CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
ONE WAS THE prime minister of a commonwealth. He represented the big families. One was a businesswoman, a member of the board on two thousand blue-chip firms. Another represented Big Money. He controlled the skim on two-thirds of all electronically transmitted cash. The last was labor chieftain of three continents-"Most of the military is behind us," Labor said. "The rest will follow if we do a deal." "Amazing how timid generals can be," Kea said.
"They would have come," the prime minister said, "but they were worried—despite our assurances to the contrary—that they might be spotted... They send, however, their humblest apologies and warmest greetings."
Kea snorted. "Like I said... timid."
Big Money cut to the bottom line. "But still with us," he said. "You know we wouldn't be here, Mr. Richards, if we didn't have all our i's dotted and't‘s crossed."
"The point is," the businesswoman said, "the Federation's presidential election is upon us. Time is short. We need to know now if you'll be our nominee."
"I'll have to be honest with you," Kea said. "The other side has come to see me as well."
Labor laughed. "If you didn't figure we already knew that, Mr. Richards," he said, "you wouldn't have let our shadows fall upon your doorstep."
"We're not amateurs," Big Money said. "We came prepared to substantially increase the offer."
"I think we had better stop right here," Kea said, "while I explain my position."
"Explain away," Labor said.
"I'll tell you the same thing I told them. I don't need this. I'm richer than anyone has a right to be. I'm forty-seven years old. I was thinking of taking it easy for a while. Resting on my laurels, as it were."
The businesswoman clapped. "Lovely speech. We'll see the spin doctors use it."
"The mink-piece writers will devour it with relish," the prime minister said. "I can see the Op Ed headline now: ‘Hero who saved civilization spurns all offers from grateful public.'"
"We let that kinda thing bounce around for a week or so," Labor cut in. "Then play up the mess the fat cats and back-room boys have got the Federation into. Before you know it, folks will be beggin‘ you to save 'em again."
"Then you reluctantly... and humbly... agree to a draft," the prime minister said.
The businesswoman graced him with her most charming smile. "Is that what you had in mind, Mr. Richards? More or lessr
Kea laughed. "The others believed me just a little longer than you people," he said.
"That's why we're number one," Big Money responded.
"Number one... but without a candidate," Kea said. "Which is the same boat your competition is in. At this rate, both parties will wind up in a tie out of sheer electoral boredom. And even if you win... The Federation is in a mess. You guys have put it in the crap house. What are you going to do about it? What are your big ideas?"
Dead silence greeted this. But Kea believed it necessary to drive his point home. ‘The current state of the Federation is no fantasy, my friends," he said. "The economy is in shambles. You've got twenty wars of various sizes. Famine. Drought. Industry is stalled. Inflation running amok. Interest rates sky-high... if there was anyone with money to borrow. Besides that, lady... and gentlemen, you look in fine shape to me."
"You must be interested," Labor said, "or you wouldn't have bothered to fill up your stone bucket before we got here. If you get my point."
"I got it," Kea said.
"Which brings us back to the price," Big Money said.
"What could I want?" Kea asked. "I've got AM2. Which means I already control everything-—-from the stars on down."
"You tell us, Mr. Richards," Labor said. "What do you want?"
Kea told them. Unlike the first group, there was no quibbling. No negotiation.
The deal was cut right there.
It was a gentle sloping hill, carpeted with a thick lichenlike plant—purple with green pinhead buds—that released a heady perfume every day at dusk. Kea breathed in the scent as he strolled up the hill—alone, except for the ever-present security screen spread out around him. He stopped to rest just before he reached the summit, puffing with effort.
Kea turned back to view his vacation campsite. The cynical street kid in him laughed. The encampment consisted of his personal tent—a two-story-high gold fabric pavilion, really—and more than sixty smaller tents to house staff, security, and other bits of his entourage. Kea snorted. Publicity had billed the trip as a simple camping vacation. A well-deserved rest from the awesome burdens of his office as President of the Federation. The fact that he had chosen to take his vacation upon a newly opened world—named in his honor—in the Tau Ceti system, was given much significance by his pet livie commentators.
"Is it not fitting," one commentator had said, "that this simple man... this ordinary man of the people... President Kea Richards... should seek to refresh his spirits in the stars?"
"Most analysts see this journey as symbolic," another said. "Through Kea Richards, civilization has pushed its boundaries into the great beyond. Now, President Richards is reminding us that there are many more worlds to conquer. That our future is a never-ending frontier."
This trip to the frontier was just another stone mortared into the legend Kea had been building for ten years. The legend of the common man. A serf-made man. A man who remembered well the plight of the poor from whose ranks he had emerged. A genius in the rough, continually seeking new ways to better life for all.
Some of that was even true.
In ten years he had created a commercial empire greater than anything before. New ideas and renewed vigor had birthed industries that churned out goods—priced within easy reach of all. Food flooded out of giant agricultural combines in unprecedented volumes. Science and invention had exploded. Star probes were bridging vast distances. Terraforming engineers were at work on scores of worlds like Port Richards—adding territory to the Federation. Even the arts flourished in an atmosphere of free-flowing money and ideas. There was no denying Kea Richards was the engine that had made all those things possible. And AM2 was the fuel powering that engine. The robot delivery system had been tested and perfected. AM2 was being shipped regularly, and in large quantities—with zero chance of anyone learning the source.
Naturally, he had enemies. Many enemies. Kea watched one of his guards aim a sniffer at the path ahead, checking for booby traps. He divided his enemies into three groups: the idealists, the covetous, and the insane. The idealists he nurtured. Especially the weak. Free expression and open debate gave such a wonderful patina of democracy. The covetous he co-opted, or crushed. As for the insane... Kea saw two other guards swing to the top of the hill, weapons ready... well, there was not much you could do about them. Except take care.
Kea's intellectual side insisted he'd accomplished a miracle in ten years—two terms in office. Fazlur had been a pessimist when he had predicted AM2 would turn the known world upside down. With Richards controlling it, Anti-Matter Two had also turned it inside out. But his gut twisted in revolt. Beware, it said. If you stop now, all will be lost. All will be reversed. The Bargetas and their ilk will be running things again. And all will return to inbred stagnation. Some of the old families were still holding out on Earth. These were a few of the covetous ones Kea had allowed their head. Let them have their outmoded factories. Let them continue spewing their pollutants across the planet. Let them break the back of the Earthbound poor. Each day hundreds were joining the migration off Earth. Climbing aboard ships powered by AM2 supplied by Kea Richards. Fleeing the chaos and misery Kea's enemies had created to new worlds their president was opening up.