Chapter 17 RUE

 

 

I think I was sixty-five years old when we went to Jupiter. I dislike supposing that my powers of memory are fading with my age and health, but perhaps it is true. When I review the events of my recent life, there seem to be gaps of days or weeks that I cannot account for. Probably they were spent in routine travel, dialyses, and pauses between significant events, and my mind has simply telescoped the material to leave only the salient matters.

Yes, now I remember one important matter I was about to overlook. While we were consolidating Mercury, fresh news came from the Triton Project: One of our bright young engineers had worked out a way to make the projection self-receiving. That is, to fashion a receiving tube into a ship, which of course it was, and to project that ship in the normal manner. But instead of requiring an established receiving tube for its arrival, this one could retranslate itself, and solidify at the destination. The mechanics of it were complicated, really beyond my understanding, but the essence as I understand it is that this modified tube projects its receiver field outward rather than inward, so affects itself rather than whatever passes through its interior. The fact that it is made of light at the time of operation doesn’t seem to matter; it applies the rematerialization field to itself, and converts instantly, exactly as it would if it encountered that field in the tube of a physical receiver. I am sure I am overlooking some critical stages, but I hope this suffices. The point is, it meant that we no longer faced the prospect of having to send tubes out to the stars at tedious sublight velocity to establish receiving stations; we could do it at light speed. This would accelerate our program immeasurably.

But of course this was still in the prototype stage; years of testing would be required before we were sure of it. It would also require new facilities to develop, as the present ones were already operating at capacity. So one unit was all there was. It worked, but it wasn’t enough.

I pondered briefly, and realized that I could facilitate a couple of things if I had the nerve. Since my time was limited, I decided to take the plunge. “Ship it here immediately,” I told them.

Of course it wasn’t immediately, but they did expedite it. They shipped it via the regular tube, so that its self-manifestation would not arouse curiosity, and it appeared as a regular ship. We inspected it and outfitted it for occupancy and travel, for of course it had a regular drive. This was not so much for space travel as to provide the considerable power required for translation.

At any rate, this was one of the things that took my attention and time during this period. Odd that it should have slipped my mind until I looked for it, for it was certainly significant.

One thing was coming clear: Though my powers may have been failing, and my status was that of an exile dependent on the largess of an alien planet, the larger situation made my political power greater than ever before. I was now known as a statesman, an envoy of goodwill, laboring to secure a project that would benefit mankind as a whole. But in the name of statesmanship I had come into considerable executive influence. The Triton Project was conducted in my name; the treaties with Mars, Earth, and Venus were in the name of the Tyrant, and Mercury was entirely under my control. Saturn backed me absolutely, and Uranus to a considerable extent. They had a great deal invested in the Triton Project, and I was the unifying symbol of it. Now that power was to have its major challenge.

Jupiter did not intend to join the Triton Project. The case was similar to that of Mercury; illicit elements had recovered power, and knew that this would be eroded if the planet became a contributory to the effort to colonize the galaxy. Jupiter had warned me not to attempt to return, and Jupiter held my daughter Hopie hostage. Former President Tocsin had taken over again, covertly, and I knew that he was absolutely unscrupulous. That was why Spirit had gone ahead to prepare the way; this was to be our greatest challenge.

For the Tyrant was going to have to take over Jupiter again. I had been exiled, but I honored that only as long as my wife Megan required it; now she was out of power and her worst enemy was in charge. If Megan still barred me, I might stay clear-but when Tocsin had seen fit to make our daughter a hostage, I knew he had alienated Megan. She would not help me, but neither would she hinder me.

Spirit had gone to reconnoiter the situation in detail, and to reestablish connections with the Jupiter Navy. Of course Tocsin had by now replaced my top personnel with his own henchmen, so I could not simply march in and have the support of my old units. But I had had forty-five years of association with the Jupiter Navy, and had known it intimately, and my personnel existed within it from top to bottom. It would have taken more than five years to remake it even had Tocsin had full power all that time and spent his full effort there. He had not. So I knew that the Jupiter Navy was a fine organization whose superficial loyalty had changed, but not its nature. Spirit, of course, was even more conversant with it than I was, and in the months she had had, I knew she had done what needed to be done. Perhaps Tocsin had some notion of repelling my incursion by force; I doubted it would occur if the Jupiter Navy were involved.

As it turned out, Tocsin did indeed have his sinister eye on me. Our scouts reported that Jupiter subs were intercepting ships from Mercury, inspecting them nominally for contraband or drugs, but actually checking the identities of all travelers carefully. I hardly needed to guess whom they were looking for.

