Maru Hagbard Celine

Tom Szasz Maru Bob Shea Maru Captain Nemo

Tom Edison Maru Bob LeFevre Maru Peter LaNague

Tom Huxley Maru Bob Poole Maru Star Fox

Tom Sowell Maru Bob Walpole Maru Zorro

Also, numerous smaller auxiliaries such as
Little Tom, Tom Lehrer Maru, Tom Smothers Maru, Tom Swift Maru,
and
Bob Phipps Maru.

Some of Malaise’s scattered colony-ships, desperately reworked their nearly-exhausted drives. They got back into the first universe. Thus there is a need perceived for two Confederate fleets, Tomfleet, Bobfleet, searching for lost colonies in both continua—plus a third, smaller cadre of scouting vessels traveling between the two universes.

Those notes I made by firelight, unable to sleep, the ghosts of two peacekeepers haunting me. Say their names: Bardin-Luther Garder, Jibby Ralv-Budge. A pair of human beings doing their jobs. Now they were unfeelingly-butchered meat in a flooded alleyway. I had done it myself.

Going to see for myself, as Lucille had challenged me to do, had turned out to be a more complicated, less satisfactory experiment than I anticipated. I could approve—not that any of my teammates cared—that the Murphys had been trying to raise the living standard on this planet for twenty years, struggling against a system that had been deliberately constructed to prevent progress. Now the valiant spy would die if we could not get him back to the ship. I could approve of rescuing him, as I said, not that anybody cared whether I approved or not.

Around me, Gonzales, Rogers, Norris, were sleeping noisily beside their personal fireplaces, wary even in sleep, hands on their weapons. The Murphys were in another, smaller room with even bigger fireplaces. I rolled over to warm my other side, tucked the notebook away, quietly unsheathed my smallsword. Despite its sophisticated alloy, its sheen appeared dulled by the use I had put it to. For the dozenth time that evening, I wiped its length, trying to get it clean. It did no good at all, perhaps because the tarnish was inside me, rather than upon the blade.

It had been child’s-play, murdering the two policemen.

On the other hand, hypocrite that I was rapidly becoming, I was still feeling shocked at my discovery during the evening’s dinner conversation, that elsewhere—on Sodde Lydfe—relations among the allies of the Hegemony of Podfet would be systematically sabotaged by means of dirty tricks being openly discussed, even laughed about now, while simultaneously communications were to be opened between various warring states. Murphy looked forward to getting “plugged into the program” if he could recover his health quickly enough. Dorrie asked about technical details. She supplied the praxeological expertise on Afdiar.

A long time ago—what seemed an eternity—I had asked “Who are these people, anyway?” The more I learned in answer to that question, the less I liked it. Worse, they were dragging me into it. Surely, I had killed on Sca, in defense of my life, of my comrades. I had killed before that, in the Final War. Tonight seemed different, somehow. I said nothing about it to the others, who would simply have talked me out of it. I did not want to be talked out of that difference I felt, at least not until I could examine it, determine whether it was real, significant.

For some reason it all seemed to hinge on my relationship (if that was the proper word for one long, continuous battle) with Lucille. Either that, or I had spent too much time among these anarchistic schemers. Sitting in the dimly firelit room with the others all snoring around me, I thought back to a conversation I had had aboard
Tom Paine Maru,
just the day before we had Broached down to this planet ...

-4-

She said, “You’d better have some more coffee, Whitey dear. Where you’re going tomorrow, they haven’t invented the stuff yet. They never will—it won’t grow down there. They get their caffeine in nearly microscopic quantities from rock lichen. Anyway, you’d better stock up.”

I rolled over onto one elbow, waking up slowly, stupidly, with an odd feeling that this was where I had come in. “Coffee, sure. Thanks. Just—please—do not light a cigarette before I am in full control of my stomach, will you?” I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them wide, squeezed them shut again, then shook my head. As usual, I did not help.

She was, I pointed out to myself, an extremely attractive female, with great cheekbones, a very good nose, wide, full lips, and a cute little chin. She was a honey blond with gold-green eyes. Just now, she laughed prettily, “I don’t smoke, silly. No bad habits at all, except ... ” She laid a hand on the sheet where it covered certain parts of me.

“Except for Kilroys,” I said. “What time is it, anyway?”

“Does it matter, darling? Here’s the coffee, what do you want in it?”

This one called me “dear” and “darling”. I had not seen Lucille—who had had other terms of endearment for me—for several weeks now. Someone had told me she was keeping company with another man, perhaps that tall, tanned individual I had seen her with at the pool that day. Somehow knowing that made me feel sad at the same time that it made me angry.

“Chocolatl,” I told my new companion. “If it is not too much trouble.”

Not that I had much right to feel angry. In the first place, there had been never that kind of understanding between us, no promises, no plans beyond a pleasant evening’s dinner and whatever came naturally afterward.

In the days following our last terrible fight, I had gotten to know Lucille’s sister, Edwina, better, attending some of her classes in praxeology as a part of preparing for Afdiar. What happened then was almost inevitable, a warm but not particularly passionate matter involving a lot of mutual misery. I do not know what was wrong with Edwina’s life, but I had established an important principle: kissing your girlfriend’s sister can be fully as satisfying as kissing your own.

