Diana said: “Lew, who’re you talking to?”
He ignored her, demanded: “You hear me, Stet?”
“Does that girl know you’re talking to me?” Stetson asked.
“Of course she knows I’m talking to you! Now, you come out here alone and no troops!”
“All right, Lew. I don’t know what the situation is, but I still trust you even though you’ve admitted… well, you know I was listening. The O-force is going on standby. I’ll be at the Bullone residence in ten minutes, but I won’t be alone. ComGo will be with me.” Pause. “And he says you’d better know what you’re doing.”
Chapter Sixteen
There is a devil in anything we don’t understand. The background of the universe appears black to the lidded eye. Thus, we perceive a Satanic backdrop from which all insecurity originates. It is from this area of constant menace that we achieve our vision of hell. To defeat this devil, we strive for the illusion of all-knowing. In the face of an infinite universe imminent beyond the Satanic backdrop, the never-ending All must remain illusion—only illusion and no more. Accept this and the backdrop falls.
It was an angry group in a corner of the Bullone main salon. Louvered shades and muted polawindows reduced the green glare of the noon sun. In the background there was the hum of air conditioning and the gentle mechanical sounds of roboservants preparing for the night’s election party.
Stetson leaned against the wall beside a divan, hands jammed deeply into the pockets of his wrinkled and patched fatigues. The wagon tracks furrowed his high forehead. Near Stetson, Admiral Sobat Spencer, the I-A’s Commander of Galactic Operations, paced the floor. ComGo was a bull-necked bald man with wide blue eyes, a deceptively mild voice. His pacing over the patchwork carpeting carried the intensity of a caged animal—three steps out, three steps back.
Polly Bullone sat on the divan, her mouth pulled into a straight line of angry disapproval. She held her hands clasped so tightly in her lap that the knuckles showed white. Diana stood beside her mother, fists clenched at her sides. She quivered with fury. Her gaze remained fixed, glaring at Orne.
“So my stupidity set up this little conference,” Orne said. He stood about five paces from Polly, hands on hips. The Admiral pacing away at his right was beginning to wear his nerves. “But you’d all better hear me out.” He glanced at ComGo. “All of you.”
Admiral Spencer stopped pacing, glowered at Orne. “I have yet to hear a good reason for not tearing this place apart and getting to the bottom of this situation.”
“You… you traitor, Lewis,” Polly husked.
“I’m inclined to agree with you, Madame,” Spencer said. “Only from a different viewpoint.” He glanced at Stetson. “Any word yet on Scottie Bullone?”
“They’ll call me the minute they find him,” Stetson said. He sounded cautious, brooding.
“You were invited to the party here tonight, weren’t you, Admiral?” Orne asked.
“What’s that have to do with anything?” Spencer demanded.
“Are you prepared to imprison your wife and daughters for conspiracy?” Orne asked.
A tight smile played around Polly’s lips. Spencer opened his mouth, closed it without speaking.
“The Nathians are mostly women,” Orne said. “Your women-folk are among them.”
The Admiral looked like a man who’d been kicked in the stomach. “What… evidence?” he whispered.
“I have the evidence,” Orne said. “I’ll come to it in a moment.”
“Nonsense,” the Admiral blustered. “You can’t possibly carry out…”
“You’d better listen to him, Admiral,” Stetson said. “One thing you have to say about Orne, he’s worth listening to.”
“Then he’d better make sense!” Spencer growled.
“Here’s the way it goes,” Orne said. “The Nathians are mostly women. There were only a few accidental males and a few planned ones like me. That’s why there were no family names to trace—just a tight little female society, all working to positions of power through their men.”
Spencer cleared his throat, swallowed. He appeared powerless to take his attention from Orne’s mouth.
“My analysis,” Orne said, “Says that about thirty or forty years ago the conspirators first began breeding a few males, grooming them for really choice top positions. Other Nathian males—the accidents where sex-determination failed—didn’t learn about the conspiracy. The new ones, however, became full-fledged members when they reached maturity. That’s the course they had planned for me, I believe.”
Polly glared at him, looked back at her hands.
Diana looked away when Orne tried to catch her eye.
Orne said: “That part of their plan was scheduled to come to a head with this election. If they pulled this one off, they could move in more boldly.”
“You’re in this way over your head, boy,” Polly growled. “You’re too late to do anything about us. Anything!”
“We’ll see about that!” Spencer snapped. He seemed to have regained his self-control. “Some key arrests, the full glare of publicity on your…”
“No,” Orne said. “You’re not thinking clearly, Admiral. She’s right. It’s too late for that approach. It probably was too late a hundred years ago. These women were too firmly entrenched even then.”
Spencer stiffened, glared at Orne. “Young man, if I give the word, this place will be a shambles.”
“I know,” Orne said. “Another Hamal, another Sheleb.”
“We can’t just ignore this!” Spencer snarled.
“Perhaps not ignore it,” Orne said. “But we’ll do something close to that. We have no choice. It’s time we learned about the hoe and the handle.”
“The what?” Spencer blared.
“It’s right there in the I-A curriculum,” Orne said. “Primitive societies discovered this way out of the constant temptation toward lethal violence. One village would make the head of the hoe, the next village down the line would make only the handles. Neither would think of invading the other’s special area of manufacture.”
Polly looked up, studied Orne’s face. Diana appeared confused.
“You know what I think?” Spencer asked. “In your attempt to confuse this issue you’ve just proved that once a Nathian, you’re always a Nathian.”
“There’s no such thing,” Orne said. “Five hundred years of crossbreeding with other peoples saw to that. Now, there’s merely a secret society of extremely astute political scientists.” He smiled wryly at Polly, glanced back to Spencer. “Think of your own wife, sir. In all honesty, would you be ComGo today if she hadn’t guided your career?”
Spencer’s face darkened. He drew in his chin, tried to stare Orne down, failed. Presently, he chuckled wryly.
“Sobie is beginning to come to his senses as I knew he would,” Polly said. “You’re just about through, Lewis. We’ll deal with the ones we have to deal with, and you’re not one of them.”
“Don’t underestimate your future son-in-law,” Orne said.
“Ha!” Diana barked. “I hate you, Lewis Orne!”
“You’ll get over that,” Orne said, his voice mild.
“Ohhhhhh!” Diana quivered with fury.
“I think I hold most of the trumps,” Spencer said, his attention on Polly.
“You hold very little if you don’t understand the situation fully,” Orne said.
Spencer turned a speculative stare on Orne. “Explain.”
“Government’s a dubious glory,” Orne said. “You pay for your power and wealth by balancing on the sharp edge of the blade. That great amorphous thing out there—the people—has turned and swallowed many governments. They can do it in the flash of an angry uprising. The way you prevent that is by giving good government, not perfect government—but good. Otherwise, sooner or later, your turn comes. It’s a point the political genius, my mother, made frequently. It stuck with me.” He frowned. “My objection to politics was the compromises you make to get elected… and I never liked women running my life.”