We set up a diversion. We arranged for our small ship to set off for Jupiter on a diplomatic mission: Mercury wished to have its new government recognized by Jupiter. Of course this was a futile mission; if Jupiter had been cold to Mercury before, it was frigid now. But we sent our ship on an easy voyage, scheduled to arrive in two weeks.

Sure enough, our ship was intercepted. It submitted to inspection readily enough, and of course I was not aboard. Instead, while Jupiter attention was on my ship, I boarded the new vessel with Doppie and Forta. We set course for Ganymede, whose primary loyalty remained to Saturn despite its heavy sugar trade with Jupiter. Despite that sugar, relations between Gany and Jup had soured after my departure. But I now represented Saturn, and the Premier of Gany was glad to have me visit.

I will not say that I made this trip without concern. This was, after all, new technology, not yet properly tested; I was well aware of the prospects for oblivion in transit. I did not require Forta to accompany me on this venture, but she insisted. To my surprise, so did Doppie: she pointed out that until I rejoined forces with my sister, I needed someone to stand in for her, and Forta could not always do that. I do inspire such loyalty in women, but still it touches me.

As it happened, the jump was successful. It required something like thirty minutes, perhaps forty, objective time, even at light speed, but to us it seemed like an instant. We had made such trips before, but this was the first without an established receiver. The alignment was not quite perfect; we overshot our target a smidgeon and found ourselves within the mine field surrounding the planet. So we had to wait for a Gany tug to come haul us out, for only the locals could navigate the mine field with certainty. But we had arrived intact. That, after all, was what counted. We breathed some shuddering sighs of relief; I think we had been more nervous about this than we had admitted, prior to the jump.

Had Jupiter’s spies observed us? It really didn’t matter if they had; Jupiter could do nothing now. What would a technician think if his instruments indicated that something the size of a ship had appeared near Ganymede, seeming to come from nowhere? He probably would assume there was a glitch in the record.

So we came to the surface of Ganymede: Forta, Doppie, and I. The Premier was an old friend, if that is the proper term; we had understood each other for over twenty years.

He was waiting to greet me personally as the tug brought us in to port.

I was tired, more from the nervous energy of the chancy trip than from any heavy duty, but I did not stand on ceremony. I felt safe here, both as an acquaintance and as the representative of Saturn. The Premier knew that I had come to tackle Jupiter, and that could only be to his advantage. The last time there had been such business afoot, Jupiter had been invading Gany; this was a reversal. He ushered us into a private office.

He looked at Doppie. “And here I thought your sister was elsewhere,” he said in Spanish.

I was alarmed. “Who has news she is not with me?” I replied in the same language. If Doppie had ever had to speak in that language, she would have been lost!

He smiled. “There was no leak, Tyrant! She came to me herself.”

I relaxed. “So long as Jupiter doesn’t know.”

“Only those she chose to advise. Your sister is circumspect. But if I may inquire now: Why was this subterfuge required?”

“To nullify the Jupiter Navy,” I said. He nodded wisely. “So it is true: you mean to recover power.”

“In the name of the Triton Project,” I said. “I serve at the will of Chairman Khukov of Saturn, whom I will not betray.”

“The same for me,” he agreed.

We returned to English and exchanged pleasantries. Then my party was ushered to decent accommodations so we could relax.

In a few days two visitors arrived: one male, one female. I recognized both the moment I saw them, and embraced both in turn. The male was actually my sister Spirit, who had her own talent of emulation; no one suspected her identity this way. The female was my former Navy wife, Roulette. She was also in disguise, as an enlisted person, serving as an aide. Now fifty-four, she remained a stunning woman, having retained her outline and her bright red hair. Oh, perhaps her figure was no longer classically hourglass, for she was more solid in the waist than in her youth, but what woman exists who can retain the contours of eighteen into her fifties? My memory clothed her with the firm flesh of her youth, and she remained beautiful to me.

We settled down to business. Spirit updated me on her activities for the past months while Roulette took Forta aside and acquainted her with relevant details. Forta was an excellent secretary, and had a firm grasp of the essentials; I was glad I had prepared her as I had, when she emulated my sister and rescued me at Mercury. She might have to do something similar again one day, so whatever she learned from Rue was good.