What I could not figure out is why that discovery made me feel so guilty. She was the most open, generous, comforting person I had ever known.

Edwina handed me the brimming cup, then climbed back onto the bed with her own. One thing I liked about her was that she was completely unselfconscious about her body, which was highly decorative, to say the least. She had large, firm breasts, a narrow waist, a flat belly, rather more womanly hips than I had been used to lately. Good legs, as well.

Some things ran in the family, evidently.

She looked at where the sheet covered me. “Your mind is obviously elsewhere, Corporal, isn’t it? Don’t worry, I can be very patient, and I’m not offended. My sweet sister has the same effect on practically everybody. She drove away all of her old friends after her experience with medical stasis. She also left Praxeology forever, to enlist with Security, of all things—although she’s quite good at it, and rising fast.”

“Is that so?” I asked. What that meant was that, despite Lucille’s constant harping on the Vespuccian military, aboard
Tom Paine Maru,
she was the closest equivalent to me. “I guess I have the bruises to prove it.” I shook my head, sipped at the coffee, tried to shut up, very much aware that I was in one lady’s bed, intimately discussing another. It did not seem to embarrass Edwina—but it certainly did me.

“Look, Whitey, deep down inside, Lucille trusts nobody. She won’t listen to anybody who could help her to be happier. If you want my professional, praxeological opinion, she drove off any of her friends who weren’t capable of exercising the restraint—or the tolerance—demonstrated by Howell and Koko, because she somehow feels she doesn’t deserve to be happy. She reacts with a savage hostility to anybody—including her mother and father and sister—who threatens to love her.”

I turned to look at Edwina. “What about Couper, then? What is he to her?” In some ways that old war horse seemed like everybody’s father.

She smiled, “Her friend, her boss. He keeps a paternal eye on her—but only from a respectful distance. He’s much too smart to get mauled.”

I shook my head ruefully. “I wish I had been, too.”

“So do I, Whitey.” She put a soft hand on my bare shoulder. “So do I.”

Under the sheet things started happening. I was an hour late for class.

the misplaced continent

“In any uncoerced transaction, ’tis impossible t’distinguish between buyer an’ seller, because ‘money’ is a myth. All transactions are barter, no matter what you’re after callin’ the commodities bein’ swapped.”

Returning good health seemed to have had an unfortunate effect on Carlos Woodrow Murphy. As we trudged along through the unceasing rain, he took it as an opportunity to deliver a lecture to me on free market economics. Suddenly I could hardly wait until the Lieutenant felt better.

It had begun that morning, as soon as the Confederate spy had discovered that I was a Kilroy. It continued as we took what he insisted on calling a “bus” to the waterfront main street of Hobgidobolis.

“No such thing as money?” I shook my head. I had been filling it with other, less-lofty thoughts. “Try telling them that where we are going!”

No one looked upward at the sky of Afdiar. To do so was to invite having the eyes washed out of their sockets. People kept their eyes on the mud at their feet. This was not a good basis on which to build a civilization.

I was concerned about the mud in my brain. It made me feel sad and guilty to admit it to myself, but there was something missing with Edwina, no bright magic, the way there had been with her sister, as painful as everything else had been about that brief affair. Somehow this relationship seemed even more wrong. Perhaps I was beginning acquire wisdom of a sort. I was determined to be honest with myself, with her, to break things off as soon as I got back to
Tom Paine Maru.

Also absolutely never to fall in love again.

The bus “drivers”, each bearing a six foot pole that supported the leather canopy over our heads, looked at Murphy oddly as he lectured on, oblivious to the fact that I was no longer listening. As usual, I was thinking that I must get home. The information I possessed would be needed to combat the Confederacy’s inevitable depredations against my own culture. This, I was certain, was why they would not let us go home.

Rain fell, making noise like a ripping sheet.

Dorrie walked beside me, taking up the thread whenever her husband fell silent, which was not often. Redhawk Gonzales walked behind us, his eyes never resting on any single object much more than a tenth of a second, his right hand never leaving the curved grip of a gigantic muzzle-loading pistol thrust through the wide belt beneath his cloak. Rogers walked with Norris, at the front, conversing with Johd-Beydard Geydes. Between us, other “passengers” got on or off at intersections in the sloping streets, handing the “drivers” a few coins as they did so.

“The Elephant & Donkey, me bhoy. That’s where we’re headed, today, although I personally prefer the good old Porcupine. Tis nearer home. They’re the principal reason I’m tryin’ t’bring enlightenment t’this heathenish balla mud. A free market’ll increase the hilk production an’ lower prices. Simple as that, or me name ain’t Uberd Ubvriez B’goverd!”

He winked at Geydes.

Hilk was a native high-potency brew that Murphy favored. Dorrie suggested that it was how he had contracted the mold. The waterfront hilk-hole he had mentioned was the reason we were dressed as sailors. It was frequented by seapersons, among them Captain Yewjeed B’garthy, half-pirate, half-merchantman, half-explorer. Murphy insisted that I write it that way, adding that B’Garthy was half-again the man any other native of the planet was. One task was left before we broached up to the
Tom Paine Maru.
It could not be done by the agent or his praxeologist wife alone. We had come to bring hope to this miserable planet.