The details would be tedious, and my patience has eroded with my years; I will simply say that Spirit had contacted all the key officers and enlisted personnel of the Jupiter Navy, and ascertained the exact status of every relevant chain of command. My sister had always been good at organization, and despite the passage of thirty years she had kept in touch.

Tocsin had started his machinations the moment I left Jupiter, but it had taken him a couple of years to gain a foothold, and another two to lever himself into a position of real power. There had been those, even within his own party, who were not eager to have him return politically; their elimination had occupied his attention at first. But for the past year he had been the power behind the scenes at Jupiter, steadily replacing the appointed officials with his own personnel. He had done the same with the Navy, engineering the retirement of those who had been in change during the Tyrancy, notably my former wife Emerald, and installing officers on the basis of loyalty to him rather than military competence. It was his determination to see that in the next confrontation between himself and the Tyrant, the Jupiter Navy backed him.

But as yet the change was superficial. Top officers had changed, but the massive bureaucracy of the Navy depended on many lines of command, and the middle echelons remained solidly pro-Tyrant. There was a considerable pool of competence here, for my officers had been well trained, and their promotions had been balked by the changes at the top. Spirit had noted which ones were most competent to assume higher commands, and had planned for key changes that could be implemented as opportunity arose.

But mainly, she had arranged a network of interference points, so that when the confrontation came, no significant action could be taken without suffering confusing delays and misconnections. That was what I had known she would do. The Navy would manifest as monstrously inefficient-until the proper officers were elevated to command.

And the powers that existed now on Jupiter didn’t even suspect, for Spirit had nominally been with me on Earth, Venus, and Jupiter for this entire period. I have seen subsequent reports that remarked on the sheer luck of my situation, the incredible foul-ups that occurred to my advantage at key points. Chance may have played its part, but the essence of it was Spirit’s quiet and careful preparations. The Navy had been nullified by an expert, before it even saw action.

Now I had the names to name for elevation, when that time came. More important, I had the assurance that the job had been properly done. A smart commander always makes sure he knows the elements of the terrain and the military forces available to each side, before he provokes the action. The stupid one trusts to conventional assessments and assumptions. Tocsin had assumed that he had done what was necessary to rebuff my possible return. He had not.

Of course it took time for me to familiarize myself with the necessary data, both of the Navy and of planetside operations. I was not as quick a study as I had once been, and my need for dialysis, and consequent loss of a day’s working time, reduced my efficiency further. Spirit and Roulette could not stay long enough to prepare me completely, they explained, so after a few days they departed as they had come, as a male Jupiter Navy officer and his aide. All of us were becoming adept at emulations!

Forta had the data-piles of it. Actually-well, let me just present this as I saw it at the time, because not everything was as it seemed.

You see, when I woke from my sleep following dialysis, Roulette was with me. “I thought you had gone!” I said, pleased. The truth was, she had always been the ultimate sexual object to me, and if she was now a bit beyond her prime, well, so was I. She had retained the habit of showing intriguing portions of herself, seemingly innocently, that stirred my passions. I wished I could possess her again, just one more time, but of course I could not.

“Yes and no, Hope,” she said. “I thought it was time for something you liked.”

“Oh-Forta!” I exclaimed, realizing. I shook my head ruefully, no pun. “You had me fooled!”

She touched the side of her face where the mask merged seamlessly with her natural flesh, concealed by the flowing tresses of the wig. “I always had you fooled, Hope,” she said.

I gazed at her, fascinated. Of course Forta had perceived my half-buried passion for Rue, and studied her well, so as to make this emulation perfect. Had I realized the obvious, I would not have been fooled. The truth was, she had overdone it a trifle. The hair was too bright, the eyes too gray, the bosom too full; this was more like Rue ten years younger than like her present aspect. I liked it, of course; I suppose I would have liked an emulation of Rue at age eighteen even better. But not immediately after encountering the reality; that would have destroyed the illusion. So she had taken some off the present age, adding to the appeal without voiding my suspension of disbelief. A nice compromise; she still was amazingly realistic.

“So now I can have you, in my fashion,” I said.

“You could always have had me in your fashion,” she said. Which was just about what the real Rue would have said.

“No. You’re married.” I was falling willingly into acceptance of the role, treating her as I would have treated the original.

“Gerald died three years ago,” she said. “I am free now.”

I had really been out of touch! “Your husband died? He was a good man!”

“He was the best man,” she agreed. “I didn’t love him, but I respected him, and I was true to him while he lived.” Three years ago-yet it struck me like a fresh event. “I’m not sure I want to-to-“

“To score with his wife? You know he always felt guilty for taking me, knowing that I loved you.”

How much talking had Forta done with Rue? This was getting uncomfortable! “It was the Navy way,” I said. “He had to take you, to preserve the unit. He did it as duty.”

“So did I,” she reminded me.

Indeed she had. I had won her fiery love, then turned her over to another man. We all had understood, but it had not been easy. “The Navy way,” I repeated softly.

“Now we are unattached,” she said. “We return to the Navy way.”

Which, again, was what the real Rue would have said. The Navy did not acknowledge such gentle emotions as married love; it acknowledged the biologic need for sex.

I did not require any great amount of persuasion. “The Navy way,” I said once more. I reached for her.

She moved away, giving me the slip. “My way, Tyrant,” she said.

I stared at her. One other thing had distinguished Roulette from other women: her penchant for violence. She had been a pirate lass, and among the pirates violence and rape had been the rule. She had been incapable of passion without violence: that of her lover against her. That had been the hardest thing for me to accept. I had been required, literally, to attack her and rape her on our wedding night. I had done it, but it was an experience I had had no desire to repeat.

Yet, even as I had slowly educated her to the ways of gentle love, she had educated me to her style. I had found myself brutalizing her, at her demand, and at our last encounter in space I had struck her on the chin so that she bit her tongue and blood had flowed: a vicious act, but an act of love. I had never done that to any other woman, and had never thought the occasion for such a thing would arise again.

Now Rue, in emulation, was assuming the role so completely that she wanted violence. I understood, but could not accept it. “I can’t do that,” I said, and turned away.

“You can do it,” she said tersely.

I turned back, embarrassed. “Even if I wanted to, if I were that type of man, I couldn’t. I’m old now, and weak. You could overpower me. It would be a damned charade.”

“When you conquered me, Hope,” she said huskily, “I forsook all defense against you. I became yours to ravish at will. Now I have returned to you. Ravish me.”

Had this been the real Rue, this would have rung true. But Forta was not a masochist, and I could not see myself mistreating her just because she had assumed the likeness of that kind of woman. But neither could I say that now; it would prejudice the emulation. This left me in an awkward position. “Sex, yes,” I said. “Violence, no.”

“You’re not playing the game, Hope,” she said.

“There are limits to my game-playing abilities.”

“You sniveler!” she snapped, so exactly like the original that I jumped. “When in the Belt, do as the pirates do!”

And damn it, she was tempting me! I have never been a man to practice violence on women, but Rue had never been an ordinary woman, and this was indeed her way. She would settle for a token, I knew; if I struck her only hard enough to sting, she would turn on to me as if I had savaged her. But I also knew that those tokens would inevitably escalate as she bent me to her perverse will, and I would find myself hitting her harder, drawing blood. I had been that route when I married her; I could not go it again at this late date.

I turned away again. “Change,” I said. “I need to complete the briefing.”

“Change, hell!” she flared. “You don’t just turn me off, Worry!” She came up behind me and put her arms around me, and her breasts pressed into my back with a firmness that electrified me, and her thighs touched mine. “I have waited decades for this chance, and I shall not let it pass.” She put her mouth to my neck and nipped me lightly.

I could hardly believe the accuracy of this emulation! The original had to have cooperated, telling and showing Forta every nuance of her way with a man. My member hardened, striving to break free of my clothing. And then the bitch reached down and stroked me there.

Angered at the facility with which she pushed my buttons, I turned abruptly, rotating within her embrace. “I will not be toyed with!” I exclaimed.

But as I completed my half-turn her lips came up to intercept mine, and she kissed me and tongued me, holding me close. The years peeled away like so many layers of paper, and it was as though I were twenty-nine and she eighteen. My hunger for her overwhelmed me, and I kissed her fiercely.

And she broke again. “Hit me, Tyrant,” she breathed. I shoved her away. “No!”

“Yes!” She bent toward me, and of course her blouse fell open, as it was crafted to do, showing the formidable curve of a breast or two.

“You whore!” I exclaimed. “I don’t want it that way!”

“Yes, revile me!” she whispered.

She was making me brutalize her verbally! That was part of it. I stalked to my room, frustrated. I had forgotten how maddening Rue could be; it was part of her phenomenal appeal.

She followed me. “I’ll behave, Hope,” she said. “We have to get through the briefing.”

I sat on the bed. Smilo was snoozing under it, of course; he hardly paid attention to what went on above, having long since written off human relations as too perplexing for feline comprehension.

She joined me there. “Emerald’s husband is dead, too,” she said. “They forced her to retire; she’s your age, Hope, and they rigged the regs. But we know exactly who supports the Tyrant, and we control every task force, every key unit. Spirit and I worked it out methodically.”

“Spirit and you,” I repeated.

She punched me lightly on the shoulder. “You know what I mean, Hope. Just accept me as I seem to be; I’m into this role and I mean to do it right.”

Why indeed was I balking? I had always enjoyed Forta’s emulations, and I could not condemn her for excelling in her art. If she wanted to handle everything as Roulette, it behooved me to go along. “Sorry,” I muttered, my gaze straying to her cleavage.

She twitched a shoulder, causing that cleavage to flex, exactly as was her way. Rue always knew when she had captured the gaze of a man, and could never resist teasing him. She had at times driven me half crazy with desire during my time as the Tyrant of Jupiter, and she had reveled in it.

But Forta, though possessed of all the necessary attributes, lacked the sheer mass of bosomic flesh that Rue sported. The signals of emulation could do a lot, but they could not make mountains of mounds. My gaze lingered, compelled by this additional intrigue. She must have used some kind of foundation, some support, some added substance, to achieve this grandeur. Yet I could see no seam, no attachment. That breast looked real, even as I peered down inside her hefty halter. How had she done it?

She touched her blouse, and it parted down the front, falling entirely away from her breasts. “If something grabs you ...” she invited.

“You promised to behave,” I muttered, sorely tempted to grab back at what grabbed me.

“I’m behaving; your eyes aren’t. You act as if you’ve never seen mammaries before. Here, let me get this halter off” She reached behind her.

Perhaps she was expecting me to tell her no. But my resentment of her taunting had faded, because it really was an accurate emulation, and my curiosity about the mechanism of the added flesh had increased. I let her proceed.

The strap parted in back, and the halter came loose. She drew it off, and those twin marvels were entirely exposed to my view. They still looked real.

I simply could not resist. I touched. The right breast was soft and warm, and it hefted exactly like the real thing. She was if anything more solidly endowed than she had been in youth; the truth was that without the halter she sagged somewhat, whereas in youth she could have taken a breath and held her breasts erect. Age did that to a woman.

I touched the nipple, and it responded properly. If flesh had been added, it wasn’t at that site. I passed my fingers around and down-and felt a tiny seam. It really didn’t show to my gaze, but my sensitive fingers could trace it. Apparently she had been able to apply pseudoflesh along the natural contours, filling out the breast, and the heat of her body had suffused it, making the whole seem genuine. This must have taken her some time to prepare; no wonder she wasn’t eager to change back. Whatever adhesive kept the added flesh in place without support had to be strong, not readily nullified. Forta had gone to a lot of trouble to set up this emulation, physically as well as in character.

So I was stuck with this for an extended period. I could live with it. Naturally I did not make any fuss about the seam. She knew I had found it; her body indicated a kind of relief. She had known that the emulation could not withstand this close an inspection, and since I evidently had not been turned off by the discovery, there was no further concern. Well, that was not entirely true; some tension remained in her.

If I turned away from her now, it would seem to be because of this discovery. I did not care to do that; she had done a truly superlative job of this emulation. In fact, the discovery of the seam reassured me; a genuine bosom of this magnitude simply could not belong to Forta, and that had bothered me. Now I knew the mechanism, and could play the game. To a limited extent.

I bent to bring my mouth to her nipple. I kissed it, then took it in, sucking. Then I bit it, not hard, but firmly enough to bring some token pain to her.

Rue reacted as I had known she would. She clasped my head with her hands and pressed it in to her breast, for the moment smothering me. She fell back on the bed, bringing me with her, my face mashing her breast, or vice versa. “Oh, Hope, you hurt me!” she breathed.

I hoisted myself up and ripped at her remaining clothing. “I’ve got to have you, you bitch!” I said.

“Rape!” she squealed, moving to facilitate my attack.

I slapped her across the face. “Shut up!”

She turned on further. “Brute!”

Suddenly we were together, her naked, me clothed, but my trousers were open; she had somehow done it while I worked on her. I rammed into her, spurting almost immediately as her hips bucked against me. She nipped at my ear, and her nails pressed sharply into my back, and the pain intensified my climax. Whether she was truly climaxing with me I was uncertain, but she chose to make it seem so, and I chose not to debate it. It was just like old times.

I collapsed on her, panting, her bosom providing me a soft landing. I had, indeed, done it her way. I suppose that had been inevitable. The odd thing was that instead of letting me relax, as she normally did once I had expended my energy, she got hold of my head once more and kissed me savagely, again and again, as if our lovemaking were just commencing.

“I can’t do it again,” I reminded her regretfully. “Once was enough,” she replied, but continued to kiss me and hug me, belying her words.

Which meant that she had not climaxed with me, but had gotten far enough to desire the completion. I felt guilty; I should have taken more time. I simply could not repeat; my member was diminishing. “I’m sorry,” I said, abashed.

“Hit me!” she whispered fiercely. Oh. I lifted myself, formed a fist with my right hand, and cracked her on the chin. I was not strong, and the angle was wrong, but it caused her to bite her lip so that blood welled out. Deja vu!

She hauled me in again, for a bloody kiss, and her body convulsed. Now she was climaxing, and it was a formidable thing. I held as firmly as I could, realizing that my cooperation was as important for her pleasure as hers had been for mine. How I wished I had a fully hard member for her!

But it was not the member but the violence that activated her. Her blood smeared our faces as she throbbed against me and around me and came to her conclusion.

Then at last we could relax. “Oh, Worry, it’s been so long!” she whispered in my ear, kissing it.

I marveled; this emulation was complete indeed. Except for one thing: There was now a coating of whitish powder on my fingers, and perhaps also on my face. That would be the makeup employed to convert olive-skinned Forta to thoroughly Saxon Rue. But I was now quite tired, and I slept.

I expected her to be back as Forta when I woke again, for it could not be comfortable for her to carry all that pseudoflesh around on bosom, hips, and posterior. But I have to confess that that I was not disappointed to find Rue still with me, though I would not have been disappointed with Forta either.

She ran through the briefing material with me, drilling me on the key names and situations, so that I could use them with confidence when the time came. Her command of the subject was impressively thorough; she seemed to have committed it all to memory. Despite our recent tempestuous lovemaking, she kept flashing flesh at me as was her wont, and I kept appreciating it. Apart from the violent aspect, I had thoroughly enjoyed Rue’s body when we had been married, and had desired it in retrospect thereafter. Now it was mine again, however re-created, and it was as though I were finishing what had been interrupted thirty-five years before. So she was older now; so was I. There can be much joy of a woman of any age. So, inevitably, we lapsed into lovemaking, though I was required to do it her way, which I think pained me as much as it did her. Perhaps I am saying that it did not pain either of us much. The second time we did it I was not actually able to climax, but there was great joy in the trying, and she seemed satisfied. The woman was eager for me, despite her insistence on roughness, and that was a most conducive thing.

When it was time for my dialysis, we had a call from the Premier. In him I had confided, for it might be necessary for him to cover for me in the crisis. “Senor Tyrant, we have excellent facilities here, and I insist that you allow us to do this favor for you and give your lovely secretary a rest,” he said, his gaze passing me to fix on Rue behind me. She flexed her cleavage at him, smiling. “No one shall know, I assure you.”

I tried to demur, but he was serious, and to avoid bad feeling I agreed to try his proffered unit. Young and esthetic Hispanic nurses escorted me to the chamber, leaving Rue and Doppie to keep Smilo company and handle any incoming calls. I had to confess that these people knew their business; I was well taken care of. Indeed, I reflected, it was fitting to give Forta a break; she had been doing very well for me, but should not always be yoked like this.

Thus the days passed, and, indeed, weeks. Once I was caught up on the background detail, I prepared for my major move. This was to be quite simple in outline, but perhaps not simple in execution. I was to use the Gany broadcast system to make an address to Jupiter, saturating all major channels, declaring that because of malfeasance on the part of the present government, I was returning to resume control, restoring the Tyrancy. We knew that the majority of the people of the planet, fed up with the iniquities and mismanagement of the recent government, would support this; the problem, as with the Jupiter Navy, was the top personnel, who would never yield their power gracefully. Those were the ones who had to be neatly and cleanly neutralized. That was what Spirit was doing now, and was why she was unable to contact me. She was operating in complete secrecy on the planet. At this point I was merely waiting for her signal.

Meanwhile, Doppie answered calls, showing that my sister was with me, and Rue continued to entertain me, making of me a woman-beater but rewarding me in the fashion only she could manage. Despite the tension of the approaching crisis, it was one of the more pleasant periods of my life.